to their micromanagement, but this one—Jesus, sir, I just don’t know what to do.”
“Not much I can do about it, General, I’m not the President anymore.”
“Yes, sir, but I had to go to somebody. Ordinarily I report directly to the SecDef, but that’s a waste of time.”
“Have you spoken with President Kealty?”
“Waste of time, sir. He’s not very interested in talking to people in uniform.”
“And I am?”
“Yes, sir. You were always somebody we could talk to.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“Sir, Sergeant Driscoll deserves a fair shake. We sent him into the mountains with a mission. The mission was not accomplished, but that wasn’t his fault. We’ve drilled a lot of dry holes there. This turned out to be just one more, but goddamn it, sir, if we send any more troops into those hills, and if we clobber this guy for doing his job, every hole we drill will be dry.”
“Okay, General, you’ve made your point. We have to support our people. Anything this guy should have done different?”
“No, sir. He’s a by-the-book soldier. Everything he did was consistent with his training and experience. The Ranger Regiment—well, they’re paid killers, maybe, but sometimes that’s a useful sort of thing to have in your bag. War is about killing. We don’t send messages. We don’t try to educate our enemies. Once we go into the field, our job is to kill them. Some people don’t like that, but that’s what we’re paid for.”
“Okay, I’ll look into this and maybe raise a little hell. What are the ground rules?”
“I brought a copy of Sergeant Driscoll’s report for you to read, along with the name of the Assistant AG who tried to ram it up my ass. Goddamn it, sir, this is a good soldier.”
“Fair enough, General. Anything else?”
“No, sir. Thanks for lunch.”
He’d had maybe one bite of his sandwich, Ryan saw. Diggs walked back out to the car.
30
THE FLIGHT was uneventful. The rollout ended, and they’d been on the aircraft for eight and a half hours when the transfer bus pulled up to the left-front door of the 777. Clark didn’t sit. He’d done enough of that to make his legs stiff. The same was true of his grandson, who looked excitedly out at his native land—he’d actually been born in the UK, but he already had a baseball and his first glove. He’d be playing T-ball in six months or so, and he’d be eating real hot dogs as an American boy was supposed to. On a roll, with mustard, and maybe some onions or relish.
“Glad to be home, baby?” Ding asked Patsy.
“I liked it over there, and I’ll miss my friends, but home is home.”
Despite urging to go on ahead from both Clark and Chavez, their wives had gotten off the plane at Heathrow, and no amount of argument had changed their minds. “We’re going home together,” Sandy had declared, firmly bringing the discussion to an end.
The Tripoli op had gone off without any significant hitches. Eight bad guys KIA with only minor injuries among the hostages. Within five minutes of Clark’s “go” to Masudi, local ambulances pulled up to the embassy to treat the hostages, most of whom were suffering from dehydration but little else. Minutes after that, the Swedish Säkerhetspolisen and Rikskriminalpolisen arrived and took charge of the embassy, and two hours after that, Rainbow was back aboard the same Piaggio P180 Avanti they’d flown in on, heading north for Taranto, then London.
The official debrief of the operation with Stanley, Weber, and the others would come later, probably via secure webcam once Clark and Chavez had settled back into life in the United States. Including them in the debrief was as much a courtesy as it was a necessity, and probably a little more of the former. He and Ding were officially separated from Rainbow, and Stanley had been right there in Tripoli, so aside from the “lessons learned” postmortem they did for each mission, Clark had little to offer the official report.
“How you feeling?” John Clark asked his wife now.
“I’ll sleep it off.” Westbound jet lag was always easier to deal with. The eastbound kind could be a killer. She stretched. Even first-class seats on British Airways had their limitations. Air travel, while convenient, is rarely good for you. “Got the passports and stuff?”
“Right here, babe,” Ding assured her, tapping his jacket pocket. J.C. must have been one of the youngest Americans ever to have a black diplomatic passport. But Ding also had his