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  As soon as the outraged Afghan paused for breath, Erickson calmly cut in. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Farid. We’ve completed our examination of your son. You may retrieve his remains whenever it’s convenient.”

  That set Khalil back. It was apparent he had expected another delay and was primed to yell about it. “Who are you?” he demanded, shifting his indignation to Richard.

  “CID Warrant Officer Murdock. I’m here to ask questions and determine the circumstances of your son’s death.”

  “He was attacked and killed in his own home! By your countrymen!”

  “Countrymen?” Richard lifted his brows. “I was told it was a woman who killed him,” he needled.

  “If so, it was unprovoked! Questions about my son? What questions?”

  “Well . . . like, was Captain Farid always a pederast? Or was that something he got into after he became an addict?”

  Erickson covered his laugh with a cough.

  Khalil Farid’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again before any words came out. Interesting to watch. “My son was not a sodomizer and he was not an addict! He was a hero! A decorated officer in the Afghan National Police!”

  “Come, Mr. Farid.” With a warning glance at Richard, Erickson stepped between the two and smoothly steered the irate Afghan back the way he had come. “The vehicle sent to carry your son to his family is probably waiting. These soldiers”—he nodded to the two escorts—“will follow with the captain’s body. He’s already prepared for transport.” Which meant he was still on the gurney, covered with a stained autopsy sheet. Nothing fancy for good ol’ Farid.

  The MPs continued to block the narrow hallway. “Our orders are to stay with Mr. Farid until he exits the inner gate,” one of them said.

  Richard stepped up. “I’ll be happy to wheel Captain Farid out,” he offered. “If that’s okay with you, Mr. Farid.”

  It wasn’t, but the furious Afghan limited his response to an acid glare before turning his back on Richard and retracing his steps down the hall with Major Erickson.

  A few minutes later, Richard arrived with the remains and helped the MPs load Farid’s body into the back of a Humvee. Before Khalil climbed into the passenger seat, he turned to Richard and said, “I will remember you, CID Warrant Officer Murdock. No matter what your investigation says, my son will be avenged. And be assured,” he added with a sneer, “I will personally see to it that the woman who killed him is severely punished, as well as those who dared to cast doubt on his name and the honor of my family.” Then he climbed into the vehicle, shut the door, and the Humvee drove away.

  “Was I just threatened?” Richard asked Erickson.

  “Seems so.” The doctor gave him a smile that brought a twinkle to his faded blue eyes. “I see now why the army picked you for this investigation. You don’t mince words, do you? Too bad. If that pretty little lieutenant dies and they’re still looking for a scapegoat, you may have just given them a reason to pick you.”

  * * *

  * * *

  At 1730 hours, Richard was sitting at a table for four in a back corner of the mess, enjoying baked chicken, cottage fries, overcooked peas and carrots, a fruit cup, and a biscuit. Not bad, and the servings were large. He studied the other diners and found most of them studying him. Apparently, word of his arrival had spread. There were no nods of welcome or open signs of friendliness. Only cautious, wary eyes, quickly averted when Richard glanced their way. Understandable. Anyone wearing a CID badge was considered an adversary sent to find fault or lay blame. And few were blameless in this war.

  At exactly 1800 hours, two SF guys came in—a white guy in his thirties, and a wiry young Hispanic. Rainor and Gonzales, their files said, aka Rainman and Chico. They were trailed by a huge Black MP specialist, who was probably the enforcer for his unit. He made the smaller, more agile SF soldiers look underweight and insubstantial. Stopping beside Richard’s table, the older Special Forces soldier, Rainor, looked down at him and said, “Reporting as ordered.”

  No salute—as expected—but a “sir” would have been acceptable, since Richard outranked all of them. He let it pass and instead made them wait while he finished chewing a bite of potato, swallowed, got out his pen and pulled a legal pad from the courier pouch the doctor had given him, then said, “Sit.”

  Having established that they wouldn’t allow themselves to be pushed around, the three soldiers pulled out chairs.

