Secret Justice

by James W. Huston

  Rat led the way, watching the shooting that was now ahead of them. He threaded his way through the trees, stopping every fifty meters to do a complete three-hundred-sixty-degree survey. Rat knew this wasn’t how to run a counterambush operation. It was far too dangerous. His fire would be brought against the attackers from behind; his allies, the Georgians, were just on the other side. Any misses could end up hitting the Georgians. But this had developed too quickly. He didn’t have time for the perfect strategy. He just knew they were going to have to take care of this themselves.

  Rat kept up his pace. His breathing was even and easy. His senses were on edge. He was sure the attackers didn’t yet know they were coming. The terrain grew steeper. They had chosen their ambush location well, but had not thought it through. They had left themselves vulnerable.

  Rat stopped. He saw three men ahead hiding behind trees and firing on the Georgians beyond. He raised his hand, crouched down, and the other Americans stopped. They made their line perfectly straight and waited for Rat. They could all see what he saw. Rat looked for more men. He waited several seconds, then saw four more men clustered slightly to his left. They were moving slowly, toward the Georgians, not firing at all. None had night-vision devices.

  Rat glanced to his left and gave the signal to advance. He began a slow trot with his weapon at his shoulder. He waited until he was twenty yards from the attackers and still undetected. He placed the gunsight on the back of the closest man and pulled the trigger for a three-round burst. His gun belched. The man lurched forward and a dark green stain spread over his back. The other two had heard the sound from behind them and turned to meet the threat. The other four to the left had heard the new sound, but didn’t know where it was coming from. Confusion descended on the attackers.

  The Georgians heard the Americans’ weapons and stopped firing. They lay down on the ground. Rat and the other Americans kept firing in short bursts, hitting with three and five rounds at a time. The second shooter fell backward and slammed into a tree. He slumped to the ground and hit the third man who tried to push him away. He was hit immediately by Groomer’s burst in the face and jerked back grotesquely to the ground.

  The Americans ran past the three dead attackers after the four who were still advancing toward the Georgians, now thirty meters ahead of them. They were lying on the ground, very vulnerable. The attackers assumed they had all been injured, and were hurrying to finish the job.

  The Green Berets who were holding down the left side of the line saw what was happening and fired quickly after the four to turn them back toward them and away from the Georgians.

  The four heard the bullets ripping through the leaves close by them. One of them fell screaming, holding his back. The other three turned to face their new threat, kneeling in the woods. One of the Green Berets stopped and fired at the attacker farthest to the left. Robby caught the other two from the right side and they fell twenty yards in front of the Americans, who all stopped firing at the same time. They walked steadily forward, looking like aliens in their Georgian camouflage uniforms and night-vision goggles. The man who had been shot in the back reached for his weapon and was immediately executed by one shot from Banger.

  Rat scanned the woods quickly for any other men, any other threat, then moved quickly to where the dead men lay. “Captain!” he called, alerting the Georgians.

  The Georgians stood and walked toward him. Rat continued to call out, “You okay?”

  “I’ve lost two men. What of your men?”

  Rat quickly surveyed those with him. They were all okay. The Americans had already set up a perimeter around the area. “We’re okay.” He removed his night-vision goggles and knelt down next to one of the attackers. He pulled a small mag-light out of his pocket and shone it on the face of one of the dead men.

  The Georgian captain looked through the man’s pockets. No identification, no wallet, no money, no insignia on the cobbled-together uniform, nothing. “This was a suicide mission.”

  “They look like Chechens to you?” Rat asked. “Or Georgians?”

  The captain looked at the face. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know who they are, but they are not Chechen or Georgian.”

  “Robby, get their pictures.”

  Robby nodded and pulled a small flat digital camera out of his pocket. He moved the flash up to the top, crouched in front of each dead attacker and took a face shot. He then backed off and took a body shot of each one. When he was done he quickly cycled through the digital images on the back of his camera, saw that he had gotten them all, and pushed it back into his pocket. “All set.”

  Rat turned to Captain Kolbaia. “We need you to get on your radio and get them to meet us with a helicopter. We’ve got to walk—we’ll stay on the downhill side of the road and in the woods until we crest the hill and head down out of the gorge.”

  “Our only radio is still in truck.”

  Rat considered. “What kind was it?”

  “FM.”

  “Robby, your magic little radio do FM?”

  “Sure,” Robby nodded. “But the range isn’t great.”

  “Can you reach them when we get to the top of the hill?”

  “Probably.”

  Rat looked uphill through the woods toward the flickering wreckage still burning on the road. “How far to a clearing?” he asked the captain.

  “About five kilometers.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They started walking through the woods carefully, with Kolbaia leading the way. Rat quickly checked their position on his PDA with a GPS fix.

  Rat looked over at James, who was walking beside him. James was visibly shaken. “Never seen anything like that before?” Rat asked.

  “Not even close,” James said, swallowing hard to stop the nausea that was welling up.

