Colonel Jack Rampert, commander of the U.S. Army’s elite commando force, put down the phone and looked at Dr. Ted Tedaues.
“Okay, we’ve got the word.”
Tedaues’ calculating eyes stared back at him blankly.
“You think he’s up to it?” Rampert asked.
“No,” Tedaues said. Then he added, “But do we have a choice?”
“He’s got no choice,” Rampert said, turning toward the window. In silence they stood and watched the man on the treadmill, who was breathing into a spirometer, measuring what turned out to be the incredible volume of his lung capacity. Each steady, forceful breath slammed a small ball to the top of the plastic casing every time he exhaled.
“What is his assignment?” the doctor said.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Look, our man in there is a human being, and I’m assuming he’s got family and friends and all that. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t remember who he is.”
“Ted, we’ve been through this. That soldier in there died a year ago,” he said, pointing through the one-way glass. “His family has mourned his loss. They’ve buried him. But now he has the opportunity to do something very important for this country.”
“You think he’d do it if he remembered who he was? It’s a fair question.”
Rampert studied his friend.
“I know he’d do it. That’s why I was recruiting him to join our team in special ops.”
“I don’t like it. But he’s as ready as he’ll ever be. Really a physical specimen, as a matter of fact. He’s been running five-minute miles on the treadmill, benching 320 pounds, and climbing ropes like he’s Spiderman. Based on what you’ve told me, he seems more physically fit than before his ‘death,’” Tedaues commented.
“He’s a warrior. A natural,” Rampert said.
“We’ve had great improvement, but I’m still concerned,” the doctor responded, continuing his prognosis. “Physically, he couldn’t be better. But mentally, his mind collects and retains information today as if he were a genius yet he has no apparent memory prior to the incident. I don’t know … I feel like I’m building Frankenstein in there. And I still don’t know his real name. That’s not right. I’d like to know that, at least. He’s been my patient since you brought him to me in a coma.”
The colonel looked at him with dark eyes, no differentiation between the iris and pupil, just stone cold blackness providing windows to the mysterious soul of the most notorious commando in modern U.S. history. Rampert’s face was cragged with age and battle scars. A modern day Achilles, Rampert had been cycling through the commando and Special Forces communities since Charlie Beckwith, his mentor, created the secret organization.
As for Tedaues, he had served with Rampert for ten years as the combat surgeon on every big mission they had executed.
“Ted, you’re the best combat doc I’ve ever seen. I’ll tell you what you need to know in due time. I’ve never steered you wrong. Just finish the job.” Rampert spoke in the same manner he had given the order to destroy Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.
Jack Rampert’s Army combat uniform, too, told the story of the military’s premier warrior, with combat infantryman’s badges from three different conflicts, three gold stars on his master parachutist wings indicating combat jumps into Panama, Afghanistan, and most recently, the Philippines, and a right-shoulder combat patch of the Joint Special Forces Command. Rampert’s career had been filled with unique missions, all an extension of his Special Forces bona fides. Combat jumps, reconnaissance deep behind enemy lines, and interrogation of high-value enemy prisoners of war all fill his portfolio. He saw the exhaustion and frustration etched on his friend’s face.
Tedaues shifted around a bit, kicking at the floor.
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem, sir.”
“All right, then. He’s going to go kill us one bad actor.”
“Ballantine?”
Rampert paused, then stood and walked toward the door, which he checked to ensure it was locked.
“That’s right. Ballantine.” He sighed and then continued. “All right. In Iraq we lost one of our deep black ops guys. He was right next to Hussein, was gonna take him. Somehow he got caught. He was due to rotate back. I was going to put him on the Ballantine mission—”
“I remember.”
“They iced him. Strung him up by his thumbs, beat him with a baseball bat, then shot him through the eyes. After that, they dumped him in front of Baghdad International, right in front of the headquarters. They were saying, ‘Don’t mess with us anymore.’”
“Then we know where Ballantine is?” the doctor asked.
“Yes. He’s an Iraqi general from the first Gulf War. He laid low during this go around. Might be connected to what just went down today. Don’t know, but we think so. We’ve got signal intelligence and some imagery suggesting that he is running a fishing guide service out of Canada. We’ve monitored some intel that says he’s been orchestrating something. Now that these attacks have happened, we think he’s the one.”
“All right. Connect this thing.”
“This soldier in here,” Rampert said, pointing through the window at the young man on the treadmill. “Damn Canucks refuse to cooperate, won’t let us go in there with guns blazing. So we need to do something; we need to send someone. Then why not send someone that we can deny ever existed? This soldier’s supposed to be dead. He no longer exists. And with a new name, we can get him in close to Ballantine.
“I lost my best guy. This is the only other soldier I’ve ever seen who could do what needs to be done, alone. He’s a paratrooper, a fighter. He’s killed and he’s been killed.”
Rampert watched Tedaues consider his comments. No doubt, Rampert figured, that the good doctor was thinking that a one-man mission was insane, unheard of, and Rampert needed to allay the concerns of the only man who knew about their resurrected man. Rampert broke his gaze from Tedaues and looked at his protégé thumping on the treadmill at five minutes per mile as though he were on a Sunday walk.
“What about his family, Colonel? You’re telling me to go back in there and finish this series of experimental coma-release treatments, which you and I both know could erase what is left of his memory. It’s like reformatting your hard drive.”
Rampert looked back at Tedaues. “We’ll worry about that when the time comes. His family has grieved its loss. Why not let him do this mission and see what happens?”
“What if he has lost his instincts? What if he wants to be an artist when you brief him on this mission? This is like jump-starting a car, Colonel, without knowing where the positive and negative terminal posts are. Cross the wires and we might do something terrible. Then again, just like a broken bone heals stronger than it was before, his memory may suddenly appear in Technicolor before his very eyes.”
“To everyone else, he’s already dead. I’ll take my chances. He’s ready now, you said so yourself, and I know this son of a gun. He’s the best damn soldier I’ve seen. He’ll be fine. Besides, you’ve seen him train. You can’t tell me you don’t see his instincts in what he’s doing. It’s just his memory—”
“Until he remembers something from his past life in the middle of this mission and he comes unraveled. It’s that simple.”
“Yes, it is that simple.”
Tedaues studied Rampert. The two friends let a long moment pass between them. Rampert had pushed the envelope so many times in his career that, truthfully, this mission seemed rather ordinary to him.
“So the key is that he’s expendable, and deniable?” Tedaues asked.
Rampert didn’t need to answer. His glare said more than words. Rampert knew that Tedaues and the other unit members were aware of some of his prior questionable activities. He knew what the doctor was asking.