WITHIN FORTY-FIVE MINUTES of their relief, Brigade sent two Black Hawks to extract Hill and Scott from Airborne and place them in detention at FOB Salerno in the eastern province of Khost. The flight was a blur, their in-processing unceremonious. By evening, he found himself in Spartan quarters and, like Scott, on a kind of house arrest. Looking out over the base, Hill could see the mountains of Pakistan. At last, though, he was alone. For the first time since the day Carwile and Conlon died, he called home.
When Lauren answered, he tiptoed to the edge of his bad news, then made the leap: “I’ve been relieved of command and I’m really in trouble.”
“What? What happened, Roger? Tell me exactly what happened.”
It took him about fifteen minutes. He told her about the twelve spies and how he and the CI guys suspected they were responsible for killing Donnie and Paul. He told her about Sammy, the 96-Hour Rule, how Battalion had ignored all their requests to transfer the prisoners. The narrowing options, the ticking clock, the fact that the detainees weren’t just nickel-and-dime informants but very highly connected. His certainty that if he let them walk free, his FOB—and his men—would be overrun. Hill told his wife about his plan to scare the spies into confessing so that he could turn them over to the Afghans with unclassified proof of espionage. About how Tommy had straddled some of the detainees and slapped them in the face.
“And then I took three of the detainees outside and fired my pistol into a berm.”
Hill heard Lauren gasp. Then there were a few beats of silence.
“And?” she said.
“And… that’s it.”
“That’s it? You didn’t kill anyone?”
“Yes, that’s it. No, I didn’t kill anyone. Just scared them.”
“You’re kidding. Roger, are you sure that’s all that happened?”
“Yes, baby. I’m telling you everything.”
“And they relieved you for that? Aren’t you guys all on the same team? What the hell?”
Hill grinned in spite of himself. Lauren never cursed. She seemed dumbfounded by this turn of events. It was his first time feeling any sort of relief since the beginning of the investigation. His wife’s response was worth a thousand It’s gonna be okays.
But that was the limit of Hill’s comfort. For the next two or three days on Salerno, it was as if a cone of silence had descended around him and Scott. Although the FOB was as large as a good-sized village, it seemed the word was out: The guys from D Co are pariahs. Shun them. Brigade had assigned Hill and Scott to the same barracks, where they slept in rooms a hallway apart. They woke up, ate sandwiches at the Subway on post. They worked out at the gym and waited for guidance, which did not come. They were simply waiting, and they did not know what for.