I watched Abby go, fleeing into the empty elevator and the door closing behind her. I couldn't move, frozen in shock at what had happened in the last five minutes. Walking to the door, I stared at the elevator as the lights showed it going down all the way to the lobby. Part of me wanted to run after her, to charge down the fire escape stairs and plead for her to listen to me. If she just knew my story, if she only could understand, maybe there'd be a chance. But the other side of me, the side that had spent nearly five years in Fort Leavenworth as Prisoner Bell, stayed my feet. It was a good way to get myself arrested again, and from what Abby had told me about her father, a good way to fetch myself another felony, possibly even a sexual assault or rape charge. Two-time losers on a rape charge don't get much mercy from the State of Georgia, and the only way I'd see the free world again would be as a withered old man.

The cautious side of me won, which disgusted me even as I closed the door. Something rustled at my feet, and I looked down to see the photo that had set the whole thing off lying on the tile. Abby must have dropped it when she fled the apartment, perhaps when she was putting her shoes on. Reaching down with nearly numb fingers, I picked it up, absently locking the door behind me as I looked at the faces in the photo. Myself, Chris Lake, and Lloyd James. The killer, his friend, and the man who'd damned me.

* * *

"Man, do you even know what the fuck the name of this shit hole is?"

I glanced over at Lloyd, who was staring through slitted eyes at the wind scoured vista before us. We were inside a small hut that the locals had abandoned with the amount of insurgent activity in the area. It was just before sunset, and I was trying to get some rest and food before going out on guard duty starting at seven. Three hours of guard duty followed by six hours of sleep. It wasn't that bad of a setup, as long as we didn't get hit by the insurgents. Then nobody would get any sleep.

"What a shit hole," Lloyd repeated, and I had to agree that our hut didn't give us anything to send home on a postcard. It wasn't that Iraq didn't have its fair share of beautiful scenery. In the two months that we'd been there, I'd seen plenty of breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, and there was an arid majesty to a lot of the country. But still, we were uninvited guests surrounded by a lot of people with a lot of guns who didn't exactly like us. It got to you after a while. And this particular little nameless village had the unfortunate luck of being not only partially destroyed by insurgents, but it was hosting me and my squad mates just as a dust storm started to roll in, turning the whole world a sickly, ugly shade of brown.

"Lloyd, you know what the difference between you and the battalion commander is?" I asked, trying to get him to stop staring out the window and just calm down. Lloyd was my friend, but once he got going like this, he'd keep ranting through most of the damn rest time. No thanks. I checked the dust port on my machine gun, making sure to spray a little bit of lubricant into the action. I was on the SAW this patrol, and those things had a nasty reputation of getting jammed in the dust and grit of the desert unless you oiled the hell out of them.

“What’s that?” Lloyd replied. "He's taking two weeks’ leave to be back fucking some fraulein in Baden-Baden or something?"

"Nope. You're sleeping in the shit hole here. He's sleeping in the one ten kilometers down the road," I said with a smile. "Come on, man. This has been an easy patrol. We're scheduled to rotate back to the Green Zone for some R and R soon anyway. Just chill the fuck out and we'll be eating steaks, watching the NBA playoffs, and maybe getting some Air Force pussy before you know it."

"Forget that, man. I'm looking for a little local action," Lloyd said. "You know those girls want it. They dream about fucking a good ol’ American soldier. At least I can take some good memories back from this dreadful place."

The flap to the room we were in opened before I could reply, and Chris Lake, our team leader and good friend, walked in. "Lloyd, careful what you say," he cautioned his buddy. "You know if the El Tee or the Captain hear you talking like that, you're going to be humping nothing but a rucksack for the next ten months."

I nodded. Lloyd had, in the two years I'd known him, slept his way through just about every town we'd come to. He had the looks for it, certainly. A bit shorter than me at just under six feet, with blond hair and blue eyes, he looked like Captain Fucking America, especially with his shaved side crewcut. The All-American Boy, with All-American dick, according to him. Of course, Lloyd wasn't too choosy either, willing to shag just about anything tossed his way. We still kidded him about the woman in New Mexico who'd turned out to be a grandma.

"Fuck that, Chris. You know, not all of us have Miss Teen USA waiting back at home for us to come back and legally deflower the tender petals of her maidenhood," Lloyd replied, turning away from the window and sitting down on the dirt floor of the hut. It wasn't a bed at the Radisson, but it was a lot better than sleeping outside or in our vehicles. "Some of us have to make do with what’s available, and I'm not talking about Bane over there with his right hand."

