"Do not waste your breath threatening us."
The two men got on the chopper without another word. The engine whined as power increased. The blades turned faster until finally it lifted and went back the way it had come. Still Kiril did not move. He watched the helicopter until it disappeared over the horizon.
He walked forward to the girl's body. With the toe of his boot, he turned her over. Her face was rigid, pain etched in the dead skin. He stared at it for a minute, imagining thousands of faces showing the same agony in death. A smile crossed his lips. He ordered the body thrown in the swamp.
Only then did he signal for his men to follow him.
Hancock listened to the weekly intelligence summary briefers with mild interest. He had the seat to the left of the director, who sat at the end of a long mahogany conference table inlaid with the seal of the CIA. Directly across from Hancock was the chief of Operations, Kim Gereg, to the right of the director.
This briefing was always held the evening before the weekly National Security Agency briefing, where the director briefed the NSA — and the President, when an issue was particularly hot — on the highlights culled from this meeting.
Right now, Bosnia was the number one issue, with the discovery of the slain Polish peacekeepers, the movement of Serb heavy arms nearer to Sarajevo and the deterioration of conditions in Kosovo and the massacre of ethnic Albanians. After years of "maintaining" the peace, the situation was sliding back to the status of the early days when the IFOR first moved in.
"What are the Serbs' intentions?" the director asked. He turned to Gereg first.
"My sources indicate the Serbs want to end the stalemate. They want to make Sarajevo a repeat of Dien Bien Phu."
The director digested that blunt summary. Going first meant one was the favored person of the moment, but it also meant one had to define his or her position first. Hancock had always preferred having the black pieces in chess — the second to move. Some initiative was lost, true, but he had rarely encountered an opponent who could maintain initiative against him and he believed the advantage of seeing an opponent's opening move far outweighed the disadvantages.
The director turned slightly to the left. "Concur?"
"That they plan to fight?" Hancock said. "Yes, sir."
"And if they fight?" The director turned back to his right.
"IFOR will have air superiority but will be outgunned on the ground," Gereg said. "The Serbs are hoping the upcoming winter weather will assist them, but given the all-weather capability of NATO aircraft, even bad weather won't help them too much."
"So what do the Serbs hope to gain?" the director asked.
"Given the outrage over the loss of the six Polish peacekeepers, the Serbs are hoping that further bloodshed will cause NATO countries to pull out, rather than commit more force."
"Will it?"
"That's a political issue," Gereg said. "The State Department will have a better feel on—"
"What's our feel?" the director snapped. "Will NATO cut and run or will it fight?"
"I think NATO will fight," Gereg said.
"Think or hope?" the director asked. He didn't wait for an answer, turning to Hancock with a raised eyebrow, wanting his assessment.
"Does it matter, sir?" Hancock asked, then proceeded to elaborate. "Either way will end the quagmire."
"The President thinks it matters," the director said. "If IFOR pulls out of the Balkans, there will be a bloodbath the world hasn't seen since Cambodia and the killing fields."
"But it won't be our bloodbath," Hancock noted. "History is full of bloodbaths. This won't be the last one. We pulled out of Somalia and no one gave a damn what happened afterwards. All they cared about were the bodies of American soldiers being dragged through the streets."
"Most Americans don't have a clue who is who in the Balkans. Serbs, Bosnians, Muslims, Christians, Albanians. All are just words."
"You want me to go to the President with the recommendation we do nothing? He has to make a decision about our forces that are part of IFOR."
"Yes, sir," Hancock acknowledged. "But if the rest of NATO pulls out, we won't have much choice." He leaned forward. "The bottom line is the media. Given the current scandals in this country, coverage of the Balkans is down thirty-seven percent and I predict it will continue to go down. And no one can truly tell me that we have any sort of national security interest in that region."
"Ms. Gereg, what is your recommendation given the intelligence readouts?" the director asked.
"That IFOR enforce the Dayton Peace Accord. The President signed that accord."
"Mr. Hancock?"
Hancock spread his hands. "I agree theoretically that IFOR should do what it signed up to do. It is more a question of what the cost of that enforcement will be."
"The Serb heavy weaponry can be targeted by the NATO air forces," Gereg interjected. "The Serbs are hoping their campaign of terror can do what their force of arms can't. I believe they are hoping for the same reaction from the media that occurred after the Tet Offensive. We won the military battle then but lost the media one."
"Even if IFOR defeats the Serb military force, they hope the bloodshed will cause the people of the countries that contribute troops to IFOR to demand their soldiers be pulled out." She stared across the conference table. "There are many that agree with Mr. Hancock's assessment that the Balkans are not worth the lives of American soldiers."
"And the reaction is going to depend on how much blood the Serbs draw," the director noted. "The President is going to ask me for an intelligence estimate on that. The Pentagon will have theirs — what's ours?"
"Given the current military balance in the area," Gereg said, "I think the President should commit to enforcing the Dayton Accord. I don't think the Serbs can do significant damage."
" 'Significant damage'?" Hancock returned her stare across the conference table. "How many deaths do you consider significant damage? A hundred? A thousand?"
"What's the purpose of military force if it isn't going to be used?" Gereg asked. "Clausewitz said that war is an extension of politics. The politicians have tried to resolve this mess in the Balkans for a long time. Now the stakes have been raised."
"Clausewitz?" Hancock shook his head. "He was outdated half a century ago. The face of war and politics has changed dramatically since Clausewitz."
"Hancock?" the director asked. "Your final word?"
"There's one thing that bothers me," Hancock said.
"What's that?"
"It's why the Serbs are doing this now. What's changed? They started this war during the Gulf War, hoping to achieve their goals while the world was preoccupied. They weren't successful then. Why are they choosing to act now when NATO can focus force against them? Why do they think they'll be successful now?"
"Why is that a worry?" the director asked.
"Because I think Ms. Gereg's analysts are missing something," Hancock said. "I'd like permission to prepare a CDA strike team and stage it in Sarajevo."
While the director considered that request, Hancock stared once more across the table at Gereg. Her forehead was slightly furrowed, trying to figure out what angle he was playing.
"I'll ask the President tomorrow, but I'll recommend we do that," the director said. "Let's move on to other business."
Chapter Fourteen
The C-141 touched down at Rhein-Main Air Base, the U.S. military's air base adjunct to Frankfurt International Airport, German's largest airfield. Thorpe waited patiently as the plane taxied, glancing out the small, round window to his right. Known as the gateway to Germany, Rhein-Main was the primary port of call for U.S. personnel stationed in Europe.
During the Berlin airlift, Rhein-Main had been the center for most of the aircraft departing for that beleaguered city, loaded with the supplies that kept it running from 1948 into 1949. Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were still over one hundred thousand American troops stationed in Germany, along with their dependents. The troops' mission had shifted from protecting Western Europe from the now-defunct Warsaw Pact, to trying to provide stabilization in an area of the World that had been thrust unprepared into a capitalistic society. The new domino theory was not one that worried about communism spreading from country to country, but rather economic destabilization spreading like a virus from country to country and damaging the world economy.