Veil of Silence

by K'Anne Meinel

  “The pilots were both dead. A huge boulder came through the front glass,” she opened her eyes to look into the camera and then glanced at Captain Lamar.

  “Do you remember their names?” he asked. He knew from his reports, but he wanted her to say them if she knew.

  She shook her head. “I had only just met them. Sergeant Ames was the only one I knew and that was because he was going home too.”

  “What happened when you hit?”

  “The noise was horrible, the rotors kept spinning and hitting the mountainside. I was afraid they’d somehow slice through the helicopter. We couldn’t get out the door behind the copilot as it was against the mountain. We were trying to get the door open on my side, but it took three of us to pry it open as it had buckled a bit with our crash. We ended up kicking at the thing. The cabin was filling with that black smoke and I thought we were going to choke to death from it.” She paused for a moment, breathing deeply as she relived it in her mind. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about it over the years, but no one in Zabi’s village wanted to hear and had never asked. They had their own version of events.

  “So, the four of you were alive at this point?”

  She nodded. “I think so, but one of the guys was having trouble breathing. The black smoke,” she paused until he nodded, repeating what she had just said. “I think he was asthmatic, but I couldn’t be sure. Once we got the door open, we heard this grinding noise as the blades finally began to stop. They were hitting the mountain and the clatter against the rocks was terrible.” She shuddered a little as she remembered, her eyes closing as she ‘saw’ it all once again. She really hoped she wouldn’t have to repeat this too many times. She didn’t realize this was the first time she had spoken aloud about it. Captain Lamar was watching her closely, making notes as she told her story.

  “It was getting hot in there and Sergeant Ames yelled, ‘I think she’s gonna blow.’ We all scrambled to get out as the rotors ground to a halt. It was then we realized the fourth man hadn’t followed. Me and Ames went back to pull him out. Damn! It was hot!” she looked up, embarrassed that she had cursed. At Captain McKellan’s encouraging nod she continued, “We pulled him out choking and heaving. We drew back away from the helicopter about twenty-five yards, amongst some other rocks. The going was rough. We were, after all, on a mountainside. It was a good thing those rocks were there as the chopper did blow. The fireball went up and we could all feel the heat despite the distance. I must have passed out because when I came to, the others were missing and I was being pulled along by some locals. They were dressed very simply from what I had seen of other native Afghans. They kept yelling at me, but I didn’t understand them or their dialect.” She looked apologetically at her listeners, as though it was her fault she couldn’t tell them more.

  “You didn’t see Sergeant Ames or any of the others?” Captain McKellan verified, knowing that the others waiting to question her would have reiterated these facts. At her nod, he asked, “You didn’t see what happened to the bodies of the pilots?”

  “I have to think they were blown to pieces by the explosion,” she answered. It was logical after all.

  “Why do you think the chopper went down?”

  “Well it wasn’t anything they were doing that I could tell. Perhaps the chopper simply malfunctioned.”

  “Do these malfunction often, Captain?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Captain. I’m not a helicopter mechanic.”

  He smiled, knowing he was not on camera. Her answers were exactly what he wanted to hear. She wasn’t assigning blame and she wasn’t assuming anything. They were logical and well-thought-out. He could tell by how she was telling her tale that she was telling the truth. He hoped the army would believe her. He knew they were already skeptical, but he hoped making this video would help her case. They had a road ahead of them, but he didn’t know if it would be long or short.

  She told how she was unceremoniously hung over the rump of a horse. She didn’t know if she had any injuries at that time, but she passed out again since her head was down over the side. When she came to, she was being raped. She glossed over that part of the story and looked away. Captain Lamar thought she saw a tear, and then the pregnant woman gulped audibly and straightened her spine.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” Captain McKellan offered, and at her nod he poured it himself.

  She sipped at it, looking into the glass like she didn’t really know what to do with it after she had taken a drink.

  “Is something wrong, Captain?” Captain Lamar asked her, concerned as she continued to stare at the glass.

  “The water is so clear,” she commented.

  “The water wasn’t clear where you were?” she asked, hinting that the captain should continue with her tale.

  “Yes, it was straight from the streams in the mountains. There were some that the tribe knew we shouldn’t drink from. I don’t know how they knew, but I accidentally drank from one and ended up with the worst dysentery,” she confided with a rueful little grin.

  They all exchanged smiles. Everyone had experienced a little dysentery in the army from time to time.

  “Are you ready to go on?” Captain McKellan asked, his hint a little broader than Captain Lamar’s.

  “Yes,” she smiled and nodded, taking another sip before continuing. She told about how she was taken into the mountains and how the tribe lived in caves. They avoided most people. She found out later that the pieces of the helicopter had been buried so that it wouldn’t be found, so that people wouldn’t come there to investigate. Even the vestiges of the explosion had been hidden, first by the tribe, and then by time.

  “How do you know that?” Corporal Harris asked, interrupting her tale.

