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There was a pause, then Royce said, “Thank you, Mr. President. We appreciate your honesty.”
Gideon's War and Hard Target
“Thank you, Major,” the president said. “At this moment,...
“That’s all the time we’ll need, sir.”
“Our prayers will be with you.”
The president ran his hand across his Adam’s apple, where a lump had formed in his throat, and the air force sergeant cut the co
Only a few hours ago President Diggs had sent sixteen soldiers to their deaths at the bottom of the South China Sea. Every one of them someone’s son, someone’s father, someone’s husband. And now he was sending another group of men to risk their lives in order to prevent tens of thousands of their fellow warriors from having to risk theirs. President Diggs saw General Ferry looking at him. He knew the general shared his sadness and dread. The odds on this mission being successful were 50 percent. At best.
“Don’t bother giving me any status reports, General. I want a direct uplink on this operation in real time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
PARKER’S BETRAYAL HAD LEFT Gideon disoriented, lost inside some kind of black hole. As the jihadis disarmed him, he heard Parker’s voice as if through a long tu
“How you managed to stay alive this long is a damn miracle. Surviving that ambush outsiwanl. I de the airport, then getting through the storm and the bullets to make it all the way out here to the rig . . .” Parker trailed off and shook his head. “But then, you always were a stubborn sumbitch.”
A dozen questions clouded Gideon’s mind, but one kept pushing to the front, and he finally asked, “Where’s my brother?”
“We found him in Kampung Naga.” Parker nodded toward the bearded man, who kept his AK leveled at Gideon. “Mr. Timken here managed to procure some aerial assets from a private contractor.”
“You carpet-bombed a village.”
“A nest of insurgents.”
“Where is my brother?”
Parker said nothing for a few moments. Something resembling regret crossed his face, and he pulled a dog tag on a chain loop from his pocket. He tossed it to Gideon, who caught it and looked at the stainless-steel wafer. Dried blood was caked between the embossed letters:
DAVIS
TILLMAN B.
231-12-2019
A POS
NO RELIGIOUS PREF
“Mr. Timken here was forced to put him down.”
A sudden anger rose up in Gideon that nearly drove him to lunge at Parker, but Timken touched his trigger, daring him to make a move. It would be suicide.
“Don’t you see, Gideon? What happened to your brother . . . it’s your fault.”
Gideon squinted, tried to make sense of Parker’s insane accusation. “My fault?”
“I sent you to the best schools, made sure you were surrounded by people who mattered. I paved the way for you to lead this nation toward security and prosperity. But you threw it all back in my face with your self-righeous nonsense, going around telling the world that this plague of terrorism was payback for our sins.”
“I never said that.”
“You keep trying to reason with evil! It’s foolish and it’s obscene. And coming from someone with your gifts, it’s dangerous. That’s why I had to bring you into this—someone had to stop you. That fool president of ours was actually starting to believe your bullshit. You can’t reason with evil. The only way to stop evil is to kill it. Tillman understood that. Till-man understood what had to be done. Until you polluted his mind.”
Parker’s face had become a mask of pure contempt as he continued. “He actually started buying into all that bullshit you kept peddling at the UN. That insipid little book of yours became a thorn in his side. After four years in Mohan, he started doubting his mission. He said we were driving our allies toward our enemy.” Parker’s voice was high and mincing and sarcastic. “‘Maybe Gideon is right,’ he said. Which frankly, made me want to puke.”
Gideon remembered finding the bloodstained copy of his book on Tillman’s nightstand in Kampung Naga. He assumed Tillman had only read the book to dismiss its contents. Instead, Gideon’s words had caused Tillman to rethink his life and to realize that he didn’t like the man he’d become. It must have been an agonizing processall¡€†, and Gideon wished he could have been there to help him through it.
“Instead of completing his mission,” Parker continued, “your brother wanted to come in from the cold and go public with every unfortunate little incident that had happened in Mohan over the years he’d been there.”
“What incidents?”
“We’re fighting a war! You ca
Parker’s usual restraint had vanished. He was animated in a way that Gideon had never seen, as if he was finally releasing a lifetime’s worth of frustration and anger that he’d kept locked inside him.
“Senator McClatchy’s got it right, but that fool president of ours has his head in the sand. Hear no evil, see no evil. No one wants to hear some gloomy old man making the same gloomy predictions about how our enemies are waiting to take us down. They all want Gideon Davis to tell them if we just reach out and give the terrorists a hug, everything will be all right.”
“If you think that’s what I’ve been saying, you haven’t been listening.”
“I’m not debating, Gideon. Not anymore. The clock is ticking. Eight hours and twenty-one minutes. And when the clock runs down, the people of the United States will see just how evil our enemies really are.”
“Except it’s not the enemy killing everyone on this rig. It’s you.”
“Not as far as the president of the United States and the rest of the world is concerned. For the purposes of this exercise, Mr. Timken is Abu Nasir, one of the most wanted insurgents in Mohan. And once this rig is destroyed, the people of the United States will wake up and realize we’re still fighting a war that ca
Parker sighed, his anger giving way to a kind of sadness. “I never questioned your patriotism, Gideon. Only your judgment. I know you meant well. But you need to be stopped. And now that you’re here, I hope you’ll find some consolation in knowing that you’ve sacrificed your life for your country.”
“And what about you?” Gideon said. “Let me guess. You’ll be the lucky one who makes it off the rig in one of those orange rescue pods.”
Gideon's War and Hard Target
“Someone needs to tell the story.” Parker shrugged. “And...
Gideon nodded toward Timken. “How do you explain him?”
“According to the records at the embassy in Mohan, I brought a bodyguard with me to the rig. His nam¡€†e was Orville Timken. We’ve got pay stubs, flight records, security camera footage, endless documentation explaining his presence on the rig.”
“And the rest of Timken’s men? Are they just collateral damage?”
“I told you, we’re done debating. The clock is ticking down, and it can’t be stopped. I wish it had turned out differently. I do. I keep thinking about those two boys back in Virginia whose father was my best friend, and I feel very sad.” He looked off into the distance for a moment. “You were like sons to me. Both of you.” Parker’s eyes welled as he looked at Gideon, as if for the last time. Then he turned to Timken and said, “Put him with the others.”