by Bob Purssell
The result is a bloody pulp.
Spent, I let my rifle dangle from my left hand. Averting my eyes, by feel, I find Hamza’s hand and pry away the keys.
* * *
Amidst the carnage I have created, I retrieve Automatic Rifle Man’s weapon and then drive my newly captured truck across the shallow stream. My rage unabated, I now want only to escape. The mother senses my fury and cringes; the terrified boy starts bawling. Both are probably convinced I am going to annihilate them on the spot. Pointing to the truck bed, I motion for them to get in. In terror, her eyes never looking away from me, the mother helps the boy into the bed with one hand while she holds her infant to her chest. Clutching her infant girl, she climbs into the bed herself.
I climb into the cab, put the truck in gear and roar away from the bloodshed. We reach the highway just as darkness falls.
By Chadian standards, the small town is brightly lit. Some traffic is moving along the highway. Near a building with a handwritten sign that reads “Carburant – Essence, Diesel,”[48] I stop the pickup and walk to the back of the vehicle. The woman’s fear-filled eyes follow me, never letting me out of her gaze. After opening the tailgate, I point to her and then to the ground. She gets the message and says something to the boy. He jumps from the truck bed, and the mother follows with her infant. I say, “Good luck.” Happy to escape my presence, the mother hustles her brood away from the truck.
I get back into the cab and consider refueling, but that is not necessary. The tank, to my surprise, is near full. Studying my map, I realize that I have more than enough to reach the capital.
* * *
On my way back to the capital (N’Djamena), I picture my reception. I am Barbara O’Leary, the authentic hero who battles thugs, saves a family, and restores communications with the rebels holding the hostages. Already I can see myself basking in praise.
However, as I approach the capital, I have second thoughts. I don’t know anyone, American or Chadian, in this country. Everything I have done, I have done without the slightest authorization. I have entered the country with a phony passport. I have killed Chadian nationals. I am an American in a part of the world noted for its anti-American sentiments.
From the American government’s perspective, am I a hero or an embarrassment? Will my own government decide I’m a rogue officer run amok?
If I do not report what happened when the SUV ran out of gas, I’m still the officer who, at great personal risk, restored communications to the rebels. Of course, I would be taking a gamble. Will my cover-up work? Or would my secret come out, undoubtedly causing me embarrassment and, quite possibly, ruining my career?
If I decide to report what has happened, who will I tell? My CO back in College Station, who has shown little interest since I went on temporary assignment? The careerists on the Eisenhower? The civilian embassy personnel, whom I have only briefly met?
I debate what I should do. Dissembling is so repugnant and risky. The alternative, telling the truth to people who have only a passing interest in my situation, doesn’t seem much better.
Feeling abandoned, I decide to search for someone I can trust in Chad. Failing that, I resign myself to informing my CO when I get back to Texas.
SUSAN WATERFORD
When I got to the outskirts of the capital, I pulled over and took out the cell phone that Roger, aka White Suit, had given me. He answered on the second ring.
“O’Leary, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Where the fuck have you been?”
Ignoring the query, I asked, “Did you reach the kidnappers?”
“Yeah, they’re negotiating as we speak.”
I sighed, but said nothing.
Roger asked, “You still there?”
Just wanting to get back home, ignoring his question, I asked, “How do I hook up with you?”
Three or four questions later, Roger knew where I was. We arranged to meet at a crossroads two miles up ahead.
Driving slowly, I approached the rendezvous point. Not wanting any more contact with the people of Chad, with people in general, I pondered what I should do about the Hamza incident.
Confused, angry, exhausted, guilt-ridden, I screamed out, “Fuck them. Fuck them all!”
* * *
Roger arrived, rushed over to my truck and asked, “You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Get out. We’ll use my van.”
“What about the truck?”
“Screw the truck; I’ll take care of it later.”
I got out of the truck, and the headlights from Roger’s van illuminated my bloodstained clothes. He exclaimed, “What the fuck happened to you?” I opened my mouth to explain, but Roger ordered, “Give me your keys; get in the van. You can tell me what happened later.”
Sitting in the passenger seat, I watched Roger transfer to the van the old rifle I had used and the automatic rifle I had recovered. To avoid leaving any of his fingerprints, he used a cloth when handling the weapons. After I opened the passenger window, Roger asked me, “Anything else I should get out of the truck?”
Rather sheepishly, I answered, “No.”
As we drove off, Roger asked, “That’s not your blood, is it?”
“No,” I began to explain, but Roger shut me off with, “Be careful who you tell about this.” After I nodded that I understood, he added, “I’ll call ahead and tell Waterford. She’s good at these sorts of things.”
* * *
In the garage at the safe house, as I got out of Roger’s car, Susan Waterford, whom I first met when I arrived in Chad, greeted me. “We were so worried about you. Are you all right?”
A feeling of relief flooded through me. Finally, someone was expressing concern over my well-being. I replied, “I think so.”
