by Young, Tom
He was disappointed to see he hadn’t put as much distance between himself and the village as he’d thought. Parson wanted to get well west of it, then descend into the valley and approach from the side where the destroyed huts were. He doubted the bad guy inside could see him come from that direction as long as the man remained indoors. He looked through the binoculars. A wisp of wood smoke. Nothing else.
Parson retreated to the back side of the ridgeline and forged ahead through ice-glazed trees. He topped the ridge again and scanned the dead village once more. Now it lay farther to his right, small even in the binoculars and veiled by descending snow. He hoped that same veil would conceal his next move.
He started down the slope above the huts, headed into the valley. A few steps took him out of the timber and onto the exposed face of the mountain. Parson walked fully upright; there was nothing for cover now except distance and snowfall. He thought if the remaining insurgent ever spotted him, it would happen during this part of the stalk. But maybe the winter camo parka and the white tape over the rifle would help him disappear into the frozen landscape. If it doesn’t work, he thought, I’ll know it when the bullet hits me.
When he reached the bottom of the slope, he lost sight of the village. That encouraged him. Parson had the lay of the land; he still knew where the dwellings were. But if he couldn’t see the village, the village couldn’t see him. Yet. When he judged himself in the bed of the valley, he turned east toward the huts.
After several minutes of hiking, he took a knee and glassed the expanse ahead of him. There was the village again, mainly rubble from this angle. Parson wondered if an air strike had done the damage here, too. He imagined the Warthogs coming in from this same direction, low and fast, spitting fire and steel at such a rate that their guns sounded like chain saws. He watched for a few moments, then stood and advanced.
When he came within a couple thousand yards of the huts, he stopped again. He went down on one knee. Then he lay prone in the snow. Parson put away the binoculars and scanned through the rifle scope. If he’s within range for me, Parson thought, I’m within range for him if he’s good enough. But the optic revealed nothing except snow-topped walls, blasted open some time ago.
Back on his feet, he trudged forward for several minutes. Stopped. Lay in the snow and scanned. The crosshairs still found no sign of life. Parson repeated that process twice until the mud-brick ruins were only two hundred yards away. Then he removed his snowshoes, left them behind, and stayed on his belly. Low-crawled through the downlike powder.
The snow got inside his clothes, but he ignored it. If I pull this off, he thought, I’ll have time to get dry inside. If I don’t, something else will get me long before hypothermia. He listened closely but heard no sound. Parson feared hoofbeats. He wondered whether his enemy had a radio to call for help.
Parson crept forward, eyes on the ruins. He heard no noise, saw no motion. Just smoke still rising. When he reached the outermost wall, or what was left of it, he left his rifle against a pile of stones. Too close for that weapon now. Parson drew the Colt and pulled back the hammer. Held it with his right hand. Pain there, but bearable. Picked up a fist-size rock with his left hand.
He walked in a low crouch along a wall that connected all the huts. That part of the structure remained pretty much intact. He peered along the wall and saw no one. Heard nothing. Parson placed each step straight down into snow that came above his knees. Tried to stay out of the rubble. He was within a few yards of his enemy now, and he wanted to make as little noise as possible.
Near the end of the wall, he came to the hole where the guerrilla inside had fired his panic burst from the AK-47. Parson flattened his back against the mud bricks, facing outside. Held his breath, listened. He hurled the rock backward over the hut and heard it clatter.
The AK opened up. Parson did not see where.
He ran forward. Crouched at the opening in the wall. Aimed the pistol inside with both hands.
A man at the door, firing out. The man turned, brought around the weapon. It took him half a second to move up the barrel to clear the doorjamb. That was all the time Parson needed. He fired twice.
Blood spurted from the man’s arm. He dropped the AK, fell. Parson fired again. The man jerked. In the corner of Parson’s eye, he saw a woman tied to a chair.
He charged through the opening, over crumbled stones. Crossed the room in three strides. Stood over the downed terrorist. The man looked only stunned. His eyes were still moving.
