Silken Prey

of the men had tried to resist and was shot and killed. The others had not resisted and were frisked and cuffed at both the hands and the feet and made to lie facedown on the floor, Rodriguez said.
    When they’d launched the raid, they’d simultaneously called for helicopter support, which was waiting. But within minutes after the men in the house had been subdued, the raiders began taking heavy fire from neighboring houses.
    “The choppers included a gunship, and Rodriguez said that from the air, they could see what looked like muzzle flashes from dozens of weapons,” Flowers said. “That was not supposed to happen. They realized pretty quickly that they weren’t going to be able to haul a bunch of bound prisoners out of there, so they decided to run for it.”
    The attacking team did a hopscotch retreat back along the ridge, to where they could be picked up by the Blackhawk transport helicopters, with the gunships keeping the Taliban shooters out of their hair.
    “Rodriguez and Carver were supposed to be the last men out of the house,” Flowers said. “Carver carried a SAW—that’s a light machine gun—and he went last because he could really lay down a big volume of covering fire. Rodriguez went, but then he heard smaller-arms firing from the house, and ran back because he thought some of the Taliban had gotten inside and Carver would need help. What he found was, Carver had executed the prisoners, shooting them in the head with his personal sidearm, a nine-millimeter Beretta. Rodriguez didn’t have time to investigate, or anything, this all happened in a few seconds, and then they were running for their lives. When they got back to their base, he reported what he’d seen. He was kinda freaked out. Carver denied it, said that some Taliban had broken through the back of the house, and if any prisoners were dead, they were killed in the firefight. Rodriguez said that the gunships had video, and the video didn’t show an attack on the back of the house, but it could have happened. Eventually . . . well, you know what happened. The army got rid of Carver and Rodriguez both.”
    Rodriguez could have stayed in, Flowers said, but after reporting Carver’s action, thought he’d never be trusted again by the special ops people. “That’s all Rodriguez was interested in—special ops. He didn’t want to be in a regular outfit. But he said that he’d heard other things about Carver—that Carver had always been the first to shoot, that there was at least one other incident—Rodriguez called it an incident—in which civilians had been killed, and nobody had done anything about it. Rodriguez says that Carver was a killer, and that a lot of other people knew it, and that quite a few of them didn’t like it. So, they got rid of him.”
    “Covered it up,” Lucas said.
    “Yeah, that’s what it amounted to, although I don’t know what kind of investigation could have been done, given the situation,” Flowers said. “Still, I think you might be able to threaten Carver with exposure, tell him that he’ll wind up in Leavenworth, and he might believe you. I’m not sure that there’s any possibility of a real follow-through on that. At least, not in time to do any good in your case.”
    “All right,” Lucas said. “You recorded all of this?”
    “Yeah, of course. If you want me to, I could stay here, transcribe it, and get Rodriguez to sign it.”
    “Do that,” Lucas said. “But try to get back tonight or tomorrow morning. We might need to stick the document up Carver’s nose.”
    “Probably gonna be tomorrow morning,” Flowers said. “I don’t think I’ll get the docs done in time to catch the afternoon plane.”
    “Then get the docs,” Lucas said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    •   •   •
    D EL, S HRAKE, AND J ENKINS watched Lucas make notes, and five minutes later call Carver. Carver came up on the phone almost instantly. He said, “Yeah.”
    “This is Davenport, the cop that’s been following you around.”
    “How’d you get this number?”
    “I’m a cop,” Lucas said. “I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you right away, and somewhere private, where Dannon and Grant aren’t around.”
    “I don’t think I want to do that,” Carver said, and the line went dead.
    “Well, shit,” Lucas said.
    “You’re a smooth talker,” Del said.
    “I wonder if he’s got a smartphone,” Lucas said. He sent a text: “Six executed in Afghanistan. Want to hear the