The Death Trust Read online

  CONTENTS

  COVER PAGE

  TITLE PAGE

  EPIGRAPH

  TWELVE MONTHS AGO

  A WEEK AGO

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

  —Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17, 1961

  I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

  —Barry Goldwater, American Republican

  The sleep of reason brings forth monsters.

  —Goya

  The meek don’t want it.

  —Anon.

  Twelve months ago

  Corporal Dante P. Ambrose climbed into the front seat of the Humvee beside the driver, relieved to be out of the sun. His black skin glistened in places where the sweat from his pores had sluiced away the fine, light brown sand that coated everything in Iraq. A single river of sweat had cut a valley through the layers of grit down his forehead, like the Tigris through the desert.

  Behind him, Sergeant Peyton Scott grunted as he tried to get comfortable in the rear seat. His shirt and pants had stuck to his skin, and the ceramic plate in his vest pushed up against his chin when he sat, limiting mobility. He felt trussed like a pig. All I need is a goddamn apple in my mouth, he thought. “How’s that coffee coming along?” he said.

  “We ain’t having coffee. We’re having tea,” replied Corporal Ambrose.

  “What?” said someone.

  “What kind of a faggot drink is tea?” said someone else.

  “Fuckin’ tea?” said another.

  Ambrose shrugged. “Don’t have it, then. I’ll drink it all myself.”

  “What’s wrong with coffee?” Peyton asked.

  “Nothin’,” Ambrose replied. “But…they drink tea in India. Y’know, that country is damn hot, and they’ve had thousands of years of continuous civilization. What they learned is that tea keeps you cool, man. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  “You been into those Reader’s Digests again, ain’t choo?” said one of the men. “Learnin’ a bunch of useless shit.”

  A voice in the back called out, “If they’s so goddamn smart, Corporal, how come they didn’t invent the A-bomb?”

  “You think inventing the A-bomb was smart?” said another.

  The driver weighed in. “Whatever, dey’s smart enough not to be in Eye-rak.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Peyton, capitulating. “I’ll give tea a try.”

  “Comin’ right up, boss.” Ambrose picked up the tin pot from a bracket mounted behind the window and burned his fingertips. “Freakin’ motherfucker!” he hissed, putting his fingers in his mouth for a couple of seconds. Several of the men laughed. Ambrose swore again and then spat out the door to get rid of the grit deposited by his fingers. He was more careful with the pot the second time, gripping the rim with a piece of rag. The soldiers used the Humvee’s windshield to focus and intensify the sun’s heat, but it was hardly necessary. The air itself was hot enough to blister paint.

  The sun that scorched Baghdad in May was a pitiless and implacable enemy, and the marine combat uniform—combat boots, webbing, flaks, and Kevlar helmet—was utterly defeated by it. And it’d get worse as the months rolled on. The only defense was to keep drinking water, keep swallowing salt pills, keep sweating, and keep swabbing antiseptic cream on the dry, chapped skin behind their testicles. The men grumbled and bitched about the conditions, as was a grunt’s right.

  The rest of the men had by now squeezed into the Humvee and were tossing their cups into the front seat for Corporal Ambrose to fill. He poured out the heavily sugared brew and handed back the cups. The men threw it down quickly, scalding their tongues, swearing.

  Alpha company hadn’t lost a man—not even a scratch—since their deployment to Iraq over a year ago. Not many units could say that. The United Nations force, to which the marine brigade was attached, was taking a pounding from the insurgents, but Alpha company had been careful. And they’d been lucky. So far. The patrol about to be concluded was not unlike so many others. Uneventful. They’d been given several blocks of poor residential area to scour, tasked to search for and confiscate weapons. None had been seized, but everyone knew the place was still awash with them—old AK-47s, pistols, rocket-propelled grenades, even MP-5s and American M16s—because, every time there was a wedding or a national soccer victory or a massive bomb blast somewhere, the guns came out and began banging away at the sky in support. The slugs always came back to earth and, when they did, they were every bit as lethal as aimed rounds fired from the shoulder. Baghdad was like an insane spaghetti western. Sergeant Scott called it “a couscous western on crack.”

  “Okay, let’s head on back to the ranch,” said Scott. The driver didn’t need to be told twice, and he eased some boot pressure onto the accelerator pedal. The Humvee moved off, its tires crunching over a road surface littered with pulverized concrete, gravel, and bits of bomb casing, this having been the scene of a recent minor skirmish. Scott watched the road pass by through a hole in the door, one of many drilled by shrapnel fragments collected on previous patrols when the vehicle had been in use with another unit. The motion and the heat were vaguely hypnotizing, and Scott’s thoughts drifted to the prospect of a shower when they reached the relative safety of the compound. Occasional mortars and homemade rockets were routinely lobbed in over the walls, but they only rarely claimed lives. These were just something to put up with, something you were aware of, like the flies and the heat. But having a shower, letting the cool waters wash away the sweat and the grime and the goddamn sand, that was something to look forward to.

