Chapter 5 / Page 5

Jim snapped his attention back to Louis. “This time? There is no this time. I’m not leading more men into another ambush. I’ve been there, and done that. Louis, I took ten men in and came out with three. One of them will never walk again.”

“Yes. One of the three you brought was Jonas. He works for me now. I think he’s trying to be like you.” He raised his hands in compromise.

“Tell him there are better things to strive for than to be like me. What use is there to have a past that you can’t share with your wife and kids because they might think you’re a monster once they know.”

“Jim, you knew the risks. There aren’t any guarantees in this life. You lost some men. You got the job done.”

Getting the job done was Edwards’ mantra. Jim had always gotten the job done—it’s just difficult living with yourself after some of the jobs. “I don’t do work like that anymore, Louis. So why don’t you take whatever it is you’re pushing and get out of here. I’m sure the Beltway crowd you work for these days will figure something out.”

Louis chuckled for the first time. “The Beltway crowd I work for would have a hard time finding Florida on the map if it didn’t have a lot of rich contributors. This isn’t for the Beltway crowd. It’s for the country. We need you because you’ve done it before. We can’t mess up on this.”
Louis had always been quick to wave God and country or honor and duty. Of course, those were just words to Louis. They were more than words to Jim. Throughout his career in the nether world known as Spec War, or black ops, or whatever euphemism was current these days, he had attempted to maintain a balance and a code of honor. Men followed Jim because they believed in his ability to lead them through the hard parts. His ability to lead and his self-confidence in his ability to survive were intangible assets men followed into the hardest battles.

Louis was very good at sending men to die. The part about holding them in your arms as the life left their eyes was something reserved to people like Jim. “Get out of here.” He flipped the lock on the door and shoved it open. “Go on. Get out of here.”

“It’s Iraq, Jim,” he said quickly. “Something happened last night. I think it’s something real bad and I need you to go back to Iraq. I don’t have time to plan a proper penetration. I need a team leader who can think on his feet and improvise a strategy.”

Harper paused, a war seemed to rage across his features. Slowly he let the door shut. He closed his eyes, trying to forget Iraq—a magic word of sorts—the cradle of civilization where the Tigris and Euphrates ran together, and maybe the location of Eden. Rocks, sand, pain, and blood blistered his memory from a ground war that lasted a lot longer than one hundred hours recorded on television. Special Forces had been in country for over six months before Stormin’ Norman sent the tanks over the dirt berms. There were subsequent in country penetrations required to monitor the Iraqi madman, and the terrible, bitter loss.

“You hunted Scuds in the desert. You wrecked communication centers for the Republican Guard. You penetrated their computer systems. You’ve gone in and out three times since the Gulf War. We may need to get back into their computer systems again. You know them. You coded a backdoor so we could watch what they were doing. Well, they’re doing something again.”

Jim slowly shook his head. Louis certainly sanitized what he had done. Getting into Iraq’s Data Center had been easy. Getting back out had cost him a friend. It’s hard to visit a gravesite in the middle of the desert for someone who should have never been there.

“They received something last night. We think it’s a chemical or nuclear weapon.”