by Kimberly Rae
“A bad memory?”
He nodded. “Very. It’s important that I do it, though, and since my own father isn’t around to ask...” And he’d sooner punch me in the face than pray for me. “I came to ask you. I’m as nervous as if I were heading into battle today, and I need the Lord’s help.”
“Well, son, you came to the right place.” The man put his aged hand on Cole’s shoulder. “I’ve never liked how people say they’ll pray for you but then they leave and you know they’ll probably forget. You asked me to pray, so I’m going to pray now.” He did, aloud, and a place deep inside Cole ached worse than his shoulder. What he would have given to have a father like this man. When finished, Meagan’s grandfather lifted his head and smiled. “And since I’m here with nothing better than infomercials to watch on TV, I’ll have extra time for praying this morning. Can’t even get a decent weather report.”
“Cold and rainy. That’s about it.” Cole stood and wiped down the sleeves of his jacket. “I appreciate your prayers, sir. Thank you.”
“Don’t take this to mean more than it does, say, regarding you and my granddaughter, but I’ve been praying for you since that first day you came to the house. God’s got a plan for you, son, a good one.”
Cole did not know what to do with the strange flip-flop his stomach did at that information. “I’d better go. Thanks again.”
“If you come visit later, bring some pudding or something.” He saluted and called out as Cole left, “Like the last time I saw your nose, so long!”
__________________________
Tuesday, January 6
7:30 a.m.
An hour after breakfast, without explanation, an officer entered Meagan’s cell and accessorized her orange jumpsuit again with a waist chain and handcuffs. He escorted her from her room, down hallways, out to a small area adjacent to the large holding cell that now contained a mere three women instead of the sixteen it had the previous night. The place where she was directed was not a room, more like a large cubby within a room. A built-in concrete block bench ran the length of the cubby area in a horseshoe shape. Steve Campbell sat on the back line of the horseshoe, downing a large cup of coffee, and a stranger with a news-station-sized video camera sat on the right. Cole, who had been pacing the tiny space, two steps over and two steps back, surprised her with open emotion in his eyes as she appeared. He cleared his throat and waited for her to sit before he did. “Are you okay?” he asked, his gaze drawn to the steel circling her wrists. “Were you able to sleep at all?”
“A little.” She thought of saying Steve was the one who looked like he hadn’t had any sleep, but then she hadn’t seen herself that morning. She might look worse. “I always have trouble sleeping the first night in a new place.”
One corner of Cole’s mouth lifted. “Even one as nice as this?”
She glanced at the camera-toting stranger, who looked uneasy, as if he feared her imprisonment might be contagious. “Remind me not to ask your recommendations on vacation spots,” she said to Cole.
He chuckled but quickly sobered. “I’m sorry all of this happened to you, Meagan.”
She shifted and the chain clanked against her handcuffs. The sound startled Steve, who had almost fallen asleep over his coffee. His head jerked and he squinted at the police officer. “You can go,” he told him.
The officer locked his knees and crossed his arms. “Until you release her, I’ll be staying right here with the prisoner.”
“We’re taking her out as soon as we’re done here.”
“You are?” Meagan would have brought a hand to her mouth, but the waist chain kept her restrained. “Did you catch Lucias?”
Steve looked like he wanted to chew on a bullet. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us. There will be plenty of time to get you up to speed later.”
She noticed his careful look at the cameraman and kept her questions from finding voice. It was enough to know she would be out of this horrible outfit and all it meant soon. “Thank You, God,” she whispered.
“Have you been talking to my wife?” Steve growled. “About God?”
Meagan looked his way with a puzzled frown. “I’ve never met your wife.”
“Actually you have,” Cole put in. “Stephanie, the woman you went to the cafe with Sunday afternoon.”
“She’s his wife?” She turned to Steve. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Yeah,” Cole added. “That’s one more thing Steve and I need to discuss.”