"Sometimes I use my left," I taunted back. I always did. I hated when Lloyd called me Bane. Just because I'm taller and pretty strong does not make me a comic book villain. "Feels like a total stranger. I just close my eyes and pretend it's your mama."

We all laughed at the tired old joke with the familiarity of old comrades. I'd met Lloyd during Basic Training at Ft. Benning, while Chris had come along a few months later when all three of us ended up going to Airborne School together. When we ended up all getting posted to the same unit, Chris had a chat with his company commander, and Lloyd and I were assigned to his team. We'd bonded well, and while there were perhaps a few teams that were more professional than we were, even our platoon leader, Lieutenant Locker, had to admit that we were effective. Part of it was our team spirit and friendship, which allowed our little fire team to perform nearly as effectively as a full squad. If I had to do a house-to-house sweep, I'd rather have Chris and Lloyd on my side than an entire platoon of Delta Force.

“That reminds me. Chris, you heard from the beauty queen recently?" I asked him. He'd met her during a three-week-long leave period back home, but I didn't even know the girl's name. Wisely, he'd never shown any of us a picture of her, as even the more polite troopers would have given him a lot of hell if the girl was even half as hot as he described her. "You know, something probably involving puppies, candy canes and sweet innocence? Maybe a little poem decorated with hearts?"

Chris laughed and shook his head. "No, nothing like that. I tell you what, though, boys. When we rotate back out of this sandbox, I've got the world's greatest gift waiting for me back home."

“Is it serious?” I asked, surprised. All three of us weren’t too fond of commitments, after all. Chris usually chased high-end or different girls, while Lloyd was a very catch-as-catch-can type. Me? Well, I was actually the nice one of our group, believe it or not. I didn't go out looking to break hearts, though I’d done my fair share. Things never worked out, and it just sort of happened that we'd break up, sometimes with bad feelings, sometimes not. For Chris to be in love, it would be like finding out George Bush and Barack Obama were best buddies who played cards together. "Sorry. I just didn't think it’d happen so soon."

"Fuck no, dumb shit," Chris said with a laugh and a snort. "But what I do love is the idea of taking that sweet, sweet cherry and wearing her out. She's already said she loves me and is saving herself for me."

"You actually believe that shit?" Lloyd asked with a guffaw. "You don't think she's just telling you that while shagging every swinging dick back in . . . where is it again?"

"She's an Atlanta girl, just like me," Chris said, before realizing the double meaning of his words. I had to give a snort of my own. “You know what I mean. Not a fucking word, guys."

I laughed, leaning back against the rough walls of our hut. Atlanta girl. "You said it, not me."

* * *

Sure, Baghdad wasn't like going on real leave. Even within the city, years after we'd taken over, things weren't exactly making Baghdad a resort town or anything. Still, within the Green Zone, we could do things that soldiers liked to do, namely chill out, get some beers, and if you were really lucky, find a hot chick to share your rack with.

It was the third night of our time in the GZ, and for me, I was feeling pretty damn good. I was still bedmate-less, but there was a cute little supply clerk from the Indiana National Guard that had her eyes on me, and best of all, both of us were open about the fact there would be no relationship situations involved. It was pure sex, a little fun, and then we went our separate ways. I would have been able to seal the deal, too, if it hadn't been that I was supposed to pull guard duty that night. Guard duty in the GZ is nothing compared to pulling a guard shift out in most of the rest of the country. Between the hours of eight PM and midnight, I only managed to get two hours of sleep, and I drooped over my rifle while my Iraqi Army post-mate manned the tower.

It was just after midnight when I came down from the tower I'd been assigned to, and I was ready to head back to my bunk. Duty within the GZ was on a rotating basis, and I didn't need to wake up for any formations or any of that other bullshit the next day, so I was planning on trying to catch up on some sorely missed shut-eye before me and Miss Gina Redman of Terre Haute, Indiana found an empty building to occupy together.

I almost ignored the sound I heard coming from behind the supply shed. It was a common place for people with uptight tent mates or commanders with a bug up their ass to go hook up. While I personally found no fun with the concept of rushed sex in the dark behind a musty tent while sand stuck to the sweat on your ass . . . different strokes for different folks, if you know what I mean.

I almost kept going back to my bunk when I heard the whimpered cry from the girl, and the heavily accented words, strangled with effort. "No . . . no . . . please . . .”

