She gently moves the steering wheel, wrists still aching, her eyes swollen with tears, her insides empty, only knowing that yes, when she gets to the Gulf Coast, she will end it.
In a quiet wooded area near the Fort Belvoir Country Club, Lieutenant Preston Baker waits, leaning up against the wide trunk of an old oak tree. Thirty minutes earlier he called his contact and followed his directions.
There is movement out there, footsteps, and then the senior officer stands on the other side of the tree trunk, so he can be heard but not seen.
“So she called, then?”
“Yes,” Preston says.
“What did she want?”
“Information about the prisoner who died in captivity, over at FOB Healy.”
“What kind of information?”
Preston tries to focus on the good news he received today, about a facility being readied for Dad. His father, who had sweated and worked and thought to design and build the aircraft that had defended this nation for decades…abandoned in his time of need, but Preston is going to take care of him.
That’s the good news, that will always be the good news.
“She asked about a business card that was found on the farmer when he was brought in. The official report said the business name and the phone number on the card were fake.”
“And?” comes the inquiry.
“Captain Cornwall wanted me to recheck it.”
“And did you?”
“I did.”
“Did you confirm to her what the report said, that the phone number and company name were fake?”
A blue jay skitters to a halt, not more than three meters away. It steps across the ground with proud, jerky moves, and then flies off.
What a gorgeous day.
The officer repeats, “Did you confirm to her what the report said, that the company number and name were fake?”
He takes a sweet breath. “No, I didn’t. Captain Cornwall…I don’t think you understand what it’s like being out there, in an FOB. You learn to depend on each other, have each other’s backs, look out for each other.”
The officer on the other side of the tree doesn’t say anything.
Preston says, “I trust her. I’ve always trusted her. And she asked me to do something, so I did it.”
The voice is flat. “Which was what?”
“I researched the name and phone number on the card.”
“What did you find?”
“There was a phone number. Out of Mexico. And the company name…Mercador Holdings. An agricultural firm, in the States and Mexico.”
“Anything else?”
“I dug a bit into Mercador Holdings. Its majority owner is a bank out of Mexico. Called First Republic Global Bank.”
“What did the captain say when you told her that?”
“She seemed excited, happy,” Preston says.
“I’m sure.”
There’s silence and then the officer says, “You did all right, Lieutenant. No worries.”
Preston sighs. This sweet day is back on track. “Thanks.”
“Let me ask you one more question.”
“Sure.”
The man asks, “You ever hear of something called fragging?”
“No, I haven’t,” he says.
“Funny, you’re the second person to say that today.”
And Preston hears movement, feels something metallic pressing against his right temple, and then nothing else.
CHAPTER 78
I RUB at the crusts in the corners of my eyes, take an exit off US 98 in Florida, following the signs pointing to my end destination, Beachside. The road is bleached asphalt, and the surrounding land is sandy, with thin grass and spindly green trees.
Archie is sitting next to me, hands folded carefully in his lap, watching the scenery fly by. Since we left Texas some hours ago, he’s not said a word to me.
But I can’t stand the silence, so I talk to him as we get closer to Beachside.
“I’m a trained Army intelligence officer,” I say, as we head south. Even though I can’t see it, I can smell the nearby Gulf of Mexico.
“About ninety percent of civilians think all we intelligence officers do is read lots of reports, stare at maps, make educated guesses,” I say. “And part of that’s correct. We read lots of reports. We look at maps. We make educated guesses. But we also talk to people. Lots of people…like a young engineer from Karachi, very intelligent, very sweet-looking, who was captured after his suicide belt didn’t go off in a marketplace in New Delhi. And who politely lets you know that if he ever gets out, he plans to go to the Hindu Kush and get a belt that’s designed better, so it works the next time.”
The road stretches on. How can anyplace be so damn flat?
“Or a Russian girl, about ten years old, who was sold to…perform. You meet her in a sweet cottage with toys, dolls, and games, and while you try to find out which particular oligarch from Moscow had a hand in her sale, said oligarch also being involved in smuggling weapons-grade uranium to North Korea, she keeps on asking why she hurts so much down there.”
There’s an intersection. I slow down and take a left.
BEACHSIDE TWO MILES, says the sign.
“That’s the people you talk to,” she goes on. “And then there’s the films, the videos. You sometimes see them on the cable channels, heavily edited. But because your job is intelligence, no matter how terrifying, how horrible, how bloody, you need to watch it. Again and again. Looking for clues.”
My chest is tightening. I’m saying words my husband, Tom, has never heard.
“I saw a video of a captured fighter pilot, stuck in a cage, set ablaze in an Iraqi desert. He burned and burned…and I saw his jaw fall to the ground when the muscles and tendons melted. I saw a video of a Filipino family—mom, dad, five children—lined up in a jungle on an isolated island, beheaded one at a time. And I had to watch that video dozens of times, freeze-framing, trying to see if I could ID the man holding the sword. Dozens of times I saw that family die, saw the mother try to hide her baby under her blouse, saw them both killed…Funny, but every time I replayed the video, part of me was hoping, this time, this time, maybe they live.”
I try to clear my throat. “Then they never do. And after watching that beheading video a couple of dozen times, then I leave the base and in twenty minutes, I’m home. I hug Denise and kiss Tom, and look over Denise’s homework and cook dinner for the three of us…and an hour after seeing the blood spurt, seeing the father sob—they save him for last—I’m eating mac and cheese in our dining room, trying to keep a happy face on for my girl and my man.”
Up ahead I make out the thin line of the Gulf of Mexico and the low buildings of Beachside. My chest is really tight.
“Then there are the times when you do more than just watch,” I say. “You have a hand in it, by pure accident and happenstance.” I find it’s getting harder to talk, even though I’m not getting any answers back from my passenger.
“You’re put in a situation, sitting in a comfortable chair, a computer control in your right hand, and because you’re at the ultimate pinnacle of human development and technology, you can flip a switch, take a sip of iced tea, and on the other side of the world, a family is incinerated. Just like that.”