Part 6 (1/2)

'What the f.u.c.k!'

'Impossible.'

Branch let go of Barry's earnest eyes and took a look.

'Give us some close-up,' a voice called from the end of the line.

The telephoto jacked closer in peristaltic increments. 'That's as tight as it gets,' the captain said. 'That's a ten-meter square.'

You could see the jumbled bones in negative. Hundreds of human skeletons floated in a giant tangled embrace.

'Wait...' McDaniels murmured. 'Watch.'

Branch focused on the screen.

'There.'

From beneath, it appeared, the pile of dead stirred.

Branch blinked.

As if getting comfortable, the bones rustled again.

'f.u.c.king Serbs,' McDaniels cursed.

No one disputed the indictment.

Of late, the Serbs had a way of making themselves the theory of choice.

Those tales of children being forced to eat their fathers' livers, of women being raped for months on end, of every perversion... they were true. Every side had committed atrocities in the name of G.o.d or history or boundaries or revenge.

But of all the factions, the Serbs were the best known for trying to erase their sins. Until the First Cav put a stop to it, the Serbs had raced about excavating ma.s.s graves and dumping the remains down mine shafts or grating them to fertilizer with heavy machinery.

Strangely, their terrible industry gave Branch hope. In destroying evidence of their crime, the Serbs were trying to escape punishment or blame. But on top of that - or within it - what if evil could not exist without guilt? What if this was their punishment? What if this was penance?

'So what's it going to be, Bob?'

Branch looked up, less at the voice than at its liberty in front of subordinates.

For Bob was the colonel. Which meant his inquisitor could only be Maria-Christina Chambers, queen of the ghouls, formidable in her own right. Branch had not seen her when he came into the room.

A pathology prof on sabbatical from OU, Chambers had the gray hair and pedigree to mix with whomever she wanted. As a nurse, she'd seen more combat in Vietnam than most Green Beanies. Legend had it, she'd even taken up a rifle during Tet. She despised microbrew, swore by Coors, and was forever kicking dirt clods or talking crops like a Kansas farmboy. Soldiers liked her, including Branch. As well, the Colonel - Bob - and Christie had grown to be friends. But not over this particular issue.

'We going to dodge the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds again?'

The room fell to such quiet, Branch could hear the captain pressing keys on her keyboard.

'Dr. Chambers...' A corporal tried heading her off.

Chambers cut him short. 'p.i.s.s off, I'm talking to your boss.'

'Christie,' the colonel pleaded.

Chambers was having none of it this morning, though. To her credit, she was unarmed this time, not a flask in sight. She glared.

The colonel said, 'Dodge?'

'Yes.'

'What more do you want us to do, Christie?'

Every bulletin board in camp dutifully carried NATO's Wanted poster. Fifty-four men charged with the worst war crimes graced the poster. IFOR, the Implementation Forces, was tasked with apprehending every man it found. Miraculously, despite nine months in country and an extensive intelligence setup, IFOR had found not one of them. On several notorious occasions, IFOR had literally turned its head in order to not see what was right in front of them.

The lesson had been learned in Somalia. While hunting a tyrant, twenty-four Rangers had been trapped, slaughtered, and dragged by their heels behind the armed trucks called Technicals. Branch himself had missed dying in that alley by a matter of minutes.

Here the idea was to return every troop home - alive and well - by Christmas. Self-preservation was a very popular idea. Even over testimony. Even over justice.

'You know what they're up to,' Chambers said.

The ma.s.s of bones danced within the s.h.i.+mmering nitrogen bloom.

'Actually I don't.'

Chambers was undaunted. She was downright grand. '”I will allow no atrocity to occur in my presence,”' she quoted to the colonel.

It was a clever bit of insubordination, her way of declaring that she and her scientists were not alone in their disgust. The quote came from the colonel's very own Rangers. During their first month in Bosnia, a patrol had stumbled upon a rape in progress, only to be ordered to stand back and not intervene. Word had spread of the incident. Outraged, mere privates in this and other camps had taken it upon themselves to author their own code of conduct. A hundred years ago, any army in the world would have taken a whip to such impudence. Twenty years ago, JAG would have fried some a.s.s. But in the modern volunteer Army, it was allowed to be called a bottom-up initiative. Rule Six, they called it.

'I see no atrocity,' the colonel said. 'I see no Serbs at work. No human actor at all. It could be animals.'

'G.o.ddammit, Bob.' They'd been through it a dozen times, though never in public this way.

'In the name of decency,' Chambers said, 'if we can't raise our sword against evil...' She heard the cliche coming together out of her own mouth and abandoned it.

'Look.' She started over. 'My people located Zulu Four, opened it, spent five valuable days excavating the top layer of bodies. That was before this G.o.ddam rain shut us down. This is by far the largest ma.s.sacre site. There's at least another eight hundred bodies in there. So far, our doc.u.mentation has been impeccable. The evidence that comes out of Zulu Four is going to convict the worst of the bad guys, if we can just finish the job. I'm not willing to see it all destroyed by G.o.ddam human wolverines. It's bad enough they engineered a ma.s.sacre, but then to despoil the dead? It's your job to guard that site.'

'It is not our job,' said the colonel. 'Guarding graves is not our job.'

'Human rights depends -'

'Human rights is not our job.'

A burst of radio static eddied, became words, became silence.

'I see a grave settling beneath ten days of rain,' the colonel said. 'I see nature at work. Nothing more.'

'For once, let's be certain,' Chambers said. 'That's all I'm asking.'

'No.'