The Long Night

by Jessica Scott

  "This building you're so eager to use is an orphanage," Merrick said quietly. "It's off limits."

  Sam flinched at the thought of little kids in the middle of a clearing operation. Still he drove forward, hating the point he was about to make. "Not if the insurgents are using it as a base of operations," he said. "Then all Geneva protections are off."

  Merrick's lips cracked a cold smile. "Mighty bloodthirsty, are we?"

  "Not particularly anxious to die in the middle of a poorly planned mission."

  "As opposed to dying in a well-planned mission?" Merrick asked. His smug tone grated.

  "I prefer the not-dying-at-all option." Sam straightened, bristling. “There is absolutely no point in pushing the TAC out to this location. We’re holding a couple of city blocks just to hold a couple of city blocks.”

  Merrick stared at Sam, his eyes glittering black in the low light. Sam lifted his chin, refusing to be cowed by a man who looked like a walking skeleton.

  “I realize this is less than ideal,” Merrick said, “but I assure you we have enough men and the locals are helping us. We’ll be fine with what we have.”

  Sam refused to be sucked into the calmness surrounding Merrick. "This plan sucks and I'm not going to just sit back and do nothing while you drag my boys into a shithole fight with no objective."

  A moment later, Merrick was in his space. His breath was hot on Sam's face and smelled like cigarette smoke and coffee. "You think you get a vote here? You'll play your part, Sergeant," Merrick said, his voice a soft hiss.

  "Or?"

  Merrick's smile was merciless. "Or you'll let your men go out on this mission without you."

  "Are you fucking threatening me?" Sam growled.

  "Take it however you like." Merrick patted Sam's chest with both hands. "But you're still going to do the mission whether you like the plan or not. So how about you—how would you say it? Shut up and color?" He glanced over at Sam. “You don’t have any problem obeying orders, now, do you?”

  Sam tightened his fists by his sides and said nothing.

  "Sarn't Brown, I trust you’re playing nice?" Captain Lehr's voice penetrated the brewing shit storm in Sam’s head. He’d stepped into the company ops with another captain on his heels.

  Sam took a step back from Merrick's smile. Merrick brushed his sleeve off with one hand. "Your sergeant didn't mean any harm, Captain Lehr," Merrick said. His lips curled slightly at the corners. Sam's fists bunched by his sides. "He was just expressing his opinion."

  "I wasn't worried about him," Captain Lehr said to Merrick. The shorter captain stepped into the conference room behind him, a small blond man who looked like he was about twelve. "I was worried about you."

  Merrick's smile didn't waver. "I wouldn’t. I’ve got a long history of getting people on board with plans far less ideal than this one." He tapped the edge of the table with his knuckles.

  "If we're all done with the get-to-know-you phase, would we all like to get back to the mission?" Captain Lehr said.

  * * *

  An hour later, Tick elbowed Sam in the ribs when he caught Sam watching Merrick. "Cut the shit."

  "The elbow delivered that message loud and clear," Sam snapped. "I didn't need a neon sign."

  "Apparently you do. If I leave this room to work with Second Platoon, are you going to act like a fucking adult or do I have to babysit your stupid ass?"

  He thought about arguing, he really did; there was something about Merrick that set Sam’s teeth on edge. No one was that calm out here. It wasn’t fucking natural.

  "All right then." Tick waved his hands at the table. "You two play nice and work on the defense plan for the TAC."

  Lewis and Hale moved closer to the sand table on one side while Merrick's fire team leaders leaned on the other side.

  "Clearly this mission is off to a good start," Sam muttered.

  Merrick ignored the comment. He pulled his knife out of a sheath on his hip and marked a circle around the building they were planning on using as the tactical command post. "We'll set defensive perimeters here, here and here. Main guns will go at the major entry points."

  "Manning those guns takes half a fire team off mission," Sam said. "We'd be better off putting the big guns here and here, then using smaller crew-served weapons like the 249 here and here. Gives better coverage with smaller manpower requirements."

