Betrayal (11 page)

For a few seconds, the firing ceased. Evan and Fields managed to load Whitman’s body into the back of their car, then they turned and went to join Alan Reese, who had come out of the #2 Humvee and was trying to open the front doors to the first car and get Pisoni out. But the doors were still too hot to touch, as well as sealed shut. The windows, of course, had all been destroyed by the blast as well, so Fields leaned in on the driver’s side and tried to get some purchase on Pisoni’s lifeless body, but couldn’t get it to budge.

“He’s still got his seat belt on!” he called back.

The force of the grenade had all but knocked the back door on the driver’s side off its hinges, and Evan was able to force it further open with a few kicks. They could get Pisoni out that way. Evan got Fields over next to him, put his shoulder to it, and had just started to push when more rounds of automatic weapons fire exploded from the roofs around them. Fields, at his elbow, made a sickening guttural sound, then spun around and collapsed to the ground in a sitting position.

On the other side of the car, Reese fired off a few useless rounds with his sidearm just as heavy automatic weapons fire began coming from the roofs of buildings on Reese’s side of the street as well. Somewhere behind them, Nolan was firing continuously now, back and forth, side to side, from the roof of his vehicle, but when Evan looked over, hoping he might be able to direct some covering fire from the other Humvee, he saw that Davy Jefferson had disappeared and that bullet holes had pocked across the #2 windshield as well. If Levy and Koshi hadn’t been hit in their front seats, it was a miracle.

“Alan!” Evan yelled to Reese. “Get around here on this side!”

Reese looked at him over the Humvee’s hood and nodded. Turning, still firing his sidearm at the rooftops on his side, he made it nearly to the back side of the car before several more automatic rounds straightened him up, threw him up against the car’s body, and dropped him out of Evan’s sight.

His own gun drawn, Evan sat next to Fields’s crumpled body on the pavement in the partial cover of the Humvee. Up to his left, he could make out a couple of running figures at the edges of the roofline, but Nolan was doing a decent job of keeping them down, stippling the fronts of the buildings they occupied, holding their fire to a minimum. But Nolan was the only machine gunner left and at his firing rate, he would soon be out of ammunition.

Evan nudged at Fields. “C’mon, buddy, we’ve got to move.” He pushed at Fields’s shoulder again and the man’s body slumped all the way to the side on the ground, the front of his shirt soaked in red. Another burst of machine-gun fire shattered the air directly behind him, and Evan turned and saw that it was his own #3 Humvee, Nolan on the roof, coming around in the street and running its own screen between the buildings to cover him.

But he had three men down here at the #1 Humvee, and three more in #2. He could only guess at Reese’s condition. Perhaps he’d only been wounded. He’d have to get around the Humvee here to check that out. And then still there were Koshi, Jefferson, and Levy, over in #2. He’d have to order Nolan and Onofrio to help him load the dead and wounded into the backseat and cargo area of the one working Humvee. He couldn’t leave his men out here in the street.

It wasn’t possible that he’d lost so many of them in so short a time.

And then his own Humvee pulled up, the back door open, Onofrio behind the wheel, frantically gesturing that he should jump aboard, screaming at him although Evan could barely hear him. It was his only chance, their only chance.

But here was Fields right at his side, bleeding to death if not already dead. There was no option but to try to get him in the car first.

“There’s no time!” Nolan yelled down from the roof at Onofrio. “Keep driving! Go! Go! Go!” He fired a short volley up into the rooflines. “Move!”

It seemed like Nolan was urging—ordering!—Onofrio to save themselves and abandon Evan with the rest of the men. But his driver slowed the vehicle as it came abreast of Evan, looked over in panic and desperation, reached out a hand across the seat.

Nolan yelled from the roof. “Leave ’em, leave ’em, there’s no time! They’re gone!”

The Humvee stopped now, and Onofrio leaned over further and pushed open the passenger door, his hand outstretched. Evan reached around, trying to get ahold of Fields to pull him along. Getting a purchase on his squadmate’s sleeve, Evan was halfway to his feet, his own free hand out to Onofrio’s, when, deep in his bowels, he felt again the low hum of another incoming RPG.

