Strike One, You’re Out!

—For those who have nothing to do with it.


The Dream

Jordan Dassen is having breakfast. His mouth is dry. The ham sandwich is not cooperating at all; this is solved by pouring a large mug of milk down his throat, followed by a heartfelt burp.
"Good morning to you too! That kiss will come later!" says his wife, Janine, as she walks by with flapping hands.

Janine and Jordan got married last year after seven years of living together, "finally," according to Janine. The relatively young couple are now expecting their first child.

She turns on the coffee machine: "You want some coffee, babe?" asks Janine as she messes Jordan’s hair up with her fingers.
"Sure, why are you up so early?"
"I couldn't sleep, honey; you were tossing and turning all night."
"I didn't notice that at all. Did she kick again?"
Janine rubs her belly and smiles: "No, she slept very well."

Jordan Dassen is a pilot in the air force. But Jordan doesn't fly the plane himself; he controls the plane from a distance. Every day, he whizzes through the air with a drone, loaded with hellfire missiles, looking for terrorists. He has only two dreams, one of which came true when he became a pilot; the other is to become a father.

He looks at the clock and sees that he’s out of time: "Never mind that coffee, honey! I'll grab some at the barracks."
"Okay, sweetheart, see you tonight. What do you want to eat?"
Anything, I'm actually in the mood for spinach. I got to go. Bye, babe!"
"Bye, Popeye!"

Jordan gets on his dirt bike. Janine is standing in the doorway with his shirt on: "So when are you going to take that suicide machine to the scrap yard?"
Jordan smiles at her: "When the baby comes, baby! We’ll buy a big station wagon, okay?"
Janine and Jordan enjoy each other's eyes for a couple of seconds more. Then he starts his engine, races to the barracks, gets a cup of coffee, and reports to Captain Hammers.

The eye in the sky

Captain Hammers is an absolute professional who has never let go of the leash a day in his life. He is a middle-aged man and lives apart from his wife and children. It is not that he does not love them, but he always lives for the next promotion; it goes on and on, and there is no one that wonders what happens when Hammers reaches the highest peak, not even Hammers.

"Good morning, Dassen! You look tired; is everything going well?"
"Everything is fine, Captain! And good morning to you too, sir. I would like the orders for today, Captain."
"The task today is to explore the terrain marked on your map, Dassen."
Hammers hands him a paper map. A large area on the map is circled: "Intel may have stumbled on a convoy of stolen Humvees; when you find them, and after you get my approval, you may blow up these Humvees, Dassen."
"Understood, Captain; permission to kick ass, Captain?"
One corner of Hammers’ mouth lifts up a little: "Permission granted; get to work, Dassen."

Jordan’s workstation is no more than four walls and a sort of game chair with a joystick, keyboard, and four video screens. The two at the bottom are for the instruments, the two at the top are for the digital map and the live feed. On the wall next to him hangs a poster with a woman on it who looks nothing like Janine.

Drop the Hammer

Arriving at his workplace, Jordan steps into his ground-based cockpit.
After hours of reconnaissance, he has virtually combed the entire area and has not noticed anything suspicious. That is, except for that one truck. He decides to follow the truck.
The truck drives up to a barn, where it comes to a halt.
The drone camera has facial recognition and recognizes one of the three men walking into the barn.
The name: M. Ibramazz appears on the screen, with the face of the man next to it.
Jordan shouts out to the captain: "Captain, you won’t believe who I have on screen right now, sir!"
Captain Hammers shouts back from behind his desk that he will not take part in weird guessing games.
"It's Mo Ibramazz, sir! Aka, Camel Nose!"

Hammers rolls his chair back and heads to Dassen on the double.
He looks at the screen from behind Dassen’s cockpit: "That's him! Do you know what this means? Promotion! For you too, Dassen! Finally, we got him!"
"Ibramazz blew up that mall a while back, right, sir?"
"That's right! He has at least a hundred and thirty deaths on his conscience. This man must be stopped! You have my permission to fire! Fire at will!"
Then Jordan gets an unpleasant surprise, as he zooms in and the three men turn into one man, one woman, and a child.

