a punch that had emptied the benches and become a brawl. Bad.
So Alan got several of the officers from both units together and badgered them into eating their MREs in the same tent—it was lunch, and partway through one of the Italians produced some wine—and, when a shouting match broke out, he got the doctor to calm down enough to snarl that they, the Kenyans, were catching hell from the Serbs, who were just over the newly drawn border two miles away, and the Italians were doing nothing to stop it.
“We can’t do anything to stop it, you cretin!” the Italian screamed. Alan translated this as “We do everything we can, sir.” The Kenyan hollered, “You were afraid in 1942 and you’re afraid now!” which Alan didn’t translate at all. Another Kenyan, a senior surgeon named wa Danio, shook a finger at the Italians and told them that it was the civilians, the civilians over there, they were being tortured, maimed, massacred, and the Italians were doing nothing. The senior Italian, Captain Gagliano, threw up his hands and said, “Nothing, nothing—there is nothing we can do! Anyway, we are leaving.” After lunch, Doctor wa Danio insisted that Alan come with him to the ward, where he showed him an old man who had had his feet cut off with an axe and who had crawled the three miles to the Kenyan unit.
“You know, Lieutenant, we Africans are supposed to be uncivilized, but this is a horror. This is not stupid men swinging pangas; this is deliberate, organized hell. The Italians think we are savages, but we know those bastards over there are monsters!” He showed Alan a woman who had been gang-raped and beaten. A child with one hand, the other lost when he had tried to keep his already wounded father from being beheaded. Alan had a child. He felt sick, then thought what it would be like to sit here week after week, helpless to stop it …
So Alan went down the mountain. On the way down, he figured how it could be done. A warning bell rang in his head but he turned it off, paid no attention, and instead he listened to an inner voice that said, Okay, Suter, you want liaison and intelligence support and acquisition. I’ll give it to you, right up the nose.
He told Murch that the problem up there was not language or jokes or nationalities, it was frustration, fighting men and medical personnel who were frustrated and angry and unappreciated. They wanted to go in and make one hit on the Bosnian Serbs who were committing the atrocities before they were pulled out.
“We can’t go in there,” Murch said. “We’re protectors. Not aggressors.” Murch’s mouth seemed to lose some of its muscle: he was afraid.
“They say there was US armor up there a week ago and it got turned back.”
“Mm, yeah, all the women and kids in a Serb village blocked the road, lay down in front of a tank—they’re fanatical up there. Leave it.”
“Going in to get war criminals would be allowed.”
“I’m not at all sure of that, and we don’t know anything about war criminals over there.”
“The Kenyans say that they know for certain of a house ten miles in that serves as a command center for the butchery. They say it’s used for torture. Everybody knows it, they say.”
“Oh, Christ, Alan, ‘everybody—’” He was afraid of his place, his next evaluation, his career. Fuck him.
“Look, the Italians are good guys and they’re hot to trot. They’ve been sitting up there for two months and their hands have been tied and they’ve had to watch—to watch—while civilians get slaughtered, because of this phony ‘border.’ They want to do something.”
“We all want to do something. Alan, there’s nothing—”
“Yes, there is.” He was feeling pretty good, still. He thought he’d start to sink, but he hadn’t. It was two in the afternoon; he felt really good. Not wired, but charged. “Hit that two-bit torture center in Pustarla.”
“We can’t do that! Al, look, you’re exhausted, you’re not thinking clearly—”
“If we have intelligence that the house is a center for war crimes, we can go in and hit it. In and out.”
“I don’t have the authority.” Murch’s face got stiff. “Canada prides herself on not involving UNPROFOR ground forces.” His voice became pleading. “We’re out of here! IFOR has the responsibility now!”
“UNPROFOR hit Udbina and took out the airfield! UNPROFOR used artillery in Sarajevo! What the fuck, you’re making noise about a goddam hit on one house?”
“Udbina was part of Deny Flight. Alan, please! Go see IFOR.”
They both knew that was bullshit. IFOR command was back in Sarajevo, and they’d say it was an UNPROFOR problem, because weren’t the Italians and the Kenyans the remnant of UNPROFOR? “The Italians are fed up. Their colonel might say no, but he’s taking a few days R and R in Dubrovnik. A company-level hit, that’s all they want. We’d need choppers; I think two would do it.” He was thinking of his own experience, of being pulled out of a firefight by two marine helos. Of course, these guys wouldn’t be US marines. And Alan wouldn’t have his wife in command of the choppers this time. “Who’s got big choppers? You guys have two brand-new Griffons. No? I’ll check the order of battle.”
“Alan—we don’t have the intelligence!”
Alan stared at him, saw a man who wasn’t fed up with bullshit yet, maybe wanted to dedicate his life to bullshit. Why had he thought he liked this guy? He went to the outer office and got the package of photos he’d brought in that morning—all photos that had already passed through his hands once—and pulled a couple and went back to Murch, got a grease pencil, and began to make small circles.
“What the hell is that?”
“This is intelligence.”
Murch leaned in close. “Fuck, man—”
“I could do better with a stereo magnifier.”
Murch provided one. In fifteen minutes, Alan had marked the house that they said was a torture center, five “suspected grave sites,” an outbuilding that the Kenyans’ patients told them was a torture chamber. “Crematorium,” he said, circling something with a chimney.
“Aw, shit—!”
“You been there?”
“No, but—”
“It’s as good as the crap the CIA gives the President.” He handed the photos to Murch. “Copies to whoever has to okay the choppers, plus the Italians, plus me, plus the chopper crews; give us blowups of the house and surroundings. You got a problem?”
Murch shook his head. “Man, you’re something else.” He looked as if he might cry.
“You asked for me.” He was checking the order of battle. “The French have five Pumas; they’re pretty ballsy—they picked those SAS guys out of Gorazde.”
It turned out that Murch wasn’t such a bad guy, after all: he said, “Don’t ask the French.” Alan stared at him. The French had been part of UNPROFOR, were now in IFOR, but a different sector. What was wrong? Murch dropped his voice to almost a whisper. “Just don’t ask the French right now, okay?” The two intel officers looked at each other.
Problem—he means there’s a problem. Leak?
