The Devil's Elixir

40

Pennebaker waved away the duty nurse—who was wearing a look of genuine concern now that she knew we were there to talk to her boyfriend—and handed me back my phone. He closed his eyes and took a breath, clearly still of two minds about whether he wanted to go back to the part of his life that Walker’s death evoked. After a moment he opened his eyes again and looked straight at me.

“What happened?”

I told him about how we found Walker and the Eagles. How the two bikers had tailed me. How they kidnapped scientists from the Schultes Institute. And how Torres had been taken, most likely by whoever killed Walker.

When I was done, he said nothing for a long moment. Then a look of righteous anger took hold of his face and his calm demeanor evaporated in an instant.

“You don’t care about what happened to them. No one gives a shit about any of us. You fight an unwinnable war and kill innocent civilians for your country, then you come home and people are either terrified of you or they hate you for what you were ordered to do.”

I shot Munro a look. He kept his mouth shut, though I could tell it was a struggle. Last thing we needed was a pissing contest. However vehement Pennebaker turned, it was crucial I kept things even. We couldn’t afford to alienate him any further or risk him clamming up completely.

“It can’t have been easy. Adjusting to civilian life after Iraq.”

He ignored me and plowed on, his tone growing more bitter with each sentence.

“We had to rely on each other. But we couldn’t do that either, because the pain and the violence ran so deep we just didn’t know how to leave it behind. If anything, putting together the Eagles just magnified it. Turned it inward. Each one of us ended up fighting himself. And losing. And you want to drag me back to all that? Drag me back to the shit that killed Marty and almost got me killed? Screw you.”

He sat there, with a look of total defiance in his eyes. The kind that could be backed up by physical force if required. In that moment, I saw how Pennebaker and Walker had become the go-to guys when they worked together. The pairing of Walker’s blunt force with Pennebaker’s more coherent rage must have been a formidable combination.

“But you got out, and by the looks of things”—I couldn’t resist turning my head back to the space that Pennebaker’s girlfriend had recently vacated—“you’re doing okay, right? Look, we have no interest in messing with what you’ve built here.”

“But we will if we have to,” chipped in Munro, having designated himself bad cop whether I liked it or not.

“We need to catch these bastards; that’s all we care about,” I countered. “Whoever they are, they’re out of control. And you know what that’s like. You know how destructive that can be.”

Pennebaker’s eyes narrowed as he studied me for a moment, but said nothing.

I held up my phone to him. “You like having these guys running around out there? Killing others? Maybe someone else’s kid brother?”

I caught a twitch in his expression as my words dug in, and waited for them to settle in deeper. After a couple of seconds, he let out a rueful breath and his shoulders sagged, then his expression softened a touch.

“Marty wasn’t cut out for the three-patch life. But I couldn’t talk him out of it. I saved Wook’s life in Iraq, that’s why he let me walk away, but I couldn’t save Marty. I could hardly live with myself the first few months. If I hadn’t done time, if I hadn’t been forced into that structure, hell, I’d probably be dead by now.”

“But you found a purpose.”

“I’ve been through some shit. And I know there’s a way to get past it. But you need to be strong. And you need people to care. And to keep caring. A lot of these guys come back from Afghanistan or Iraq and the first thing they do is stick a meth pipe in their mouths. No better friend, no worse enemy.”

He chortled at the irony.

I knew where that haunted grin was coming from. No better friend, no worse enemy was the motto of the Marine division Pennebaker and Walker served with in Iraq.

“Anything to dull the pain,” he resumed with a slow shake of his head. “But it just makes the problem worse. Covers up what’s broken so you don’t have to face it. So we get them off the drug and then we try to deal with why they’re on it in the first place. It’s a long road, and there’s no quick solution.”

“And now that the Eagles have been wiped out you can never go back. Even if you want to.”

“It was only a matter of time. That’s why I turned my back on them when I got out.”

