They were not really present in the room with him. Boucher knew that, and yet his eyes told him otherwise. No matter which way he turned his head, he could see them, rendered in three-dimensions with perfect clarity. He lifted his glasses momentarily, and the group of special operators blinked out of existence. But when he lowered the glasses back into place, they were all right where they had been. It was telepresence on steroids.
They had listened without comment as he related the facts of the situation developing in the Congo and of the as-yet-unresolved abduction of Joseph Mulamba. This clearly had not been what they were expecting.
Finally, Tom Duncan — Deep Blue — broke the silence. “What exactly is it that you want us to accomplish?”
That was a question that had troubled Boucher from the moment President Chambers had made his desperate plea. Before he could frame his answer, another voice chimed in — Zelda Baker, the one called ‘Queen.’
“What about the bomb? Shouldn’t that be our priority right now?”
“We can handle that,” replied Boucher. “What we can’t handle… what no official US government agency can touch right now, is the situation in the Congo. And if someone doesn’t act now, the powder keg will blow up and a lot of people will die.”
Rook, whom Boucher had first met years ago, when Chess Team was just getting established, shifted in his chair. “You want the five of us to stop a revolution?”
“You just have to buy the President enough time to marshal support for a peace-keeping operation. Mulamba had a plan, and President Chambers wants to make sure that plan has a chance to work. That means keeping the presidential successor, Gerard Okoa, in power, if at all possible. Mulamba was also working on some kind of renewable energy project at a place called Lake Kivu, at the eastern border of the country. Currently, rebel forces are threatening the team that’s working there, so protecting them is critical to the long term success of the plan. Or failing that, rescuing them before they’re overrun.
“Don’t underestimate the impact a few individuals can have in a situation like this,” he continued. “The abduction of just one man, President Mulamba, set this all in motion. There are a lot of people in his country who want his vision to succeed. They just need some help.” He studied each member of the virtual audience. “You’ve all been through the Robin Sage exercise?”
Robin Sage was the fifth and final phase of the US Army Special Forces training course, conducted in rural North Carolina. It was a simulated exercise in which Special Forces candidates infiltrated the fictional country of Pineland, to train and lead a force of guerilla insurgents to overthrow an oppressive government. Despite the public perception that Special Forces operators were all unstoppable commandos who dropped behind enemy lines to destroy enemy missile sites and take out terrorist leaders, their primary mission was to act as a force multiplier.
While it was true that certain groups within the Spec War community — SEAL Team Six and Delta in particular — did train for high profile missions like hostage rescue and antiterrorism, every single shooter started with the basics of unconventional warfare. In terms of war strategy, they were called ‘force multipliers’ because a small unit of SF operators could embed with a local group of freedom fighters and turn them into an army.
Deep Blue shook his head. “You don’t need to explain unconventional war to any of us, Dom. We’ve all lived it. The situation in Africa… It’s like trying to hold back the wind. These countries are always about two steps away from a bloody revolution or tribal genocide, and nothing anyone has been able to do has changed that. I was in Somalia; I know.”
Boucher had felt much the same way during his meeting with the president. Chambers had asked for something that no one — not armies, diplomats, or well-funded humanitarian organizations — had been able to accomplish, and now Boucher was asking these five weary souls to give it a try. “You’re right,” he said, defeated. “It’s impossible. But I had to ask.”
He was about to strip off the glasses and end the ordeal, when a voice that had been quiet throughout was heard.
“I’ll do it,” King said.
9
Queen tore off her glasses and made a gesture for the others to do the same. King was the last to remove his, and he did so with a detached expression, as if he didn’t quite understand why she wanted him to do so.
“What the hell?” she said.
He stared back at her. “I said I would do it. The rest of you can Charlie Mike.” Charlie Mike — CM — meant continue the mission, or in this case, find the bomb.
“Oh, I heard what you said. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. We’re a team. We work together. Remember?”
“You heard what Blue said. It’s an impossible job.”
“Oh, right,” Rook said. “We can’t do impossible.” He made air-quotes to emphasize the last word.
Queen waved him off. “King, if you’ve got a reason why we should do this, I’d like to hear it. We all would. You owe us that.”
“There’s no reason. It’s plainly a fool’s errand.”
“Bullshit. If you thought that, you wouldn’t have volunteered yourself. What I want to know is why you’re treating us like we’re your children instead of your teammates.”
She saw Knight and Rook nod and Bishop’s gaze became a little more focused. They all felt it. King however, seemed genuinely surprised by the accusation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Ever since… since Tunisia, since you came back, you’ve been acting like you’re afraid to put us in the fight.”
“Have I?” The faintest hint of a smile touched at the corner of his mouth. “I guess maybe my teamwork skills have gotten a little rusty.”
“Damn straight,” Rook said. “Now, as much as I’d love to leave a tender moment alone, can you please explain why you just volunteered to single-handedly save Africa from its latest self-destruct?”
King took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “You know that old saying about history repeating itself? You can see it coming from a mile away and you just want to grab someone and shake them, but it’s like nothing you do makes any difference.”
“I think the rest of that old saying talks about learning from history. You can’t make people do that. They have to figure it out for themselves.”
“Believe me, I know. But that’s the funny thing about history. How can you really learn anything? It’s all just dry facts and statistics. A million dead here or there… life goes on. It’s not real to you unless you watch it happen. I did, over and over again, knowing that it was going to happen, knowing that, even when I got involved, there was nothing I could do to change the outcome. But now…the future hasn’t been written yet.”
Queen could sense the others holding back from commenting, and she knew why. Despite the things they had all seen in their military careers — and some of those things had been pretty terrible — there was no comparison to what King had experienced.
It still boggled Queen’s mind. Eight months earlier — eight months for her at least — during a mission to rescue King’s parents from renegade geneticist Richard Ridley’s Omega facility in Tunisia, King had been blown up in a mysterious explosion… or so they had thought at the time. A few hours later, King had shown up just in time to save them all from one of Ridley’s creations run amok. When the dust had finally settled, King had told them how he had survived. It was a whopper of a tale, but the short version was that King had been blown back in time — all the way back to 800 BC — with no way to get home.