Disclaimer: Don't own Bones, wish I did. Don't sue me, danke! Also, there will be similarities in this chapter to a Kathy Reichs book, so all credit to her, both for Bones and that.
Author's note: Don't get all nitpicky on me here, I'll try to make it as realistic as possible, dates and locations-wise. It will get better later on. Read and Review!!
FLASHBACKâGUATAMALA (Booth's point of view)
My back ached from being crouched in the brush so long, and my finger trembled, always ready to squeeze the trigger should my target appear. My eyes, and ears were alert. Every muscle was tense. I was focused on the area below me, a thin valley in a hilly landscape, where a grandiose mansion was located. The mansion belonged to a key army official, completely corrupted, that was leading raids on small villages in, killing thousands of thousands of people over the span of five years. Last week, twenty American soldiers had been killed by one of this man's soldiers. It was my assignment to take him out of the picture forever.
There was genocide in Guatemala, the army and government completely corrupted. Our troops were trying to curb it, stop the loss of innocent lives. To do so, I had to take some very, very non-innocent lives. The fact that the people I sniped down, from hills, like now, or trees, and buildings were killers did not change how I felt. I knew I was doing what I had to do, but it didn't make it any worse. Just because I was killing the bad guys, didn't erase the fact that I was a killer myself.
On the other side of the hill I was perched on, there was another valley, in which was located a small village, one that had been raided at the start of the campaign of the army official which I was awaiting to arrive. It was abandoned, the survivors moving a few miles away, as far as they could go. It was a hilly landscape, and all the people were poor, and had no cars. They couldn't get far enough away to be safe. Raids still overtook the villages of survivors, making them relive the terror again and again.
Voices drifted from the valley of the abandoned village. There was a crew there conducting some sort of identification effort. They were pulling bodies, mostly skeletons, from wherever they had been thrown away by the soldiers during the raid. In deep ditches, covered by dirt, and wells. The soldiers often burned the bodies, and while people escaped death, they never buried their children, husbands, wives, parents, and friends. It was a graveyard in the village, and the people were valiant effort, but it was very dangerous. So far, nothing had happened to any of them, but we, the American troops, were wary. They shouldn't be there, the identification of bodies could wait. They would still be dead when the genocide was over.
A door opened in the mansion, and I realized my thoughts had been wandering. I reigned them in, and my eyes turned to slits as I tried to see if the person exiting was the person I needed to kill. It was not. I opened my eyes, and relaxed my trigger finger less than a centimeter. It was a low-ranking soldier, a killer, as those were the people that did the officials dirty work, but not my mission. Hopefully, one day, these killers would get what they deserved. Not today, not from me, but they must someday be punished. Maybe even by God himself.
I'm a Christian, I believe in God. I need to know there is something else beyond this, the killing and cruelty of the human life form. I need to pray, to ask for forgiveness for when I kill others. Often it is the only way I can get the lives I take off my conscience. God forgives, God is great. Sometimes I worry that even if I believe, even if I confess, that even killing another human being will condemn me to Hell. I still believe, though. I was raised a faithful Catholic, and will always be one.
Hearing footsteps coming up the hill, I closed my eyes and said a prayer. I knew it was the soldier, as my eyes had never left him, but I quietly slid my belly, my gun still aimed at the door of the mansion, as he passed. Weeds, and bushes covered me, but thorns tore at my skin, making it painful to settle into the grass. I held my breath as he walked by, seeing his powerful boots, and my eyes traveling up to the gun that hung on his belt. He didn't see me, but continued down the hill into the valley with the abandoned village. I remained on my belly, my rifle pointed at the door, one eye on it, and one eye on the soldier. The army official I was to shoot had said they would let the people identify those killed, but kept a close watch. They didn't want the people to learn too much.
In the eye that followed the soldier, I could see a woman crouched over a skeleton. He was approaching her, and I strained to see her face, but it was concealed by wavy brown hair. The woman was slender, with pale skin, slightly browned from working in the Guatemalan sun. I never saw her face, as when she arose, she was turned away from my field of peripheral vision, but the image of the woman has been affixed in my mind forever, because, as soon as the soldier approached, calling out to her, he took the boots I had watched passed me, and kicked her in the legs, knocking her off her feet.
The woman gasped, and opened her mouth to scream for someone to help her. At this point, the man grabbed her hair, and pulled her to him, whispering something as she struggled in his grasp. He slapped her across the face, kicking her. She bit him, fighting, giving it her all, but he had already started to drag her across the dirt, a handkerchief stuck in her mouth. He beat her as he dragged her. He would kill her, but I couldn't help. I had my mission, and it had to be completed, but my heart was breaking for the woman. I almost left, almost ran to help her, to save her life, but at that moment the door opened, and the army official stepped out.
I watched as he wandered to a clearing, never even foreseeing what was coming his way as he walked towards his car parked in the circular driveway. With one last glance at the woman being pulled away to her death, I made my choice. I refocused, closed on eye, and squeezed the trigger. With a slight pop, audible only to my own ears, he fell down dead. A bloodstain blossomed on his crisp white shirt.
Every soldier has two list which he adds notches to constantly. One list is the people he or she has killed by doing something, and the other is the people he or she has killed by doing nothing. That night, back in my tent, I put a notch on both lists. This slip of paper was a belt buckle of death. I folded it back up, and slid it in a notebook in a secret compartment in my bag. Afterwards, I fell to my knees and prayed.