  “I heard the women talking about how their husbands had buried the debris they had found. How they found me and the others. They stopped talking when they saw that I could hear them. I never did find out what happened to the others,” she said sadly.

  “These people, they weren’t insurgents?” Captain McKellan clarified.

  She shook her head. “No, they seemed to be avoiding the fighting. They didn’t want their sons fighting a war they didn’t understand. They didn’t agree with it.”

  “They weren’t Afghan people?”

  “Yes, they were. They didn’t want their sons killed for a war they didn’t agree with. We spent winters in the caves, hiding from people. Summers were spent on the plains or traveling.”

  “How did they travel…jeeps and trucks?”

  She shook her head again. “No, the only time I ever saw a jeep was the last day I was there when I stole it. They rode horses or walked and kept to themselves. There are other nomadic tribes like that. They would meet up in the summer and their young people would be paired off. There are many that feel that way.”

  “They don’t want to fight?” Captain McKellan knew that this would be valuable information to the army.

  “No, their people don’t want to see their sons go off into the world. Anyone different,” she sounded like she was talking about herself, “was squashed or their modern thoughts ridiculed. I tried to introduce some modern conveniences, even making a paddle wheel in the stream for my son, and they broke it.” Her own voice broke as she remembered.

  “How were you treated?” Captain Lamar asked, hearing the note in the woman’s voice.

  “Badly,” she admitted. Her voice took on a hollow note. “I was given to the chief of this clan. His name was Zabi. He stopped the rapes from the other men when he claimed me. That didn’t mean he didn’t rape me himself. I learned later he took me because he felt I was an American warrior woman. He felt I was a challenge.”

  “Did you fight him? Did you try to escape?” Captain McKellan asked, knowing the army would want to know this information.

  She nodded. Her voice remained a monotone of no emotion. “I tried many times. I didn’t know where I was. They beat me horribly.”

  “And you couldn’t escap
e?”

  “I was watched. All the time, I was watched. When I managed to escape a few times, they beat me on the soles of my feet. It makes it so painful that you can’t walk. Then they would beat me for not working.”

  “Did the beatings stop?” Lamar asked her, feeling the woman’s pain, but not showing it.

  “Only when I became pregnant that first year. Zabi was thrilled because his first wife was barren. She was older than he was. She resented me and the attention he gave me. Even though I never wanted any of it, I was blamed for it.” She tried not to sound bitter.

  “Did she beat you too?”

  Marsha nodded. She was getting tired. Telling this story, reliving it, was wearing on her. “She stopped when Zabi commanded her to. He was disappointed that my first child was a girl child. He,” she closed her eyes at the memory, “was on me as soon as I was no longer unclean. I lost that baby because of his beatings.”

  Her audience was horrified at her tale. It was lacking in details, but the simple story was bad enough. The camera was catching the pain on the woman’s face as she told her story.

  “The next baby was the longed-for son. My son. My son,” she repeated. “My children were given to the first wife, Malekah. They were treated as though she had given birth to them.” She closed her eyes again. “This one they hoped for another boy.” She rubbed her stomach protectively. “All the men want boys to come after them.” She cringed as she remembered something that she wouldn’t share with them. Not now, maybe not ever. She looked at Captain McKellan and asked, “Could we take a break?”

  “Of course,” he agreed, although he wished they could keep going. The sooner they got the complete story, the sooner the officials that wanted so desperately to question her would stop asking him for access to her. He pressed a button on the remote control and turned off the camera.

  Corporal Harris rose to hook the camera up to a computer and record the video onto it. The disks they would make from it would prove valuable in her defense.

  “You are dismissed, Captain,” Captain McKellan told her formally. He watched as she nodded and painfully got up from the chair. Sitting too long was making the very pregnant woman stiff. She left the room where they were conducting the interview, leaning against the door after she went through it. She was in time to hear the captain ask the shrink, “Do you believe her?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yes, it’s just so simple though. They are going to try to tear her story to shreds. They aren’t going to want to believe her. Two definitely dead and three others missing? They won’t want to buy that scenario.”

  “Yes, but in the absence of other proof….”

  “Why would the tribe bury the chopper? That doesn’t make sense to me,” Corporal Harris asked.

  “If you can’t find the evidence then you can’t keep looking for it, right?” Captain McKellan asked him. At that Marsha waddled away from the door to find her children. Whether they believed her or not, she was telling the truth. They couldn’t make her lie or tell them what they wanted to hear.

  * * * * *

  They continued the next day. Marsha was interviewed three days in a row—a few hours in the morning and another few hours every afternoon. She was allowed breaks with her children so she could unwind from the stiffness of recording her statement. They went over and over the story, asking her several different ways in order to see if she tripped up, but her statement about what had happened to her remained firm.

  They learned that the nomadic tribe had nothing to do with outsiders from their small-minded and secular lifestyle. The few times they came across the war, the tribe changed course or hid until the danger passed. They would all hide if a helicopter or plane came over too low. The children were most frightened by these things.

