The Faceless Man (Story)

A memory of something that happened to Frost while deployed in Iraq in 2007

## The Faceless Man

It was a choice she had made in a situation she did not understand. Was it a choice? *You’ve always got a choice, Chickadee.*

(Western Iraq, summer 2007)

*“They don’t know what it is that’s why they’re sending us in, they asked for you. You’ve got a degree in knowing more than everyone else don’t you? ~~Bitch~~.”*

Nine men, at least she thought they were men, it was difficult to tell in the flickering green-white of the fluorescent bulbs, but she could see Colonel Harrison on his knees in the middle of them...

...this wasn’t even what she was supposed to be doing, she was supposed to be investigating a potential bioweapon but instead...

...and at first she thought *why isn’t he getting up* because he was just *kneeling* there, but when he lifted his head his face was beet red, neck corded like he was lifting something heavy, eyes rolling like a spooked horse, Harrison, bull of a man, laid low by an invisible wrongness.

“*Holloway*!” he snarled, frothing bloody, still spitting her name like a curse word.

(He was here to lead, God damn it, not babysit some corn pone girl from hick town USA who wanted to play scientist in the middle of a war)

Eight of the men, locals in ragged military surplus, all started, fumbling for guns of their own when they saw her with her rifle, standing in the doorway.

*“Fucking shoot them what are you doing?!”*

Not making sense, not making any sense, they were outnumbered, if she opened fire now they were both dead.

The ninth man felt... uncanny. There he stood in the basement of a bombed-out school in a war-torn desert in summer, wearing a neatly tailored three-piece suit, which had not a speck of dust or dirt or sand on it. As the men around him lifted their weapons he made a motion with both hands, saying something in Arabic, and they lowered them again.

She realized the man hadn’t opened his mouth. Or had he? She couldn’t see his face.

The quiet of the desert crept into the room. The lights above continued to flicker and wink in and out but they did so in silence.

The man held out one hand in an odd gesture, fingers curled like he held something unseen and was using it to point to the hallway behind her.

(And she remembered it now; her father, elbow deep in a deer carcass, using his knife to point her back to the house, “Not now, Bea. Go on.”)

“*Holloway*!” Harrison’s voice keened to a hysterical tear. “*Do something, for once actually follow an order! Do something, you useless bitch!*”

The strange man was looking at her but she still couldn’t see his face.

(Another memory: Dad teaching her to shoot, hands on her arms to correct her posture, and when she was done, nudging the old hunting rifle safely down. He hadn’t done much with her, but he had done that.)

She didn’t realize she had lowered her weapon until Harrison began to scream at her again.

“Fucking *bitch*! What do you think you’re doing?!”

> *What do you want, sweet girl?*
>
>
> Answers.
>
>
> *Not if you stay. Not now, Bea. Go on.*
>
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> Just one – what took Billy? And why?
>
>
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> *Never, not if you stay.*
>
>

“I won’t just have you court marshaled I’ll fucking kill you myself, don’t you dare leave me here!”

> Do I have a choice?
>
>
> *You’ve always got a choice, Chickadee.*
>
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> To save him?
>
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> *You ain’t gonna save him. You’ve always got a choice. But you ain’t gonna.*
>
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> No answers if she stayed.
>
>
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> *Not now, Bea. Go on.*
>
>

She looked at Harrison and couldn’t tell if he was crying or if it was just a trick of the light. "The others already think you’re dead,” she said, slow and low, then added, “Sir.”

“You fucking *cunt*!”

Beatrice turned her back on him and started back down the hall.

*Good girl. Go on now.*