Consequence by Eric Fair Page A

as organized and efficient. Assignments and duties were well laid out. But the arrival in El Paso is different. The process is confused and disorganized. There are men in uniform, but it doesn’t feel like the Army.
    The bus drops me off in front of a barracks complex at the base. A few of the other civilians ask the bus driver where they’re supposed to check in. They ask him which barracks they should stay in. They ask him what comes next. The bus driver doesn’t know any of these things. We unload our bags from underneath the bus and stack them on the sidewalk. Other civilians pass by and say, “Better hurry, there aren’t enough bunks for everyone.”
    The man next to me catches me rolling my eyes. We introduce ourselves and make a joke about quitting and going home. He says, “I could be home before my wife goes to sleep.” I say, “Me, too.” This is Michael Bagdasarov. He works for CACI. He is an interrogator. In less than five months we will return from Iraq together, both regretting having missed this first opportunity to go home to our wives.
    Groups of people start grabbing their bags and heading into the barracks. Bagdasarov and I stay put and allow the crowd to thin. When it does, there is a young man sitting on his luggage looking lost. This is John Blee. He has been hired by CACI as an intelligence analyst. He likes our joke about quitting and heading home to our wives. He has one, too. She lives in Texas. He says we should just rent a car so we can drive to her parents’ house, where they’d be happy to put us up for the night. It’s two hours away. John Blee will quit Iraq before Bagdasarov and I do. He’ll take a job at Guantánamo Bay.
    The three of us are alone. From the sidewalk we watch the other civilians traipse in and out of the numerous buildings within the complex, carrying their gear and looking for bunks. Blee says we should hurry and find a spot before they’re all gone. Bagdasarov and I tell him to wait. The group thins as it makes its way from building to building. When the group is done fighting for rooms, we carry our gear and find bunks in one of the buildings they never explored.
    In the morning we follow the crowds outside and make our way to an auditorium, where an Army sergeant gives a daily briefing. He tells us that as new arrivals we are required to report to a building where the Army will begin our in-processing. Bagdasarov asks the sergeant about CACI and where we might find our representatives. The sergeant says, “Never heard of them.” At the in-processing building we struggle to fill out paperwork. We say things like “I still don’t understand which block I’m supposed to fill in.” There is an Army corporal in charge and he tells us to check with our company representative. We tell him we work for CACI. He laughs. He says, “Oh, right, her, she only works on Thursdays.”
    On Thursday, after two full days in the barracks, we meet Michelle Fields. Michelle looks younger than Blee. She was hired three weeks ago. She has never worked for CACI in the past and she has never been to their headquarters in Virginia. She works in town as a dental assistant. She has no answers. We ask her how to fill out the empty spaces on the questionnaires. She says, “I was hoping you could tell me.” She hands us black tote bags that say “CACI.” Inside there are T-shirts, mouse pads, and a travel mug that says, “CACI, Ever Vigilant.” The three of us make more jokes about going home. Randy Kutcher and Mike Henson enter the room. Kutcher and Henson are the most recent CACI hires. They served in the Marines. They decline the tote bags. They make fun of us for accepting ours.
    Kutcher and Henson know each other from their time in the Marine Corps. While they never served in military intelligence, they did work in positions that required low-level security clearances. Kutcher, the