The Sandbox (29 page)

“It’s rotten,” Lopez says. “The whole darn thing. Top to bottom. I bet the general just wanted to cover his butt if all this went wrong. ‘I can take you down, too’ sort of thing, I guess. It makes me want to cry.” And for a moment there, it actually looks as though he might. We’re quiet, but down deep in his chest I swear I hear something creak and smash to bits. I’m familiar with the sound.

“You better watch yourself, Lopez. People die for a lot less money than this. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t, I don’t—” He rubs his good eye with the heel of his hand.

“Listen, you need to take this stuff to someone up the line.”

He looks at me in alarm.

“Not the lieutenant,” I say. “If that’s him, he’s in on it too.”

“I know.”

“Even more reason for you to get the hell out of here, now that they know you know.”

“Go AWOL?” he says.

“Not quite. Just take a little trip. Now you know about this, you’ve got to cover your ass.”

I watch the implications of this sink in. In the dim light of the cell, his cheeks look shiny and dark, almost purple. His lips twitch, and he licks them. Once, twice. He stares at the floor like there’s a Bible verse printed on it.

“But how?” he says helplessly. This goes against all his training. Like a divine command to kill his son. “I can’t just leave.”

“Yes, you can. Get in a Humvee and go. They’ll go apeshit, but when the chain of command sees what you’ve got, I think they’ll forgive you. Take it to Colonel Marquart in Inmar. Just make sure you’ve got plenty of witnesses around when you do it. Who the fuck knows how deep this goes.”

“What do you think they’d do with the photos?” he asks me.

“Bury them. Destroy them, maybe. They ain’t going to let this shit go public. No way.”

He looks stricken, as though he’s just received news of a horrible death. And I suppose he has—the death of his hero, the lieutenant.

“What would
you
do?” he asks.

I look at him in surprise.

“What I just told you,” I say.

“That’s it?”

Rankin raps on the door. “Somebody’s coming. You got to go, Lopez. I’ll put you in this other cell. Move.”

Lopez scrambles to stuff everything back in the envelope and tuck it into his shirt. Rankin opens the door. He catches my eye. Of course he was listening. So would I. I touch Lopez on the arm before he steps out.

“Hold back a few of the photos. For your own insurance, if nothing else. This is going to get hairy.”

Lopez stands in the doorway, his back to me. Rankin’s nostrils flare. Lopez spins back around and thrusts out his hand. For a moment I think he intends to punch me in the stomach with it. His whole arm quivers from the elbow down. I stare at his thin, olive-colored fingers for a few seconds, unsure what he means by this gesture.

“Won’t even shake my hand, huh?” he says.

“Sorry,” I say. “You surprised me, is all.”

It feels like squeezing a toad.

“No,
I’m
sorry,” he says, looking for all the world as if he means it. I wonder if he does. “I had you figured wrong. You’re something—” Lopez eyes me cautiously. “—I don’t know what, but you’re not a traitor.”

87

Mumble, mumble, mumble.
A mortar blast. Mumble, mumble, mumble.

“I have orders. I can not do that, Captain, sir.” Rankin shouts this out, Basic Training style. Loud, with emphasis on the “sir.”

Thanks, Rankin, I think. At least this visit won’t come as a complete surprise. I’m a popular man tonight. The bolt on the door clanks open and I turn around. I try and control my breathing. When the door opens, I’m sitting on my cot, legs crossed, smiling.

Rankin whispers “Bohica.” Which, in this man’s Army, means bend over, here it comes again.

The captain shoulders him out of the way and steps into the gloom of the cell. He makes a face like something smells off, which it probably does, but I’ve been in here so long that I don’t notice it any more. The captain steps around the place where the old man’s body made a damp imprint on the packed-clay floor and stops just in front of me. I clasp my hands in my lap. The perfect Sunday-school student. Before the captain shuts the door, he tells Rankin to close the Judas hole. No flies on this guy.

“You’re late, sir,” I say, “visiting hours ended an hour ago.”

“Shut the fuck up, shitbird.”

Wow, I think, he’s getting nervous. I’m not sure if this should make me feel better or worse.

The captain inspects my face like it’s a flat tire he needs to fix. I stare right back.

He kicks me in the shin, hard.

“Pay attention,” he says. “Your girlfriend Lopez has the box.”

“So I heard,” I say with more bravado than I feel. Those dollar amounts keep reverberating in my head. Ten, eight, nineteen million. Money enough to kill a few people over. Leavenworth suddenly feels like a happy outcome to this situation.

“You’re pretty well informed for a prisoner. Who told you?”

“I overheard someone talking about it in the hall.” I point to the door. “Out there. But I couldn’t make out who it was.”

The captain appears dubious.

“Ahmed got away with half the photos,” I say. “I saw him snatch them.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

I’ll bet, I think.

“Maybe you should be,” I say.

“It’s not
my
ass that will get kicked over this. And frankly, it’d be just one more scandal in a string of them. These days, the media loses its hard-on for a story after a cycle or two.” He swings his foot back and I cringe, expecting another kick. Instead, he taps me very lightly on the leg. “What I need you to do, partner, is help me persuade Lopez to hand the box over.”

