Signature Wounds Page 2

  “I was on trigger, ready to go, but they made us wait until the kid came back into the courtyard.”

  “They wanted you to wait for Salter?”

  “You got it. We circled and waited. I saw his mom crying on CNN. She said he was over there staying with her relatives and was friendly to Taliban fighters so they wouldn’t kill him. Maybe they would have or kidnapped him, but I’m pretty sure he was there trying to do good. I took him out with a badass missile called Special K. That’s what fucked me up, Grale. No, that’s not what did me, but it was the one that put me over. Those Taliban were my last recorded kills. Up the chain they would have counted Salter, too, if they could have.”

  “Salter was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I know you, G-man, you don’t believe that shit. Bottom line is, we took out an American without any real proof of anything, and I compromised myself.”

  “Come on, you lived with collateral damage for a long time.”

  “Hakim Salter wasn’t collateral damage. He got wasted because it was convenient. They had questions about him, and taking him out was easier than keeping track of him. Check it out with Phil Ramer if you don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t know a Phil Ramer. Who is he?”

  “An Aussie pilot we were training. He was on sensor, meaning he was operating the laser targeting. It’s how a launch works. Ask Captain Kern tonight what really happened.”

  Beatty pulled the flash drive out of the laptop and handed it to me.

  “There’s more tape of surveillance here on this.”

  “I’ll watch it.”

  I slipped the memory stick into my pocket and walked out to my car. From the deck railing, Beatty called, “Happy Fourth of July, G-man! I’m buying dinner at that steak place next time I see you. I’ll call you.”

  When I turned onto North Las Vegas Boulevard I was less than fifteen minutes from the Alagara. I could easily have waited until the party to talk with Jim about Hakim Salter, or taken it up another day and left the holiday a holiday, but I brought up Jim’s number and called.

  2

  “Where are you, bud? Melissa just asked me to find you.”

  Jim laughed. He liked the idea of my older sister locking in on me. He probably visualized a target.

  “She’s saying you promised to make it on time this year.”

  “I’m ten minutes from you. I had to make a stop. Save me a beer.”

  “What stop could be more important than this party?”

  Jim sounded upbeat. I heard laughter and voices in the background, the party well under way.

  “I checked on Beatty. He sent me a suicide text last night.”

  “And you texted back and left him messages and didn’t hear from him today, so you stopped by.”

  “That’s about right. I just left Wunderland.”

  “You’re his backstop. He knows you’ll check on him. It’s time to break the cycle. I hear his business is working, and he’s making good money.” After a beat he added, “You know he’s invited to this party.”

  “Yeah, he said he would have come this year but has a new job starting in the morning.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “It’s pride. He doesn’t want to stand around with pilots he flew with and chat about teaching farmers how to fly agricultural drones.”

  “Whatever. He needs to get over it. They’re still his friends. It’s time to leave that refugee camp he lives in.”

  Wunderland was home to indigent workers living five and six to a trailer. It also housed parolees and aging retirees whose monthly checks often came up short. The retirees made do by skipping meals and leaving the heat and air conditioning off. You could move into Wunderland and just about disappear, which was Jim’s real point.

  But Jeremy had once told me something simple and different about why he lived there. He said Wunderland was the only place he could afford where he could walk outside and be looking at nothing but blue sky and mountains. He loved the desert sky. I thought about that a moment then pushed forward.

  “Jeremy told me a story tonight about his discharge that I hadn’t heard.”

  “Oh, no, here we go.”

  “Do you remember a twenty-four-year-old American schoolteacher named Hakim Salter who was killed in a Pakistani village in a drone strike?”

  “Beatty talked to you about Salter?”

  “He just did, but also said his orders were never talk to anyone.”

  Jim was quiet, then said, “They were and it didn’t happen the way Beatty says it did.”

  “I haven’t told you what he said yet.”

