Arcane Exfil-Chapter 32: Murphy’s Law

“I was a First Lieutenant at the time. Target was Fahim al-Hamdani, AQAP bomb-maker. The intel was perfect: five weeks of SIGINT, three separate HUMINT sources all saying the same thing, ISR had mapped every inch of the AO, including an old Soviet minefield.”

The memory surfaced, clear as day. Even if Cole tried, it wouldn’t be something he could ever forget. This wasn’t some faded slideshow, like most recollections from the sandbox. No, this one had been etched into his brain through obsessive replay.

Every second cataloged and cross-referenced like he was building an intelligence file on his own failure. Frame by frame by fucking frame, like a film editor hyperfixating over a single sequence. Even in his sleep, some part of him remained there, trapped in that cage of guilt and regret, still searching for the missing piece that would’ve changed the outcome.

Cole continued, “We had a safe corridor through the minefield mapped down to the meter. Eight meters wide. Everything accounted for.” He paused, grimacing. Intelligence didn’t get cleaner than that. Perfect fucking intel, perfect fucking plan. They had the kind of operational setup that got used as case studies at Fort Bragg. And it didn't mean shit in the end.

“A shepherd and his goat showed up near the edge. It wasn’t unexpected, or anything, y’know? We knew locals used the paths regularly.”

At the time, it was nothing more than a tertiary concern; they’d all rehearsed warnings in the local dialect, and there had been a few among them who could speak the language fluently. Just another variable boxed, tagged, and accounted for: or so they had thought.

“Our interpreter warned them, and the shepherd understood; understood it well: started backing away just like we told him to. Y’know, oftentimes these guys… they get spooked by something, or they don’t trust us, or they just do dumb shit. But this guy, well… The fact that he got the memo didn’t really translate to his fucking goat getting the memo. The damn, fucking goat: I don’t know why the hell, but it just fucking bolted. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was our tone, or because it didn’t recognize us. Didn’t matter. It ran straight into that minefield.”

Cole knew that the situation likely seemed totally alien to Elina, but the look on her face confirmed her understanding. She didn’t need to know what a ‘minefield’ was; the context must’ve been enough. And that context conveyed exactly what Cole had experienced at the time: that suspended moment of perfect awareness where the outcome was already determined but not yet manifested. Like watching the hammer fall on a round he knew was going to misfire.

It was the epitome of tragedy: witnessing the inevitable while knowing, in some infuriatingly simple way, how it could have been prevented. A leash. A damn leash. That was all. But there hadn’t been one, and by the time it mattered, it was already too late.

Cole clenched a fist. “PMN-2 mine. Soviet-era. The explosion alerted al-Hamdani’s compound: we’d been creeping up on the target when it happened.” Their noise discipline had been flawless. Everything textbook until the random element. The fucking goat. “Master Sergeant Torres took the initial RPG. We did everything by the book: immediate tactical care, priority extraction. He died anyway.”

“Murphy’s Law,” Mack said, like he was stating the obvious.

Cole let out a breath that twisted into something like a laugh: sharp, bitter, a pressurized container of rage and frustration that had nowhere else to go. “Murphy’s fucking Law.” The words curdled in his mouth, a cosmic joke he’d heard one too many times to find funny. A sick, twisted joke with a punchline often written in blood.

Elina tilted her head slightly. “I fear I don’t quite follow.”

Mack turned to answer, but Cole stopped him with a raised hand. “Murphy’s Law. ‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.’ You plan for everything you can possibly think of. Account for every variable. And then some random bullshit nobody could predict comes along and wrecks it all anyway. A fucking goat spooked by the wind.”

“Then I take it your endeavor met with ruin?” Elina asked.

Ruin? Command sure as hell didn’t think so. They called it a textbook op; even gave him a promotion. But Torres was dead, and Cole was the one who had to live with that. Perhaps ‘ruin’ wasn’t the right word, but it sure as hell wasn’t ‘success’ either.

Cole felt a scowl form, unbidden, automatic. But he suppressed it; there was no point in getting pissed off at her for not knowing. He sighed, leaning forward in his seat. “Guess it depends on who you ask.”

“The operation achieved its objectives,” Mack clarified. “But we lost a good man.”

Elina just nodded. She got the nuance, if only just what was available on the surface.

Adrian Torres. Nine years in special operations had distilled him into the platonic ideal of a Master Sergeant: the evolutionary endpoint of what military leadership pretended it valued while simultaneously ensuring such specimens remain rare. Bronze Star from a host of operations that he’d casually relegated to the same drawer as spare batteries and old receipts. He represented the operational antithesis of the PowerPoint warriors who designed missions: the living embodiment of the gap between theoretical and applied combat doctrine.

The guy was the epitome of a good operator. When the operation’s team assignments were being finalized, Cole had specifically requested him for their element. Wanted competence unmarred by ego. Got exactly that. Watched him die anyway.

“After Torres got hit, command pushed forward anyway. HVT was too valuable to just abort the mission.”

Cole could still hear the TOC commander’s voice in his ear: calling the shots from the air-conditioned sanctuary of Camp Lemonnier, where the only real threat was the base cafeteria's attempt at pasta. The entire decision tree had been preemptively rigged. Mission success had already been deemed worth the potential casualties before they even inserted. Torres was just the unfortunate rounding error in their equation.

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“The best we could do was split the element. I left two guys for casualty evac with Torres. The rest of us pushed to the objective. Cleared out the compound with no other casualties. Full mission success across all elements: got the HVT, got the intel, neutralized the bomb workshop: everything. Everything except for Torres.”

