“I WOULD LIKE to go back to the cell, before you escaped and were picked up by the helicopter.”
Ryan’s mind swam back to the hazy rescue, the hot desert, the helicopter’s flashing lights, the disbelief that he had actually survived the incident.
“Can I get you some more water, Captain? A Coke?”
Ryan stared at the civilian psychiatrist from command that the joint task force had assigned to debrief him. He’d met the man once before. A gray-haired doctor who had kind blue eyes behind thin spectacles and an understanding smile.
The doctor’s eyes shifted down to look at Ryan’s hands, which were resting on either side of a microphone on the table before him. His right hand was shaking. Like an old man suffering from the onset of Parkinson’s disease.
Ryan stared at the hand and tried unsuccessfully to stop the quiver. He removed both hands and set them on his lap beneath the table.
“Captain?”
The psychiatrist’s name was Dr. Newman, a civil-service mental health professional deployed with the U.S. Army. Seven days had passed since Ryan’s rescue, and each had brought a brighter day with more clarity, but his mind still buzzed and his hands still shook.
“Yes?”
Ryan glanced at the woman beside him, a staff counselor named Julie Stewart, who had visited him twice a day at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad over the last week. He alone knew the full details of what had happened in the desert, but today, that would all change. He was finally going to speak.
“Would you like more water?”
“Yes, that would be nice, thank you.”
Newman nodded at one of the MPs at the back of the sparsely furnished room. There were just these two tables facing each other; glass louvered windows facing another hot but oddly quiet day in Iraq.
At times they looked at him as if he was too unstable, but when he’d pressed them earlier, they’d agreed that he was perfectly capable now. The last seven days had been touch and go, admittedly, but he had woken this morning feeling fresh and ready to get back to work.
He had to pass this debriefing and psych evaluation, and shaking hands not withstanding, he would demonstrate that he was just fine. And then he could get back to his post.
A hand reached over his shoulder and placed a bottle of water in front of him.
“Thank you,” he said. But he left the water for now.
“I realize this is difficult,” Newman was saying. “But the more we can get from you now, the less likely command will want more later. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes.”
“It’s also important that we cover various aspects of the incident so that we can properly evaluate you.”
“Yes. That’s fine, go ahead.”
“Okay,” Newman looked over at the laptop Julie was typing into. “Where were we?”
“The girl named Miriam,” Julie said. Her eyes flittered over the screen, caught Ryan’s, and dropped immediately back down.
Newman turned back to the yellow pad before him and drew a line with his pen. “Yes, of course. And just so I’m clear, at this point the camera is still recording you?”
“Yes.”
“The images of the broken children are still on the wall—”
“Collateral damage,” Ryan corrected.
“The children that Kahlid equated with collateral damage in Iraq. Women and children.”
“His children, yes.”
“Yes.”
Newman lifted his blue eyes and peered over his wire-framed spectacles. “The boy named Ahmed is dead on the floor behind you, killed in a similar manner, that is, his bones broken, crushed.”
“Yes.”
“Miriam is tied up in the corner.”
“Yes.”
“At this point you were seriously considering suicide as the only way to save the victims without giving them what they wanted.”
Ryan hesitated, trying to determine if his admission would in any way undermine their evaluation of his psychological soundness. But his mind was buzzing and he knew that his best course was to simply tell them what had happened as calmly as he could.
“Yes.”
“But they had effectively removed that possibility by restraining your arms to the chair.”
He gave them a nod.
“Please speak into the microphone, Captain. We need the audio.”
“Yes.” He leaned forward and said it again, this time in a clear voice. “Yes, that is correct.”
“Tell us what happened next,” the psychiatrist said, setting his pen down.
Ryan spoke in a steady voice, determined to appear as calculated and reasonable a possible.
“They left me in the room with the girl for six hours. Then they came back in and killed the girl.”
“Can you describe that for me?”
Ryan felt nauseated. Clearly an attempt to analyze his psychological response to the situation.
“It was just like the boy,” he said.
“You said you heard the boy’s bones break and then you fell unconscious. Did you lose consciousness again when they killed the girl?”