  “You don’t have to. I’ve talked enough with him about it. There were much worse drone strikes. Beatty had almost a thousand kills. I don’t know why he had so much trouble with that one. The Salter kid shouldn’t have been there to begin with. He was told not to go. Hell, the State Department contacted the family and warned them the area was too dangerous.”

  “Beatty told me the strike was delayed until Salter walked back outside into the courtyard.”

  When Jim spoke again his voice was slower, and the upbeat note he’d answered the phone with was gone.

  “The targets were in a courtyard and Salter walked into the house and then and only then was the go given. Not before. There was no long delay, and as you know, pilots don’t make the call. It’s made above us. We know it’s not always right. Like everything else in life, mistakes get made. With drone strikes, the order comes and you execute. You don’t second-guess. It’s not our decision. In fact, some of the officers giving the orders think they should get the kill, not the pilot. The pompous fucks really believe that, but nothing is like pressing the trigger. What happened to Jeremy wasn’t about Hakim Salter. It was about being on trigger one time too many.”

  “He said that tonight. The Salter strike was the one that put him over the top.”

  “Well, there you go, from the man himself in his own words. He’s starting to see it.”

  “Were you there for the strike that killed Hakim Salter?”

  “Was I in the same flight trailer? No, I wasn’t in the trailer, but after Jeremy had his breakdown I was briefed. When Salter came back out into the courtyard of the house, the missile was already in the air. It was too late.”

  “So he was in the courtyard and went inside, and they thought he’d stay inside?”

  Jim sighed. This was the absolute last thing he wanted to do right now, but I’d spent a year and a half trying to help Beatty without ever hearing about this. Why was that?

  “They had followed and tracked these Taliban guys for months, Grale. Finally all of them were together in the courtyard. That’s when the go was given.”

  “That’s what you got from your briefing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Beatty tells a different version.”

  “No kidding, but what I just told you actually happened. Look, I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “All right, and I’m not far away. Sorry to do this to you—one last question and it’s a quick one. Do you know a Phil Ramer? Beatty told me Ramer was an Aussie pilot on sensor and that I should talk to him.”

  “You should talk to him?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Why should you talk to Ramer? You’re not investigating. The launch was investigated and it’s done. I don’t know why Beatty is back on this.”

  “Maybe he never left it.”

  “Ramer was on sensor. He shipped home right after, so if you want to find him, look in Australia. But why are you digging into this? That strike has already been analyzed every which way, and nothing is going to change.”

  I didn’t answer fast enough, and Jim said, “Hey, your sister is helping the Hullabaloo driver carry the cake in and she’s waving at me. I need to go take over for her. There are five or six kids here waiting for it, and then we’re going to boogie over to the casinos to watch fireworks. I’ll throw a burger on the grill for you.”

/>   He broke the connection, and I turned onto Lake Mead Boulevard with more questions than answers about the Salter strike. What followed was a string of red lights that delayed me even more, but the Alagara was only about a mile away. I’d be there soon.

  In the distance the higher glass on buildings reflected orange-red, and looking at that last light and the Fourth of July evening coming on, I started to unwind. I had promised Melissa I’d be on time this year, but she of all people would understand about Beatty. My sister had great patience for those with wounds to the psyche.

  Truth was, I also thought Beatty needed to get on with life. He wasn’t the first soldier diagnosed with PTSD. People figure it out and deal with it, right? You don’t hole up in a run-down trailer park, complain about the air force, and drink yourself to sleep at night while you circle the same spot over and over.

  At the next red light, a tricolor Hullabaloo party van heading in the opposite direction was stopped, waiting for the light to change. I looked across the intersection at the van and the driver, probably the guy who’d delivered the cake to the party. He was on his cell talking, but glanced over when he felt me watching.

  When the light changed and I pulled forward, a hard, deep sound paralyzed me. It was distant, not close, and yet I felt the blast pressure wave pass through as a voice in me screamed, Take cover! My foot slipped off the accelerator. I drifted into the intersection, and the guy behind me was patient until he saw me looking up at the sky. He honked, swerved past, and in that moment I was everything an FBI agent shouldn’t be. But I found the smoke. I saw a black column rising and hit the gas pedal hard.

