Wrongful Death (30 page)

“I fire at the rooftops,” Thomas repeated, voice cracking.

He wrapped Cassidy’s hands around the stock of his M16. “You suppress those windows and doorways.”

“I suppress the windows and doorways,” Cassidy said.

“Fergie, you got an HEDP in the tube?”

Fergie held up the M203 grenade launcher. “Locked and loaded, Captain.”

“On my call, put one in the storefront window across the alley. Put a second in the storefront beside it.”

“Roger that.”

“I’m going to drop smoke. We move out on my call. Ford, you got our backs.”

Ford nodded. “Rules of engagement, Captain?”

They had been trained to consider everyone in Iraq a potential hostile, but the military rules of engagement prevented them from firing unless fired upon.

“No friendlies here,” Kessler said

He pulled open the door just wide enough for the M203 barrel. The first sound, a rush of air, launched the 40-mm high-explosive dual-purpose grenade.

Poomp!

An explosion followed.

Ferguson ejected the casing, loaded the second round, slammed the tube shut, and fired again. On the second explosion Kessler tossed two grenades into the alley. Thick green and red smoke quickly obscured everything.

“Move!”

Kessler darted out the door behind the deep retort of his M16. Cassidy and Thomas followed, each firing three-round bursts. Ford sprayed bullets back down the alley through the thick cover of smoke, brass shell casings dropping at his feet. After Fergie exited, Ford turned and followed, darting between the buildings and alleys. But the resistance continued to intensify, forcing Kessler to again seek cover inside a building.

“What the fuck?” Kessler yelled in frustration. “Where are they coming from?”

Ford pointed to the tallest building at the end of the block. “That’s got to be the granary.”

“We have to get up on that roof. That’s our LZ,” Kessler said. The taller buildings afforded the insurgents the high ground, and Mogadishu had taught that Black Hawk helicopters were susceptible to rocket-propelled grenades.

“Thomas, give me your grenades.” Thomas handed Kessler two grenades. Kessler looked to Ford. “I’ll empty the building, then suppress for Thomas and Cassidy. You and Fergie follow.”

“Too far to go, Captain.”

“You got your handheld?”

Ford pulled his walkie-talkie from his vest. They confirmed a frequency. Then Kessler crouched close to the door.

“Captain,” Ford said again.

“On my order.”

Unable to deter him, Ford took up his designated position near the hole in the wall that afforded a view of the circle. Kessler took a deep breath, nodded, and burst out the door.

Ford pulled back the trigger on the M249 and sprayed the building, dust and debris obliterating much of the second floor, while Kessler zigged and zagged across the courtyard. When he had reached the building he lobbed a grenade through the open doors and was about to launch a second when it looked like he stumbled, and dropped to the ground.

The reverberating blast of the grenade and gunfire momentarily drowned out all sound. As it passed, Ford heard something else.

“Cease fire,” Ford shouted. “Cease fire.”

Kessler’s voice poured from the handheld. “I’m hit! I’m hit, God damn it!”

“AND NEXT THING
we know we’re in the middle of a fucking ambush,” Cassidy had told Sloane and Jenkins.

Not fully understanding Cassidy’s explanation, Sloane said, “Back up and tell me again.”

Cassidy leaned against the counter, speaking as if with great effort. “We get a call over the radio. Bravo three-sixteen is screaming about needing to be evacuated. They were low on ammo and fuel and had casualties. While we’re listening, Ford turns to the captain and points to the plugger. There’s this blue square with an X through it.”

“What’s a plugger?”

“A screen that provides satellite images.”

“And what does a blue square with an X through it signify?”

“What does it what?”

“What’s it mean?” Sloane asked.

“That means friendlies, our guys. Bravo three-sixteen. If it had been a red X that would have meant Hajji.”

“So what happened next?”

“Captain called it in to ask what we’re supposed to do. But like I said, we couldn’t even communicate with the other guys in the convoy ’cause of the storm.”

“So how did your TOC hear the transmission from Bravo three-sixteen?”