Cole sighed. “He had three kids, you know. His youngest was just six months old. He… He hadn’t even met her in person. Just that grainy NIPRNet shit, y’know? Had all these plans when he finally went back home. He was gonna take the baby to meet his mom in SD: whole trip planned out. Even bought one of those little sailor outfits.”

He shook his head. “It was supposed to be his last op, too. Had his paperwork already filed for a transfer to training command at Bragg. Over a decade in, figured he’d done his part.” His voice dropped slightly. “We all gave him shit about it too. Told him to stop dragging his feet, get home to his kids. Even said… fucking hell, I actually fucking said, ‘Make sure you come back in one piece.’”

Elina’s eyes softened, her analytical facade melting away. She might not have known what NIPRNet was or where San Diego sat on a map, but that didn’t matter. Some things didn’t need translation: a father making plans he’d never keep. A homecoming that never came.

“We’ve a saying,” she said, voice low. “‘Many a sailor drowns with shore in sight.’ The final approach breeds complacency, and oft has a captain warned his crew not to let safe harbor deceive them.” She paused, looking down. “My father served with the Royal Navy ere his retirement. He’d say more men were lost within sight of the lighthouse than ever to the storm.”

Cole nodded. Some things were just universal truths. “Last mission curse. You go a whole tour without a scratch, and then fate decides to cash in its chips. Always thought the ‘last mission’ cliché was just lazy writing in war movies. Something to get you crying over the characters. But it really does happen more often than it should…”

“They gave you your promotion for that operation,” Mack said.

Cole couldn’t meet his eyes immediately. The bitter irony had its own gravitational pull, drawing his gaze downward before he managed to wrestle it back up. That promotion had been the military’s version of a participation trophy: standardized recognition for surviving something that killed someone better.

“Yeah well, somebody had to get a medal, right? Torres comes home in a body bag, I come home with a promotion.” Cole threw his arms up. “C’est la fucking vie, I guess.”

“And that’s why you hate luck,” Mack observed.

That wasn’t how Cole would’ve put it, but close enough. “Yeah. That fight shouldn’t have gone our way. But it just so happened that we had knowledge from back home to balance the scales in terms of magic. It just so happened that we clipped it and weakened it. We got lucky, much as I hate to admit. We won’t get that luxury next time we see K’hinnum.”

“You’re worried about luck covering gaps in our knowledge.”

Cole nodded. “The enemy has capabilities we don’t fully understand. How many new variants are we gonna go up against, throwing spells we’ve never seen, all the while we’re stuck with the most basic fucking repertoire? We knew how to make a fireball, raise some dirt, make some mud, and that was it.”

Mack prodded further. “So we should’ve left Kidry; wait a day or two for reinforcements from OTAC to arrive?”

“Well, no.” Cole knew Mack’s angle here. He wouldn’t let it dictate the evaluation. “I think we made the right choice. We leave no man behind. It was within our means, so it was an easy choice. But…” He took a breath. “We should’ve never gone up against that Vampire Lord without more magic under our belt.”

“We won’t always have a say,” Mack said.

Cole grimaced. “You’re right. Still, we can close that gap. In Yemen, we had perfect preparation. Every variable accounted for. When that goat hit the mine, it was our training and redundant planning that got the rest of us out alive. Torres died, but it could’ve just as easily been the whole team.”

Mack stopped taking notes. “So, what are you gonna do about it?”

For Cole, the answer was simple. “Spellcasting is based on visualization and understanding, isn’t it? Phantasia. I got the imagination, and I got the science. So I guess… try not to blow myself up testing new spells?”

Elina gave a light chuckle. “As mana permits, yes?”

Cole glanced at her. “Yeah, as mana permits.”

“As long as you don’t get lost in it,” Mack warned.

“Yeah,” Cole said. He paused, then added himself, “You know why this matters so much? It’s not just about preventing another Torres.”

“Why, then?” Mack asked.

“Because when luck turns against us here, it won’t just be one soldier who pays the price.”

“What happened with Torres… it wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

That same phrase, again and again, from the AAR to the memorial service. Technically true but functionally useless. Knowing he followed protocol didn’t fill the empty seat on the helo or explain to Torres’ kids why daddy wasn't coming home. The responsibility sat on his shoulders regardless of what the official report said. “I… I know.”

Mack frowned, unconvinced. He’d seen right through Cole’s professional veneer to the bleeding underneath. “There was quite literally nothing you could have done,” he reassured. “And these responsibilities: you don’t have to shoulder the burden; you don’t have to carry the weight of the world. At least, you don’t have to do it on your own.”

Mack’s tone suggested he was done, or just about. Cole met his eyes for a second, then Elina’s. “Maybe.” He stood up. “Are we done?”

“Yeah, we’re done. You’re combat-ready as far as I’m concerned.” Mack closed his notebook, offering a soft smile. “Not like I could bench you even if I wanted to. The Director-General would probably throw a fit. Still though... take it easy, yeah? I get wanting to push ourselves with training, but your mentality’s just as important as your capabilities. Don’t wanna walk into a rematch tired as shit, or on the brink of losing your sanity, right?”

Cole returned the smile. “Copy that, Doc.”

He walked away, pulling the door open to find Miles leaning against the opposite wall. “You’re up.”

Miles straightened immediately, pushing off the wall. “Hell, just in time. Damn near ran in circles tryna find this place.”

Cole recognized that mix of irritation and tension in his voice. Miles hated anything that took him away from practical work, and psych evals were at the top of that list. If anything, he’d probably have preferred to go for a walk to clear his head. Or, hell, he probably would’ve gone to clean his shotgun for the millionth time, just so it’d look pretty when he finally presented it to Kathyra and her researchers.

Either way, the fact that he was here was already a good sign. “Yeah, well, don’t get lost on your way to the registry office. I’m heading there now; gonna finally sort out our house staff.”