The American by Andrew Britton Page B

“He sent us a lot of good people for some operations we ran in Kosovo and, before that, Iraq. Hell of a guy to have in your corner.”
    She nodded respectfully and pointed to the buildings in the distance. “Are those part of your property?”
    The general nodded in affirmation. “They used to be the slave quarters. What you’re looking at is just a little piece of the land attached to this house. There’s over a hundred acres beyond those trees there, mostly empty fields. They used to hold corn, cotton, tobacco, anything that would turn a profit. The plantation was built in 1857 by a Confederate colonel who died at Shiloh. It was actually in my wife’s family for over a century, until she passed away three years ago.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that,” Naomi said, with as much sympathy as she could muster. Hale nodded his head sadly.
    â€œI sure do miss her. This is a lot of space for one person.”
    Naomi waited the decent interval, but the general beat her to the punch. “So, what kind of information are you looking for? Is this about Kealey?”
    Once again she was surprised. “How did you know?”
    â€œIt was just a guess. You’ve seen the file, I imagine. Everything you need should be in it.”
    â€œNot quite everything,” she said. “Why did he leave? I mean, he made major in eight years. Isn’t that good, even for a Green Beret?”
    Peter Hale laughed and took a long pull from his beer. “First of all, they don’t like to be called Green Berets. That’s what they wear, not who they are. And to answer your question, yes, that is damn good. Ryan Kealey was going places.” The amiable expression faded from the general’s face as he looked out across the fields. His voice lowered, as if to reveal a confidence. “It’s a damn shame what happened to him. Was there anything in the file about Bosnia?”
    â€œNo. Please tell me,” she said. The tinge of desperation in her own voice was disappointing to Naomi Kharmai, but she knew that Hale was probably her only chance for answers.
    â€œTo understand,” he said, “you have to have some idea about what was going on at the time. The Serbs were killing the Muslims indiscriminately, without regard to age or gender. It wasn’t just murder, it was torture, mutilation, and gang rape. It was genocide on a grand scale. In 1995 alone, it’s estimated that 7,000 Muslims were slaughtered, and that’s a low-ball figure. The full measure of what happened there never really made its way into the international press, but Europe hasn’t seen anything worse since the Holocaust. So you can imagine, it was a very dangerous time for the American soldiers who were stationed there as part of the NATO peacekeeping force.”
    Naomi nodded slowly, her gaze focused on the dark buildings in the distance. “Please, go on.”
    â€œKealey was there in an advisory capacity only, working under the ground commander, General Wilkes. He was a first lieutenant at the time, if I’m not mistaken, based at Camp Butmir in Sarajevo with the NATO contingent.
    â€œOccasionally, Kealey would go out with the SFOR patrols. There was a young Muslim girl who took a particular shine to him; she might have been twelve or thirteen years old. I can’t remember her name; someone told me once, but I’ve forgotten it now. Of course, I wasn’t in Bosnia at the time. This information comes from the soldiers who were on patrol with him. Anyway, there was this girl, a pretty little thing from all accounts. She would bring him chocolate, flowers, that sort of thing. I guess it was a schoolgirl crush. Ryan would always stop to talk with her for a little while. The other soldiers used to kid him about it, said he was leading her on. One day, the girl’s mother came out of the house crying, screaming at the soldiers. Turns out the Serbian militia found out that