The Last Hour (33 page)

Thirty minutes later, the cab dropped me off on the corner of Montgomery and Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. The weather was freakishly warm for January, close to seventy degrees. I paused for just a second outside the building, looked around, and just breathed in the atmosphere of the passing traffic, the people on the sidewalk, the shops and restaurants all around. I was growing to love this neighborhood.

Of course, I thought as I lifted my duffel bag over my shoulder and entered the lobby, I had to admit that if it was just me, or even just me and Carrie, we’d never have been able to afford to live here on our meager pay. She was living in the condo rent-free, thanks to her dad having bought it some time back in the eighties.

I wasn’t going to stress about that. The concierge, a friendly lady in her forties, waved me over as I walked in.

“Mr. Sherman? Ms. Thompson left a key for you in case she wasn’t home yet when you arrived.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the small envelope. I opened it up. Inside was an electronic key-fob for the elevator, as well as a door key.

“Have a great evening,” I said as I walked away. I swiped the key-fob and rode the elevator to the top floor.

Carrie lived in one of two top floor apartments in the building. With six bedrooms and a rooftop balcony, it was clearly meant for the exclusively rich. When I got to the door I unlocked it, then deactivated the alarm and carried my bag into the living room.

Except for very occasional visits, the condo hadn’t been occupied in ten years. Furnished with an odd, eclectic mix of furniture and art from a dozen different countries, it was unique. The hallway was lined with portraits of Carrie and her sisters, but all of them were ten years old.
 

A huge family portrait painted in oil hung over the mantel, Richard and Adelina Thompson surrounded by their daughters. In the portrait, Julia looked remote, her eyes distant. Carrie, a teenager, had a warm smile, and her arm was wrapped around twelve-year-old Alexandra. The twins and Andrea, in pretty dresses and patent leather shoes, were arrayed next to each other, smiles on all of their faces.

Resting on the mantel were odd knickknacks, some of them unrecognizable. A teak box with a tiny brass latch, a heavy copper sculpture of a head nearly the size of a football.

The weekend before, I’d spent here with Carrie, dusting, cleaning, and airing the place out.

I’d asked her why her parents hadn’t sold it or rented it out. She responded by telling me that her parents, and sometimes the whole family, typically came east once or twice a year, and would spend a few days in Washington.

Seemed to me a hotel would be a lot cheaper. But as it turned out, with Carrie working at NIH, she now had a beautiful place to live right down the street, rent-free. Can’t complain about that.
 

 
I wasn’t so sure about me. Part of me felt like I was mooching off her dad.
 

Dylan talked me down off that ledge. “You can always just stay living in the barracks,” he said.

That was all it took.

Carrie hadn’t taken the master bedroom. Even at her age, and with just her living here, I think she still thought of it as her parents’. Instead, she’d taken the room nearest to the living room. It was large and had a queen bed. I dumped my duffel bag in there, then walked to the sliding glass doors and slipped out onto the balcony. I loved this spot. Traffic slipped by below. From the balcony I could see the NIH campus, and across the street, Walter Reed and the Naval hospital. If I had to be in the Army, I could at least live with this. I lit a cigarette and checked the time on my phone. 4:30. She’d be home in another hour or so. And I planned to take her out for dinner, then dancing, and then we were going to have mad sex.
 

So I was a little bit startled when the sliding glass door slid open behind me. I spun around. She stood in the doorway, wearing a grey suit with a knee length skirt. Like everything she wore, it fit perfectly. Carrie gave me a mischievous smile, then said, “You know how much I love a man in uniform.”

“Come here and show me,” I replied, tossing my cigarette into the ashtray.

She came over, slipping her arms around my shoulders. I let my hands rest on her hips, and I brought my lips to hers. I was home, with Carrie’s arms around me, and I couldn’t imagine a better place to be.