  “Not you two,” Richard said to Rainman and Chico. “Go get yourselves coffee if you’d like, but don’t leave the mess. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk to you.”

  Richard wouldn’t be pushed around, either.

  “Let’s start with you,” he said to the MP warily taking a seat as the other two wandered off. Richard hoped the chair didn’t collapse. After writing down on the yellow pad the MP’s name—Reggie Hargrove—his rank, unit, and military ID number, Richard asked the gate guard to tell him what he saw and heard on the night of the killings.

  Everything Hargrove related, Richard already knew, but he wrote it down anyway. If there was one thing that gave the army a hard-on faster than big budgets, it was paperwork. After the MP read over and verified the account as written, Richard had him sign it and dismissed him. He turned to a fresh, clean page, finished his coffee, then nodded to the SF guys.

  This time, they looked more cautious than belligerent, and took their seats without initiating another pissing contest. After getting the particulars on each soldier, Richard decided to start with an unexpected question. “Tell me about Captain Mouton.”

  The men looked at each other, then the older one—Rainman—said, “She was a good soldier. Kept up, followed orders, wasn’t afraid to take risks when necessary. You could count on her.” He glanced at the Hispanic for corroboration.

  Chico nodded. “Smart, too. And funny. Always cracking Cajun jokes.”

  “Respected?”

  “Absolutely,” Rainman said. “Never played the gender card. Just one of the guys. We trusted her. If she had a reason to be at Farid’s quarters, it was a good one. Although she didn’t say anything about that to us.”

  Richard wrote trusted and respected on the legal pad. “What about the terp and local woman?”

  “We didn’t know anything about them,” Rainman said, “until they showed up outside Farid’s hut. I think the terp’s name is Samira. The other woman was in traditional dress. Her eyes were all we could see. Didn’t get her name.”

  Richard noted that, then asked him why Mouton had asked them to go with her to Farid’s.

  “Said there was a complaint she’d been asked to check out and she needed two escorts. None of our female soldiers leave the inner FOB without armed backup.”

  “We didn’t expect no trouble,” Chico added. “She didn’t even want us going inside Farid’s quarters. Thought it might look too confrontational.”

  Richard asked each where they were when the shooting started.

  “Where the captain wanted us,” Rainman told him. “She had me stay with the two Afghan women. I was to watch both the house and the ANP barracks from a covert position halfway between the two.”

  Chico said, “She told me to wait at the back of the house. I don’t know why. There was no door, just a small, high window.”

  “What did she tell you about the boy?”

  The two soldiers looked at each other, then back at Richard. “The boy?” Chico asked.

  “The one the lieutenant passed out to you, Chico, through the rear window.”

  “Oh. That boy.”

  “Yeah, that boy.”

  It was just a guess. But after Lieutenant Whitcomb mentioned a boy, and considering what Vocek and the doctor had said about Farid’s perversions and the earlier complaints about the ANP captain, Richard figured Mouton and Whitcomb had gone to the Afghan’s quarters that night to rescue a boy. He was hoping t
hese SF soldiers could confirm it.

  Chico let out a deep breath. “The captain didn’t mention no boy. We had no idea he was there. Then suddenly I hear two gunshots and the lieutenant is shoving a kid through the window and yelling for me to take him.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I couldn’t let him fall, so I took him. Soon as I do, the Afghan woman runs up, yanks him out of my hands, then she and the terp run off. I’m guessing she was his mother.”

  “Then what?” Richard prodded.

  “I’m pissed, you know? I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. I can’t get through the window and it’s too high for me to get off a shot. Then I hear three more gunshots. Pop, a pause, then pop pop. A handgun, maybe two. The last two shots closer to the window and really loud because of the concrete walls. I run around to the front, and by then, Rainman is already inside.”

  “That’s five gunshots. How long between the first one and the last two?”

