“Miss Alabama.”
“What’s that?”
“His wife. She was Miss Alabama.”
“You know what I did instead? What career path I took? I busted my butt for twenty years doing what they told me I should do.”
At the beginning he’d come off as intelligent, though understandably bitter. At that point? Dangerously obsessed and slightly unhinged.
“Only 3 percent of second lieutenants are ever promoted to general. Did you know that? And do you know how many of those 231 generals have four stars? Seven. That is point-zero-zero-one percent of the active army. Know how many other soldiers deserved those stars JB Slater eventually got?”
I shook my head so I didn’t have to say anything.
“All of them! Every. Single. One.” He picked up his knife and slashed into the steak he’d ordered. “Guess you can report to your father that I’m just a crazy relic from his past. No one will believe a word I say. Not enough proof to keep him from that fancy desk in the Pentagon.”
“Sorry?”
“Your father. That’s what you’re here about, right? To do opposition research for his confirmation hearings?”
“I have no idea what you’re—”
He leaned toward me over the table. “You can tell him there’s no one who’s listened to me for the past twenty-five years. Don’t know why anyone would listen to me now.”
I felt along the floor for my purse, grabbed the strap, and pushed to my feet. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Sad, what happened to your husband.”
I shoved the chair toward the table and took a quick step back, in the direction of the lobby. “Thank you for your time.”
“I feel sorry for your son. Sam, isn’t it? You should probably tell Miss America to stop posting pictures on Facebook.”
“I really don’t—”
“At least you live in a nice part of Arlington. Good neighborhood. Nice homes. Good neighbors?”
I turned around and fled.
58
“Georgia. Georgia Brennan!”
Was he following me? Dodging the lunchtime crowds of government contractors and the al fresco diners eating at tables on the sidewalk, I took a quick look over my shoulder.
Yes, he was.
“Georgia Brennan. Wait!”
I plunged into a cluster of passersby, half stepping to match their pace and then sidestepping to move through them, away from the curb.
Then I heard a thud. The squeal of tires.
The diners on the sidewalk around me let out a collective gasp. They stood in unison as if they were controlled by a puppeteer. Steven Edgars lay sprawled on the street. As I watched, a gray car sped away toward the Washington Monument, which rose like a sentinel above Long Bridge Park. If he wasn’t dead, he would be in the hospital for a very long time.
As several bystanders ventured out of the roped-off eating areas toward the street, I kept on going. Kept moving forward, kept putting distance between myself and Edgars. Because there had to have been someone watching us, someone who notified the people in the car that we had left the hotel. Someone who might still be out there, watching.
Edgars had told me my father collaborated with the Russians, but he’d offered no verifiable proof. If Edgars could no longer tell anyone what he’d heard—and since everyone at the Department of Defense had written him off as a bitter, angry person—I needed more than just his word.
But the things he’d said about my father had to be true. They made sense. And it was the only thing I’d heard that would make Sean worth killing. It would be devastating for the Pentagon if that information were revealed. They’d promoted a collaborator to their highest ranks. And on a personal level, if Edgars’s information was revealed publicly, my father would be ruined. Past, present, and future.
What I still needed, however, was actual proof.
If I took Edgars at his word, maybe if I went forward through my father’s career, dug into his follow-on assignments, I’d find some hard evidence that would link everything back to the Gulf War.
I’d almost made it to June’s car when I keeled over, retching. A cold sweat had broken out on my forehead. I don’t know how I even opened the door, but suddenly I was sitting in the driver’s seat, hands clenched around the wheel. I closed my eyes.
In my mind I saw Steven Edgars lying in the street.
In my soul I remembered every time my father stood next to a flag talking about duty, honor, and country. Every time I ever heard him say, “God bless America.” I thought of all the soldiers he had served with, all the people he had led into combat. And deep inside, I felt something shift.
I started the car. Left the garage.
I didn’t have time for a breakdown. My father’s confirmation hearing was in six days, and I was the only one who could stop it.
* * *
I went to the library, sat down at a public computer, then brought up the pages of Sean’s notes on my phone. There was one name left from Desert Sabre that I wanted to find. Reginald Wallace. Top. He’d been mentioned in both interviews. I had to do some research to find his contact information, but I found an address in Maryland. The address led me to a phone number.
I stepped outside to call him.
Mr. Wallace answered. He wasn’t available to speak just then, but he agreed to talk with me midmorning the following day, if I would drive out to see him. He didn’t like telephones. Couldn’t hear very well.
I chose a name from one of my father’s other units. The one from Bosnia. But when I called and told him what I wanted to talk about, he hung up. The next name I chose from the unit did the same.
What had happened in Bosnia?
Though I only vaguely remembered the Gulf War, I remembered next to nothing about Bosnia. I typed US Army and Bosnian War into a search engine.
It came back with a lot of summary articles. Looked like the United States didn’t really put boots on the ground in the region until the actual war was over.