Cassidy shrugged. “I don’t know. Captain had to make the decision on his own.”

Sloane found that even more interesting. “You didn’t get orders from your forward operating base?”

“Nope.”

“Then who sent the image on the plugger?”

Cassidy’s brow furrowed. “Had to be TOC.”

“Does that make sense to you?” Sloane asked.

Cassidy thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know.”

Sloane paced the trailer, changing thoughts. “You liked Captain Kessler.”

“
Like
is a little strong for the military. I’m not sure I
liked
anybody.”

“Respected?”

“Hell, yeah. Captain was better than most. He wasn’t the rah-rah type, you know, but he knew his shit. Yeah, we all respected him.”

“Enough to lie for him?”

“I don’t have to lie for him.”

Sloane pulled out a copy of Cassidy’s witness statement and handed it to him. “You told Colonel Bo Griffin that you got off course in the sandstorm and drove into that ambush. There’s nothing in your statement about getting a radio transmission.”

Cassidy flipped through the statement, shuffling his feet. He made a face like he’d just caught scent of something foul. “This ain’t my statement.”

“That’s your signature.”

“Yeah, but this ain’t what I put in my statement.”

“You didn’t get stuck in a sandstorm?”

“The sandstorm part is right, but after that…what it says in there, that’s not what happened. I just told you what happened.”

“To protect the captain?”

Cassidy scowled. “Protect him from what?”

“A court-martial for selling supplies out the back of the Humvee, dealing drugs and other contraband on the black market.”

“Who told you that?” Cassidy laughed. “Stealing from the convoy? Why would we? They gave you anything you wanted, and smokes were cheap. We had no reason to steal.” He shook his head. “I don’t know who’s feeding you your information, but that’s bullshit. Once we got off base, the only thing we wanted to do was get back
on base
and the faster the better.”

He explained that their missions were well coordinated and that while a convoy could get off course, that was usually if a road suddenly became inaccessible, or a bridge was bombed overnight, requiring they take a different route.

“But to do it on purpose? Hell no,” Cassidy said. “Captain gave the order because he was trying to save lives. Whoever told you otherwise is lying.” He chuckled. “Did they say Ford was dealing drugs? Because
that
would be funny. Ford was religious, always kissing his cross and praying.”

That’s when Sloane realized Griffin had wanted to present him with a quandary: a factual scenario that would prove Ford had not been acting incident to his service, but would also ruin his family’s memory of him as a man of faith and principle. Griffin wanted to force Sloane to have to make a moral decision: take the money and drop the case to protect the family’s memory, or pursue the complaint and ruin that memory.

“How many of the vehicles proceeded to assist Bravo three-sixteen?” Jenkins asked.

Cassidy held up a single finger. “Just us.”

“How many ultimately responded?”

“Until they blew up the building, no one.”

“Do you ever find out why not?” Sloane asked.

“I talked to some of the guys when we got back to the base. You know, I asked, ‘Where the hell were you?’”

“What’d they say?”

“Just said they never got the transmission.”

“How could only you have heard it?” Sloane asked, beginning to suspect he knew the answer.

Cassidy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they’d all left by then, or maybe the storm had something to do with it. Or they were on a different frequency. I don’t know. All I know is next thing we’re knee-deep in the shit and running for our lives. Then, ka-boom! Shit started falling all around us, chunks of cement and barrels flying everywhere, exploding.”

“Barrels? I thought you said it was a granary.”

“That’s what they told us.” Cassidy shrugged. “Apparently they were wrong. When all the smoke cleared it was just rubble and all these barrels burning, and Ford and Fergie and the captain all laying there.”

“Who called in the air strike?” Sloane had asked, recalling that Katherine Ferguson said her husband told her something similar.

“The captain, I guess.” Cassidy paused, looking like he was trying to silently solve a physics problem.

“What?” Sloane asked.

“Except our radio was broke.”

“What do you mean, broke?”

“I mean broke. The captain couldn’t have called in an air strike because the mouthpiece was crushed. I remember we could hear but we couldn’t talk back.” Cassidy looked confused. “What’s going on?”

