Colonel Holden ran an Army base in the American Southwest, near Monument Valley in Arizona. One day he received a visit from two civilians, Starr and Featherstone, who claimed to represent a group called The Grail, and that they were to take command of the base troops for a special exercise in the desert. Holden was fully prepared to have the two arrested, but they produced an executive order, signed by the President, giving them authority over Holden and his men.
Order or no order, Holden didn’t trust these two, and was fully prepared to take action against them if any of his men were harmed.
Holden’s troops were to work with troops from The Grail in a massive co-operative exercise that appeared to be targeted at, strangely enough, a single man. The Saint Of Killers. To Holden’s experienced mind, it all sounded suspiciously like, in his words, “Bullshit.” It wasn’t until the Saint actually appeared and began destroying tanks and bringing down helicopters with his revolvers that Holden saw the truth.
The truth was not only that his men were dying unnecessarily against a supernatural menace, but that his men had been casually thrown away by Starr. The army had just been used to give Starr and his Grail troops time to get Jesse Custer, a man for whom Starr had an unending personal hatred.
When Holden realized this, he attempted to kill Starr, but was shot dead by Featherstone. He did manage to shoot Starr in the leg, however, which later led to its amputation and subsequent eating. He might have been pleased to know this.