by Glenn Meade
An uneasy feeling slithered up my spine. Whoever was holding the camera was walking through a scene of total carnage and devastation. There was hardly any sound, which made it even more eerie, just a few vague cries of pain and sporadic gunshots. A couple of U.S. soldiers in full battle gear ran past the cameraman, rifles aimed. Another group looked like medics and carried plasma bags. I saw more helicopters already landed in the background.
And then I got a shock. I recognized my father, leading a group of officers. He wore a helmet and was dressed in full battle gear, a holstered sidearm strapped to his leg. He was also limping, which gave me a time frame. This was sometime after he’s lost his foot and gone back to active duty. He looked totally in command as he held a map in one hand and pointed, making a slicing action with the other, as he directed the officers. Another officer approached him. The camera circled so it got the officer’s face in the shot.
That was my second shock. It was Jack. He looked stressed, his fatigues dusty, a shemag around his neck. He gave the camera holder a nod of recognition, and then he and my father engaged in a heated discussion. The camera scene shifted abruptly to the landscape around them.
It was flat, but I spotted a russet-colored hill in the distance. The images reminded me of some of those scenes in the early part of the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s retreating army tried to escape in convoys and were blown to oblivion by the coalition forces in relentless attacks.
The cameraman kept moving through the convoy’s remains. Bloodied, dead bodies were everywhere, some with limbs missing, body parts scattered. I didn’t see any American military dead. A few of the vehicles were trucks and vans and looked as if they had been shredded by rocket-propelled grenades.
I recalled what Courtney and Tanner had said about Tarik. Was this the same incident? My gut told me it was. I kept my mouth shut, as Tanner told me to.
Then came another horror.
The camera zoomed in on dozens of bodies of women and children in a truck. The chassis was mangled, drenched in blood. Some of the dead women clutched their deceased infants in their arms, their clothes drenched in crimson. I glimpsed the body of a young boy, about seven. His right leg was blown off, and his torso looked riddled with shrapnel or bullets. Other children’s corpses were half charred.
So many of the bodies were children. Some were half naked from grenade or bomb detonation. Clumps of them were scattered everywhere, huddled together. I recalled press photographs I’d seen of the civilian massacres at My Lai during the Vietnam War. That’s what these images reminded me of. Ruthless, merciless, callous war. “I’ve seen enough.”
Chad froze the video on the grisly scene. I averted my eyes. Horrified, I wanted to throw up.
“Have you ever heard of Babylon?”
“Yes.”
“It’s one of the oldest cities in civilization, four thousand years old, and the ruins lie just over fifty miles south of Baghdad.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
Chad said, “The dead were in a convoy of tribal elders, with their fighters and their families. They had decided to change sides with the insurgents and become U.S. allies. Your father had done the deal and persuaded the tribe to come over to us. They were traveling through an area south of Babylon to a new base.”
“What happened?”
“Jack was in the lead. His units mistook the convoy for a group of insurgents and ambushed it, directing fire from the ground and from a bunch of choppers. The convoy returned fire; the whole thing escalated and got out of hand. Jack and his men didn’t know there were women and children in the Iraqi vehicles. Not until the shooting was over.”
“Jack . . . Jack killed all those people?”
“Once the target started returning fire, it was impossible to stop the battle. Jack took it bad afterward, when he realized the mistake. Your father and I arrived by chopper ten minutes after we got the call at command. I took the video you just saw.”
I gestured to the grisly images on the screen. “What happened that day triggered Jack’s PTSD, didn’t it?”
Chad nodded.
“Kyle was there, too, wasn’t he?”
He nodded again.
I shot a look at the screen and felt nausea in the pit of my stomach. I understood now how Kyle would have gone over the edge. I would, too, if I’d witnessed such carnage. I noticed the hill again, beyond the clump of bodies. It looked so unusual in the stark brown landscape. The hill’s earth looked russet-brown, almost red. I pointed to the screen.
“What’s . . . that?”
Chad hit a key a few times, advancing the images. I saw the hill a little sharper. “The locals called it Red Rock. A hilly outcrop just up the road from where the shooting took place. Jack mounted his attack from there. That’s what we called the operation. Red Rock.”
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. Now I knew what Red likely meant. I had been tempted to show Kyle’s notepad to Chad, except that now there didn’t seem much point. But why would my mother record those words? What did it have to do with her?
Chad looked at me. “There was an official military inquiry. The Army had been on the receiving end of a lot of bad press back then and wanted it all whitewashed. The story was, they had your father blame it on the tribe, said they double-crossed us. You get the idea. The inquiry came out along those lines. Your father and Jack and his men were cleared, and everybody moved on. Which pretty much suited everyone. No criminal charges, no jail time, no dishonorable discharges. Everything’s hunky-dory.”
Chad shrugged. “And that’s the way it stayed. Until Jack’s PTSD started to get worse. When he began to talk about the incident at Red Rock, and the Army didn’t like the whispers it was hearing. Some other folks didn’t like it, either.”