  “What’s your confidence level we would have found the nuclear cores if they were there?”

  James moved his mind off the image of Robby taking a picture of a man who had just had his face shot off, whose features had been replaced by fresh red meat, oozing blood and bone chips. “Um, good question. Maybe thirty percent.”

  “Damn,” Rat said. “That’s not very good.”

  James couldn’t have agreed more.

  Rat thought out loud, “They’ve got to get them out of the gorge. Can’t fly them out. No airplanes here. Can’t really walk them out, nowhere to go. Can’t go through Russia, they’d get their asses shot off. Could go to Chechnya and use them against the Russians, but they killed Georgians to find them and probably don’t like the Chechens either. I think they’re aimed at us. But how?” Rat stopped. He had a sudden thought. “Could you detect radioactivity on a ship?”

  “Depends on the size of the source. The strontium would probably be blocked, but the cesium’s a gamma-emitter. It should be detectable, but with the right shielding—like the core containers themselves, if they’re not breached . . . I’d want to get pretty close.”

  Rat was thinking of their escape. “Only way a ship can take anything from Georgia is all the way across the Black Sea. That must be six, seven hundred miles. Even with a decent ship, say ten knots, that’s three days of sailing. And that assumes they got on board right away. Once they get across the Black Sea, they’ve got to go through the Bosporus by Istanbul, across the Sea of Marmara and then through the Dardanelles. Sort of like sailing down a hallway to the Mediterranean.” He paused as they walked. James was beginning to breathe hard as he struggled with his heavy bags. “You sure you’re with the DO?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You’re out of shape. You’re fighting those bags like there’s a dead cow in there. I thought all their guys were ready to climb buildings.”

  “I just came over from NEST—the Nuclear Emergency Search Team—”

  “I know all about it.”

  “Okay. Anyway, I just started. The agency wanted its own ability to find nukes. Overseas, near embassies, wherever. I’m just here to find nukes and these bags
are heavy.”

  “Those NEST guys are supposed to be pretty good.”

  “Four-hour response time anywhere in the country. I would usually stroll around a city with a briefcase, and headphones that look like they’re plugged into a CD player, listening for any radioactivity. I’m not really trained for this spy stuff, or military stuff. I’m basically a nuclear engineer.”

  “Well, I’m supposed to be training the Georgians to go after the guys in the gorge. But they’re going to be disappointed. You and I have to go somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  Rat smiled. “Çanakkale. You never been there?”

  Chapter

  17

  The doors to the courtroom on top of the Department of Justice were closed tightly behind the participants. Judge Royce Wiggins scowled from the bench as he had practiced doing for many years. The fluorescent lighting was stark and unflattering. Judge Wiggins spoke to Skyles. “This is your motion. I’ve read the moving papers. Tell me, why should we dismiss the charge relating to the Geneva Convention?”

  Wolff sat down.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. That is the very thing I would like to address this morning—”

  “Obviously. That’s why you filed the motion.”

  “Yes, sir. The charge relating to the Geneva Convention is defective in two ways: first, the Geneva Convention is not a statute upon which a prosecution can be based. It is a treaty. A charge cannot be brought directly as a violation of the Geneva Convention. And second, the obvious contemplation of Congress when the Geneva Convention was adopted was that wars would be fought against other countries that were signatories. It seems that the only thing that the Geneva Convention is really good at is predicting who it is we’re going to fight. If you want to know who we’re going to war against, just read the list of signatories. Whoever didn’t sign it is who our enemy will be. Japan, North Korea, Vietnam, terrorists . . . We’ve had a lot of skirmishes and even wars since 1945, but not one time have we fought a signatory to the Geneva Convention. Need I remind the court of the hay that was made by North Vietnam in using the Geneva Convention against us even though they did not sign it?

  “It is an outrage to prosecute someone for violating the Geneva Convention when the alleged victim is a terrorist. Obviously no terrorist organization has ever signed the Geneva Convention, nor would they, because they violate it every day. Their reason for existence is one big violation of the concepts represented by the Geneva Convention. They are a disgrace to the entire concept of treaties and conventions and rules of law and war. To say that they are not bound by such rules, yet we are, and we must prosecute those who violate the Convention that they hold in contempt threatens our ability to fight the War on Terrorism. If we want to hold ourselves to that standard, fine, issue orders and charge people when they violate them—in a court-martial, I would suggest.”

  Wolff stood up, unable to contain himself anymore.

  “You’ll get your chance to respond, Mr. Wolff. Please have a seat,” Wiggins said.

  Wolff nodded knowingly, returning to his seat.

  “May I continue?”

  The judge nodded.

  “But equally important is that there is no enforcement mechanism under the Geneva Convention by which my client can be prosecuted. There is no statute.”

  The judge looked confused. “I’m not following you.”

  “That last point, Your Honor, is simply that the government has chosen to hide this trial from the military, from the ones who should be reviewing the conduct in question. We are in no position to judge a military officer—or more specifically a CIA agent who is actually still on active duty with the Navy—in the heat of battle.”

