Ben pressed a thumb into his temple as he stared at the stone cold normal image on the screen. He knew damn well there had been a hole in Auger’s knee yesterday. Hell, he had pushed his own fingertip into it. After his deployment-heavy years in the teams he knew damn well what a bullet hole looked like and ricochet or not, Auger had one only twenty four hours ago. Even if he allowed himself to believe the magic witch-doctor paste could heal the wound, where the hell was the fragment that had torn into Auger’s leg? There had been no exit wound, so it had to be inside his leg.
Had to be, but wasn’t.
On a whim, Ben looked up at Auger. “Stand back at the wall again.”
“Everything okay?” Auger asked. Ben could tell he was concerned Ben had seen something wrong.
“Yeah, yeah, it looks perfect, man – right as rain.” He positioned Auger against the wall again and raised the plate to the level of his hip and stuck it back to the Velcro-covered wall he had created to support it. “Let’s just get a quick picture of your hip. I want to make sure that ashtray sized fragment didn’t move somewhere dangerous.”
He didn’t know if he would be able to tell if the giant, twisted piece of metal was somewhere dangerous. But that was a fragment he had seen before, and he just needed to see it was there.
But it wasn’t.
Ben stared in shock at the normal X-ray picture of Auger’s hip. The fragment the surgeons in Iraq had felt would be safer to leave in place in the SEAL’s body had completely vanished. Ben realized his throat felt dry because his mouth hung open.
“Everything okay, Ben?” Auger’s voice had the hint of worry again.
“Uh, yeah,” Ben said and forced a smile onto his face. “Yeah, it looks great.”
Auger walked over to him, and Ben clicked the program closed as casually as he could.
“What are you not telling me, bro? Do I have a problem? Am I gonna have to have an operation?”
Auger was a giant, fit Navy SEAL and tough as nails. But his voice had the quality of a kid who wanted to know if he would need a shot at the doctor’s office.
“Dude, nothing, I swear.” Ben said as he stood up and clapped Auger on the shoulders. “Your hip just looks way better than I expected, that’s all.”
“Yeah?” Auger asked, still suspicious.
“Yeah,” Ben said with a laugh. “I swear to God.” Auger seemed to relax. “You’re just an amazing healer, man. I’ve never seen nothing like it.”
“Well,” Auger said, his face that of the kid just told he was the smartest in the class. “I’ve always been kind of a quick healer.”
“You still are,” Ben replied, not sure what else to say.
“We done?”
“Yep, all done. You can stop the antibiotics. You’re all healed up.”
“Well, I told you I’m a fast healer,” Auger stood smiling, full of himself at this amazing fact. “You wanna go lift?”
“Nah, I wanna call Christy. I’ll catch up with you guys later for chow before the brief.”
“’Kay.” Auger headed out of the barracks.
Ben watched him walk away. No sign of the limp that had become so familiar since Al Anbar Province. Nothing.
What the fuck?
He turned and clicked on the icon for the X-ray program again and stared at the image, certain he had lost his mind.
Then, he closed the lap top and pushed the mystery out of his head. He had seen things almost as strange, and sometimes much more frightening, in the moonlight back home.
This is nothing.
Ben forced away the worried curiosity and focused instead on his call to Christy as he followed Auger out of the barracks.
* * *
The connection was as clear as if he called her from the base in Virginia Beach only a few miles from their town house. That made it easier, somehow – how close she sounded.
“Well, you definitely sound better than yesterday – or last night, or however the time difference works,” Christy said. Ben closed his eyes and could see her twisting her hair with her free hand, like she did when they talked at home on the couch. He could almost smell her.
“I love you, Baby,” he breathed in the imaginary smell. Christy laughed on the other end.
“Okay, now I am worried,” she said with a smile he could hear. “You have now officially told me you love me more times during this call than you did the entire month before you left.”
“Guess I miss you,”
“I miss you too, Ben. What’s different this time?”
He thought a moment.
“Me, I guess,” he said honestly. “I think maybe I’m ready to move on with us.”
Again, he could hear the smile.
“To where, Ben? I love you already. We have a great life.”
Ben took a deep breath and jumped into the cold, wet sand emotions tended to be for him.
“Ever think about kids?” he asked.
There was a long pause, and for a moment he felt a little panic.
“All the time,” she said, and Ben breathed a sigh of relief. “Every time I look at you, it seems.”
“Me, too,” he said, unsure what came next.
“Maybe we should talk about this when you’re home,” Christy said. “Didn’t you make a rule about never making relationship decisions when you’re deployed? Something about clear heads and wide eyes?”
He smiled.
“Yeah, well that was a long time ago when I was still scared to death of you.
“Scared of me?” she chuckled. “Big, steely-eyed SEAL man like you? How is that possible?”
“I want to tell you about someone,” he said suddenly.
“Okay,” Christy said.
