The Burning Hill

by A. D. Flint

  The army had offered Jake the escape from his childhood before and he wanted to escape it again. He reported for duty the day after the funeral and hadn’t seen his father or heard from him since.

  As an officer, Jake had better money, more privileges, but he was no longer just one of the lads and neither did he feel totally in step with his fellow officers – he came from a different place to most of them. It only really started to bother him after his mother died. It grated more and more, and he let the doubts creep in over nailing his colours to a career that was based on the whim of an eighteen-year-old Jake. He could feel the anger and frustration and resentment beginning to bubble up again. And then Iraq Part Two arrived. He was cynical enough to lack conviction about the war but he had always wanted to be in one. It wasn’t bloodlust. He wanted to see action, to experience what he had trained for, with everything that went with it. And it was about the lads around him, the determination to keep one another alive. Surviving. Forging the brotherhood that had slipped away from him since becoming an officer. An unbreakable bond.

  Amidst the headlong flight of the Iraqi forces in those opening days of the invasion they had hit patches of fierce resistance, and Jake had most definitely felt fear as his troop of three Warrior armoured vehicles pursued a ragged column of Iraqi vehicles flanked by two heavy tanks. But there was also raw exhilaration. Pure, mainlining adrenaline. There was nothing like it, blasting across the desert with his guys in their safe metal box, cocooned in the constant throaty roar of the engine. A throwback to cavalry days, the vehicles charging three abreast through a haze of dust that made the sun a deep, dirty orange, the leftover of the giant cloud kicked up by the column far ahead. It settled in a fine white layer on everything, on the metal skin of the Warrior, on the skin of the soldiers, on their uniforms. Their own cloud of dust billowed out behind them, blocking out everything they had passed. It was like a solid wall, like there was no going back. Only forward. Those moments were worth all the long hours of boredom. His driver, Sammo, head peeping out of his hatch in front of the turret, liked to whinge about anything and everything to do with Iraq, but even he was quietly enjoying this. Dave, the gunner, head and chest poking out of his turret hatch alongside Jake, had a wide snaggle-toothed grin planted in the middle of his dusty face.

  Jake’s troop were only meant to harry the column, maybe pick off a truck or an armoured car if they got the chance. They had no intention of engaging the heavy Iraqi tanks. There was a point out on the vast, rocky plain where the terrain started to get more hilly, more broken. It was there that the two tanks turned to make a stand as the rest of the column continued. No longer bouncing over the rocky terrain, the tanks were able to take proper aim and the shells came smashing into the dirt ahead of Jake’s troop, blasting shrapnel and stones at the skin of their vehicles. The enemy were finding their range quickly. The next shells might obliterate Jake’s safe metal box. Commanders and gunners dropped down inside turrets. They were about a kilometre from the enemy, well within the range of the Warrior’s 30-mm cannon, but it was no more than a peashooter against the tanks. His troop were suddenly in a very hairy place. Jake was scared and his mind was racing, but it was also absolutely clear. He knew what to do. And he did it calmly. He could hear the shakiness in Sammo’s voice as he responded to his command for the Warrior troop to wheel around on their sharp turning circle. As they started back-pedalling into their own dust cloud, he called in the air strike. Minutes later a pair of A-10 Warthog tank-busters swooped over.

  The American planes flew over the static Iraqi tanks and came around in a wide arc. The Iraqi tanks stopped firing on Jake’s troop, concentrating on getting away from the planes now. Jake wheeled his troop around again, called a halt, and came out of the turret hatch to look through his binoculars as the dust cleared. On their second pass, the A-10s dropped altitude and kicked up lines of dusty plumes around the Iraqi tanks with their rapid cannon fire. They came around once more to finish the job. Thick black smoke began to roll out and upward from the pale dust cloud that was shrouding the destroyed tanks. And then the A-10s tipped their skinny wings to wheel around on Jake’s troop. These planes were wildly popular with the Allied ground troops; they had often come to the rescue and his lads were cheering – the pilots were going to give them a flypast. Maybe even a victory roll.