  Merrick looked up sharply. "You're not understanding me. We're not taking the Bradleys. We're rolling in Humvees."

  "You're fucking kidding me, right?"

  "In case you didn't already gather, I don't have a sense of humor to speak of. No, I'm not fucking kidding you." Merrick traced a line in the sand with the tip of his knife. "This isn't a big enough operation to warrant the Brads."

  "Why aren't we bringing the big guns?"

  "Ask the planners at brigade. I don't know and I don't fucking care. We don't have them. Get over it."

  "You honestly expect us to just roll into the neighborhood in thin-skinned vehicles and be fine?"

  "Well, I could lie to you, you know. Tell you it's all unicorns shitting rainbows. Would that make it easier to sleep at night?" Merrick tipped his chin and narrowed his eyes. The calm was gone now, replaced with an intense focus. Sam thought of a cat watching a hamster as it scurried for a crumb. "But you don't sleep well now, do you?"

  "Listen, Gandalf, knock off the mind-reading shit," Sam snapped. But the question unsettled him. "And I'm glad you think this is a goddamned joke. We're the ones who have to stay in this area when you head the fuck out of here and go home."

  Merrick’s smile was flat. "We've been here for fifteen months. If you think you know the situation on the ground better than me, by all means, have at it." He took a step back and gestured toward the sand table.

  Sam straightened and folded his arms over his chest. "I'm not sure what game you’re playing here but I’m pretty well not interested in it. I don’t trust these fuckers as far as I can throw them."

  “And that’s why, when we leave, you’ll see an increase in attacks. Because these fuckers, as you call our allies, can tell when you don’t trust them. And trust is the foundation of everything we do. Every agreement.”

  “Dude, cut the shit,” Hale whispered. “He’s been out in this neighborhood more than us. Stop pissing him off.”

  Sam scowled at Hale. “You’re on his side?”

  Merrick smiled. "You should listen to your team leaders."

  "I do," Sam snapped. "Do yours even speak?"

  Both of Merrick's team leaders looked up at the same time. Their faces were cut in shadows from the single light bulb. They looked hungry. Like beasts on the edge of humanity.

  "Woof," the dark-haired one said.

  Sam bit back a smart-assed comment and shrugged off Hale’s disloyalty. He rolled his shoulders, trying to release the tension squeezing the back of his neck. "So we're putting mounted security here and here. We've got fifty-cal mounts on some of the Humvees. We'll take those. It won't kill us to man those in two-man teams."

  Merrick nodded and marked an x in the sand. "We'll string up the concertina wire around the entire building three strands high. The signal guys will be able to get the antenna up on the roof. We'll have security on the roof, too."

  Sam surveyed the mock-up of the city. "This building is going to block our communications."

  "The antenna will be able to get over it."

  "Barely," Sam said. "It would make more sense to occupy this building and put the antenna on that roof."

  "That building is off limits per our working agreement with the mayor. We go in there, we risk killing a shitload of women and children." Merrick looked up, directly at Sam with those calm, penetrating eyes. "And we wouldn't want that to happen, now would we?"

  Sam held his expression immobile. He couldn’t know. There was no fucking way he could know what had happened back in that school. "Sure. Whatever. This building is a major vulnerability in the security plan." Sam looked back at the sand t
able, avoiding Merrick's eyes. The fucker knew. He knew. How the fuck did he know? Sam's heart slammed against his ribs.

  Sam looked up. Merrick was watching him, those black eyes unblinking in the flickering light.

  The hair on the back of his neck stiffened as cold wound around his spine.

  9

  "I have a bad feeling about this," Hale said as they walked back to the life support area.

  "You have a bad feeling about every mission," Lewis said. He flicked the wad of dip out of his bottom lip and spat into the dirt.

  "It's part of my natural sunny disposition, smart ass." Hale elbowed Lewis, but with no force behind the gesture. “You okay, boss?”

  “Not really.” Sam pushed his Eye Pro higher on the bridge of his nose. "I don't like this mission any more than either of you.” He sucked in a deep breath, trying not to choke on the dust in the air. “But we need to keep that shit to ourselves. We don't need to get the guys wound up. They need to focus and so do we."

