Man In The Middle Part 33

"Yes, but--"

"But it was just easier to shoot them."

"No, I . . . It was . . . one of the hardest things I've ever done."

"But you made it look look so easy." so easy."

"Also I realized that if we left those men physically intact, they would be available to battle the Marines. These are dangerous men, hardened terrorists, murderers."

"Are you finished?"

"Not yet. I'm not saying what I did was legally right. It wasn't. I know that. Yet I still believe it was the proper thing. If it saves the life of a single U.S. Marine--"

"That's why the Army has its own court-martial system with boards composed of veteran officers."

"What are you talking about?"

"They appreciate the unique strains and stresses that accompany combat, the situational judgments, the rationalizations for questionable conduct, the extenuating matters." I opened a door, but it turned out to be a galley closet. "Save it for them."

"Sean, I'm telling the truth." After a moment she asked, "Why do you you think I did it?" think I did it?"

"Maybe you snapped. Maybe you have bad memories of your time here, flashbacks, an illogical hatred of Arabs, or battle fatigue, or latent sociopathic tendencies, or PMS. Possibilities abound. I really don't know. I really don't care."

I moved toward the pilot's cabin and stopped at the first door on the right. I opened it and stepped inside.

"You know what I think?" Bian asked.

She doggedly followed me inside what appeared to be the crew's cabin. She said, "This isn't your your war. How did you phrase it before? Correct me if I misquote you. It's just a news event, a tidbit tucked between the weather and the sports update. That wasn't only the great American public you were describing, it was you." war. How did you phrase it before? Correct me if I misquote you. It's just a news event, a tidbit tucked between the weather and the sports update. That wasn't only the great American public you were describing, it was you."

There were no fold-out beds, but I did see a door that I a.s.sumed led to a closet.

She said, "You're just pa.s.sing through, an impartial observer, a reluctant tourist, emotionally disconnected. I'm not. Nor are the hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and Marines fighting here. It's life, and it's death, and that's how you have to play it."

"Bulls.h.i.t."

"Is it? You didn't even want to come. You're here only because Phyllis and I shamed and pressured you into it."

True enough. And yes, maybe that did make it, not easy, but at least easier easier to pa.s.s judgment. I had to pa.s.s judgment. I had my my wars, wars, my my battles--Panama, the first Gulf War, and Mogadishu--and as my father likes to say about battles--Panama, the first Gulf War, and Mogadishu--and as my father likes to say about his his wars, those were the last wars, those were the last real real wars. No, I had no emotional connection to this one--like empathy and sympathy; I understood, I just didn't emote. I avoided eye contact with her, opened the door, and inside was, in fact, a fold-up bed, which I reached for. wars. No, I had no emotional connection to this one--like empathy and sympathy; I understood, I just didn't emote. I avoided eye contact with her, opened the door, and inside was, in fact, a fold-up bed, which I reached for.

Bian said, "Look at me, Sean."

I looked at her.

"You weren't so judgmental tonight when we threatened those men with execution. That also is a violation of the laws of war. Going all high and mighty now doesn't look good on you."

There was no need to point out the difference between threatening and doing; she understood the distinction. And yes, I had crossed a line; she, on the other hand, had jumped galaxies.

She continued, "Had I been some burned-out, hyperventilating basket case, I would've killed those men. I couldn't . . . and I didn't. I deliberately wounded them. Explain that."

I couldn't explain it. Had it been battlefield rage or simmering racial hatred, those men wouldn't be crippled; they'd be worm meat.

But in the eyes of the law, it mattered not whether her motive was expediency--as she claimed, to separate the chaff from bin Pacha--or, as she further rationalized, to immobilize a future battlefield threat. Shooting unarmed prisoners is, at the very least, an excessive use of force; at worst, it is a method of torture.

"Don't be angry with me."

"I'm disappointed in you. There's a difference."

"That's worse." I looked at her again and noticed that tears were coursing down her cheeks. She said, "I think there's something between us . . . and . . . I . . ."

