The Summer House

Chapter 81 Afghanistan

After the hours traveling on the Gardez Highway to FOB Chadwick — just outside Khost and near the village of Pendahar — the Humvee I’m in finally passes through the barriers, checkpoints, and vehicle traps. I’ve not slept a wink on this long drive, my body tense and nearly trembling, again thinking of what happened to me at another time, in another Humvee.

This vehicle, however, safely gets into the FOB and stops, and I slowly get out, holding my cane in one hand and my rucksack in the other. There are squat buildings all around us, made of metal shipping containers and concrete, the same dull sandy color. The quiet lieutenant who’s in charge of this small convoy comes back to me just as a siren starts wailing, making me feel like I’m in wartime London, 1940.

He swears, says, “Come on, hurry up!” just as a recorded male voice announces over loudspeakers, “Rocket attack, rocket attack, rocket attack.”

We move about ten or so meters before there’s a far-off thud that makes the ground quiver, and I follow the lieutenant and others to a blast shelter. Its walls and roof are made of thick concrete, and the open ends of the roof are protected by a blast barrier that we slip through.

Just as we get inside there’s another thud, and the six of us, then ten, and then more than a dozen soldiers of different ranks, stand inside.

I say to the lieutenant, “Can you tell me where Major West is, of the Seventy-Fifth Rangers?”

The lieutenant says, “I can, but I won’t. Not until the all-clear sounds. Otherwise you might have your head taken off the second you step out.”

I know I need to wait, but I look at my watch.

Time is slipping away both here and back in Georgia.

In the shadowy interior of the blast shelter, a soldier says, “Shit, I guess we pissed somebody off, huh?”

Laughter from most of the soldiers in here, but not from me.

Fifteen minutes after the all-clear sounds, I’m in the office of Major Fredericka West, Special Troops Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, which is nearly identical to the Ranger office in Bagram: plywood over a wood frame, homemade shelves, no windows, and locked gray metal filing cabinets. Major West is slim, with close-cropped dark-brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a worn ACU. As she moves papers around her gray metal desk, I see her left hand is furrowed with scar tissue. A set of telephones is near her elbow — for both secure and unsecure phone calls — and a military-grade laptop, like the one I’m carrying.

She looks exhausted. “This is where we waste a bunch of time talking about your trip and how you’re feeling, and do you need something to eat,” she begins, “but we don’t have time for that crap. One, I’ve got, well, a shitload of work to get through, and two, your bosses at Quantico want your ass wrapped up in silver ribbon and sent on the next flight home.”

I say, “Then why don’t I see a roll of silver ribbon on your desk?”

West grimaces, begins to talk, waits as one helicopter and then another roars overhead, disturbing the dust that’s everywhere in this small office. An M4 automatic rifle is in a weapons rack near the corner.

“You’re not being rolled in tape because we Rangers owe you one, and because I’m trying to figure out why a fire team from Fourth Battalion is being charged with a crime in Georgia similar to the one they allegedly committed here in-country.”

“In a village called Pendahar.”

She starts typing on the laptop keyboard. “Aren’t you the informed one.”

I say, “And aren’t you the pissy officer. What’s the problem, Major? I’m the one about to be brought up on charges and who’s just come in to see you after spending nearly a day in the air.”

Quiet, as her fingers work some more.

“No excuse,” she says. “Sorry. Been a rotten day in a series of rotten days, not to mention the local muj are still sending us 82-millimeter love letters. Can you give me a quick recap of what happened to Staff Sergeant Jefferson and his team in Georgia?”

I say, “A week ago seven residents of a rural house in Georgia, including a two-year-old girl, were murdered in a nighttime attack. The police reports, witnesses, and forensic evidence all led to the staff sergeant’s team. They were placed under arrest, and my team was tasked to do an investigation.”

“What did you and your team learn?”

I paused, then said, “At first it looked open-and-shut. Then we found discrepancies in the witness testimony, and those witnesses are now missing. And one of the four Rangers committed suicide while in custody.”

More typing. “Is your investigation complete?”

“I’m in Afghanistan,” I say. “Not yet.”

“Yeah, I figured that,” she says. “You’re wondering about the civilian killings in Pendahar that were linked to those same Rangers before they were sent home, correct? Seeing what happened here in Afghanistan, if it did something to their psyches that led to them repeating the atrocity in Georgia.”

“That’s been our thought,” I say.

“Then let’s take a look,” she says. “Here’s body-cam footage we managed to secure of that attack.”

West turns the computer around so we can both view the screen as it comes to life.

The footage is stamped with running numerals denoting longitude, latitude, and time, and it’s in light ghost-green night vision. I hear breathing, murmuring voices. The view comes to a wooden door set against a one-story, small stone house. I see body shapes, and somebody does something to the door. There’s a bright flare of light and the thump of an explosion.

Yells.

Shots being fired.

The view is shaky as one room is entered, another, and then another.

More gunfire.

Robed women scream, hold up their hands. Rapid fire collapses them. A young boy runs into another room, is cut down.

I see the flash of weapons.

Uniformed men.

More screams.

The video goes black.

My hands and chest feel heavy. “Can I see it again, slower? Muted?”

“Sure.”

I look through the video a second time, spotting the mottled look of the uniforms — one bearing the RANGER tab on a left shoulder — and the weapons, from an AK-47 to a pistol, and then I look at Major West’s calm yet serious face.

“Well?” she asks. “What say you?”

“It’s a fake,” I say. “Those aren’t Army Rangers.”

She nods. “Good job, for a former NYPD detective.”

West swivels the computer screen back to her. “I don’t know what happened in the States, but those Rangers sure as hell didn’t kill a houseful of civilians in Pendahar.”