Military prison for the rest of my life?
“I need you to contact my son and tell him I’m all right,” said Wingo. “I don’t want him to worry.”
Wingo heard South clear his throat. “That’s not possible,” said South.
“Why not? He was told I was MIA. Just tell him I’ve been found. I don’t want him to worry about me.”
“He doesn’t think you’re MIA.” South paused. “He was told you were KIA.”
Wingo didn’t say anything for five beats. “What the hell are you talking about?” he said in a deadly whisper.
“The chances were very high you would not come back alive, Wingo.”
“I’m not dead yet.”
“It’s done. It can’t be undone without doing huge damage to the mission. Even more damage,” he added.
“I can’t believe this. My son thinks I’m dead? What idiot authorized that?” Wingo barked.
“You have no one to blame but yourself. We thought you were dead. You didn’t report in.”
“I couldn’t report in. I had no way to report in until just now.”
“Well, you have a lot more to worry about than that, soldier,” South said. “Are you still in country? I can send a chopper or a Humvee depending on where you are.”
“I’m not in country,” lied Wingo, his head still spinning.
South spoke slowly and with great deliberation. “Tell me exactly where you are and I will send people to pick you up.”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Wingo!”
“Next time I call I would appreciate some real answers, instead of bullshit. And if anything happens to my son, anything, because of this, I will hold you personally responsible.”
“Wingo!”
But Wingo had already clicked off. And then he turned off his phone. He’d already disabled the GPS chip in it. He knew that South had been stationed in Kabul, so the good colonel was probably within fifteen minutes by car from him. But Wingo was not hanging around Kabul. Or Afghanistan.
He started walking. It was clear from what South had said and what he had left unspoken that Wingo was being set up as the fall guy on this.
But what felt like a dozen AR-15 rounds penetrating his body was the thought of Tyler believing his dad was dead.
He tightened his knapsack strap and picked up his pace. Inside the knapsack was everything he had. But South knew about the IDs he’d been given, which meant he couldn’t use them or the next thing he’d be facing was a court-martial. He had to get out of Afghanistan, through Pakistan and into India. He could lose himself in New Delhi or Mumbai and then figure out a new course of action. It would also give him time to change his appearance and construct a new ID, because he wasn’t planning on staying in India. His ultimate destination was home. He was going to make this right somehow.
He looked down at his phone and turned it on. Should he call his son? He hesitated, trying to think through what such an action might do. Finally, he compromised with himself. He thumbed in a carefully worded email and hit send.
Then he hurried off.
Thousands of miles away Tyler Wingo’s phone buzzed. And a hand reached for the phone.
And nothing would ever be the same again.
CHAPTER
7
THE OARS CUT CLEANLY THROUGH the murky water.