The nightmare

The captain stares at the red button on the joystick.
"Well, what are you waiting for, Dassen? Fire, son. Fire!"
"I can't fire, sir! I refuse, Captain!"
"You filthy bastard, I'm giving you an order! Shoot!"
"Negative, Captain! The target is surrounded by one woman and one child, sir!"
The captain walks into the cockpit. He sees that the target is indeed surrounded by a woman and a child. He puts his hand on Dassen's shoulder: "Son, I know it stings, but it's essential that you take out this terrorist."
"I did not sign up to kill women and children, Captain! Again, I refuse to carry out this order, sir!"

"Dassen, this isn't going to do your career any good. You understand that, don't you?"
"I don't care about that right now, Captain. I won’t kill innocent civilians, sir!"
Hammers cynically remarks, "Oh God, does this have to do with your pregnant wife?"
"Negative, Captain! We can wait until he's alone, sir."
"The president deployed ground troops to search for this bastard; no one could find him! Dassen, we now have a unique opportunity to kill a mass murderer."
A heavy voice sounds from the back of the cockpit: "And that's exactly what we're going to do today!"

Colonel Rolfsen is fifty-five years old and served in the Gulf War (Desert Storm), Iraq (Iraqi Freedom) and Afghanistan (Enduring Freedom). His chest has been decorated with various ribbons and medals, including the highest award a soldier can receive, the Medal of Honor, a medal for exceptional bravery. He single-handedly saved a couple of guys that got pinned down by unleashing hell on his enemies, who, after a brief firefight and hand-to-hand combat, thought that the devil itself was on their heels, and they ran. Despite all of the death and destruction that haunts his dreams at night, he is a very warm and caring man with a big heart.

The Conchie

The captain looks back and stands up straight: "Colonel Rolfsen, what a pleasant surprise, sir! We have Mo Ibramazz, in sight, Colonel."
"Camel Nose? So what's the problem? Why hasn't he been eliminated yet?"
"Pilot Dassen turned conchie (conscientious objector), sir, and not unjustly so, Colonel. Camel Nose is accompanied by a woman and a child, sir."
The colonel walks silently to the captain's office and hangs on the phone for two minutes. Then he comes out of the office and heads back to the control room.

"Captain Hammers, it has come to my attention that Camel Nose is planning to blow up a football stadium. But Intel has no idea where he is, or which stadium it involves. Thanks to your department, we now know. The only stadium in this neck of the woods is three clicks (kilometers) from the barn. Our people on the ground can never arrive on time."
Rolfsen walks up to Dassen and stands next to him, "Dassen, fire, and you will receive the highest award there is, I guarantee it."
"It’s not about the awards for me, Colonel, sir!"

"Son, you have the opportunity to save fifteen thousand people today. Innocent people; the award you’ll receive, hell, any award we receive is for the people that still breathe after a war; it is them that are symbolized on our chests. It’s not about who we kill, it’s solely about who we save, son."
"How can you be sure, Colonel? The Humvees that I was initially looking for are nowhere to be seen; it wouldn’t be the first time that Intel was wrong, Colonel!"

In the meantime, the truck is on its way to the stadium, leaving a dirty, ominous, dust cloud in the air as it makes its way through the desert.

This Is the End...

"It's your decision, Dassen, but decide quickly, otherwise I'll have your ass for insubordination, and I’ll let someone else do your job! Is that what you want—for someone else to get this difficult task because you don't want to obey an order? Listen, Dassen, that child is gone! That woman is gone! All we can do at this point is save the fifteen thousand people; the men, women, and children, inside that stadium."

The colonel had his say and started counting down in his head from sixty to zero.

The words spoken by the colonel hit Dassen like a hammer—15.000 people: men, women, and children. I have to save them by blowing up one family, which will be blown up anyway in fifteen minutes or so. I’ve trained for this scenario, but my God, this is hard now that it’s actually happening!

Janine and their baby go through his mind—what if it was them in that truck?
Then Jordan thinks about the stadium—what if Janine and our families were in that stadium right now?

After a dozen or so what if’s, Jordan makes the hardest decision of his life, and after thirty seconds, he clamps the joystick between his fingers, waits for the lock, closes his eyes for a moment, and fires. The three look tensely at the screen, and they see how the truck is transformed into a big ball of fire.

The hit made the bomb in the truck explode, and when the smoke clears up, there is a massive crater as a reminder of what could have happened to fifteen thousand innocent lives. And where normally high-fives fly through the air and people applaud and cheer, now there is complete silence, out of discouragement, out of powerlessness, out of anger, out of sadness, but most of all, out of respect, for two innocent people who had to be sacrificed, no matter what.