  “I think we are in exactly the right place to judge someone’s conduct in the heat of battle,” the judge said. “What is difficult about it? Either he has violated statutes and conventions or he has not.”

  “My point, Your Honor, is that the UCMJ was set up to take care of these kinds of charges against a military defendant. Our Congress wisely set up a separate military justice system for a reason. I submit that it was because they wanted the conduct at issue to be reviewed by other military officers, not a civilian jury. Here, my client is being deprived of that right.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir. Everything else is in my papers.”

  “You said two points.”

  “Really just one.”

  “Mr. Wolff?”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. I’m afraid that Mr. Skyles’s motion is as misplaced as his client’s conduct was. To the extent I was able to follow his argument, it seems to be that there is no statutory authority for a charge of the Geneva Convention. We have dealt with that argument exhaustively in our papers. If the court wants me—”

  “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  The judge was getting a little tired of the argument. “You have anything else, Mr. Wolff?”

  “A lot sir, but . . .”

  “It won’t be necessary,” Judge Wiggins said. He could tell Skyles was going to stand and try to argue in rebuttal. “The motion is denied, Mr. Skyles, without prejudice. If you can show me better authority that your position is correct, I’ll reconsider my ruling; but for now, this trial is going to go forward on both counts—manslaughter and violation of the Geneva Convention. Trial starts as scheduled.” He paused. “Mr. Skyles,” he said, removing his glasses and giving Skyles a deeply knowing look, “do you have any other motions, perhaps something dealing with jurisdiction?”

  Skyles understood perfectly and answered quickly. “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “Are you sure?” the judge said, amazed that Skyles wasn’t picking up on his overt hint.

  “Yes, sir. In fact I am prepared to stipulate that this court does have jurisdiction.” He turned to Wolff. “Is the government prepared to agree to such a stipulation?”

  Wolff tried not to roll his eyes. “Sure. Happy to.”

  Wiggins nodded. “Very well. The stipulation is accepted. Is there anything else?”

  Skyles stood. “Well, yes, sir. Since the court now has jurisdiction that cannot be questioned by the parties due to the stipulation just entered on the record, I would like to renew my motion to dismiss the charge of violating the Geneva Convention because civilians aren’t bound by convention. If the government wants to charge Mr. Rathman in this court, if they want to try him as a civilian, they cannot pursue the charge of violating the Geneva Convention.” Skyles stole a glance at Wolff. He was sitting forward with his mouth slightly open.

  “Mr. Wolff?”

  Wolff’s mouth was dry. “Since this wasn’t in his papers, I’d have to take a look at the law in this regard, and I’m confident we are able to bring this charge in this court.”

  “I have no such confidence,” Wiggins said. “I had expected this motion and looked at the law myself. He is right. Except in certain circumstances—and this isn’t one of them—you cannot charge a civilian with violating the Geneva Convention, and the government has chosen, for whatever reason, not to charge Mr. Rathman under the UCMJ. That’s your choice. But in this court he cannot be charged with violating the Geneva Convention. That charge is dismissed. This case will proceed on the one charge of manslaughter. And as to the jurisdiction stipulation, since it is something that can never be waived, Mr. Skyles has simply preserved an argument for appeal that he can raise at another time. This court is adjourned.” He banged his gavel and walked out of the courtroom leaving Wolff staring at his back in disbelief.

  * * *

  Rat, Robby, and Groomer stepped carefully onto the small boat that had been procured for them by the CIA field officer in Istanbul. He had gone to Çanakkale, the small Turkish city in the province that straddled the Dardanelles, to find a boat, a mission he thought was nuts; but he had received very specific instructions to make it happen.

  Some additional gear had been flown overnight to Istanbul for James and had been waiting for them. They had retrieved the gear
and driven straight to Çanakkale. The Americans wore working clothes that any Turk might wear on a boat.

  James picked up the next piece of equipment and handed it over to Robby, who was looking forward to learning all about this sophisticated gear he knew nothing about. He placed the box that was labeled navigation equipment in the cabin that stood six feet above the deck; it was more like a wheelhouse and was made of wood. The boat was at least forty years old, perhaps fifty.

  Rat’s experienced eyes took in the lines, the paint, the rotting wood, and the bent warped rudder and quickly concluded that the boat wasn’t very seaworthy. Rat had spent much of his life on boats of one sort or another, most of which could go fifty knots at the drop of a hat and stop in two boat lengths. Riding on this wooden tub, which probably had a maximum speed of six knots, was not what he had in mind when he went to sea. But it was all they could get, and it was certainly innocuous and inconspicuous enough to accomplish their objective.

  The owner of the boat smiled as the three Americans finished loading their gear aboard. He had no idea what they wanted or were planning on doing with his boat, only that they had paid five times the market value for his boat for a three-day period. Rat turned to the captain. “Do you speak English?”