Thorpe's destination was the army Special Operations Headquarters, a new addition since his last trip here. It was set on what used to be a virgin acre of North Carolina pine forest. Several stories high, it was all glass and brick, very modern. It was a long way from the beat-up World War II era "temporary" buildings Thorpe had received his Special Forces classroom training in years ago.
There were no parking spaces available in the lot immediately outside, so Thorpe was forced to park a quarter mile away, near the Third Group area. Third Special Forces Group (Airborne) had not even existed when Thorpe first joined Special Forces. Its area of operations was Africa and it had been brought to life several years ago — despite the rest of the army getting smaller, Special Forces was actually getting larger due to the strong demand for those units. For the first time since its peak strength during the Vietnam War, Special Forces had a group devoted to each populated part of the world: Third to Africa, Fifth to the Middle East, Seventh to Central and South America, First to the Pacific and Orient, and Tenth to Europe.
The command he was going to, SOCOM, was the headquarters for all those groups and the other elements assigned to army Special Operations: the Ranger Regiment, which consisted of three highly trained Ranger infantry battalions; the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) that flew all the army Special Operations helicopters; Civil Affair and PSYOPS — Psychological Operations — units; and the various units dedicated to supporting the special operations team.
As Thorpe stepped out of the car, he pulled his battered green beret out of his left cargo pocket and settled it on his head, a move that over a decade and a half wearing the beret had made a very practiced maneuver.
His spit-shined jungle boots silently padded over pavement as he walked toward the front of the SOCOM building. He noted that Bronze Bruce, the limp-wristed, eighteen-foot-high bronze statue of a Vietnam-era Special Forces soldier, had been moved to the plaza in front of the building from its original place next to the Special Forces museum. He'd heard about the uproar the move had caused among the old guard in Special Forces.
Thorpe detoured over to the statue and walked around. On bronze plaques bolted to the low concrete wall around the statue were listed the names of those Special Operations men who had died since Vietnam. It was a long list for a country that considered itself to have been primarily at peace since the end of that conflict.
The names only served to reinforce what Thorpe had learned by bitter lesson: Special Operations was always on the cutting edge and facing danger all the time, regardless of whether there was a declared war going on or not. Thorpe noted the names of the two Delta Force operators who'd been killed in Mogadishu trying to rescue a downed helicopter crew from Task Force 160. He wondered how many civilians even remembered that failed peacekeeping effort or the videos of the bodies being dragged through the streets. Thorpe remembered, most often when he wished he wouldn't.
He scanned the names, looking for those of other men he had known. Men who had died on missions with him. He spotted a few, the places and occasions of their deaths as listed in the bronze letters a blatant lie in some cases. At least the names were there, though, which was more than could be said about some of the men who had disappeared or died on classified missions during the Vietnam conflict. But there were other names, names Thorpe knew, that weren't on the list. Men who had died in places where the U.S. Government would never acknowledge they sent American fighting men. Men whose families had been told they had died during training accidents. A surprising number of Special Operations helicopters had "crashed at sea," the bodies never recovered.
Thorpe ran a finger inside the collar of his starched battle dress uniform shirt, uncomfortable in uniform after wearing civilian garb for the past year and a half. He felt awkward, out of place. It was a strange feeling for a person who had spent his entire adult life in the military. He had not expected this feeling, but standing in front of the names of the dead, he knew he no longer fit. He'd lost something and he wasn't quite sure what it was. He knew he'd lost it before the Omega Missile incident, even before the Lebanon affair, but he wasn't quite sure when or why he had changed.
Thorpe checked his watch. After 1000. The NCO at the reserve in-processing center had not exactly seemed in a rush to do Thorpe's or the other incoming reservists' paperwork and it had taken over an hour to process onto active duty for the next sixty days. Then he had received instructions to report to the SOCOM G-l section for work.
The military staff was broken down into four major sections, numbers 1 through 4: 1 was personnel; 2, intelligence; 3, operations; 4, logistics. At brigade or lower level, the letter designator was an S, so that a battalion or brigade personnel officer, the adjutant, was the S-l. At higher than brigade level, the designator was a G.
Thorpe strode up the walk, snapping a salute at a colonel who was coming the other way. He pushed open the door to the building and stepped into the lobby. Two turnstiles filled up the way to the left of the guard desk. An elderly black man in a contract security company uniform looked at Thorpe, noted that he didn't have a badge clipped to his pocket as everyone else in sight did, and motioned for him to come over.
"Are you on the access roster, sir?"
"I doubt it," Thorpe said, giving the man his ID card.
Noting that it was the red color indicating reservist, the guard flipped open a particular computer printout and checked Thorpe's name against the list.
"You're not on here," the guard said. "Who are you here to see?"
"I'm supposed to check in with the SOCOM G-l for further assignment."
"We'll have to get someone down from there to escort you."
Thorpe waited while the guard called, then longer while someone from the office came down. Finally a master sergeant appeared, quickly walking up to the other side of the turnstiles. "Sign in the visitor's roster, Major," the sergeant instructed.
Thorpe did as he was told, the guard keeping his ID card to be returned when he left. Thorpe pinned a numbered pink visitor badge on his pocket. The bottom of the badge warned in large letters that he must be escorted at all times.
Obviously they were taking security seriously around here, Thorpe reflected as he followed the master sergeant to the elevator. Once they were on board, the other man turned to him and stuck out a hand.
"Sergeant Major Jim Christie."
"Major Mike Thorpe."
"I know. I've heard of you."
It was hard to tell from Christie's inflection whether that was good or not. Thorpe knew Special Operations was a small pond and he'd made more than a couple of splashes in his time, and if anyone was going to hear something about it, it would the G-l section.
"This way," Christie said, leading him down a corridor.
"Where will I be working?" Thorpe asked. He hoped he got to go to a Special Forces Group; either Third or Seventh, both here on post, would be fine with him. His rank was O-4, Major, and there were slots at both group and battalion level for that rank.
"That's up to Colonel Kinsley," Christie said.
"When do I get to meet him?" Thorpe asked.
Christie pointed to a door at the end of the corridor as he slid behind the desk to the left of the door. "Right now."
Thorpe knocked on the door. A woman's voice called out, "Enter."
Thorpe glanced at Christie, but the sergeant was studiously absorbed in paperwork. Thorpe opened the door and marched to a point two feet in front of the colonel's desk, all the while checking out her and the room.
Kinsley was in her late thirties with straight brown hair parted in the middle. Her face was well tanned and she had on heavily starched fatigues. She wore steel-rimmed glasses that gave her appearance a severe look, rather like the librarian who used to hush the kids at the library back home. On the wall behind her were several plaques and a large guidon. It was red and gold, from a quartermaster unit that matched the insignia on her collar. There was a combat patch on her right shoulder, which these days could mean anything from having served in the Gulf War to a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia- Herzegovina.