Summary

“Thumbprint” began with Mal back in New York eight months after returning from Abu Ghraib for her father’s death. She lived in his home and worked at her old bartending job at the Milky Way. One night after work, Mal spotted Glen Kardon passed out drunk and stole the money from his wallet and his wedding ring. Back at home, she could not reason through her actions and threw the ring down the drain. The next morning, Mal found an unmarked letter in her mailbox with a distinctive thumbprint on it. She searched the house for an intruder and scanned the yard for a while, finding no one. The thumbprint, though, looked vaguely familiar.

Mal remembered when she, nineteen-year-old Anshaw, and Corporal Plough tortured and sexually assaulted a man in Abu Ghraib claiming to be innocent of planting a fatal explosion. The man...