A painful knot rose up his throat and for a moment he thought he might actually throw up.
“No.”
Newman looked at him for a moment, then spoke in a soft voice. “I need you to tell me what you saw and heard, Captain. I realize—”
“They killed her,” he snapped. Then forcing back his emotion as best he could, “Isn’t that enough?”
The doctor calmly picked up his pen, made a note on his pad, and set the pen back down. “I think I’m going to recommend that we give you a little more time before we continue. For your sake.”
They were here to decide his fate, they all knew that. The military could be brutally efficient when it needed to be. Newman was simply extending Ryan the courtesy of more rest to improve the likelihood that whatever fate was decided during the evaluation would be consistent with both the military’s objectives and Ryan’s desires.
But Ryan didn’t think he could put up with another day in the hospital, lying on white sheets like a decomposing corpse. He needed something to pull him out of this no-man’s-land he’d entered.
“No, I’m sorry, it’s just…” He reached for the bottle and saw his left hand shake as it gripped the plastic, and regretted the decision. But he couldn’t draw attention to it by withdrawing his hand, so he lifted the bottle, took a short sip, set it down, and put his hand back in his lap, where it continued to shake.
It’s wrong, Ryan. You can’t do this.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Watching someone die is a hard thing.”
“During this time what was Kahlid doing?” Sweat had dotted the doctor’s forehead. He had been exposed to atrocities, but this one had to be near the top of the list.
“He stood by the door, watching me.”
“He didn’t say anything? No reaction from him?”
“No, he didn’t say anything. But there were tears on his face.”
“Did this surprise you? To see such an emotional reaction from such a brutal man?”
“The whole game was an emotional reaction on his part,” Ryan said. “He believes we’ve butchered a thousand children with no less brutality.”
The doctor nodded as if he understood, but Ryan doubted he could.
“It’s hard to even imagine how you must have felt in that room, Captain.”
It was a question. “How would you feel?”
“Tell me how you felt.”
The urge to throw up returned and Ryan had to swallow for fear that he would. The emotions that haunted him would slowly pass. In the meantime he had to accept and deal with them as best he could. As he had when they’d killed Miriam.
“I couldn’t give in to him, you understand. His objective was to break me. The only thing I could do at that point was to break him.”
“So you sat there while they were killing Miriam and did what?”
“Nothing.”
“You closed your eyes,” the doctor said.
“Yes.”
“But you felt nothing?”
“I had no choice.”
“You were able to shut off your emotions?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Kahlid was weeping and I wasn’t.”
Julie’s eyes kept flashing him glances over her screen. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to strangle him or cry for him.
“Tell us what happened next.”
“They brought in a third victim. Another boy. Kahlid called me a heartless pig when I refused to do what he wanted.”
“You were absolutely convinced that if you’d given him your wife’s name and address, he would have carried out his threat?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“Three hours later they came in and killed the boy.”
“Three?”
“Kahlid shortened the time frame.”
“He killed him the same way?”
“Yes.”
“Did you watch this time?”
“No.”
“Did Kahlid react visibly?”
“He left the room this time.”
“I see. And you? What was your reaction this time?”
“This time… this time I passed out.”
“So it would be fair to say that your efforts at controlling your emotions were not entirely successful.”
“Not entirely, no. But I couldn’t react the way he wanted me to react. You do understand that. My wife and my daughter . . .” The fist of sorrow that rose into his throat at the mention of his daughter prohibited him from continuing.
“Take your time, Captain.”
It occurred to him that his attempts to show them his restraint might be misguided. He didn’t want to appear inhuman, did he? This wasn’t the game, after all. The game had ended a week ago.
Or had it?
“My daughter’s life was at stake. I’m sure you understand.”
“Did they bring in a fourth child?”
“A male. A little older than the others.”
“They killed him?”
“Yes.”
“And who won this little game between you and Kahlid this time?”
The question hit Ryan like a battering ram to his chest. This man was reducing his torment to the consequence of a little game of chicken played between two stubborn bullies?
Ryan shifted his gaze to a large photograph of the president on the wall behind Newman and answered in a tight but otherwise reasonably settled voice. “Neither of us won. The boy died.”
