Mercer ignored the offer and began speaking. “My team was on a night mission in a village outside Kabul, to grab a local Taliban commander, and it all went to shit. The locals had supposedly fingered this guy and wanted to get rid of him, but it was actually a trap, and I lost two KIA and five WIA. We got out with our dead and wounded, and I wanted payback for those fucking so-called ICs who set us up.” He looked at Brodie. “That ever happen to you?”
“This is your story, Kyle, not mine.”
He nodded. “Okay, so we don’t do payback. We’re not Nazis. Right? We do surgical removal of those responsible, except we never know who that is. So I’m back at the FOB to regroup, and my squadron commander, Major Powell, asks me to speak to a Colonel Worley, and to listen to what he has to say. So, okay, I meet this guy alone in a bunker and he’s wearing civilian clothes, so he doesn’t have to show his rank, his branch insignia, or his nametag. He seems like an arrogant prick, but he’s cool as a cadaver on dry ice. And he says he’s sorry for what happened, and he says we’re not going to put up with this shit anymore. He says we are going to—get this—alter our posture, like instead of slouching, we’re gonna stand up straight. We’re gonna engage in a pacification program. He says Major Powell has agreed to this, whatever the hell this was, and that he’d like my team to lead off the program.”
Mercer seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts, or maybe erase someof them. He went on, “So I say, okay, what’s it about? But Worley doesn’t say right off. He tells me that my team and some other teams from other squadrons are going to return to this village… can’t even remember the name of it… and we’re going to pacify the village so that no other American soldiers are killed there ever again…” Mercer nodded to himself. “So, I get what he’s saying, and I get that he’s picked other teams from other squadrons that had the same shit happen to them.” He glanced at Brodie and Taylor. “He handpicked men who were pissed, and sick and tired of the fucking locals shoving it up our asses and getting away with it.”
Brodie nodded. He’d heard similar stories from old Vietnam vets about the treacherous villagers, who were probably just terrified peasants trying to survive between two armies. In ’Nam, the troops usually just satisfied themselves with burning the village, killing the livestock, and sending the population to a government-controlled area. In Afghanistan—and Iraq—there was no formal program to deal with the problem. But apparently Colonel Worley—and probably the CIA—knew how to deal with it. They were going to pacify the hell out of those villages. All they needed to go that route were pissed-off warriors. Guys who’d lost friends. Officers who’d lost men. Like Captain Mercer.
“Pacification”—one of those creepy clinical words that the military brass loves to use to make bad things sound okay. And it did sound okay, unless you were on the receiving end of the pacification.
Mercer continued, “So I spoke to my team, we met up with three other teams on the helipad, and off we went. We never worked with these guys before, and we never saw them again, but when we got to the village, it was like we all knew what to do and how to do it. A lot of anger came out… understand? Maybe a lot of guys had thought about this—like, fuck the rules of engagement, fuck the Code of Conduct, fuck the Geneva Conventions, fuck the politicians, fuck everyone who’s fucked us, and fuck everyone who’s not us.” Mercer looked into the deep jungle across the riverbank. “That’s the way it’s always been done. Since the dawn of time.” He nodded to himself. “You don’t need special training. When you’re pissed, it comes easy.”
Brodie and Taylor looked at each other, and Taylor nodded to Brodie—like,Say something, soldier.
Brodie said, “It comes easy. But it doesn’t stay easy.”
Mercer looked at him. “No. It gets harder. First time is easy. You’re pissed. Second time, not so easy.”
Brodie said, “Worley didn’t do you any favors.”
“We thought he did. Then… when I said something to him… like, we’ve had enough of this… he said something like, you went over the line, Captain, and there’s no turning back. I understood that we were all in a new brotherhood. So we get orders to go to our fourth village… and some of my men say no. They were shutting down. They lost their pride. We weren’t soldiers. We weren’t Delta Force. We were killers. So I sat, phoned Worley and told him we’re done. He says okay.”
End of story. Not quite. Brodie knew not to interrupt a confession. Lots of criminals started to think of the interview room as the confession box—except in this case, the sinner could kill his confessor. So Brodie stayed silent.
But Taylor was ready to offer absolution and redemption. She said, “When I got to Mirabad, I was sickened by what I heard. Literally sick to my stomach. But… and I’ve never told this to a soul… I was also sick to death of how we were treated by the villagers… how they took advantage of us, how they lied, how they set us up for the Taliban… and, God forgive me, a thought flashed through my mind that they got what they deserved.”
Mercer looked at her but said nothing, though he nodded.
Brodie, too, looked at her. Was this bullshit? Probably not. He’d had similar thoughts in Iraq. War is the dark angel on your shoulder that whispers bad things to you.
Mercer sat on the platform, cross-legged, and stared at the bamboo. He said, “Worley… the son of a bitch comes to my outpost by chopper, and says he needs a word with me. No surprise there. He tells me to calm down. He says my team needs some R&R and he’ll take care of that. I tell him to shove his R&R up his ass. He reminds me that I’m speaking to a colonel, and he also reminds me that if I say a word to anyone about the pacification program, I’m going to jail for the rest of my life. He tells me to think about my men. They’re going to jail too. I tell him he’s going to fucking jail if I go to jail. He also tells me—and I’m not sure I believe this—that some of my men are okay with what we’re doing, and not okay with me making a stinkabout it. He tells me to watch my dark corners and sleep with one eye open. Then he gets on the chopper and leaves.”
Brodie nodded to himself. He could almost fill in the blanks and guess why Captain Mercer deserted his post.
Taylor said to him, “If it makes any difference to you, Captain, I was similarly threatened.”
He looked at her sitting in the chair a few feet from him. “Did you keep quiet?”
“I did. And I’m sorry I did.”
“Well… I was not going to keep quiet. Not after that son of a bitch threatened me. I was going to make a full report to the JAG office, to Major Powell, and also to the CID—” He looked at Brodie and Taylor, and the irony was obviously not lost on him. He continued, “I was ready to come clean and take my punishment, because I deserved it. And I was going to give testimony in exchange for immunity for my men…” He found something funny and said, “I had a Christ complex… willing to die for the sins of others—even my guys who were ready to betray me to Worley. Jesus… what was I thinking? I was thinking Worley was the devil—the tempter—and I fell for his shit. But he didn’t fall for mine. The bastard knew I wasn’t going to keep quiet, but he tells me I’m going home. End of tour. And I’m almost believing that, so I decide to keep my mouth shut until I get stateside…” He looked at Brodie and Taylor. “I had no experience dealing with a man like Brendan Worley. I was a warrior. He was a fucking snake. Still is.”
That reminded Brodie of the fraught relationship between Maggie Taylor and Trent from the CIA. The difference, thought Brodie uncharitably, was that Maggie Taylor got laid, and Kyle Mercer got fucked.
Mercer stood with some difficulty. “The Taliban broke my ribs. And fractured my spine. So I get pain… and I think of Brendan Worley.” He let them know, “I’m going to break every bone in his fucking body.”
Brodie suggested, “Let it go at that.”
“That’s for starters.”
Taylor pointed out the obvious. “He’s still controlling you.”
Mercer ignored the obvious and said, “He’s going to pray for death, like I did.”
Brodie changed the subject by asking, “Mind if we stand?”
Mercer looked at them, thought a moment, then said, “Do I have your word as officers that you won’t try anything stupid?”