  He saw the stuttering smoke from the nose of the lead plane before he heard the cannon. It was a dull buzz, like a screwdriver ripped down corrugated plastic. Jake saw white flashes all around him through the thick dust blasted out of the desert by the explosive rounds.

  He dropped back inside the turret as a round struck the dirt next to the right track of his Warrior, the explosion bouncing the men around inside the metal tin. Jake’s helmet smacked hard into some surface or other. He was disoriented for a moment, his ears ringing, dust and smoke blinding him. He couldn’t feel any injuries. He shook himself into action, flailing around inside until his hands hit the semi-conscious body of Sammo. Dave swore as he groped around for the button for the electric ram to open the rear hatch of the burning vehicle before they managed to haul Sammo out.

  “We’ve got a blue-on-blue,” Jake said into his radio. He stopped himself from shouting. “I repeat, blue-on-blue. Abort the air strike. Abort, abort.”

  But the A-10s came around a second time before the message was relayed through Central Command. The intensity of Jake’s terror was something he had never felt before. It was the feeling of death. He wasn’t yet helpless in its grip, but it was coming for him. The A-10s strafed them again, the dull buzz tearing dispassionate strips across the earth, reducing everything in their path to dust, splintered metal and bloodied flesh. In the immediate aftermath, Jake’s terror turned to fury. If he could have somehow got to the pilots in those moments, he felt like he could have killed them.

  Sammo made it. Two lads from his troop died out in the desert and a third died a few days later in hospital. Paul Vincent was from Devon, crazy about rugby and the fittest in the troop. He had only just turned twenty when he was left with a body that was just a hunk of smashed meat, a machine inflating and deflating it, until his parents gave permission to pull the plug. Jake had never wanted to set foot inside another hospital.

  All the vehicles in Jake’s troop had carried orange marker panels to allow easier identification by Allied pilots. The A-10 pilots should have seen. But the line from Central Command was that Jake had called in the attack without correctly identifying the location of the friendlies. Jake’s senior officers went along with it. No one wanted to rake over the coals.

  Bad PR might compromise the mission, damage trust, endanger more Allied lives. Jake heard it all.

  His CO told him his record would be unaffected. He had a promising career ahead of him, if he kept quiet. It had been a confused situation out in the desert, the CO said. Just one of those tragic things that was inevitable in the course of a war.

  A confused situation. That was true. Jake’s fury with the A-10 pilots had subsided – they would know they had killed friendlies that day, it would stay with them for the rest of their lives and it may not even have been their error. The fault might have lain anywhere along the line from Jake’s mic through British comms to American comms and into the helmets of the pilots. Someone knew. Someone had got it wrong. Take responsibility, pay your dues, move on.

  Knowing he wouldn’t be able to pack it away into some tidy compartment, Jake went back to his CO. “I’d like to hear the comms recordings from the engagement, sir.” Jake was willing to take whatever he deserved on the chin, but he was convinced he had called in the coordinates correctly and identified his own position. His mind had been clear out there in the panic and confusion. He had been in the zone.

  His CO was sitting behind a cheap, modern desk in a small office with equally modest furnishings. It wasn’t the same army he had joined as a young lieutenant. But some things didn’t change. “You have to put your personal feelings aside and think about your responsibilities
to the regiment,” he said to Jake. “We’re soldiers and we have to accept whatever comes our way in a war. We all signed up to that.”

  Jake went to see the parents of each of his lads who had died. The visits were unofficial, his CO had told him not to contact them. Knocking on a door to tell a mother and a father that he had played a part in the death of their son was hard. Photos on the mantelpiece. But he found himself unable to stick to the army version. He told them what he knew because he felt it was the right thing – he wasn’t seeking their forgiveness. Paul Vincent’s parents got angry with him anyway, they wanted to lash out at the army, at anyone in the army. But they wanted to get to the bottom of it. All the parents did.

  Jake got nowhere. The army pulled down the shutters and his CO summonsed him. “Last warning. Don’t throw your life away on this. You won’t get a win.”

