face, but he was tightly wound up, like a man being led to the scaffold who just couldn’t bring himself to exchange pleasantries with the crowd.
I smiled back nicely. “Okay, we’ll get right down to business.” “Good.”
“We have just a few opening questions,” I said, placing the tape recorder on the table between us. “If, at any point, you don’t want to answer a question, that’s your right. I must warn you, however, that this is an official investigation, and if anything you say turns out later to be false, that can result in additional charges.”
Delbert and Morrow shot me a pair of “that was a fairly stupid thing to say” kind of looks. The man was already facing thirty-five charges of murder, among sundry other serious offenses, and here I was threatening him with chump change.
Had Sanchez been anything but an officer in the United States Army, then Delbert and Morrow might have had a point. But he was. And he therefore was likely to feel a certain stiffening in his backbone from my warning. An officer’s integrity was still a cherished relic.
“I understand,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “Please start with the mission of your team when you went into Kosovo.”
He leaned forward and cupped his hands tightly in front of his lips, which any professional interrogator will tell you is exactly the kind of gesture a man might make when he’s preparing to tell a few whoppers. So much for my warning.
“We were part of an operation called Guardian Angel. The KLA company we’d trained was being put into operation. Our job was to accompany them and provide assistance.”
“Assistance? What kind of assistance?”
“Continued training, help with planning operations, that kind of thing.”
“Weren’t they well trained enough to handle themselves?” “No.”
I withdrew a piece of paper from my bulging legal case. “I have here a copy of the evaluation you gave that team when their training ended. That’s your signature, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing at the tight, almost childlike scrawl at the bottom of the page.
He barely glanced at it. “Yes.”
“You said here they were ready.”
He stared coldly at the paper.“What I said was that they met the minimal standards each KLA company had to attain before they were certified.”
“Was something wrong with those standards?”
“Yes. Those standards are slightly below what a basic trainee gets in our army.We taught them just enough to get them killed,” he said with obvious bitterness in his voice.
Anyway, I moved on. “How was your relationship with your KLA company?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was it friendly? Professional? Personal? Impersonal?” “Professional.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“We were told to train them, so we did. It was a job and they were part of it.”
“Did you feel responsible for them?”
“No, I didn’t. It’s not our war, it’s theirs.”
“Good point,” I said.“Still, I’d think it would be awfully hard not to develop some feelings for them. Living and working together, exchanging stories about families, and—”
“Major, we both know where you’re trying to go with this.” “Where am I trying to go?”
“That when the KLA company got slaughtered, we went on some kind of bloody rampage and took revenge. That’s not what happened.”
“No?” I said, interested that he chose the word “slaughtered,” which carried interesting implications. I mean, there’re words like “were shot,” “died,” “got killed,” “were wiped out,” any of which connoted a milder fate than the words “got slaughtered,” in the food chain of death.
“Look, that’s what the press is reporting, but that’s not the way it happened.”
“No? Then tell me what happened.”
“After our KLA company got, uh, wiped out, we reported that back to Tenth Group headquarters. We were told to relocate our base camp and await instructions. So we did.We’d been there about two days
I smiled back nicely. “Okay, we’ll get right down to business.” “Good.”
“We have just a few opening questions,” I said, placing the tape recorder on the table between us. “If, at any point, you don’t want to answer a question, that’s your right. I must warn you, however, that this is an official investigation, and if anything you say turns out later to be false, that can result in additional charges.”
Delbert and Morrow shot me a pair of “that was a fairly stupid thing to say” kind of looks. The man was already facing thirty-five charges of murder, among sundry other serious offenses, and here I was threatening him with chump change.
Had Sanchez been anything but an officer in the United States Army, then Delbert and Morrow might have had a point. But he was. And he therefore was likely to feel a certain stiffening in his backbone from my warning. An officer’s integrity was still a cherished relic.
“I understand,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “Please start with the mission of your team when you went into Kosovo.”
He leaned forward and cupped his hands tightly in front of his lips, which any professional interrogator will tell you is exactly the kind of gesture a man might make when he’s preparing to tell a few whoppers. So much for my warning.
“We were part of an operation called Guardian Angel. The KLA company we’d trained was being put into operation. Our job was to accompany them and provide assistance.”
“Assistance? What kind of assistance?”
“Continued training, help with planning operations, that kind of thing.”
“Weren’t they well trained enough to handle themselves?” “No.”
I withdrew a piece of paper from my bulging legal case. “I have here a copy of the evaluation you gave that team when their training ended. That’s your signature, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing at the tight, almost childlike scrawl at the bottom of the page.
He barely glanced at it. “Yes.”
“You said here they were ready.”
He stared coldly at the paper.“What I said was that they met the minimal standards each KLA company had to attain before they were certified.”
“Was something wrong with those standards?”
“Yes. Those standards are slightly below what a basic trainee gets in our army.We taught them just enough to get them killed,” he said with obvious bitterness in his voice.
Anyway, I moved on. “How was your relationship with your KLA company?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was it friendly? Professional? Personal? Impersonal?” “Professional.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“We were told to train them, so we did. It was a job and they were part of it.”
“Did you feel responsible for them?”
“No, I didn’t. It’s not our war, it’s theirs.”
“Good point,” I said.“Still, I’d think it would be awfully hard not to develop some feelings for them. Living and working together, exchanging stories about families, and—”
“Major, we both know where you’re trying to go with this.” “Where am I trying to go?”
“That when the KLA company got slaughtered, we went on some kind of bloody rampage and took revenge. That’s not what happened.”
“No?” I said, interested that he chose the word “slaughtered,” which carried interesting implications. I mean, there’re words like “were shot,” “died,” “got killed,” “were wiped out,” any of which connoted a milder fate than the words “got slaughtered,” in the food chain of death.
“Look, that’s what the press is reporting, but that’s not the way it happened.”
“No? Then tell me what happened.”
“After our KLA company got, uh, wiped out, we reported that back to Tenth Group headquarters. We were told to relocate our base camp and await instructions. So we did.We’d been there about two days
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