“Yeah. That’s what we were looking at. So, we depended on the fact that our leader didn’t have much field experience. We kind of used that to our advantage. Honest to God, he had no idea how this mission was actually supposed to go once the rubber met the road. We could have made up any sort of shit excuse—mandatory equipment checks, sighting for snipers, picking our asses, pretty much anything. And so we did, and we bought us a little time. Time enough for me and Camo to get a closer look at our target. We snuck up to one of the windows and looked in. Just as we’d heard, there were five men sitting around a table, playing some sort of fucking board game, looked like Monopoly for fuck’s sake. Those moments are just surreal, man, I tell you. I matched the faces to the ones we’d seen back at base. We had our guys, no question. All I had to do was get back to my team, get us into position for squirters, then radio in and tell them to strafe it.”
“But that didn’t happen, did it?”
“Negative. A curtain parted in the back and a woman walked into the room. And not just a woman, a woman with a baby on her hip. A little baby. There weren’t supposed to be any women here, let alone any little kids. I told the rest of the team what I was seeing. And even as I spoke, a second woman came through the door. The two of them went off in the corner with the kid and started talking. I had no idea what the fuck to do. Was I supposed to call it in and watch a baby die?”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m not under any illusions that all women are perfectly innocent and good. I mean, the woman with the baby was there with them. I didn’t know if she was there against her will, or if she would be just as willing to strap on a few bombs, even wire up her own kid. Because I have seen that shit.” His breath came quickly now. “I have seen that shit.”
“You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to,” Arden said quickly.
“No, I’ve already started this, I gotta finish it now. So, I reconvened with my team. We decided that if there was any way at all that we could get those three out, we would. I mean, our own legal system is based on innocent until proven guilty. But as far as I was concerned, the five men in that room were guilty. We knew it. We knew what they had done, and we knew that we had them dead to rights. But there was no way that little baby had done anything that warranted his death. The women we could sort out later. But not that kid.
“So we turned our mics back on. And we told our leader, ‘Civilians, two women, one infant. Advise to abort mission.’
“And the son of a bitch wouldn’t. That motherfucker went ahead and he ordered an immediate strike.”
“What?But, even if he thought those women were a threat and the kid would grow up to be a terrorist, all ofyouwere still there. You could have been…” she trailed off.
Kyle nodded. “Yeah. We were. You get it.”
“You’re telling me that he was going to kill all of you just to get those five men?”
“Yeah. No witnesses that way. No witnesses saying that innocent civilians had been killed as well, that it was a bad call.”
Kyle sighed. “So what we did next, I’m not proud of it. I can’t be proud of it. It cost me everything. But it’s what we did. And later I took all the blame for it.
“I fucking warned them, Arden. I went in and with the little Farsi that I did know, I told them they needed to get the fuck out. We could already hear the strike coming in so they believed me. They were totally confused, but they fucking believed me.”
“And obviously you got away. You and Camo at least.”
“Yeah. We all did, barely. My team, those five men, the two women, and the kid. Plus the rest of the women and the other three children who were upstairs.”
“Kyle. Oh, Kyle.”
“Fourteen in all. Fourteen women and children who would have been killed otherwise.”
Arden didn’t bother wiping away her tears. They slicked her cheeks.
“But so did those five men. When we got back to the base, I took all the blame. Because it was my fault. The minute I let Camo decide that we were going to take a closer look, I was in charge. I couldn’t let my brothers take the heat for this.”
“Even though you were all in agreement?”
“Yeah, even though we were all in agreement. Our leader only needed one scapegoat. And if he could get rid of the fucking dog handler and the damn dog, all the better. Because in his eyes, it was the dog that had fucked up the mission.
“We all knew what he did and that he was going to throw us under the bus. Not a damn thing we could do—he was too well-connected. And so the best thing was for me to take all the blame. Otherwise, we would have all been court-martialed. Kicked out on our asses. And God only knows what would have happened to Camo. That was my one regret. I was so afraid that by saving the rest of my brothers, I had doomed Camo.”
“But that didn’t happen.”
“Thank God. I was facing court-martial for sedition, but I called his bluff, made him believe we’d talk and it’d all come out in the trial and the media. So I got the choice to leave in disgrace. Camo was switched to another team. And I was sent home. The records are classified. Nobody could know what happened on this mission. So, if you look at my record you’ll think that I’m a total fuck-up. And maybe I am a total fuck-up, I don’t know anymore. But I do know that Camo is safe. And that I kept my teammates safe as well.”
“You saved them. You saved fourteen civilians and your team. And no one knows but them.”
“I don’t care if anyone knows. I remember their faces—their living faces, not their dead ones. Those I see in my dreams when I make a different decision, or when I’m not fast enough.”
“Kyle. What is it in you that won’t let you see how amazing you are?”
He shook his head. “I didoneright thing out of a lifetime of messing things up. That’s not amazing.”
