Identity Crisis by Warren Murphy

Author:Warren Murphy [Warren Murphy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Chiun (Fictitious character) --Fiction., Williams, Remo (Fictitious character) --Fiction.
ISBN: 9781035999408
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter Eighteen

It was mission creep at its worst.

Winston Smith had no problem with the primary mission. He just wondered what took the Pentagon so long to get around to authorizing it.

Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin was a penny-ante clan leader and arms merchant in the divided Horn of Africa nation of Stomique until the UN relief mission blew into North Nog–as the Stomique regional capital of Nogongog was called–to set up what started as a people-feeding operation and mission–and crept its way to a nation-building debacle.

When the UN tanks rolled ashore, Warlord Anin dug out his one Western suit and welcomed them with open arms. It was good PR. It got his beaming face on CNN and made him instantly the most recognizable Stomique citizen in human history.

But when the UN command didn’t anoint Warlord Anin as the natural unifier of Stomique, he ordered hit-and-run attacks on UN peacekeeping forces. Anin made the mistake of not keeping the chain of deniability intact, and the next thing Anin knew he was wanted by UNOSOM for ambushing a French UN contingent.

That was when the U.S. Rangers rolled in. And speedily got their tails shot up.

Navy SEAL Winston Smith had a ringside seat to it all. SEAL Team Six had been sent in, disguised as Army grunts to reconnoiter the situation. In the rabbit warren of North Nog, there was no finding Warlord Anin.

Smith personally witnessed the multimillion-dollar Blackhawk helicopter brought down by a two-hundred-dollar Soviet-remaindered RPG while riding shotgun on a Humvee down Mission Support Road Tiger. His team was among the first on the scene. They got their tails shot up, too. But they fought their way through the sea of Stomique civilians and pulled the dead and wounded to safety, except for the one guy they missed.

When his face hit the covers of Time and Newsweek, the ball game changed. The public gasped. The President choked. And the Pentagon went into severe reverse mission creep.

Even a year later Winston Smith had a hard time believing how chicken-shit Washington had turned.

Anin was small potatoes. A grinning thug. One lucky shot, and he was dubbed The Strongman Who Made The U.S. Back Down.

The U.S. had never backed down. Just the wusses in Washington. Word came down from on high. A deal was struck, and the hostage was freed. The wanted posters on Anin came down, too. Within months the relief-mission-turned-nation-building operation fizzled out, and Mahout Feroze Anin, labeled victorious over the rest of civilization, became de facto ruler of Stomique, which promptly reverted to anarchy.

Winston Smith’s blood boiled every day for a month as it all played out.

After that he suggested the UN motto become You Lose Some And You Don’t Win Others.

His XO told him to shut up. “Six’s time will come.”

A year later it did.

“Winner, you’re the man for this job.”

He didn’t know the job. But he was twenty and full of confidence so he said, “I’m the man for every job.”

“Maybe. But you’re really the man for this job. Word from on high is to take out Anin.

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