  “Total?” Chico looked at Rainman and shrugged. “Nine, ten seconds. The first two sounded farther away, three, four seconds apart. The third one was closer, maybe four seconds later. The last two came close together. A double tap.”

  “What happened when you first heard the shots?” Richard asked Rainman.

  “The women scattered. I radioed for backup and ran to the hut. As soon as I got inside, I saw Captain Mouton was dead, so I went to the back room, where I found both Farid and the lieutenant down. I could see Farid was dead, but the lieutenant was still alive.”

  “Then what?”

  “I heard Chico come in behind me. I told him to make sure Farid was neutralized, while I did what I could for Lieutenant Whitcomb.”

  Richard wrote that down, then asked Chico how he determined that Farid was dead. Usually you thump an eyeball. If there’s no reaction, the victim is dead.

  The Hispanic looked sheepish. “I may have kicked him around some.”

  Probably didn’t want any evidence found on Farid to be traced back to him. Special Forces were great at covering their tracks. The kicking also explained the postmortem lacerations on the Afghan’s head and face.

  “When he didn’t react,” Chico continued, “I knew for sure he was dead. Especially since the back of his head was gone. So I went back to the front room and secured the entrance until backup came.”

  Richard asked Rainman if the lieutenant had said anything while he’d been administering first aid.

  “She mumbled something about the captain and if Farid was dead. I told her everything was fine and to stop moving. Then she went into shock and passed out.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. By that time, the sirens were going off and I could hear backup pouring into the front room and a medic took over for me.”

  Richard finished writing up their interviews, had the soldiers read and sign them, then slipped them inside the courier pouch with the gate guard’s witness account and Erickson’s medical report.

  He sat back and studied the men across the table. Good soldiers. Not geniuses, but not stupid, either. Confident and forthcoming, showing no signs of misdirection in their behavior or words. As relaxed as any innocent soldier would be when questioned by CID about their involvement in a murder investigation. Richard believed they were telling the truth.

  “Look, guys, I’m not trying to fuck anyone up. I advise you to remember everything you just told me. If you’re ever questioned about it, do not vary in a single detail. That’s really important for both you and the lieutenant. Understood?”

  The soldiers nodded. “Understood, sir.”

  “You’re dismissed.”

  Neither moved. “Is this about bacha bazi?” Rainor asked. “Sometimes we hear kids crying inside the ANP barracks. Was Farid using the boy for sex?”

  “Fucking pendejo,” the Hispanic muttered.

  “I can’t comment. It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  Rainman ignored Richard’s stock response. “If he was, I might know why Captain Mouton went to his quarters.”

  “Why?”

  “Off the record?”

  Richard didn’t answer.

  Rainman went on anyway. “I think there may have been an incident in Mouton’s past. She never said anything, and I’m not hinting she was gay. But she definitely kept her distance from the male soldiers. Didn’t even want them touching her. I heard that in boot, a guy tried and she put him on the ground. No one’s touched her since.”

  Richard filed that away in his head. It could explain why a by-the-book soldier might feel driven to confront a man who was sexually abusing a child. “Thanks for telling me. I won’t mention it unless I have to. And by the way, Rainor, what you did for the lieutenant probably saved her life.”

  The soldier gave a small, tight smile. “I’m glad. She just got here a while back, so I don’t know much about her, but what I’ve heard is all good.”

  “She’s a helluva looker, too,” Chico added, then saw the way the other two men looked at him. “What? I didn’t do nothing. I wouldn’t. None of us would. I’m just saying she’s too damn pretty for the army, that’s all.”

  Richard silently agreed. Ever since he’d seen the photo of Whitcomb lying broken on the dirty floor with blood-soaked IFAK pressure bandages stuck to her slim body, he’d hadn’t been able to get the image out of his mind.

  After Rainor and Gonzales had left, Richard refilled his coffee cup, got a piece of pecan pie, and returned to his seat to mull over all he’d learned since he’d landed at the Hickock helo pad earlier that afternoon.

