by Kathy Reichs
I drew a first-floor room. Rigg appeared as I was unlocking the door.
“Have a good night, ma’am.” A curt nod, and he was gone.
I looked around.
A kitchenette. A table and two chairs. Built-in drawers and shelves, one holding a TV. Two double beds.
An electric alarm on a stand between the beds said 12:47. In the quiet, I could hear it humming softly.
After minimal toilette, I stripped down and crawled under the sheets. Sleep claimed me as soon as my head touched the pillow.
I awoke to the shrill of a phone.
“Mm.”
“Sergeant Rigg, ma’am. Major Hawthorn would like to meet with you at ten hundred hours.”
I glanced at the clock. 9:24.
“I’ll be in the lobby in twenty minutes.”
Quick shower, shampoo, teeth. A dab of blusher, one ghastly instant coffee, and I was out the door.
Rigg was waiting. He nodded, then turned quickly. I think he felt awkward, not being able to salute.
The morning was warm but overcast. Dozens of birds stood sentry on power lines and in overhead branches.
As we drove along the beach, I noticed a Marine unit doing nautical maneuvers, six-person crews humping Zodiacs into the surf. I could hear the drill sergeant barking orders over the sound of the waves.
The Legal Services and JAG office was located a short distance up Holcomb Boulevard. Rigg dropped me at the front door.
“Ask for Major Joe Hawthorn.”
The receptionist had long legs, smooth skin, and amber hair piled high. Her drawl was thicker than Gran’s cheese grits.
“Temperance Brennan for Joe Hawthorn,” I said.
“I am so sorry.” As though personally aggrieved. “Major Hawthorn’s running a smidge late. Would you care to wait in his office?”
Smidge?
“That would be fine.”
“Please come with me.”
Smiling, she rose and turned right down a narrow hall, stilettos clicking on the shiny gray tile. We entered a door with a plaque bearing Hawthorn’s name and rank.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea? Perhaps a soda?”
“Coffee, please.”
The office triggered a flash image of Mrs. Flowers. The blotter was positioned perfectly parallel to the edge of the desk. Everything on it was arranged with exactitude. A yellow tablet. A letter opener. Three pens equidistant from each other, nibs perfectly aligned.
A framed photo showcased a blandly handsome man, his blandly pretty wife, and two well-groomed boys. I was imagining names when Ms. Southern Apple Pie returned and handed me a napkin and a steaming Styrofoam cup. Hawthorn entered as she was leaving.
“I apologize for my tardiness.”
Hawthorn’s appearance mimicked the state of his office. Shoes gleaming, uniform pressed and sharply creased, mustache squarely edged, hair parted with laser precision.
I rose. We shook hands. Hawthorn’s palm was dry, his nails and cuticles perfectly manicured.
“Thank you for coming. I know you must be tired.”
“I’ll catch a nap later.”
“Please sit.” Gesturing to the spot I’d just vacated.
I sat. Hawthorn moved to the chair behind his desk.
“As you know, the Article 32 hearing will resume tomorrow.” Hawthorn tented his fingers and rested his chin atop them. “Do you know what an Article 32 is?”
“In general.”
“Since the early 1950s, military justice has been administered in accordance with the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It provides the statutory framework that is the bedrock of both substantive criminal law and criminal procedure in the U.S. military.
“Many of the substantive provisions are similar to those found in American state and federal jurisdictions. The procedural provisions can be quite different.
“Under Article 32 of the UCMJ, no charge may be referred to a general court-martial for trial until an impartial investigation of the truth of the matter has been made. This is similar to a grand jury proceeding for civilians.”
Pete had always maintained that Article 32 actually affords an accused greater rights because it allows the accused and his counsel to be present at the hearing, to cross-examine government witnesses, and to present evidence, none of which is permitted before a grand jury.
I recalled how he’d bristle on hearing the old Groucho Marx gag that military justice is to justice as military music is to music.