It was the last thing he felt for eleven days.

F
ROM
R
ON
N
OLAN’S PERSPECTIVE,
there was just no benefit to staying in Iraq and talking about it.

The inquiry into the incident looked like it was going to be a tricky thing. Onofrio was the only witness left in the immediate aftermath, and Nolan believed that his testimony wouldn’t be harmful. Onofrio had been busy driving and wouldn’t have had a clue about whether the following car was in fact stationary when Nolan had opened fire on it. But the word from the street, the result of Jack Allstrong’s reaching out to the local Iraqi and U.S. military cops, had already filtered back about what had actually happened, and there was a reasonable chance that Nolan would be arrested.

The good news was that the Abu Ghraib scandal had just surfaced, and every American remotely connected to law enforcement in Iraq had been assigned to that investigation. Even Major Charles Tucker, that pain-in-the-ass bean-counter who’d been constantly in their shit about money, found himself reassigned to that scandal.

But in spite of that, and though he knew that jurisdictional issues were problematic at best in Iraq, especially when they involved contractors accused of criminal activity such as, in this case, murder, Nolan was unwilling to risk his own arrest. You never knew what could happen then. The CPA might decide to use him as an example for other trigger-happy contractors, or give him to the Iraqi prosecutors, both nonstarters from Nolan’s point of view.

In fact, Nolan didn’t feel particularly bad about what he’d actually done—hey, you’re in a war, shit happens. The dumbasses should’ve stopped sooner, or better yet, stayed off the street entirely. What the hell were they thinking? If he had it to do over again, he’d do the very same thing, rules of engagement or no. And although he did very much regret the loss of life among his own convoy, again this was just another turd in the gigantic shitpile that was this war. Who could have predicted such a massive local retaliation for such a small, localized event? And then again, how was he supposed to know that this particular Mohammed Raghead, the father who’d stupidly driven his whole family into the killing radius of Nolan’s Humvee, was in fact Jahlil al-Palawi, a major tribal leader and the most influential Shiite in the Masbah neighborhood?

Anyway, clearly the intelligent thing to do was for Nolan to blow Dodge until this incident blended into the chaos of all the other ones that were happening somewhere in the country just about every day. In a few months, Nolan could always come back with Allstrong or with another security outfit and pick up where he’d left off. In the meanwhile, Jack Allstrong certainly didn’t want an army of investigators coming into BIAP without his say-so. Who knows what they’d see that they didn’t like, and report back to the CPA?

So within a week of the incident, Nolan was back in Redwood City. After negotiations with Jack Allstrong that consisted of a couple of glasses of Glenfiddich each, the company chose to construe his departure as caused by an act of God, which meant it would honor his contract for a six-month hitch at full pay. And with some of this apparently inexhaustible supply of money, Nolan put a down payment on a modern and elegant furnished townhouse near the sylvan border between Redwood City and Woodside. Still employed by Allstrong, he was the company’s chief Bay Area recruiter of ex-military personnel. He knew the kind of people Jack Allstrong needed over in Iraq and he generally knew where to find them.

T
ARA
W
HEATLEY WAS SURPRISED
to see Nolan back so soon. She’d spent the weeks he was gone coming to grips with her nagging sense of guilt. Which was, she told herself, ridiculous. She was an adult who could make her own decisions, and she and Evan had been broken up for months. She hadn’t betrayed anybody. She was moving on in her life. She’d finally gotten around to reading the last four of Evan’s letters, but after the night when she had invited Nolan back to her apartment, she couldn’t make herself get around to writing back to him.

What was she supposed to say?

Oh, and under local news I slept with your friend Ron who came to give me your letter. I didn’t really mean to, but I was confused and lonely, really lonely, and scared to be alone, he’d just more or less saved my life that particular night and I never thought you and I would ever work out our problems anyway. It was just time to act on us being finally apart, okay? We weren’t together anymore and weren’t going to be together, so I could sleep with another man if I wanted and you had no say over it. Okay, okay, there could have been some element where I was punishing you for going off the way you did—if you can leave me, then this is exactly what you’re risking. And now—you see, you dummy?—it’s happened.

