The naked edge

4

"Are you okay?" Cavanaugh asked in the darkness of a bedroom

"A few bumps and bruises. Nothing serious." Jamie lay next to him.

"I mean, are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be? It's just the usual, isn't it? Fear and trembling."

"You were talking awfully fast in the kitchen. You sound as if you're on speed."

"Adrenaline will do that."

"It should have worn off by now." The darkness seemed to compress around him.

"I guess I'm resistant," she said.

"I just want to make sure nothing's wrong." The darkness got even thicker.

Jamie lay unmoving next to him. Finally, she said, "You mean because I killed somebody?"

Cavanaugh exhaled."Now that you mention it."

"He was trying to kill us."

"Best reason in the world to pull the trigger," Cavanaugh agreed. "You didn't panic. You didn't let the heat of the moment make your hands waver. You acted precisely. You saved our lives."

"Is this what the military calls an 'after-action report'?"

"It's useful to talk. To sort out your emotions."

"In other words, a cheap form of psychotherapy." Jamie remained motionless beside him.

"Imagine that you didn't raise your pistol fast enough. Imagine him firing the rifle, full auto, bullets tearing into us, blood and flesh and bone flying, you and Kim and me dropping."

"Trying some neuro-linguistic programming on me?"

"It's nothing I haven't used on myself."

"When was the first time…"

"First time?" Outside the curtained, bullet-resistant window, a car drove by, its lonely drone echoing in the night. "You mean, the first time I killed someone?"

Jamie didn't answer.

"Twenty years ago," Cavanaugh said. "In Peru."

Jamie turned toward him. "Isn't that where you told me Duran was held prisoner by revolutionaries?"

"They called themselves the PCP. The Partido Comunista del Peru. American soldiers were down there, helping prop up the government. Carl and I and some other Delta Force members were sent to teach the Peruvian soldiers how to put together their own version of Delta. Lord knows, enough officials had been kidnapped that the local government needed experts in hostage retrieval. We accompanied Peruvian soldiers on a mission to rescue a high-ranking politician. The PCP was threatening to kill him if the government didn't release some PCP members the army was interrogating. But somebody leaked the details of the mission to the revolutionaries, and we walked into an ambush. Carl was knocked unconscious by an explosion. The government soldiers he was with ran away. Later, we received photographs showing that Carl was alive, with a message that gave the government three days to release the PCP agitators."

Cavanaugh forced himself to continue. "Delta looks after its own. Within twenty-four hours, a full extraction team arrived from Fort Bragg. Twelve hours before the deadline expired, we got a lucky break, some excellent intelligence reports along with aerial surveillance photos that showed the mountain camp where Carl was being held. At night, we parachuted into a clearing about three miles away and converged on the target. The infra-red satellite images we'd studied gave us a pretty good idea of where the prisoners, eight of them including Carl, were being held. About twenty revolutionaries were guarding the camp. We used night-vision binoculars to confirm what was on the satellite images. I was with the men assigned to get to the prisoners and protect them once the attack started. Basically, the tactic was coordinated sniper shots followed by overwhelming automatic fire and a hail of fragmentation grenades. It was a textbook assault, and it went perfectly. No casualties among the prisoners or the attack force. The revolutionaries were utterly outclassed."

"You killed some of them? That was your first time?" Jamie asked.

"I laid down covering fire, three thirty-round magazines, but I have no idea if any of my bullets connected. I need to assume I did damage, but it was as if I was destroying objects. I had no sense that I was actually killing people. My primary emotion was relief that Carl was safe and that I'd survived the mission."

"Then I don't understand. It doesn't sound like your first time."

"We radioed for evac choppers and set up a perimeter in case other revolutionaries heard the shots and came to investigate. When I found cover and waited, I had a sense that something was terribly wrong, a feeling that I was being watched, that something awful was about to happen. By then, it was dawn. I glanced to my left and saw a face in the bushes. A kid. He was maybe sixteen, raising a pistol. Before I realized what I was doing, I swung my rifle and emptied the magazine into him. Total reflex. Thirty rounds. Just about blew him apart. Even if I'd probably killed before, that was my first time. Up close and personal. The moment was so intense, I could see into the kid's eyes, past his fear-dilated pupils into his brain. Into his soul. I remember thinking, You stupid kid, why didn't you hide? Why did you need to try to be a hero? It was so pointless, so damned unnecessary."

"What happened then?"

"I threw up," Cavanaugh said.

"That's what I felt like doing."

"I had a lot of nightmares about that kid," Cavanaugh continued. "His chin had a wart. He had scruffy hair and a scar on his forehead. His clothes were filthy and ragged. He was so thin, he probably hadn't eaten a decent meal in weeks. The revolution was one of those 'share the wealth' deals: millions of poor people against a handful of rich landlords and financiers trying to control them. I'm sure the kid had been exploited all his life. He was probably consumed with hate. I bet he went to sleep every night longing for a decent future. A lot to sympathize with. But if I had the chance to do it again, I'd shoot him just as dead as I shot him the first time. Otherwise, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."

Jamie's hand touched his. "And if I had to do it again, I'd shoot that man as dead as he now is, just to make sure you and I could be lying here like this."

"It's one way to decide if something was justified-whether you'd do it again," Cavanaugh agreed.

"But I hate that it needed to happen."

"Yes. I measured my life from that moment… before I killed and after."

"Rescuing Carl Duran," Jamie said.