  The four-vehicle convoy snaked through the tan dwellings so compressed together that the air itself seemed to have been squeezed from the narrow road. Scott heard Ambrose say, “What the fuck?” and the words snapped him out of the daydream. “Choo take a wrong turn, Specialist?” Ambrose asked the driver. The Humvee was forced to stop becaus
e the blackened carcass of a vehicle ahead blocked the way.

  “No, Corporal. I’m just retracing our steps on the GPS, unless the fuckin’ gadget’s lyin’. This is the way we come in for sure.”

  The lane was narrow and there was not enough room in which to turn around. The four Humvees reversed back down the street into an intersection and moved off in the one remaining direction available. Moments later, the marine patrol burst into the open space beside the wide gray river. Free from the shadows, the sun’s heat radiated off the walls of the buildings and into the cabin.

  Corporal Ambrose looked past the driver, out his window, and scoped the Tigris beyond. It was nothing like the Mississippi that rolled majestically past his town back home, through lush green countryside. He was about to comment on this when the front of the vehicle suddenly imploded. In fact, the Humvee stopped as if KO’d by a massive punch. Steam and smoke billowed from under the buckled hood, while on the road a pool of oil spread rapidly beneath the engine like blood pumping from an arterial wound. The soldier behind the wheel began screaming when he realized his legs were smoldering and bleeding profusely, the alloy firewall being about as effective as tissue paper against shrapnel.

  “Jesus fuck!”

  “Shit!”

  “Hey, what—”

  “Out. Get out. Clear the vehicle,” snapped Scott.

  The men evacuated fast and headed for cover behind the crippled Humvee, half carrying, half dragging the wounded driver. What had knocked out their vehicle? Was it a land mine, or something else?

  The three remaining Humvees pulled up behind in a staggered line. The mounted machine guns were manned and the men swept them through the arcs, but there wasn’t anything to shoot at. The rest of Scott’s patrol took up positions on the ground and against an adjacent wall, looking for movement, for something to target. The road was eerily quiet but for the rough idling engines of the remaining Humvees and the groans from the wounded man. Scott felt uneasy. He was unsure how to read the situation. Damn it, he wasn’t even sure there was a situation.

  Ambrose made his way to the sergeant, staying low. The patrol had stopped in an area protected by a high wall on one side and the wide-open expanse of the Tigris River on the other. “What do you reckon took us out, boss?” he asked.

  “Beats the fuck out of me,” said Scott. The area they were in was actually quite peaceful. He glanced at their Humvee. If they had set off a mine, the pattern of damage would have been quite different. It was more likely that a projectile of some kind had hit them. That raised another question: Where had it come from? Tense and not a little baffled, Scott stood and looked around for movement. They’d have to leave the Humvee behind, push it to the side of the road, destroy it, and cram into the remaining vehicles. The wreck would be stripped clean by the locals before it could be recovered the following day. “Okay, let’s get the hell out of here and push on. We’ve got—” But, as Sergeant Scott spoke, Ambrose saw his sergeant’s head turn inside out beneath his helmet and dissolve in a puff of red atomized droplets that sprayed onto him, spattering his face and neck. Ambrose blinked while his mind struggled to process the image burned onto his retinas and the reason for the sudden cool sensation on his skin.

  Sergeant Scott’s body continued to stand for several long seconds, M16 at the ready, seemingly unaware that its head had been completely removed. And then, like some kind of incomplete monster of Frankenstein, the grotesque figure took two faltering steps toward Ambrose. The rifle clattered to the ground, and what was left of Sergeant Scott reached out as if searching for support. But then the corpse collapsed to the earth and quivered where it lay. Thick crimson blood oozed from the shredded neck.

  The men, having snapped out of the shock of what they’d just witnessed, began spraying the road ahead with full metal jackets. But there was nothing to target and certainly no one to shoot at. Eventually they ran out of ammunition. Bewildered, Alpha company stood and looked around, the barrels of their weapons smoking. The only sound that remained was the uneven thump of a faraway gunship and the lumpy, irregular hum of their transports’ idling engines.

  A week ago

  General Abraham Scott felt the shudder through the airframe, but attached no significance to it. He banked the sailplane into the area beneath the fluffy cumulus cloud and sensed the lift of the thermal in the seat of his pants and in his inner ear. When he positioned the aircraft properly and the shaft of rising warm air caressed the long and slender wings, the current acted like an invisible elevator. The needle on the altimeter moved steadily around the face of the instrument and the pressure within his ears built. He swallowed, releasing that pressure, and his hearing returned to normal. The glider shot out of the thermal beneath the cloud and Scott followed another aircraft riding the warm air rising off a wide expanse of plowed field far below.

