He could have persuaded me to leave the kids there. Perhaps he’d been the only man who could have done. But he’d not said a word.
“You said Gun didn’t know you were part of the MC, hence there’s no connection between he and I in your mind. So I’ve been thinking about why Gun was so interested in coming across you. The only link is Afghanistan, and what happened there,” Pip says, “I’m presuming you had no contact with him since?” He notes the shake of my head, retakes his seat behind the desk, and rubs his temples thoughtfully. “You don’t know this, but when I first learned about your case, I pulled strings and got Smythe chained behind his desk.”
He did? No, I didn’t know that. My brow furrows.
He’s wrong, the timing doesn’t fit. “He did a final tour after.”
“I said when I learned about your case. That was before you and I ever met. When Hillier gave me the details, it was obvious Smythe was out of his depth. Sure, he had to do one more tour to finish up, but he knew then he would be Stateside when he returned.”
“You think Smythe knows you were involved? You think he wants revenge?” I try to focus my thoughts. “He got a fuckin’ promotion after Pooh died. He’d more likely thank you. I got discharged, he got made up, and a cushy desk job.”
“Maybe.” Pip doesn’t disagree. “But I’m leaving no stone unturned. I wanted to ask you what you made of this.” He turns his laptop toward me.
I wince, it’s playing footage of Nazia’s initial interrogation just after she tried to blow herself, and our troops up. With my head filled of Cat, at first I don’t take it in, only idly paying scant attention as she replies in non-answers, not willing to explain her behaviour, or who she was working for.
My interest is caught. I pull the laptop toward me, and tap awkwardly at the keys with my left hand, playing back the last segment and watching it again. Pip passes me some notes, I check them, then watch a final time.
“You caught it, huh?”
My eyes rise to Pip’s. I play the last few seconds again. “The transcript is wrong,” I tell him.
“Yeah. I don’t speak Dari, so I had the tape interpreted for myself.”
I’d been told her words were, “I did it for Stormy,” but unless my language skills have fled with those blows to the head, what she’s actually saying is different. Not just the words, but the intonation. As far as I can make out, she’s just said, “They made me do it for Stormy.”
“Who’s they?”
“I thought you’d pick up on that.” Pip rubs his face again. “The reports say the military police were preparing to interrogate her again. What you just watched was the first of a series, and was more a case of asking the first questions, delving deeper after they considered her answers. That question would probably have been next, but someone got to her before they had a chance. The word was she killed herself because she’d failed, but the hit was clumsy, rushed. There was an attempt to cover it up, but it didn’t quite work.”
“But the MPs must have investigated.”
“They did. But they were distracted by another incident, during which there was a fuck up. Her body was moved, the cell scrubbed clean, and lo-and-behold, surveillance tapes corrupted.”
“Who was the last to see her?”
“Now that’s where it gets interesting, particularly with what we now know. Your friend, Gun, had another prisoner located nearby. He was questioning him at the time.”
I wince as I try to sit straighter. Fuck these broken ribs of mine. “Any proof he visited her?”
“None,” Pip admits.
Dots, starting to form a pattern. But they’re more like particles of dust I’m trying to catch in my hand.
“There’s more,” Pip says. “Nazia was strip searched.” That’s not unusual. Fuck, she’d been wearing a suicide bomb, no one would trust her. “During which,” Pip continues, “it was noticed her body had been subjected to intensive abuse. Burns, scalds, some old, some healing. Evidence of previous broken bones. Her face was unmarked, but the rest of her had been brutalised.”
Poor, poor girl. She obviously hadn’t agreed to her task easily.
Suddenly Pip sits forward. “What if she agreed to doing what she did with the intention of speaking to you?”
“Me?” My head’s working slowly. “But I’d long since been discharged.”
Pip nods. “You rescued her and her sister. Saved them. What if you were the only man on the base who she could trust? She wouldn’t have known you’d been discharged, how could she?”
“She didn’t detonate the device,” I muse out loud.
“Exactly. And from the reports I’ve read, she was acting suspiciously as though she wanted to get caught. Of course, the men stopping her all received commendations for their vigilance, but I’d place bets that if it had been her intention, she’d have carried out her task.”
“If she’d been so abused, death might have come easy.” But instead, if Pip’s right, she’d let herself be caught. To get to talk to me? My brain starts to kick into gear. “Why the insurgents wanted to upset the uneasy peace has always confused me. The locals were trained and ready to take over for themselves. Our troops were withdrawing. These incidents made sure they stayed.”
“That’s been on my mind, too. And I’ve got an answer. Who would benefit from our troops being stationed there?”
He’s obviously got more than me.
“Oh, Stormy,” Pip sighs. “You were an honourable SEAL, however your career ended, no one can take that from you. Your world is black and white, good men served, the bad were the insurgents you were fighting. But what if some men weren’t cut from the same cloth as yourself? What if some were reaping benefits by our presence in Afghanistan?”
Staying to eat a bullet, or die like my team had? I frown, not seeing many positives.
“It could have been drugs,” Pip says, softly. “There’s good money to be made.” He waits for that to sink in. “I’ve lived in the underworld, Storm, nothing surprises me.”
“How would it work? In this imperfect world of yours.” He’s sparked my interest, but not yet my belief.
“Getting the drugs out of the country? Come on, Stormy, you can’t be that naïve. Where there’s money, there’s a way.”
I narrow my eyes as the wheels turn in my head. “If equipment is being brought back to the States, it could be packed in the cases. As long as someone was on hand to remove it the other end. Enough money would grease wheels.”
“And soldiers packs. Enlist men, either with money or threats over their heads. Smythe wrangled it for your team to use a dedicated pilot and plane.”
He had, hadn’t he? I used to think it was his connections. “This comes back to Gun, doesn’t it?”
Pip sighs. “Maybe. If Gun was resourceful enough, he could have used the opportunity to develop a pipeline. But Gun would have no beef with me, unless the private plane was no longer available when I grounded Smythe, but that would point to Smythe being a major player. That Gun turned up and asked questions about Tiny, that there’s a link between his half-brother Ike, and Kincaid, makes me think he was involved in Swift’s kidnap, which was designed to bring me out of hiding. I had nothing to do with Gun, however, I’d had a hand in bringing down Smythe. Smythe might have stayed on the front line if it hadn’t been for my interpretation of the situation which I’d given to Hillier.”