Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(35)

Cohen’s jaw went tight, which suggested he wasn’t 100 percent on board. But he said, “I can respect that.”

“Close enough.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and went small. The adult version of hiding when you know you can’t. I took a few more breaths until a strange calm descended.

“I’ll start with the abridged version. The child I went to Mexico to find, his name is Malik. His mother was an interpreter for the Marines. His uncle also worked with the Americans. Malik was a small child at the start of the Iraq War, and he grew up around US troops. At some point, he saw something he shouldn’t have. Something that involved Americans and was quite possibly treasonous. These are bad people, Cohen. They’ve murdered to protect their secret. They’ve killed Americans and Iraqis to make sure they couldn’t talk. Now, these same people have figured out that Malik was a witness, and they want to silence him before he shares what he saw with the world.”

Cohen’s expression changed from curiosity to bewilderment as he processed my words. Now he shook his head.

“Sounds like Hollywood, right?” I said.

“Did you say treason?”

“Yes.”

His face cleared and a look of relief flooded his eyes. “There are people for this kind of thing, Sydney. Entire organizations. Interpol. The International Criminal Court. Truth and reconciliation committees. Hell, Congress. Let’s take it to them.”

I heard the plural and loved him for it. But I shook my head. “Right now I have nothing to offer them. I don’t even have enough to warrant opening an investigation.”

“But that’s the point. Let them determine if there’s a case. We can—”

I held up a hand to stop him. “Not yet.”

“Don’t try to protect these people, Sydney. They don’t deserve it.”

“I’m not!” I glanced at the audio jammer and sucked in a few breaths until I could talk without screaming or breaking things. “This isn’t just about me and this child. A lot of lives are caught up in this. People have died. Not just in Iraq, but here. If I try to go public, these men will double down.”

Faint flickering forms appeared in my mind’s eye. Angelo Garcia. Zarif’s man, Hamid. Jeremy Kane. The Alpha’s victims.

“And they’ll hurt this boy,” Cohen said. “Malik.”

“They’ll kill him.”

I stopped myself before I told him that I thought the boy was safe for the moment. Giving him that information was too risky. It implied we knew something of his whereabouts. And if they grabbed Cohen and forced him to talk . . .

I saw fingers chopped off. A face beaten to a pulp. Cigarette burns and cattle prods and waterboarding.

Even as I turned away from these things, a detached part of my brain ran busily in the cranial basement, coolly calculating what to share with Cohen and what to hide in the event that he was forced to talk. It was a gift from growing up in an unpredictable household—always make sure you have the right answer before you open your mouth.

I hated it, but there it was. What I didn’t tell him might save us both.

“I won’t put Malik at risk,” I said.

“That’s exactly why you need to get others involved.”

“Later.”

“Sydney . . .”

In my belly, something reached out a languorous paw and scratched.

Every Marine carries some form of the beast inside. We might soothe it with alcohol or numb it with drugs or teach it to play dead through counseling. And sometimes, after a few years as a civilian, the beast goes quiet.

But even when we’ve gone a little soft, the monster hasn’t gone away.

It just hasn’t been fed in a while.

I pushed myself off the couch. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

This was the part in a movie where the music swelled to a harsh crescendo, letting us know that things had changed and there was no going back. But here, in the wealthy enclave of Cherry Hills, the only sounds were jazz and static and the light jingle of Clyde’s collar as he went into the kitchen to see if anything interesting had shown up in his food dish.

I kept my eyes on Cohen while I delivered the coup de grace.

“I played a part in that treason.”

Cohen’s expression went sideways, the look of a man who’d just gotten a vicious uppercut. “You?”

Fear and fury flooded my mouth like molten steel. “Yes. Me.”

Cohen didn’t move an inch. But I felt him withdraw nonetheless. As if he’d gotten up and walked into another room.

“Tell me,” he said in a faraway voice.

So I did. A few fumbling words into the story, Denver vanished, and Iraq rose up around me in a swirl of dust and heat. I smelled blood and shit while all around the cries of men shattered the air. And through it, I kept talking, trying to get Cohen to understand.

After I’d agreed to help, the Sir and I went to a residential area in the town of Habbaniyah, where we wouldn’t normally venture without an armored caravan. Four men with rifles stood outside a single-story mud house. The men wore street clothes; keffiyehs covered their mouths and noses. I thought they were Iraqis until I heard them whispering.

Americans. Tucker Rhodes. Lester Crowe. Jeremy Kane.

I followed the Sir and one of the Marines into the house.