“I launched the missile that killed Salter. In Afghanistan the drone strikes were military, but in Pakistan they were CIA. The CIA had their own drones, but they used us to fly them. They wouldn’t tell us shit, but they always thanked us for killing their targets. Very polite that way.”
Salter’s mother was a Pakistani who had married an American decades ago and moved to New York. Her twenty-four-year-old son, Hakim, got it in his head to go teach school in the village where she was born. Taliban came through, but did so without killing or kidnapping Salter, and that got the CIA wondering what was up with that. Allegedly, Salter conspired or aided Taliban soldiers, but as far as I knew, no evidence was ever offered. That was the game nowadays. If you lack evidence, you make allusions and let imagination and fear go to work. Innuendo stands in for truth.
Officially, Hakim Salter was unlucky collateral damage in a drone strike on Taliban terrorists. Off the record, a different story was leaked to quiet the media. That version said Salter’s pilgrimage to his mother’s birthplace was far from innocent. Those whispers inflamed the family. They went to the New York Times and found an ambitious reporter who was interested enough, and for a news cycle or two, the NYT reporter’s article on Salter’s death was national news.
“I was on trigger, ready to go, but they made us wait until the kid came back into the courtyard.”
“They wanted you to wait for Salter?”
“You got it. We circled and waited. I saw his mom crying on CNN. She said he was over there staying with her relatives and was friendly to Taliban fighters so they wouldn’t kill him. Maybe they would have or kidnapped him, but I’m pretty sure he was there trying to do good. I took him out with a badass missile called Special K. That’s what fucked me up, Grale. No, that’s not what did me, but it was the one that put me over. Those Taliban were my last recorded kills. Up the chain they would have counted Salter, too, if they could have.”
“Salter was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I know you, G-man, you don’t believe that shit. Bottom line is, we took out an American without any real proof of anything, and I compromised myself.”
“Come on, you lived with collateral damage for a long time.”
“Hakim Salter wasn’t collateral damage. He got wasted because it was convenient. They had questions about him, and taking him out was easier than keeping track of him. Check it out with Phil Ramer if you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t know a Phil Ramer. Who is he?”
“An Aussie pilot we were training. He was on sensor, meaning he was operating the laser targeting. It’s how a launch works. Ask Captain Kern tonight what really happened.”
Beatty pulled the flash drive out of the laptop and handed it to me.
“There’s more tape of surveillance here on this.”
“I’ll watch it.”
I slipped the memory stick into my pocket and walked out to my car. From the deck railing, Beatty called, “Happy Fourth of July, G-man! I’m buying dinner at that steak place next time I see you. I’ll call you.”
When I turned onto North Las Vegas Boulevard I was less than fifteen minutes from the Alagara. I could easily have waited until the party to talk with Jim about Hakim Salter, or taken it up another day and left the holiday a holiday, but I brought up Jim’s number and called.
2
“Where are you, bud? Melissa just asked me to find you.”
Jim laughed. He liked the idea of my older sister locking in on me. He probably visualized a target.
“She’s saying you promised to make it on time this year.”
“I’m ten minutes from you. I had to make a stop. Save me a beer.”
“What stop could be more important than this party?”
Jim sounded upbeat. I heard laughter and voices in the background, the party well under way.
“I checked on Beatty. He sent me a suicide text last night.”
“And you texted back and left him messages and didn’t hear from him today, so you stopped by.”
“That’s about right. I just left Wunderland.”
“You’re his backstop. He knows you’ll check on him. It’s time to break the cycle. I hear his business is working, and he’s making good money.” After a beat he added, “You know he’s invited to this party.”
“Yeah, he said he would have come this year but has a new job starting in the morning.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s pride. He doesn’t want to stand around with pilots he flew with and chat about teaching farmers how to fly agricultural drones.”
“Whatever. He needs to get over it. They’re still his friends. It’s time to leave that refugee camp he lives in.”