  Jake saluted, walked out of his office and went straight to a tabloid journalist.

  He really had seen the army as a second family, a consistent, reliable contrast to his first. But retribution was final and ruthless. Caught out by the scale of media attention, the British and American High Command reacted swiftly. The PR people went into overdrive; they really did a number on Jake. At least someone had got a career boost out of the whole sorry business. An edited transcript of the radio comms from the incident was handed to the media, with sole responsibility pointing to Jake. His brief, unwanted celebrity turned to notoriety. He decided to split the moment they announced he was under investigation. He was on the plane to Brazil by the time the army had left a suitable delay between that announcement and the one for the charge of court martial.

  Brazil hadn’t worked out as the fresh start he had imagined, but it was only now that the murk, like a damp winter morning, was lifting. He was going to fix something. It wasn’t a reaction provoked by anger in the way that the needle with Nogueira had driven him to rescue Vilson from the hill. The kid had been beaten with the shitty end of the stick his whole life. And now Jake was going to make something right for him. He was going to put what little family the kid had back together.

  *

  Marinho

  Marinho stood with Nogueira, across the road from the main entrance of Morro da Babilônia. Anjo’s TV news performance had gained spectacular, if brief, notoriety. The media had gone crazy over it until the horrific kidnapping and murder of a family up in the north had gripped the country, along with a new corruption scandal involving a government minister. The heat might not be so intense now, but Nogueira was still getting some.

  Marinho stayed on his shoulder as Nogueira breathed in an air of confidence and crossed the road, ambling into the favela like he was taking a stroll along the beachfront on a Sunday. Marinho had a decent poker face but he wasn’t in the same league. Even though they were fooling no one with their plain clothes, they went unchallenged. The word had been put out; they had a pass.

  Climbing the hill, Nogueira stopped at a small shop that had its metal window shutters pulled down. The sign on the door claimed that the shop was a world leader in used electrical goods and repairs. Nogueira took a breath to recover from the climb, using the heel of his hand to push the sweat from his brow.

  The city was less than two hundred metres below them. Safety and sanity seemed a very long way away. Marinho wished to hell he was back in the unmarked car on the street where Branca was waiting at the wheel.

  Branca went along with whatever Nogueira told him because he knew what was good for him. Marinho wondered if Branca ever saw that dying kid curling up in agony on the Copacabana pavement in his dreams and every time he closed his eyes. Give Vilson up and the dead kid might haunt him forever. Helping him was inviting a death sentence. And the worst of it was that Marinho needed Nogueira. If Nogueira got put away or got put down, all hope of the career that Marinho wanted so desperately would be gone forever. He was between a rock and more than one hard place.

  Nogueira gave him the slightest of nods. You ready for this?

  Marinho nodded back. His stomach was churning. Nogueira had told him he was along for the ride because of his ability to set his face cold when it mattered. And because he was useful in a fight and kept a cool finger on his trigger. Marinho knew Franjinha was on the other side of the door. If he or any of his kids remembered him from the night with Vilson, he was dead. And he knew that Nogueira might put a bullet in his head before anyone else got a chance, just to make a statement to Anjo. Nogueira always had a backup plan, an out, if things went to shit. Whatever Nogueira had up his sleeve, Marinho had to go through the door and meet his fate. And show not the faintest trace of fear. Even if his guts had turned to water.

  Nogueira loosened his shoulders, put his own face on and knocked. He looked like a hit man on his holidays. Marinho had to give it to him: he was a tough son of a bitch.

  A kid opened the door enough for them to move into the hot little electrical shop, the weak strip lights giving it a sickly pallor.

  Anjo was leaning against the long shop counter, Franjinha at his side, other soldiers crammed in against shelves stacked with cardboard boxes containing electrical flex, plugs and components. There were untidy piles of TVs and stereos and kitchen appliances in various states of repair on the counter and on the floor.

  Marinho followed Nogueira’s lead, keeping his hands slightly away from his body, palms turned out. A very deliberate, unthreatening gesture. Coming in peace. He could feel the uncomfortable bulk of his handgun tucked down the back of his trousers. No one would expect them to walk into the favela unarmed. Anjo and his soldiers kept their guns similarly holstered. An all-round show of good faith.

