David moved into a tent in the orphanage compound with Drächen. At Kim's suggestion, he sent his little girl off with Sister Angela after breakfast each morning to take part in her regular routine with the other children.
"She'll be fine," Kim said. "The routine is good for her, she loves Sister Angela, and Indali is her best friend. And you need some recovery time." He hated to admit it, but she was right. His body was not bouncing back, not this time. He rested while Drächen was away, often sleeping the morning through, aided by his medication intake.
The dreams were vivid. Marie; Treadstone; MEUSOC; regular duty; Officer Candidate School; college and ROTC; growing up with Gordon in relative neglect under his uncle's wardship after his parents died… When he awoke, he would lie back, flooded with emotion. Looking for any shred of sense to it all. Sometimes, there was some, a small sense of familiarity, an iota of comfort. An order was emerging: structure, hard work and physical exertion were his salvations. Responsibility, for his brother, the household, for the men and women in his unit, always shouldered. Excellence, always achieved. Loneliness, a constant—until Marie, and the gift that came through her, Drächen. Seeing these patterns was a blessing, compared to the chaos of dreams past.
Father John offered the MSF detail space in the compound for their operations, so they saw Kim often, much to Drächen's delight. She visited their tent after dinner sometimes, checking to see how the toddler went down to sleep. Drächen loved seeing her, and went to sleep best on the nights when she visited. It was clear Kim was a Marine for Life; she was living General Order 5: To quit my post only when properly relieved. She had been responsible for Drächen, and she wasn't going to stop being responsible until her concerns were answered. David understood that Kim was assessing his parenting skills.
Those skills were getting a workout. Drächen alternately clung to him and rejected him. She asked for Marie and sobbed when he did not produce her. He was pretty good, he thought, in any situation but that one. His guilt over Drächen's loss was eating him alive.
One evening, after Drächen was asleep, Kim lingered. "Reuniting can be rough going," she said, sympathetically.
He looked at her with haunted eyes. "She keeps asking for Marie, over and over. I tell her that Mama is an angel now, over and over. When is she going to understand that her mother is not coming back?" The creases in his brow looked indelible, the lines around his mouth deepening as he chewed his lip.
Kim spoke gently, "She's awfully little to comprehend all that's happened, David. She's been through so many changes; she keeps asking because she thinks maybe that fact is going to change, too. It's actually reassuring to her to hear the same answer from you repetitively. She only needs to know what she can understand: Mama's not here, and Mama's love is always with her. She has what she needs most in the world if she can hear that, and hear it from you."
He was holding his head in his hands. "I can't keep going over it with her. I killed her."
"What do you mean?" Kim knew it was Kirill who killed Marie.
"I was driving; he saw me. He was chasing us, we were in the Jeep and he was chasing us in his rental Hyundai. I made Marie switch with me and drive so that I could bail out and get a clean shot. We took the shortcut to open up distance. I thought he would follow, the long way. But he didn't do that. He must have gone on foot to get his shot off… He shot her, shot the driver's seat, thinking it was me. He shot her in the neck and we went into the water and she was gone, but I still tried, I gave her mouth-to-mouth. She was already dead. I left her there, left her in the river." His face looked broken as he relived his loss.
"She was so good…When he shot her, she was pleading for his life, telling me I had a choice. I killed her; I killed her. I wish I had the choice to make it be me…" Sobs shook his body, and Kim rubbed his back, murmuring small endearments, feeling the force of his grief. He heaved an explosive sigh, and the storm was past. Kim withdrew her hand as he sat immobile.
"What if it was you?" she asked, her voice quiet, her eyes seeking his eyes.
"What?" His eyes were bleak and downcast; unknowable.
"What if it was you? Would it have made any difference for Marie? Would she be alive now?"
"Maybe she would."
"Could she have gotten out? Underwater? Without you to help her? I don't know, and you don't either. You might both be dead, and then where would Drächen be now?
He was clasping and unclasping his hands. "If I had never approached her in the first place, she would be alive right now."
"That sounds like Ward Abbott talking." Kim had been present the first time Landy played the tape of Abbot and Bourne in Berlin, her disgust inflamed by Abbott's deflections, his manipulation. She picked up the photo of Jason and Marie from where it lay in its ziplock bag on the campstool next to the cot. "When I look at this picture, I see a woman in love. Most of us would risk anything to feel what she's feeling right there."
He took the picture and saw the love shining on Marie's face. Tears welled up in his eyes again.
"She loved you, David. You loved each other and that made her happy. Look at her face—can't you see it? You made that beautiful child together…" Kim squeezed his hand between both of hers, then let go. "You have a lot to figure out, but isn't Drächen worth it? Wouldn't it be worth it to have a life, a full life, again?"
He shook his head. "I've done such bad things…"
"I know. And I know, too, that you're a good person; you deserve a life."
He felt a surge of—what? Love? Something he didn't know how to express. For Kim. With it came panic: who could survive involvement with him?
She looked down, her face half-obscured by her long hair. Asked, in her cinnamon-tinged voice, "How long's it been since you had a friend, David?"
He thought. Since before Treadstone? MSOC? OCS? Basic? His panic receded, replaced by simple desolation. He looked at Kim's face as she tucked her hair back behind her ear and touched the tiny crucifix on the chain around her neck. David nodded. Friends.
