him. He could leave that to the CID. Worley intends to shut Mercer up. Permanently.”
She nodded. “That was another reason I told you what I knew.”
“Good. So you unburdened your soul, shed some light on this case, and trusted me with a dark secret. All within”—he looked at his watch—“ten minutes. That’s a good night’s work.”
“The night is not over.”
Did that mean she was ready to sleep with him? Probably not.
“And let me remind you,” she said, “that what we’ve agreed to do here—kidnapping—is also pushing the limits of the law.”
“I don’t need reminding. But kidnapping—extraordinary extradition—is not murder.” He added, “I’m sure Kyle Mercer would rather be kidnapped by us than murdered by Worley and his friends.”
She looked at him but didn’t reply. She finished her cola.
Brodie listened to the torrential downpour and the crack of thunder that shook the glass doors. “What else should I know about the aftermath of Mirabad?”
She thought a moment, then replied, “Our Afghan translator disappeared without notice, and my Civil Affairs unit was transferred to Paktia Province a week later. Then a few people from my unit were assigned to other units. Also, a few people got orders to return to the States before their tour ended.” She added, “We got scattered.”
“Right.” Obviously, the Army was worried. And more obviously, Operation Cover-Up was in full swing. “At what point did you call Trent? Or did he call you?”
“I called him.”
“To tell him about Mirabad.”
She nodded.
“After Captain Evers told you to keep quiet.”
“The day after.”
“And?”
“And… I told him what I’d seen, and he says it could have been an elaborate hoax to get money out of us… or if this massacre actually happened, why did I believe it involved American troops. It could have been the Taliban. Also, he said, the Afghan Army has helicopters and we supply their uniforms and weapons, and the Afghan Army has committed similar atrocities on their own people… to punish them for giving aid to the Taliban.” She looked at Brodie to see if he found this plausible, which he would have before he’d heard about Flagstaff.
Taylor continued, “It wasn’t clear to me if this elder said these soldiers were speaking English—or if they spoke at all—and if they had any uniform insignia—”
“They did not.”
She nodded, then forced a smile. “I wasn’t CID then, so I never thought to ask probing questions.”
“Even if you had, Trent already had the answers for you.”
Again she nodded. “I did push him a little, and I asked if what I had been reporting to him had anything to do with what happened in Mirabad. And he gets angry and hangs up.”
He was probably angry at his bad luck—that the very village that had been marked for death was the village that his former lover—and recently recruited asset—had arrived in to carry out a Civil Affairs assignment. Shit happens. Maybe there is a God. Brodie looked at Taylor. “I’m sure he called you back.”
“If you know so much, why don’t you tell me what he said?”
“It makes no difference what he said. But he probably told you what Captain Evers told you—keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m ready for a drink.”
“You’re close. Okay, you said that Trent, in one of his sat phone conversations with you, used the word ‘Flagstaff’?”
She nodded. “But as soon as he said it, I could tell he regretted it. A slip of the tongue.”
“It happens. And now we can connect Trent to Flagstaff. But can we connect Kyle Mercer and his Special Ops team to Flagstaff? And how are Brendan Worley and Ted connected to Flagstaff? And was Mirabad a Flagstaff operation? And does the death of CIA agent Robert Crenshaw in Peshawar have anything to do with this? And why are Mercer and Worley both in Venezuela?” He looked at his partner. “We have a lot of pieces to the puzzle, and we know now that they somehow fit, but we don’t know how to put them together.”
She stood. “We may never know.”
“We will know when we question Captain Mercer.”
She didn’t reply to that and went to the bar and made herself a rum and cola. Standing behind him, she said, “So I was assigned to Paktia Province, and six months into my time there, our convoy got hit. I was medevaced to the Bagram Airfield hospital, then on to Landstuhl, and then back to Bragg. End of story.”
Brodie didn’t think so. This story should end with Maggie meeting Trent back at Fort Bragg, but apparently she wasn’t ready