  Marsha had no idea where the jeep had come from, but had taken it on impulse, gathering her children so she could run with them. She had no idea where she was going except down that mountain road. She had hoped the paved highway she had seen from their mountain retreat would take her somewhere safe. Her heart was in her throat the whole way. It took three days to get to civilization and she had to steal gasoline for the jeep. Somehow she managed, and despite starvation and lack of water, her children were healthy and now safe. She was relieved for that.

  * * * * *

  On the second day, Captain McKellan shared the previous day’s interview with Major Scott, the colonel, and the others who had come from the base to interview Marsha. They had a list of questions for him to ask her after seeing this tidbit. He refused to ask them right away, but tried to work them in as she continued her tale.

  “Alright, Captain. You’ve gotten your first crack, now it’s our turn,” the colonel, introduced as Colonel Rugster, told him, trying to pull rank.

  “No, sir,” he said respectfully. “She trusts me now and her tale isn’t complete. Once I have it all on tape, I’ll be able to help her answer your questions.”

  “Enough already! We don’t have time to waste here,” he responded angrily. They had come to the embassy as a courtesy, not knowing if the captain and her children could be moved. Already, there were reports of an increase in possible civilians near the front of the embassy. Not wishing to increase hostilities, no one was questioning these civilians who seemed to be malingering. The embassy personnel were on high alert, the guards especially.

  “Sir, I understand your position; however, I have the authority to make this decision,” he began, only to be interrupted and overridden. “Sir,” he interrupted back, “if you check with General Biggins, you will find I am well within my mandate.” He tried not to be cocky or say it in a manner that would offend the blustering colonel. He knew he had to get the story out of the captain first. Unable to interrogate her for eight hours straight, these little spates of time were all he had.

  “That’s it, Captain. One more day and that’s it,” he was warned. Fortunately for him and for Marsha, that third day was all they needed for her story to be complete.

  Corporal Harris made sure that copies were sent back to the States as well as to those waiting to interrogate the captain.

  “You sent them where?” the colonel blustered angrily. “I will have you know this investigation has–” he began, but Captain McKellan interrupted even though he knew it was bad form and he could be in trouble for doing so.

  “Sir, I was instructed to keep certain people apprised of Captain Gagliano’s testimony. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with this investigation.”

  “She fraternized with the enemy,” he pointed out angrily.

  “She was captured by the natives and kept prisoner for these five years. She was raped and beaten by these people. That was not fraternizing. She was kept against her will. She tried escaping on several occasions and ultimately made it.”

  The colonel was not pleased with a mere captain pointing out these facts. He wanted to spin it in his own way.

  Ultimately, neither of them would have a choice in what would happen. The ambassador, a nice man by the name of Tudor, came to them. “My people tell me there is an increase in activity around the embassy. I would like it if your people,” he indicated the colonel, “would take this investigation to your base. I hear from your people,” he indicated the captain, “that the best course of action would be to get her to the States. What is the plan?”

  Captain McKellan nodded. He too had heard about the civilians and knew it was time to move her. They’d have to be quick about it as the colonel and his people wanted access to her. The civilians, if they were Zabi and his people, would want her desperately, especially her son, Amir. It wasn’t lost on him that the name Amir meant king in their language. He started to make arrangements, and quickly.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I don’t know that I can,” she shook her head as she backed away from what he had told her, from the concept. “The last time I was on one of those things, it crashed. That sort of thing stays with you.”

  “We
believe your husband–”

  “He’s not my husband!” she said vehemently, correcting him. “He was my torturer, my warden. I was his concubine, his slave, a mere servant.” The anger in her voice was obvious. She’d been getting braver day by day since she felt safer. She wouldn’t feel truly safe until she was on American soil in the United States. She glanced at the children playing so innocently with toys they would never have seen in the hills of Afghanistan. They hadn’t been deprived—none of the children of the village had been—they simply hadn’t known anything else. It wasn’t that the American way of life was better…just different.

  “We have to get you out now,” Mr. Wynn told her, trying to be diplomatic.

  Marsha nodded mutely. She knew that. She’d have to swallow her fears, and there were many of them. She had to get herself and her children to safety. Zabi must not be allowed to find her or the children…ever! If he got hold of the children, they would disappear into the caves in those hills and she would never see them again. If he got hold of her, death would be preferable to what he would do to her.

  “Would you be able to identify your…” he started to say husband again, reconsidered, and said, “captor if we had a picture?”

  “Is Zabi outside the gates?” she gasped, her hands starting to twist in her lap. The fear was real. He or his family would come for her if they could. Had they figured out where she had gone? Of course they had. They weren’t stupid, merely uneducated. She looked around fearfully, wondering at the security here in the embassy. They were sitting in the gardens, watching the children play. It was a lot more relaxed than the offices where they had interrogated her, much to their mutual frustration. There were things that she just wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say.

  “We aren’t sure,” Major Scott told her. “There seems to be unusual local activity on the streets. We aren’t sure if it’s the same people, but I don’t believe we should take chances. We want to get you out now.”