Page 59 of Cross Down
“Why didn’t you say anything about that when we got moving again?” Deacon asks.
A shrug. “It was five miles out and not in the direction we were going. Didn’t seem relevant. But it looked big, like one of the old B-52 Arc Light missions.”
“Before Ruiz was killed, he mentioned a bombing,” I say. “A couple of locals told him that a village some distance from where we were located had been flattened from one end to another.”
“By us?” Bastinelli asks.
Deacon says, “No. I had no information that anything like that was in the works. If a village was attacked, it wasn’t by our military.”
Bastinelli catches my eye and we exchange a look:Sure, the CIA can always be trusted. Always.
He coughs.
Right. As if.
Chapter
68
I say, “Ifthe village wasn’t struck by our military, who did it?”
With ease, Deacon says, “There are a variety of possibilities. Maybe a false-flag op run by the Russians or the Chinese or an extensive attack by the Taliban with captured air assets once belonging to us on a village they considered rebellious. But you, John, what do you have?”
“There was an aid camp we came across, remember?” I ask. “At the junction of two trails. Three tents, a small generator, and a beat-up white Humvee with red crescents painted on the roof and the hood. We were already late to the next rendezvous point, but I wanted to check them out, make sure there were no Taliban fighters there.”
Bastinelli says, “What did you find?”
“Under a fly tent, there were about ten or so locals. Older men, women, children. Lots of bloody wounds, soaked-through bandages. One doctor and one nurse working frantically to help them.” I feel the guilt returning—I knew I should have stayed and assisted, but I couldn’t. The mission first, always.
“When I was sure the place was secure,” I say, “I started moving to catch up with you. But the doctor—he saw me, said something, grabbed my arm, and spat in my face.”
“What did he say?” Bastinelli asks.
“It was French,” I say. “I didn’t understand it.”
Deacon looks to me. “Do you remember any of it?”
I close my eyes, thinking back to that moment, knowing we were there illegally, that we were always on the brink of being ambushed, and remembering the doctor with the scraggly beard, red-rimmed eyes, blood on his surgeon’s clothes…
I open my eyes. “It sounded like‘Voo lav fate…say vota fote.’”
Bastinelli says nothing, but I can sense something in Deacon’s look. “Elizabeth?” I say.
She says, “Could it have been‘Vous l’avez fait. C’est votre faute’?”
I didn’t know Deacon spoke French. “Yeah, that sounds about right. What does it mean?”
She reaches for her coffee. “‘You did it,’” she says. “‘It’s your fault.’”
I’m about to ask her again what she knows about that village being destroyed when from the other side of the kitchen comes a low-tonedbong-bong-bong.
Bastinelli gets up from his chair, takes a look at the small TV screens showing exterior views, and flips a switch. The alarm shuts off.
“Visitors,” he says.
Chapter
69
