The paperwork was clear and simple to understand. She was positive.
Tory drove from Fort Eustis in a blind rush at midnight, blowing through three red lights on the highway up to the York River bridge and Gloucester beyond. She pushed her headlights off for the long, unpaved driveway through the woods, then popped her little truck into neutral and killed the engine at the last clearing. Dick Wags’s Jeep was gone, but Alicia’s pickup was in front of the little house, and Tory let hers stop next to it.
There were no lights on, and she let herself in, quietly, feeling her way to the living room, to the couch, and she stood there, just stood there, for at least two minutes, staring in the dark, at the dark, stark silent in the middle of the room, and it wasn’t until then she started crying—almost a full hour past reading the news—but crying now, then sobbing, doubled over in a wail of grief,oh God, she cried,oh God, helpless in despair, helpless on the floor, all sense of time and place gone and nothing but sorrow and loss and fear, real fear, deep and solid in her muscles and pounding in her veins, all the poison blood, pounding death through her veins. Alicia came from the bedroom and came without a word, kneeling on the floor and wrapping her arms around Tory’s shaking body, pulling her head down to her breast, holding her tight there, her fingers in Tory’s short, soft hair. She said not a word because she thought she knew what was the matter. She thought she knew, but she was wrong—it was worse. Much worse. It didn’t matter though because her silence was right. Tory didn’t stop crying, but she slowed, then quieted, and after five minutes Alicia stood, drawing Tory along. Arms still wrapped tight she half-carried her to the bedroom. With no light and no sound Alicia pulled Tory’s sweater off, and her jeans, and laid her on the bed where she curled into a tight S and Alicia came in behind her pulling the comforter over them and wrapped her arms around her again and listened to her cry. Tory was still crying when Alicia fell asleep, and many hours later they were both asleep, and when Alicia awoke Tory was still curled, sleeping now, and the room was bright and white with morning and Alicia could hear Dick Wags in the kitchen, home from overnight battalion CQ duty, the smell of strong coffee in the crisp early air.
They were entwined under a thin hospital blanket in the humid night, Marc asleep and Tory listening to him sleep. Her grief had bubbled up, briefly, earlier—threatening, its head poking close, and she’d trembled in its path. Then, just like that, gone. Gone and gone, leaving her as a vessel neither full nor empty, just being, just her. And, tonight anyway, she thought, it was enough to just touch, enough to be skin to skin again, to feel this warmth.
And then they were both asleep, eyelids quivering and breathing deep and slow. Exhausted, sleeping hard. So hard that when the hospital director banged on their door at 1:00A.M. neither woke immediately, it took six, seven, eight hard bangs with his fist and then a panicked yell—“Captain! Captain Hall!”—before Marc’s eyes popped open, then Tory’s, confused and rolling from the cot.
Chapter
32
Alone in her cabin, Pastor passed hands over the items on her desk and the books secured in their sea shelves. She’d brought none of these books onboard herself; all inherited, here when she arrived. She had read them all, or pretty close to all. They were church books, mostly. She could barely remember them now, though she knew by reading the titles she’d read them. The ones she did remember were from the small collection of mysteries she’d found pressed flat behind the main stack. Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, mostly. Those she’d enjoyed immensely, and remembered all of them. She moved her open palm over their spines.
She was having a hard time finding a toehold for any of her five years on this ship. She felt quite useless. As if she’d been asleep, her body standing here five years mechanically performing monkey tasks.
Yet she’d fought with such desperation to stay.
“Perhaps,” she said aloud, “because there is nothing else.” She wasn’t aware she’d spoken out loud.
Master Sergeant Rice took the radio call from Port-au-Prince. He had Big Mickey wake Captain Nellis, then left the room as the officer took the microphone. It was a colonel on the line, an old guy named Baric they’d all met on Guantanamo the week before. A spook, the old guy was. A uniformed spook, but a spook nonetheless.
