I remained quiet, trying to figure out why Sandra wouldn’t tell me the damn truth. Was she jealous or just riddled with guilt?
“Anyway, Snake found this dog one day wandering on the outskirts of the base and brought him back to our quarters. Named him Apollo. God, the dog was so damn skinny you could see his bones at first. He’d been abused and Snake took him in, determined to make him healthy and happy.”
“Did it work?”
A slight smile crossed his face. “Yeah. Snake babied that dog to death and they were inseparable. I was kind of jealous how close they were. I think Snake planned on bringing him back to the States.”
“You don’t know what happened?” I asked, realizing instantly that Snake’s death was part of the reason for Mustang’s disturbing nightmares.
“He… We lost him in a combat mission a couple months before I came back for the last time.”
“But I thought you were contractors by then.”
He nodded, darting a single glance in my direction before turning to stare at the fire. “That doesn’t mean that we weren’t assigned combat missions when necessary. We were tasked with a mission, but the insurgents were tipped off to our location. Snake was one of those guys that refused to stop pushing, even when ordered.”
When he hesitated, I dared to move closer, rubbing Rattler’s head, hoping my presence was giving Mustang some kind of comfort.
“Anyway, he was captured, taken prisoner of war, but we had a plan to get him out, only our superiors thought the mission was too risky. The rest of the unit went back anyway.” He ran his hand through his hair several times, once again having difficulty breathing. “Hawk had developed a plan. He was our squad leader, a man who took shit from no one. We all talked and refused to allow Snake to die at one of those fucking places. We’d heard there were other prisoners there as well. We thought we were doing the right thing.”
He reached for what was left of the wine, gulping the entire glass.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I said quietly.
“It’s okay. You deserve to know why I’m such a freaking asshole.”
“You’re not an asshole, Mustang, just a man uncertain of what the hell is going on.”
Snorting, he darted another look in my direction. “No, you pretty much read me.”
I gave him additional space, my heart racing. I could only imagine the torment, the vivid images that played out night after night.
“The mission failed, the prisoner camp blown up by the insurgents. They couldn’t have cared less about the soldiers inside, the men and women who lost their lives. We took our one shot. We thought we knew what we were doing. I’ll never forget the intensity of the fire or the horrible screams coming from the goddamn building. We tried to free them. God knows we tried, but the fire was too hot, the enemy soldiers blasting us with bullets. In the end, we were lucky to get out alive.”
“You did all you could do. You can’t blame yourself.”
He ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head several times. “That’s not what we were told and I do blame the fact that I was paralyzed for at least a full minute. If only I’d been able to help Hawk break through the door then maybe Snake would be alive.”
“My God. You can’t do that to yourself. All of you were heroes.”
The way he laughed was gut-wrenching. “Our superiors thought otherwise.”
I thought about what he was saying, another round of sadness overwhelming. “You were blamed for the incident.”
“Oh, you bet. The five of us were lucky that we didn’t end up in a military prison for the rest of our lives. While a firestorm had been created initially, every action we took scrutinized over a period of two weeks, suddenly, they lost interest, although every one of our contracts were either terminated or allowed to end.”
“Why would they do that?”
He turned his head slowly, locking eyes with mine. “I don’t honestly know. I’m not entirely certain any of us asked. We were too heartbroken. I was far too angry to give a shit. When I was asked to accompany Snake’s body back to the States, I wanted to refuse. Jesus. I wasn’t entirely certain I could stand protecting his casket on a long flight.”
“Then why did you?”
He seemed to think about my question. “Because Snake was one of the most honorable men