“Yes, but I don’t agree with the point you’re trying to make.”
“That’s because you haven’t been in combat. Your senses become razor-sharp. Why do you think all those old World War Two veterans can still sit around telling fifty-year-old war stories and recall every detail vividly, like it happened only yesterday, when most of them couldn’t remember a single word their wife said at breakfast that morning?”
Delbert said, “Nobody listens to their wives at breakfast. Besides, I’d love to get nine of those veterans on a witness stand and see how well their creaking, antiquated memories really correspond.”
“You’d be surprised,” I told him. “I can recall almost every waking hour that I was in combat. The exhaustion, strain, and fear don’t dull your senses. Your brain has to work in overdrive just to function. You don’t forget things like how many flares went off or who told you the Serbs were following you, or how many Serbs were on the hillside looking down on your position. It’s like Sam Peckinpah has taken hold of your mental faculties.”
Delbert said, “I’ll take your word for it. But I also know that nine sets of eyes, collecting images from nine different perspectives, then shoving them across nine different sets of synapses and neurons, are apt to process things a bit differently. Any experienced attorney or investigator knows that.”
“What about the fact that Sanchez never reported the situation they were in, nor did he report the ambush, even after they’d extricated?”
“I don’t know,” Delbert said. “It’s an intriguing question. Maybe he was worried about the repercussions. He’s been passed over for major once. This year is his last chance. He’s got a wife, two kids, and a file that’s borderline. He’d be dead in the water if someone decided they didn’t like how he got his team out of there.”
Morrow, who had been idly watching us argue, tapped her pencil on the table a few times to get our attention. She was going to make a fine judge someday.
She stared at me. “I watched you with Sanchez. I thought you were bullying him.”
“So you thought my interrogation technique was flawed?”
“It was flawed. You browbeat him into making inaccurate statements. I haven’t listened to the tapes, but maybe you did that with the others as well.”
“Come on, Morrow, these are battle-hardened veterans.”
“And this is the Army, and you’ve got those big, shiny, gold major’s leaves pinned to your collar. Most of them are noncoms, and now you’re wondering why they lied about how many flares went off.”
“You think I badgered them?”
She gave me an exasperated look. “I think you’re predisposed. That’s the way you come off. You made them nervous. I’m not saying they’re innocent; I’m saying your approach was flawed.”
“She’s right,” Delbert said.
I could’ve defended myself, but the truth is, they were right. I was predisposed. I believed in my bones that Sanchez and his men were lying. And if you could call dubious looks, eye-rolling, verbal baiting, and finger-pointing a bullying technique, then I was guilty. I’d used the authority of my rank and the odor of my official position to coerce them into answering my questions. I could see where Delbert and Morrow thought that I’d instigated the very inconsistencies, mistruths, and fabrications I was now complaining about.
These were seriously frightened men. On a battlefield, you have about a millisecond to decide whether you want to be a hero or a coward. More often than not, you don’t even decide, you just leap toward your fate.
Most of these men were as courageous as lions on a battlefield, but this was not a battlefield. Here they had time to weigh the repercussions and decide a course. And, in an odd sort of way, what could come out of this investigation was far worse than losing a leg or an arm, or even their lives. These men accepted the prospect of becoming maimed or even dead; they did not accept the loss of their honor. They had families and careers and reputations. They were facing humiliation and imprisonment. They were facing everlasting shame upon themselves, their Army, and their country.
I understood all that. I understood it before I ever asked my first question.
I smiled warmly at Delbert and Morrow, just to show them that I could take their criticism without any hard feelings. In my most penitent tone I told them, “You’re right-both of you-and I’ll try to do better next time.”
It was a lie, of course. Something was seriously wrong with the story Sanchez and his men were telling. I’d break all their legs and arms if that was what it took to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter 13
Early the next morning, we all checked out of our rooms and trundled back out to the airfield. We climbed into another of those ubiquitous C-130s that, as I mentioned earlier, have no soundproofing. We all stuffed in our earplugs and felt grateful we’d been relieved of the obligation to converse.
Poor Delbert looked like death warmed over. There were dark shadows under his eyes. His hair hung limp and unwashed. At various times during the flight, I could see his lips moving as though he was rehearsing something over and over, like possibly the questions he had asked during the interrogatories. Imelda sat directly across from him and somehow maintained a perfectly straight face. I glanced over at Morrow, and she immediately tore her eyes away. Maybe she was worried that I still had a grudge from last night’s session. Maybe it was because she hadn’t informed Delbert about Imelda’s devious bent and I’d just caught her in the act.
As soon as we landed, we went back to our little wooden building. Imelda and her girls began filing and faxing all kinds of things. There was a message for me to call General Clapper, so I went into my office and rang up the Pentagon.
Clapper’s ever-efficient secretary answered on the first ring and put me right through.
“How was Aviano?” he asked.
“Nice place. Next time I do a crime, promise to lock me up in an Air Force facility. I smelled lobster and champagne on the prisoners’ breaths. By the way, I see you’re working early,” I mentioned, since it was 6 A.M., his time.
“Just trying to catch up,” he groused. “Spent nearly the whole damned evening over at the White House.”
“They’re not still talking about me over there?”
“Your name popped up a few times, but you’re passe, no longer the topic du jour.”
“What was the subject?”
“They wanted me to help brainstorm the options.”
“Options? What options?”
“Option one is you recommend a court-martial. Option two is you don’t.”
“Don’t they have better things to do, like feed the homeless, fix the interest rates, check out the boobs on the new crop of interns?”
“It’s not so simple, Sean. The President’s policy on Kosovo does not enjoy wide national support if you haven’t noticed. Hell, it’s not even being called our national policy. It’s called the President’s War. They’re scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“This thing’s been presented as the first war fought solely on moral grounds. That’s how they’re justifying it. It’s a war based solely on principle. So, let’s say you go with option one. See any problem there?”
“No. The actions of a few men shouldn’t undermine the moral underpinnings of the President’s policy.”
“That’s because you and I don’t live, breathe, and eat politics the way those guys over in the White House do. They’re catching hell from some of our allies. Some of the Republicans up on the Hill are threatening to cut off all funding and hold hearings.”
“So this is a battle for the high ground.”
“You might call it that. Now the other alternative is you recommending that there’s insufficient grounds for a court-martial.”
“And what’s wrong with that one?”
“Nothing, unless it’s due to insufficient evidence. Here we are dropping bombs on a bunch of Serbs we publicly vilify as war criminals, and it turns out we have some of our own war criminals. Only thing is, we let them go scot-free. God forbid we ever eventually capture Milosevic and his bloodthirsty henchmen. The moment we