“And a pissed-off spook, too, from the sounds of him,” Rice said to Mickey, mixing himself a cup of cold instant coffee.
The captain was in the office a long time. When he came out he said, “Someone go down to the mission boat and requisition that sailor who was just here—Davis. We’re gonna need his services.”
Mickey put his helmet on and headed for the door. Captain Nellis was looking over the notes he’d made during the conversation.
“Did you meet that 10th Mountain captain who rode in on the LSV?”
“The guy with the Red Cross?”
“Yeah, him. Hall, Marcel Hall.”
“Just passed a few words,” Sergeant Rice said. “He seemed all right. A little intense, maybe.”
“I guess he is. He just called JTF in Port-au-Prince to say he was headed out to liberate the old prison.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
Rice didn’t know what to say to that. Finally, he just said, “It’s one in the morning.”
“It sure is,” Nellis said.
Chapter
33
Three men had arrived at the hospital in the dark of midnight, two of them carrying the third, who’d been shot in the belly. He was bad—the belly is a painful, dangerous place to be shot—but Brinia Avril thought he would probably live so somewhat lucky. Another man had been shot tonight, in town, and had not lived. A fifth hadn’t been shot at all; he’d been beaten then shoved into the back of a police Jeep, a cloth sack pushed down over his head. The Jeep disappeared out of town, but everyone knew where it was going.
“And these men,” Captain Hall had said, “you’re sure they were in uniform?”
“Yes, yes, in uniform. They did not hide it.” This old man was wringing his hands, in grief. It was his grandson who’d been taken.
“And these two who were shot—the shooters were also in uniform?”
The other man answered this time, shaking his head. “No one saw them.”
The man wringing his hands wailed now, a long moan of grief like Tory had never heard. Her skin crawled to hear it. This man was one of those who’d mustered courage and gone to see the Special Forces soldiers in Jacmel. Retribution for that act had, it seemed now, been quite swift.
Marc made a sudden decision. “We’ll go out there and get him released,” he said. “Now. Before they kill him.”
The hospital director raised his eyebrows. “It would perhaps be wise to wait until morning—”
“No, now,” Marc said. “It has to be now. This is flagrant human-rights abuse.”
Tory spoke for the first time, quietly. “There’s no way the rules of engagement cover this.” She didn’t disagree with the idea of going out there, but felt it had to be said.
Marc didn’t hear her, or pretended he didn’t. “Why in the hell are we in Haiti?” he said. He grabbed his radio from the table and went outside to call, answering his own question for himself.
The back of the lorry was wet, a fine mist of rain soaking them. Tory clutched her rifle, half-kneeling in the back as the truck barreled down a blind road, bumping and bouncing them to nausea.
There is something wrong here,she thought.This doesn’t feel right.
She tried to watch Marc’s face, to measure what he might be thinking, but it was too dark to see.
The fact that she’d been asleep—not just asleep, but naked, in another’s arms—thirty minutes before didn’t throw her much. Anyone with ten seconds in the Army wouldn’t blink at a perspective shift like that. There was something else about this not right. It was Marc, but she was trying not to think that. That was not a comfortable road of thought to go down right now.
She’d wanted to get the
ship’s Humvee.
“Not necessary, and too long to get here,” Marc had said. “Jean will drive us in his truck. I want to strike while this is hot—and while that boy might still be alive.”
Then she’d mentioned the possibility of a few more soldiers, from the boat. To show up with a full squad.
He’d been kneeling on the floor of the hut at the time, checking his gear. Without looking up he said, “A squad of Transportation Corps soldiers? What kind of good are they going to be to me?”
She’d said nothing to that.
He’d stood then, pulling on his flak vest. “This is just an inquiry,” he said. “I just want to know what they have to say. And unless they give me some fast and perfect answers, they’ll find a U.S. Army division sitting on their doorstep tomorrow morning.”
Tory doubted that, but said nothing.
