Project Itoh - Genocidal Organ

A more serious interjection came from Leland. “What I don’t understand is why we have to somehow be representing the Japs in the first place. What’s that all about?”

The speaker, Phelps, smiled indulgently. “The US is not a signatory to the Hague Conventions. The Hague has given the Japanese government the mandate to act; the US is able to intervene legitimately only as an external contractor.”

Williams groaned. “Shit, so we’re no better than Eugene and Krapps now?”

“Lame. This is so totally lame,” Leland agreed.

“We’re not some amateur mercs, you know,” Williams said.

At this point Colonel Rockwell rose from the corner of the room where he had been sitting quietly up until a moment ago. “Thank you very much, Evan. We’ll take it from here.”

And with that, Evan Phelps of the NCTC was summarily dismissed. He looked somewhat doubtfully at the colonel—he still had plenty he wanted to say, no doubt—but in the end he scurried off, overwhelmed by the colonel’s military aura.

Now it was time for the briefing to start in earnest. The room went silent. Just like a secret society, I thought. A world without outsiders, just us band of brothers. Phelps had been ejected from the room, of course, because what happened now was need to know, for our eyes only. But the instant he left the atmosphere also changed—the members of the conference collectively straightened their spines and sat alert. No more cocky teenagers putting on a show of defiance toward the world. This was now a sacred ritual of a secret society. If the scene now looked like some sort of macho fascist gathering, it was also somewhere between black magic and shamanism. We were a secret gathering here to participate in an esoteric ceremony.

“We were the ones who requested the mission from the Japanese government. We asked that it take this form,” the colonel said without preamble. “There is a strong possibility that John Paul is currently with the official targets.”

Suddenly my world exploded into life.

John Paul was in India.

Which meant that Lucia could be with him too.

“When the arrest warrants were issued by The Hague, Eugene and Krupps’s operations department presented the Japanese government with a plan. Naturally, as Eugene and Krupps are the effective military power in the region. But we can’t have E and K be the ones who capture John Paul. They’d pass him on to the ICC, and then he’d be out of our hands for good. The other targets are secondary and can be handed over if necessary, but we need to be the ones to bring in John Paul.”

At this point I thought I saw the colonel glance over at me. Of the people in the room, the colonel and I were the only ones who knew about John Paul’s grammar of genocide. We were the only ones who knew just how he was spreading his death and chaos around the world and the reason why he had to die.

Phelps had said that Hindu India had been inexplicably expanding the scope of their activities. Inexplicable to Phelps, perhaps, but there were two people in this room who knew exactly why. Because of the evil spell woven by that man. The pied piper who led his children to genocide.

The monitor behind the colonel froze, and I could make out glimpses of burning bodies on the frozen image.

Leland spoke up. “We accepted this mission so that Johnny wouldn’t end up in the hands of the ICC, sir?”

The colonel shook his head. “ ‘Accepted’ is not quite the right word. No, we actively went out of our way to pull some strings with the Japanese government. We made sure they turned down Eugene and Krupps’s initial proposal so that they could give it to us instead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If the US had been a signatory to the Rome Statute it would have been much easier. But signatories cannot make use of antiterrorist evidence obtained by torture by third party countries. It’s deemed inadmissible. We’d have to close down Guantanamo Bay for starters.”

“So our main objective is to take out John Paul?”

“Not take out. Capture and bring in alive. Just don’t let him fall into the hands of the ICC or the New India government.”

We all understood our duty. It was obvious now why the civilian staffer Phelps had been kept in the dark.

“It’s the basic drill: aerial drop. Pickup will be via UAV,” the colonel said.

Someone asked what sort of unmanned aerial vehicle.

“Helicopter. In addition, we’ll be laying on some Flying Seaweed to provide you with close air support. You’ll be able to call on them for tactical bombing.”

“What’s the CEEP, sir?” Williams asked the question that was always asked. I could feel the room bracing itself.

As usual, the colonel answered without hesitation, compunction, or emotion. “One hundred percent.”

“I almost feel bad for asking,” Williams said, his smile sardonic now. He knew all too well from ten years of bitter experience that there was rarely such a thing as a mission with zero Child Enemy Encounter Probability. But he still needed to ask. To know. It wasn’t just Williams either. All of us in the room felt the same.

Man, it wasn’t a nice feeling to know you were about to go out into the field and start killing kids. Even if modern technology made it easier, it never quite became easy.

“Intelligence tells us that the hostile ground forces are comprised of roughly sixty percent minors under eighteen. All units to report for battle counseling starting tomorrow morning. The plan will commence one week from today. Gentlemen, you are dismissed.”

2

The air smelled of the desire to kill.

No, not the air.

I did.

There was a figure on the crosshair. I pulled the trigger, and it went down. Like a twig snapping. Another figure emerged. It was carrying an AK. It wanted to kill me. I pulled the trigger again. The figure went down.

The act of killing wasn’t that important in and of itself. It was the mission that was important. We had to do our duty, and if we had to remove obstacles as we did so, then so be it. Sometimes the enemy would try to stop us and attack. Often, the enemy’s attacks were virtually suicide charges. In the arena of war, life was cheap. Cheaper even than the secondhand laptops used by the leaders to keep track of their troops like the cannon fodder they were.

It was as if the figures in my scope had never even heard of the word “cover.” They just kept on charging into my crosshair. Bullets leapt out of my rifle and into the skulls of the children, exploding all the potential out of their brains and splattering it onto the terrain behind them. Or, occasionally, through their bellies, sending a mixture of their intestines and liver and kidneys to spray out. Or into a pelvis or thigh, cutting clean through an artery, causing the flesh to well up with an unstoppable flow of lifeblood.

Cheap lives. I started doubting myself even as I was snuffing them out one by one. Why was I shooting the enemy? Was it really just survival instinct? Or was that something imprinted onto me by counseling?

These killing fields. Were they really because of me?

“Of course. It’s your own free will. Without a shadow of a doubt.” The counselor had smiled as he answered my question. Skillfully, without missing a beat. The interviewer must have been used to all sorts of curveball questions. Why should an existentialist one faze him? Psychology and philosophy have always been bedfellows. When most non-specialists—myself included—thought of psychology, what they usually imagined was an interdisciplinary subject that contained elements of academic psychology. Sociology, epistemology: related, but not psychology per se. Whenever a psychologist appeared on the news, what we really wanted to hear from him was a cocktail of philosophy, sociology, and other disciplines that wouldn’t challenge our preconceptions.