The Towers (45 page)

“What about hot pursuit?” Dan asked. “Isn't that legal doctrine?”

The JAG said, “That generally pertains to the law of the sea.”

“What's the difference?”

“Well, in general terms, any objection to hot pursuit at sea will be much weaker, since you're not actually infringing on the sovereign territory of another state.”

Dan wished he'd known this when he'd been skipper of USS
Horn,
sweating their trespass into Egyptian territorial waters. But the JAG was still talking. “It's not a generally recognized doctrine when you're incursing across a land border. Which is why we couldn't use it in Cambodia. For example. Now, we just got UN Resolution 1373. That speaks to the issue of state sovereignty. A government has an obligation not to allow its territory to be used by terrorists. That's what we'd use to request him back. From Pakistan.”

“Request him
back
?” Provanzano said.

“Extradite him.”

“We don't want to extradite this guy,” Dan said, suddenly disgusted. “Get real.”

“The alternative's to let Pakistan try him in their courts.”

“That can't be the only alternative,” Dan said. “Not to get personal here, but he killed three thousand US citizens. You don't let a guy like that … you don't
extradite
him.”

“Hear, hear,” said Provanzano, clapping theatrically. “On the other hand, we're building this whole antiterror coalition around getting him. If we do nail him, how do we retain that momentum?”

Dan stared, not sure anyone could actually mean what the agent had just intimated. “You're saying we—what? Let him go?”

Provanzano chuckled. “Down, boy! Just thinking out loud. Best case: We locate his bunker tomorrow and either you or the Air Force turn it into dust and hamburger. All we're discussing is the goal-line play, if we don't.”

Faulcon cleared his throat and the others fell silent. Not looking at the JAG, he said, “So these would be black missions. Never acknowledged. Never admitted.”

The legal officer looked at the tent overhead. “If there's a clash with Pakistani special forces?”

“Our men lost their way. We apologize.”

Provanzano said, “We execute the stop plan with SEALs and SBS teams, cross-border if necessary. We don't tell the SecDef or Pakistan. No one knows they're there. If they get him in Pakistani territory?”

The JAG said carefully, “It would be better if the body was found on this side of the border.”

“Thanks for coming by, Tony. Nice meeting you, Dan.” Faulcon nodded curtly, turning back to his screen. “The J-3, please,” he said into the intercom; then, to them, “That'll be all.”

*   *   *

“THAT
went as well as we could have expected,” the CIA man said as they walked back toward the intel tent.

Dan didn't answer. He was still trying to figure out what the agent had meant about bin Laden's capture harming the coalition. Wasn't that what going into Afghanistan was all about?

“You look pensive.”

“Just tired.”

“You must be used to missing sleep. At sea, and so forth.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn't get easier.”

“I'm sure. Which brings up something I wanted to sort of confab about.”

“What's that?”

“In private.”

Private
turned out to be a sharp right turn toward the airstrip. Dan snugged up his field jacket against a chill wind, even though it was a sunny afternoon. He followed past rows of smaller tents and newly arrived containers being unloaded by a working party. A man in a black motorcycle jacket sauntered some distance behind them. Belote? Following them? Provanzano hiked without speaking for some minutes. A transport came in, hovered, touched down. The howl and roar swelled and faded.

They walked across empty ground, dried grass crunching under their boots. Dan wondered about mines. He was about to say something when they came to an abandoned revetment, or maybe an antiair position. A U-shaped earthen berm covered with more dried grass and stunted bushes. Provanzano sighed. He perched his ass on the slope of the middle berm, the bottom of the U. Reached behind a bush and came out with a bottle. “Want a drink? Just joking. I know you're not the type.”

“Not for quite a while.” Dan looked around, wondering where Belote had gone. He couldn't see him anymore.

“I admire that. It does help lubricate the occasion, though. Sure?”

“What did you want, Tony?”

But he wasn't going to be rushed. He screwed off the cap and took a swig, gazing off toward the mountains, over which heavy clouds hovered as if caught by hooks. Cutty Sark. Despite himself, Dan remembered the burn. The first swallow.