“Not now.” Steve drank the last of his coffee and tossed the cup to the policeman, who did not react. The cup fell to the floor and a bit of coffee dripped out. “Would you at least step out of earshot?” Steve asked the officer.
The man did not budge. “We’ve made an exception already letting the prisoner meet with visitors outside the regular visiting area with protective glass. I’m sticking to protocol on this and you will respect it, or she can go back to her cell.”
“I don’t have time to argue about this.” Steve motioned to the man with the camera. “I’ve got to get to Baine for our meeting at nine.”
The stranger brought his camera down onto his lap and pushed buttons. While he was busy, Meagan scooted a bit toward Cole and asked, “Why are you doing this, Cole?” He could have called a press conference and had the media swarming around him. “And why here?”
The journalist positioned his large camera on his left shoulder and Cole leaned near Meagan to say, “Remember when I said it didn’t matter what people thought had happened, and you said it should matter what some people think?” She nodded. He looked deeply at her, then down at his hands as he said, “It matters to me what you think.”
53
Tuesday, January 6
7:45 a.m.
Cole rubbed his hands on the knees of his suit pants in vain effort to quell the nervous tightening in his stomach. He had no time to gauge Meagan’s response. Steve, who looked like he could use a couple of aspirin, kicked his fallen cup aside and announced, “Let’s get this started.” He pointed to each of them in turn. “You talk,” he said to Cole. “You video,” to the cameraman. “And you two,” he finished with a jab toward the policeman then Meagan, “be quiet. No questions or comments. We’ve only got forty-five minutes max.”
Cole wiped perspiration from his hairline. It was time. He had not spoken of that day since his report forty-eight hours after it happened. His eyes found Meagan’s, and he told himself to talk just to her, to make sure she knew he was not the man in the newspaper article.
“I can only give so many specific details, but I’ll tell you what I can,” he began. “We were a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force with the initial role of advise and assist. I’ll state our general location as Baghdad, but we were actually a few miles out. Our job was to train soldiers in the Iraqi army. We were instructed to remain on base unless under orders to leave for a mission. ISIS started hitting the base with artillery and rocket fire. We were informed ISIS had obtained and was using Chinese-made shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missiles, and had also captured some 155 mm howitzers.” At Meagan’s blank look, he added, “They can fire up to about nine miles. We were in trouble.”
He ran a hand through his hair and continued. “My battalion got the assignment to scout several areas and identify ISIS targets for air strikes. We were successful enough, and secretive enough, that the enemy sent in a spy. The enemy had downed several aircraft, one of which had documentation and information crucial to—” He stopped and rubbed clammy palms over his face. “I don’t know why I’m talking all technical. The problem was that if ISIS got possession of the stuff in that one plane, a lot of American soldiers would die. Our job was to get to the plane, get the stuff, and get it back to the base, preferably without any of us getting killed along the way.”
He sent a quick glance to the camera. “The enemy knew we were going after something important, but they didn’t know what or where. They sent a woman to try to find out where our troupe was headed, a
nd what we were after.”
This was the part that mattered. Steve sat as still as stone, and Cole knew his mind was in Baghdad, reliving the sand and heat and bombs and fires, the fear of death each day so thick in the air you thought you could taste it. Steve would need few words. The policeman and the cameraman—Cole had little regard for whether they understood or not. But Meagan, he wanted her to see, to be there, to know what really happened. Cole leaned over. He put his elbows on his knees and his head down. He closed his eyes and sent his mind back to that day in Iraq.
His lungs burned and sweat trailed down both sides of his face. The heat threatened to put him on the ground, but he had to reach her in time. He forced his screaming calves into a final sprint to the building and lunged inside, too breathless to speak, able only to put both hands forward in a silent appeal to the beautiful woman dressed in green, who had a line of explosives strapped to her thin waist.
She stood twenty to thirty feet away near the doorway, her head out to view the oncoming line of tanks that carried his fellow soldiers.