  I drove toward it, but why were my hands trembling? Wasn’t I over all that? Shouldn’t I be? Was I weak? As I oriented on the smoke, I called Jim. The explosion must have been close to the Alagara. Jim would be outside figuring it out. He’d have a better view.

  “Come on, Jim, pick up. I’m not calling about Beatty.”

  Acrid smoke was drawn into my car as I closed in. A quarter mile ahead, a brown Toyota Camry was stopped in the road near the Alagara, its male driver standing outside with his door open and a cell phone pressed against his ear as he looked toward the Alagara. I drove around him, looked over, and my gut wrenched. Smoke streamed from the Alagara roof. The big lot between the bar and street was carpeted with blast debris. Doors and windows were blown out. The front door had cartwheeled into the lot. I knew what I was looking at and called 911 as my car crunched through glass. I popped the trunk lid as a 911 operator came on.

  “This is FBI Special Agent Paul Grale. There’s been an explosion.” I gave her the intersection just to my left. I didn’t have the Alagara address, but they couldn’t miss the smoke. “We need a full response.”

  “Special Agent Grale, we have another report of this as a fireworks cache explosion. Can you confirm that? Can you tell me how many are injured, and if there are burn injuries? Is there a fire?”

  “I don’t see fire. I don’t have a count yet. There’s a great deal of blast debris surrounding the building, and there may be twenty-five or more people inside. I was on my way to a Fourth of July party here and think those numbers are close. Anyone inside is injured. We need a full response. I’m going in. Stay with me. Stay on the phone.”

  I pulled gear from the trunk and yelled at two young guys getting out of a car. “FBI. Over here, I need your help.”

  They started toward me as I said to the 911 operator, “About a dozen inside are military drone pilots stationed at Creech Air Force Base. Notify the air force but stay with me, okay? I’m on my way in.”

  I had two gas masks and gave those to the two guys. “Put them on. One of you bring the second flashlight, one of you carry the first aid kit. Follow me! Let’s go. Right now, come on!”

  We stepped over a twisted metal window frame and entered the smoke. The hole in the roof was venting it, but visibility was still poor. I coughed, wiped my eyes, and then saw how bad it really was. Bomb debris was pushed up against all exterior walls. I stepped over a torn bleeding torso coated in dust.

  One of the young guys said something I couldn’t hear through his mask, and I answered, “We’re looking for anyone alive.”

  The 911 operator heard that. Her voice deepened and softened as she said, “Give me your best estimate of the number of injured and types of wounds, Agent Grale. Make a rough count. With fireworks, there are almost always burn victims.”

  I heard her but from a distance. My training saved me. It brought me back. It kept what I feared just far enough away.

  “I work bomb makers,” I said. “I’m a special agent bomb tech. I work with the Critical Incident Response Group at headquarters in DC. I’m on the FBI Domestic Terrorism Squad. I’m telling you a bomb exploded in here. There are at least fifteen dead. We’re moving in deeper.”

  “Sir, did you say bomb?”

  I was several moments before answering yes, and sent one of the two with me back outside after he vomited in his mask. Then I lay my phone down and knelt in a pool of blood and moved debris off a body I recognized. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t find words, or even accept what I was seeing. I touched Melissa’s still-warm face. I cradled my sister’s lifeless head and wept.

  3

  In the men’s room was a boy with a compound fracture of the right arm so severe I was afraid moving him would do more harm than good. The bone had torn through his shirt. He was trapped by debris and, with whatever other wounds he had, was slipping into shock. We freed him as the air filled with sirens. Outside the restrooms were two more children. The first was a young girl with a broken neck who was dead. The other was my fifteen-year-old niece, Julia, alive and injured. I talked to Julia and reassured her, but she didn’t recognize me. I took her hand.

