“Blood Brothers” represents his first published fiction.
Blood
Brothers
by Michael Van Ornum
Second
Lieutenant Charlemagne ‘Charlie’ Brown banged his knee on
the humvee’s dash, adding pain to his frustration as he
watched the dust cloud hide Tiamo Abd al Jabbar’s stryker
brigade escort. “Catch him,” he ordered Private First Class
Caroll. The humvee surged forward.
Don’t tell
me you
have new orders, Charlie thought. We have orders: ensure
the road to Khandahar is clear. You just want to avenge
your wounded pride on an innocent girl. And for what?
Because she had the guts to stand up to you? He imagined
himself an avenging angel swooping down on the runaway
Afghani officer. It helped appease his guilt for
encouraging the girl to be more independent.
“Any radio contact?” he yelled over the rushing wind.
“None sir,” a soldier behind him said. “Unable to confirm
Tiamo’s orders.”
Charlie swore. Should’ve checked the job assignments at the
base before we left, he thought. Afghani soldiers—even
those in military police—had a way of disappearing whenever
Tiamo did something illegal. What justice allowed a man
like Tiamo to rape his own country? The dust trail left the
main road, leaving Charlie with an unpleasant decision.
Intel said the road to Khandahar was clear but the side
roads...well, increased Taliban activity made anything off
the cleared route suspect.
“He be back,” an Afghani soldier said. “We do what we told.
Everything all right.”
“No, it’s not ‘all right’,” snapped Charlie. He directed
PFC Caroll to pursue.
I’d be twice damned, he thought, once for encouraging the
girl and then for doing nothing to protect her. The fist of
guilt and injustice hammered at Charlie; his knee throbbed
with pain.
He turned to the Afghani and unloaded. “Do you have any
idea we’re here, why Americans are here?”
The Afghani shook his head and moved a little closer to the
door, away from Charlie’s passion.
“Freedom, that’s what. Operation Enduring
Freedom.
Something your five buddies ahead don’t get. And if they’ve
done anything,
anything to
violate—”
That girl.
“—that freedom...”
*
* *
The memory faded. Charlie shook his head and his office
came into focus around him—no Afghan mountains, no dusty
roads, just a small room with the gold-embossed “Colonel
Charlemagne Brown: Director of CID Agent Training” title
glinting from his door. Twenty-five years ago and it still
felt like yesterday. The military’s CID training facility
at Fort Leonard Wood was a long way from Afghanistan. The
portrait of his brother in an Army private’s uniform,
marred by a white circle in the center, stared at him from
the rear wall. A strong chin, arching brow, and confident
gaze mirrored Charlie’s features from two dozen years ago.
Time had since begun tinting his dark brown hair with
streaks of gray, plowing light furrows through his forehead
and planting small, dark spots on his face and hands as a
promise of things to come.
His secretary’s image appeared on a holographic screen and
demanded his attention.
“Sir? A Chief Jacob Ladonna is here for you. Should I send
him in?”
“Give me five minutes. Thank you.” Charlie tapped the
screen closed and accessed the graduate’s profile for
review.
Chief Ladonna looked promising: top grades in his class and
student leadership positions. Charlie accessed the Chief’s
social history: only child, father unknown. Mother worked
as a civilian cook on the base—he’d seen her many times,
watched the boy grow into a man, for that matter. Career
goals? Aspirations to work in Secret Service—that could
work to his advantage.
A polite knock on his door announced the man behind the
profile. Chief Jacob Ladonna had the wiry strength of a
marathon runner with a shock of unruly black hair, piercing
gray eyes, and a posture that challenged the world around
him. He saluted. “Chief Ladonna reporting as ordered, sir.”
“At ease,” Charlie said, motioning him into a stuffed
leather chair opposite his desk. “You’re a CID Agent,
Chief. Why are you taking this externship instead of an
assignment?”
The Chief shifted in his chair. The corner of his mouth
twitched. “Sir? I’m ...not sure what you want. Your
lectures on ethics, justice, morality...” He looked at the
ceiling, the floor, then leaned back in resignation.
“...they inspired me and I want to learn more. From you.”