The man kicked with both legs just as Parson fired again. Knocked Parson off his aim. The bullet gouged the mud wall. One heel caught Parson’s shin. The other boot hooked the back of his knee. He fell against the man and felt the body armor.
The man grabbed Parson’s Colt by the barrel, using his good arm. Parson held the weapon with his injured hand. Placed his other hand over his enemy’s. The man raised his wounded arm. Struggled to place his finger inside the trigger guard. The weapon shook as four hands fought for it. Parson ground his teeth from the pain in his wrist.
Wide eyes, orbs of hate. Parson watched the pistol barrel turn despite all his strength and will. Saw the rifling grooves inside the barrel. He clawed at the safety. Useless. He tried to push back the slide so the weapon couldn’t fire. The man’s grip was too strong. Now the muzzle pointed at Parson’s left eye. Two inches away. A bead of sweat dropped from Parson’s nose onto the gunmetal. The man tried to push his thumb toward the trigger. Parson heard noise behind him. Something falling.
Two feet, boots tied together, came down on the man’s face. The man let go of the pistol. Parson rolled to his side, held the .45 with his left hand. The insurgent sat up, reached for the AK.
Parson fired. So close the blood spattered into his face. The warm flecks stung his eyes. When he blinked, he saw brain matter on the door. The man slumped against Parson’s shoulder. He pushed off the body, using the heel of his hand and the butt of the pistol. The dead insurgent smelled like some kind of livestock, and Parson wondered if his own body was as rank.
Gold lay on her back, hands tied behind her. Feet bound together. Gag tied around her mouth. A vein pulsed at her temple, just underneath the hairline.
An empty .45 casing rested on the floor between them. A feather of smoke curled from it, vanished. Parson saw where the firing pin had punched into the primer. His hands were shaking. He safed his pistol.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Parson pulled his boot knife and kneeled beside Gold where she lay on the floor of the hut. A hijab cut from rough cloth covered her hair.
“Just the three of them?” he asked.
She nodded.
He untied the gag, sawed the ropes around her boots and legs. She got up on her knees, turned her back to him so he could free her hands. He cut the nylon cords with the Damascus blade. He noticed raw, red flesh at the ends of her fingers. Gold had no fingernails.
Parson moved in front of her and picked up her hands, squeezed one of her wrists just barely. “Did they—” he started. Stopped himself. Didn’t know how much he should ask.
“That’s all,” Gold said.
Like that’s not enough, Parson thought. Shouldn’t have asked anything. “You need a medic,” he said.
Gold pulled the hijab from her head and dropped it. She sat cross-legged on the floor and hugged herself tightly, rocking, head down. Then she cupped one hand inside the other, and both hands trembled. She examined her fingers. She looked around and asked, “Where’s the team?”
“There is no team. Just me,” Parson said. “The guys who raided the house after we got captured were Special Forces. They went after Marwan and the mullah.”
Gold stared out where her former captors lay dead. He tried to imagine what she was thinking. We all know the mission comes first, Parson thought. We all know we’re expendable. But nobody really believes it.
“I left my pack up the hill. There’s a first-aid kit in it,” Parson said. “Are you going to be able to travel?”
<
br /> “This will hurt whether I’m walking or not.”
“I wish I had some morphine or something, but all I have in that kit is antiseptic and bandages.”
“I’ll manage,” Gold said.
“Are you going to be all right?”
Gold nodded slowly, as if she were trying to convince herself of something she didn’t quite believe. Parson wasn’t sure he believed it, either, but he knew they had little choice. Cope or die.
A low fire burned in a hearth made from creek stones. Parson could not see where the guerrillas had located firewood. Whatever they’d found must have been wet and green; the fire popped and hissed and gave poor heat. Still, Parson spread his coat and gloves to dry. His fingers nearly touched the flame before he sensed any warmth.
Parson couldn’t decide what he should say or feel. He thought he should have some sense of accomplishment. Gold rescued and the enemy dead. But he felt sick. Gold might have been spared all this if he’d made better decisions to begin with.
“These people were Arabs?” he asked.
“One was. And an Afghan and a Chechen.”
“Did they get off a radio call?”