That was how the happiest couple of months of my life began. It’s not that there weren’t complications, or stress. In fact, the next Monday I reported in at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where I was assigned a job on the amputee unit, mostly cleaning and running errands. But I also got to know the guys in there, most of whom were surprisingly upbeat given the severity of their injuries. Carrie was incredibly excited about her job. She got final approval on her research program and moved forward with hiring assistants, mostly graduate students from University of Maryland.
 

We spent our weekends exploring Washington. We went to the museums of the Smithsonian and spent a memorable afternoon at the International Spy Museum. We explored Adams Morgan and P Street and DuPont Circle and Capitol Hill, eating at restaurants from a dozen regions of the world. We went on a tour of the White House and then, one cold afternoon at the end of February, she went with me to visit Weber’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery.

There were moments when I felt like I was leading a charmed life. That no one could be this happy and fulfilled. But then I’d wake up the next morning, and things were still good, we were still together, and we’d start all over again.

The investigation was still pending, of course. But except for two afternoons when Major Smalls and Agent Coombs showed up at Walter Reed to ask more questions, it had faded into the background. At that point, it was starting to look like I would be called in to testify and then the Army would release me and I could move on with my life.

At the end of February I got the letter I’d been waiting on. I was accepted to Georgetown for my senior year in college. Everything was falling into place. I never thought I’d have someone like Carrie. She was beautiful, and wild in bed, and a whole hell of a lot smarter than I was. Courageous, compassionate. I’d never met anyone like her. I remember tracing my fingers along the faint scar in her side, a scar left by a mountain lion, and I couldn’t do anything but have incredible admiration for this woman.

On March 2, I woke her up super early and told her I had a surprise for her. And we drove. Around the beltway, south into Virginia past Fredericksburg, and on to the small town of Orange. We talked along the way. About our dreams, of our life together, our dreams of the future. And when we arrived and she saw where we were, her eyes bugged out.

“Skydiving?” she said. “No way. I’m not going up there.”

“I wanted you to know exactly how you make me feel,” I replied with a grin.

She closed her eyes. Squeezed them shut, lines appearing at the corners of them. Then she opened one ... I guess to check if I was still there. Then she whacked me on the shoulder.
 

“All right, I’ll do it.”

And so we jumped together. For the rest of my life I’ll treasure the moment we went into free-fall, two instructors jumping with us. She met my eyes, her hair covered by a helmet, her face lit in an expression of shock and wonder as the air buffeted us, and the ground lazily floated in a gentle circle thousands of feet below us. We reached out and took each other’s hands and fell together, eyes and hands locked as one.
 

If I could have bottled that moment and preserved it forever, I would.
 

But I think maybe I wasn’t meant to have that kind of life. Maybe if things had been different, if I’d had time to intervene, if I’d done something to save that little boy’s life. I got a glimpse, those few weeks, of the kind of life that might have been. The kind of life I wanted Carrie and I to have together.

But one day in March, Major Smalls walked onto the ward at Walter Reed. And something in her bearing or expression … I knew it was all over.

Lori leaned forward and shook her head. “You did
what
this weekend?”

I smiled, toying with my salad, and said, “Ray took me skydiving.”

She shook her head and laughed. “Girl, be careful. I think
I’m
falling in love with your boyfriend. I thought you said you were scared of heights.”

I shrugged and said, “I am, but this was ... different. Freeing. Amazing.”

She chuckled and took a sip of her drink. “I won’t lie. It’s obscene how envious I am. You two look so happy together. You should get a ring on that finger, and soon.”

I felt heat rising to my cheeks and said, quietly, “We’re talking about it.”

She gave me a gentle smile. “Good for you.”

She raised her eyebrows and said, “Here comes the Red Queen and her husband.”

I didn’t respond. As much as I clicked with Lori, I’d been extremely wary of Warren and Lila Renfield. The two of them joined us for lunch once or twice a week, and I’m not sure why, because they’d made it clear they didn’t care for me or Lori. Lori referred to Lila as the Red Queen because, as Lori put it, she was “the cause of all the mischief.”

As a rule, when I encountered that sort of thing in a work environment, I just smiled and stayed friendly and professional. I don’t believe in burning bridges, so I ignored their little barbs and their suggestive comments that I’d somehow gotten this fellowship due to something other than my research skills.
 