Susan told Roger, “Give us some privacy. If you go inside, don’t advertize the fact that Barbara has arrived.” After nodding, he left, closing the garage door as he went. When we were alone, Susan instructed, “Take off your dirty things and put them in this garbage bag.” Then handing me a plastic bag, Susan said, “For the moment, you can wear these clean sweats.”
“When we go inside, is there some place that I can take a shower?”
“Yes, but first we have some things to do,” replied Susan, making a face. When I sighed, she explained, “First, I’m going to introduce you to Charles, he’s the station head—you’ll like him—and the rest of our merry band. It’ll take a moment, and then you’ll be done with them until morning.”
“I am really beat.”
“I know,” empathized Susan, “but before you clean up and go to bed, I have to debrief you. It’s the procedure.”
“Can’t that wait until morning?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
I whined, “At least, let me wash my face.”
“Good idea,” replied Susan, who then gave me a hug.
As the saying goes, I needed that. Much relieved, I wondered, is Susan the considerate type of person in whom I can confide?
After changing into the sweats, I followed Susan into the safe house and washed my face. Feeling somewhat less grungy, I now trailed her into a living room that now served as the hostage-crisis war room. A large group was sitting around a coffee table upon which sat an old-style telephone. Wires led to a table where two technicians fussed with an array of electronic equipment.
A handsome, casually dressed man, tall and muscular, got up and came over to Susan and me. “Lieutenant O’Leary, you had us so worried.”
In spite of the situation, all my concerns, and my tiredness, some primal urge kicked in. I discreetly glanced at the man’s ring finger. Seeing none, I reflexively flashed what I hoped was a seductive smile and replied, “I’m sorry.”
“Please, no apologies. I’m Charles Braddock, the station head.”
As h
e shook my hand, I considered the possibilities. The name Barbara Braddock would have such an alliterative ring.
Susan must have sensed what was going on inside my head because she discreetly smiled.
Before I could speak, Charles said, “I’d like to talk, but we’re waiting for the guy who’s in contact with the kidnappers to call back.” I nodded and Braddock, patting me on the shoulder, flashed his smile—which I found to be super seductive—and said, “We’ll talk later.”
I wanted to say something encouraging but nothing came to mind, and the situation was all wrong. Instead, I smiled back at Charles, hoping he would get the message.
He turned to Susan and said, “You’re going to handle Lieutenant O’Leary’s debriefing?”
Her demeanor serious, Susan replied, “Yes, sir.”
* * *
In what might have been a den at one time, Susan, paper and pen in hand, said, “I want you to tell me everything. Don’t hold back; just let it flow. When we’ve finished getting what happened down on paper, we’ll work on the write-up. That’s when we’ll get the tone right.”
Not so sure that I wanted to tell everything, I again whined, “I’m kind of tired. Can’t we do this tomorrow?”
“I know it’s a drag,” replied Susan, making a face, “but it’s really important we get everything while it’s still fresh in your mind.”
Giving in, I nodded and Susan said, “Good. Let’s start right from the beginning.”
It took me an hour to tell my story. Tired, much relieved that Susan was my debriefer, I did as she suggested; not resisting, just letting it all flow.
The most difficult part was the Hamza incident. I choked up as I recounted my actions. When I finished, Susan said, “Tell me how you feel about taking the keys away from Hamza?”
I attempted to answer Susan’s question but again my emotions welled up, and try as I might, I couldn’t keep from tearing. Susan put her arms around me and held me as I cried. After what I guess was a few minutes, I began to regain self-control. Clearing my throat, I confessed, “It was awful. I-I was a savage, an animal.”
Like a mother comforting her distressed child, Susan held my head and stroked my hair. Calming down, I relaxed and listened to her talk, not so much to me, but to us.
“What you experienced is fairly common. Good people, people like you, wanting to do right by their country, come to a place like this. Their intention: make the Chads of this world, in some way, better places.
“But places like Chad have their own dynamic. They’re different … they create their own situations, situations in which good people have to make choices. Not between good and evil, but between bad and worse.”
Susan paused to collect her thoughts before continuing. “That’s what happens. That’s what happened to you. That’s what happens to good people who try to make bad into good out here.
“The trick is to realize that choosing bad over worse is another way of choosing good over evil.”
Moving my head so she could look into my eyes, Susan told me, “You did that. You rescued what was left of the family. You could have shot down the man who rescued his brother, but you didn’t. You offered Hamza his life in exchange for his keys.
“He chose defiance and death. Why? Because that’s the way things work in this part of the world. And to live out here, to succeed in these kinds of places, you have to realize, to accept that fact.”
Susan stopped. I separated from her. As I did, I said, “Thank you.”
* * *
Although exhausted, I did not sleep. I just lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling, thinking about the people I had killed and wounded.
The shooting of Automatic Rifle Man, Wounded Man, and the Driver only upset me somewhat. They were Susan’s bad. They were killers on a rampage. But for my actions, they could have been Susan’s worse. They would have killed me. They would have killed the mother and her children. If I had not stopped them, what further harm would they have done? The more I thought about what had happened to them, the fewer regrets I had.
