News From the Red Desert (46 page)

“The military itself has no doubt about our role. Soldiers permit us to come with them and tolerate us only because they understand that the press is an important part of the democracy they are trying to defend with their lives. They'd just as soon we weren't there. They'd very much prefer it, actually. But we are. And on the ground, no one questions our loyalties or purpose.”

At that moment a short Marine gunnery sergeant pushed the naked Anakopoulus upright. “You will stand at attention, Sergeant!” The second lieutenant on his other side stood ramrod straight, immediately in front of Anakopoulus's chin. He was determined to be evaluated well on this, his first assignment. He imagined he had caught someone's attention somehow, and was seen as having particular promise and so was given the prominent mission of supervising the treatment of the country's worst traitor since the Rosenbergs. In this he was mistaken to the point of delusion. Soldiers with promise are kept far away from radioactive assignments such as the Anakopoulus case.

Anakopoulus only knew that he had mostly not been permitted clothing for a month now, except during his lawyer's and Susie's visits, and that they seemed not to be prepared to beat him. He'd retreated within himself. In the distance, he could hear the second lieutenant screaming at him. In the foreground, he remembered meeting Susie for the first time. He remembered that first day he arrived in Afghanistan. He remembered hearing Mohammed's first shots. It was a little after seven. In two hours he might be permitted some sleep. Or they might keep him awake all night. His preference was that they would let him sleep, but he doubted he had much influence over this.

“General Lattice, you were held up as the last best hope for Afghanistan. What do you make of the violence sweeping the country now?”

Lattice had been remembering being in the field and whispering in Deirdre's ear, breathing rather than speaking the words…the worst betrayal he ever committed. He had not told his wife about it and so that memory burned ever deeper into him. He was not used to possessing shameful secrets. But he did now. Telling Mary would only send her white hot rage into a place he thought might break her. And so he had decided to hold onto that coal himself. And pass it from hand to
hand, never able to forget about it, never able to put it aside. As he was unable to put it aside now. And so he paused blankly for a moment after he was asked the question and then he turned to the interviewer and nodded.

“Well, there are several ways to look at it, Charlie. In terms of our mission, the position of the United States has always been that we would give the Afghans the option of developing a secure, inclusive government and society. Of course, the final decision as to whether that happens will be in the hands of Afghans themselves. I think that to the extent that we have provided that option, Americans can be proud of the work we have done in that country.”

And at that moment, at four a.m., in Afghanistan, another kick fractured Rami Issay's right fifth rib. He was a thin man now, much thinner than he had been. When he was kicked again, in precisely the same place, a shard of the just-broken rib was driven in like a knife and lacerated one of the blood vessels in his chest. He coughed. Bright red blood ran out of his mouth and onto the floor. He tasted it and opened his eyes in surprise. His mouth filled again with blood and he tried to inhale, but all he did was suck the blood back down for a moment. He coughed again. A quart of bright blood ran out of his mouth and onto the cement he lay upon. In the dim light it glistened, and the smell of fresh blood filled the room. Metallic and sweet. He began to pant, but with each exhalation, another quart of blood ran out of his mouth, and as short of breath as he now was, it bothered him less because he was dizzy and feeling like he might pass out. And then he did. And he took a few more breaths like that, lying on the concrete as his tormentors watched, and he dreamt of his wife and his daughters for a moment, and then he dreamt of nothing at all.

Rami Issay was about to die, but he was kicked again and woke up for a moment and looked around. He saw the concerned and frightened face of the man standing over him, who had never killed anyone before.
He looked him in the eyes and wanted to tell him that he was forgiven. But he could not speak because no air moved across his vocal cords, only blood.

As he felt his life draining from him, another thought leapt, a last final surge of love, for movies, for the soldiers he had entertained, for the men who had worked for him and, he imagined, loved him, too. He forgave the man who resumed kicking him even as the blows broke more ribs. His eyes found Captain Waller, but Captain Waller was looking at the corner of the dark shed and waiting to ask more questions.

“General Jackson: the country is tired of war. The invasion of Iraq did not go well, and in Afghanistan it is increasingly difficult to identify anything we've accomplished that is significant enough to justify what we have lost there. What do you, as the most recent commander in Afghanistan, have to say to people that say you led us on a fool's errand?”

“Charlie, the military is the servant of the people. We do what we're told. The
people
demanded, in the days after 9/11, that we address the source of that atrocity. It was not the military that lobbied to go to war, either in Afghanistan or Iraq. The people demanded that we do these things, and so we did. Ms O'Malley will be sure to tell you that no one over there doing the fighting enjoys themselves. Everyone wants to come home. They are there at the insistence of the people. As, I might add, are the heroic journalists covering these conflicts. Everyone wishes they were home, Charlie. And, God willing, they will be someday soon.”