But I wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen. The moment they sat down, Lila gleefully switched on her iPad and said, “You won’t believe what I just saw, Carrie. Take a look at this, it looks
just like
your boyfriend, doesn’t it?”

I frowned and looked at the screen. And then I began to hyperventilate.

The screen was the front page of the Washington Post. Splashed across the screen was the headline, “Army Files Murder Charges Against 6 Soldiers.” And the pictures beneath—one of them was of Ray, in his dress uniform. By the looks of it, it was his basic training photograph. I recognized some of the names and faces in the photographs from talks with Ray. Colton and Martin, his platoon and squad leaders. Hicks, Gruber and Reynolds from the other fire team. And Ray.

Lila caught my reaction, and then looked at her husband, a quick, vindictive flash in her eyes. Lori’s mouth dropped open in shock, but I was too focused to pay attention to any of them. I read the article, barely breathing. The charges had been announced by the Secretary of Defense. Words like
twelve-year-old boy murdered
,
Geneva Conventions,
and
court-martial
were all washing across my brain, but the worst part? There was nothing there to say that Ray had reported it. Nothing there to say he hadn’t been involved in the shooting. He was just ... one of the six soldiers charged.

“Excuse me,” I said, standing up. I was shaking. “I have to go.”

“Carrie, surely that
isn’t
your boyfriend, is it?” Lila said. “A war criminal?”

Lori leaned across the table, her face inches from Lila’s, and said, “Shut up, you bitch.” She stood, grabbing her purse, and then my arm, and we walked out of the food court.

“I need to call Ray,” I said. “Lori ... thanks for your concern, but I can’t talk right now.”

She nodded. “It’s okay ... just ... if you need anything—anything at all. Call me.”

I swallowed, trying to hold back tears, and an awful sound escaped my throat. I couldn’t speak, so I nodded and walked for the front doors, reaching for my phone.

It rang and rang, and then went to voicemail. I sent him a text:
CALL ME!!!!

There was no response.

“Come on, Willis. You can do it,” I said.
 

“You’re a prick, Sherman.”

“Yeah. But I know you can do this.”

Sergeant Manny Willis glared at his wheelchair like it was his worst enemy. Finally he reached over, planting both hands on the arms, and lifted himself bodily with his arms off of the bed and over to the wheelchair.
 

“Mother fucker,” he muttered as he sank into the chair. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. Willis didn’t have any legs, so it was understandable that it was difficult to move on his own. He’d been here for six weeks and was finally beginning to rebuild his upper body strength. And even though my job was to run messages and sweep the ward, I was getting to know the guys—and two gals—who were on the amputee unit.

“You’re getting stronger,” I said.

“But not any nicer,” he replied.

“Can’t ask for miracles,” I said, grinning.

He leaned forward and poked me in the chest. “I’m only gonna say this once, so you better soak it up while I’m feeling nice. Thanks.”

I nodded. I hadn’t done anything but taunt him, but sometimes that’s the best thing you can do for an infantryman.

That was when the door to the ward opened, and Major Smalls and Agent Dickhead walked in.

I sighed and stood up. Something about Smalls’ expression—grim, tightly controlled—worried me. I glanced up to the clock on the wall. It was 11:15 a.m.

They came face to face with me. Agent Coombs didn’t meet my eyes. That was a bad sign.
 

“Sergeant, we need to speak somewhere private. Is there an office we can use?”

I swallowed then said, “Yeah.” Absentmindedly, I turned back to Willis. “Catch you later, man.”

He nodded, then out of instinct said, “Good luck.”

I had the feeling I was going to need it. I led Major Smalls and Agent Coombs down the hall to the small office the orderlies used. It was rarely occupied. None of us took seats.

“What can I do for you, Major?”

“We’ll get the formal part over with first, Sergeant. As you know, I was appointed by the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington to conduct a RCM 303 inquiry.”
 

“Excuse me ... a what?”