I grabbed the bed and tried to maneuver it out of the room. It was too large and unwieldy, and I said, "Give me a hand."

"Tell me what you intend to do."

"I'm going to report you."

"To whom?"

"When I decide, you'll be the first to know."

"Am I under arrest?"

"Not yet. But consider yourself under military custody."

"I want to finish this . . . I . . . I have have to finish this." to finish this."

"I can't trust you around prisoners, Bian. I'm sure I don't need to explain why."

"Then you're not thinking straight. You can't finish this without me. You know that."

"Do I?"

"Yes. If we can get bin Pacha to talk, how many lives might that save? You have . . . This is very importent to me. Come on, we've come this far."

She had a point. She understood the operating environment and she could converse in Arabic, whereas I couldn't even ask, "Who's handing over the moolah, bin Pacha?"

On the other hand, I could not get past the memory of those men toppling over.

She sensed that I was conflicted and said, "Satisfy your conscience after we're done, okay? Mission first, right? What is it they say about babies and bathwater? What more damage can I accomplish?"

"Are you out of cliches yet?"

"You know I'm not."

I looked at her. Against my better judgment, I said, "Promise you won't shoot anybody."

She smiled and crossed her heart. "Promise."

"No mistreatment of the prisoners."

"I won't even squash a sandfly without your consent."

"You won't even pee without my permission."

"That's what I meant."

"Give me a hand with this bed."

She did and we carried it out to Doc Enzenauer, who in our absence had also hooked up Nervous Nellie to an IV. The doc was hovering over bin Pacha, and he looked up and said, "He's stabilized. But without opening him up, I can't diagnose how serious his wound is. He needs to be on an operating table right away."

We lifted bin Pacha by his arms and feet and gently set him down on the bed. Bian explained to Enzenauer, "This is Ali bin Pacha."

"I thought he might be."

"So you're aware of his importance, and the complications. There are several field hospitals nearby. But you understand the sensitivity of his ident.i.ty becoming exposed?"

"I'll give him a sedative that will keep him under and shouldn't react badly to whatever the anesthesiologist pumps into him." He added, "But I can't guarantee he won't talk."

Bian looked at me. "Well?"

"We'll move him first. We don't want an ambulance coming and linking him and this airplane."

"I hadn't considered that."

Enzenauer and I lifted up the cot and hauled bin Pacha out of the hangar while Bian trotted off to look for an MP with a radio to request the services of the nearest medevac facility.

I mentioned to Enzenauer, "I'll accompany you. After he's admitted, however, you're on your own. Long night. I need sleep."

"Well . . . that's why I'm here." He then asked me a good question. "How do we explain the victim? I a.s.sume you don't want him recuperating in an American military hospital. So, something that justifies a release as soon as he's ambulatory."

An idea was forming inside my head, and I said, "Tell them he's a member of the Saudi royal family. Shot by a terrorist, right? Stress his connection to the Saudi king and he'll get first-cla.s.s treatment." I craned my neck around and looked back at Enzenauer. "How do we explain you?"

"That's easy. Lots of rich Saudis retain their own personal Western physicians."

I nearly told him I have my own proctologist, named Phyllis. He didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor, though.

He added, "I have a friend who does it. Lives in a monstrous mansion out in Great Falls. The pay is incredible." He chuckled and said, "My wife's always badgering me to get my own royal."

"Now you have one. Your client, Ali al-Saud, was here on a business trip. He didn't explain the purpose to you, because it was none of your business. Right? But he brought you here and asked if you wanted to accompany him to see the local sights. He was walking down the street, a stranger in dark clothing stepped in front of him, and bang. Completely arbitrary. Keep it simple. If they ask about you or your background, tell the truth. Just not the CIA part. The best lies stretch truth."

He nodded.

"So you put your patient in a taxi, rushed him here to the American air base, and asked for help. You ran into me by the front gate . . . I located a medic--somebody from a unit at the airfield--he provided the IV and blood. Right?"

"Exactly how I remember it."