  "No shit, Sherlock," Lewis said. "But why couldn't we just get the commander to overrule that guy about that big-ass building?"

  "We don’t want a repeat of the school mission,” was all Sam said. Silence fell, an uncomfortable memory filling the gap in the conversation.

  Hale kicked a rock down the path. It bounced off the Jersey barrier and landed in a small hole. "Yeah, well, kids on the battlefield are always bad news."

  Lewis pulled his dip can out and slapped it between his thumb and forefinger. "There won't be any more kids on this mission. God can't be that cruel twice."

  Sam swiped his hand across his mouth and said nothing. They rounded a barrier and came up short.

  A dingy brown dog sat in the middle of the path. She lifted her head.

  Sam couldn't look away from the wretched suffering etched in the lines of her ribs. He could count them clearly. Her teats were empty sacks beneath her belly, flaccid and empty. Her eyes, though, were sharp and filled with bitter misery.

  She tensed when she saw them but made no move to get up. They had no way around her, either.

  "Where did she come from?" Sam asked.

  "She's a stray some of the guys have been feeding," Hale said.

  "We're just violating GO1 with impunity now?" Sam asked. General Order Number One prohibited feeding any of the local wildlife, along with any form of fun and other good stuff.

  Lewis shrugged. "She's a good mouser. Our rodent population has gone down dramatically since she moved in."

  "How long has she been around here?" Sam wasn't comfortable with the idea of a feral dog in the life support area. Nothing against dogs or cats in general, but he wasn't a fan of adopting the local mutt. Having pets in the life support areas was asking for trouble, especially since the last rabies outbreak at a nearby base had gotten three soldiers evac’d out of theater to the hospital in Germany. Only one had come back, according to the private news network.

  Sam's squad was already short two dudes. He couldn't afford to lose any more. Not to feed a goddamned dog. He barely had enough personnel to establish a proper perimeter.

  "About two days before you came back, actually," Hale said.

  The dog stood and stretched, her narrow body extending until it looked as if her spine would snap.

  "There's a captain at battalion who is just dying to catch her, but she's too smart. She's avoided every trap, and every time Vector Control comes around, she's nowhere to be seen." Lewis stuffed a wad of black dip in his bottom lip. "Some of the guys think she's a ghost."

  Sam snorted as she trotted off, dust kicking up from her paws. She disappeared around one of the barriers. Sam wondered if she usually hung out in the middle of the paths or if this was something new. He deliberately avoided the idea that she looked like the dog from his nightmare on the plane. At least her shape and coloring were similar.

  He rubbed his eyes and wondered if he could find a decent cup of coffee before he started prepping for the mission. He was starting to lose his fucking mind.

  Hale looked at him. "The guys really like her. She's good for morale."

  "She's as good as dead if someone gets bit," Sam snapped. "As long as she leaves everyone alone and we do the same, I'll let it ride. First time I see someone feeding her, it's their ass and I'll double tap her right between the eyes."

  Lewis spit into the dirt. "That's pretty fucked up, you know."

  "Got it, but we're not in fucking Kansas anymore. The damn dog could have rabies, distemper. All kinds of good shit. We don't have the manpower to risk losing someone because they wanted to pet the rabid puppy."

  Lewis held up both hands. "All right; Jesus. Did you not get laid when you were home or what?"

  "Fuck off," Sam grumbled.

  "Dude, what the hell is your problem?" Hale asked.

  "Nothing. I just don't want anyone fucking with the damn dog. Is that too hard for you to comprehend?"

  "Got it. Jeez," Hale said.

  Lewis pulled his dog tags out of his shirt and unlocked the door to his trailer. "Go jerk off or something. Your mood sucks."

  Sam flipped him off as he walked by. Hale ducked into his trailer a few minutes later. He walked into his own trailer, palming the phone card he'd left next to his bed. He had a few minutes; he wanted to try to sneak in a phone call to Faith before this mission. He wasn't superstitious, but he wanted to hear her voice.