  “Julia, it’s Uncle Paul. Hold on. Fight with everything you have. Hold on, Julia! Ambulances are here. We’re getting you to a hospital. Fight, Julia, fight, I’m right here with you. You can do this. Can you hear me?”

  I thought for a moment she realized it was me, but I wasn’t sure.

  “Julia?”

  A first responder yelled, “Agent Grale!”

  “Back here!”

  A fire captain in fluorescent suit and helmet and carrying a bright light came toward me.

  “We’ve got it in here. You need to call in. Your office is looking for you. What happened here?”

  “A bombing.”

  I waited until Julia and the boy in the men’s restroom were on backboards and had paramedics over them. First responders worked the bar area looking for survivors, but there weren’t any. Among the dead was my nephew, Nate, a gangling teenager who’d been closing in on his dad in height. I knelt and touched his face.

  Outside was chaotic with sirens and lights. I called my supervisor, Dan Venuti, who heads the Las Vegas Field Office Domestic Terrorism Squad. It was very hard to hear, so I got in my car where it was quieter. Moments later, Venuti patched me into a conference call with the counterterrorism desk in Washington.

  Someone there asked, “How confident are you that it was a bomb, Agent Grale? Gas explosion, fireworks, can you rule those out?”

  “They’re out. It was a bomb and a large one.”

  “Air force drone pilots are among the dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  This was difficult to answer. I hesitated, and the question was repeated: “Are you certain?”

  “My sister and brother-in-law throw the party every year. He’s air force. He was a drone pilot. He manages drone pilots now, or did. I recognized several other dead pilots. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew are dead. I was on my way here to the party. I was late or would have been inside.”

  I tried to be clear and accurate, though it felt as if I were speaking from somewhere very distant. I felt separated and torn inside, yet was trying to focus. I felt both terrible grief and something bordering on hate. I would find who had done this.

  Venuti broke in saying, “C
reech has officers inbound. They’re twenty minutes away.”

  The voice from Washington came back with another question. “What about secondary explosives?”

  “There’s a line of For Sale vehicles along the front of the lot, so yes, there’s a real risk,” I said.

  Four minutes later, the conference call ended. Venuti called me within seconds and said, “Las Vegas Metro has a bomb squad on the way. Ours is just leaving. Domestic Terrorism and two evidence-recovery squads leave the field office in the next fifteen minutes. ATF says they have a team en route. Tell me where this should go, Grale.”

  “To a focus on secondary explosives,” I said.

  “Las Vegas PD is talking fireworks explosion. You’re certain it was a bomb.”

  I paused, wondering why I wasn’t getting through. “Are you asking if I’m thinking clearly?”

  “Your family—”

  “Dan, we’re not looking at Fourth of July fireworks. This was a bomb placed under the bar. It was in something, possibly an appliance. There are metal shards. The explosive may have been C-4.” I took a steadying breath. “A dozen or more drone pilots were in there. These are guys flying in the Mideast. Get everything up, fusion center, everyone. Everybody. Every agency in Washington.”

  I looked through the windshield at the destroyed face of the building as I remembered Jim many years ago, smiling when he said Melissa was pregnant. I continued with Venuti.

  “We need a bomb squad checking out the For Sale vehicles at the end of the lot,” I said. “That’s my highest priority here, and I need agents. Send everyone you can. We need the first responder vehicles out of here. We need to establish a perimeter. Let’s coordinate with Las Vegas Metro and cordon off ten blocks and search.

  “There are apartment or condo buildings across and down the street with a good view. I’m looking at them right now. Whoever detonated this could be there. I was a mile away on Lake Mead when it went off. Could have been someone on a balcony there watching. A cake arrived when I was on the phone with my brother-in-law, Captain Jim Kern. The driver that dropped the cake may have passed by me going the other way. I saw a Hullabaloo van. That driver may have been the last one inside.” I paused, gathered myself, then said, “Text me as our bomb squad rolls.”