Chương 10
Whitaker’s face flushed.
Mercer continued, “You have spent forty years accepting decorations based partly on the account you now denounce.”
“I know.”
“Do you plan to return them?”
“If the review determines they were improperly awarded.”
Daniel looked at him.
Mercer laughed softly. “You always did know how to become honorable after the danger passed.”
The words struck cleanly.
Whitaker did not respond.
Daniel lifted the phone. “Who ordered the artillery?”
Mercer’s breathing was audible.
“Daniel, there were officials above us whose names will mean nothing to you now.”
“Try one.”
“I need to speak to counsel.”
“You had forty years.”
“And you had forty years to come forward.”
The porch went still.
Daniel’s voice lowered. “You know why I didn’t.”
“I know what you tell yourself.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you were offered reintegration. Quietly, yes. Imperfectly, yes. But you refused.”
Whitaker looked sharply at Daniel.
Emily’s eyes narrowed. “What reintegration?”
Daniel said nothing.
Mercer pressed on. “You were offered transfer to another unit under corrected records after a recovery period. You rejected it.”
“You wanted me to sign the false report.”
“You were asked to confirm that communications were degraded and the extraction was impossible.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You could not know the aviation threat picture.”
“I heard the pilot.”
“You heard one aircraft commander with limited intelligence.”
“And you heard six wounded men.”
Mercer’s voice cracked for the first time. “Do you think I don’t hear them now?”
No one spoke.
When Mercer continued, the control had returned, but not completely.
“You were my brother,” he said. “I signed the order that sent you. When they said you were dead, I informed your mother personally. She struck me in the face. When I learned you had survived, I was told that acknowledging you would reopen every decision and expose local people who had helped us. I chose the arrangement that kept you alive and out of prison.”
“You chose the arrangement that kept you promoted.”
“Yes,” Mercer said.
The admission carried no relief.
“Yes, that mattered. I had a wife. Three children. A career I believed served something larger than my shame. I told myself the report was ugly but necessary. Then each year made it harder to undo.”
Emily looked toward Whitaker. The two older men, enemies in so many details, had arrived at the same confession.
Daniel asked, “Who ordered the barrage?”
Mercer was silent long enough that a bird landed on the porch railing and flew away again.
“Brigadier General Hollis,” he said. “Regional command.”
Whitaker frowned. “Hollis died in 1997.”
“Yes.”
“Is there proof?”
“There was a written fire authorization. I retained a copy.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Where?”
“In my personal archive.”
“Why keep it?” Emily asked.
“Because cowardice and self-preservation are not the same as forgetting.”
“Will you provide it?”
Mercer breathed out.
“If Daniel agrees to meet me.”
“No,” Daniel said.
Emily said, “Yes.”
Daniel turned.
Mercer spoke quickly. “Tomorrow. My house in Virginia. No press. You may bring counsel.”
“You are bargaining with evidence,” Whitaker said.
“I am bargaining for one conversation with my brother before I surrender the document that will likely destroy what remains of my reputation.”
Daniel handed the phone to Whitaker and walked into the house.
Emily followed him to the hallway.
“You should go.”
“No.”
“He has proof.”
“Then he can send it.”
“He won’t.”
“That’s his choice.”
“It affects Keller’s family. It affects the pilot. It affects five other men.”
Daniel stopped near the stairs.
Emily came closer.
“You told me choices have consequences,” she said.
“When?”
“Every day of my life.”
“That doesn’t mean you quote me when I’m trying to leave.”
“You taught me not to let fear dress itself up as principle.”
“I was talking about taking chemistry.”
“You were talking about everything. You just didn’t know it.”
He looked at her.
She crossed her arms, and for a second he saw Susan so clearly that grief moved through him like a physical imbalance.
“Did Mom want you to reopen this?” Emily asked.
“She wanted me to tell you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I knew you would look at me differently.”
“I do.”
He absorbed the answer.
Emily’s face softened, but she did not withdraw it.
“I don’t know whether differently is worse,” she said. “I haven’t had time.”
Daniel sat on the bottom stair.
His knee was swelling beneath his jeans. He pressed his palm against it.
“I was good at being your father,” he said.
“You still are.”
“I knew how to do that.”
“You made pancakes shaped like states.”
“Poorly.”
“You drove twelve hours overnight because I forgot my uniform for the regional track meet.”
“You told me after I was already on the highway.”
“You sat through every terrible school concert.”
“The percussion section was strong.”
“It was not.”
He looked down.
Emily sat beside him.
“You were good at being my father,” she said. “But you decided that gave you permission to choose which truth I could handle.”
“I wanted you free of it.”
“You wanted yourself free of me knowing.”
He nodded after a moment.
“That too.”
The meeting took place the next afternoon at Stephen Mercer’s home outside Alexandria.
Daniel almost refused again when he saw the reporters waiting beyond the security checkpoint at the guest residence. His face had been on television all morning beside photographs of his truck, his house, and the military stadium. One network had obtained a copy of his old sealed deserter notation from an anonymous source. Another showed Whitaker’s official biography while commentators debated whether his decorations were compromised.
Emily’s commissioning portrait appeared in several reports.
She shut off the television.
May you like
They traveled in two vehicles with Colonel Reeves and Dr. Cho. Whitaker came separately, having been advised not to appear aligned with Daniel during the inquiry. Walter returned to Ohio after making Daniel promise not to let anyone confiscate the cassette without a receipt.
Mercer’s house stood behind a stone wall on a wooded road. It was large but not ostentatious, the kind of property whose expense hid in distance from neighbors and mature trees. A flag hung near the front door.
