CHAPTER 19
Outside the colonel’s office, I looked around for the escort detail and was surprised to recognize the sergeant who’d been riding shotgun in the wounded Humvee, as well as the staff sergeant who had taken control of security at the ambush and directed the vehicle’s recovery.
“Sergeant Jeff Carnes,” the man from the vehicle said as I approached. Before I could give him my hand, he leaned in for a bear hug. “Thank you, sir. You guys were awesome. Sorry I couldn’t do a damn thing.”
Though he had recovered from the daze of the blast and his adrenaline surge had ebbed, the reality of what had just transpired was sinking in. Sergeant Carnes knew that disaster had been narrowly averted. He was scared and thankful at the same time.
I patted Carnes on the shoulder and shook his hand. I knew at that moment that whatever the higher-ups did to me no longer mattered. I could rest easy knowing that we had saved not only the sergeant’s life, but the lives of the men in his charge.
“Hey, man, a direct hit from an RPG at ten meters is gonna rock your world,” I reassured him. “You don’t ever need to apologize for anything to me or my team. I’m just glad we were there.”
We all knew that the endgame would’ve been nasty had the ambush been successful. Despite the liberal rhetoric spouted by anti-war types, this enemy had never agreed to follow the rules of the Geneva Convention.
The staff sergeant held out his hand. “I’m Sergeant Ben Hilton, sir.”
I gave him a good shake. Hilton was probably in his early twenties but looked a decade older. He’d already done a year or two of fighting in Iraq while most of his peers back home were finishing college or working entry-level jobs.
“Good to meet you, Ben. Nat Phillips. Guess you guys are the ones taking me to see the old man,” I said.
Hilton looked at me sheepishly. I could sense his discomfort. An hour ago, we were fighting for our lives and now we had to go plead our case to a man who’d been miles away from the battlefield.
“I just want you to know that I really appreciate all you did for us,” Hilton said. “That place always sucks, man. Every time I drive by there, it gives me the creeps.”
“I hear you, Ben. The whole damn place gives me the creeps.” I smiled, gave him a brotherly pat on the shoulder and nodded toward the door. “It’s cool, Ben, don’t give it a second thought.”
“Well, um, thanks, Sir.”
We walked outside, where a huge Chevy Suburban was waiting. Sergeant Carnes opened the door in the back for me to enter.
“You’re not gonna cuff me, are you?” I asked with a smile.
He gave me an awkward smile and shook his head. I could tell he felt uncomfortable being a party to my sentencing.
“Every little t’ing’s gonna be alright, mon,” I said in my best Rasta voice, trying to lighten the mood.
I started to realize that I was hungry. No—make that starving.
Shit, I hadn’t eaten since early that morning, and though I’d had that one cup of coffee with Miller and had drunk a ton of water, I couldn’t lose the battlefield cottonmouth.
Oddly, instead of my impending career doom, all I could think about was the growling of my stomach.
Before long, we pulled up to division headquarters, home to Lieutenant General Chase Montgomery.
The division HQ was housed in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces, a structure that loomed at least four stories high and must have been as wide as a football field.
The military had commandeered it right after the US invasion of Iraq; when Saddam went underground, the good guys moved in.
As we drove by at a glacial three miles per hour, I craned my neck to look out the window at the palace.
Huge pillars supported a peaked dormer over the entrance, while atop the roof rose a magnificent dome reminiscent of the US Capitol.
All statues of the former owner had been removed, though plenty of Babylonian figures remained perched on stone foundations, standing watch over the grounds.
A crowd had gathered—thankfully, not a reporter among them. I noticed that it was almost 8 p.m. and the blazing sun had nearly set. I immediately started to feel sleepy.
Hungry and tired—fuck my timing.
The Suburban rolled to a gentle stop. Sergeant Carnes popped out and rushed around to open my door.
“Good luck, sir. We’ll be here till you’re done.”
I handed business cards to both Sergeants Hilton and Carnes and told them to give me a call when they got back home. Poaching Chris Miller’s guys was sort of breaking the rules, but it was the least I could do for them.
“Don’t tell Miller I gave you two my card. He’ll kick all our asses. Thanks for the ride.”
And off I went to meet my fate.
* * *
The first person I spotted was Jed O’Reilly.
He was CSTC’s chief legal adviser in-country and always had his act straight.
It was good to spy a friendly face among the crowd of unknowns.
Tristan Dent had lured him away from a pretty fat private practice in DC to work as our consigliere—The Godfather’s Tom Hagen in the flesh.
Jed shook my hand and pulled me aside. “Glad to see you in one piece, partner. Good job out there. I know it was legit. You did the right thing.”
Jed’s reassuring posture made me feel better.
“Thanks, Jed. Don’t think we had a choice. Oliver, Meg, and JP were on their game today, that’s for sure. No shit, they did great. Anything from the prisoner?”
“Nothing that anyone is telling me here. Everyone is holding their cards close on this one. Fuck ’em, though. I’ll be in there with you the whole time.”
A one-star general walked over and gestured for us to follow him toward the massive palace doors.
As much as the daily scenes of poverty had numbed my senses, the excess I saw here threw my barometer way off the charts.
No kidding, a chandelier hanging from the distant, fifty-foot-high ceiling sparkled with what must have been ten thousand crystals.
I couldn’t help staring at the spectacle of lights like it was Disney World.
As the general turned to speak to me, I spotted my two junior VIPs, William McKay and Travis Hunter, standing against the wall with a group of their colleagues. They were both sipping coffee and looking surprisingly refreshed. Hell, I think they may even have showered.
We locked eyes and Hunter, without smiling or otherwise changing his poker face, gave me a faint wink. I couldn’t tell from his expression if it was a sign of caution or comfort, but I smiled and followed the general.
The one-star read us a page from the legal playbook. I was to go in one room as investigators interviewed the rest of my team individually in other rooms.
I was about to say something about my team’s right to legal counsel, but a slight bump in the small of my back from Jed’s hand persuaded me to let it go. I guess he had a plan in mind.
I walked off with Jed and the general. We headed down one of the mammoth corridors toward Montgomery’s office. I could feel my mouth getting drier by the second, and of course my stomach was still growling. I wondered if the others could hear it.