  The general looked about and took in the unobstructed view of the Rhineland as the glider climbed higher. The sky was an iridescent blue on this unseasonably warm day early in May. Winter would undoubtedly return before spring took serious hold. Beneath, Germany was a patchwork of dark forest and green fields dissected by roadways.

  With the radio turned off, it was blissfully quiet within the bubble formed by the Plexiglas dome around him. When Scott pushed it, barrel rolling and looping through the perfection of the mid-morning, there was the rush of air, a whistling over the glider’s surfaces, but within, the thermal the aircraft almost seemed to waft silently like a feather, apparently lighter than the air itself. The sun warmed his face, and General Scott allowed himself a moment of peace. And, yes, happiness.

  Away to the east lay the broad expanse of Ramstein Air Base, a huge NATO facility, the U.S.’s statement about its commitment to the defense of Europe in the face of an invasion from the Soviets. That threat had passed and now a new foe had stepped forward to fill the gap, but perhaps not the one everyone thought of. The sight of the base, a vast beige and black scar surrounded by greenery, brought the anguish back. Scott frowned and then closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about Ramstein, nor of what he’d discovered. He didn’t even want to think about his son, his beautiful boy, Peyton, a marine sergeant, killed on the streets of Baghdad. He didn’t want to think about the C-130s returning from the Middle East with their cargo of American boys wrapped sightless in black zippered bags, basting in their own fluids, the bags sloshing as they were lifted off the transport plane’s ramp. Those thoughts seemed to desecrate the pristine cleanliness of a world populated by clouds and air currents.

  Scott wrenched his mind free of the thoughts and realizations that had changed his politics, his relationship with his wife, his country—everything, in fact—and tried to concentrate on the moment. He scanned the sky above his head. Around five hundred feet above, the other sailplane was circling like a white bird of prey in the invisible thermal. Flying was the solitary corner of his life left untouched by the sickness that had invaded the very core of his being. Here, in this environment with a control stick between his knees, he felt free, unchained, the lead sheath peeled back from his heart. Here, nothing could touch him.

  The needle on the altimeter nudged twelve thousand feet. Scott retrimmed the glider for aerobatics as he left the thermal. Away to his right, the other glider circled gracefully. He knew the pilot, Captain Aleveldt, a member of the Royal Netherlands Air Force and fellow soaring enthusiast.

  Scott’s sailplane shuddered again, and he blamed the vibration on rough air. The glider climbed and Scott watched the needle on the airspeed indicator drop. When it touched the correct number, he pulled back hard on the stick and then pushed the left rudder pedal to the floor. The glider responded instantly, rolling inverted through a tight barrel before settling into a controlled corkscrewlike descent. Scott’s stomach bounced into his throat briefly as the world went haywire, the blue of the sky and the green of the ground tumbling and rolling together. In the spin, the horizon settled down and rushed from left to right across the Perspex canopy. Scott c
almly watched the needle on the altimeter unwind around the dial. The ground was eleven thousand feet away but it was approaching fast. And then the unthinkable happened. The right wing collapsed, folding vertically beside his shoulder. The glider toppled sideways, like a swing with the chain cut on one side, and accelerated. It spun faster to the right. The nose dropped and the cockpit filled with the increasing roar of rushing air as the glider plunged downward. General Scott knew instantly that he was a dead man. The glider spun faster with the uneven forces acting on it. Scott’s head was jammed to one side and he felt his neck would break with the strain. The violence of the airflow suddenly ripped the wing clean away, like an arm wrenched from its socket. The thirty feet of wing began a slow spiral away on a divergent course. With its departure went much of the wind noise inside the cockpit.

  General Scott was a religious man. Soon, he knew, he would be joining his son. The thought resigned him to his fate and he took his hands off the control stick. He placed them on his knees, closed his eyes, and waited.

  With the departure of the wing, the glider’s wild rotation slowed and its vertical speed increased. It also began to tumble. The massive forces built, and ripped the other wing off. The fuselage of the glider, released from this air brake, accelerated once more. Scott opened his eyes. Only the greenery of the earth now filled the canopy on this endless ride. The vibration made it impossible to focus on the useless instrument panel in front of him. The general’s weight in the nose of what was now a fiberglass missile caused it to roll inverted.

  Scott remembered the day his son returned from Iraq in a C-130. At first, he had not the nerve to unzip the bag. If he looked upon the face of his boy in death, would he ever sleep again? But he needed to be sure. The autopsy. He had to look inside that black plastic cocoon. They had given him no choice. The stench of death hung over the bags laid out on the concrete. Scott remembered the sound the zipper made as he pulled it down, like bullets fired from a silenced machine gun. What he saw when he looked within filled him with a pain like none he’d ever known and he howled there as he knelt, bent over the one thing in his life that he truly loved unselfishly.