His legs began to quiver, barely. He moved them and they stilled for a brief moment, but then started again.
“This is the fourth body they laid on the floor behind your chair?”
“No. They put those two on the floor to my left.”
Julie’s fingers stopped moving on the keyboard and she closed her eyes for a moment.
“How long did this go on, Captain?” the psychiatrist asked.
He tried to tell them. But his mouth wasn’t doing what his brain was telling it to do.
Instead it was telling him that he was now living a lie, sitting here in perfect control, playing the game most respected by him and all of his peers, calm as any naval officer was expected to be, regardless of what happened. He’d maintained the façade without breaking.
But now his mind was telling him it couldn’t keep up the charade any longer. The fact was, he couldn’t possibly continue life as he had once known it. Everything had changed with the breaking of the first bone.
No matter how Ryan tried to tell himself that he could go on, deep inside where he refused to hear himself, he knew that a part of him had died when Ahmed, the first innocent Arab boy, had died.
He had no interest in judging war, but for him, it had to be over. No more. The death of the innocent had collapsed his entire world.
The psychiatrist seemed content to wait for him.
Ryan tried to tell them again, but his mouth still wasn’t cooperating. It occurred to him then that he might be losing control of himself. Right here in front of them. His legs shook as if they were in a blender.
He made one last desperate attempt to force his body into submission, but the wall of control he’d erected suddenly crumbled and he could not stop the tidal wave that had been slowly building behind it.
His whole body began to quake, from head to foot. His chair rattled beneath him. And even now he tried… tried to stop it, just stop the emotion that was tearing his chest in two.
He lifted his trembling hands from his lap and set them on the table but they only made the table shake. The water bottle toppled over and he pulled his hands back.
The psychiatrist was watching him without emotion; Julie had stopped typing and was staring. And Ryan was facing them in silence, shaking like an earthquake.
Despite his turmoil he’d at least managed to spare himself the embarrassment of dumping the pain on the table for all of them to see. The raw agony he’d felt at sitting there in the chair while they…
A ball of emotion rolled up his chest and filled his throat.
Dear God. Dear God.
Tears blurred his vision and a sharp sting spread over the bridge of his nose as he fought to hold them back.
But God… God, why? Why children?
He could not stop his face from twisting. Though he clenched his jaws tightly, he could not hold back the cry that was already forcing its way past his throat, filling his mouth.
And then Ryan began to sob, body shaking, eyes streaming tears.
He tried to explain something to them. He tried to tell them he was sorry for this momentary lapse in control; that it would just be a minute and they could finish up. He tried to say that it was the children, the children, all the children lying on the concrete around him, broken…
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He tried to make them understand but all he could do was sob these words, just barely, breath catching, chest jerking.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Doctor, please.”
The two words from Julie swept over him like a balm. She was trying to get him to stop this. The subject was failing miserably. He’d exposed himself and made an utter fool of himself.
“Doctor?”
Ryan sucked deep, stilled the sobs with a hard sniff, and spoke. “No.” He was still shaking but the pain in his throat has lessened and he could speak.
“No, it’s okay. Let me finish. I have to finish.”
“I don’t think he’s in any condition—”
“Seven,” he said.
They stared at him.
“Seven. They killed seven.”
“I think we should take a break, Captain,” Newman said. “You’ve been through a very difficult time and you need some rest.”
“No, no I don’t!” He was still shaking but the worst of it had passed. “They killed seven innocent bystanders!” he cried. “I can’t do this. I can’t pretend any longer. I… I was in the room with them, you see? I can’t do this!”
“Easy, Captain. You’ve been through—”
“No. No, you weren’t there! He was right, we have no right to kill innocent women and children! I can’t do this!”
“Captain…”
“I tried to kill myself! I tried to swallow my tongue, I tried to choke myself by twisting my head, I tried, but…” Ryan knew now that something profound had changed in him. It had taken days to break through, but sitting here telling them all that had happened, he couldn’t deny the shift in him any longer.
If Kahlid hadn’t accomplished his objective of changing America’s mind by personalizing the collateral damage, he had succeeded in altering Ryan’s mind.