Hawthorn’s voice brought me back from my thoughts.
“The government has presented all its evidence. I intend to call only one witness, that being you. I have reviewed your report and plan to take you through it, just as any civilian lawyer would.”
Hawthorn leaned back in his chair.
“I suppose you’d like to know a bit about the man of the hour?”
“Anything you think is pertinent, yes.”
“Second Lieutenant Gross’s father was Air Force, so he grew up a typical military brat. Base to base, hitch to hitch. Had the armed forces in his blood, you might say.”
“Sometimes it goes the other way.”
“Yes, but not for John. After graduating high school—as class valedictorian, I might add—he headed straight to a Marine recruiting office.”
“Not Air Force?”
Hawthorn dropped his hands, palms flat on the blotter. “I suspect he felt the need to prove something to his father.”
I didn’t query the meaning of that.
“John enlisted on an 18x contract, which offered a direct shot at a combat assignment. After training, he volunteered, and was deployed, to Desert Storm. He served in the Middle East, on and off, from ’91 to ’94.”
“That’s a good stretch.”
“Yes.” Hawthorn appeared on the verge of a comment, decided against it. “At the completion of his last deployment, John did not reenlist. He’d proven what he needed to prove, to himself, to his father. He had other plans for his life. Using the GI bill to fund his education and working full-time, he enrolled at NC State University. After graduating with a degree in political science, he taught high school in Charlotte for several years. Or it might have been Charleston.”
“Yet he must have reenlisted.”
“November ninth, 2005. That date have any significance for you, Dr. Brennan?”
I shook my head.
“It did for John. On that date, suicide bombers hit three American hotels in Amman, Jordan. The Radisson SAS, the Grand Hyatt, and a Days Inn. The Radisson was the worst. Husband-and-wife bombers walked into a ballroom in which a nine-hundred-guest wedding was in progress. Thirty-eight people were killed, including the fathers of both the bride and groom.”
I remembered the attacks now. Sixty killed, 120 injured.
“Reenlistments tend to rise after such incidents. In the wake of 9/11, lines ran out the doors of many recruiting centers.”
Hawthorn’s phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID but did not pick up.
“John experienced a sense of personal accountability. This is my interpretation, you understand. He never used those words specifically. It’s what I’ve picked up from our many conversations.”
“I understand.”
“John had spent three years in Iraq, making the world safe. This massacre of civilians demonstrated that wasn’t the case.”
“But we’re talking a different conflict, different perpetrators.”
“Absolutely. But for some soldiers it’s all one generalized evil. Saddam, Gadhafi, the Ayatollah, the Taliban—one evil with multiple faces. Like a hydra, a many-headed snake.”
“This was John’s thinking?”
“After those attacks, John viewed terrorism as a very real and very personal threat. To America, to our way of life.”
“He quit his job and reenlisted.”
“He applied for Officer Candidate School, which, given his age, was problematic.”
I did some quick math. “He was in h
is early thirties by then.”
“As in corporate America, the military prefers that its officers start out young. At his age, John should have been middle echelon. Nevertheless, he was accepted.” Hawthorn straightened the letter opener. “John’s status as a prior also worked to his disadvantage.”
“A prior?”
“An enlisted man applying for OCS. It’s tough to make the jump from the rank and file to officer class.”
“But Gross managed it.”
Hawthorn nodded. “Completed OCS at the top of his class, chose an infantry MOS, and volunteered for duty in Afghanistan. He was on his fourth tour when the incident at Sheyn Bagh took place.”
“What did Gross’s fellow officers think of him?” I set my napkin and empty cup on the edge of the desk.
“Hardworking, fair, cool under pressure. Excuse my French, but one called him a ‘gung ho mofo.’ ”
I needed no translation.
“So John was intense.”
Hawthorn gave a half smile. “Some might say a marine can never be too intense.”
“What about those under his command?”
