Angel of the Night (4 page)

“That will help bring him to in a gradual manner.
Probably be about an hour before he’s tiptop from a temperature standpoint.
Then we will get him set up in a room over in the Glynnis Unit.
We’ll watch him for a few days, and run some tests, but I don’t see anything that would keep him from having a full recovery.”

Wendy was glad to hear that Kitcavage would be inpatient for a short time.
The Glynnis Unit at Kabul Air Base (named after some wag’s admiration of the actress Glynnis O’Connor) was small, yet one of the finest inpatient facilities in South Central Asia.
Noted for their cutting edge treatment of wartime casualties, Glynnis docs were well versed in the treatment of heat victims, as well.
They had to be since one of the tragic side effects of war injury was the burns associated with the explosions that were a daily part of life in that part of the world.
Pfc. Michael Kitcavage would have been able to find no greater expertise in the world than inside the Glynnis Unit.

Suddenly Wendy remembered Henry Washoe.
“Dr. Jiminu, I know that his buddies are going to want to visit him.
Will that be possible tonight or tomorrow?
What should I tell them?
One of his buddies is right outside.
I would like to be able to give him a time frame.”

Dr. Jiminu pursed his lips and looked toward the light fixture connected to the ceiling while he pondered.
Finally, he smiled at Wendy.
“Not tonight,
but probably by midday
tomorrow I should say.
Tell the boys that their buddy is going to be all right…and tell them that they have you to thank for it.”

Wendy blushed at the effusive praise.
She felt a lot better about herself as a nurse than she had a few days ago.
She was just glad that she had been able to help Kitcavage.
She stepped away from Dr. Jiminu and went to find Henry Washoe.

Michael Kitcavage’s soccer playing partner was wearing a hole in the thin carpet that covered the floor of the waiting area.
He had thumbed through the months old Sports Illustrated, and the year old Road and Track magazines that were put there to mollify worried waiters, but they had done no good.
What he didn’t know was that he wasn’t just worried and feeling guilty about his friend.
He was suffering a mild form of heat exhaustion.
Irritability and restlessness are main signs of that condition.
Wendy took one look at Washoe’s flushed face and told him to “Sit down right now!”

Washoe, having been raised on a North Dakota farm by a single mother, was used to being ordered about by women a foot and a half shorter and 125 pounds lighter, than him.
He sat down without a word.

Wendy quickly told him what she knew about Kitcavage’s prognosis.
She saw the worry lines on Washoe’s forehead smooth as he heard the news that could only be described as hopeful and positive.
Wendy was reminded one more time of something that she had discovered shortly upon her deployment to the combat theater of operations.

“
These people a
re barely more than children.
They send boys and girls into harm’s way to fight other Mom’s and Dad’s kids.
That’s the hidden tragedy of war.”

Wendy quieted her inner voice and spoke in a kind, yet direct, manner to Private Washoe.
“
Y
ou need to go somewhere dim and drink a gallon of cold water.
You’re too hot.
You’re not like your buddy, but you’re overheated.”

Washoe nodded and headed for the door.
Before he left, though, he turned around and mouthed, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Wendy put her best stern look on her face and pointed to the door.
“Go” she mouthed back.

Wendy went back to her CHU for some ice water and a rest.
The physical and mental strain of the past hour had taken a toll on her that she didn’t comprehend until it was all over.
She shared a little of her recent experience on the soccer field with
Sophia
Nolan-Hart
when the younger nurse asked but chose not to go into great detail.
As soon as she dropped onto her bed, Wendy Shafer was asleep.

Her sleep, though necessary, was not restful.
She had dream terrors about being chased through the streets of the camp.
There was someone, or something, chasing Wendy but try as she might, she couldn’t make out a face.
She woke an hour after putting her head on the pillow, drenched in a sort of combination perspiration.
Hot from the extreme heat overwhelming the air conditioning unit of the CHU.
Cold sweat drained off of her body from the dream that had hounded her slumber.
Noticing that the bedside clock read 6:12 pm, she got up and made a cold lunch for herself.
She had to go to work at 2300 hours.
She would be on duty until 0900 the next morning.

“I’ll take another nap before my shift.
Maybe it will be cooler tonight than it is right now.”
Wendy smiled ruefully at the thought.
“Cooler” in that part of the world meant 105 in August.

Afghanistan is a nation of extremes.
Summer temperatures hit 130 and more on the valley floor.
Winters see the mercury drop to well below zero atop the country’s highest mountains.
The weather that Kabul Air Base was experiencing this summer was extraordinary.
Kabul is a little over 5,000 feet above sea level and, therefore, usually shielded from the most extreme of the hot weather.
In fact, the winter cold was usually of greater concern as temperatures are known to drop below zero and stay there for weeks at a time.
Medical personnel from Kabul Air Base make caravan runs of blankets and hot soup to the poorer sections of the city every winter.