They heard a noise at the doorway, and both looked up sharply. In the shadows, they saw Indali, hesitating guiltily, caught sneaking in.
"Hi, Sweetheart," said Kim, holding out her arms, and the little girl came and climbed into her lap. "Did you come to see Drächen?"
Indali nodded, and Kim glanced a question at David. He nodded once, quickly. The two little girls comforted each other, anyone could see that. Kim stood and carried the girl to the cot where Drächen lay asleep, rocking her and kissing her head as she walked. Set gently in the cot, Indali cuddled right up to her friend. Kim sank down to the floor next to the cot and stroked the child's long, dark hair until she, too, was sleeping. She kissed each precious face, and got up to go.
"I'll let Sister Angela know where Indali is," she whispered to David on her way out of the tent. He stretched out on his cot, listening to the sweet respirations of the two little girls.
December, 1992. The air is heavy and hot, 80 degrees Farenheit and 90 percent humidity at midnight. Rubble is piled up, shoulder high in some places: the remains of terminal buildings and runways at the Mogadishu Airport. Landing Craft Air Cushions are bringing in load after load of Marines from offshore. After the LCACs will come enormous military transport craft, loaded with the supplies needed to execute Operation Restore Hope. 2nd Lieutenant David Webb, USMC, looks around in satisfaction; his Marine Expeditionary Unit Special Operations Command detail had been first ashore, securing the airport for this mission. Everything went smoothly for his men: no injuries, no contingencies. They are the best of the best and this operation's good result is a testament to that. They are paving the way to food relief, stemming the tide of 500,000 dead from malnutrition.
The road is lined with tiny children, yelling "Americo! Americo!" Detailed in with a supply battalion until more reinforcements arrive, his unit is headed into Mogadishu proper. The stench of garbage and rotting animal flesh and human corpses hangs heavy in the humid air. The graceful, Italianate architecture is defiled by bombing; no building within sight has more than two walls and remnants of a roof. Bullet-riddled vehicles line the route; children climb on the twisted wreckage, laughing. They arrive at Checkpoint 77; their bunker until further notice. Speed metal music blares 24/7 per PSYOPS protocols. Heat and torpor and stench are everywhere. And children, hundreds, all with dark skin, dark hair and the European features native to their region. Drawn by the spectacle of the uniformed Americans.
Patrols are drawn by lot. Some at night, some during daylight. Nighttime patrols are eerie, fraught with terror. His own men scattered into positions of responsibility, Webb finds that leading his newly assigned detail weighs heavy; some of these Marines are on their first patrols. They are learning from him: keep moving, stay in contact with the squad, anything out of the ordinary—someone lighting a cigarette in a window, a new path through the rubble, a vehicle in a different place—should be perceived as a threat.
He meets a little girl's eye for just a moment, one off-duty afternoon, and it is enough to earn him a sidekick. He tries to dissuade her from following him, but she insists on doing so nonetheless. Her name is Lyra. She is five. He starts looking for her during his off-duty hours, spends them playing with her. Other children flock to him, as well. The Company starts referring to him as "Pied Piper." Fuck them. Baby Marines, all some of them want to do is kill something. The biggest part of his job is making sure that they don't kill the wrong thing.
One day, he tells Lyra to meet him at the perimeter after dark so he can give her food. She is not there when he goes. "Cover me," he tells two of his detail, stepping beyond the wire. He finds her, playing outside her house, two alleys over. Her mother rushes out to take the food when she sees him.
"She yours now," she tells him, eyes glittering at his supposed perversion and at her collusion to it. She is maybe only eighteen, herself.
Webb feels a wave a revulsion-tinged rage wash over him. He wants to put a bullet in the mother's head and seize that little girl; take her away with him. Out of this hellhole, to a place where living past the age of ten would be a blessing, not a curse.
Instead, he nods. "But only for me," he says, handing over more cornmeal, some chocolate. The mother nods, and he grabs her arm at the elbow, twisting just enough for there to be no misunderstanding. "Only for me." She gasps at the pain, but her eyes still glitter. He turns, releasing her, and heads back to C77.
Back inside the perimeter, his Marines are about to soil their shorts. "Begging your pardon, Sir," yelps one of them. "But that wasn't the smartest choice, Sir, to go past our sightline. These Marines were about to call a Reac Force to recover you…" Of course, he is right. Lieutenant Webb just nods and walks away.
He takes an interpreter next time he meets Lyra, makes it clear where he will meet her each evening to give her food for her family. He spends all of his non-sleeping off-duty time with Lyra and the other children, playing, trying to create childhood for them, hoping to keep the predators at bay. Two weeks later, his MEUSOC detail ships out. The last thing he sees of Checkpoint 77 is Lyra, hunkered down under the shell of a van, crying as he disappears from her view.
David opened his eyes to inky night. Stole over to the cot bearing Indali and Drächen. Sat back against the tent frame, keeping watch. These children would have a childhood, if he had any say about it. And he intended to, for both of them.
Author's note: yes, "Lyra" is the word for Italian currency, before the Euro was adopted. Mogadishu was under Italian control in days of old…