Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(25)

“No! It wasn’t like that. Fal didn’t want to do it. It was the American who told him to go.”

“And you have no idea who this American was?”

“No.”

“Did your uncle say anything about him? Anything at all?”

Malik shook his head and scowled. The expression transformed him—he was suddenly a cranky preteen.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he said.

The burden of time sat heavy. A single hour to unravel years of mystery.

“Just one more question.” I weighed my words carefully. “You were close with two men on the FOB. Max Udell, the man everyone called Sarge. And Richard Dalton.”

He nodded.

“Did you ever see them again? After you left, I mean. Did they ever contact you?”

“That’s two questions.”

“Malik—”

“No.” He gave the ball a hard kick. It soared into the air, striving toward escape velocity. “Never.”

The back of the house had come into view. Zarif stood near the pool. He raised a hand and waved for us to join him.

The last grain of sand had dropped.

Malik watched the ball land but made no attempt to pursue it. “Mr. Zarif says you have to leave today.”

“That’s what he said.”

He didn’t look at me. “You will come back?”

“Yes.”

“And then you’ll take me with you?”

“I’ll come back to see you. It will be your decision whether you want to stay here or go with me to America.”

“But you promise to return?”

“I promise, Malik.” And then, even knowing that the most sincere promise couldn’t keep me alive, I dug as deep a hole as I could. “No worries. I will come back.”

“Inshallah.”

The child was wiser than the woman. “Yes. Inshallah.”

He ran to the ball. He kicked it toward the house and started after it, pausing only to give me a long stare under his thick lashes—a look half of defiance, half of plea—before he fled.





CHAPTER 7

War was the longest period of my life. I was twenty when I enlisted. But by the time I mustered out three years later, I felt ninety.

—Sydney Parnell. ENGL 0208 Psychology of Combat.

When I reached the patio, Malik had disappeared into the house. I wanted to call after him, but I knew our moment—for now at least—had come and gone. It would be easier for him if I let him go.

Zarif was sitting at a table next to the shimmering pool. The day had eased into a bruised dusk, and evening birds called from the trees. A row of citronella candles flickered on the table, scenting the air with lemon.

He handed me a newspaper as I approached. “You might be interested in this.”

I took the paper and unfolded it. The New York Times.

“Page A12,” Zarif said. “It’s a sidebar to a larger story on American railways.”

I laid the paper on the table and flipped the pages.

RTD SECURITY OFFICER KILLED BY TRAIN

A security guard for Denver’s Regional Transportation District died Saturday night when he was stabbed, then pushed in front of a commuter train at Denver’s Union Station.

Witnesses say the guard, Jeremiah Kane, a US Marine Corps combat veteran, had approached a homeless man on the main platform. After a brief altercation, the man stabbed Kane, then shoved him in front of an inbound train. According to the Denver Medical Examiner’s office, Kane died instantly.

The Denver Major Crimes Unit is conducting a search for the suspect, who fled the scene.

My knees gave out, and I sank into a chair across from Zarif. My pulse roared in my ears as I tried to process Kane’s murder. With a shudder I realized he must have died within an hour or so of Angelo. Two warriors in a long-running war, and the Alpha hunting all of us down, one by one.

Why now, three years after things went down in Iraq?

And who else was the Alpha after?

Sergeant Max Udell wouldn’t be on the list because he’d gone to the other side. That left me, once the Alpha had the intel he wanted. And Tucker Rhodes and Lester Crowe, who, along with Kane, had been on the same fireteam with the murdered PFC Resenko. All three men were present when the Sir and I arrived to take away the bodies of Haifa and Resenko. Our orders had been to cover up how the pair had died so that we could prevent an escalation of violence between American troops and locals.

Or so we were told at the time.

I read the article through again, trying to process that Kane, the Marine who had risked his life every day in Habbaniyah, had made it home only to be murdered by a vagrant.

Kane had a wife and daughters. A home. A life. He’d been a friend to Tucker and, perhaps unwisely, to Udell. The last time Kane and I had spoken, he’d been planning to return to college at some point and work on his dream of becoming a doctor.

This was how it ended?

And which one of us was next?

A bat flitted overhead. Zarif lit a cigarette and watched me. The tang of tobacco burned through the citrus of the candles. “Wasn’t he in Habbaniyah when you were?”

“What if he was?” I found the strength to rally a wishful protest. “Kane was killed by a homeless man. It was a horrible fluke. A tragedy.”