Samson stood up, leaned forward on his desk, and let his eyes bore into McLanahan’s. “The only way he could be stopped, Patrick, was to die. If you were allowed to keep on doing what you did over Russia, and you got to pin on three or four stars, or were selected to run the Department of Defense, or advise the President on national security policy, or even become president yourself — you’d be just as dangerous to world peace as Brad was.
“The only way to stop you, Patrick, is either for someone in authority to slap you down, hard, or die yourself. That’s the final outcome I’m trying to save you from: dying as an imperfect, desperate, schizophrenic man, like Brad Elliott. I have the authority as your commanding officer to do something before you corrupt the world with your brand of ambush-style warfighting. The buck is stopping here. I only wish someone had stopped Brad before he went over to the dark side.”
“Brad … Brad was none of those things, General Samson,” David Luger said, in a small, quivering voice. They did not hear him mutter something else beneath his breath, something in Russian.
“You say you knew him so well — I say that’s bullshit,” Patrick snapped. “You only think you knew him. I think all you really wanted was a nice, comfortable command, to wear your stars but not shake up the system too much. Brad Elliott did just the opposite. They gave him three stars and a command like no one else’s, even though he pissed off half of Washington on a regular basis. He created machines and aviators that had real courage and real determination. Even after they fired him, he still came back a hero. He’s saved the world a dozen times, sir. Is it my insubordination that makes you angry — or is it your own frustration at never having taken your bombers into battle?”
“I’m not frustrated about never being in battle, General,” Samson retorted, perhaps a little too vehemently. “No real soldier ever wants war, and they sure as hell don’t regret never going. It is enough for me to serve my country in whatever way I’m asked, whether it’s slopping tar on runways in Thailand in one-hundred-degree weather or leading the world’s greatest military research facility. I don’t go around creating wars to fight in.” That comment hit home with Patrick. He lowered his eyes and stepped back away from Samson’s desk.
“End of discussion,” Samson said. “The charges stand, General, Colonel. Submit your retirement requests by seventeen hundred hours or I prefer the charges to the judge advocate general.”
“Don’t wait until then, sir,” David Luger said. “I can give you my answer now: I’m not voluntarily resigning or retiring. I’ve been through too much in the past few years just to give it a away. If you want to penalize me, just do it.”
“I recommend you think about it some more,” Samson said sternly. “You have too much at stake to risk your retirement and honorable discharge. Your background and … other factors might not make you a popular or extremely sought-after candidate for a corporate or other government position.”
“Excuse me, General?” Luger asked, far more politely than Patrick would have. “Ty shto, ahuyel?”
“What was that? What did you just say, Luger?” Samson exploded. David did not reply, but seemed to wither under Samson’s booming voice and averted his eyes to the floor, his arms straight down at his sides. “I’ve been watching you for the past several weeks, Colonel Luger, and especially since that Ukrainian general showed up. You reported your former contact with that man and detailed some of your experiences with him in Lithuania, but then refused to take leave while the Ukrainian contingent was here. That was a big mistake in judgment that I believe has emotionally and psychologically unbalanced you.”
“What?” McLanahan retorted.
“You could be a danger to yourself and to HAWC,” Samson went on. “You’re obviously failing to recognize this, both of you. If you don’t retire, I’ll be forced to have you confined as a matter of national security as well as the safety of this facility.”
David Luger didn’t look stunned, or surprised, or angry, or even disappointed — he looked completely hollow. He stood motionless; his head bowed, his arms hanging limply at his sides, as if in complete surrender or emotional shutdown.
Patrick McLanahan exploded. “Hey, Dave, forget about all that! He’s full of shit,” he shouted. No reaction. He took David by the shoulders and shook him, gently at first, and then harder. “Dave. You okay, Texas?”
At that moment, Hal Briggs and two of his security officers entered the office. Every room at Dreamland was continually monitored with video and audio, and security units were trained to respond to even a hint of violence or a breach in security. One of the Security Force officers had his MP5K submachine gun drawn and at port arms; the other had his hand on the handgrip of his weapon but did not draw it. Briggs had his hand on his pearl-handled .45-caliber automatic pistol — the one that had once belonged to Lieutenant General Brad Elliott, his mentor — but had not drawn it either.
“Dave! Dave, are you all right?” McLanahan cried to his friend and partner. It appeared as if Luger was in a sernicatatonic state, unable to move or respond. “Jesus, Hal, it’s like his entire voluntary nervous system has shut down. Call the chopper and let’s get him airlifted to Las Vegas now.” Briggs and the second security officer safetied their weapons and quickly, firmly, took McLanahan and Luger out of Samson’s office, while the third man continued to cover the action with his drawn weapon.
As he was being hustled out, McLanahan turned to Samson and said, “We’re not finished here, Samson.”
“Seventeen hundred hours, General,” Samson responded. “On my desk. Or else.”
On the Albania-Macedonia border
Once one of the world’s greatest empires under Alexander the Great, the Republic of Macedonia had been in an almost constant state of occupation and combat for over two thousand years, brutally repressed and colonized by Rome, Byzantium, the Huns, the Visigoths, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Nazi Germany, and Serbia. It was not until the 1980 death of Yugoslavian strongman Josip Broz, known as Marshal Tito, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, that Macedonia was able to slip out of the grasp of regional overseers and declare itself an independent democratic republic.
But independence was not without conflict. Macedonia had been a “melting pot” of many different ethnic and religious peoples for thousands of years, and now they all wanted a say in the direction and future of their newly independent republic. Those forces — Albanians, Greeks, Serbs, Slays, Turks, and Bulgars — all sought to drive the new nation apart and carve it up for themselves.
As a result, most of Macedonia’s borders were heavily armed and fortified, and the nation invested heavily in counterinsurgency and border patrol forces. Border skirmishes, especially between Muslim Albania and Orthodox Christian Macedonia, were so common and so brutal that almost since its first day of membership, United Nations peacekeepers had been sent to Macedonia to try to keep the peace and settle border claims between it and its neighbors. Macedonia had become a favorite route for Albanian gunrunners to ship weapons to Kosovo Liberation Army rebels, and there had been many border skirmishes between Macedonian Army forces and well-equipped smugglers.
The government of Macedonia vowed to vigorously defend its borders against any nation that tried to violate its sovereignty and neutrality, but it was a poor nation, with only a small conscript army, so it was forced to ask for outside help. The U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization was allowed to stage security, surveillance, and supply missions out of bases in Macedonia during the Kosovo conflict. In return, Macedonia was made a member of the “Partnership For Peace,” the group of prospective NATO members, was offered millions of dollars in military and economic aid by the West, and was being considered for full membership in the European Union and the World Trade Organization.