News From the Red Desert (34 page)

“Is that the first time you've used that line?”

“No. But it's the first time for publication, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Just wondering. So you keep track?”

“Of what I've been quoted saying?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I do.”

The intelligence on the Taliban they had ambushed in the night was that they had been followed by drone for three days, right until the ambush itself. The entire operation was monitored and, though the soldiers
in the field did not know this, it was played, real time, during a briefing for the secretary of defense in Washington. Normally the military was careful with letting civilians see live performances because, as per General Lattice, war is chaos and there is never any predicting what exactly might happen.

But over the last several months, the secretary of defense had been growing skeptical about the daily successes the Pentagon described, and the generals could tell that he perceived that they carefully edited the information and the videos they shared with him and with the public both. This ambush was picked to air live because it was expected to be very successful and because General Lattice was there, and Lattice had supporters within the secretary's office who had lobbied hard to resist what appeared to be Jeremy Jackson's inevitable elevation to head of CENTCOM. Jackson was one of only a few senior officers who publicly questioned the elevated status of the SF. But these days, the regular army did not know how to find the Taliban and Lattice had come to be known as the effective commander he was. When Lieutenant Colonel Matheson took that bullet to the chest, the public affairs guys leapt back in their chairs, mortified. The last seventy SF operations in a row had resulted in no friendly casualties at all. None of them had seen an American shot before. In any context.

As they watched, though, through narrowed and frightened eyes, they saw Lattice leaping into action and taking charge of the operation. In that room, he had more detractors than enthusiasts, but at that moment he was only admired.

Emails began circulating after those who were watching the video feed filed out of the room. BlackBerries and iPhones vibrated and chirped. People who moved in these circles were saddened to learn of Matheson's shooting and were very nearly as interested in the abrupt rise in status that General Lattice had just enjoyed.

Now, twelve hours later, everyone in the department of defense knew that an SF colonel, one who had been picked out for accelerated career progression, had been shot in an ambush staged by General Lattice for the secretary of defense. And that the secretary had finally made up
his mind about Lattice and had instructed his staff to start getting him ready for the CENTCOM job. Which would probably lead to chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The buzz about this in Washington was like cicadas on a hot summer night.

Lattice led the men to the compound where the Taliban they'd killed had spent their last night. Deirdre watched as the men kicked in the door and pulled every occupant out, man, woman and child. The children shrieked, the women raged and the men were seethingly compliant. They had been eating their midday meal.

The general asked in Pashto, over and over again, “Where are the Taliban? Where are your weapons?”

Nothing was admitted: they did not know any Taliban, they had no weapons. There were twelve young men here. Cousins, the patriarch said, who had come for a family wedding. No gunpowder residue on their hands, no English, no papers, no evidence one way or the other about who they really were. Lattice lined them up, facing the wall of the compound and had their wrists zap strapped.

In Pashto, he said, “I can show you videotape of the Taliban leaving your compound yesterday morning. I can show you videotape of them killing one of my oldest friends. I will take you back to the Special Forces compound in Kandahar and I can show you the tapes.”

The old man's eyes grew wide at that. He shook his head. Deirdre's digital recorder was still turned on in her pocket, though she had not announced that.

Lattice's satphone buzzed. He stopped to answer it. “What? Oh, no. When? Has anyone called Lisa? I should, I think. I can do that from here. Who does SF have in the area, who can go see her? Yes, I know a chaplain will visit her. That's not what I'm asking. Well, find out. You have two hours. No, I have Lisa's number. Is her mother still living in Phoenix?”

And then he turned back to the soldiers. They had heard the conversation and knew what news had been relayed. Their faces sagged with
fatigue and grief. One of the youngest among them started leaking tears down his face.

Sergeant Foscart, who was standing at the end of the line of men facing the wall, went white. He went down on one knee, and began punching the ground. Deirdre looked at him. This was not the kind of bond she had known in any other unit in Iraq or Afghanistan. She was ashamed that she was taping it without anyone's permission. Sergeant Foscart's grief was agony to watch, but she could not look away.

Which is why it was her eyes he locked on as he stood and lifted his M-4 to his shoulder and aimed at the head of the last man in line. And when that man fell, the man next to him did, too, and then three at a time after that, then four, then two. Twelve men with bullets in their brains in 3.2 seconds and then his magazine was empty and General Lattice was striding across the compound and lifting his own rifle to butt stroke Sergeant Foscart in the head and Foscart fell to the ground, face first. “Right in front of the fucking
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—are you insane?”

This struck Deirdre, even at the time, as unfortunate phrasing.

“The helicopter will be here in fifteen minutes,” General Lattice said, woodenly, to Deirdre.

“For Foscart?”

“And you, if you want. But you can't talk to him.”

“I'd prefer to stay here, if that is possible.”

“Because I said you couldn't talk to him?”

“Because this is still where the story is.”

The general looked her in the eye. And he nodded. He walked away. She watched Foscart, standing with his wrists strapped behind his back, his weapons stripped from him: holster empty, grenades piled on the ground a hundred yards away, rifle leaning on top of them. Belt knife on it. Folding knife on the belt knife. It was beginning to dawn upon him just how far up the shit he was. None of the soldiers looked him in the eye. They knew him intimately, all had had their asses saved by him
a dozen times, and most of them thought that they could equally have done what he did in the moment they learned of the colonel's death.

It was frightening to think about. Like standing on top of the Chrysler building the first time. For an instant, everyone wants to jump. Difference being, in war people do, because that is what war is. It is the dismantling of barriers. Point your weapon at a moving object and fire before you can even think about it. And if you're in harm's way, stopping to think about it means he shoots first.

Passion is the least important aspect of soldiering, once it stops being make-believe. In the imaginary version of it, it is Friday Night Football, under the lights, all determination and resolve and secondary effort. But passion in football is safe because the range of possible outcomes is so contained. You can take the eight yards you got with the catch. Or, with every bit of strength and ferocity available to you, you might be able to stretch it to a first down.

What you want in combat is no passion at all. The forward air controller needs to describe exactly what he sees and no more than that. If the target is not clearly legitimate it will end up being illegitimate and then someone is screaming “Bad kill.” The pilot lining up for the 30-mm shot needs to identify the target dispassionately, and do his situation assessment precisely and needs to do this in an unhurried way with a maximum of precision and a minimum of anything else.

Foscart felt passion: grief and love for his comrade and pain and indignation at his murder. He gave way to it and destroyed his own life. And since there was no saying whether those men were even Taliban—for what?