The team was quiet on the trip back, having caught the last flight back to England-this one to Heathrow rather than Gatwick. Chavez availed himself of a glass of white wine, again sitting next to Dr. Bellow, who did the same.
“So, how’d we do, doc?”
“Why don’t you tell me, Mr. Chavez,” Bellow responded.
“For me, the stress is bleeding off. No shakes this time,” Ding replied, surprised at the fact that his hand was ready.
“`Shakes’ are entirely normal – the release of stress energy. The body has trouble letting it go and returning to normal But training attenuates that. And so does a drink,” the physician observed, sipping his own glass of a French offering.
“Anything we might have done differently?”
“I don’t think so. Perhaps if we’d gotten involved earlier we might have prevented or at least postponed the murder of the first hostage, but that’s never really under Our control.” Bellow shrugged. “No, what I’m curious about is the motivation of the terrorists in this case.”
“How so?”
“They acted in an ideological way, but their demands were – not ideological. I understand they robbed the bank along the way..”
“Correct.” He and Loiselle had looked at a canvas bag on the bank’s floor. It had been full of notes, perhaps twenty-five pounds of money. That seemed to Chavez an odd way to count money, but it was all he had. Follow-up work by the Swiss police would count it up. The after action stuff was an intelligence function, supervised by Bill Tawney. “So . . . were they just robbers?”
“Not sure.” Bellow finished off his glass, holding it up then for the stewardess to see and refill. “It doesn’t seem to make much sense at the moment, but that’s not exactly unknown in cases like this. Model was not a very good terrorist. Too much show, and not enough go. Poorly planned, poorly executed.”
“Vicious bastard,” Chavez observed.
“Sociopathic personality-more like a criminal than a terrorist. Those – the good ones, I mean – are usually more judicious.”
“What the hell is a good terrorist?”
“He’s a businessman whose business is killing people to make a political point . . . almost like advertising. They serve a larger purpose, at least in their own minds. They believe in something, but not like kids in catechism class, more like reasoned adults in Bible study. Crummy simile, I suppose, but it’s the best I have at the moment. Long day, Mr. Chavez,” Dr. Bellow concluded, while the stew topped off his glass.
Ding checked his watch. “Sure enough, doc.” And the next part, Bellow didn’t have to tell him, was the need for some sleep. Chavez hit the button to run his seat back and was unconscious in two minutes.
CHAPTER 4
AAR
Chavez and most of the rest of Team-2 woke up when the airliner touched down at Heathrow. The taxi to the gate seemed to last forever, and then they were met by police, who escorted them to the helo-pad for the flight back to Hereford. On the way through the terminal, Chavez caught the headline on an evening tabloid saying that Swiss police had dealt with a robbery-terrorist incident in the Bern Commercial Bank. It was somewhat unsatisfying that others got the credit for his successful mission, but that was the whole point of Rainbow, he reminded himself, and they’d probably get a nice thank-you letter from the Swiss government which would end up in the confidential file cabinet. The two military choppers landed on their pad, and vans took the troops to their building. It was after eleven at night now, and all the men were tired after a day that had started with the usual PT and ended with real mission stress.
It wasn’t rest time yet, though. On entering the building, they found all the swivel chairs in the bullpen arranged in a circle, with a large-screen TV to one side. Clark, Stanley, and Covington were there. It was time for the after action review, or AAR.
“Okay, people,” Clark said, as soon as they’d sat down. “Good job. All the bad guys are gone, and no good-guy casualties as part of the action. Okay, what did we do wrong?”
Paddy Connolly stood. “I used too much explosives on the rear door. Had there been a hostage immediately inside, he would have been killed,” the sergeant said honestly. “I assumed that the door frame was stouter than it actually was.” Then he shrugged. “I do not know how to correct for that.”
John thought about that. Connolly was having an attack of over-scrupulous honesty, one sure mark of a good man. He nodded and let it go. “Neither do I. What else?”
It was Tomlinson who spoke next, without standing. “Sir, we need to work on a better way to get used to the flash-bangs. I was pretty wasted when I went through the door. Good thing Louis took the first shot on the inside. Not sure I could have.”
“How about inside?”
“They worked pretty well on the subjects. The one I saw,” Tomlinson said, “was out of it.”
“Could we have taken him alive?” Clark had to ask.
“No, mon general. ” This was Sergeant Louis Loiselle. speaking emphatically. “He had his rifle in hand, and it was pointing in the direction of the hostages.” There would be no talk about shooting a gun out of a terrorist’s hands. The assumption was that the terrorist had more than one weapon, and the backup was frequently a fragmentation grenade. Loiselle’s three-round burst into the target’s head was exactly on policy for Rainbow.
“Agreed. Louis, how did you deal with the flash-bangs? You were closer than George was.”
“I have a wife,” the Frenchman replied with a smile “She screams at me all the time. Actually,” he said, when the tired chuckles subsided, “I had my hand over one ear. the other pressed against my shoulder, and my eyes closed. I also controlled the detonation,” he added. Unlike Tomlinson and the rest, he could anticipate the noise and the flash, which seemed a minor advantage, but a decisive one.
“Any other problems going in?” John asked.
“The usual,” Price said. “Lots of glass on the floor, hinders one’s footing – maybe softer soles on our boots? That would also make our steps quieter.”
Clark nodded, and saw that Stanley made a note.
“Any problems shooting?”
“No.” This was Chavez. “The interior was lighted, and so we didn’t need our NVGs. The bad guys were standing up like good targets. The shots were easy.” Price and Loiselle nodded agreement.
“Riflemen?” Clark asked.
“Couldn’t see shit from my perch,” Johnston said.
“Neither could I,” Weber said. His English was eerily perfect.
“Ding, you sent Price in first. Why?” This was Stanley. “Eddie’s a better shot, and he has more experience. I trust him a little more than I trust myself – for now,” Chavez added. “It seemed to be a simple mission all the way around. Everyone had the interior layout, and it was an easy one. I split the objective into three areas of responsibility. Two I could see. The third only had one subject in it-that was something of a guess on my part, but all of our information supported it. We had to move in fast because the principal subject, Model, was about to kill a hostage. I saw no reason to allow him to do that,” Chavez concluded.
“Anyone take issue with that?” John asked the assembled group.
“There will be times when one might have to allow a terrorist to kill a hostage,” Dr. Bellow said soberly. “It will not be pleasant, but it will occasionally be necessary.”
“Okay, doc, any observations?”
“John, we need to follow the police investigation of these subjects. Were they terrorists or robbers? We don’t know. I think we need to find out. We were not able to conduct any negotiations. In this case it probably did not matter, but in the future it will. We need more translators to work with. My language skills are not up to what we need, and I need translators who speak my language, good at nuance and stuff.” Clark saw Stanley make a note of that, too. Then he checked his watch.
“Okay. We’ll go over the videotapes tomorrow morning. For now, good job, people. Dismissed.”
Team-2 walked outside into a night that was starting to fog up. Some looked in the direction of the NCO Club, but none headed that way. Chavez walked toward his house. On opening the door, he found Patsy sitting up in front of the TV.
“Hi, honey,” Ding told his wife.
“You okay?”
Chavez managed a smile, lifting his hands and turning around. “No holes or scratches anywhere.”
“It was you on the TV-in Switzerland, I mean?”
“You know I’m not supposed to say.”
“Ding, I’ve known what Daddy does since I was twelve,” Dr. Patricia Chavez, M.D., pointed out. “You know, Secret Agent Man, just like you.”