And, he did. He told her, as best he could, about the little girl. On the open line he could give her no real details, but the advantage of people in love who really know each other seemed to be how much could be presented without really saying anything. In their own special coded language, developed over many long calls from half a world away, he told her about the girl and all that she had lost. As he did, he realized warm tears streamed down his face and dripped from his chin. He ended with his fear that her life, at least a real and happy life she had once known, was pretty much over.
“So, what are you saying, honey?” Christy asked softly. “Are you asking me something?”
Ben stopped and thought a moment. Was he asking her something? He hadn’t thought so, but a faraway voice in his head told him he was, that he had digested on it in his subconscious since they had been back, and talking to Christy allowed it to find its way out.
“I don’t know”, but he thought he did. Could it even be done? Was it possible? There would be assloads of legal and political implications, wouldn’t there? “What if I am? How would you feel about that?”
The pause was short.
“It would be hard, Ben. Really hard.”
He swallowed and closed his eyes.
“But it could be wonderful, too. I look at you, and I see the father of my children, you know. I always have.” Ben smiled again. “This would be a tough first step towards a family, but hearing the way you sound when you talk about her, the softness in you that only I really know is there…”
He laughed out loud at that.
“…makes me think it could be a good thing for us.” She paused again, and he knew enough about her to let her. “How old is she, Ben?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m a guy and not good at that. Old enough to walk a little but not very well and to make nonsense words, but not quite talk.”
“So more than one and probably less than two,” Christy said. He knew she wasn’t really talking to him, so he didn’t respond. “Certainly less than two.”
Ben waited.
“Would it even be possible?” Christy asked.
He realized there was some excitement in her voice. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’m not sure I realized I was thinking about it until just now when we tal
ked about it.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Do you want me to run it through our JAG?” he asked, referring to the military lawyers that all the units had, mostly for operational questions about international law. Ben figured Lieutenant Commander Chalk could find out the answers for him if he asked.
“Yes,” Christy said. “I really think I do.”
Ben’s smile swallowed him whole.
“You know I want to marry you, right?”
Christy laughed the sweet wind-chime-on-the-beach laugh he loved about her.
“I knew that way before you did, my friend – but very classy proposal.”
He laughed.
“I love you,” he said again.
“I love you, too.”
They talked about nothing in a way that said everything for another ten minutes, and then Ben told her goodbye with a promise that the moment he got any information from the JAG he would call her.
“No matter what time,” she announced.
“No matter what time,” he agreed.
He hung up and headed for the gym to lift for an hour. The exercise would help him sleep for a while before he had to get up for chow and the nightly intel and tasking briefs.
He hoped, as they all did every night he supposed, that he would be going out tonight.
For him it felt very personal now.
* * *
He thought he had dreamed, though he couldn’t remember of what, and he stole a glance at his feet. He felt relief that they looked clean. Ben punched off the alarm on his watch and rubbed his face. He felt rested, actually. He stared at the steel beams high above his bunk and tried to imagine what he had dreamed. He remembered nothing except a soft voice saying, “Goodbye, father.” Without any context, the words seemed a little haunting but not particularly frightening.
Ben arched his back and felt a comfortable tightness in his legs and hips from his run and workout earlier. He glanced again at his watch – almost five-thirty. He had showered before lying down to get the few extra minutes, and now he lay quietly on his back and thought about Christy.
Were they really thinking about adopting this little girl? Holy shit! That seemed at once so natural but scary and so – grown up. He smiled. No fear at the thought of marrying Christy he realized. In fact, he felt tremendous excitement at the thought. Bringing home the little girl might make it strange and rushed, but he had no doubts about his future with her.
Goodbye, father.
What does that mean?
He heard and felt the stirring in the room before he heard the hushed voices of his teammates coming back in from the shower trailer. Ben swung his feet out of the rack and pulled on his cargo pants and a black under-armor T-shirt. He slipped his feet into a soft pair of camp shoes and shuffled for the door with a toothbrush in his hand. When he pulled back the poncho liner wall, Reed grinned at him.
“Chow – you comin’?”
Ben shook his head. “Gotta do something,” he said. “Bring me something back?”
“Sure,” Reed said. “Whatcha want?”
“Whatever you’re getting,” Ben answered and clapped his friend on the back. Reed looked worried. “I’m fine, bro,” he said.
“Okay,” Reed shrugged. “I’ll meet you here in an hour. That’ll give you time to eat before the brief.”
“Thanks, dude,” Ben shuffled past him to the shower trailer to brush his teeth.
A few minutes later, Ben headed across the compound towards the medical hangar. He had shoved his toothbrush and toothpaste into a cargo pocket, suddenly too excited to take the time to drop them off at his rack. The little girl (she really needed a name badly – he would talk to Christy about that first thing in the morning) represented more than just a child he felt bonded to for reasons that were not all that mysterious. She was a connection now to his future and to Christy. Ben smiled and rounded the corner of the medical hangar.
He saw the three officers standing in front of their wooden hutch, and he felt a belt tighten around his heart.
Something’s wrong.
