Zandra was horror-stricken. She couldn’t speak as nausea clawed at her throat.
After several moments, Remy inhaled a shaky breath and opened his eyes. “When Jaffar saw what Shaughnessy had done to his family, he tried to kill him. But as he pointed the gun at Shaughnessy, I couldn’t let him do it. So I shot him without thinking twice. When he fell to the floor, I went over to check his pulse. Before he died, he looked into my eyes and he...he condemned all of our souls to hell. I was the only one who spoke Arabic, so no one else understood what he’d said. But I did, and it’s haunted me ever since.”
“Oh, my God, Remy.” Zandra touched his thigh, feeling his muscles tighten beneath her hand. “I’m so sorry. What an unspeakable tragedy.”
His jaw hardened, grief and regret stamped into his features. “It was.”
Zandra rubbed his knee, trying to soothe him. “What happened after that night?”
He grimaced darkly. “The operation was a colossal clusterfuck. We’d not only lost our high-value target, we’d lost one of our own. Heads had to roll.” His lips twisted bitterly. “I was a convenient sacrificial lamb.”
Zandra was stunned and outraged at the injustice of it. “So that’s why you were discharged.”
He nodded tightly. “Shaughnessy wanted to cover his hide, so he accused me of misconduct and insubordination. Our commanding officer intervened to ensure that I received an honorable discharge.”
Zandra was livid. “And what about Shaughnessy? He slaughtered eight innocent people that night, including an unborn child. Why wasn’t an investigation launched? Why weren’t charges brought against him?”
“The Pentagon didn’t want the public to know,” Remy admitted grimly.
Zandra snorted. “How fucking typical.”
Remy pushed out a heavy breath. “You have to understand something. There are some classified missions that aren’t disclosed to the public for years. And then there are covert operations that will never see the light of day. The Fallujah op fell into the latter category.”
“So what happened to Shaughnessy? He’s the one who went rogue and botched the mission. He’s the reason you were forced to kill Jaffar. Did he at least get discharged?”
“No,” Remy answered in a low, embittered voice. “As I explained before, Shaughnessy hailed from a long line of decorated naval officers. No one wanted to tarnish that legacy.”
Zandra frowned, growing angrier by the second. “But he was obviously a loose cannon.”
“That’s true. He was. But he hadn’t always been.” A dark shadow fell over Remy’s face. “Four months before the Fallujah operation, he’d lost his best friend in Afghanistan. It devastated him. That night at Jaffar’s house, he looked into the faces of Jaffar’s family members, and all he could see were the insurgents who’d killed his childhood friend. It was too much for him, and he snapped.”
“Dear God,” Zandra murmured, shaking her head at the senselessness of the carnage. One tragedy begat another tragedy, and innocent lives were destroyed. When did it ever end?
“Shaughnessy wasn’t discharged,” Remy continued, “but he was reassigned out of the platoon to a desk job.” He paused, his eyes darkening. “Four days ago, he shot and killed himself.”
Zandra gasped, staring at Remy. “Oh, my God. Why?”
He pressed his lips into a grim line. “Knowing the type of man he was, my guess is he couldn’t go on living with the guilt of what he’d done that night.”