“He hates me. You know that, sir.”

“Even better. That makes you more trustworthy.”

His logic escapes me. “Maybe you can make a trail of pages torn out of the seven-dash-eight leading into a big trap. That ought to get him, sir.” I fight to keep my voice steady. Given the choice right now, I’d much rather be out in a big hairy firefight.

“Shut up, Durrant. This is fucking serious.” He thumps the side of my head with the back of his hand. My ears ring. “Listen to me.” The captain crouches so we’re eye to eye. He takes his sunglasses off. “Are you listening? You are going to persuade Lopez to—”

“No way, sir.” I blurt this out as fast as I can before I lose my nerve. Without quite meaning to, I find myself backing away from him. My head bumps against the wall. “I’m out.”

“That’s an order.”

“I’m locked in a cell, sir.”

“We’ll get you out soon enough.” The captain frowns at the walls of the cell as though they’d been constructed just to irritate him.

“The lieutenant said he confiscated those photos from Lieutenant Saunders.”

“Of course he would.” He smiles. His right eyetooth is several shades whiter than the rest, like it’s plastic. “He’d say almost anything to get out of this. Not that it will do him any good if and when the right people see those snaps.”

“Have you seen them?”

“What do you think?”

“Lopez said you’d split the money with him, sir. What’s that mean?”

“Split? Hah.” He sputters and coughs. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s laughing. “So, what else did Lopez say?”

I suddenly realize my mistake. Jesus, I’m a fool. Why do I let this asshole intimidate me? “What do you mean?”

“Did he tell you about what he found in the lockbox?” The captain coughs. Harder and harder. His face turns the same color as those grape jelly packets in MREs. When it finally stops, the captain stands again, pulls a dark yellow handkerchief from his pants pocket and spits into it. He examines this closely, then stuffs it back into his pocket.

I don’t say anything.

“What else?” The captain tries to shout, but his voice is hoarse and the effort seems to wear him out.

“Nothing, sir. It had a bunch of photos of brass tucking money in turbans. A map with some circles. A sheet with strange numbers. Where’s the money in that, sir?” I examine the dirt lodged under my fingernails.

“I said nothing to him about money,” the captain says, moving his head so close to mine that I can feel his breath on my cheek. “Have I said anything to you about money?”

“No, sir,” I say, “but I never looked in the box.”

“Lopez is confused.”

“So am I, sir. What do you want with those pictures? They—”

“The lieutenant is a corrupt man. He needs to be relieved of command.”

“Who else is in those pictures, sir?”

The captain grins. It is an unpleasant thing to watch.

“Somebody big, huh?” I say, hoping I’m not pushing this too far. “How much money are you going to ask him for, sir?”

The captain kicks me in the other shin. Harder this time. I try not to yell and end up choking. He takes a step back and examines me from boots to buzz cut like an induction doctor. I wonder what he sees. When he speaks again, his voice is calm and his speech measured.

“You’ve got a head for this business, Durrant. You’re a quick study. It’s a pity about all the trouble you’ve been having. You’d have made a good intelligence officer. If you can get me that box, you may still have a chance to make a go of it. How does intelligence school out in sunny Arizona sound?”

Despite myself, I’m flattered. This quickly gives way to disgust.

“Even if I wanted to, Captain, I really can’t help you.” I gesture to the cell around me. “But maybe if you told me what all this is about, then I’d have a better idea of how to go about it. Lopez had a few ideas.”

“I’ll bet he did.” The captain eyes me, sucking at his cheek and chewing it. “You’ve already got the general picture. That’s enough.”

“No,” I say, “sir.” I’m startled to find myself really angry.

“We’ll see.” The captain sits beside me on the cot and taps his foot. I consider jumping him and making a dash for it; but to where?

“Did Lopez mention where he’s put the contents of the lockbox?” the captain says, prodding me in the side with his elbow.

“Come on, sir.” I edge away. “He may be an uptight asshole, but the boy ain’t stupid.”

“No, of course not. At least we’ve established that you’ve spoken to him about it. That’s a good first step.” He picks something from his tongue and wipes his finger on my pants. “I’ll give you a general outline. I have a feeling Lopez will come back. You’re the only one he can talk to about this. A guy like him, shit, he’ll be worrying over this all night. He’s going to explode if he can’t talk about it. I’ll be keeping an eye out, and when he makes his move, I’ll be waiting. If he won’t tell you, we might have to find some other way of getting the information out of him. If you’re nice, I might even let you help. You could get out some of that famous rage of yours. I’ll bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

For weeks I’d been daydreaming about punching Lopez, and then I did, and it felt shitty. This offer to do something worse makes me squirm. Not because it disgusts me, but because I’ve already considered it. A part of me still wants to. After all, Lopez is the reason I’m locked up down here. God, this man frightens me. He knows just how to release my inner asshole.

“All right,” I lie, “I’ll do my best to convince him you’re the man to set this straight.” Lopez isn’t coming back here, I think. If he has any smarts at all, he’s lying low until daylight. “But first you have to tell me what this is really all about.”

