It sounded like they had something they wanted to trip me up on. I just shook my head.

The colonel said, “The house in Jalalabad where you were held was not authorized to hold prisoners. Obviously. There’s not much in it now except the empty cages. We don’t even know the names of the prisoners that were warehoused there. They were supposed to be held at the facility on this base. Or at Fenty.”

I couldn’t keep from asking, “What about the plutonium?”

One of the Army captains, a nerdy-looking man with thick, Army-issue glasses said, “The Geiger counters went crazy inside the house. Using that as a baseline reading, we were able to find a box containing radioactive material inside the burned-out vehicle you told us about. We have no idea where it came from, but it’s secure now.”

The Army colonel said, “We’ve recovered three bodies from the house. Two looked like they were prisoners who’d been executed with shots to the head. The other man we’ve identified as Richard Jackson. We have yet to recover the body of David Allmand.”

I listened as they each explained the operations going on to complete the investigation. DP was ready to jump in on my behalf several times, but I waved him off.

When they were finished, I said, “What now? Do you need anything else from me?”

For the first time, the Air Force colonel spoke up. He was about fifty with a shaved head and a craggy face. He said, “Mr. Mitchum, the only thing we will require from you is your immediate consent to return to the United States.”

“You make it sound like I did something wrong.”

“Unless I’ve misunderstood some of the reports I’ve read, you traveled all the way to Afghanistan to exact revenge for things Mr. Jackson did to your family. Is that correct?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘revenge’…”

The Air Force colonel cut me off. “I don’t give a damn what you call it. You used military resources and wasted military personnel time on a personal issue. Therefore, we are sending you home via commercial flight out of Kabul first thing tomorrow.”

I said the only thing that would get me out of there quickly: “Thank you.”

Chapter 50

Chapter 50

DP had to fly from Bagram to the Kabul airport with me. No Americans travel by ground in Afghanistan because of the possibility of IEDs or kidnappers. So he and I had almost an entire C-130 cargo plane to ourselves.

I had heard a lot about the international airport in the capital city of Afghanistan. It’d been the scene of a number of horrific bombings. But now, as part of the international coalition, the country of Turkey had taken over security. The Turkish soldiers ran a tight ship and had virtually eliminated violence at the airport.