“Try to stay calm, Captain,” the psychiatrist was saying. “We can stop at any time if—”
“I kept passing out until I finally managed to rub the skin on my wrists raw on the towel.”
Newman’s eyes dropped to the bandages around his wrists. He nodded, understanding that Ryan wanted to get all of this out. To purge himself of the horror through confession.
“When he came in and saw the blood soaking through the towel and me slumped in the chair he thought I might have succeeded. I hadn’t, but he had to stop the bleeding.”
“He was alone?”
“One other guard was with him, and when he undid the towels to stop the bleeding, that’s when I attacked. He thought I was unconscious and Kahlid was screaming at the guard, telling him that if I died it would all be wasted.”
Ryan sat there in the chair still trembling, letting it all out in a long rush.
“I grabbed Kahlid by his hair and I bit him on his face, his nose. My ankles were still taped to the legs, but they’d removed the chains when they’d strapped my arms to the chair. He was screaming and I lunged forward with his face between my teeth. The chair broke. I don’t know what all happened, because I only wanted to hurt them as much as I could before they killed me. But they didn’t want me dead, that was the thing… that was why the guard didn’t shoot me when I was over Kahlid. He tried to pull me off but he didn’t try to kill me and he couldn’t use his gun because Kahlid was right there under me. Hollering.”
The tremors in his legs had passed. His hands were calming and had stilled almost completely when he folded them on the table.
“You killed Kahlid?”
“I think so. He went totally limp. But I wasn’t really thinking. I managed to knock the guard out with my elbow when he grabbed my shoulder. It was a mess, I was screaming, hitting, biting… I think my elbow slammed him back into the concrete wall, where he collapsed. I realized I could escape. So I grabbed a knife from the guard’s belt, cut the boy’s rope—”
“They had another victim alive in the room?”
“Yes, they’d come in to break his bones. But I set him free.”
“And?”
“And then I took Kahlid’s radio and ran. There were no other guards that I saw, I don’t know why… maybe they were in another part of the bunker or had gone for gas, I don’t know.”
“None of the doors were locked?”
“Yes, they were bolted. But I was on the inside and I opened them.”
Doctor Newman settled in his chair. “How long did you run before you called in on the radio?”
“I don’t remember. I had to get far enough away so that if they intercepted my transmission, they wouldn’t have the time to track me down before the helicopter came for me.”
They sat in a protracted silence. His breakdown here in front of them could only lead to one conclusion, and thinking of it now, Ryan was filled with the same terrible urge that had haunted him as he’d sat in the dungeon and had also followed him to the hospital.
He was a father. He’d convinced himself that he could continue his duties because it was what he did. But he couldn’t do them without being a father.
And now he wasn’t sure he wanted to do his duties. Setting duty aside, he was left with only one desire. To be a father.
To rush home and hold Bethany tight. To sweep Celine off her feet and kiss her and beg her forgiveness. They hadn’t let him call home yet, not before a full debriefing, but now… now…
“I want to go home,” he said, and a fresh flood of tears silently filled his eyes.
“You’ll need more rest.”
“I really want to go home. I can rest at home.”
“I think we both know that you’re suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder. These things don’t pass overnight. You’ve expressed some emotion here today, but you’re going to feel survivor guilt, guilt over feeling relieved that you escaped, and anger as well. Maybe a lot of anger.”
“I’m begging you. Please, I need to go home. I just need to… I have a daughter and a wife.” The tears snaked down his cheeks. “Please.”
After a moment of thought, Newman nodded. He scrawled something on the sheet in front of him.
“I think you’re right, Captain. Command will want to review your statement. They may have more questions, but I’m going to recommend that you be put on an extended leave with on-going psychiatric treatment and evaluation CONUS.”
“When will I be able to go home?”
“If all goes well, you’ll be home with your wife and daughter in a week, Captain. Fair enough?”
Ryan wiped the tears off his cheek. “I want to call my wife.”
“I think that can be arranged. Let’s give command one day to look this over and we’ll arrange a call.”
“Thank you. Thank you, I would like that very much.”