"The military claims depleted uranium is safe." Balenger shook his head in fierce disagreement. "But I hear it makes a Geiger counter click. We fired an awful lot of artillery shells in Desert Storm. The wind blew a lot of smoke and dust in our direction. It took years before I felt normal again. It ended my military career."

"That's when you became a cop?"

"I'm telling you, I'm not a cop. I drifted from job to job, mostly driving trucks. Then the second Iraq war happened." Balenger paused. He was getting close to his previous nightmare. Sweating, he wondered if he could make himself talk about it. No choice. I've got to, he thought. "Our military got overextended. Corporations trying to rebuild Iraq hired civilian guards for their convoys. Former special-operations personnel. The need was so great, they even accepted guys like me who'd been out of the service for a while. And the pay was fabulous. One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a year to make sure supply trucks didn't get ambushed."

"One hundred and twenty-five thousand?" Tod was impressed.

"A year. Then conditions deteriorated, and more convoys got hit, and the pay got even better: twenty thousand a month."

"Shit, you're rich."

"Not hardly. The companies paid by the month because not a lot of guys were willing to make themselves targets. You needed to have not much going for you at home. Bad job prospects. Nobody close to you. Like me. I mean, it was really crazy over there. Snipers and booby traps all along the road. Most guys didn't last long. Either they got killed, or they said 'To hell with this' and quit. In my case…" Balenger paused, listening to Vinnie pound with the crowbar. "I got a chance to collect only one paycheck."

"Only one? Shit, what happened?"

Finally, I've got them, Balenger thought. "I was guarding a convoy. We were attacked. An explosion knocked me unconscious." He rushed through it, not wanting to remember the pain and gunfire and screams. "The next thing I knew, I was tied to a chair in a filthy smelling room. Most of the smell came from a sack tied around my head."

Tod, Mack, and JD stared.

"And?" JD said.

"An Iraqi insurgent told me he was going to cut off my head."

37

Vinnie stopped pounding and looked at him.

In the silence, Cora sank to the floor, hugging her knees. Her eyes were vacant.

"Cut off your head?" Tod frowned.

"After hours of keeping me tied to that chair, a sack around my head, that's what they told me. I was sore from bruises and cuts. My bladder was full. I held it as long as I could. I pissed my pants. I sat in my urine and then my shit."

The memory seized him. He feared he'd throw up. He had the sense that he was talking faster and faster. "Cut off my head. But first they had to brag that they'd caught me. So they set up a video camera, and then of course, they had to prove who I was, so they took the sack off my head. After I quit blinking and squinting, I saw I was in a battered concrete-block room with a half-dozen men next to me. They were wearing hoods with holes for the eyes and mouth. The guy who threatened me-he was the only one who spoke English-had his hand stuck through a gap in his robe. He was holding something under there, and it didn't take a lot of thinking to know it was a sword. The video camera was on a tripod in front of me. It had a red light that kept winking, and the guy ordered me to say my name and who I worked for. He told me to beg all Americans to leave Iraq or else what was going to happen to me would happen to them."

Balenger knew he was talking too fast, but he couldn't control himself, just kept spewing out the words. "I don't know how long I'd been unconscious from the explosion, how long it had been since I'd had anything to eat and drink. Name, rank, and serial number. That's what they taught us in the Rangers. I sure as hell wasn't going to beg Americans to leave the country, but there was nothing wrong with buying time and saying my name. When I tried to speak, though, my voice made a croaking sound. They realized they needed to give me water before I could say anything. Somebody shoved a bottle to my lips. I swallowed. I felt water dripping off my chin. I swallowed some more. Then the bottle was yanked away, and the guy ordered me to say my name to the camera. I tried again, and they gave me more water, and the third time I tried to speak and couldn't, the guy who spoke English pulled out the sword. Seconds. Tick, tick, tick. No past. No future. Just now. Just that sword. I swore to myself that I'd make now last as long as possible. The guy drew back the sword."

Balenger told his story the way he always did, the same words, the same torrent, the way the psychiatrist always heard it for what might have been the hundredth time. "I don't know how, but I managed to say my name. He held back the sword and ordered me to say who I worked for. That was the same as rank and serial number. No harm in it. So I told the camera the company I worked for: Blackwater. Now. I kept making now last as long as possible. Then he ordered me to beg for my life. I thought, what's the harm in pleading? I knew it wouldn't do any good, but at least it kept now lasting longer. I couldn't do it, though."

Faster and faster. "Fear made my voice break. I was sobbing, and they had to give me more water, but I still couldn't force the words out, so the guy drew back the sword, and now was almost over, and suddenly the walls shook. The room filled with dust. Concrete blocks tumbled. My ears were ringing. The guys wearing hoods were shouting at each other. They yanked a door open. Sunlight blinded me. There was another explosion outside. Some grabbed rifles. Two of them threw me in another room, small, a dirt floor. They locked the door. I heard them running away. I heard another explosion. Gunfire. I was still tied to the chair when they threw me into the room. The chair broke when I landed. I twisted away from the shattered wood. Piss and shit were all over me. My hands were still tied behind me. But I could move, and as soon as I squirmed away from the chair, I forced my tied hands down under my hips and legs. Dislocated my right shoulder, but I got my hands in front of me. Like this." In the flashlights and the wavering candlelight, Balenger raised the hands secured with duct tape.

"And?" JD asked.

Balenger rushed on. "The gunfire and the explosions got worse. The room had a closed wooden shutter. I pulled at it, but it was secured from outside, so I grabbed the chair seat, and I pounded. I can't tell you how hard I pounded. Finally, I broke through the shutter. I squirmed through and fell on my dislocated shoulder. I didn't allow myself to faint from pain. I had to keep going. I had to keep now lasting longer. People were running in panic from the shots and the explosions, and the next explosion lifted me off my feet. It was shockingly close behind me. This time, I did pass out, and when I regained consciousness, I realized that the explosion came from the building where I was kept prisoner. A mortar round hit it and leveled it."

"And?" Tod asked.

"An American Ranger patrol found me. The company I worked for, Blackwater, arranged for me to have medical attention. I'd been in Iraq only two weeks. They gave me the full month of wages. They paid for me to fly home. I had an insurance policy they'd gotten for me. Fifty thousand if I was killed. Twenty-five thousand if I was injured. Twenty-five thousand. That's what I've been living on. The Veterans Hospital psychiatrist I go to says I have post-traumatic stress disorder. No shit. 'Stress' is right. The world's a waking nightmare. There's plenty of stress, especially if you try not to think about a guy wearing a hood who wants to cut off your head."