The Valley Read Online Free Page B

base.
    He stopped short when he got to REASON FOR INVESTIGATION. He looked up at Gayley, confused.
    â€œA
warning
shot, sir?”
    â€œWhole new war, Lieutenant.”
    He was talking about the change.
    With the military pushing further and further into the rural backlands, its leadership in Washington had pushed out new “rules of engagement” for when and how American troops would use force. Someone had figured out that it’s tough to convince civilians you are there to protect them when you keep shredding cars full of people who didn’t realize they had to slow down at the checkpoint, or vaporizing four homes with a five-hundred-pound bomb when you really only wanted to get the one bad guy in the one house.
    These stern directives, filtered through ordinary bureaucratic tendencies, predictably resulted in many, many routine 15-6 investigations over largely routine uses of force, even when that force resulted in no harm to people or damage to property.
    Black realized he was looking at one of these situations right now.
    Some soldiers had fired warning shots near some Afghan civilians in a tense situation in a village a few weeks earlier. Had accidentally killed a local man’s goat the night before, apparently, and there had been some kind of confrontation the next morning when they went to make amends. It looked like no one had been harmed and, aside from a broken flower pot or something, there had been no property damage. The situation dissipated, and the man had been paid in cash for his loss.
    So now Black would have to trudge across Omaha, corner these soldiers on their free time, and grill them over having, by the looks of it, done the right thing.
    â€œWhen are they coming in, sir?”
    â€œHuh?”
    Gayley seemed confused.
    â€œTheir next trip in from the field, sir.”
    Ordinarily, for an incident occurring away from the FOB, you’d wait and interview the soldiers at their unit during one of their periodic resupply trips back to base. Another plus, then: He’d be interrogating guys during their few precious hours of downtime in the middle of a war.
    And they’re gonna spend their one rest day answering some strange officer’s questions and feeling like criminals and thinking about what a fat lot of good doing the right thing did them.
    Gayley shook his head.
    â€œThey’re not coming back in.”
    Now Black was confused.
    â€œThey’re busy fighting a war, Lieutenant,” Gayley explained. “They’re not coming back for this. You’re going to them.”
    Busy fighting a war.
    â€œSir, can I ask a question?”
    â€œShoot.”
    â€œI haven’t been to the field since I came to Omaha, except to fly out for R&R leave and back again last week.”
    He cleared his throat.
    â€œAm I the best choice here?”
    Gayley didn’t blink.
    â€œIt’s the new selection system,” he grumbled. “Integrity in selection or some bullshit. Apparently I can’t be trusted to pick my own investigating officers anymore.”
    He was talking about the other change that had come out along with the new rules of engagement. Now 15-6 officers were to be assigned by computer at the division headquarters, multiple levels above Gayley’s office. It was essentially random.
    The colonel’s face betrayed nothing. But Black had hung around the S-1 shop long enough to know that nearly any regulation like this allowed leeway for a commander to decide that a given officer was not fit for a given duty. Either Gayley thought more of Black than he let on, or he recognized the task for the pointless makework it was and didn’t want to spend one of his other lieutenants on it.
    Hard to say.
    â€œWhere are they located, sir?”
    Gayley cleared his throat.
    â€œCombat Outpost Vega.”
    He did not elaborate. Just looked at Black as though waiting for a reaction.
    â€œI’m not familiar with that location,