“Beautiful country, isn't it?”

“Haven't seen much of it.”

“This part of the world is where empires go to die. I don't want us to be the next one.”

“I doubt anybody does.”

“You'd be wrong. We're gonna get seduced in here, just like
he
wants. It may go okay for a while, but then it's going to turn ugly. We can blow shit to pieces, but we can't fix this country. Or even hold it. Like I said: where empires go to die.”

Dan stood hugging himself. “Get him, and get out.”

“I hope we can. But he's not the only bad guy out here.”

Dan started to speak; Provanzano waved him into quiet. “We're tasked to go after threats to the United States wherever they exist. And since 9/11, all of a sudden, our funding in that area's unlimited.

“Now, you've been passed over for captain. But we have quite a few former Navy people in our organization. You could be filling a seat with a lot more responsibility than the typical captain gets. A
lot
more. Let's get specific. I'm referring to a program like CIRCE, but more ambitious. I'm going DCI special compartmented now, okay? Our goal is to monitor every communication within the continental United States.”

“Within the country? I don't think that's legal,” Dan said.

“You don't think we do domestic surveillance?”

“I didn't say you didn't do it. I said I didn't think it was constitutional.”

“What did you just say to Faulcon?”

“What?”

Provanzano repeated, “What did you just say? About how bin Laden killed three thousand Americans. Zircon Prime will prevent another 9/11. Use technology to spot terrorists inside the country, before they strike. And that's only the beginning. Big changes coming down the pike, my friend.
Big
. We'll get you Navy orders until your official Navy retirement date. Then transition you to FS status.”

“But I don't want to work for you,” Dan said. “I don't want to be part of expanding domestic surveillance. Or of anything else you do, actually.”

Provanzano took another swig, frowning. An executive-style jet whistled overhead, touched down with a squeal of tires. “I'd hoped you'd grown beyond that attitude, Dan. Every institution has the imperative to grow itself. There isn't one that doesn't. The army. The navy. The church.”

“The post office.”

The bottle paused halfway to Provanzano's lips. “You fucking with me, Commander?”

“Just pointing out not every human institution is corrupt.”

“
Corrupt
is a harsh word.”

“Give me another, I'll use it.”

“Okay, I'll give you another.
Realpolitik.
We need to be smart across the spectrum. The wave of the future will be asymmetrical threat. We want to
be
that threat. For Al Qaeda. And others who want to bring us down. That line's got to be drawn.”

“Absolutely. But spying on your own citizens? There are certain things that aren't right.”

“Even if it means more Americans will die?”

“Yes,” Dan said. “Even then. A lot of us have died for our liberty before.”

“Liberty. You think Americans still care about
liberty
? I think they'd much rather have security. Don't you?”

“I don't think they do.”

“Then you're a dinosaur. This isn't 1776. Or even 1940. Protecting America isn't just about ships with guns on them. Or maybe the Navy thinks it's purer than the rest of us?”

Dan considered this. He'd asked himself this question over the years, in many different ways. “I think in some ways, yes. You learn at sea that falsehood kills. That means truth is absolute. Not relative. Duty's absolute. Honor's absolute too. Don't smile. Yeah, I used the H-word.”

“Couldn't help it. Sorry. What else?”

“And you learn … you're all in the same boat. You take care of your shipmates. And they take care of you.”

Dan paused, reaching for something bigger. Wiser. Something he was still trying to put into words. But maybe that was the problem. No matter how hard you tried, the things that really mattered wouldn't go into words.

The CIA officer leaned back on the embankment. He'd found a scrap of jagged steel, a piece of shrapnel, perhaps, and was tossing it in a palm. “Well, that might be true at sea. But in politics? Just not realistic. Hey, ask your wife! Let me quote Horace Walpole: ‘No great country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go to the lengths that may be necessary.'”

“I understand that,” Dan said. “And I didn't mean we don't need intelligence. Just like we need armed force. But you can't trade freedom for security. Or actually, the illusion of security.”