Hawthorn’s eyes flicked to the cup and napkin ruining the careful symmetry on his desk. Unconsciously, his fingers squared the already square blotter.
“Opinions vary, of course. Most are positive.”
“But not Grant Eggers.”
“Corporal Eggers is the chief witness for the prosecution.”
Enough said.
“How is Lieutenant Gross handling all this?”
“John loves his country and loves the Corps. But he feels betrayed. He hates being stuck in Jacksonville, and would prefer to return to Afghanistan. He is certain he will be vindicated. As am I.”
Hawthorn smiled and pointed a finger at my offending debris. “May I?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He tossed the cup and napkin into something at his feet.
“So,” he said, straightening. “Let’s get into greater detail about your testimony.”
For the next hour we went over the basics. Hawthorn listened, asked a few questions, made a few notes. When I’d finished, he rose and thanked me again.
“If you need anything further, I’m staying at the Lejeune Inn,” I offered, sincerely hoping he wouldn’t call.
Rigg met me outside with the van.
As we drove across base, I thought over Hawthorn’s comments.
Intense was the word he’d used.
How intense? I wondered.
Rigg dropped me under the portico, said he’d collect me at oh-eight-thirty the following day. I went to my room and called Ryan. Got his machine. Although he’d responded to none of my earlier messages, I left another.
Frustrated and hungry, I walked to a Wendy’s for a double with cheese and fries. God, it was good to be home.
Back in my room, the humming clock said 1:15. Already regretting the quart of grease I’d ingested, I lay down on the bed. Outside, the sentry birds were now twittering like mad.
I closed my eyes.
Again I was awakened by a ringing phone. The room had gone dark.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
The silence sounded hollow, as though someone was listening. Or cupping the receiver.
Click.
Apologies to you, too, shithead.
I walked down the hallway, bought a vending-machine Diet Coke, returned, and booted my laptop. As I moved images into a PowerPoint presentation, my thoughts kept veering to Gross.
Would bones dug from the Afghan desert hold the key to his fate?
THE COURTROOM WAS SPARTAN: A raised bench stage center, defense and prosecution tables opposite, a witness stand adjacent to the bench and facing the courtroom, a court reporter’s desk in front of the witness stand, an empty jury box, a few seats for spectators at the rear.
The investigating officer, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Keever, was a gray-haired guy, trim, with a no-nonsense air. Major Christopher Nelson had a blond buzz cut and what must have been a very long torso. The prosecutor looked much shorter standing than sitting.
A man and a woman were the only people in the three rows of benches at the back of the room. The only ones wearing civvies. Diligent note taking suggested both were journalists.
Lieutenant John Gross was already seated when I arrived, back rigid, fingers intertwined on the tabletop. He was built like a bulldog, compact but powerful, with a face that looked like chiseled granite. Every crease was sharp. Every hair was in place.
Promptly at 9:30, Keever brought the hearing to order and asked Hawthorn if he wished to proceed with evidence for the defense.
I was called to the stand.
Gross’s eyes followed as I crossed the room. Otherwise, not a muscle, hair, or lash moved.
Hawthorn began with a review of my credentials. Some questions were the same as those posed during jury selection two weeks earlier in Charlotte.
Hawthorn brought out that I had a PhD in anthropology and was certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, a group with less than a hundred members. I explained that I was not a medical doctor but specialized in the examination of skeletal material, and that I worked closely with pathologists in the evaluation of human remains.
Hawthorn mentioned my association with JPAC and my familiarity with the military. He pointed out that the bulk of my work had been on behalf of the prosecution rather than the defense.
I testified that I’d just returned from Afghanistan, where I’d supervised the exhumation of the bodies of Abdul Khalik Rasekh and Ahmad Ali Aqsaee, and performed skeletal autopsies at the Bagram Air Force Base hospital.
Gross watched with the intensity of a tomcat eyeing a sparrow. Now and then a subtle tremor twitched his left lower lid.
Hawthorn then got to the heart of it.
