After giving an amused glance to the First Lady, Nathaniel refocused on the matter at hands as it was a serious matter.
"Why did you summon me, Mister President?"
"I'm sure you can guess." He answers.
"Of course I can but since we are here, it's much better to ask you about it directly."
"What were you thinking for god sake!?" He exploded. "Do you have any idea of the number of people you kill in the last three days in your quest for revenge!?"
"Yes, I do actually. Thirty four."
Taken aback by this, the President's anger vanished, replaced by a multitude of others emotions like fear, disgust and a tinge of respect.
"Why did you keep a count?" Linda asked.
"Because I believe that every life is important, that's why. I hated to kill these people but I had no other choices. They would have caused grief and would have hurt other people if I did not."
"There is always a choice, you just choose to kill them like the freak you are." Tobias said hotly.
"Think what you want Tobias, I don't really care but let me remind you that you talk about this matter with the people in charge of the military and intelligence and they give you no doable answers. I find you one that resolves the situation but there is a cost to everything, I think if anyone here could relate to that, it would be you Mister President." Nathaniel said calmly.
Hearing that, the President nodded almost absentmindedly while Tobias lost it completely.
"You resolve shit! You frigging bomb two buildings in the Saudi Arabia capital! There were even children caught in the blast, you killed children, you piece of shit!"
"I know Tobias." Nathaniel responded softly, emotions flickering in his blue eyes.
"You knew?" Linda asked with an horrified expression on her face.
"Yes, they were the two sons of Khalid Rahal, one was fifteen years old while the other had my age. I didn���t want to kill them with the rest of their family at first but I had to at the end." Nathaniel shook his head sadly.
"Had to? Nothing can warrant the death of two teenagers!" Tobias shouted.
Not saying anything, Nathaniel gets his laptop out of his bag and turns it on. Entering his password, He quickly found the file that he was looking for. Putting it in the desk of the President so that any one but him could watch the file, he pressed enter. For Nathaniel, he knew the content of the video as it was burned in his mind already.
Once the video started, the President, the First Lady and Tobias could see two young people on the screen. One was a seventeen years old boy who was naked to the waist down, the other was a girl who could not be over fourteen with a torn up white dress. Her cute face was bloody and she had swollen eyes who were shut tight. The boy behind her was making a hip movement behind her that was leaving no doubt about what he was doing. From time to time he was smiling and making signs to the camera while hitting the girl even more.
"My god…" Linda said, putting a hand in front of her mouth with an horrified expression.
It lasted for a couple of minutes longer until the boy finished. Once it was done, he spitted on the girl before putting his pants back up.
"Okay, I believe we see enough." The President said, clearing his throat to hide his discomfort.
"No sir, it's not over yet." Nathaniel shook his head.
Looking at Nathaniel for a second, the President focused his eyes back to the video where they could see the boy coming close to the camera and taking the phone from the person who was filming it before. Pointing the phone back at the girl, and another boy appears on camera. This one was looking younger than the boy from before but had similar features than him, obviously a little brother.
Approaching the girl and taking her by her hair, he starts dragging her out of the room. Kicking her from time to time to make her move faster, they finally leave the house and appear to be in a garden. Leaving her begging on the ground, the boy leaves the line of sight of the phone before coming back with an AK47 in hands.
"Please, don't…" Linda's voice murmured, her eyes glistening with tears.
Straining the gun on the girl, the boy said something in arabic with a nasty smile before shooting the girl two times in the chest. The boy laughed seeing the girl on the ground and turned to his brother, exchanging a fist bump. The final image of the video ends on that scene, two boys laughing with the corpse of a girl behind them, her white dress smear with blood. At that point Linda was openly crying while the President had shining eyes, even Tobias was looking rattled.
"The last word he said to her was 'Die, filthy bitch.'" Nathaniel said with an infinite sadness in his voice before focusing his eyes on Tobias. "Since I came here, you keep asking me how could I do everything I did, Now that you have seen this, how could I not have done this?"
"They were still kids." He answers faintly, none of his previous anger here anymore.
"You see what they did to that poor girl Tobias and they had fun doing it. Just what they did warrant their death on it's own but you miss something more I believe." Nathaniel turned back the laptop and froze the image on the frame where the youth was holding the gun, turning back the laptop, Nathaniel asked "Tell me what you see Tobias."
Knowing that Nathaniel will never ask an idle question, Tobias put much more thought into his examination than he would in another case. He was quick to find what Nathaniel was talking about. The kid was holding the machine gun in the correct posture. The foot opposed to his hand put forward, the cross put on his shoulder and even his aiming was correct.
"He was trained, it's not his first time holding a gun and definitely not the first holding that AK47."
"You were in the Rangers for most of your life, what is the military stance on teenagers holding a gun in combat?" Nathaniel asked, closing his laptop.
"They are to be viewed as enemy combatants, not kids." Tobias said thoughtfully, realizing something.
"You were right to kill them, I don't even want to think about the damage they could have done if they were given the opportunity to grow." The President judged, Linda nodding in assent, not crying anymore but her eyes still red. "But you still have some explaining to do. We found out that in the Caldwell case, one of his accounts with a couple of million of dollars was empty a few hours before being taken into custody. The same happened with one of Khalid Rahal's accounts before he was found dead. Did you take that money?"
"I did." Nathaniel answered honestly.
"Why?" The President asked, Nathaniel did not look like he was a money grabber but he had been wrong in the past with his assessment and with Linda here, he could not lie to him.
"Karma, I wanted to give ill gotten money to people who really needed it, like that it could serve a good purpose to counter the way they had gotten it. I can give you a list of the donations made anonymously to various orphanage and veteran centers, a couple of free clinics too. The money I took from Khalid ended up the same with an exception, a portion of it did go to the family of the girl you see in the video. That will not bring her back but that could help them in their daily life."
"He's saying the truth." Linda said.
"Of course I do. Honestly, I don't really care about money. I have some and if someday I need more, I can earn some easily and all of it will be legit."
"Also the truth." Linda gave a little smile.
"Glad to hear it but we have still one more point to talk about." He said seriously.