Their bad outcome wasn’t a triumph or a victory for me. I didn’t like hurting people; I would have been more than happy to avoid the situation entirely. But they made that outcome an impossibility.
Hamza, when I recognized he was the Driver, was different. I knew him as a person. I had seen his face express emotion. I had listened to his voice. I had formed an opinion about him. Unlike the others, Hamza was not remote; his death was immediate and personal. Furthermore, my way of killing him—bludgeoning his head to a bloody pulp—made his death even more vivid, too vivid really.
I remembered his screams. In my mind’s eye, I relived the scene. I had become a savage. I could feel my passions. For all Susan had said, I wondered if I was truly different from the man hacking the father with his machete.
For the first time, I realized what savagery lurked within my soul.
I closed my eyes and the scene played out. Terrified of what I would see again if I closed my eyes, I stared at the ceiling and wondered: How could I have lost all self-control so quickly and so completely? I closed my eyes and Hamza’s fear-filled eyes stared at me as I delivered my first blow. Filled with terror, I instantly opened my eyes and wretchedly focused on the ceiling.
I do not remember sleeping. Surely, I must have slept, but all I remember was my terror of seeing, once again, Hamza’s face.
Recalling what Susan had said, I tried to rationalize my savagery. But my efforts gave me no comfort. I wondered: Did millennia of civilization amount to no more than a thin veneer?
* * *
Susan nudged me awake from my fitful sleep and told me, “Estelle is here. Roger needs your help.”
Although my body ached from want of sleep, I dressed quickly and followed Susan to the basement, which contained a room-sized box, roughly ten by ten by seven feet tall. Next to the structure was a monitor and computers. Along with Roger, there were several other men, but no Estelle.
Roger explained. “Estelle is inside the box. My objective is to have her work for us, feeding plausible, but bogus, information to Henri, and if we get lucky, the Central Committee. Are you familiar with the concept?”
Generally understanding the idea of using promises, threats, and psychological pressure to flip a person into betraying their loyalties and working for the opposition, I nodded.
Continuing, Roger said, “Good, because I want you to use your rapport with Estelle.”
“I don’t know Estelle all that well.”
“You’re one up on us. We don’t know her at all,” responded Roger.
Understanding that I was the only, and not the best, alternative, I nodded.
Roger continued. “We snatched Estelle on her way home from some sort of get-together. Because today is a Sunday, we don’t think anyone will notice she’s gone until ten or eleven. So, we have a window of opportunity.”
“What happens if she won’t flip?”
“Our policy is to turn her over to the government of Chad. From Estelle’s perspective, that is not a desirable outcome.” After Roger paused and I nodded, he went on. “We’re guessing that Estelle is a dedicated revolutionary at heart who is ready to die a martyr’s death. I have to take that option off the table.”
“How?”
“I’ll tell her she’ll die an accidental, stupid death, so nobody will think she’s a martyr.”
“Isn’t that psychological torture?”
Stepping close to me, Roger hissed, “It might be; it probably is. So what are the alternatives, Lieutenant? Let me count the ways. We could tell her, ‘Better luck next time,’ and let her go. Why not give her a thank-you note for helping you to risk your life? How about charging her for picking up a hitchhiker and thinking revolutionary thoughts?
“Or we could turn her over to the government thugs; they won’t waste their ti
me on the psychological stuff, because they’ll be too busy doing real, beat-the-living-crap-out-of-Estelle torture.”
Roger stopped, waited a few seconds and then demanded, “You make the call, Lieutenant.”
Someone in the room said, “Roger, perhaps—” but Roger growled, “Shut up. The lieutenant is deciding the fate of the hostages.”
I had rarely considered whether the use of torture was legitimate; infrequently, I had debated the issue; only occasionally had I read papers on opposing views. Now however, for the first time, I had to choose for real.
Roger started to speak, but this time I cut him off. “You’ve made your point. What do you want me to do?”
“Encourage her to think, to consider the big picture. Shake her up.”
“You want me to hit her?”
“Of course not. Make her think; give her a way to work with us.”
With those instructions, I followed Roger into the interrogation box.
* * *
Estelle was sitting on a metal folding chair illuminated by two enormously brilliant lights. Roger removed the hood from Estelle’s head, and the woman squinted from the glare. She was a slender woman, skinny really, who looked all of her sixty years.
“Estelle, my name is Roger. You’ve already met Barbara, so I’ll skip that introduction.”
Estelle tried to see us but the lights effectively blinded her.
Roger continued, “Listen carefully, Estelle. Your future depends on the decision you will make in the next few minutes. Do you understand?”
Estelle nodded slowly.
Roger went on, “You can work for us and earn good money. It will be dangerous—we recognize that—but if you do a good job, we’ll protect you as best we can. Do you understand?”
As best she could, Estelle snarled, “I’ll never betray the party.”
