Chapter 3 - Three Men in the Smoke
Aaron lived outside Fayetteville in a small house with a ramp he insisted he didn't need. He had built it himself because it made carrying groceries easier when his knee locked. Mara found him at his workbench repairing an old radio.
“You drove six hours,” he said without looking up.
“Four and a half.”
“You used to be bad at lying.”
On the wall above him hung a photograph of four soldiers beside a battered vehicle. Someone had cut away the right side, leaving a jagged white strip under the frame. Mara had seen the picture for years without asking why it was mutilated.
“Is this the photograph?”
Aaron covered it with his hand.
“Bell stood on the right,” he said. “He wasn't hurt. He was looking at the camera while we loaded the wounded.”
“Who took it?”
“Farid. Our interpreter. He had a cheap camera with an orange strap.”
Mara sat beside him. Aaron's left hand trembled whenever he tried to pinch a small screw. His injury had never been disputed; the circumstances of it had.
“Tell me what happened without trying to protect me,” she said.
A convoy had stopped outside a district clinic after a roadside blast. Aaron, then a staff sergeant, heard people inside a disabled support truck. He broke orders to remain with his security vehicle and helped pull out a wounded driver and a medic. An interpreter, Farid Rahimi, held the door while Aaron dragged the last man clear.
“Bell did help later,” Aaron said. “He carried the medical bag. That's the truth, and I won't steal it from him. But when the citation came out, it said he'd done what I did.”
“Why didn't you appeal?”
“I did. Twice. The witnesses' names were missing. Then I got out and wanted to sleep.”
He opened a drawer and handed her an ordinary white envelope. Inside were three letters from HonorLine. The foundation had invited him to verify his service, then offered to expedite his claims for a substantial fee. The latest thanked him for a consultation he had never scheduled.
“They called Mom too,” Aaron said. “They already knew my injury dates.”
May you like
Mara checked the return address. A charity tied to Bell had details from a file marked for restricted handling.
Aaron touched the cut edge of the photograph. “Farid kept another copy,” he whispered. “He sent it to someone before he disappeared.”
