Best American Crime Writing 2006 - Mark Bowden [133]
When Lieutenant Colonel deCamp exits the building after checking out the scene, he says: “There’s three hundred thousand dollars missing.” What is he, fucking Rain Man? [DeCamp was wrong; there was way more than that missing. But still, the man knew all was not right.] Fucking Lieutenant Colonel deCamp; he was born with a silver spoon in his fucking ass. And he starts reading Matt Novak his rights as the rest of the guys load the truck with the $188 million, while the rest of the money is…everywhere. Because, let’s face it, enough people have had their hands on the $12 million, the process of dispersion is so far along, we’ll never really know where it all went. (By the next day, Jamal Mann had already sent an envelope of cash to his mother in New Jersey.) The $188 million goes into the bed of the truck, is driven to the airport, and is flown directly out of the country. Because that much money should simply not be around people. That much money has a mind of its own.
IT TOOK FORTY-FIVE MINUTES for deCamp to find the $600,000 in the tree.
In the next couple of days, Matt, Jamal, and Moyer were isolated, pressed by the Criminal Investigation Command. When Matt would see guys from his unit, they’d say, “What’s up, Clooney?” [See the movie Three Kings for reference.] Matt didn’t see the humor in it. In the interim, there was close to $12 million missing and the rest of Matt’s conspirators still moving about freely, unsurveilled. And maybe another person. I heard someone outside the door that night, and he’s never been identified. [The Novak tapes devolve often into wild conspiracy. There are men who took money home…. I saw pictures of one guy who lives a block away on a bed with thousands of dollars…. Captain Ahearn left the country with money. Most of the conspiracies have to do with what he sees as the wrongdoings of other people, as if there were a finite amount of guilt to go around and by giving some away it makes Matt less guilty. But he’s probably right that there’s a lot we don’t know. Major Rideout believes that another $220 million could still be out there somewhere.]
Eventually, it was Matt who came forward and gave the fullest account of the events of April 18. Of the Eight, only Matt was kicked out of the army with a less-than-honorable discharge. Further evidence that the army exists on a parallel moral plane. Matt thinks it was because Captain Ahearn, his commander, didn’t like him. [The way I heard it was that very few people liked Captain Ahearn, but Matt didn’t keep his mouth shut about it.] Lieutenant Colonel deCamp says everyone got treated pretty equally, and if you look, several of the other Novak Eight are no longer in the army. [Still, only Matt was forced out.] Blanket immunity was granted, and no one got jail time. Major Rideout says, “My commanding general, General Blount, said, ‘This is going to be quieted; we’re not going to let this get out. We’re going to do a good investigation, but the last thing we need is a big black eye after what we just did, attacking into Baghdad and doing good stuff.’”
Over the next six months, during the protracted process that ended with Matt’s removal from the military, he wasn’t allowed to work. He would show up at his unit in Georgia and sit out front in his car, smoking cigarettes. Meanwhile, the rest of his life came unstitched. He discovered that his wife, Michell, had been seeing someone else. And now he’s separated, on his way to being divorced, without access to his children, living in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with his parents, who believe that yoga is Satan worship.
I had everything when I left for the desert. I did. I left a beautiful wife and two beautiful children, had a beautiful husky puppy and two cats. I had two vehicles,