She nodded. “I didn’t hear it well.”
No wonder, Parson thought. Probably hard to concentrate when you’ve had all ten fingernails ripped out.
That radio call meant he and Gold needed to move, but his coat was still wet. Though he didn’t want to hang around the mud hut, he knew wet would kill him now as surely as a bullet. He felt the front of his flight suit. It was damp, too. He took off his boots. Then he unzipped the flight suit and pulled it off, stripped down to T-shirt and thermal underwear.
He held the flight suit by the fire and shivered. The firelight glowed against the Nomex cloth and brought out the bloodstains. Some from Parson and some from his crew. He found the hole from Marwan’s bullet. The rip from the razor wire at the old Russian camp. The major’s oak leaves on the shoulders. Where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and what I have to do, he thought. He wanted to mend the holes, but he had no thread.
As he stood by the hearth, he wondered how close any more bad guys might be. It would be a hell of a note to get shot half-undressed while your clothes hung by a fire. Gold did not speak or make eye contact. She spread out her hands. Parson wanted to comfort her, but he wasn’t sure which lines not to cross. Maybe someone who’s been tortured doesn’t need anyone touching them in any way.
He finally decided it was all right as long as he made it about the job. He pulled on his flight suit, which had dried before anything else because it was so thin. Then he kneeled beside her and put both hands on her shoulders.
“Sergeant Gold,” he said, “you are a credit to your Army.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said. Her voice tensed like a flier straining to talk through a purging oxygen mask. It gave Parson some idea what the pain must be like.
When the rest of his things dried, he laced on his boots, now stiff and warm. He pulled on his coat and gloves. Parson stepped over the dead guerrilla and looked out the doorway. A thin layer of snow now frosted over the two bodies outside. The red slush was already fading. They all had it coming, he thought. Of course they did. He thought of something he’d heard from infantry troops: You don’t gotta like it; you just gotta do it.
He decided to take the body armor off the insurgent he’d shot inside the hut, but that was harder than he expected. The man had worn a coat over the flak vest. Parson rolled the corpse over, tried to slide the arms out of the sleeves. Nothing heavier than a dead body. The open eyes seemed to mock him. Entrance wound in the forehead.
Parson finally got the man’s wounded arm out of the coat. Parson’s pistol bullet had broken the upper bone. The dead arm slipped from the sleeve and dropped to the floor like slaughterhouse meat. Parson looked up at Gold, who watched without expression. He started to ask her to help but didn’t. He rolled the body again and freed the other arm. Unclipped the snaps on the vest. He knew how because it was an American flak jacket. He pushed the shoulders and hips and turned over the corpse once more. Now he was sweating. He loosened the vest’s straps, pulled off the vest; it came free except for one strap still under the guerrilla’s chest. Parson yanked the vest, kicked the cadaver. Held up the flak jacket.
“Put this on,” he said.
Gold shook her head.
“Why not?”
She turned away. He took off his parka and donned the vest. Blood down the front, not all of it fresh. He zipped up his parka over it. Then he picked up the AK-47 from the floor. Handed the rifle to Gold. She took it without looking at him.
“I left some things outside,” Parson said. “Wait here till I get them.”
“No. I need to get out of here.” Gold pulled gloves from one of her pockets. She winced as she put them on.
Gold looked toward the corpses outside, started to say something. Parson waited, but she did not speak. He peered through the hole in the wall. Parson went out through the breach and led Gold along the ruins until they came to where he’d left his rifle. He lifted the M-40 and carried it across his chest. Gold looked at the weapon with a puzzled expression.
“Long story,” Parson said. “I had some things air-dropped.” She didn’t ask him how.
Parson followed his own tracks away from the village. He looked back at Gold. She walked unsteadily, nearly lost her balance once. When he found his snowshoes, he handed them to her.
She kneeled in the snow and began to put on the shoes. She stopped after she had donned the first one, closed her eyes. Placed both hands on her thigh, fingers outstretched. Took a deep breath and pulled on the second snowshoe. Parson stooped and helped her with the bindings.