“To learn more.” Charlie closed the holographic screen. “My
father named my brother and me after Emperors Valentine and
Charlemagne. It’s a sad truth that human morals and ethics
have advanced little since their time.” Charlie strode over
to a display case filled with a collection of knives from
medieval to modern. “Your challenge is to rise above the
inertia, to be the eyes of our blind lady of justice. And
yet...what balances a life on her scales?” He withdrew a
short blade with the barest hint of a curve. “This blade is
used for seppuku, the honorable way for a samurai warrior
to end his own life. Yet the same blade that preserves
honor can be used for murder. One act restores balance, the
other destroys it. The best agents don’t investigate
crimes, they investigate people.” Charlie returned the
knife to the case and jabbed his own chest with his fingers
as if testing steel.
“What you need is in here. It’s not learned, it’s earned.
It’s not taught, it’s sought. To seek and understand the
true nature of Justice, that’s why
you are
here.” Charlie strode to his chair behind the desk.
“Your assignment is to give me a full report on the reason
Army stryker brigade 72 failed to reach Khandahar
twenty-five years ago—11 August 2003.”
Chief Ladonna’s gaze fell.
“This is more than a research assignment, Chief. This case
has personal meaning for me. Give me your report in three
days. If you have the case solved by then, you’ll have my
personal recommendation to the Secret Service and more.
Dismissed.”
Chief Ladonna stood and saluted. “Yes sir.”
And so it is done, Charlie thought. There’s no turning
back.
Charlie left not long after the Chief did and, as always,
paused before the portrait of his brother.He touched his
lips, then the picture’s center, where only canvas showed
through. “Perhaps this is the one that brings an end,” he
said softly.
*
* *
The Secret Service—and with the Colonel’s recommendation!
Pride made Jacob run all the way to the computer lab in
Thurman Hall.
Well into the
night, he signed off the network with gigabytes of
information stored in his palm-top. What more was there to
know? he asked himself. The stryker brigade hit an
improvised explosive device—an
IED—and
blew up. Finding clues would be so much easier with Red
Dragon, the laptop he’d once customized with illegal
components designed for hacking. But he couldn’t afford to
go there. A CID Agent stood for truth and justice: Assist,
Protect, Defend. Jacob shook his head. Just be glad you
never got caught, he told himself.
Jacob pulled out his palm-top and called up the personnel
file of one of the victims: Valentine Brown. He recognized
the picture, of course – it was the same picture that hung
in the Colonel’s office. Dredging up the past must be
painful. Why would the Colonel want
this investigation
opened?
The details of the case swirled about his head as he drove
to his apartment. The signature on the Commanding Officer’s
report, or CO-report, said C. Brown—could that be the same
man as the Colonel? If he was there, why investigate the
case at all? And why were the autopsy reports of the
victims so similar: All five men dead from an arterial
bleed? What was in that IED, shrapnel with guidance
systems? No, the Colonel wanted him to find something.
Thoughts of the case plagued his dreams that night, growing
into a continuous loop of a stryker brigade’s humvee
running over the IED. Metal twisted and tore with a shrill,
screeching ring.
Jacob’s eyes flew open. The phone in the kitchen gave
another ring before voicemail kicked on. He rolled over and
checked the time—four a.m.? His palmtop buzzed, chattering
on the surface of the night-stand. Jacob frowned. Only
urgent messages got transferred to the palmtop. The
darkness sat heavy and still as he felt in the direction of
the palmtop’s blinking green light and activated the
holographic screen.
A voice altered into a hollow, mechanical sound, filled the
room; the blank screen cast a green glow across his bed.
“Dig in the past and whatever floats up stinks of death.
Keep your hands clean. Drop the case.”
Jacob’s mind raced as he used the palmtop to search the
Fort’s communications server. The caller’s ID had to be
there somewhere. Screen after screen gave him the same
answer: Nothing. The server had shut down at four a.m. for
scheduled maintenance. Jacob closed the palmtop in disgust.
Only the Colonel knew what he was working on...unless the
files were tagged. Why would someone watch files decades
old? For a moment, Jacob glimpsed something in the case
that was dark and hidden, and then it was gone.