While the weather in the area was problematic for much of the year,
the politics of the region was where the real action happened.
Afghanistan’s place in the world makes it a nation of extremists.
There are no fewer than 15 terror and extremist organizations in play in Afghanistan at any one time.
From the mostly secular Taliban (meaning not under the auspices of Al Quaeda), operating to evict an occupying national force, to the Taliban operating under Al-Quaeda principles, to the tribal warlord militia commonly known by the moniker Jalaluddin Haqqani Network, there have always been, and always will be, mischief of a brutal and bloody nature, in the air.
The American forces found out early on (as the forces of the Soviet Union found out decades before) that subduing this maelstrom of beliefs and behaviors wasn’t going to be like bombing the island nation of Grenada.
This was going to be a matter of herding kittens.
Only these kittens would blow you up.

The investigation into the death of Brigadier General Cole McKillop was into its second week, and no suspects had as yet been identified.
It was assumed that one of the myriad terror organizations working in the area would claim the credit for the killing, but no such triumphant statement had been made.
In fact, spokesmen for the Jalyddin Haqqani Network as well as the Mushadeen Hunferiunt organization put as much distance between themselves and the investigation as they possibly could.

Terrorists are much like the bully on the playground, insofar as their predilection is to prey on the weak and helpless as much as possible.
The murder of a one star general in the United States Army was an example of taking a bite that was too large for the average terrorist’s mouth.
It
’
s
one thing to blow the doors off of a troop convoy filled with 19
-
year old kids.
Risking the full power and fury of the United States of America w
asn’t something that these jumped
up bullies wanted any part of doing.

The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command (USCIC) had been on base since the Wednesday after the shooting.
The CIC was methodically working through the evidence.
Interviews with General McKillop’s coworkers, friends, and acquaintances were ongoing, and possible motives were discussed, discarded, or filed away for the future, and more thorough, examination.

While the General’s death had made international news around the world, the speed of the news cycle meant that the interest was short-lived.
The routine of camp returned with the soldiers and support personnel only giving cursory glances to the investigative squad as they went about their task.

Pretty much the only time that the investigation came to anyone’s particular notice was when someone was called in for an interview.
The investigative questioning was long and
arduous;
leaving everyone questioned wondering if they were, in fact, a suspect.

That’s because everyone WAS a suspect.
The investigators of the CIC were highly trained in civilian criminology with an average of 24 years’ experience in the field.
The command is a separate military investigative force with investigative autonomy; CID special agents report through the CID chain of command to the USACIDC Commanding General, who reports directly to the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Secretary of the Army.
The command
doesn’t work fast, but there was little doubt, at any level of the United States government,
that a suspect would be apprehended, and the crime would be solved.

Captain Edward McGuire was called in for questioning early on in the investigation.
He was queried for the better part of three hours, peppered with questions about the medical aspect of the case, as well as his personal relationship with the deceased.
Capt. McGuire answered the questions as thoroughly and completely as he could, telling the agents that there was little to tell them medically.
General McKillop had been shot twice, once in the head and once in the heart.
The chest wound had been administered first, was lethal and entered the chest wall between the fourth and fifth rib.
The bullet had lodged in the patient’s heart and massive thoracic bleeding ensued.
It was likely that the General was dead by the time he hit the floor.

The head shot entered the brain through the frontal lobe and exited through the occipital lobe about 4 centimeters above the temporal lobe.
The shooter was doing a thorough job but had to know that the general was already dead when the second shot was fired.

Captain McGuire found the rest of the interrogation harder to bear.
As a doctor the Captain was able to respond in a scholarly and dispassionate fashion the facts of the case.
But beyond that, General McKillop had been his friend.

The two men had enjoyed one another’s company.
They had shared an interest in football, sailing, fine literature and perhaps even finer liqueur.
General McKillop had introduced Captain McGuire to classical music, and the two men had talked about attending a per
formance of the Kabul Symphony O
rchestra if they could manage to make the time.
Captain McGuire’s voice broke when he talked to the investigative team’s principal interrogator.
He told him about the plans that they had made to share an evening of good music, good conversation and a snifter of brandy.
It would be forever a source of pain for the lead doctor that, over the course of the last couple of months, he and General McKillop hadn’t been able to socialize.
McKillop always seemed to be too busy.
Captain McGuire had been patient, and now the chance was lost forever.

The interrogation room had been formed in a spare office next to the communication tower at the airfield. Captain McGuire used the long walk back to the medical unit to regain his composure. In all likelihood, he was going to be trying to save a life today. He would need all of his concentration and skill to make that a reality.

Lt. McKay was in the middle of a scheduled day off when she was called to the interrogation room. While she was also asked about her relationship with General McKillop, the questioning ranged past that and to McKay’s knowledge of relationships that her nurses may have established with the murdered brigadier general.