No. She wasn’t going to write that letter, not now, not ever.

And Evan, of course, never wrote to her again either.

Ron Nolan was a strong, powerful, attractive older guy and if her life wasn’t going to work out with Evan, and it clearly wasn’t, then with his charm, experience, confidence, and—admit it—money, Nolan would at the very least be able to help her get over her first love. She could use a simple, uncomplicated relationship until the next real one came along.

As if there’d ever be another one as real as Evan.

N
OLAN NEVER SAW
the need to tell her about the ambush at Masbah, what had happened to Evan, or the role that Nolan himself had played in it all. As far as Tara knew, Nolan had voluntarily made the decision to come home, possibly even as a result of some of their discussions about the morality of the war. Explaining it to her, he had kept it all, as his old English teacher used to say, vague enough to be true.

And in fact, all Nolan knew about Evan Scholler was that he’d sustained a serious head wound from the last grenade they had taken and, by the time Nolan had flown out of Baghdad, still hadn’t been expected to live. He might in fact already have died, although Nolan suspected that if that had happened, Tara would have heard about it from somebody.

But whatever had happened to Evan, nearly three months had passed. Tara had moved on. For Ron Nolan, there just didn’t seem to be any benefit to talking any more about it.

S
HE WAS STANDING
in front of the artichokes in the vegetable aisle of the grocery store, two days after the start of her school’s Christmas vacation. The canned music coming in to keep everybody merry and bright had just changed from the ridiculous to the sublime—the Chipmunks’ version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” segueing rather inharmoniously into Aaron Neville singing “O Holy Night.” The latter had been her and Evan’s favorite recording of any Christmas song, and suddenly, hearing the first notes, Tara’s mind had gone blank. Looking down at the bins of produce arrayed in front of her, she suddenly had no idea why she was here, or what she wanted to buy.

Unconsciously, her hand came up to cover her mouth, and she sighed deeply through her fingers, her eyes welling beyond all reason. “God,” she whispered to herself.

“Tara? Is that you?”

Letting out another breath, she started out of her reverie. “Eileen?”

Evan’s mother was still quite attractive, and Tara had always thought it was not so much about her trim body or her pleasant, vaguely Nordic facial features, but because she exuded kindness. In Eileen Scholler’s world, everybody was equal and everybody was good, even if the rest of humanity didn’t think so, and she was going to like you and treat you fairly and gently no matter what. Now, her head cocked birdlike to one side, she frowned with concern. “Are you all right? You look like you’re about to faint.”

“That’s what I feel like.” Tara tried to put on a smile but knew it must look forced. “Wow. I don’t know what just happened.” Bracing herself against her shopping cart, she again forced an unfelt brightness. “Stress, I’m sure. The season. But how are you? You don’t shop here normally, do you? But it’s so good to see you.”

“I was on my way home from work and remembered I needed some veggies. But I’m glad I stopped here now. It’s so good to see you too.” Her expression grew wistful. “We’ve missed you, you know.”

Tara nodded, sober. “I’ve missed you too. I really have.”

“Yes, well, I don’t think you children realize what you put us poor parents through when you break up with each other. Here we were, considering you all but the daughter we never had, and the next thing you know, you’re not in our lives anymore. It’s the saddest thing.”

“I know,” Tara said. “I’m so sorry. I never meant that to be part of it.”

“I know, dear, it’s nobody’s fault. It’s just one of life’s little heartbreaks. Or as Jim says, it’s just another FOG.” Lowering her voice, she came closer. “Fucking opportunity for growth. Pardon my French.”

“It’s pardoned. How is Evan, by the way?”

“Well, we still worry, of course, but he seems all right. There are still some issues, but we’re going out to see him for Christmas, so we’ll have a better idea how he’s doing after that.”

“You’re going to see him for Christmas?”

“Yes. We’re flying over next week.”

“To Iraq?”

For an instant, Eileen Scholler went completely still. “No, dear.” Her eyes narrowed—was Tara kidding her?—although the kindness remained in them. “To Walter Reed.”

