“When necessary,” Murphy said. “Like I said, it wasn’t my role.”
“And how were they treated?”
“As illegal enemy combatants. If they cooperated, they received more privileges, and if they didn’t, they didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Shafer said. “I didn’t hear an answer.”
“I told you, I spent most of my time on admin.”
“The unit was short on manpower,” Shafer said. “You were basically running a jail with a ten-man squad.”
“Yes and no,” Murphy said.
“How many detainees did you have?”
“Ten.”
“And you’d hold one or two at a time?”
“Yes. Once we had three, but Terreri didn’t like that. Said it was too many. And he was right.”
“Walk me through a day in the life.”
“The interrogations ran about eight, ten hours at a stretch. Two or three men were involved: the interrogator — that was usually Karp — and a muscle guy or two.”
“So you could run two interrogations at once.”
“If we needed to. But we preferred to go one at a time. As you know, the squad was all men, except for the psychiatrist, Rachel, Dr. Callar. The org chart, LTC Terreri was the CO”—the commanding officer. “I was XO”—the executive officer, the number two. “Karp was the lead interrogator. Jerry Williams did swing duty; he knew Arabic, so he could handle interrogations. And also he oversaw the three Rangers, who were the muscle. And then Callar.”
“What about Hank Poteat?”
“He was technically part of the squad, but he was only there a couple of months, at the beginning. He helped set up our coms, and then he left. So that’s everybody.”
“It isn’t, though,” Shafer said. He flipped back through his reporter’s notebook. “CO is Terreri. XO is you. Karp is the interrogator. Callar’s the doctor. Williams and his three Rangers make eight. Poteat counts as technically part of the squad, even though he wasn’t there long. That’s nine. You forgot Jack Fisher.”
“Right,” Murphy said. “Fisher helped Karp with the interrogations. He would stay up late with the prisoners. If they wouldn’t talk, they needed an extra push. Sometimes Jerry Williams helped. The Midnight House, we called it sometimes. Fisher, he’d tell the detainees when they got there, ‘Welcome to the Midnight House.’ ”
“Funny.”
“We were trying to take the edge off. Stuck in Poland for a year and a half.”
“How tough was Fisher?”
“I don’t know. Specifically.”
“Friendly persuasion. Cup of cocoa. Tell me about your mother.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“You were the second-in-command and you didn’t know.”
“I told you, I wasn’t operational.”
“You strike me as the type who prefers to lead from the rear.”
Murphy stared at Shafer as if Shafer were a misbehaving brat he wanted to spank but couldn’t. In turn, Shafer made faces at Murphy, raising his eyebrows, throwing in a wink.
“I’m sorry,” Murphy said finally. “I didn’t hear a question.”
“Try this. Did the unit have internal tensions?”
“We were a small group living in close quarters in a foreign country. We couldn’t tell anyone what we were doing. Of course, we didn’t always get along. But nothing you wouldn’t expect.”
“Did you believe that the detainees were treated fairly?”
“From what I saw, yes.”
“Did 673 ever uncover actionable intel?”
For the first time, Murphy smiled. “Definitely.”
“What, exactly?”
“I can’t say. Vinny Duto wants to tell you, it’s his business.”
“But it was valuable.”
“You could say that.”
Shafer made a note. “Fast-forward,” he said. “The squad breaks up, a bunch of guys retire. You stay.”
“With the intel we’d gotten, I wanted to see where I’d be in a year or two.”
“Any idea why so many guys decided to leave?”
“Ask them.”
“Guilty consciences?”
“I’m not a mind reader. Not now or then.” Murphy looked at his watch. “The FBI’s coming tomorrow, and I’m sure they’ll be asking all the same questions as you, and more besides. Can we finish up later?”
“A few more minutes,” Shafer said.
“A few.”
“After you got back, did you stay in touch with the rest of the unit?”
“Colonel Terreri and I had lunch a couple times before he got sent to Afghanistan. I saw Karp upstairs once.”
“How about Fisher?”
“Talked to him once or twice. No one else. It was an ad hoc deployment, and we got scattered.”
“You didn’t know what was happening to the unit. The deaths.”
“Of course I did. We all heard about Rachel. Not right away, but we heard. Then Terreri sent me an e-mail that Mark and Freddy”—the two Rangers—“were KIA. Then Karp. By then we were all wondering a little bit. I remember saying to Fisher, ‘What’s the story? Somebody put a curse on us?’ But we didn’t know that Jerry was missing. I know it looks obvious in retrospect.”
“You don’t seem nervous.”
“Should I cry for Mommy?”
“Can you think of any reason someone might be after the squad?”
“Beyond the fact that we put the screws to some bad actors?” Murphy drummed his fingers on the table. In contrast with his neatly tailored clothes, his nails were jagged, bitten nearly to the quick. “My ass on the line. I’ve thought about it. I don’t know.”
“What about Alaa Zumari? ” Shafer said.
“I can’t tell you anything that’s not in the file.”
“Haven’t seen the file,” Shafer muttered into his teeth.
“Say again?”
“I said I haven’t seen it. Not yet.”
“You’ll have to work that out with Vinny.”
“How about you walk me through it?”
“How about not?”
Shafer wanted to reach across the table and slap Murphy, but in a way he was right. Duto had started this charade, asked him and Wells to try to find a killer without the background information they needed.
“Any chance Alaa Zumari’s connected to this?”
“If we thought he was a terrorist, we wouldn’t have let him go.”
“Maybe he lied. Withstood the pressure somehow. Could he have figured out who was on the squad? Your real names?”
“We were pretty tight about opsec. Never used real names with the detainees.”
“The Poles? Could they have leaked your names?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Could anyone inside the unit be responsible for the killings?”
“You asking if I’m the killer? I’m gonna have to say no.”
“How about Hank Poteat? Or Terreri? Or Jerry?”
