“Perhaps, sir. Unless honor is cooperating with the forces that have compromised national command authority with extremely negative intentions towards humanity as a whole, and the United States as a part of humanity.”
“I’ll be goddammed!” Mueller exclaimed. The outburst, given the situation, and the dumbfounded enlightenment on the man’s face, warranted explanation.
“Sir, what do you remember Iron Mike’s dad looking like?” the sergeant major asked. “I knew I knew you fuckers from somewhere!”
“Fuck,” Mosovich said, the light finally dawning. “How many of you are his damn kids? That fucking asshole. When I get hold of him, I’m going to kill him. Or kick his ass. I haven’t decided which yet. Well?”
“Kids, grandkids.” Kelly shrugged and grinned. “Very close friends’ kids and grandkids, other lifetime members — a bit more than half the company, sir.”
“You know, Major, I have never thought of myself as an incompetent officer — not once — until this very moment. More than half my fucking command, right under my nose.” He rubbed his face in both hands, absorbing the truth, clearly furious.
“Sir, think back about how these men have served you, and how Papa O’Neal served with you. Then think about just why we had to leave those AIDs back there in the office. If you don’t think there’s a right and a wrong here, there’s definitely a better and a worse.”
“You’ll pardon me, son, if that’s not a lot of comfort right now.” Jake’s scowl had returned. “Leaving off that, for awhile, suppose you tell me exactly what we’re facing up the road, since I don’t doubt that what I thought were my two squads are actually your two squads, Kelly.”
“Sir, you’re a damned good officer. Don’t take that away from yourself. After a few thousand years of covert operation, an organization gets pretty good.” He shrugged at his CO’s expression. “Yes, sir, it’s been a very long war, and it ain’t half over yet.”
“You were going to tell me about the mission, not flatter me, son.”
“Yes, sir. The facility we’re being sent in to guard is an Epetar-owned facility. It is a facility in which atrocities of the very, very worst kind take place every day, against innocent men, women, and children, sir.”
“Go on.” The colonel was giving nothing away. Kelly didn’t suppose he would have been, either.
“The ‘attack’ the Epetar Group is expecting is real, is more serious than they expect, and is designed to remove the equipment they are using to commit those atrocities. The atrocities are involved with testing a particular alien technology for widespread application against humans.”
“More.”
“Mind control, sir. The other officers and men don’t have that specific information, sir.”
“Well, finally I know something that everybody else in my command didn’t know first. Not that it doesn’t sound like fucking science fiction. Thank you so much, Kelly.”
At least he had said “Kelly” and not just the more impersonal “Major.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, in your place I would be just as pissed, but knowing you, and Sergeant Major Mueller, I strongly believe that you will, upon reflection, realize the nature of the mission as in the vital interests of everything you hold sacred and the failure to tell you as necessary OpSec, no matter how unpleasant. And personally distasteful, I might add, sir. Sir, until this moment, you did not have a need to know.”
“I’m still making up my mind about that.”
“Sir, I might also point out that our organization is far more closely aligned with the interests and intent of the honestly elected, un-bribed, and un-blackmailed components of the legitimate civilian authority than those we oppose. Far, far more.”
“It’s that ‘far more’ part that still concerns me, son.”
“Where possible, where the public has not been deceived in a way that is overwhelmingly adverse to their interests, identical. In the case of nonvital deception of the body politic by the enemy, we make every effort to stay aligned with the uncompromised, legitimate civilian authority.”
“I notice a lot of wiggle room in that description, son.”
“All I can tell you, sir, is that you should consider it highly unlikely that some of the best of the best of the veterans of the war would sign on with anything less, sir. Or would permit anything less on their watch, sir. Then consider the exigencies of the circumstances. It’s not an easy call to make, sir.”
“Except that by your own admission you and half my men have never known anything else.”
“No, sir. All I can say is that the father or grandfather of a number of the rest of your troopers is an honorably discharged veteran of both the Ten Thousand and the ACS. You’ve got to make up your own mind, sir, but you don’t have much time to do it in.”
“And whose fault is that?” Mosovich said sourly.
“Sorry, sir. No excuse, sir.”
“Oh, shut up, Kelly. Get the men moving and I’ll decide whether or not I’m going to shoot you later.” He did not add: as I expect you’ll decide whether or not you’re going to shoot me. He didn’t have to.
“Yes, sir.” Kelly answered. The old man was not joking, and he knew it. Then again, considering how he would have felt if it had been him, he had expected nothing else.
Mosovich pulled his XO aside before addressing the men.
“Kelly. I am buying your story, but God help you if I find you have lied to me,” he didn’t say again, “in any particular of this, because I will shoot you and every single member of your little cabal. Do you read me?” The old veteran added to himself, Unless you shoot me first, which you will if I’m wrong about you. God help us all, anyway.
He couldn’t have known that one third of the Bane Sidhe operatives in the briefing room heard him, quite clearly, with their enhanced hearing. Their faces gave no sign as they sat at the desks used, between missions, for training classes.
“All right, men. We have been ordered to the Institute for the Advancement of Human Welfare on the basis of receiving intelligence that there may be an attack there by forces hostile to them. You will notice that I did not describe the attackers as ‘terrorist forces.’ We have intelligence of an impending attack. We also have internal intelligence that this facility is a front for the Epetar Group and that said facility is engaged in activities that would, themselves, fall within our organizational definitions of terrorism. According to our information, the attackers are members of an organized vigilante group.”
It could not have been his imagination that some of his men looked at him a little sharper, while one or two might have looked the slightest bit shamefaced. The holo of the building he told his PDA to display took up a third of the empty space in the front of the room, before the ranks of desks. His XO had ensured that there were no AIDs in the room, to the reported chagrin of one FNG who had not yet learned to remain emotionally detached from the treacherous little machine.
“DAG’s mission is to stop a terrorist act in case of an attack,” he stated deliberately. “To that end, the Epetar Group are known associates of and supporters of terrorists, as each of you knows from recent personal experience. Our intelligence indicates that the Epetar people are holding civilian captives in the basement areas of the building. Note that our mission is not to initiate attack, but to respond against terrorism if one occurs. In the event of an attack on the facility, which we confidently expect to occur, our counterterror mission dictates that we liberate those captives.” He scanned the room, making eye contact with individual officers and men. “To that end, you are to consider the vigilantes friendlies with objectives of their own separate from ours.