Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(36)

There were two bodies, both in a back bedroom, both naked, dead a couple of hours. A male Marine, castrated and beheaded, his head propped next to the gaping wound near his crotch, his penis and testicles where his head should have been. Next to him lay a pregnant Iraqi female, her face destroyed, her body battered until the skin had split.

In the front room was a young Iraqi boy, rocking and weeping on the floor.

Nauseated, horrified, I clung to the wooden doorjamb for support. I couldn’t understand why the Sir had brought me to this place in the middle of the night. To these deaths and this weeping child. It wasn’t how we operated.

“Let’s get them out of here, Corporal,” the Sir said to me.

And because he was my CO, and because I trusted him, I did as he ordered. We lifted the corpses into body bags, placed them into the trunk of the interpreter’s car, and took them away.

“Sydney?” Cohen’s voice brought me back.

Cohen’s home emerged from the darkness. I looked around. Blinked. I did not look at Cohen. I was afraid to.

Clyde padded over and rested his chin on my thighs. I set aside the cold tea and dropped my hand to his head.

“After we took them away,” I said, “we destroyed the bodies. Not only because it was an order, but because we believed it was the right thing to do. The man who issued the order told my CO that members of a Sunni militia had killed Haifa and Resenko, to punish them for falling in love. This came just as we were doing our best to win hearts and minds. If word had gotten out about the killing, the fallout on both sides would have been horrendous. The Sir and I were told that if we made these deaths look like a random IED attack instead of a targeted assault against a Marine, we’d keep our guys from going all Abu Ghraib and killing everything in a headcloth. And that would keep the insurgents from retaliating and killing more of our guys. Turns out, it didn’t work. Things got bad anyway.”

“I . . . see,” Cohen said.

There was a note in his voice I’d only heard him use with people he didn’t like. Drug dealers and murderers. Weak judges and lazy cops and the unrepentant.

I was so young, I wanted to say. Barely more than a child. In my mind, I heard that most heinous of excuses: I was only following orders.

“And Jeremy Kane was there,” Cohen went on.

“Yes.” I forced myself to again look him in the eye. “I thought we were saving American lives. Only years later did I learn that my actions played right into the hands of a man whose behavior was probably treasonous. He gave the order. He made me part of his sin.”

But Cohen was shaking his head. “Give me a hand here, Sydney. I’m trying to understand. What about their families? Didn’t they have a right to know the truth?”

I said nothing. He needed to work it out. If that was even possible.

He went on. “I’m trying to line up the woman I thought I knew with what you’re telling me.”

This was exactly why veterans don’t talk about the war. How can anyone understand decisions made under fire, or turns taken when it feels like there’s no other way to go? Only someone who’s been in the cauldron knows that truth has many sides.

An abyss yawned between us. The gulf that always existed between the military and civilians. A lot of people on both sides of the fence were trying to close that gap. After all, trauma isn’t owned by veterans. Neither is an ability to understand war. But it’s a hard argument to make with the troops. Even within the military community there is a pecking order akin to whose dick was the biggest: You see combat? How many tours? You get blown up? How many times?

Now here I was with Cohen, as if we were a microcosm of that old divide between the warrior class and those whose nearest approach to war was playing Call of Duty. Cohen had seen his share of ugly. But not war ugly.

Still, I had hope. Ask any astronomer, and they’ll agree that significant things happen with the close approach of two bodies. Tides. Menses cycles. Social madness in all its forms.

Love.

“I know about the pages you stole from Jazmine’s file,” Cohen said.

Or maybe not.

The blood left my face. My hand slid off Clyde’s head, and he nosed my palm, worried.

“I know you put them back,” Cohen went on. “But it was hard for me to understand.”

During the first full investigation Cohen and I worked together, I’d found references in a case file to a man I’d grown up with, Gentry Lasko, a man who was like a brother to me. He was listed as a possible suspect in a cold case. In a panic, I’d stolen the pages out of the case binder, wanting to give him a chance to tell his story before the police went to him. In my world, family did for family before they did for anyone else.

I’d felt horrible about it. But I’d done it anyway.

“How long have you known?”

“Since just before we wrapped up the case. I went to talk to your friend. I believed him when he said he hadn’t touched Jazmine. And we had our killer, so I let it go.” His gray eyes were hard. “But I had to work at it.”

I stayed silent. A hundred excuses came to mind, but I didn’t offer any of them. How Cohen chose to see me was his decision alone.

“You want to say anything?” he pressed.

“You have the facts.”

“You aren’t making this easy.”

“It isn’t an easy thing.”