“What others?”
“When Jack disappeared, it suited a bunch of people. He was losing it, starting to worry those with a vested interest in keeping the whole dirty business quiet. They didn’t want attention drawn to the incident.” Chad met my stare. “Some money that was in the Iraqi convoy went missing that day.”
“What money? And what people?”
“For heaven’s sake, Kath, the U.S. was doling out money to insurgents and the Iraqis left, right, and center. You knew that, didn’t you? Billions of dollars. And big chunks of it went missing. It was a feeding frenzy. Pigs sticking their snouts in troughs.”
“I heard eight billion.”
Chad almost laughed. “Eight? I’d say that’s a conservative figure. Who told you that?”
“Courtney.”
“What exactly is her role in the investigation?”
“She never fully explained.”
“Some estimates say twelve billion dollars vanished. And guess what? There’s never been a significant government inquiry. At least, not one that sent a bunch of people to prison.”
“Why is that?”
“Because there are truckloads of skeletons that lead back to the guilty. Open up one crypt, and you could open up them all.”
“Who are the guilty?”
“It’s a long list. Senior Iraqi government bigwigs and officials. And I could also include U.S. military brass, civilian advisers, and businesspeople.”
I stared at the gory images on the screen. My nausea had not gone away. “I . . . I’d like a glass of water.”
“Are you OK?”
“No. I feel faint.”
Chad got up and moved out to the kitchen. I heard him fill a glass with ice and water from the fridge. I don’t know why—or maybe I did—but I slipped out my phone, flicked on the camera, and took a couple of shots of the frozen image on the screen. It might turn out grainy, it might not, but I wanted evidence.
Chad returned with a glass of water with crushed ice. He handed it to me. I drank half of it down.
“Any better?”
<
br /> “I’d like a copy of the video.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“I want it, Chad.”
“No way.”
“A snapshot still, then.”
“What for?”
I wasn’t quite sure why, maybe for the same reason I took a shot with my camera phone. I had a feeling I wanted to confront my father with the evidence. “It’s personal.”
“I’m sorry, Kath. I can’t do it. The evidence stays in my possession.”
“Chad . . .”
“I’m sorry. In the wrong hands, this could be dynamite.”
Chad hit the keyboard a few times with his index finger and snapped the laptop shut.
“Are you one of those who benefited?” I asked him.
He stared back at me, looking offended. “Me? Are you kidding? Of course not.”
“So where does Jack figure in all of this?”
“The convoy Jack attacked—those tribal chiefs didn’t just change sides for their health.”
I waited, saying nothing.
“The Army never mentioned it in the report, but those guys had just received a big payment from the U.S. government. It ensured that they switched sides to help U.S. forces fight Al Qaeda-backed insurgents. The money was supposed to be in a truck along with the convoy . . .” His voice trailed away.
“And?”
“It vanished into thin air that same day.”
“How much?”
Chad didn’t answer, his lips tight.
“I asked how much, Chad?”
“Maybe you need to ask your father that question.”
“My father? Why?”
“He filed the report to his superiors. He tried to cover everyone, naturally. These were his men. He felt he had to stand by them. Paint them as guiltless. But I heard rumors . . .” Chad said, faltering.
“What do you mean?”
“That the whole thing was a setup. The ambush was all part of a plan to steal the money . . .” He faltered again.
“You’re saying my father had something to do with it?”
“I’m saying nothing. It was a rumor I heard, that’s all.” He looked at me. “Kath, it was all smoke and mirrors back then. There was a lot of mistrust and a lot of double dealing. Nobody knows what the truth is or was. Things clouded it.”
“Like?”
“We’d lost five men the day before in an insurgent attack.”
“Meaning?”
“You want something back for it. We wanted heavy contact. Instead, we got a civilian convoy.”
“What are you saying?”
“Your father’s report claimed that the tribal elders had already handed over the cash to another bunch of insurgents, that they never intended to change sides, that it was all just a ruse to con us out of the money.”
“So what’s the truth, Chad?”
Chad sighed. “All I know is that the money was never found. Your father authorized the operation. If anyone knew what the truth was, he should have. Me, I was way down in the pecking order.”
“But you were there. You mean you never spoke to him about it?”
“Sure. But the missing money was pretty much a forbidden subject. One I never revisited until you told me about Jack’s briefcase. All I wanted to do today was try to explain to you what might have triggered Jack’s mental problems and Kyle’s. That’s all. The killings that day affected us all. Maybe I should have told you the truth before now. Except I couldn’t. The Army put the clamps on it, deemed it classified. But you deserve to know. It’s tormented you.”
His hand came across and touched my knee. Nothing sexual, but it sent a small current of electricity down my spine.
“I just want to help. To be there for you.”
I said nothing.
“I kept a copy of the video in case that can of worms ever got opened up again. It’s my proof that I didn’t have a role in the main drama. Something like that could ruin me if I ever stayed in politics.”
“You think Jack had something to do with the stolen money?”