Ben felt himself pick up the pace to a near jog. He couldn’t shake the dread that grabbed at him. Maybe it was the old woman. Maybe she had a heart attack or something.
God, please let my baby girl be alright. Please. Anything else would just be too much unfairness.
You are a Seer, Ben. You can know what you want to know. All is as it must be.
Ben didn’t want to know, not that way at least, and he jogged up to the three medical officers. The ER doc, a major, looked up at him, and his eyes reflected confusion more than tragedy.
“Hey,” Ben breathed as casually as his pounding heart would allow. “What’s up? How are my folks?”
You already know.
He could no longer tell if he heard the old man’s voice or his own.
“Gone,” the major said and spit some Skoal into the dirt.
Ben looked at him for a moment without speaking. Had he heard him right?
“Gone?” he said. “Gone where? Where did they send them?” He felt a panic growing inside and realized just how much he wanted the little girl to come home with him. “Who the hell decided that?” His face felt hot.
“I don’t think you understand,” the surgeon said as he took him by the elbow and lead him a few paces away from the ER Doc major. “Nobody sent them anywhere. They just left.”
“Left?” Ben’s wide eyes conveyed clearly how ridiculous he thought that sounded. He gestured around them with a flourish. “How in the fuck do five indigent civilians clothed in animal skins leave this place? Getting out would be just as hard as getting in. Who the hell took them out of here?”
“Ben,” the Colonel said gently. “Believe me, I know how crazy this sounds. We have a perimeter of concertina wire guarding a berm, guarding a wall, protected by eight points of elevated sentry towers with overlapping fire. There is a double gate at one point only, guarded even more heavily by a security detail. We have helos in the air almost constantly, and it’s the middle of the friggin’ day.” The doctor rubbed his face with both hands. “Nonetheless, those villagers are gone. Vanished.”
“What do you mean vanished?” Ben said suspiciously.
“I mean no one saw them leave this building much less the Goddamn compound. I came to check on them a couple hours after you left, and they were gone. We have searched the compound, and mind you there ain’t really many places to hide here. They are nowhere in this camp. They vanished.”
“Impossible,” Ben said and shook the hand from his arm. He headed to the door of the hutch.
“Yep,” the surgeon called after him. “But those mysterious people have disappeared unless you bump into some invisible bodies in there.”
Ben opened the door and entered the now very well lit room. The nest of blankets and bed sheets had been returned to the cots in a disorganized way that made him suspect it was his people who had done it, unsure how to put them exactly. The room looked spotless.
And empty.
But not completely.
Ben could feel a presence of some sort hanging like a cloud in the room. Invisible – like humid air, but just as real and palpable. He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. For a moment, he felt something, a buzzing in the air and a tingle that ran up his right arm from his warm middle finger. He felt more than saw a flash of blue light, and then the jungle appeared in his mind’s eye – like a flash on a screen at a slide show. He thought he saw his little girl, looking back over the shoulder of the village woman who carried her. Before he could really see her, though, the image disappeared.
Ben opened his eyes and looked around the clearly empty room. The smell of the jungle faded quickly, and the tingling in his hand and arm stopped. He looked down at the ring which seemed almost to pulse with orange light, but then it faded to a deep and shiny purple.
There was no trace of his people here. Not a shred of cloth – nothing. They were gone, and his little girl and his hopes for her with them.<
br />
They are the keepers of the Living Jungle, Ben. You know this. There is no life for them apart from the Living Jungle. They could no more survive away from it than you could away from your lungs. They have gone where they must always go.
How?
You know how if you will let yourself know. Help them, Ben. Restore them to their place in the web that is all things. You have the power in you to protect them. They need you for that. They can do the rest.
“I know nothing about this,” Ben mumbled. “I need a psychiatrist is what I need.”
Ben turned and left the room. The Colonel waited for him outside, but the other two physician officers had left.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, man,” he said.
“Are we searching for them?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” the surgeon said honestly. “I imagine it will come out at the intel brief.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he managed to mumble as he walked away.
He shuffled back towards the barracks, his left hand unconsciously spinning the ring on his right middle finger. What could he do? They were gone. Ben wished he had not told Christy about the girl. She had seemed so excited and so drawn to him through the idea. She would be crushed, he thought. He felt a tear trickle down his cheek.
I’m the one who’s crushed.
He looked at his watch. The intel brief would begin in less than an hour. He decided to go to the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center, beforehand to see what he could find out. He couldn’t possibly wait an hour.
The TOC was the one place on the compound where the task force commander insisted on uniforms, so Ben jogged back to his rack in the barracks and pulled on some cammies. Properly dressed, he hustled across the former taxiway to the low, concrete building with a cluster of satellite dishes on top. Once inside the outer door, he punched in the memorized code for the inner door and entered the real nerve center of the task force.
The room was a stark contrast of homemade plywood table tops on which sat state-of-the-art computers and electronic communications equipment. Only a few of the work spaces were filled at this hour – the real work began when the sun went down. But Ben saw who he was looking for at a corner table.
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