  He swung open his door and stopped dead.

  Hale stood in the doorway, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

  "Look, I know you're in a shitty mood and all, but…" Hale's weapon was slung across his chest, dangling from the three-point sling. He had a wad of dip in his lip and he spit around the corner of Sam's trailer. "So, ah, you got a sec?"

  Sam rubbed his thumb over the cold plastic phone card. Regret cut him as he stuffed it into his pocket. Faith probably wouldn't answer anyway.

  Sam stepped aside to let his team leader in. Hale was a good guy, but any time a conversation started with “Do you have a sec,” bad things followed. The kind of bad things that when they were home in the States ended with Sam making sure Hale didn't choke on his own vomit. "What's up?"

  Hale stood for a moment, looking around Sam's room. A thin coat of dust covered everything: the pillow on the bed, the frame. Sam's duffle bag sat in the corner where he'd thrown it the other night; he still hadn't unlocked his wall locker.

  Sam had other things he wanted and needed to do. Instead, he stood and waited for Hale to figure out what the hell he was going to say.

  He was not prepared for Hale to pull a business-sized envelope out of his cargo pocket and shove it at him.

  Sam looked at it like it was dusted with white powder. "What's this?"

  "I want you to make sure my mom gets this. And don't let them erase my computer, either."

  Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I'm not taking that."

  Hale didn't budge. "Yes you are."

  "No, I'm not because I'm not burying you." His throat thickened. He fucking hated this part of the deployment. The part where the guys started questioning whether or not their ticket would be punched. Whether they'd be the ones standing on the flight line or the ones being carried across it.

  He didn't want to think about Hale or Lewis or any of his boys in that flag-draped coffin. He'd buried enough of his team this deployment. And the one before that. He wasn't sure how many more he could bury before he simply broke. "I'm not having this conversation," he said quietly.

  "Good. Then take the damn envelope and make sure my computer gets home to my mom in one piece."

  "Why are you doing this?" Sam asked.

  Hale flushed and set the envelope on the top of the small table next to him when Sam refused to take it. "I just want to make sure. Cover all my bases, you know? Especially after we lost Bolowski and Tierney."

  "We're not losing any more dudes."

  Hale lifted a single shoulder. "I hope you're right. But in case it's me, just promise, okay?"

  Sam sig
hed hard, breaking the tight knot in his chest. "Sure. Whatever. You couldn't give that to Lewis or something?"

  "He'd probably send my mom a dick pic instead," Hale said dryly.

  Sam laughed. "Yeah, you're probably right." He glanced at the envelope and felt the weight of it settle on his shoulders. One more thing not to screw up. One more mission. And the one after that. And the one after that. The pressure tightened on his heart.

  "So you'll do it?" Hale asked.

  This time, Sam didn't hesitate. There wasn't really any answer other than, "Sure."

  * * *

  He didn't touch Hale's letter. The white envelope stood out against the dusty surface, pristine in the dirt except for one corner that had a smudged fingerprint.

  Sam sat on the edge of his bed, one leg bouncing as he tried to figure out why this mission was bothering him as much as it was. Something wasn't sitting right. Not at all. He was usually better at figuring these problems out but whenever he was stuck in the past, he'd bounce his thoughts off First Sarn't Gnash.

  And Gnash was gone because he hadn't kissed the right ring.

  So Sam sat and ran the mission through his head. Turned it around and looked at it from another angle. It was something about the location of the TAC. Why did it have to be so close to that building identified as having women and children in it? Why so close to that mosque?

  Maybe he should get another look at the terrain. Maybe the commo guys knew something he didn't, but it didn't seem to make sense that they needed to be in that specific building in that specific neighborhood. There were always other options. Why not in this case?

  His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was closing in on dinner. If he missed dinner, he'd have nothing but an MRE until the mission was completed. It would be just his luck that it would end up being the MRE ham slice or the omelet. That would be nasty. If he were hungry enough, it would taste like a porterhouse. But on three previous deployments, he'd never gotten that hungry.