Free Dog Tags by David Rosenfelt Page B

he had resigned himself to putting in his time and going home. Erskine had no role in that decision
     one way or the other.
    Then came that summer day and an event that was unusual for a number of reasons. The United States, eager to demonstrate what
     it called a return to normalcy of the country, had invited a number of major players in American private business and finance
     to meet with Iraqi leaders, in and out of the government.
    Nothing of enormous consequence was to be discussed; those things generally got decided in far more private settings. This
     was for show, and was held outside the safety and security of the Green Zone as a symbolic way of telling the world that Iraq
     was ready to take its place in the world community.
    A brief part of the event was to be held outdoors. That brevity was dictated by the oppressive heat, as well as the obvious
     fact that security was more difficult to maintain outdoors. But the authorities wanted the citizenry to be there and be a
     part of it, and more important, they wanted television to beam pictures of those participating Iraqi citizens around the world.
    Security was jointly planned and executed by the American military and Iraqi police, with Erskine in charge of the American
     end of things. It was understood but unspoken that he would therefore be in the lead position for the entire operation.
    Billy, like just about every other soldier or MP stationed there, was assigned a role in the operation. He was not at one
     of the checkpoints through which citizens were admitted into the area; his taskwas a more general one of being on patrol inside and looking for anything suspicious.
    “I saw this girl,” he says. “She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, although I’m usually not that good a judge of age.
     There was something about her that caught my attention.”
    “What was it?” I ask.
    He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe something about the eyes. They were afraid, but fear is something you saw a lot of over there.
     Anyway, I wasn’t too worried, because if she had a weapon, she would have been stopped at the checkpoint.”
    “So what did you do?”
    “I watched her for a while. That was really the only job I had that day, to watch for something suspicious, and I thought
     that she qualified. She walked pretty close to the stand that was set up, where the dignitaries were. But that wasn’t unusual,
     because that’s what everybody was there to see.”
    He’s talking slowly, carefully and with emotion, and I wonder if this is the first time he’s told the story out loud.
    “I watched her for about five minutes, and she was just standing there. She didn’t seem to have any interest in what was going
     on, and it wasn’t like she was there with any friends. After a while I stopped watching, because if she was going to do anything,
     by that point she would have done it already.
    “Anyway, I walked away from her, which is the only reason I’m alive today. A few minutes later I looked back in her direction,
     but I couldn’t see her. All I saw was a wall of flame shooting up, and these bleachers that had been constructed were coming
     down on me. They pinned me down and landed on what used to be my leg, but I don’t remember much of it.”
    “How many people were killed?” I ask.
    “Eighteen, with another seventy-one badly wounded. The Iraqi oil minister was killed, a guy by the name of Yasir al-Hakim.He was most likely the target. Two of the dead were American businessmen.”
    “Where does Erskine fit in?”
    He shrugs. “You want to know what I know? Or what I think?”
    “Start with what you know,” I say.
    “Nothing.”
    “Then let’s try what you think.”
    “The Iraqi that was killed… the oil minister, al-Hakim… he was new to that job, and the word was that he was going to clean
     up the corruption. And believe me, there was plenty of corruption to clean up. And I think Erskine was in position to have
     a piece of it.”
    “So you