*
* *
Charlie gripped the door’s armrest as the humvee bounced
along a road designed more for goats than vehicles. Great
boulders sat like hungry teeth in the sloping ground below.
“‘Ware Taliban, nine o’clock,” PFC Caroll called. A man
with a gun ducked out of sight behind a rock—Taliban until
proven otherwise.
Charlie ordered a halt. “Radio contact?”
“Nothing.”
Charlie squeezed the armrest harder. “Now we
have to
wait for our escort to return,” he said. He ordered the
humvee into the shadow of a large scrub brush. At least
Tiamo won’t see us until it’s too late, he thought. And
heaven help you if you’ve done anything to that girl.
In his heart, he knew this wasn’t about the Afghani girl.
Yes, he’d encouraged her to be independent, to experience
what freedom meant. When rumors said she fended off Tiamo’s
desires with a knee to his groin, Charlie was proud. This
is what we came here for, he thought, this is what the
country needs.
No, this was bigger than the girl. Tiamo was trying to
extinguish the spark of freedom that Charlie, his brother,
and the rest of the army were risking their lives for. It
was about protecting that freedom. It was about bringing
evil to justice. Purging his guilt was a side-benefit.
*
* *
Chief Ladonna’s knock brought Charlie out of his memories
and back into his office.
“Chief, have a seat. Find anything?” Of course he had;
Charlie could see it in the Chief’s eyes.
“Thank you, sir,” said Chief Ladonna, “but I won’t be
long.”
Charlie nodded.
The Chief asked, “Sir. What is your role in this
investigation?”
Good, Charlie thought, the difference between real life and
classrooms was sinking in. “What did you find?”
“Your brother was killed in that incident, sir.”
“Yes. War is unfortunate,” said Charlie, his voice taking a
hard edge. Discussing his brother’s death never got easier.
Never.
“And yet you assign the case to a rookie agent. Why? Sir.”
The challenge caught Charlie unprepared; no one had ever
challenged him about the case before. “If the case is too
difficult, I’ll find another extern.”
“You use your brother’s death as a training exercise? With
all due respect, I thought you a man of principles, sir.”
Charlie rose from his chair with old pain and anger pouring
through fresh wounds. “Val is NOT a training exercise. He’s
closer to me than anyone living and I’ll have you stripped
of rank before hearing you speak of him like that again.
Is...that...clear?”
Chief Ladonna met his gaze. “Your name is on the CO-report,
you were there. What can I tell you that you don’t already
know?” He opened the door to leave. “There is no case.
There is no externship. Sir.”
Val’s portrait stared down at Charlie, accusing him of
failure, taunting him, echoing Charlie’s thoughts and
fears. His mind churned. Not another year, I can’t do this
for another year.
“Wait!” Charlie called. “Just...wait.” He steadied himself
with a deep breath. “Val was murdered,” he admitted. Saying
those words was like giving up a piece of his soul.
Chief Ladonna’s hand fell from the door in surprise.
“I
honor his
memory with this externship in the hopes that his killer
may be brought to justice,” Charlie said.
The Chief bowed his head. “I’m sorry, sir. If you’ll lift
the locks on my account I’ll get back to work.”
“Locks?”
Chief Ladonna told him about the early morning phone call.
“...and when I came in, I discovered the files had tracers
on them. My account is locked down. That wasn’t you?”
Charlie shook his head. “They’ll be lifted by tomorrow.”
“In Afghanistan—can you tell me your side of what
happened?”
“Nothing that isn’t already in the CO-report,” Charlie
said, settling behind the safety of his desk once more.
“Dismissed.”
*
* *
Without network access, Jacob passed the time reviewing
what files he had and reflecting on his confrontation with
the Colonel: It was a bitter-sweet victory. Though he’d
confirmed the Colonel was present at the incident, the
man’s personal agenda remained hidden. And somewhere in the
exchange, Jacob had lost self-respect. How could I goad him
like that? he wondered. It was like a blister on his foot
after half a march.
Before lunch the next day, his palmtop buzzed with a call
from his mother.
“Got time for a personal assignment?” she asked.
“What’s going on?”