“They'll be happy to make the trade,” Provanzano said. “And they'll thank us for it.”

Dan cleared his throat and turned away; licked dry lips, trying to lubricate them. He kept thinking about all those years at sea. The dreams that hadn't come true. He'd always thought his duty wasn't to make war, but to prevent it. Now they faced an enemy that could never be vanquished. A war that would last forever and change America into something it had never been. That those who founded it had meant it
not
to be. He was overcome abruptly with such weariness he almost collapsed into the dead grass.

Maybe Provanzano was right. Maybe he was a dinosaur. But “the lengths that may be necessary” … he could only come up with a German phrase he'd heard somewhere once:
Ohne mich
.

“Without me,” he said.

The CIA man waited, eyebrows raised. “So what'll you do, then? When you get out?”

“I don't know.” Dan shivered. He hugged himself against a chill that penetrated flesh, bone, into the heart. So the world wasn't what he'd hoped it was. Maybe it wasn't possible, to always make the right choice.

But sometimes it was possible to avoid the wrong one. He cleared his throat again and spat into the dust. “See you around the compound.”

“Oh, you will,” the civilian said, smiling to himself. Reaching again for the bottle. “You will.”

 

22

Tora Bora

INSTEAD
of holding their position they were relieved before dawn by solid-looking troops in Flecktarn and field caps and here and there a maroon beret. The KSK, German Special Forces. Verstegen and Teddy held a short confab with their cadre, then pulled out. They trudged back toward the extract point, slipping and staggering, clumsy with fatigue and lack of sleep. The SBS, which had held their left flank during the night, was headed down into the cauldron. They'd help the Green Berets stiffen the Alliance forces, who seemed disinclined to press the attack. Echo was being pulled back. Verstegen seemed disinclined to talk. He didn't meet Teddy's eyes.

“You okay, sir?”

“Sure. Sure, Chief.”

Dollhard's death still eating at him. Well, he'd get over it. “Back to Camp Jaguar, L-T?” Teddy asked him.

“Not at the moment. Hold at the LZ on one-hour notice. They're flying in resupply. Find out what the guys need and I'll have Wasiakowski radio it in.”

Actually Teddy's job, but Verstegen seemed to be leaning on the Echo One squad leader. Okay by him; he'd rather be tactical than get tied down in loggies. They hit the stream again. It felt good going downhill. He stepped off the trail and as each man went past asked how he was doing, what he needed. He caught each man's smell as he went by. An empty canteen bobbed with a hollow
pook
. There was a run on batteries and 5.56 ammo, but not one man had used a grenade.

The sun was coming over the ridges when they got to the LZ. He put three guys out on security. Everyone else dropped his gear. Men leaned back to shrug off rucks, then collapsed. They broke out smokes or chews and started PMSing weapons. Teddy got out another MRE and wolfed through a package of sticky-sweet pineapple, suddenly ravenous. As soon as he was done, the helo arrived with thermos containers of hot hash and eggs. He ate two platefuls and had a truly wonderful, blazing-hot cup of coffee. He loosened his belt and lay back on his ruck, ankles crossed, watching the sun creep across the rocks. Musing on how torn up his boots looked. Making sure his rifle was still handy, of course. The jagged, nearly vertical peaks towered up all around them, and the scrub pines would be perfect cover for a sniper.

At 1035 word came on the command channel. Return to Jaguar. The men stirred and bitched, but without venom. Teddy figured they'd be back soon enough; judging by the pace of things in the valley, this wasn't going to be over soon. He sent two men to check out a rise that had begun to worry him, but they waved back an all-clear when they reached the top and squatted in the brush, disappearing as soon as they lowered themselves below the horizon line.

The flight back. He sat twisted on the nylon seat looking out the tail ramp. A frigid wind blasted through the gunners' doors, down the two lines of SEALs, out the back. A real freeze locker. But it wasn't hard to fall into a doze. Then suddenly Mud Cat was shaking him and the bird was pitching up and the frame jolted and bounced. He lurched to his feet, every muscle protesting, and filed out.