I found another name identified with my father’s unit, spent time on the internet, and came up with some contact information. I called the number I’d found and asked for Bobby Denunzio.
“Speaking.”
I told him what I wanted to talk about.
“The Bosnian War?” His disgust was apparent, even over his New York City accent. “What a mess. Who ever heard of fighting a war with three sides?”
“Three sides?”
“Yeah. Give me a minute. Have to think about this.” There was a long pause. I heard the sound of a TV in the background. “See, it used to be Yugoslavia, right? Remember that? Part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Well, those Soviets crammed lots of countries into one in order to make it. You had Bosnia and Herzegovina. That’s actually one even though it sounds like two. You got Croatia. You got the two Ms: Macedonia, Montenegro. You got Serbia and what’s the other S one? Slovenia, right? Bunch of alphabet soup. So when the Soviet Union started busting up and everybody wanted out, well, those Serbs decided they wanted out too. But all on their own.”
“This is before the war?”
“Right. So pretty soon it’s a regular slugfest over there. Serbs on Croats on Bosnians. Only they used guns and bombs.”
“And Major Slater was your commanding officer.”
“Yeah. Now I told you there were three sides, right? So you got Serbs. And you got Croatians. Only—and this is the tricky part—you got your Croatian Serbs who, if Croatia decides they want their own Catholic country, well, those Serbs don’t want to be a part of it. They want to be part of Serbia because Serbs are Orthodox. Now Bosnians are Muslim; they were the third side. Unless they were Bosnian Serbs, in which case they’re Orthodox. So you got your Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians most of the time, but not always. And I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but I’m a good Catholic boy and normally I’m on the side of the angels, you know? Except this time, the Orthodox Christians and even sometimes the Catholics, th
ey were the bad guys. They were massacring the Muslims. So you got good guys who are bad guys and bad guys who are good guys. Couldn’t keep ’em straight.”
Maybe that’s why I didn’t really remember much about that war.
“And the politicians? They screwed it all up. At the end there, know what they did? The politicians went to the bad guys—those were the Serbian Serbs, the Orthodox types—and they basically said, ‘Just tell us what you want. If we give it to you, will you just pack it up and go away?’ That’s basically how that war ended. Bad guys got everything they wanted and the good guys declared victory. Us grunts? We were going, What was that all about? All those cities destroyed? All those people killed? They were slaughtered. Serbs mowed ’em down and bulldozed them into mass graves. So if you were just going to give them what they wanted in the first place, then what was all of it for? Know what I’m saying?” He took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“So what were you doing there?”
“Me? I was finishing up my enlistment. We were fighting on the allies’ side even though it seemed like we were helping the Serbs. Stupid politicians. They were trying not to choose sides. But basically it was everyone against Serbia. Mostly.”
“I was under the impression that there weren’t any Americans on the ground until after the war ended. But you were there during the actual war?”
“Sure. Yeah. Serving under Major Slater.”
“What did you do?”
“Mostly we were in Bosnia helping them communicate with the UN forces and the allies. We weren’t supposed to be helping them fight, right? But we helped them out with comms. And we helped them spot military targets. When NATO dropped their bombs on the Serbs, it wasn’t the U-S-of-A officially fighting. It was more like NATO just got lucky when they were dropping their bombs and magically hit important targets. That’s what we did. We told ’em what to hit.”
“Did you ever come into contact with any Russians?”
“Thing is, Russia said they were on our side, but you could tell their heart wasn’t in it. ’Cause those Serbs, they were Orthodox. Russians were Orthodox. Know what I’m saying?”
“Did the major ever communicate with any Russians? Do you know?”
“You had to. You couldn’t talk to a Serb unless it was the good kind of Serb. But Russians weren’t Serbs even if they liked Serbs. So if you wanted to communicate with a Serb, you went through a Russian who knew how to get in touch with a Serb. That’s the way it was. It was a crazy war.”
“So the major had a Russian contact.”
“Yeah.”
“So this wasn’t any secret.”
“No.”
Was this another dead end? If everybody knew, then my father had nothing to hide. Maybe Edgars had been wrong. “Were there ever any complications?”
“Well, it was like this. The Serbs were monsters. But we weren’t necessarily there to fight them. We were there to support the Bosnians who were fighting them. For the Russians, it was kind of the same. So sometimes you had to do the dance.”
“What dance?”
“You had to say, ‘Hey, Ivan. We got to get from here to there. Do me a solid and don’t let those Serbs drop a bomb on the road while I’m on it. That would be on such and such a date at such and such a time.’ That dance.”
“You coordinated movements.”
“I wouldn’t say coordinate. We facilitated things.”
“And there were complications?”
“Well . . . I don’t know.” He paused. “I don’t know.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“I don’t really know that anything did.”
“What might have happened?”
“There was this, um, this group. This group of wounded. We were evacuating them. We assumed that it was all good. Turned out it wasn’t. Serbs bombed the convoy. But see, that’s the kind of thing that would have been coordinated. We would have told Ivan. He would have told the Serbs.”