  The investigation was beginning to take shape. But he wasn’t encouraged by what he’d seen and heard. The incident had all the elements of a nasty international scandal. If word got out, it would create a feeding frenzy, which the media—often reluctant to take the side of the military and the soldiers protecting its right to say or print whatever it wanted, true or not—would keep going for months. And through it all, the ones who would suffer most would be those least at fault. Richard just hoped the Department of Defense had the balls to do the right thing this time. Otherwise, that “pretty little lieutenant” might lose not only her career, but her freedom, as well.

  But for now, until the Afghan interpreter, Samira, showed up so he could interview her, or the mother of the boy returned from hiding, he’d done all he could at FOB Hickock. Tomorrow, he’d go back to Bagram, then on to the medical center in Germany to try to talk to Lieutenant Whitcomb again.

  He hoped she was still alive and was as smart as her entry scores indicated, because there were only two ways the lieutenant might survive this fiasco with her career intact. To have no memory of what happened that night—which often happened in traumatic injury cases. Or to be clever enough to say she didn’t remember. That way, since she was the only survivor, and with no apparent motive and no other eyewitnesses, the army would be free to spin the incident any way it chose. Drugs. An insurgent ambush. A Taliban attack on Farid that our soldiers stumbled into.

  But for any of those scenarios to work, unless Whitcomb truly didn’t remember, she had two choices: lie about it or die of her injuries. And for some irrational and confusing reason, Richard would be really pissed if she did either.

  * * *

  * * *

  At 0530 hours the next morning, Richard was showered, dressed, packed, and heading back to the mess with his duffle and rifle. The sun was already up and the base was bustling. Several groups of fully armored soldiers were heading past the watchtower toward Humvees rumbling impatiently outside the inner gate.

  A lot more activity than when Richard had arrived. Something was up. He hoped whatever it was wouldn’t delay his departure to Germany. He needed to interview Lieutenant Whitcomb as soon as possible. Chief Stranton at CENTCOM would be expecting his preliminary report that afternoon.

  Two messages were waiting for him wh
en he arrived at the mess. The first confirmed that he was scheduled to depart Hickock at 0700 hours. The second was that Captain Vocek wanted to talk to him before he left. Hopefully, he had found the terp, Samira, and learned the identities of the local Afghan woman and the boy. Richard was running low on witnesses.

  He ate fast, then headed to Vocek’s office.

  The MP CO didn’t look happy. Before Richard could ask why, Captain Vocek said, “We found the terp. Throat cut. She’d been worked over good then dumped beside the road like trash.”

  Damn. One less witness. “And the local woman?”

  “No idea who she is. Or the boy. And nobody’s talking. Can’t blame them. They’re afraid of payback. Farid’s father, Khalil, is big on honor killings.”

  “You think he killed the terp?”

  “If not him, then I’d bet it was on his orders. He’s a real piece of work.”

  “I know. I met him.” Richard tipped his head in the direction of the gate. “Is that what all the troop movement is about?”

  Vocek nodded. “Mostly for show. To let the locals know we care. And we do care. Samira was a good terp. The female support team is really worked up. First their captain and the lieutenant, and now their interpreter. A real shitstorm.” Vocek pushed back his chair and rose.

  Richard stood, too.

  “You better get going,” the captain said. “Your chopper’s warming up. You can catch a ride to the helo pad on one of the Humvees.” He held out his hand. “Good luck, Murdock. Sounds like we’ll all need hip boots before this is over.”

  “Thank you for your help, sir.”

  Richard was walking past the watchtower’s inner gate when his phone buzzed. Stranton. Shit. The chief better not have canceled his leave.

  “Good morning, sir. Warrant Officer Murdock speaking.”

  “Progress report.”

  Richard stuck to the facts, answering “Not yet determined” to questions he couldn’t answer. The chief listened until Richard finished, then said, “We have a problem, Murdock. DOD is all over me, and now there are whisperings in Congress. We have to put an end to this. And soon.”