Collateral Damage (Silent Warrior) by J.L. Saint

Author:J.L. Saint [Saint, J.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781609282646
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2010-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

Roger stepped out into the hospital hallway and braced himself against the wall, barely curbing the urge to bang his head against it. What he’d almost revealed in his sleep—what really happened in Lebanon and how Neil had died—made him sick inside.

Heart racing double-time to his careening thoughts, he broke out in a cold sweat and pressed his palms to his eyes to stop the images flashing in his mind. The dead. The dying. The gravely hurt. The women. The children. His men.

All because he’d made a decision. A decision that as a commander he’d make over and over again. A decision that given the way it played out, he couldn’t seem to live with as a man.

Collateral damage was the prettied-up phrase to describe untargeted death in warfare, or more accurately, the accidental murder of innocents. Friendly fire was the palliative phrase for accidental murder by a royal fuck-up. Legally excusable murder, and both of them sat squarely on his shoulders. But that wasn’t the worst part. Every commander, every soldier realized the world wasn’t perfect and shit happened. That in any war there would be collateral damage. That in any battle friendly fire could happen. It was what he had to do every day in the aftermath of Lebanon that had him torn completely in two. Lying to the world and to the men who trusted him most.

But the only salient point—goal, objective, whatever tag the military and Presidential brass wanted to put on it—in the situation was to avoid fanning the flames of World War at all cost. A big picture that Roger agreed with as much as he disagreed with covering up of the truth. Thus his grueling state of turmoil.

His cell phone vibrated and he quickly dug it from his pocket, hoping it was Officer Cain with the news that Mari’s attacker had been apprehended or, better yet, dead. But no such luck. It was Beck, DT’s best friend and the one man Roger didn’t want to talk to at the moment but didn’t dare to avoid. Beck was the wild card that could bring the cover up down like a house of cards.

“Weston.” Roger ascertained that the hallway was empty. Just to be sure though, he kept his voice low.

Beck didn’t say anything, but then given Beck’s recent behavior the man might be too drunk to speak.

“Where are you, man?”

“Sober.”

“That’s good.”

“No, sir. That’s not so good. You see, at least drunk I can rationalize what we’re doing to DT, Rico and Pecos. Sober I can’t. Just fuck the rest of the world, sir.”

“We can’t and you know it. It will set the radicals on fire.”

“You can’t but I’m pretty damn sure I could. And in case you haven’t seen the news today, they’re already on fire. We sacrificed our souls and lied for nothing. Christ, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have never identified that Muhammad al Qassem entered the terrorist’s hideout. DT would have nailed al-Qaeda’s number two SOB from the inside anyway.

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