Marc told her then he didn’t want her to go with him. She’d simply answered no, and stepped out of the hut to wait.
And now this truck raced through the rain at what surely was a suicidal speed for Haiti’s roads, and Tory wondered about the intelligence of racing off to battle in a broken-down Red Cross lorry. Marc said they weren’t racing off to battle, they were making a simple inquiry. She wasn’t sure she believed that, either.
In the end, Marc had simply knocked on the door. It was a big door, massive wood planks, and when he realized his knocks were ineffective he kicked the thing. Hard and repeatedly. Tory stood six or so yards behind him, nervous and watching. Her feeling that this was wrong, fool headed, completely filled her now and she tried to push it down but it wouldn’t go.
Oh Christ this is a bad way to check out,she thought and tightened her hand around the pistol grip of her rifle.No one left, just me and the Army.
It was a stone caserne, an old prison with high walls out in what felt like the middle of nowhere. The rain had stopped and a thick white mist stood a foot off the ground. A distinct itch developed between Tory’s shoulder blades and she turned around in place once then twice.
The door opened a crack. Marc said something but she couldn’t hear what. He put his shoulder to the door then, and his foot pushed into the opening. Tory tensed, raising her rifle. The door swung fully open and Marc’s rifle went up, too.
There was a head in Tory’s rifle sight, a head with a peaked cap, and she fought an overwhelming urge to pull the trigger.
Breathe,she ordered herself.Breathe!
Marc took a step in. “Where’s the warden? Who’s in command?”
You breathe in, you breathe out.
“Who the fuck is in command here?”
youbreatheinyoubreatheout
Peaked cap raised his hands; partially, anyway.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey hey.” He was smiling, laughing a little—we’re all friends here, all professionals.Comrades in arms, baby—hey hey. He motioned with his hands and Marc let the barrel of his rifle drop a few inches. Tory’s didn’t move, and she imagined his grinning head exploding in her rifle sight.
“Hey hey hey.”
Marc kept his voice calm, even. “I want to know the whereabouts and condition of Ben Narcisse. And I want to see the commander of this detachment. Wake him, if necessary.”
“Hey,” the Haitian officer said again, smiling wider.
“Now!” Marc said.
The Haitian officer took a step back and Tory took two steps forward. She could see three other uniformed men now, seemingly unarmed, lounging behind the officer. Marc raised his rifle again and this irritated the Haitian. He froze his smile and spit on the ground, just inches from Marc’s boot. Marc ignored this and spoke evenly: “I want to see the commander—”
“I am the commander,Captain. And I am a major.” He pointed to the rank on his shoulder boards. “Some respect,sils vouz plait. ”
“Respect? I demand you—”
“Don’t tell me! I know you,neg pa. I know your Army better than you do.” The man’s eyes flicked in the direction of Tory. He had to have seen them drive up in the Red Cross truck.We’re doomed, she thought. The major was ignoring Marc’s raised rifle now, as if he knew the American wouldn’t fire. He took a step toward him. “Where did you learn to soldier,Captain ? Some college parade ground, in New York City?” he spit again. “I went to Fort Benning! I studied under real officers, real soldiers. I am more of an American soldier than you are.”
Tory heard a noise, diesel engine. She turned to see two pair of headlights coming through the mist, the unmistakable set and width of hummer lights.
Marc was staring at the Haitian major. Very low, so Tory almost didn’t know he was speaking, he rattled off two quick sentences in Creole. The Humvees pulled to a stop behind her, their engines loud. The major laughed and answered Marc, but in English, not Creole. “You need to pick your loyalty, Captain. You are not Haitian.”
Three Special Forces soldiers flanked her then, quickly passing, one of them an officer with a pistol. “Captain Hall!” he said, and Marc turned.
“There is a man in here,” Marc said. “Ben Narcisse, abducted from Jacmel tonight—”
“Shut the fuck up, Captain.” Nellis was clearly pissed off. Pistol still up but not pointing at anything in particular, he put himself directly behind Marc and began whispering in his ear. Master Sergeant Rice approached Tory from the side.