"Don't mess this up, Doc. Getting him out will be Phyllis's problem."

We set down the bed, and about three minutes later, Bian jogged up. She said, "An air medevac's en route. Shouldn't take long. They're only three miles away as the crow flies."

I explained our intentions and she agreed it sounded workable. I told her to remain in the airplane and babysit Nellie Nervous and reminded her not to kill him. I promised I'd be back in two hours and instructed her to call Phyllis from the plane and update her.

We heard the whack-whack whack-whack of helicopter blades. of helicopter blades.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Good news/bad news.

A suicide bomber struck near the city center, and our arrival coincided with the victims, a ma.s.s of broken, traumatized people streaming into the field hospital. Some walked or limped in; the majority were hauled in on stretchers. The admitting nurses were overwhelmed and rushing from patient to patient, sorting the horribly wounded from the merely wounded from the too far gone to save, a triage situation.

I had never seen anything like this. I had seen dead and wounded soldiers, but here the wounded were all civilians, for the most part women and children, looking bloodied and dazed as they cried out for attention and help. I saw tearful fathers carrying wounded little children, and little children standing with desperate expressions beside horribly mangled parents.

What did the terrorists hope to accomplish by this indiscriminate ma.s.sacre? Worse, I overheard somebody mention that this was only half the casualties; the rest had been rushed to civilian hospitals, which eventually were overwhelmed and began diverting the overflow to the care of the U.S. military.

At one point, Enzenauer and I exchanged eye contact. The ugly irony of us bringing bin Pacha, here, at this moment in time, caught us both off guard and feeling guilty.

In this cauldron of misery and confusion, the admitting nurse asked only a few cursory questions and showed no curiosity or dubiousness about our responses before Ali bin Pacha was admitted for emergency surgery. In Iraq, it seemed, everybody has the inalienable right to get hurt without explaining why.

Doc Enzenauer dutifully emphasized the diplomatic importance of his patient to the admitting nurse, and a few minutes later repeated it word for word to an Army doctor, along with a few comments about his own credentials, which turned out to be fairly impressive--John Hopkins Med School, internship at Georgetown Hospital, specialties in psychiatry and the heart--and he was allowed to enter the surgery room as an attending physician.

I found a cup of coffee and sat and waited two hours before I could hitch a ride on a military ambulance transporting patients to the airport for evacuation to the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Both patients lay on stretchers, one unconscious, the other floating in and out, so dulled by drugs the difference was negligible.

An attractive nurse, who looked mildly Latina and seemed quite pleasant, rode with me in the rear of the ambulance. Her nametag read Foster, and I asked her, "What's your first name?"

"Claudia."

I didn't see a wedding or engagement band, and I asked the question I ask all attractive women. "Married?"

"Five years now. My husband's in New York City. That's where I'm from. The Big Apple, right?"

"Isn't that a suburb of New Jersey?" She did not seem to appreciate this comment, but she smiled a little dryly, and I asked, "Miss it?"

"What I would do for a real tuna ceviche. You know this meal? A Honduran dish. Served in a coconut sh.e.l.l. Muy delicioso. There's a restaurant in the city, Patria. Real Latin food." She laughed. "I still got four months left on this tour. My crazy husband already made a reservation for the day I get back. Is he some kind of nut or what?"

And so we pa.s.sed the drive for a while; she loved her husband, she missed him, and couldn't wait to get back and make babies by the bushel.

Claudia was Army National Guard--a part-timer--and the last thing she or her husband had expected was a combat tour that interrupted their lives. I eventually asked her, "What happened to these men?"

She pointed at the unconscious patient and said, "Sergeant Elby is a truck driver. National Guard. Like me." She reached over and carefully adjusted his blanket, a gesture as unnecessary as it was telling.

"A roadside bomb, about a month ago. Both legs are gone, his left hip, too. Also his kidneys aren't functioning, so he needs dialysis twice a day. The damage from these bombs is . . ." She looked away for a moment. "He might lose an arm before we're done."