Free 'A' for Argonaut by Michael J. Stedman

Command as the four-star Commander in Chief. The White House, because of the political sensitivity of the case, insisted on his taking charge, skirting protocol that called for a lower-ranking general in the role.
    Maran’s lawyer had hammered out the agreement that resulted in this three-man panel of warfighters or operators like himself, which is the way members of the most elite units of the Joint Special Operations Command referred to themselves. The last thing Maran wanted was to pin his fate on a decision by a military judge from JAG, someone who would, in all likelihood, never have seen a battleground. His training had taught him that the strength behind the military code of justice came from the bond shared, the complete and utter loyalty developed, between combatants in fighting units and their fellow soldiers. He knew men fought better because of the respect built on the battlefield, a bonding that could not be equalled. He expected his combat peers to be tough but fair.
    General Fahnestock addressed the prosecutor.
    “Colonel Maran was listed on the manifest as being with the Center for Information Operations-Army Combat Applications Group out of JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg. But in fact, he was a commander with SAWC and led Task Force 9909, assigned by Brigadier General Luster to carry out this hostage recovery mission, code-named Taxi Home, with total autonomy. Is that correct, Major‌—‌The Special Action Warfare Command is not even listed on the units manifest at Bragg‌—‌or anywhere else?”
    “Correct, sir,” prosecutor Major Andy Rojas snapped.
    Maran glared at the man whose watery, pale yellow eyes squinted over a long, pinched nose. He looked like a weasel.
    “Who is privy to the existence of Task Force 9909?” Fahnestock asked.
    “No one outside of the direct order of command is aware of this TF’s existence. Plausible deniability. Part of the Special Action Warfare Command, sir. Not a regular Army unit. Special Access Program, SAP, Decibel 20-Top Echelon, the highest secrecy level in the United States government. They are authorized to employ private military companies, known as PMCs. Mercenaries. Task Force 9909 was one of those, a phantom unit, stitched together from a quilt of native South African, Angolan, and Congolese soldiers of fortune.”
    “In the black?”
    “That’s correct, sir. Non-existent. Known only to Brigadier General Luster, a few members of his staff, and General Baltimore’s Counterterrorism group at the Office of Plans and Operations in the Pentagon.” If the title of the group sounded innocuous, it was a deception. Its name was changed from the “Forty Committee” after a movie of Robert Ludlum’s novel “The Bourne Identity” featured a renegade from that group, making its title sound too sinister.
    Rojas approached the bench and submitted a bound document.
    Fahnestock read it and passed it to his colleagues.

    “ Homeland Security Presidential Directive: Memorandum No. SPO 2012-001. The Special Action Warfighter Command is hereby authorized, under the direction of Brigadier General Hank Luster, commanding officer of the unit at Fort Bragg, to enter the sovereign territory of Angola in the area 25 miles southeast of the exclave of Cabinda to achieve the rescue and release of an unknown number of American hostages understood to have been taken and imprisoned under the direction of illegal criminal elements of the terrorist organization known in the region as the Progressive Front for the Liberation of the Exclave of Cabinda a/k/a PFLEC.”

    Rojas continued. “As you know, the Office of Plans and Operations was established in 2011 under a Presidential Directive charging it with collecting, vetting, and acting operationally on intelligence completely outside of the normal intelligence apparatus. Such intel, according to the President’s directive, is not to be shared with anyone outside the OPO, including the Director of