by Young, Tom
Cantrell and Najib whispered to each other and moved up a few steps. Gold borrowed the binoculars, then handed them back to Parson. When he glassed the scene from a closer vantage point, he saw that the dead thing was a man.
The troops spoke to each other through their MBITRs, took positions, set up a perimeter. Now Parson was confused. He’d heard no shots. But then, that body didn’t appear to have been killed in a firefight. Even from a few hundred yards it looked like something slaughtered. It seemed every day Afghanistan showed him some new horror.
Najib moved up with his shotgun poised to fire. Parson zoomed in with the binoculars and watched him crouch near the body. Najib turned to his side and placed his fist over his mouth, closed his eyes. Looked again and shook his head. He spoke into his radio, and Cantrell joined him.
As Parson neared the other two officers, he heard Cantrell say, “That is so fucked up.”
Then he saw why. The body had been disemboweled and beheaded. Parson heaved, but didn’t have enough in his stomach to vomit.
Entrails spilled from the belly like purple ropes. The corpse’s hands were tied behind it with a long, black cloth. The head sat in the snow upright, eyes closed, mouth gaping. Flakes were starting to gather in the hair and on the eyebrows. Blood had melted snow into a puddle of red slush.
“He was Taliban,” Gold said.
“How can you tell?” Parson asked.
She pointed to the bound hands. “That was his turban.”
Cantrell began walking around the scene, examining tracks, looking at the surroundings. Najib huddled with his men, speaking in Pashto.
“So who besides us is after these guys?” Parson asked. He thought some militia, maybe the Northern Alliance or whatever they called themselves now, had caught a straggler from Marwan’s gang.
“Nobody,” Cantrell said, hands on his hips, eyes on the ground. “There’s no other set of footprints. No shell casings, nothing.”
“They did this to one of their own?” Parson said. “Why?”
“Dissent in the ranks, perhaps,” Gold said.
“So somebody got made into an example,” Cantrell said.
“This is why Marwan needs the mullah,” Gold said.
“What are you talking about?” Parson asked.
“Even some Talibs oppose what he wants to do,” she said. “The mullah can give him theological backing.”
“Theological backing for using a nuke?” Parson asked.
No one answered. But that was answer enough.
“We believe the mullah was about to issue a fatwa approving a nuclear strike on a U.S. city, but he was captured first,” Najib said.
Now Parson was starting to make some sense of why the Taliban might not all support Marwan. The Taliban had Afghanistan as their own little medieval paradise until 9/11, and then al Qaeda blew it for them. Guess they’re afraid if we get hit hard again, he thought, we’ll turn this place into the fifty-first state and never leave.
Parson looked at the mutilated corpse. It reminded him so much of Nunez. The sight of his crewmate, beheaded, came rushing back, a waking nightmare. But maybe Nunez and the others hadn’t lost their lives for nothing. They had given him time to get away with the prisoner.
The mullah had been just cargo to Parson. Part of a job he did with his crew. Fisher was right all along, he thought. This mission is more important than any of us.
Cantrell gave hand signals to the troops out on the perimeter. The men prepared to move again. “Stay alert, people,” he said. “If this is what they do to their friends, think what they’ll do to you.”
The team looped to the north once more and hiked in that direction for more than an hour. Parson thought he and his rifle could be more useful now in the daylight. He just hoped he could stay awake enough to think quickly and make good decisions. It was getting hard just to read his compass, something that should come as naturally as breathing. Yeah, he reminded himself, north is still three-six-zero, dumbass.
The enemy had to be close, but Parson could not see where. Snow fell harder, with mist rolling over the ridges. He guessed any transmissometer reading would have shown visibility at less than a quarter mile.
The valley opened into a bowl-like plateau walled by mountains, with a gentle rise bulging across the otherwise flat plain. Beyond the rise, Parson saw the top of a gnarled sapling less than a hundred yards away. It grew from the hill’s opposite slope, and the rolling ground hid most of its trunk. A goshawk flapped out of the tree and circled over the troops. Parson wondered why the bird would fly around like that in such sorry weather. Because something disturbed it. Parson froze.