He glassed the valley and the ridges above it with the binoculars. No sign of approaching enemy. The job wasn’t over; he still had to be careful. He wished Gold would move faster; more insurgents could be anywhere. But he didn’t want to push her too hard. A stratum of low cloud rolled overhead, shades of gray from the color of pond ice to cold iron.
He retraced his steps, leading the way out of the valley and back up onto the ridgeline. As they climbed, Gold stopped and leaned on an evergreen. Her hair hung loose, the bun half untied. Snowflakes settled in the blond strands that hung over her cheeks. She did not brush the hair aside, and the flakes turned to rivulets against her face. Parson took her wrist, careful not to touch her fingers. He pulled her uphill for a couple of paces. She regained her footing and pressed on.
When they came to where Parson had left his pack and sleeping bag, he brushed the snow from the pack and dug inside for one of the water bottles he’d saved. He twisted off the cap and handed it to Gold. She drank half the water without pause, then reached the bottle back to Parson. He waved it off, and she finished it. He opened another bottle and she drank all of it. Gold looked down the mountain at the village where she’d been held.
Parson opened a first-aid kit and fished out a Betadine vial. “Let me see your hands,” he said. Gold paused, then pulled gently at the fingers of her left glove. She shut her eyes hard, and Parson wondered whether what little medical help he could provide was worth the pain it caused her. She loosened the glove slowly, repeated the process with the other glove. She kneeled, placed the AK across her leg, and spread her fingers across the flat of its stock.
The sight made Parson shudder. The ends of Gold’s fingers resembled something you might see while dressing game, a hoof or paw with the skin pulled off. Several bled from lacerations. He guessed that to be the work of a knife blade twisted with the sharp edge down. He wondered whether the insurgents had wanted information or just sick entertainment. If they’d sought information, Parson imagined, they must have had a hard time getting it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have taken all ten fingernails.
He unscrewed the vial of antiseptic and pulled out the applicator brush attached to the cap. Parson dabbed the liquid onto Gold’s fingers, staining a yellow tint over the blood and torn tissue. Gold flinched but made no soun
d. He tore off a length of white medical tape with his teeth. He cut it into shorter lengths and taped gauze around each of Gold’s fingertips.
When he finished working on her right hand and started on her left, she picked up some snow and let the powder rest on her palm. The white snow and five white bandages. The gesture made Parson think of a child from a hot climate seeing snow for the first time. Light breeze lifted some of the dry snow from her hand.
“You’re the only one I could save,” he said. “You’re my crew now.” Parson cut open an MRE.
“I don’t think I can eat,” Gold said.
“Can you try some crackers?”
“Maybe.”
Parson opened one of the wafers, nearly as wide as his hand. The big crackers always made him think of Civil War hardtack, but they tasted all right. Just not enough salt. He broke one in half and handed both pieces to Gold. She ate while Parson dug his radio out of the pack. He wanted to check in with Cantrell again.
Parson pulled off his gloves and blew into his hands to warm them, but it didn’t help. He put the gloves back on, turned on the 112, and inserted the earpiece. Snowflakes settled on the radio and did not melt.
“Razor One-Six,” he called, “Flash Two-Four Charlie.” No answer. He repeated, “Razor One-Six, Flash Two-Four Charlie.”
A long pause. And then Parson had to listen closely, because Cantrell whispered when he said, “Flash Two-Four Charlie, go ahead.”
“I’m waiting at LZ Delta,” Parson said. He changed frequencies and listened for the callback.
“Have you found her?” Cantrell asked.
“Yeah, she’s still with us. Where are you?”
Several seconds of nothing but hiss. Parson guessed Cantrell couldn’t believe he’d done it.
“We followed those bastards to a cave complex,” Cantrell said when he finally spoke. He gave Parson coordinates. Parson pulled off his gloves and uncapped a pen. It was a hotel pen he’d picked up in his room during a mission months ago, and the lettering read: “Regency Marriott, Kuwait City.” A place of warmth, luxury, and lots of food. He put the cold tip of the pen in his mouth. Spat, then wrote the numbers on the heel of his left hand. It hurt to write.