Hawthorn: “What conclusions, if any, did you draw concerning the entry and exit points of bullets?”
“As to Mr. Rasekh, none. As to Mr. Aqsaee, I concluded that bullets had struck him in the area of the chest and had exited at his back.”
No reaction from Gross. Just the tic.
Hawthorn: “Why were you not able to determine trajectories with respect to Mr. Rasekh?”
“Bone destruction was too extensive to allow identification of entry or exit points.”
Hawthorn: “But you were able to identify such points for Mr. Aqsaee?”
“Yes.”
Hawthorn: “Please describe the findings that led you to that opinion.”
“There were several. Defects on two rib segments, on bone shards that had been part of the sternum, and on one vertebrae all demonstrated classic fracture patterning for gunshot wounds in an anterior-to-posterior trajectory. Metal and bone fragments found on X-ray further supported that finding. Mr. Aqsaee was shot in the chest.”
Gross remained absolutely motionless, his face a stone mask.
Hawthorn: “Can you explain briefly what happens when a bullet impacts tissue?”
I provided a jargon-free overview of the biomechanics of gunshot wounding, including the effects of projectile tumbling, cavitation, and fragmentation.
Hawthorn: “Tell us about bullet damage to bone.”
“A projectile traveling at high speed subjects bone to sudden dynamic stress. Though bone is thought to be rigid, it actually has some elasticity. As with soft tissue, when a bullet penetrates bone, a temporary cavity is created.”
Hawthorn: “What velocity is required for penetration of bone?”
“Studies suggest a minimum of two hundred feet per second. Much less than a bullet fired from an M16.”
Hawthorn: “Tell us about exit and entrance wounds.”
“Typically, when a bullet penetrates bone, a circular to oval defect is created at the point of entrance. The defect’s edges are sharp, and its diameter may roughly approximate that of the bullet’s caliber. An exit defect tends to be larger and more irregular in shape.”
Hawthorn: “Why?”
“A number of factors, including the potential for bullet deformation or fragmentation, and the potential loss of much of the bullet’s kinetic energy.”
Hawthorn: “Larger size and irregular shape. Are those the only differences?”
“No. As a bullet exits bone, fragments are broken off the edges of the exit surface and propelled forward, accompanying the bullet on its path. As a result, an exit defect is beveled out in a conelike fashion. Schematic representations are included in my report. I also have photos and copies of X-rays.”
“Have you transferred those to a computer-imaging format which you can display on our screen?”
“Yes.”
I booted my laptop, opened my PowerPoint presentation, and advanced to an image of a section of rib.
“This photo shows the anterior aspect of a piece of Mr. Aqsaee’s right fifth rib.”
Hawthorn: “The part that faced front?”
“Yes.” I ran the cursor around the upper border of a partially preserved circular defect. “Note the sharp, clean edges. This is a bullet entrance hole.”
I advanced to the next image.
“This shows the posterior aspect of that same rib, the part that faced Mr. Aqsaee’s spine. Note the beveled edges of the defect. The beveling indicates that this is a bullet exit point.”
Hawthorn: “What does this fracture patterning tell you?”
“The bullet trajectory was front to back.”
Gross remained impassive, but seemed to glance at the bench every so often to gauge how the lieutenant colonel was reacting.
I moved to the next image.
“This defect is located on the anterior aspect of Mr. Aqsaee’s right seventh rib, at a point close to its articulation with the sternum.”
Hawthorn: “His breast bone.”
“Yes. Note that the defect characteristics are almost identical to those in the previous shot.”
The next image showed a posterior view of that same rib. As with the exit defect on the fifth rib, spalling was evident around the edges. I moved on.
“This shows bullet damage on a segment of that same rib, the seventh, at a point close to its articulation with the spinal column.”
Hawthorn: “Where it curves around to form the back of the rib cage?”
“Yes. This is an anterior view. Note the clean edges on the defect.”