Najib looked at the raptor gliding above. He held up his fist. Everyone stopped. The hawk screeched, and its cry echoed across the plain like the screams of the damned. Moving only his eyes, Parson checked for the nearest cover. Not much to choose from. A rock no bigger than a C-130’s tire. Scrub brush. Those bastards are probably just on the other side of that rise, Parson thought. Najib motioned for the team to take cover.
Parson dropped behind the rock and tried to make himself as flat as possible, part of the ground. He dug the butt of the M-40 into the snow, with the barrel along the side of the rock. With his left hand, he held the sling near the forward swivel and pointed the rifle toward the hill. Scanned through the scope. His eyes were so tired that the reticle went fuzzy. He blinked and forced himself to bring it into focus. Thought he saw movement behind the hill.
He placed his finger on the trigger. The brittle handkerchief across his face was getting uncomfortable, but he welcomed the extra camo it provided. No clear target for him now, just that bare tree and the stinging snow. He felt pressure on his chest from this extreme prone position. Bent his right knee and slid his leg up a bit, and that helped some.
In his peripheral vision, he saw a couple of the snake-eaters in similar positions. He wondered what to do next. Well, Najib had said to use the M-40. A snowdrift near the sapling appeared to move. No, just a trick of the fog. A pair of stones at the base of the drift. Nothing to get excited about.
But Parson didn’t like those two rocks. Couldn’t make his tired mind reason why. Because they’re windward, he thought. They should be drifted over. Something, maybe a fallen branch, between them. No, they’re gloved fists. Holding a rifle. White parka, white shemagh. And that’s where the chest should be, Parson estimated with his crosshairs.
He fired. Felt the recoil, heard the crack of high velocity. Spurt of blood. The gloved hands released the AK and the body slumped forward. Parson saw that he’d hit the man somewhere in the upper torso. A fatal or at least incapacitating wound, apparently, because the body did not move.
He expected the insurgents to open up, but no shots came. Maybe they were waiting for someone to stand up and give them a target. Marwan must have schooled them on how to fight a little smarter. Parson remained flat to the ground.
But now he had empty brass in his firing chamber. Raising his arm to rebolt the rifle could give away his position. He was alive because they didn’t know exactly where he was.
Parson considered what to do. Then he turned his rifle, slowly, slowly, onto its right side. That put the ejection port toward the ground. Using his right knuckles, he lifted the bolt by millimeters until he felt it release. Hooked two fingers around the bolt, tugged it. That hurt his wrist, and he ground his teeth. He gave the bolt a short jerk. That hurt even worse. But it made the extractor pop the expended cartridge onto the snow. The casing gave off an odor like metal hot from welding.
Parson put the heel of his hand against the bolt and pressed it forward. He heard satisfying steel-on-brass rasps that told him the carrier had picked up a fresh round. He closed the bolt, turned the rifle upright, peered through the scope again. All right, he thought, who else wants to play?
Nobody. Nothing rose along the rise except the batting of mist. Parson expected rifle fire to sputter at any moment. He heard only faint whispers among the troops. Then the single cough of o
ne of their M-203s.
The grenade sailed from its launcher just a few feet from Parson. It arced over the rise like a burning cigar stub tossed away. When it exploded, the ground jolted his chest as if he’d been kicked.
He looked through the scope again. He saw twigs missing from the sapling, lashed by shrapnel. Drifting smoke. Nothing else. Cantrell low-crawled through the snow toward the jihadist Parson had shot. Parson forced himself to watch closely and help cover Cantrell. If an insurgent came over that rise to fire at the SF commander, the team would have only about half a second to shoot first.
Parson’s crosshairs floated just above the crest of the hill. If it moves, it dies, he thought. But nothing appeared except the scouring snow. It ground at what little of his face remained exposed, and ice collected between his fingers as he held his weapon.
