Kurtzman’s craggy brow furrowed. “So you’re going to join Shield.”
“They’re independent contractors,” Bolan said. “It’s probably the only cover I can use to poke around.”
“They’ve got a waiting list a mile long,” Kurtzman argued. “They’ve got Special Forces guys from all over the world taking early retirement just to join up.”
Bolan nodded. “I know, so I’m going to need a guy they would kill to have join them and then piggyback my way in.”
Kurtzman perked an eyebrow. “You have someone in mind.”
Bolan grinned. “Indeed I do.”
BRIGADIER EUGENE TOLER PEERED at Lieutenant Dirk’s fist somewhat apprehensively. He sighed, rolled his eyes and then shook his head at Bolan. “Mr. Cooper, are we sure this is absolutely necessary?”
Bolan didn’t blame the English officer one bit. The lieutenant’s fists, like a lot of things about him, were oversized for his frame. “I’m afraid so, sir.”
Captain Fairfax stood to one side shaking his head. He had been in Special Forces for decades, and nothing had ever prepared him for the utter surrealty of this situation, much less the fact that he was about to lose his best officer.
Dirk took a deep breath, and his knuckles creaked and popped as he balled up the soup bones. He looked at his hand as if it didn’t belong to him and then at the brigadier. “You ready, sir?”
“Well…right!” The brigadier squared his shoulders, thrust out his jaw, straightened the front of his battle dress uniform and, like English officers and gentlemen since time immemorial, found refuge in Shakespeare. “‘Lay on, McDuff.’”
It was a beauty of a whistling right hook. Brigadier Toler was a big man, but his head whiplashed on his neck as he flew back across the folding table behind him. It wasn’t an act. The folding table collapsed beneath him, and he, his computer, monitor and everything else on his desk hit the floor with a tremendous crash.
Dirk’s voice boomed out at parade-ground volume. “You limey son of a bitch! Good men died because of you!”
“Goddamn it, Lieutenant!” Fairfax bawled. “What in the blue hell do you think you’re doing?”
Toler pushed himself to a sitting position in the wreckage and matched Dirk and Fairfax decibel for decibel. “Mr. Pitt!”
Toler’s aide-de-camp peeked his head in and stared in horror.
“Mr. Pitt!” The brigadier pointed a damning finger at Dirk. “Place that man under arrest!”
“Sir!” The bookish young man visibly braced himself. “Guards!”
“Lieutenant Dirk is an American officer and can only be confined or charged by a U.S. military order!” Fairfax snarled.
“That man serves under NATO Afghanistan Coalition Command, and by God, I’ll see him tried and court-martialed under its bloody aegis!”
Bolan didn’t feel the need to add anything. It was all rolling along very nicely.
Pitt’s voice rose a panicked octave. “Guards…”
It was Fairfax’s turn to be outraged. “You can’t do this!”
“I can and will!” Toler thundered.
“Guards…”
British soldiers with the scarlet-peaked caps of the Royal Military Police came charging into the tent. Toler lurched to his feet. A magnificent shiner was inflating all around his left eye. “Guards! The American lieutenant has just struck a superior officer! Put him under close arrest!”
The MPs’ faces went from surprise to bloodred rage. A Yank had taken a poke at one of their officers. Truncheons rattled out of their sheaths.
Fairfax took a step forward. “By God! If you think—”
Toler roared like a wounded lion. “If the captain opens his bleeding gob again, clap him in irons for obstruction!”
Dirk beckoned the brigadier in. “Oh, you want some more of this? You limey mother—”
The Redcaps dived into Dirk. Dirk disposed of one with a hip throw and staggered one with a right hand before he took a truncheon thrust to the guts and the other two RMPs dived into his legs. Pitt couldn’t have weighed more than 115 pounds dripping wet, but the brigadier’s aide hurled himself into the fray with the enthusiasm and fury of wounded national pride.
The fight went to the ground and became a wrestling match. Dirk was a Special Forces soldier in prime physical condition, but taking down soldiers was what the RMPs were trained to do and numbers and weight told their ugly tale. The Redcaps inexorably got the upper hand, as well as an arm and ankle lock. Then the truncheons began falling on Dirk like rain. They continued to fall until he stopped moving. The Redcaps snapped on the handcuffs and kept Dirk pinned while Brigadier Toler’s aide stood. The young man was shaking with adrenaline reaction, and his broken nose hung on his face like a flattened squid. “Prisoner is secure, sir!”
“Very good, Mr. Pitt. Have him placed in the brig and confined in full restraints. Once he’s properly shackled, fetch a medic around to have a look at him.”
“Yes, sir!”
Captain Fairfax’s face was ashen. “This is intolerable. That man is an American officer!”
“That man will require a lawyer.” Toler’s voice dropped to reptilian coldness. “As his commanding officer, I suggest it is your immediate duty to see to it.”
U.S. military stockade, Kabul
BOLAN WALKED INTO THE CELL and handed Lieutenant Dirk a short, two-page document. “Here you go.”
Dirk took the paper. The Redcaps hadn’t been gentle. His face was lumped as though he’d been attacked by a swarm of Alaskan mosquitoes. He quickly read the first page and flipped to the second and looked at the signatures and seals. “Jesus, I really am eatin’ the big chicken dinner.”
Bolan smiled. “You want salt with that?”
Dirk rolled his eyes ruefully. The big chicken dinner was U.S. military slang for a bad-conduct discharge. Dirk had dodged the bullet. The fix had been put in, but not everyone was in on it. There had been a chance the court-martial could have gone wrong and Dirk could have gotten the full dishonorable discharge. That was something that followed a man around like a pet for the rest of his life. A dishonorable discharge was one of the few stigmas left in American life that was like the mark of Cain. The United States Military was an all-volunteer organization. A person had to want to join up. To be dishonorably discharged implied that you had dishonored your country and the service. Nearly every application for employment in the United States first asked if you had ever served in the United States armed forces and if you had been honorably or dishonorably discharged. Given a choice, it seemed as if most employers would rather hire a thief, a murderer or a pedophile before they would give a job to a man with a dishonorable discharge hanging over his head.
The good news was that despite Brigadier Toler’s highly credible Old Testament thunder, the United States would not let its soldiers be tried by foreign military tribunals whether or not they had the NATO or United Nations stamp of approval. The court-martial had been one of the swiftest ones in recent history. The reasons for the lieutenant’s actions were considered top secret. Mission information leading up to the incident had been redacted. His two Silver Stars for conspicuous bravery had been mentioned early and often, as was the fact that while Brigadier Toler may well have been a superior officer, he was but an officer in the service