“I don’t keep track of the social lives of the persons who work under me, but I can tell you that I have never witnessed one of my nurses with the general in a social setting,” she told Colonel Terry Bishop who was the lead interrogator for the CIC. “For that matter I never saw any of the women in camp with the general in that way. From my understanding, General McKillop is, or rather was, a devoted husband and family man. If you think the person who killed him was acting out some kind of love triangle, I think you’re headed in the wrong direction.”

Terry Bishop leveled his gaze at Lt. McKay. He could see why she had a reputation as a no-nonsense lead nurse. While most of the people that he questioned were intimidated by the process of an official military investigation, Lt. Alice McKay was giving him the definite impression that she was unimpressed by the CIC’s methods and tactics.

Lieutenant, we are just trying to cover all of our bases. The investigation is in the preliminary stages, and we haven’t established a direction as you put it, to this point. I mean no disrespect to you or to the nurses under you, but these are questions that must be asked. Only if we are able to put together a map history of the last few weeks of the general’s life will we be able to figure out why someone would want to target and kill him.”

Lt. McKay sat forward in her seat. “Why are you so sure that he was targeted?” She asked. “Couldn’t it have been just another terrorist attack? And this time an attack on the base? Security to get in and out of here is anything but tight. We are at war, sir! Why wouldn’t you believe that this attack was carried out by an enemy of The United States of America? That’s what has me confounded.”

Terry Bishop took his glasses off and rubbed the red spot that always appeared on the left side of his nose. There was a protocol for what he was supposed to tell those whom he interrogated. Customarily those questioned were told little to nothing off the record. But Bishop’s years of intensive experience with the CIC had given him some instincts and insights about where some help may lie in the course if an investigation.

“This Lieutenant McKay is sharp. If I can get her on my side, she may find out more than I can. She’s an insider. People talk to insiders. She might be a valuable resource,”
he thought.

“All right, Lieutenant McKay,” he started, only to stop and look at the head nurse’s file on the table in front of him. “Or may I call you Alice?”

Lieutenant McKay smiled thinly. “Lieutenant McKay will be fine, Colonel Bishop.”

Bishop continued, undaunted by the rebuff. “Brigadier General McKillop was killed by two rounds from a SigSauer P938 9 mm. handgun. Actually he was shot with two rounds, but likely killed by the first shot, which he took in his chest. The SigSauer P938 9 mm. handgun isn’t commonly used by agents of foreign terror. It’s a domestic weapon, fashioned in Munich, Germany but assembled in Chicago. Much more common is the Caracel full size 9mm. It’s made in Saudi Arabia and is the weapon of choice for close quarter combat in an urban or mixed use environment.

“Lt. McKay nodded. “So you think that because this was a SigSauer attack that it necessarily wasn’t a terror organization? That sounds rather shortsighted. Gun law in the United States is incredibly lax. In fact, I read that U.S. soil is where a lot of terror agencies are going to get hold of their weaponry. Why would the fact that the firearm in question was a Sig rule out the killing being a terror act?”

Colonel Bishop knew that he had read Lt. McKay correctly. She knew her stuff, and her stuff wasn’t just about patching young men and women and sending them back into the fray.

“That isn’t the only reason, Lt. McKay. It’s just one of them. The main reason why we aren’t solely focusing on Afghan terror organizations is because of the method of killing. Terror cells don’t like blood spray.”

He paused, looking for a wince from Nurse McKay. Not an eyelash flicker did she return.
“She’s tough as hell,”
he thought.

He continued. “Typically in a case like this General McKillop wouldn’t have been attacked in the relatively close quarters of a storage unit. His attacker would have climbed on top of a nearby roof and used a 50 caliber rifle, probably a silenced Barreta 82 A1 or Ceska Zbrojovka CZ805 Bren automatic weapon. Then he would have jumped off the roof and been out the gate before anyone knew. But no, this was a close quarter shooting. Like I said, we’re not ruling anything out but this looks like, initially at least, the military version of an inside job.

Lt. McKay took in everything that the investigator was saying. It changed the thought process that she, along with the other amateur sleuths, had been following. “Could it really have been someone here? Someone I know?”

After just a few more questions, the lieutenant was told that she was free to go. She thanked the Colonel for his frankness and promised that if she thought of anything, no matter how small, that could be of help to the investigation she would be in touch with the CIC. She left the interrogation room, nearly bumping into Chelsea Giacomo in the process. It was the newlywed nurse’s turn in the hot seat. Chelsea had been on her honeymoon when General McKillop had been killed. Lt. McKay knew, though that the CIC wouldn’t care about something like Chelsea and Gerald being on their wedding trip. Regulations said “everyone” and everyone it would be.