“Did you get a better look at the barrels, see a label on them, anything at all?” Sloane asked.

Cassidy shook his head. “I was just glad to be alive, man. I wasn’t worried about nothing else. Besides, we weren’t allowed to go near the building.”

“Why not?”

“They secured it.”

“Who?”

“Contractor types.”

“Military contractors?” Jenkins asked.

Cassidy nodded. “But hell, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell those guys apart half the time anyway.”

THE FEMALE OFFICER
pulled open the passenger-side door and slid in out of the rain. “Anything?” she asked.

“Last one coming back now.” Her partner read the screen. “Okay, Mr. Jenkins, you’re good to go.” He pushed open the door, stepped into the rain, and walked around the car to open the back door for Jenkins. “You can’t just walk through private property because it’s convenient,” he said, helping Jenkins out of the car and removing the handcuffs.

Jenkins wasn’t in the mood for a class on property rights. He rubbed his wrists and grabbed his backpack and phone.

“You want us to go with you to make sure your client is all right?”

“No,” Jenkins said. “But thanks.”

He ran down the street to where he had parked the Explorer, climbed in, and started the engine. Pulling into the street, he flipped open his phone. The interior window remained black. He pressed the power button. Nothing happened. The water had killed the battery. He tossed it on the seat and drove.

At the bottom of the hill he was relieved to find Sloane’s home still standing, and even more relieved to see the transformer atop a utility pole sparking and emitting a small blue flame. He deduced it caused the explosion. Still, that didn’t explain why Sloane had called. Perhaps he had spooked at the explosion. No. The phone rang first, then the explosion. Jenkins stepped from the car into a
steady drizzle and retrieved his shotgun and rifle from the back. He crept along the side of the van and glanced through the passenger-side window. The drive shaft had been modified to accommodate a man no longer able to use his legs, the seat pushed close to the steering wheel and an arm protruding from the column to allow the driver to use his hands to accelerate and stop the vehicle.

Kessler.

Jenkins worked his way around the van with his rifle slung over his shoulder, shotgun at his hip. He quietly unlatched the gate, took a moment to survey the yard, and ascended the first porch step.

Movement caught his attention. He stopped, considering the beach, letting his eyes roam the area. With the cloud layer and no artificial light he could not distinguish anything from the shadowy movement of the waves on the surface of the water.

About to turn back to the house, he again sensed movement. He lowered the backpack and shotgun and raised the binoculars, scanning the surface of the Sound. He was about to lower the binoculars when he saw something protrude from the surface of the water. It looked to be the rounded head of a seal. Jenkins had heard the animals bark at the Point but had never seen one. Another rounded head surfaced close by, followed by a third. One seal would have been unusual. Three was implausible.

One of the heads rose from the water revealing a face mask and breathing apparatus. The other two divers followed. Jenkins refocused further out into the Sound. A boat sat anchored offshore, a dangerous thing to do at night with the massive cargo ships that used the passage as a shipping lane.

The crocodiles had reached the beach. If they made it to the house they would kill Sloane and Kessler. Sloane had deliberately given them the scenario they needed. Witnesses would talk about how an enraged Sloane burst into Kessler’s office that afternoon
and threatened to expose Kessler in the killings of three guardsmen to cover up an illegal drug operation while in Iraq. The implication would be that Kessler went to Sloane’s home, killed him, then turned the gun on himself.

Jenkins couldn’t let it get that far.

KESSLER TURNED TO
Sloane. “Butch was right. I didn’t call in an air strike,” he said, keeping his voice low. “The radio was broken. The mouthpiece was crushed. I could receive transmissions, but I couldn’t respond.”

“Someone wanted to blow that building. You were the excuse to do it,” Sloane said. “It wasn’t a granary.”

“Chemicals,” Kessler said.

“Argus supplied Saddam with precursor chemicals he used to build his chemical weapons, and they made a lot of money doing it.” Sloane explained how UN inspectors had found chemical and biological agents in Iraq as late as 1998, long after it became illegal to supply them.