“I got canned, that’s what. Boss goes on vacation and
someone I never seen before comes along and gives me the
pink slip. Said he was keeping the muck from floating up or
some-such nonsense.”
Jacob stiffened. “Who said this, Ma?” he asked, sharper
than intended.
“Don’t know—wait...last name was Caroll, I think.”
The name sounded familiar. “Hang on a sec.” Jacob swapped
the call for the CO-report on his palmtop. PFC Caroll was
listed as a team member—another coincidence? Jacob accessed
the Fort’s civilian personnel biographies: Thomas Caroll’s
enlistment ended fifteen years ago. He now worked at the
Fort as a manager in the information technology department.
“I’m back, Ma. Just wait all right? I can fix this.” He
closed the call and jammed the palmtop into its case on his
belt. His mother! What was so important about this
investigation? He walked quickly through the halls pausing
only to read a directory that gave him directions to
Caroll’s office.
Thomas Caroll sat eating at his desk when Jacob burst in.
Caroll’s neat uniform and shaved head contrasted with the
jumble of his office yet spoke of a purposeful
deliberateness designed to create a particular impression.
Like the phone call. Like Jacob’s locked accounts. Like his
mother’s job.
“What do you want?” Jacob demanded.
Caroll looked at Jacob, then his sandwich. “Mustard would
be nice.”
Jacob shut the door. “You know what I mean.”
Caroll dusted bread crumbs from his shirt. “In that, you
are absolutely correct.” He opened a public call with the
holographic console on his desk.
“Mrs. Ladonna? This is Thomas Caroll. I’m so very sorry to
have caused such an inconvenience today. Your job is
reinstated; you can report to work as usual tomorrow. I
apologize for the abominable misunderstanding. The error is
entirely mine.”
“Misunderstanding? Well I—”
“Thank you Mrs. Ladonna.” Caroll closed the call and turned
back to Jacob. “I wondered what it would take to get you
here. Frankly, I’m surprised a man with your training took
so long.” He strode to the door, stepping carefully over
stray computer parts, wires, and chipsets on the floor.
“Let’s talk. Outside.”
*
* *
The sun dropped into the mountains of Afghanistan before
Charlie spotted a tell-tale dust cloud rising up to stain
the golden globe. Minutes later, Tiamo’s vehicle roared
past; Charlie sent the humvee surging after their escort.
He felt grim satisfaction at the surprised expressions on
the faces of the soldiers visible in the rear of the escort
– soldiers and a motionless body wrapped in blankets. The
girl! Rage and guilt mixed together, fueling an explosive
fury that burned white-hot.
“Taliban!” called PFC Caroll, slowing the humvee.
Tiamo’s escort dwindled into a dust cloud once more. The
road to Khandahar loomed like a forlorn finish line. The
dust cloud turned onto the main road, then changed into a
roiling mass of flame and ash as the first IED exploded.
Two more explosions transformed the road ahead into a hail
of stone and dirt. The Taliban had circled around to mine
the road behind them! A jeep appeared from the east,
lightly armed, and approached Tiamo’s wrecked escort.
Charlie barked out orders; PFC Caroll pulled hard on the
wheel and cut off its line of approach. At the sight of a
fully armored humvee, the Taliban jeep swerved and
disappeared behind the cover of a black smoke plume.
Soldiers in the rear of the humvee lay down a withering
fire and the jeep made a hasty retreat.
PFC Caroll skidded to a halt a hundred yards from the
smoking wreck of Tiamo’s vehicle.
“Keep ‘em off my back,” Charlie called, running for the
wreck. “Secure the area. I’ll check for survivors and radio
if I need you.” With a deep breath, he plunged through the
oily smoke.
“Got it,” PFC Caroll said.
*
* *
Thomas Caroll squinted at the gathering clouds in the
Missouri sky. “The body that was wrapped up in that humvee?
It wasn’t the Afghani girl we thought it would be...it was
Val, the Colonel’s brother. The poor guy had leave
cancelled and was transferred to Tiamo’s escort by the
Major—probably to keep an eye on Tiamo. Charlie lost it. He
swore he wouldn’t rest until his brother’s murderer saw
justice.” Caroll tapped Jacob firmly on his chest. “That’s
what this assignment is, to satisfy his delusion.”
