By Mallory’s count, it was hardly a battalion, and only two men out of twenty had come back alive. The U.S. Army had been less than satisfied with Roland’s explanation for this carelessness. „You could save me some time, sir. You know how long it takes to get anything out of the military.“
Actually, it had taken very little time. Hacking into the Pentagon computer was a rite of passage for the high-technology generation. A child could do it, and many children did. The military system suffered thousands of hits every year. But her time inside the files was limited by the bells and whistles of electronic watchdogs. „The soldier was Private Malakhai. Do you – “
„Do I remember him? Hell yes, I do. I did my level best to kill that son of a bitch.“ He paused to gauge the effect on her, and he was clearly disappointed that she was neither shocked nor impressed. „On his last mission, I made him jump from a plane in a daylight run. Damn fluke. The German gunners on the ground must’ve been napping when the boy’s parachute opened.“
„You wanted him dead – one of your own men.“
„Oh, yeah.“ He seemed more pleased with himself now that she had recognized his godhood. „The corporal – Edwards was his name. Damn kid, younger than you are. Well, that pissant tried to keep Malakhai in the plane. I had to pistol-whip the little bastard to keep him from blocking the door. Then I ordered Malakhai out of the plane. I should’ve pushed Edwards out too. But he wasn’t wearing a chute. I like to give a man a sporting chance.“
Mallory nodded. Edwards was the one who had chased down the lost medals belonging to his unit. Among the decorations he had secured for Private Malakhai, there were too many Purple Hearts, each one standing for a wound. She could not get them out of her mind.
„Oh, yeah,“ said the old man. „I saw it as my responsibility to make sure Malakhai never went home from the war. That boy wasn’t something you could turn loose on a peacetime population – not in good conscience.“
„He won a lot of medals.“ Her voice was soft but obstinate.
„Mostly shrapnel.“ The old man waved his hand in the air to say this was of no consequence. „It was a mistake to give him medals. He didn’t assassinate his targets one at a time, you know. He blew up troops by the dozen, by the damn truckload. And sometimes he forgot to make distinctions between soldiers and civilians. That kind of butchery never makes it into the permanent record.“
Covert missions. That would explain the lack of detail on Malakhai’s records and the alarms going off each time she had peeled back another layer of security codes.
The old man raised one clenched fist. „We took all the risks and got damn little glory.“
We? „So Malakhai did a lot of high-risk missions.“
„Mostly suicide runs. But he kept finding his way home again, turning up at field camp, torn up like a damn alley cat. And all the time, his eyes were getting colder and colder.“ Roland smiled, warming to his subject. „Hollow Boy – that’s what I named him. After a while, he even answered to it. Toward the end, he wasn’t human anymore. I should have done it right – just taken out my gun and shot him the way you’d put down a dog. I had the sweetest little pistol, a gift from General Patton.“
Yeah, right.
„Did you know his wife died two days before he enlisted?“
„That’s what the British said. Malakhai did basic training with their boys. Damn doctors wanted to sedate the shit out of him and put him in a hospital. In 1942, they were taking kids and old men, but they didn’t want any part of Malakhai. Said he was out of touch with reality. They didn’t think he’d stand the chance of a child in battle. Yeah, he was sick all right, but such a useful kind of crazy – no sense of fear. You could fire a rifle right next to that kid’s head – no reaction. So I figured, why waste him? I had a clerk fiddle his papers for repatriation and reassignment. He was born a Polish bastard, so we gave him an American father. Pulled him out of basic training before the Brits could ship him off to the funny farm. Now that was a neat piece of work.“
„You fiddled a lot of paperwork for your unit. Weren’t you supposed to send your men home after they’d been shot to pieces? Wasn’t anyone counting Malakhai’s Hearts? He was wounded seven times, seven Purple Hearts.“
„The paperwork was delayed. Wartime bureaucracy.“
„And there were other medals for valor. They caught up to Malakhai five years after the war. You never wanted him to have them, did you?“
„Not while he was still useful. If I’d reported every little piece of metal in his hide, they would’ve shipped him Stateside.“
„And you wanted him dead.“
„Well, I couldn’t ship him home, could I? Private Malakhai was a damn murder machine. And it’s not like he was a real American.“
„He wore the uniform.“
The old man was clearly exasperated. „You still don’t get it, little girl. You know why Hitler used gas chambers? He wasn’t being efficient. He mechanized death to lessen the shock on the troops. That bastard knew what hands-on mass murder would do to them. They’d all be like Malakhai. It would gut their souls. A whole generation of hollow boys would never be able to go home again. It would poison the seed of a whole damn country. And Hitler would be the king of nothing.“
„All those medals.“ She was taking more pride in Malakhai as an opponent. „Medals for wounds, medals for valor.“
„The boy was insane!“ The old man made a weak fist, frustrated that she could not grasp this simple fact. „And pathetic. Sometimes tears would roll down his face at the damnedest times. He wasn’t crying – no emotion in that one. It was a mechanical thing. The tears would just come and go with no reason – like the machine was broken. Even then, his eyes were so cold, so – “
„Were you jealous of him?“
That made the faux general angry. He turned away, and now she was sure of it. She leaned closer to his bed. „Were you afraid of Private Malakhai? Is that why you wanted him dead?“
„I was never afraid of anyone. And I’m sure as hell not afraid of you, girlie.“ He raised his head and aimed the spittle well.
Mallory started. A glob of mucus was sliding down her cheek. In stone-cold anger, she moved her hand toward him. He cringed, eyes rounding with surprise and fear. The little tyrant of the nursing home was not accustomed to reprisal. Her hand slowly dropped to pick up the corner of the bedsheet. She used it to wipe the slime from her face.
Braver now, assured that she didn’t intend to harm him, he shook his head in mock disappointment. „You’ve got the same cold, empty eyes, little girl. But you’re not in Malakhai’s class.“ More spittle flew from his mouth with the sputter of words. „I bet you’d like to take a turn at me.“ One hand rose in a defiant claw. „You wanna pull out all my tubes and wires, bring down the old general, right? Well, you just – “
„Wrong,“ she whispered, leaning close to his ear as she reached into the breast pocket of her blazer. He was staring at her hand, his face full of dread. Did he think she was going for her gun? Now that truly was a delusion of grandeur.
„One more question.“ She pulled out a computer printout and unfolded it. „I have your service record here – from the telephone company.“ She held it up for him to see. „In 1950, when you were repairing a phone line, you were bitten by a dog – a little dog. Did they give you a medal for that?“ She rose from the chair and looked down at him. „No?“
Whatever Roland had been about to say, it was forgotten. She had finally shut his mouth. Getting the last word was her art, and getting even was wonderfully satisfying – but not today.