“I’d feel a lot happier if you’d hang that M-16 from your shoulder, trooper,” he said. She let the barrel of her rifle drop, a wave of relief washing over her, then disgust at the relief. She safed the weapon, slung it on her shoulder.
“Anyone else out here I should know about?”
She shook her head. “Just us.”
Rice squinted, taking a step toward her.
“Holy Christ, you’re a wo—” he said then stopped himself.
In the doorway of the prison, Nellis talked alone to Hall then to the Haitian major. He spun on his heels, walking back over to Rice.
“They’re gonna give us this guy and in return we’re all going to leave.”
Rice nodded, then shrugged. “Good.”
Captain Nellis pointed at one of the two Humvees his team had come in. “Go talk again to our sailor friend there and make sure we know how this place is laid out. Hall is insisting we take a quick walk around in there.”
Tory could see the shadow of someone sitting in the backseat of the Humvee. Rice said, “Should we just bring him in?”
“No, this is already too weird and complicated.”
Tory took a step to the hummer, to get a better look at the passenger. Rice went to the vehicle’s window, though, blocking her view. She walked to the prison door, where Marc and Captain Nellis waited. The major was speaking to one of his men. He turned then to Nellis. “He’ll be up in five minutes. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.”
“I’m sure it is,” Nellis said.
“I want to look around,” Marc said, and took a step in.
“Restrain yourself, Captain,” Nellis said, and Marc spun on his heels then, coming face to face with the other captain.
“What do you think this is, exactly, Captain Nellis?” Marc hissed. “This isn’t some paper exercise or snake-eater training course. People died tonight, human beings, this man is responsible”—he jabbed his finger in the major’s direction—“and we would be criminally negligent to ignore it.”
Nellis ground his jaw and said nothing, just holding Marc’s gaze. Finally he spoke, but so low Tory barely heard him, and she stood just a foot away. “I’m not sure what’s in your head right now, Captain Hall, but criminal negligence is the least of your troubles. You do know that, right?” He shifted his gaze then, looking for Master Sergeant Rice, who’d just returned from the Humvees. “C’mon, Sergeant Rice,” he said. “Let’s go get this guy and get out of here.”
Tory let the master sergeant and two other Special Forces soldiers pass, following Marc and Nellis into the prison. No one had told her to join them, but no one had told her to stay put, either. She pull
ed the rifle off her shoulder and held it loose in her hands, turning to follow the men into the prison. A flash caught her eye as she turned, someone lighting a cigarette in the back of one of the Humvees, the flame flickering on a pale-skinned face. She had a quick, momentary flash—somewhere between memory and déjà-vu—and paused for a second, then turned and stepped into the courtyard of the prison.
Junior Davis’s impulse to throw open the back door of the Humvee and wave to Tory, call her name, rush over, was difficult to control. It was the impulse of seeing an old friend, a good, good friend you haven’t seen for a long time. There’s no thought involved, just action: “Hey!”
But he fought it. And stayed put.
He wasn’t completely surprised at seeing her. He knew from listening to the SF boys talk that at least one soldier from the LSV had joined the 10th Mountain captain. Logic said it was an NCO, and Davis knew that if offered the chance Tory would have jumped on it.
Still, it was one thing to know he might see her. It was something else entirely to arrive at the old stone prison in the middle of the Haitian night and realize the soldier in the headlights with rifle aimed to shoot was Tory Harris, his New Jersey.
She looked strong, he thought. It was a stupid, simple thought, but nothing else fit. She just looked…strong. Her stance, posture, her movements precise and exact. He watched her talking to Rice, saw her laugh and knew from where he sat that it was forced but also knew no one but him would know it.
And the one thought more than anything else:I didn’t kill her. Oh God I didn’t kill her.
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