The captain looks at me, then down at his clasped hands. Finally, he lets out a sigh, as though it’s been quite a struggle, but now he’s giving in. I don’t buy this crap for a second. Whatever he’s about to tell me is bound to be at least half bullshit.

“No,” he says.

“Fine,” I say. “If Lopez comes back, I’ll tell him to burn all of it.”

“There are other copies of those pictures.”

“Yeah, Ahmed has them. But it’s the grid coordinates you really want, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see what difference it makes to you, Private. If you think you can use any of this against me, think again. Nothing about any of this implicates me. My interest in this matter has nothing to do with self-preservation, unlike your lieutenant.”

“Then what difference will it make if you tell me?” I wait for him to hit me again.

“Of course, it makes no difference to me,” he says, toying with a button on his sleeve, “but it might make
all
the difference to you. Still, you’re right, why shouldn’t you know? You’ve seen the evidence. You’re up to your neck in it now anyway. Along with the rest of us.”

“Not quite.”

“Don’t be a child, Durrant. Knowledge means guilt to these people, and they can really put the hurt on you if they think you’re a liability. Nor are they as easily fooled as the empty-headed grunts and peasants you spend your days with.” The captain presses his hands together, as if to pray, and taps the end of my knee. He becomes solemn and fatherly, hoarse with false sincerity. This, his expression seems to say, is our come-to-Jesus moment. “Before I go on, let me make something clear: once you know, some will say there’s only one way for you to forget. And all sorts of accidents can happen between here and there. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

I nod.

“All right, but don’t blame me when the other shoe drops on your head and you want your cherry back,” the captain says. He moves even closer, placing a hand on my arm and squeezing hard enough to make marks.

I shake him off. “Fine. I get it.”

“At the start of the invasion, Lieutenant Blankenship was assigned as adjutant on a certain general’s staff.” The captain puts on a bedtime-story voice, and shit, what a story he tells.

“It began at the end of the initial fighting. Once we’d taken the capital and rounded up most of the regime’s ministers, the ambassador worked with the State Department to airlift in a large quantity of cash, dollars, ostensibly for use in development and reconstruction. At the time, the Army was short on manpower and the natives were getting restless. There really should have been twice as many troops as we’d sent. Some of the brass were starting to get an inkling of the shit to come. The idea was to arm some friendlies. We couldn’t train an entire national police force fast enough to take care of the problems that were arising, and there weren’t enough boots on the ground to do it ourselves. One of the fears at the time was that rogue elements of the former regime, trained combatants, were regrouping across the border. True, as it turned out, and even worse than they imagined. I remember seeing this shit on TV. It was a fucking mess.

“A chunk of the money the ambassador shipped over was secretly earmarked to arm the friendlies. This was not info for general consumption, but the word got out to a group of like-minded people inside Intel. Read: crooks. Instead of giving these militias American-made arms, which could be traced back to us if the thing went tits-up, we gave them cash and introduced them to independent contractors from Russia who could get them the weapons. Cheap plastic Chinese AKs and RPGs. That was the first mistake.”

I must be giving the captain an odd look as he tells me this, because he coughs and blinks and begins to seem uncomfortable. For a moment, it would appear he’s thought better of giving me the rest of this history lesson, but maybe that’s just more bullshit, a way to misdirect me from some lie at the center of his story. Even so, I give him an encouraging look.

“Right away,” he says, wiping his mouth with the yellow handkerchief, “the whole thing went bad.”

It seems that even before the Army could finish handing out all that money, some of these groups started using the weapons to hit our own convoys. The captain isn’t sure if this was spontaneous anger on their part or if they’d planned it all along. Maybe it was simple greed. They could resell the supplies from those hijacked trucks for quite a bit. He says he’s heard of MREs off those trucks turning up in markets as far away as Pakistan and Kenya.

“And then that fucking ambassador decides to—Jesus—” A cigarette appears in the captain’s hand, and he lights it with a wooden match. I give that cig a hungry stare, but he doesn’t seem to notice. When he goes on, his voice sounds worn out and his face looks drawn and haggard.

The general, it seems, still had millions and millions of dollars on his hands. He didn’t want to give it back. You never want to admit to the bureaucrats that they’ve given you too much money. But he didn’t want to keep it in his pocket either. Big piles of cash like that draw flies like fresh shit. You can only keep it quiet for so long. So the general took aside his most trusted junior officer and an experienced older sergeant and told them to hide the cash someplace nobody would look for it. They decided on
this
pile of rocks. It was out in the middle of nowhere and had been quiet for a while. Once the two of them arrived, the first thing the general did was pull out half the men on base. The fewer eyeballs, the fewer problems. Even so, the lieutenant worried about keeping the money on-base. They decided to cache it in the old toy factory.

“The one you’ve been poking around in,” the captain says. “I imagine you scared the hell out of those two. You were fucked the moment you set foot in that place. Jesus, and you wonder why the lieutenant’s been suspicious. When did you get to this base?”

I tell him.

“Then you probably pulled duty guarding that factory.”