“I can see the why. Just can’t see the how. Matthew Frye is watertight. How did you manage that?”

“When I got out of prison, I needed a fresh start. Wanted to leave the past behind. A new name will do that for you. Someone owed me a favor is all. He even arranged to get me vouched for. Hired someone to play the part of Frye’s sister. Frye’s sister—the real one—is a crack whore. She doesn’t even know what day it is, let alone whether her brother’s alive or dead. If I could force her here, I would, but she doesn’t want to get clean. That’s the killer. You have to want to get clean, even if you don’t think you’ll make it. Some of our patients go back, but most of them make it. Eight out of ten, in fact. Better than any government program.”

“Looks like you’re winning your own little war on drugs, huh?” This time Munro made no attempt to hide his sarcasm.

Pennebaker cocked his head. He could do sarcasm, too.

“Walker and me, we were part of a total bullshit war. And this War on Drugs is no less bullshit than the war for oil. Criminalization and incarceration don’t work, but no one has the guts to change anything. A quarter of our prison population is doing time for minor drug offenses, but no one gives a damn, do they?”

I’d heard all these arguments before, but I didn’t have an answer for him. It was the kind of moral conundrum that could really make your head hurt. All I knew, all I was convinced of more and more each year, was that the system we had in place wasn’t working and that the so-called War on Drugs was unwinnable. There was way too much demand and too many people making easy money by supplying the stuff, and no matter how many of them we put away, there were always going to be plenty of others ready to step into their shoes. It was an undefeatable, omnipotent beast. I knew this as someone who’d been a foot soldier in that war. It was as if we didn’t learn any lessons from Prohibition. More money than ever was being spent on fighting this war, and yet the production, distribution, and consumption of drugs like coke, heroin, and particularly meth were increasing every year. I knew the statistics—the real ones—and the sad irony was that the global War on Drugs—God, I hated that expression—was now causing more harm than drug abuse. All we’d done was create a massive international black market, empowered armies of organized criminals, stimulated violence at home, wrecked a few foreign countries, and destroyed countless harmless users’ lives. Which isn’t to say that I wanted everyone to be out there shooting up and ruining their lives with crack and meth. Then again, I didn’t much like the pain and suffering that alcohol or oxycodone were causing either. Someone needed to step up and acknowledge that this prohibition wasn’t working. Someone needed to break that taboo and put it firmly on the table and lead an open-minded, clear-headed, unprejudiced discussion about alternative approaches. But I wasn’t holding my breath on that one. History didn’t look kindly on those who acknowledged losing a war, even when it was already long lost.

Pennebaker scoffed and threw up his hands in resignation.

“We had a woman in here who spent six years in prison for selling thirty bucks worth of weed. Her kids were taken away from her and she fell into crank as soon as she got out. Her way to drop out. Chalk one up for the system, right? Even the UN’s Global Commission on Drug Policy is now admitting the ban has been a failure and calling for legalization. That’s the same UN that sent us out to the Gulf. You think anyone in Washington’s got the balls to listen? The only way to deal with it is to confront why we do it and educate people about their options. Then maybe they can make better choices. I’m happy with my choices now. First time ever I can say that.”

I figured now was a good time to prompt Pennebaker to tell us what we’d come here to learn.

“Help us with one thing and we’ll leave you in peace. We know you and the boys ran security for some Mexican narco back in the day. Who was it?”

Pennebaker’s expression clouded. “Why?”

“Might be the same person that hired the Eagles to do the grabs—then burned them.”

Pennebaker grimaced. As though this memory was somehow worse than all the others put together.

“Guy was a real whackjob. You could see it in his eyes. I know that look. He always hired ex-soldiers. American and Mexican. Thought it gave him an edge. And I guess it did. We did what he asked and he paid us well. Our government may be deluded, confused, incompetent, badly advised, and sometimes just plain stupid, but this guy was just pure evil.”

“What was his name?”

“Navarro. Raoul Navarro.”