I have no problems with being in control with a woman, and I've had chicks that liked it rough. But there's playacting and then there's real resistance. I don't go for that. Darting around the side of the tent, I saw a man pulling at the belt of his ACUs, holding what looked like a local girl by the throat with his free hand. He had clamped down more with his hand after her cry, cutting off all of her air. She was scratching and clawing, but he was short and stocky, with the sort of arms that came from lots of hard work and just natural freaky strength. Her eyes were fluttering shut and her hands didn't beat quite so hard as the blood flow to her brain shut down.

I didn't even pause, even though I couldn't see the man's face. Taking my M-4, I jabbed the butt stock forward. It hit the man in the back of the shoulder, distracting him enough for him to drop the girl, where she fell to the ground retching and coughing.

The man turned around, and I saw in the dim light something that made my heart sink. "Lloyd? What the fuck are you doing, man?"

“What’s it look like? I’m getting some sandy pussy," he slurred. He was drunk, and Lloyd was the sort of guy who could handle his alcohol pretty damned impressively. I'd once watched him down an entire pitcher of beer in ten minutes, get up off his barstool, and then throw two dead center darts on the electronic board we were playing on. For him to be slurring his words meant he had either downed enough to kill a small elephant, or he'd been hitting something a lot harder than beer. From the smell of his breath, I suspected the latter. It took a lot, but when he was drunk like this, he was nasty. “What the fuck you want?"

"You can't do this, man! You really want to go down on a rape charge?"

Lloyd reached to his right hip, where I saw the bayonet in its scabbard. We didn't use them often. In fact, our normal rifles didn't even have a lug to connect it with, but you could still find one if you needed it. “I’ll finish her off. There won't be no rape charge. There's just gonna be another sad terrorist beheading." He grinned and turned back to the girl. "Now go the fuck on, Boy Scout. Let the real men handle this."

He bent down to grab the girl by her torn and dirty clothes, pulling the bayonet from his scabbard while he did. She wasn't very old, considering she was wearing semi-western style clothing and didn't have even a head scarf on. Our cultural briefings had told us girls who dressed like that were either part of Iraq's tiny Christian minority or underage. I couldn't let it go on.

Reaching down, I grabbed Lloyd by his arm and yanked him away from the girl. "Lloyd, no! Look at her! She's probably not even eighteen, for fuck's sake! Let her go, or I'm dragging you down to the MPs."

"Fucking bastard!" Lloyd yelled, pushing back into me. He knocked me off balance, the two of us tangling up and tripping. I knew Lloyd was strong, but when he landed on top of me, there was also anger and drunken rage in his eyes. My right arm was trapped, sandwiched between him, my M-4 and my body, while my left arm tried to hold onto his right wrist. Unfortunately for me, Lloyd had leverage, and in his drunken anger, I thought he was willing to kill me. I'd seen that look in his eyes before, when he would be out on patrol and an insurgent sniper would take a shot at us or an IED would go off. His humanity dropped away, and a stone-cold killer would be there in his place.

"Lloyd, don't do it!" I yelled, trying with all my might to deflect or stop the slowly descending blade of the bayonet. But in the way we'd fallen, my legs were pinned, and Lloyd was able to put most of his upper body weight behind the bayonet. "Lloyd! LLOYD!"

There was nothing else I could do. I could feel the trigger of my rifle still in the painfully twisted grip of my right hand. I pulled, hoping that the barrel would wound or scare him enough that I could get his ass off me.

I hadn't realized that when we fell, the selector switch on my rifle had gotten caught in my web gear. The switch wasn't on single shot any longer. Instead, a long, rattling sound came from between our bodies, a sound that of all things reminded me of a beer belch.

Lloyd stiffened, his arm dropping, the point of the bayonet burying itself into the sand less than an inch from my left ear. He rolled off me, his body already going limp and his blood soaking into my clothing. I rolled with him, dropping my now empty M-4, amazed I was still alive and unharmed. "Lloyd? Lloyd!"

I looked around, hearing people coming our way. I grabbed the emergency compression bandage from the shoulder strap of my web gear, tearing the plastic envelope open. "MEDIC!"

* * *

"Specialist Dane Bell, you have been charged with the involuntary homicide of Specialist Lloyd James. How do you plead?"

I looked at my JAG lawyer, who nodded in encouragement. He was a wimp, the kind of officer who would have gotten himself shot if he'd been in any combat unit, and I felt an inherent sort of disgust for him. I'm not one of those types that cannot appreciate any soldier but those who sling a rifle, but my lawyer wasn't a man, in the real sense of the word. He was a weasel. I felt I was getting screwed royally, but by the way he put it, the odds were against me if I didn't do it his way. Without him helping in my defense, the odds were impossibly against me. "Guilty, sir."