“Please,” he gasped, taking in huge gulps of air, needing to talk so he could convince her not to do this. “Please.”
Her head turned and she looked on him with eyes full of sorrow rather than surprise. “I told you not to come. You had to know I would get the location.” One tear slipped down her cheek. “Most men are not like you.” Her head dropped. “I wish they were.”
He finally had enough breath to create more words and he spoke quickly. “You don’t have to do this. I can take you someplace safe, away from here. You can start over again. Hear about a God who loves you.” He had wandered from God the same time he left his father, but looking at this woman, so cloaked with despair, it was the clearest thing in the world that she needed Jesus. How strange that he could see it for her when he’d refused so long to see it for himself.
“I have heard of your Jesus,” she said, checking the position of the envoy again before saying, “If it were only me, I would go with you. Learn of Him. Be free. Maybe even forgiven.” The roll of the tanks rumbled the earth beneath their feet. “But my family is shamed and this is my only hope of giving them honor. Our faith says this is the one way I am sure of being accepted into heaven.”
“That’s not true,” he insisted with urgency. “Please, just give me a chance. I can help you and your family. This isn’t what God wants you to do.”
“I am not acceptable any other way.”
He reached for his radio to call Steve to abort the mission. His hand grasped air. The radio, and his equipment pouch, were back in the bunker, on his bed next to the Modular Tactical Vest constructed to save his life in a situation like this. All he had was his M9 Beretta pistol. He took it out and pointed it at her. “I don’t want you to die like this.”
She revealed the grenade in her hand and what air he had remaining left his lungs. “Run,” she said. “This is my destiny, not yours. Run!”
His hands shook. The tanks were close enough he could hear commands being ushered from the lead vehicle’s commander. “Please...” he begged. Sweat beaded and dropped from his face like tears. “Please.”
“I’m sorry.” She pulled the pin on the grenade and closed her eyes. “Allah akbar,” she whispered, and turned her body to the doorway.
He knew what would happen. She would run into the street and face the lead tank. The grenade would go off, blasting shrapnel through her body and igniting the other explosives. Her death would trigger the death of many others.
With a shout of both warning and regret, he pulled the trigger. She dropped to the ground and he ran.
Two seconds later, her grenade exploded. The building contained the grenade’s destruction, but not the explosions to follow. Flames burst through windows and doorways, then the walls crumbled and red heat mixed with death exhaled from the building. He did not stop to watch. He ran for his life toward the refuge of the nearest building, and had reached the edge and turned left to hide behind the stone wall when he was lifted into the air and thrown. Pain ripped through his left shoulder. Shrapnel cut ribbons of his clothing. He slammed onto the ground and cried out in agony. Rocks and sand rained down on him. Before the flame could settle, his body gave way to unconsciousness.
Cole breathed in and out, choosing details that would sound like a report instead of a memory. He heard the contained panic that traced the edges of his words, and only as he neared the end did he realize that at some point Meagan had reached for him. He looked down and saw his own hand covered hers completely. He should let go. His grip was probably cutting off the circulation in her fingers.
He lessened the pressure but did not release her hand. Eyes still on the floor between his feet, he continued. “I woke up in one of our tanks. The ride back to the barracks was excruciating. Once the medic there had worked on me enough that I would survive the trip, they flew me to America.”
For the first time since he started talking, he looked up. Steve was pale, a layer of moisture dampening his skin. The cameraman stared in silence, his camera somewhat off to the side as if he had forgotten to either put it down or keep it trained on Cole’s face. Meagan wiped tears from her cheeks.
“You saved their lives,” she said.
His head dropped. He let go of Meagan’s hand to rub his shoulder. “Not all their lives.”
She touched his arm. He could not bear to hear a hollow reassurance, so he spoke to Steve. “I hallucinated those first days. They had me on a lot of morphine. But I do remember, at least I think I remember, someone telling me none of our men were killed, none of the tanks were damaged beyond repair, and only a few men suffered minor injuries.”