“Tiamo died according to the CO-report,” Jacob protested.
“He must know that.”
“You believe the CO-report? I
wrote the
CO-report and gave it to Charlie to sign. Truth is, Tiamo’s
body was never found. Taliban jeep probably took him.
I
know I
dropped one of them, and the Afghani don’t keep dental
records. You want to know where Tiamo is? Take a good look
at the current trade advisor to the President of
Afghanistan.” The rain fell in spats but Caroll stood firm.
“Now you listen good, Chief. The Colonel’s a fine soldier,
a great man, and a good friend. If he...” His voice dropped
lower, “If he finds out Tiamo’s still alive, no force on
Earth’ll keep him here. He’ll destroy his career. He does
this every year, and every year I have to save him. Now
there’s the right thing to do and there’s the best thing.”
He gripped Jacob’s shoulder hard. “Do what’s best, Chief.”
Caroll returned to his office without a backward glance.
Jacob shivered. Yeah, he know what to do. Give the same
line as every other agent. Keep the peace. But what about
the Colonel’s peace? These charades had to end.
Jacob returned
to his apartment, reminding himself that he’d sworn never
to use Red Dragon again even as he opened the storage
closet next to his bed. Red Dragon was more than just a
laptop, it was a part of himself he’d fought to escape.
There had to be another way—a
legal way, Jacob told himself. He almost shut the closet,
but something the Colonel had said stopped him. “The blade
used for murder can restore balance.” Would restoring the
Colonel’s peace be worth losing his security rating, if not
his career? Jacob pulled a netswitcher and Red Dragon out
of the jumble of electronic parts piled on his closet
floor. For the Colonel, he thought as he wiped off a film
of dust, almost reverently, from the laptop’s
cover.
He booted up without a problem. Using his military account
as a trojan horse, Jacob bypassed traces, tags, and the
lighter security codes. It helped that none of the
information he sought was particularly sensitive. When he
was through with the military network, he logged out and
jumped into the Afghani government’s files. His resolve
kept him going through the night, pushing him until the sun
sent shafts of red light to pierce the windows of his room
and bleed across the bed. He squinted into the light and
closed the laptop.
Today is the day, he thought. Can I do this? The Red Dragon
had come through once again but the cost...Jacob wanted to
turn back time and take Caroll’s path. The scales of
Justice required much to balance the sins of the past.
Jacob leaned back and shut his eyes. He imagined himself in
the Secret Service, since that was as close as he would
ever get. He would lose his career if he ever explained how
he got the information. At least he knew the truth, the
cold, hard truth. The Colonel’s secret had to stay hidden.
Exhaustion wrestled Jacob to the bed. He set his alarm for
five hours and crawled under the covers.
*
* *
Charlie closed the holographic screen. The Chief didn’t log
into any base facilities this morning, and that disturbed
him. The files he had monitored over the past few days
carried new access dates; someone viewed them last night
and covered their tracks well. Jacob must have found
something.
Charlie opened the holographic screen again, accessed the
military’s GPS, and searched for Jacob Ladonna. A map
appeared with glowing crosshairs over the location of the
Chief’s ID badge. Charlie patched the coordinates over to
an electric transport cart and left his office. The cart’s
internal computer guided him silently down Demolition
Avenue to find a disheveled figure standing at the edge of
the dam on Big Piney River.
“Chief!” he called out. “Where’s my report?”
The Chief didn’t answer but spared a brief glance over his
shoulder as Charlie made his way to the dam’s edge. Charlie
was distracted by the water for a moment, so still at the
top of the dam yet so violent below—like the Chief’s eyes
right now. He could tell the Chief knew the truth. He’d
seen the same haunted look in the mirror too many times.
“I’ve nothing to report,” Jacob said.
“Nothing you
choose to
report.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“You passed, you know.” Charlie bent over and picked up a
rock. “You’re the first one I’d feel comfortable
recommending to the Secret Service.”