The judge, a grizzled, hawk-faced Colonel who probably had done push ups with Patton and ruck-marched with Chesty Puller, glowered at me from the bench. I could understand. I'd just admitted to killing not only another soldier, but my friend as well. A Court Martial is not the sort of place where soldiers are given a pat on the back and toasted with beer.

Unfortunately for me, there were a few problems with my case. First of all, the Iraqi girl that Lloyd had been choking turned out to be the little sister of one of the local insurgency leaders in Baghdad. So, despite her repeated assertions to the Baghdad police that I had saved her life, her story was dismissed as being nothing more than the lies of a terrorist sympathizer. That she was underage and had somehow gotten inside an American base in the Green Zone didn't help. I suspected Lloyd had snuck her in, maybe with the threat of violence, but I didn't know. Hell, she could have been scouting for a terrorist attack. I couldn't have been sure, but it didn't matter to me. Shooting an insurgent is different from raping a child.

Another problem was that a post-mortem toxicology report showed that Lloyd's blood alcohol content was nearly zero. According to what my lawyer told me, Lloyd at the time of his death had the equivalent of one beer in his body, nothing more. This, more than anything else, confused the hell out of me. I'd heard his slurring words and had smelled something stronger than beer on his breath. I couldn't figure it out.

Third, and perhaps most damaging to me, was the fact that my lawyer was not one of those types who was passionate about defending his clients. In fact, he'd have much rather been out of the service altogether, working admiralty law with his father up in Seattle. He'd told me as much himself at our first meeting. I wasn't going to get a passionate advocate on my side. So, when the prosecutor tossed me a bone and agreed to a plea-bargain for involuntary manslaughter, I took it. If anything, I felt I had to do some penance for taking my friend's life.

"Specialist Bell, the court accepts your plea of guilty to the charge of involuntary manslaughter. I've looked over the terms of the agreement worked out between you and the prosecution, and while I find them rather lenient, they are within the guidelines of the UCMJ. In addition, the court takes into consideration the statements of character from your team leader, as well as your service record, which until now, while not spotless, showed that you have served well. Therefore, the court will agree with the recommendation from the prosecution. You are to serve three to five years at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas."

There was an outraged cry from behind me, and I turned my head to watch as Mr. James, Lloyd's father and one of the biggest businessmen in that part of Pennsylvania, exploded to his feet. "The hell you will! That son of a bitch murdered my only son! And he gets three to five? Are you out of your fucking mind?"

The Colonel glared at Mr. James and banged his gavel on the desk. "Mr. James, it is only at the request of the senior Senator from your home state that I have agreed to allow you to attend these proceedings. He is a personal friend of mine, and he assured me that you would conduct yourself in a reasonable and dignified manner. If you cannot, I will have you removed from the courtroom, and neither of us wants that."

Mr. James was red-faced, staring daggers at the Colonel before turning his attention to me. "I swear, you bastard, you will serve every day of that. And may God alone help you when you get out."

He sat down before the MPs could take him away or the Colonel could order him out, and I turned my attention back to the Colonel. When he was certain there would be no more outbursts from the gallery—other than Lloyd's father, the only other person there was a reporter from the Fort Campbell Public Affairs Office, who would handle the press release, military level newspaper story, and statements to the civilian press—he continued. "The court's decision is made. In addition, effective immediately, you will be reduced in rank to that of Private, and upon completion of your sentence, you will receive a Dishonorable Discharge, forfeiting all pay and benefits accrued during your time in service. Do you have any questions?"

"May I make a statement, sir?" I asked. Other than entering my plea, it was the first time I'd said anything, and this was the third day I'd been in the courtroom. In combat, military justice is swift and certain. In the rear areas, though, justice was less swift but no less certain. The Colonel nodded, and I cleared my throat, squaring my shoulders and standing tall. I may not have been accepted by the military any longer, but I still had my pride. "I . . . I’m sorry for Lloyd's death. He was my friend, and I wish he could have been here today. But despite my fate, which I will not appeal, I feel I have served as honorably as I could have done, and I have never betrayed my oath to protect our nation and our Constitution. That's all."

The Colonel nodded, with perhaps a hint of compassion in his face after my statement, then turned to two MPs who were acting as bailiffs. He'd read all the same evidence I had, and he knew that if I'd insisted on taking it to a jury trial, a good lawyer had a chance of getting me off. "Secure the prisoner for transport. This court-martial is adjourned."