“I’m goddamned sorry about Yukiko, son.” Lee took a long draw off his stubby Churchill, blowing a stream of chocolate-scented smoke over the pool. The surface reflected undulating, hypnotic shards of sunlight into the glossy leaves of the camellia trees. Sam felt himself melting into his mother’s sweet-smelling, garden dreamscape and the camaraderie and support of two men he loved and admired.
“And what you went through,” Andy added. “A hell of a thing, beyond belief. Sometimes nothing makes sense in this life.”
Sam sipped his cognac. “Here’s to hoping I can maintain an existence of mind-numbing boredom from now on.”
Lee put his hand on his shoulder. “I wish you peace, never boredom.”
“Better yet. Andy, are you really going for Congress? That won’t be peaceful or boring, but it will be frustrating as hell.”
“Well, like I said, we’re just forming an exploratory committee right now, but I’m passionate about my platform and policy ideas. First and foremost is the undeniable fact that some things need to change in Veterans Affairs. A lot of good men and women are being forgotten. The homeless crisis is unacceptable.” He leaned forward, braced his muscular arms on the table. “Sam, you take care of business, do what you need to do, but if things look good in the first straw polls, know you have a job waiting for you whenever and if ever you want it. It would be an honor to have you on board. Besides, we need a pretty face.”
“Then I’m your man.” Sam raised his glass with a smile, then settled back into the plump pillows on his chair. “Seriously, Andy, I appreciate that. Give me some time.”
“No question.”
“Maybe I’ll wait to see the polls, make sure I’m picking a winner.”
Andy and Lee guffawed, then the general ditched the stub of his cigar in a broad, cut crystal ashtray Sam hadn’t seen since his father’s death. “I’m going to see if Vivian needs any help and let you two youngsters talk about the future. I’ve got an amazing meal under my very large belt, and I can’t wait to see what she has planned for dessert.”
Sam listened to his mother and Lee laughing in the kitchen. It was a nice, happy sound, and maybe an indication that the two of them … but that wasn’t his business and not anything to think about unless a different kind of relationship between them formed, if it ever did. “Andy, I’m interested in the future, but I’m more interested in the past right now.”
“The memory problems aren’t improving?”
“Not really. I can’t recall anything from the time around the blast, so I’m trying to sort some things out. Tell me about Ronald Doerr. I’ve been having some really disturbing dreams about him.”
Andy cocked a brow at him and let out a loose wreath of smoke. “You really don’t remember?”
What did you see? What do you remember?
“I don’t remember shit, Andy. And the things I dream about, they’re warped, bizarre, not real. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Vivian, but my brain is scrambled and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back, so you might want to rethink that job offer.”
“I’m so sorry, Sam, I didn’t know it was that bad. But the job offer stands.”
“Fill in some blanks for me. All I know is that Rondo was killed in the convoy.”
Andy took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.
“What? He was killed in the convoy, right?”
“That’s what his record says.”
“But that’s not what you say?”
“I know he’s dead.”
“It’s not the same thing. Talk to me.”
He let out a heavy, burdened sigh. “It’s not a pretty story.”
“I’m not used to pretty stories.”
Chapter Seventy-nine
ANDY TWIRLED HIS CIGAR IN HIS fingers, then took a deep drink of cognac before he spoke. “Before the blast, Rondo was on his way to a psychiatric discharge.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Hence the schizophrenic Rondo of his dream. Sam didn’t remember him being particularly unstable, but his subconscious obviously had. “We all thought he was a jerk and a little squirrelly, but he was bad enough for a psych discharge?”
“At the end he was, he couldn’t cope. But that didn’t sit well with his father.”
“Colonel Doerr.”
“Right. But a loose cannon is a loose cannon, and they endanger everyone around them. We agreed to keep things quiet out of respect for the family, but the crazy son of a bitch lost it before it could go through.”
“What did he do?”
“You really don’t remember, ah, Jesus, I envy you that. He killed Raziq. The Afghan commander. Gutted him with his KA-BAR.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, but there were no witnesses.”
“Then why are you sure?”
“By the time the body was found, Rondo was AWOL. And he’d been coming to me regularly with complaints about Raziq. When his behavior got erratic and he started making threats against him, I put the discharge in motion.”
“Why the hell would he want to kill Raziq?”
Andy’s face darkened. “Because Raziq was raping little boys. He kept one chained to his bed. Maybe you remember this—in certain areas of the country, it’s a mark of social status among powerful men. It even has a name.”
Sam swallowed, and it felt like he’d just ingested one of his mother’s golf balls. He’d blocked it out. No wonder. But it had surfaced in his dream, you couldn’t hide forever. “Bacha bazi. Boy play.”
“Right. We were told not to intervene. The justification spiel we got from the brass was that it was just a part of the culture, a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law, no requirement that U.S. military personnel report it, ad nauseam. But the real truth is, we needed him. There’s always a reason to sleep with the devil in war, but it’s an outrage, and it’s going to be a part of my platform if I get that far. Might end up with a court martial, might end up with a medal, but I don’t care. I’ll be able to live with myself. Frankly, it’s been hard.”
Sam drained his glass, which did nothing to tamp down the swirling dizziness he was feeling as jagged pieces of fantasy and reality collided. He understood now that his waking nightmares of Rondo had been fantastic, bent versions of repressed memories, working themselves out like infected splinters just as Dr. Frolich had suggested. She was probably going to need therapy herself after she was finished unraveling his mind.
Andy tipped his head curiously. “Are you starting to remember things now?”
“No, but I’m starting to understand some things. So what happened after Rondo killed Raziq and went AWOL?”
“We went looking for him. That was the convoy that almost got you killed, and got the others killed. We figured he’d fallen into Taliban hands.”
An unscheduled convoy, just like his dream Rondo and his buried memories had told him. “So he definitely wasn’t on it.”
“No.”
“But you found his dog tags. And his file says KIA.”