Jacob gave a bitter, barking laugh. “Too late. I
compromised my security status to get your answers.” His
shoulder’s sagged and his voice fell to a whisper. “I
thought I could give you peace, restore the balance.” He
sniffed and pinched his nose with his fingers. “It was
stupid. Sentiment. But you know what happened. I thought
you blacked out or something. I tried to give you every
excuse...”
Charlie nodded and reached out.
Jacob yanked his arm away and stared at Charlie, his eyes
reflecting the dull pain that tinged his voice. “You didn’t
know your brother was in the brigade; you thought he was
going on leave. You didn’t know.”
*
* *
Black smoke billowed past. Flames licked up from the
burning debris of the humvee, blown in half by the IED.
Charlie focused on the five soldiers that crewed Tiamo’s
brigade. Moans of pain mingled with the crack of expanding
metal. Soot and flame had blackened the faces of two men
beyond recognition. Two more lay pinned beneath the
vehicle’s frame while the last lay motionless on the
ground.
A man with a blackened face gurgled something. Charlie
pushed the remains of a seat and steering wheel away to
reveal a soldier in Afghan uniform. A luxurious lock of
hair with two earrings circled the man’s neck. Charlie
wanted to vomit. He shaved her? What else did Tiamo do? He
didn’t want to know. What would Tiamo do tomorrow? Next
month? Next year?
He was the avenging angel, his knife drawn without
thinking. The man’s throat oozed where shrapnel had grazed
him. Charlie used his blade to extend the wound into the
artery. A soldier cried out behind him. Witnesses! In a
panic, Charlie silenced them all in a similar fashion. It’s
merciful, he told himself. But where was the girl? He went
through the soldiers again. All men.
*
* *
“You couldn’t find the girl,” Jacob said, bringing Charlie
back to the dam in Missouri. “Caroll told me about her.”
Charlie stared at the ripples in the water, spreading as
the horrific event had done throughout his life. “No,” he
said, “they left her in the village. Val defended her.
Tiamo and his men settled for humiliation and shaved her
head. They beat Val unconscious, put him in an Afghan
uniform, and made him wear her hair.”
“So why do all this? Why have CID Agents investigating your
own crime?”
Charlie squeezed the rock in his hand, then let it fall.
“You’ve investigated the crime; did you investigate the
man?”
“That’s why I’m here, wondering where my life is going,”
Jacob said, fingering his ID badge as if to toss it into
the water. “I put everything I believed in on the line for
you. I believed in you.”
Charlie reached out and gently closed Jacob’s hand over the
ID badge. “I took justice into my own hands and paid a
terrible price. I spent my life, trying to balance the
scales of Justice. Don’t make my sin your own, Jacob. You
and the other agents were the grains of sand in my
hourglass.” Charlie held out his hands as if for cuffs.
“Take me in, Chief. My time is done.”
Jacob shook his head. “I thought a lot about that. You
don’t owe anything, least of all to me.” He turned and
started walking up the road to the Fort. “You have your
peace. Let me find mine.”
*
* *
The next morning, a call from Caroll interrupted Jacob’s
packing of his few belongings. Colonel Charlemagne Brown
had committed ritual suicide the night before.
“Thanks for letting me know,” Jacob said.
“The Colonel left a letter addressed to you.”
“I did the best thing.”
“You did what you did. Leave it at that.” Caroll closed the
call.
Jacob picked up the letter from the Colonel’s secretary
later that day.
Chief
Ladonna,
Though my life is over, it paves the way for yours to
begin. As promised, I left my recommendation that the
Secret Service accept you for training. You will hear from
them shortly. You have learned the nature of Justice and
the dangers of presumption. Do not throw that away. You are
shaken, but not beaten; have suffered blows but not fallen;
have severely tested your moral convictions and survived. I
can think of no better successor than you and as such, I
made you the sole inheritor in my will. As my brother
before me, let me be your conscience, your blood brother in
the bond we shared. I ask no repayment except that you
pursue Justice and Truth in all that you do.
Charlie
Jacob read the letter several times. Its words wrapped
around him, pulling the events of the past three days into
a new focus, and within that focus, a new life. Jacob moved
the Red Dragon from the packing box to the trash.
Copyright 2007 by Michael Van Ornum