“How many people got bombed?”
“Lots. One of those Bosnians, one of the wounded, turned out he was one of their commanders. He bit it. And they got some of our guys as well. The good guys. The ones who were helping with the evacuation. It’s not like that kind of thing didn’t happen all the time. But usually it was just the Serbs bombing the other alphabet soup guys. That’s what made that war so crappy. It happened all the time. Mostly all we were allowed to do was stand there and watch. But that time? That time it put a real dent in the Bosnian forces when their guy got killed and some of the good guys got killed too. Someone must have screwed up. I felt sorry for the major.”
“Was that the only time it happened?”
“Happened a couple times.”
“Were any other Bosnian commanders killed those other times?”
“Yeah. I mean, that was the tragedy, right? Not to mention allies. I mean, the Bosnians were fighting. You can kind of think, ‘Well, that’s the breaks.’ But when the good guys got killed? It just wasn’t right.”
“Were you with the major’s unit the whole time it was there?”
“No. When my enlistment was done, I got out. I didn’t sign up to just sit around and watch people kill each other. That’s not what I was in it for.”
I thanked him for his time, and before he hung up, I told him to be careful.
“Careful? Me? Lady, I’m talking to you from Brooklyn. And not the good part. Born and bred. If anyone should be careful, it’s the other guy.”
I thanked him again and hung up.
I couldn’t help wondering if maybe those bombings hadn’t been a mistake. What if my father had passed information to the Russians? Not so they could keep the roads clear, but so the Serbs could bomb them and take the Bosnian commanders out?
59
My parents showed up just before dinner. They came bearing boxes.
“Just a few things,” my mother said as she knelt on the floor and offered one to Sam.
It was almost bigger than he was, so I took it from her and set it beside him. She’d put all those years of charity work with disaster and military relief organizations to good use. It was filled with clothes. Shoes. A coat. A scarf and gloves. And down at the bottom were several smaller boxes.
Trains.
“Wow! Thanks!” Sam pulled them out and held them up toward Jim like prizes. “Want to play, Mr. Jim?”
“Sure thing, kiddo. But I want to show your granddad something first.”
Sam didn’t wait. While Jim walked down the hall toward his office, Sam dumped them out of their boxes. I knelt beside him, collecting the packaging.
Jim came back, a piece of paper in hand. “Just drafted up a little something.” He tipped the sheet so my father could see it.
“Don’t show the president!” My father flashed a grin.
“What is it?” My mother leaned over to have a look. “Well now.”
I got to my feet and walked over so I could see too.
Slater for President.
Jim had drawn up a campaign logo for my father. Somehow he was able to hit all the right notes: patriotism, leadership, strength.
Horror swept over me. I hadn’t realized until then just how lofty my father’s ambition was. And just how close he was to achieving it. He had to be stopped.
My father extended his hand toward Jim.
Jim took it. Shook it. “Just a little nonsense.” He winked. “I might be retired, but I can still have some fun.”
My father chuckled. “Hey, mind if I keep it?”
“As long as you put it somewhere you can always see it.” Jim tapped his forehead. “Keep it in mind.”
“Sure, sure.” My father clapped him on the back.
My mother put a hand on my arm. “There’s a box for you too.” She indicated one that my father had set near the front door. “I didn’t know what you need, so I put in some toothbrushes, toothpaste. Some clothes.”
What was she going to do when she found out about my father?
; “There are a couple pairs of shoes. As well as a purse with some Visa gift cards to get you by for a bit.” She gave me a look. “And some unmentionables. You know, we have a suite at the Hay-Adams. There’s more than enough room for you and Sam.”
“No.”
“That way you wouldn’t have to continue imposing on these kind people.”
June must have heard our conversation. She walked over and put an arm around me. “It’s no trouble at all.”
* * *
June invited them to stay for dinner. They left when I put Sam to bed. Just before I went to bed myself, I decided my best move was to call Sean. There was too much information to be conveyed in a text.
But the phone didn’t go to voice mail. He picked up. In the moment before he spoke, I could hear talking. There was the sound of dishes, utensils. And beneath it all, there was music. “Yeah? Hey. I can’t talk right now. Can’t slip away. I’ll get back to you.” He hung up.
I stood there staring at my phone. We only had six days left to figure it all out and he didn’t have time to talk? Couldn’t slip away? I was trying to save his life and mine. And our son’s! I wanted to throw my phone at the wall. But I didn’t. Mostly because I was my mother’s daughter; it wouldn’t have been polite. So I powered it off and pulled my new pajamas from the box my mother had brought. Pondered my next move as I put them on.
But that music from the call refused to fade away.
That music.
I’d heard it before.
As I eased the blanket away from Sam and put a knee to the mattress to crawl into bed, I finally remembered where.
I put the blanket back, pulled my pajamas off, and put my clothes back on. I left my old phone on the dresser; Sam was safe with Jim and June, and there was no need to make it easy for anyone to track me through a known device. But I slipped my new phone into a pocket.
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