  The sweat was suddenly pouring from Marinho. In that stuffy, cramped space, everyone was sweating. Every asshole in there knew that every other asshole knew that if it all went to hell no one was walking away without having lumps shot out of them.

  Marinho avoided catching Franjinha’s eye, whose burns were peeled and red-raw shiny. He had a kind of cap of stretchy medical gauze smeared with grease on his head. There was more of the gauze wrapping the taut, raw skin of his arms. He shifted on the spot, tensing different parts of his body to distract from the pain that was etched into his face, even with its customary blankness. The burned skin of his hands was too tight for him to fully clench his fists. Marinho could see that he was twitching for a line. But there was nothing else coming from him, no hint of recognition. It was one thing crossed off the list that would stop Marinho from getting out of this place alive.

  Anjo pushed himself away from the counter to command attention. “O Capitão,” – The Captain – he said, grinning. “What an honour.”

  Nogueira bowed his head, playing up to Anjo’s dig. “The honour is mine, to be with the most famous guy in Rio.”

  Anjo liked that.

  Nogueira immediately changed gear. “But you know your television stunt is still making a lot of trouble for me.” He was straight to it, punching the wasp’s nest. Fearless, thought Marinho.

  Anjo’s grin disappeared. “I thought we were here to talk business? Why are you still going on about that?”

  “Because when you go mouthing off about bad cops and your favela law and corruption in the city you make it my business.”

  Anjo was still. Deciding which way to go. Nerves were getting the better of some of his soldiers, their eyes darting about.

  Marinho willed his breathing to remain even and tried to contain the tremor in his muscles. His body was ready for the fight.

  “I do what I want in my favela. I am boss here,” Anjo said slowly.

  “That’s right, we don’t step on one another’s territory, that’s how it works, but you came and trampled on mine.”

  Anjo shrugged. “I cleaned up your little mess.”

  “By leaving a fried corpse in the middle of the road? Was that even the right kid or just someone you didn’t like the look of that night?”

  “It was the right kid. I put the bullets in him myself. Some little hoodlums must have d
ecided it would be fun to torch him afterward.” Anjo chuckled. “Kids, uh?”

  Nogueira glanced at Franjinha’s burns. “Not just the kids who should avoid playing with fire, uh?”

  Anjo pulled the Beretta from the back of his shorts. He was quick. He might be a lousy shot, but he was quick.

  Other kids went for their guns. There was a murmur around the room.

  Nogueira and Marinho moved their arms further out from their bodies in unison, palms turned out.

  “This is a lack of respect,” shouted Anjo, his voice harsh and biting in the small space. “You remember where you are right now, cop. This is my place. I might think about taking your shit if you were paying me a wage. Except last time I looked, I was paying yours.”

  His soldiers laughed on cue. There was a nasty edge. They knew Anjo well enough to know there was a kill coming.

  Nogueira shrugged graciously, no hint of tension in his hard face. “You are a businessman, as am I. But this has been bad for my business. I know you can see that. It’s making life difficult.”

  Franjinha moved and Marinho tensed. Nogueira looked serene.

  Franjinha placed a hand on Anjo’s forearm. Anjo’s black eyes glittered as he kept on staring down Nogueira.

  “It’s okay,” Franjinha said. “It was just a bad joke, wasn’t it, cop?”

  “Sure,” Nogueira said, keeping his voice deep and even. “Look, to show there are no hard feelings, maybe I can put something your way. My cabo here is fighting soon, a big fight – I can help you make a lot of money on it.”

  Nogueira had held his nerve and kept them alive, Marinho knew that. He rumbled on with languid confidence as if he had finished the Sunday stroll by putting his feet up in a beach bar with a beer in his hand.

  He hadn’t cut any kind of deal but he had had the balls to come into Anjo’s backyard and piss against his post. Without pissing too far. Nogueira was the biggest dog in the room and everyone knew it.