Chad said nothing, his mouth a slit.
“Why do I get the feeling you do? You think he stole more than was in the briefcase?”
Chad shrugged, but it looked to me like a yes. “I guess he could have vanished with a lot more. A small fortune. Yeah, I guess he could have made himself a rich man.”
“How much missing money are we talking about?”
Chad’s hand moved away from my knee, and he made a steeple of his fingers again, touching the tips to his mouth. “We’re not just talking about money. The convoy had other valuables.”
“Such as?”
“The mask you saw. It belonged to the tribe, along with a bunch of other artifacts. Actually, there were supposed to be three masks. The Iraqis probably stole them in the first place, but that’s beside the point.”
I sat there, considering it all, and then I looked into Chad’s face. “How much money?”
No answer, Chad’s mouth a slit.
“I haven’t got all day, Chad. For Pete’s sake, how much?”
“Twenty-five million dollars.”
59
* * *
Loudon Marina
Earlier that same day, Courtney pulled up in the marina parking lot.
She saw the restaurant nearby, Willy’s on the Water, but it was empty, the lunchtime crowd at least two hours away. They walked along the marina, under the covered walkway, boats on either side, until they came to the end, where a blue-and-white-painted old Dorsett Catalina was tied up.
It had definitely seen better days, being more than a half century old, the paintwork scratched in places and the varnish worn in patches. Compared with the newer boats nearby, it was a decrepit old wreck, but it still looked solidly built, tough as granite.
Tanner looked it over, tipped the bow with the tip of his shoe. They had driven in separate cars, left them parked in the marina lot. “Used to go fishing on one of these when I was a kid. A school pal of mine, his old man had one.”
“Yeah?”
“Happy days. So what did you find?”
Courtney stepped onto the boat. She moved toward the steering area. Below it, steps led down to a cabin.
“No one knows who berthed it here. Or maybe they do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone could have slipped one of the marina staff a fistful of dollars to leave it overnight, no questions asked. Except nobody’s saying. The employee I spoke with says it was just berthed here.”
Tanner put a hand to his forehead, stared toward the left of the dam and the canal lock gates that enabled boats to proceed along the Tennessee River. “When was the Dorsett berthed? What’s the timeline?”
“The night before Quentin Lusk arrived at Kath’s doorstep.”
“It often happens that folks just leave a vessel tied up here without any authorization?”
“Sometimes.”
“Has the marina got security cameras?”
“Sure. And I looked at the recordings.”
“And?”
“The cameras have blind spots that don’t cover the end of the marina where the Dorsett was.”
“Ain’t that just terrific. You think somebody knew that?”
“Maybe. The canal security isn’t that tight, but there are also cameras, monitored by the engineers and the coastguard. I’m going to check those and see if they turn up anything. Maybe the owner came through the gates and we can get a visual.”
“Yeah, and sorry to rain on your parade, but maybe he didn’t. So what did you find?”
As Tanner waited for a reply, he nosed around, lifted the cover on a storage bin. Ropes and buoys, all of them looking and smelling decades old.
“It’s really all I’ve go
t. There are no ID numbers on the boat, no way to trace it back to an owner. And it looks to me like whoever left it here did a cleanup job, removing any personal items that could be traced.” Courtney pushed open the cabin door. It looked narrow, too narrow for Tanner to fit through. “You think you’ll fit, big man?”
“Have to, won’t I?”
Courtney smiled, pushed in the door, and stepped down into the cabin.
The cramped cabin was tiny. Tanner barely squeezed in, sucking in his gut to get through the doorframe. With the two of them inside, it felt claustrophobic.
The air was hot and heavy, smelling of old wood and engine oil. Tanner’s eyes roamed the cabin—the washbasin, the head, the bunk area. It all looked bare as a poor man’s hovel, as if it had been stripped and cleaned.
Tanner opened all the cupboards. Bare, too—not a mug, a bottle, or a utensil in sight.
“So what’s the story?”
Courtney took a pair of rubber evidence gloves from her pocket and tossed them to Tanner. “Put these on, and put your hands up.”
“What?”
“One will do. Feel along the top of the cupboard on the right. You’ll find something.”
Tanner slipped on the gloves and did as he was told, his hand feeling along the cupboard top. He felt something papery, gripped it, and pulled it down. He was staring down at a map of some kind, the folded edges looking crisp and new.
“What kind of map is this?”
“A waterway map. Open it out.”
“Be my guest.”
Courtney did so, spreading it out on the cabin table. “See anything?”
“Give me a chance.” Tanner studied the unmarked map and scratched his neck.
“Well?”
He looked back up at Courtney. “Naw. Is this some kind of quiz?”
“No quiz, Tanner. You give up?”
“Yeah. Hit me. I ain’t in the mood for no puzzle crap.”
“The boat’s old. The map’s new.”
“So?”
“Old boat, new map. Either the boat’s got a new owner, or whoever’s using it is a stranger to this part of the waterway, or both.”