Joaquin muttered something in Spanish, his eyes dark with anger. “And no one did anything to stop this son of awhore?”
“No. Nothing. I told myself it didn’t matter. I was there to do a job for my country, not to win a popularity contest. But, still, it was hard.” She realized this wasn’t part of the story she was trying to tell them. “Sorry. None of that really matters. I guess I drifted offtopic.”
“No, no.” Joaquin touched a reassuring hand to her shoulder. “You just tell the story as it comes to you. We’relistening.”
Mia took a sip of her water. “It all blew up one day in September. I was in my office, and one of the men ran in to say that one of our guys was sick. I found Andy in his bunk, coughing, his nose running. I thought maybe he had the flu—and then I saw the blisters. They covered his hands and legs—huge, yellowblisters.”
Mia told them how she’d called for a medic and gone with Andy to medical, only to find a half-dozen other men there with the same symptoms. “Most had blisters. Some were having difficulty breathing. The medical staff had no idea what was going on. Jason worked hard to treat their burns and relieve their pain. He was the one who called around, did the research, and figured it out. It took a few days, but he figured itout.”
“Jason Garcia, the homicide victim?” Julianasked.
Mia nodded, her throat growing tight. “He was a kind and goodman.”
“What was it?” Joaquinasked.
“It turns out that Powell had taken his gang out to Tell al-Sharruken, where their shovels had hit a buried cache of old shells. Some of the shells were cracked. They dug the shells out, handled them. They didn’t realize the shells were leaking. Andy, Powell and the others—they had all been exposed to mustardagent.”
9
Mustard agent?” Joaquin stared at Mia, stunned by what she’d just told them. “You mean mustardgas?”
“It can be a liquid or a gas, so mustard agent is the more accurate term,” Hunter said. “But, yeah, mustardgas.”
Darcangelo shot Hunter an annoyed glance. “Thanks for the chemistrylesson.”
“Hey, anytime.”
But Mia wasn’t listening to them, her body rigid, her gaze turned inward as she relived the horror of what she’d seen. “It turned out that they had been exposed three days prior. The symptoms don’t show up right away. When they started to get sick, they hid it, knowing they’d get in trouble. But a few of the younger guys were so afraid that they spilled it all. Those who were badly affected, including Andy and Powell, were sent to Germany for treatment and then shippedhome.”
Joaquin listened while Mia described the clusterfuck that had followed as the colonel she’d warned went into full CYA—cover your ass—mode.
“I thought Powell would face a court-martial, but Colonel Frank couldn’t admit that he’d been told about his troops looting. The Pentagon didn’t want word about the mustard agent to getout.”
“Why not? Wouldn’t it be good to warn people that this shit is outthere?”
“Not when the U.S. government supplied the chemicals that made it,” Hunter said. “We gave Iraq the chemicals to make mustard agent and Sarin during the Iraq-Iran War. It’s not a secret, not when so many U.S. and Coalition troops have been hurt by the shit since 2003. But it’s not really public knowledge either. The suits in D.C. aren’t in a hurry to admit to the world that the U.S. violated the GenevaConvention.”
Joaquin had heard and seen a lot of fucked-up bullshit in his years at the paper, but this was in a league of its own. “So that shit is there because ofus?”
Hunter and Mianodded.
Mierda.
“I went above the colonel’s head, told the brigadier general of our division that I had reported what Powell was doing. But no one cared that Powell had endangered his own men. What mattered more to them was the potential for embarrassment. ‘US troops wounded by chemical weapons while looting,’ doesn’t make a favorableheadline.”
Joaquin could see that. “No, I guess itdoesn’t.”
“I was promoted to captain and told not to discuss the matter, which was now classified. The entire incident was swept under therug.”
“What happened to the looters?” Hunterasked.
“Most of the men involved were discharged, some unfavorably. None of those who were disabled by the mustard agent—Powell, Andy, Chris Hedges, Tony Rigatti—got disability benefits. It wasn’t because they’d been off base without authorization or looted artifacts. It was solely because they’d been injured by a substance the government doesn’t want toacknowledge.”
“Mustardagent.”
“Did anyone threaten you, Mia?” Darcangeloasked.
Mia shook her head. “I didn’t see Powell or Andy or any of the others again until I got back from that deployment, but they hated my guts. They all blame me for the fact that they didn’t get disability benefits, though I had nothing to do with that. The last time I saw Andy, he spent the entire half hour I was there shouting at me, calling menames.”