Cantrell reached the corpse. He stopped, seemed to watch and listen. Got up on his knees and pointed his rifle. Swept with the barrel. He did not fire. Then he slapped the ground beside him in apparent frustration. Snow sprayed from underneath his glove. He motioned for the team to move up.
Parson picked himself up off the ground, careful about his rifle’s muzzle. He didn’t think he had lain sprawled long enough to get cramped, but his legs tingled with the return of blood. His toes had been numb for days, and now they had no feeling at all. Time flowed strangely in combat, he decided. Sometimes it trickled away like water; sometimes it froze up and clotted like slush.
He stumbled forward, examined the man he’d shot. It wasn’t Marwan. That disappointed him a little, but he hadn’t expected to take down Marwan that easily. He did not remember the face of the dead guerrilla from among his former captors. A steel-wool beard and cheeks tough as the leather of a knife scabbard. A scar across the bridge of the nose, punctuation in a life story now ended. Probably just some ex-goat herder who’d volunteered for martyrdom. Parson almost felt sorry for him, poor ignorant bastard and his short and miserable existence. But he also wondered, What might this guy have done to me if he’d had the chance? When Parson looked over the hill, he saw lines of bootprints leading away. No other bodies, no blood trails.
“Fuckers gave us the slip again,” Cantrell said.
“All save this one,” Najib said. “Major Parson has improved the odds somewhat.”
Not by enough, Parson thought. If this comes down to attrition, we’ll all freeze to death before anybody wins. He looked at Gold. She shrugged. Then she took a water bottle from her pocket, drank, handed it to Parson. He didn’t feel thirsty, but he took a few sips anyway and returned the bottle to her.
“How are your fingers?” he asked.
“Better. What about you?”
Parson wasn’t sure what to say. What about me? “I’ll manage,” he said.
“You’re doing all right.”
Parson took that as a compliment. He was impressed that after all she’d been through, she was thinking outside of herself enough to keep an eye on him.
The insurgents’ trail led out of the plain and into a pass lined by hoodoos: looming pillars of rock carved by millennia of wind, rain, and snow, and by the narrow river that spluttered through the gorge. The terrain made Parson nervous. He didn’t have to be an infantryman to see that every few yards offered a perfect kill zone for an ambush.
The tracks led to a spot where the insurgents seemed to have stopped and stood for a few minutes. Sets of bootprints faced each other. Other marks suggested gear moved around.
“What the hell are they doing?” Cantrell asked.
“The mullah’s tired,” Gold said. She pointed to a drag mark among the tracks leading away from the spot. Something about a foot and a half wide had plowed a smooth path through the snow. Parson had to think for a moment. An improvised litter. They must have rolled a blanket between two sticks to make a stretcher to carry the old man. Good, he thought. That’ll slow them down.
The team followed the tracks and drag mark along the river. Parson scanned the bluffs above him, though he knew the first sign of a trap would be a bullet or an RPG. Couldn’t see much but clouds, anyway. Scuds of fog flowed over a lobe of the ridgeline and sank downhill like silt. He tried to listen closely, but the rumble of water over a cataract downstream made the effort pointless.
The gurgle of the water’s passage and the sissing of the snow seemed to blend into a slow rhythm, hints of song. In the dark of his fatigue, Parson imagined it as music. But the tune did not bring comfort. It came in a minor key, something dire and mournful, like an ancient ballad of war. Then his mind lost the pattern, and the sounds separated back into mere snowfall and splashes.
The lack of sleep hurt more now. The lead weight expanded inside Parson’s head. Every sound annoyed him; every thought required physical effort. It felt like the worst hangover and the highest fever he’d ever suffered.
He wondered whether the others fared any better. Gold scanned the terrain around her as she hiked. Still alert, then. The snake-eaters looked like this was all business as usual. Parson hoped he could keep it together and not let anyone down.