Steve wiped his face with the back of his hand. “That’s right.”
Cole spoke quietly. “I don’t remember you lying for me. And I don’t know what you would lie about.”
“I thought you had told her the location of the envoy. I thought that you were responsible; that’s why you ran to stop her that day.” Steve would not look at him. He stood. “We’d better go.” He handed a business card and a sheet of paper to the man with the camera. “Make sure this video gets to every major news source in the city. Pass along my contact information if anyone has questions. I vouch for the truth of this testimony and renounce the falsehood of the article in the newspapers yesterday. The source did not have accurate information.”
The man nodded, packed up his camera, and left after shaking Cole’s hand. Cole stood. “Steve, we—”
“I have to get to the office. Baine has me back on the case and I need to strategize with him about a noon deadline.”
Cole knew Steve was being deliberate in his lack of information, knowing if he got Cole to ask for details, it would keep Cole from asking other things. Too spent to push further, Cole nodded. “I’ve got the week off, so I can help. Vacation time.” Steve missed the irony, but he noted Meagan did not. Her face radiated sympathy. The chains connected to her handcuffs clinked as she stood. She did not speak, but touched his shoulder one more time on her way by him, a slight but comforting gesture.
The police officer, who had remained silent, shook Cole’s hand the moment he rose from the bench. This was why he hated talking about Baghdad. It changed the way people saw him. They treated him like a hero, but he had failed. He had risked men’s lives to try to save a spy. He’d failed to bring his radio so he could abort the mission. He’d shot a woman. He’d aimed at her thigh to bring her down rather than kill her, and that had been foolish. She might have dragged herself out the door and thrown the grenade at the lead tank. And what if he had not run fast enough in the first place, and arrived too late to do anything but see his fellow soldiers blown to pieces?
Shame could run in opposite directions at once. He wished he had been able to save the woman from choosing a destiny that was a lie. He also wished he had reported her after their midnight meeting, when she confessed she was a spy. “She fell in love when she was a girl. The boy convinced her to meet him in se
cret one night. She did and was discovered. Her reputation was destroyed and she was labeled an outcast.” At the stricken look on Meagan’s face, he realized he was speaking his thoughts aloud. “She had no place to go and ended up on the streets, where she became what her community had already claimed she was. Along the way she got recruited by the enemy.” He frowned. “Or more accurately, was told to do what they wanted or she would die. They promised redemption with the suicide bombing. She kept saying she had no other choice.”
Steve cleared his throat. “You couldn’t have saved her Cole. Some people are past saving.”
Meagan’s wince mirrored his own. “I don’t believe that anymore.”
Steve reached down for his discarded coffee cup. “Maybe you should.” He looked around for a trash can. “I’ve got to get back. Cole, you get Meagan checked out of here, or whatever the process is called. You can take her by your office if you still want to, but don’t take long, and then bring her to the Federal Building.”
The relief on Meagan’s features hit Cole hard. She smiled and said, “You really meant it when you said I’d get released.”
Steve did not seem to hear. “Speed up the process, will you?” he said to the officer. “And Cole, get her stuff in a bag, but keep her in the uniform, and make sure that when you show up at the building, she’s wearing the chain and handcuffs.”
54
Tuesday, January 6
9:00 a.m.
Meagan remained silent as Cole and the policeman gathered her things and had her sign paperwork. When Cole had talked about Iraq, her heart had responded to his deep pain. The moment Steve mentioned Cole’s office, however, doubts pummeled her again. There was so much she did not know about Cole Fleming, so much she feared to know. Would her heart allow her to recognize a lie if he told it?
“The handcuffs are yours but the waist chain belongs to the prison,” the officer told Cole. “You’ll need to bring it back when you return the uniform.” He crossed his arms. “Mr. FBI didn’t tell me when that would be.”