“Walter…”

“You didn’t hear? I was sure you must have heard. In fact, I was a little bit annoyed, to be honest, that you never called us. If I’d have known you didn’t know, I would have—”

Tara waved her off. “That doesn’t matter, Eileen. Heard what? Did something happen to Evan over there?”

“He was wounded,” she said, “this past summer. Badly, in the head. He was nearly killed.”

“Oh, my God.” Suddenly her legs felt as though they weren’t going to support her. She tightened her grip on the shopping cart, looked plaintively at Eileen. “What happened?”

“They got attacked someplace in Baghdad. Most of his squadron was killed. They were all from the Peninsula. It was everywhere in the papers and on the news. Didn’t you see anything about it?”

“I stopped reading all of those articles, Eileen, and watching the news on TV. It says Iraq and I tune out. I just can’t stand it. I figured if anything happened to Evan, I’d hear about it. I couldn’t face the news every day.”

“Well, fortunately, he wasn’t killed, and that’s all they seem to report. It’s like the wounded don’t count. So you might never have seen his name anyway. But his squad…those poor boys.”

“All of them died?”

“All but one, I believe. Two, counting Evan.”

“Oh, God, Eileen, I am so sorry. How is he now?”

“Getting better every day. He’s making more sense when he talks on the phone. The doctors won’t say for sure, of course, but his lead neurologist predicts that Evan might be one of the very, very few to recover almost completely. Though it’s probably going to be a while.”

“He’s what, doing therapy?”

“Every day. Physical and mental. But as I say, he’s really coming along now. For a few weeks there, after he first arrived, we didn’t even dare hope for that, so this is all really good news. Once they decided he was eligible for therapy, it’s been better.”

“Why wouldn’t he have been eligible?”

Eileen pursed her lips. “There was some question about whether he’d had something to drink before he went out on his last convoy. Nobody said he was drunk, but…anyway, they had to clear that up first. If he was in fact under the influence, he might not have been eligible for benefits.”

“Even though he was shot?”

Eileen took a calming breath. “He wasn’t shot, Tara. It was a grenade.”

That news stopped her briefly. “Okay, but even so, they weren’t going to treat him?”

“If he’d been drunk, maybe not. Or not right away, anyway. And we’ve learned time is everything with his kind of injuries, believe me.”

But Tara was still reeling from the revelation. “I can’t believe they really might not have treated him. How could he not be eligible for benefits if he got wounded in a war zone?”

“It’s one of the great mysteries, dear, but don’t get me started on how they’re treating some of those other poor wounded boys at Walter Reed. It’s atrocious. But—you’ll really love this—even after they ruled that he was eligible for benefits, the Army made it one of the conditions of Evan’s treatment that he wouldn’t complain about conditions at Walter Reed to the media or anybody else.” She laid a hand on Tara’s arm, forced a tepid smile. “So the thing to do now is be grateful that they’re finally helping him, and we are.”

“You are a way better person than I’d be, Eileen.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s the only way I know how to be. Of course it’s frustrating and terrible, but at least Evan’s getting better now. I don’t see how making a stink at this point would do anybody any good.”

Closing her eyes, Tara blew out her frustration. She didn’t believe Eileen was right—she thought that making a stink might in fact help things improve. But suddenly the country’s culture seemed to have shifted to where everybody was afraid to make a stink about anything—it meant they weren’t patriotic. It meant they supported the terrorists. And this whole mentality was, to her mind, just stupid.

But she wasn’t going to get in yet another argument about this ongoing and disastrous war—not with Eileen, not with Ron Nolan, not with anybody else. At least it appeared that, bad though it might have been, the worst medical part of Evan’s ordeal was over. “So he’s been there how long now?” she asked.

“About three months. We hope he’ll be coming home in a couple more, but we’re afraid to move him too quickly. At least he’s got quality care now, and we don’t want to rush his recovery. When he comes back, we want him all the way back, you know?” Eileen’s serene gaze settled on her might-have-been daughter-in-law. “And how about you, Tara? How have you been?”

“Mostly good, I think.”

“Mostly good, you think? That’s not the most enthusiastic response I’ve ever heard.”