Snow pellets ground like grit as they fell against the left side of his hood. When he checked his compass he saw that the wind had shifted several degrees, but he didn’t know whether to trust that reading. Canyon walls created all kinds of backflows, swirls, and eddies. Doesn’t matter anyway, he thought. We just have to follow the enemy’s tracks until someone else gets killed.
The tracks angled close enough to the river that Parson could see the current rushing white across rocks. He was hungry enough to wonder whether the stream held any fish, but he knew the team couldn’t stop for that. Fishing was a survival skill for a noncombat environment.
He remembered one particular time when he’d gone fishing. Another survival situation, of a sort. It was after his father’s death in the Gulf War. He went to the San Juan River, where cold waters flow through the New Mexico desert. One afternoon he saw a school of big rainbow trout rising to take insects on the surface. He paid out flyline and made a long roll cast to put a Royal Coachman near the feeding rainbows. It fell short, so he waded nearer. Another cast, and it, too, fell short. He waded ahead, keeping his eyes on the rising trout. He felt the breeze and smelled the earth scent of the riverbanks, and he tried to think of nothing else. But something felt wrong with his footing as he waded ahead. He looked down, and through Polarized sunglasses he saw that he was standing on the edge of a deep pool cut by the current. Another step would have drowned him. He could swim, but not in flooded chest waders. He backed away from the pool, more sure than ever that even in the quietest, most peaceful settings, it was a world of danger and loss.
The insurgents’ trail veered away from the river and up a ridge to the north. The bootprints beside the drag mark turned sideways and choppy in places, apparently where the insurgents carrying the mullah had struggled to haul him along. As Parson slogged uphill, he wished he’d picked up a walking stick somewhere. But only stunted hawthorns grew on this incline, nothing with branches big enough for a staff. A crusting of snow clung to Parson’s legs and formed knots of ice around the zipper tabs of his lower pockets. Najib and Cantrell stopped to study the map again.
“They wouldn’t go uphill in this shit without a reason,” Cantrell said.
Najib examined the chart. Snowflakes speckled it, and he blew on it to clear them away. “They are heading northeast now,” he said.
“I don’t see any village in that direction,” Cantrell said.
“There is none,” Najib said. “The only thing I can remember in this region is an old fort. Perhaps they have cached supplies there.”
Gold looked over their shoulders. “What do you think?” Cantrell asked her.
“That would give them a good place to rest,” she said. “And fight us off.”
Najib folded the map. “In better times I have fished the river down below that fort,” he said. “I caught an enormous Pabdah catfish, and my mother made it into korma-e-mahi, a fish stew.” Najib
looked into the distance and spoke softly, as if he knew he was describing something that could never happen again.
Without another word, he picked up his shotgun and moved on. As he led the troops along the guerrillas’ trail, the slope lifted them into the clouds. Mist enveloped them in the dying light.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Just before full darkness, Parson noticed fine snowflakes spiraling down like white dust motes. That was an improvement. All day, pellets had come straight at him, hard and sharp, little ice flechettes driven by the wind. He removed the handkerchief frozen around his face. The stiff cloth had started to chafe at his cheeks, causing more discomfort than it prevented.
Something was changing in the storm system, but he dared not hope for flyable weather. Ice fog still drifted across the peaks. When Parson looked through his night-vision goggles, the mist glowed like ectoplasm.
Gold walked near him. He couldn’t see her well when he wasn’t using the goggles, but the crunch of her boots comforted him. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and carried his pistol in his left hand. Parson was so exhausted he couldn’t remember why his right wrist hurt.
He thought he heard more boots next to him, the snow crackling with the footsteps. Then a voice that said, “Hey, nav.” Despite the darkness, when he looked around he saw his crew.
Fisher tromped along with his helmet in his hand. He still wore that little unauthorized patch across the pen pocket on his left sleeve, the one that read: FDNY. Jordan kicked at the icy crust and smiled when some of it sprayed onto Parson. Luke and Nunez threw snowballs at each other. They wore only their flight suits.
Parson stared, too tired to be startled. “Aren’t you guys cold?” he asked.
“Nah, we’re fine,” Fisher said.