The Consignment Read Online Free PDF

from the Iraqis, four grunts were killed but there were no identifiable remains. Our ordnance guys did some forensics on the wreckage. Their conclusion was checked, rechecked, then finally buried in some obscure Pentagon file while the U.S. Army set about the more urgent business of getting a few hundred thousand battle-weary troops back home. But I knew. And my fellow officers, including Dimitri, all knew. The missile that had taken out our men came from one of the biggest and best arms manufacturers in the world. It was top-quality product, made in the U.S.A. It wasn’t just Iraq we were fighting out there in the Gulf. The truth is, we were joined in battle against the weapons of every major arms-manufacturing country on earth, including our own. On our return home, Dimitri and I visited the bereaved families of those four men to offer what solace we could. Brave sons, killed in the line of duty. Death instantaneous. No suffering. One mother refused to let us into her house, but mostly there was a stoic acceptance from the families that was humbling, and which I recalled often during the weeks of flag-waving and welcome-home parades that followed. I wrote a letter to Channon, the only senior figure I knew at Intelligence down in the Pentagon at the time, berating the folly of trading our weapons into the hands of our enemies. He was kind enough to phone me. He assured me he sympathized, and that my concerns were widely shared down in Washington, and he told me why nothing could be done. When I cornered him in his West Point office years later, and pleaded with him to open a door for me back into active service, that earlier memory must have been stirred.
    He summoned me down to Washington in October, put Hawkeye before me, and told me the operation needed one other operative, a second make-believe arms salesman. The first person who occurred to me was Dimitri. As cadets at the Point we’d been close, then we’d served together in the Rangers. Back then Dimitri had been more than just a supremely good soldier, he’d been a friend. I’d seen him through the collapse of his marriage, watched as the emotional impact of that rupture finally killed his gambling habit, and I’d listened a year later to his self-lacerating admission that he had only himself to blame for the loss of his family. That was when he told me he was trying out for Delta. He’d totally screwed up his personal life, he knew that. From that point on his professional life meant everything to him. He hadn’t succeeded as a husband or father, but as a soldier he knew he could be one of the best. When Delta Force took him in, he proved it. He accumulated medals and battle honors from missions all over the world, his reputation in Delta was second to none, even in the ranks of the elite he stood out.
    I used to hear about him, though my contact with Dimitri during those Delta years was intermittent. Most Delta operatives tend to stick with their own. But the summer prior to 9/11 he’d called to tell me that his operational career had come to an unexpected end. He’d taken a bullet in the shoulder during some mission down in Colombia, his shattered collarbone had to be pinned. It hadn’t healed well enough to go back on active service immediately, and he told me that if it didn’t improve fast, Delta was going to offer him a place as an OTC, an Operators Training Course instructor. He said he was going to turn the offer down. He’d thought about approaching the CIA to offer his services, he told me if they didn’t want him, he’d try his luck in the real world. The timing seemed fortuitous. I called him in October, he thought about it for a week, then signed up for Hawkeye.
    “Ned.” Now Channon lifted a finger warily. “Do you promise me you didn’t know Dimitri was screwing around like that?”
    I gave him my word that I hadn’t known. Channon studied me, and finally nodded to himself. I asked if the IRS was tailing me. He conceded that it was