BARE HUNTER

After the general left, I brewed a pot of strong coffee, preparing to battle with the graveyard in my mind. Sipping the hot brew, I gingerly peeled back the cover of my war crimes folder. Arrayed on top of the paperwork were photographs taken of the children from a different angle than I had on them. They were alive and playing in the bright Afghanistan sunshine. From my sniper’s nest, I hadn’t been able to focus in on their little faces. They were simply small figures in brightly colored clothing. The dimples, the happy eyes, and the toothy smiles reminded me of Timmy, and it rattled me to the core.

My grandfather told me that the bed you were born in determines everything that happens in your life after. These little girls had been born in a bed that brought them an early death.

In that insular world of combat, we protected our comrades in arms first, then contractors, translators, and allies last. Outside the wire, we didn’t give a rat’s ass what happened. There was “us” and “them”. Combatants and non-combatants outside the wire were all looked at through the same lens because, at any moment, a “non” could easily become a combatant. We simply didn’t know. Our priority was to return home with as many of our fellow soldiers as we arrived with. Rehashing this now, as I sit safely in my kitchen, Stateside, with no bombs falling, no snipers picking soldiers off, or suicide bombers targeting us, that seems cold and heartless. But that thought process kept us alive in a hostile environment, and we could not let our guard up for a moment.

As I carefully studied these pictures, I wondered why, if the general was so torn up by our shared disaster, he hadn’t culled these photos before handing me the package to spare me further angst and heartbreak. Instead of burning these photos, they were going into my war box, as these photographs painted my truth in Afghanistan more clearly than any medals or pics of my buddies kneeling in the sand and grinning at me. Afghanistan was another in a long list of useless, bloody wars begun by deluded, old politicians and fought by young men and women who took on the call of patriotism with their lives.

To forget these little faces would be a dishonor to the short lives they spent on this cruel earth. I quickly perused the paperwork, focusing on the “clean-up team” photos. These men were a mystery to me, as General Howard kept us all in separate cages regarding missions. ‘The less you know, the safer you are,’ was his reasoning. I half expected to see a younger Greg in the group shot. But no familiar faces were staring back at me. I had wondered for a while if, perhaps, Greg had been part of that team disguised as a rogue Taliban crew, piled into the back of the white Toyota pickup that had come barreling down the road after the General's order to "take out the leftovers."

With Kaffiyehs flying in the wind, they devoured every piece of evidence, leaving not one strand of hair behind on the rust-stained courtyard. The villagers gave them a wide berth, hoping they would leave without causing the town any more heartache. I also held onto that photo in case more clues were hidden behind those kaffiyehs. The paperwork I didn’t need to rehash, as I’d already been over every word a million times in my head for the past ten and a half years. The only missing elements in the after-action report were photos of the dead bodies and Captain Howard’s admission of having passed along faulty intelligence to me.

I poured another cup of coffee and decided to do a deep dive into Cap Howard’s military career since leaving Afghanistan. Most information was public record and, therefore, easy to access online. I began by scanning through the Marine sections of Stars & Stripes during the years after I mustered out. Most advancements were lower-level, and I almost fell asleep wading through those notices until a 2023 edition listed General William N. Howard, recently awarded 3 Stars, nominated by President Joseph Biden in January 2023 for Commandant of the Marines in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pending approval by the Senate before the end of Congressional term in 2024. He is to fill the vacancy left by Marine Commandant General Justin Foster Reynolds, who will retire from active duty in July 2024.

Why didn’t the general tell me of his promotion and nomination? That seemed fishy as hell. He was arrogant and would have wanted to shove something like that in my face. So, was he tying up loose ends about Afghanistan before being investigated by the Senate? Was I a loose end? How did he and Greg know each other? What did Greg have to gain by dragging me through the mud? Were they pretending to be at odds while working me over together?

My next dive was into Greg Atkinson, who had been managing our firm since before I had started there. Why would a high-level CIA spook be working at our little company? Was it truly a decoy for the Department of Defense, as the General had told me? Why, also, was I suddenly in his crosshairs? If he had been truly a spook, he would already have found out about Maidan Wardu and probably wouldn’t have hired me in the first place. Nothing added up, including General Howard’s claims that Gregory Atkinson didn’t exist on paper.

He was in the yearbook from West Genessee High School, outside Syracuse, NY. He was also listed in the Business School of SUNY Oswego all four years after high school. He played hockey and ran track through high school and college. Local boy, it seemed, and was never in the service. Squeaky clean, as far as I could tell. No accolades or special honors at graduation. But a solid background. Completely at odds with what General Howard had claimed.

When I finished my research, it was almost 4 AM. There was no sense in trying to sleep with all this conflicting information bouncing around in my head. I showered and dressed in jogging clothes, remembering that I hadn’t been running since before all this crap began. I needed to clear my head before visiting Sharon and talking with Greg. Too afraid to eat or drink anything from my house, I stopped by Dunkin Donuts to pick up a bagel with cream cheese and water. Pulling into my regular parking spot off Route 80, I devoured the bagel and slugged half the water, saving the other half to drink after my run.

Concentrating on nothing but my feet pounding on the well-worn path, I breathed in the fresh, rain-cleansed air of the woods around me. This. This was what I’d been craving. The freedom, the straining of my muscles, the ache in my lungs. When my life got hectic, the last thing I needed to do was skip my regular runs. Lesson learned. I made two runs to the stream and back to the car before heading back to my favorite spot to sit after my runs. The stream was still flowing heavily after the Spring rains. The sound of it almost lulled me to sleep. If I hadn’t had so many important things to do today, I might have laid down on the carpet of pine needles and fallen asleep to the gentle swishing of the water running downstream.

I did what I had to do and pulled up my sweats. As I turned to jog back to my car, a slight movement from the far bank of the stream caught my eye. An animal? It was a pretty large one. I’d heard of Fishers being seen in the area. This wasn’t the right shape or color. I crept silently toward the shape, phone in hand, to snap a picture if it was an unusual animal.

Oh, God.