by John Renehan
Late in the afternoon he gathered all his gear and went to the S-1 shop. Sergeant Cousins was there.
Black apologized about the evening before. Cousins was good about it and told him don’t sweat it, and be careful. There was nothing else that needed to be said.
Black went straight to his desk and dumped his stuff, pushing out his chair and switching on his computer. While it was warming up he took the manila envelope he’d left there the night before.
With a black marker he scribbled BLACK on the outside, and REFRAD below that. He got up and carried the envelope past all the desks and out the door. He thought he saw Cousins shaking his head slightly as he passed.
Gayley’s office was empty, but the door was unlocked. Black pushed it open and went inside, crossing straight to the colonel’s tidy desk and tossing the envelope down right in the middle of it. He turned and went.
That evening when Gayley returned he would find a memorandum inside titled REQUEST FOR RELEASE FROM ACTIVE DUTY, with all the appropriate documentation appended. It was Black’s quitting-the-Army paperwork.
Back at his desk, Black’s computer was ready. He opened his e-mail.
Hesitating only long enough to check that no one in the office was about to walk over, he clicked on the message that had been sitting unread since he’d returned from R&R leave the week before.
I don’t know if you are even near any kind of computer and will get this anytime soon. I hope you do, even though I know you won’t respond. I wanted to tell you anyway.
I dreamed about you last night. Dreamed that you were here, in my room, sitting in the window watching me. You came close to me, and then you left.
I’m not being irrational or ridiculous. I know you weren’t here. I know you are on the other side of the planet somewhere. But I wanted to tell you about it.
I know you don’t want to hear me say that I miss you, but I hope you will accept that I am thinking about you. And I know why you won’t respond, and I understand. But you should respond anyway and let me know that you got this, at least. That would be good.
I hope you are safe.
Black clicked open a reply window and typed out a few short sentences. He saved it and opened a menu of options, setting the message to send itself in ten days’ time.
He was about to turn the machine off when another came in.
RE: The Final Insult
It was the wiseass. Close to a computer after all. He opened it.
Mediocrates—
Ah, the warrior-scholar departs for a short walk in the Hindu Kush. I am envious. You might find it more, um, picturesque than you would imagine. Also more explosions. Take your unabridged travel guide and remember: There is no survival of the fittest in the mountains. There are only those creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
You caught me at the oasis, but I am off again. Not drunk, but bearded, which is insufferable. Enjoy your revels at the pleasure dome, Padre. And when you return, you simply MUST come for summer at the ocean house with Bradley and Eliza and, of course, yours truly. Squash! Mother asks after you incessantly.
Semper Ubi Sub Ubi,
—Chaz
Weird. Nothing useful either. He switched off the computer and gathered up his ruck and rifle and helmet.
Cousins had his copy of the convoy manifest waiting for him, courtesy of their counterpart S-1 shop over at 3/44 headquarters. Black took it and feigned surprise.
“What, no helicopter?” he said dryly.
“Funny, sir.”
He stuffed it in his pocket.
“Thanks, Sergeant Cousins.”
“Stay low, L.T.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Do it.”
He left.
The Humvees were lined up outside 3/44’s headquarters with their engines running when he arrived. Six diesels echoed between the stone buildings. He shucked off his ruck and sat down on a wooden bench outside the command post, waiting to be called on.
Soldiers readied the vehicles, moving with the drab efficiency and lack of drama of a rolling unit that goes outside the wire every day. Black knew this was by far the longest regular trip they took, so everything got a little extra attention.
He watched ammunition cases, extra water, and boxes of MREs—the military’s famous meals ready to eat—go into the trucks. Three of them towed open-top trailers whose contents were tied down with tarps. Basic resupply for the outpost, Black figured. Medics appeared and tossed their big black treatment packs onto the seats.
A sergeant approached.
“Black?”
“Yeah.”
“I can take your ruck, sir.”
He didn’t like people offering to carry his gear, but the guy’s matter-of-fact tone told him he wasn’t doing Black any favors. He probably just didn’t want him packing it into the wrong corner of the already overstuffed vehicles.
“Thanks.”
“You gotta take a whiz before we go?”
“Yeah.”
“Around that corner. There’s coffee in the C.P. if you want it.”
The command post.
“I’m good.”
“Cool. Rolling in ten, sir.”
He shouldered Black’s ruck and trudged across the gravel to the open back of the lead vehicle.
When Black returned, soldiers were piling into driver’s seats and turrets. The sergeant pointed him to the truck where his bag was, and he climbed into the back seat.
The convoy wove its way through the buildings and trailers of the base, radios chirping as vehicle commanders made their perfunctory commo checks with one another. Black looked out the little armored glass windows as the buildings fell behind, replaced by sandbags and blast barriers on either side.
The convoy rolled to a stop at the FOB’s east gate, in the exit channel. Electronic jamming equipment was switched on, and the vehicles filled with the clatter of weapons being charged. The manifest was passed to the guards, and the gate was opened.
The convoy rolled forward beneath the guard towers and machine-gun nests and wove left-right-left-right through a serpentine channel designed to slow down car bombs. They cleared the walls and the golden plain opened up before them, mountains rising from the horizon ahead.
Over the next hour of lengthening shadow they grew larger, slowly filling the front windows of the vehicles. General features that Black had seen only from Radio Hill emerged into detail and focus, rising above his eyeline. By the time the ground began noticeably to rise toward the mouth of the first valley, the setting sun was throwing orange haze all across the front of the range.
Black, leaning forward in his seat, craned his head and looked up through the gunner’s hatch. Ahead and above the looming peaks, another raft of black cloud was moving in from the east. Rain in the mountains again tonight.
He fished out his headphones and put them in his ears. He closed his eyes and felt the stillness returning. The violinmaker’s Fantasia on a Theme strings soared across his vision and roiled the black ocean of his thoughts below. As the convoy climbed into the range and the road gave way to wild dirt track, he slept.
—
This time in the dream she lingered in the window as he fell, never turning away as he slid down and into the depths. He still could not see her face.
PART TWO
6
Thunder woke him, and the spatter of raindrops on his face.
It was pitch-dark outside. The convoy was still moving. There must have been a decent wind because the rain was making it past the gunner standing in the open turret, through the opening, and back to where Black sat in his seat.
He looked at the poor kid’s legs, soaked almost down to the knee.
Had he not known to a certainty that no soldier worth a damn would voluntarily give up his post to an officer, he would have of
fered to take a turn up on the machine gun. He didn’t really mind getting rained on. Instead he sat and stared past the kid at the lights of the driver’s console and the green displays of the stacked radios.
There was nothing to see out the windshield. The convoy was rolling through the mountains in “blackout” drive, using no headlights and relying instead on night-vision gear.
He drew his little leatherbound book out of a pocket and opened it. He scratched a mark in the red glow of his utility flashlight. He stowed it away again.
More thunder. Distant.
“Hey, sir, you might want to get awake back there,” the sergeant called over his shoulder, goggles covering his eyes.
“Yeah, I’m up.”
“Roger. We’re coming into Heavenly.”
Black craned his neck and squinted through the windshield but could see nothing in the darkness ahead.
Good light discipline.
The vehicles, still grinding up a gentle slope, began to slow. Finally a dim amber point of light appeared in the rain not far in front of them.
Dark hulks filled the left and right windows. “Hessco” baskets, eight-foot-tall wire-framed cylinders lined with fabric and filled on the spot with rocks and dirt. The cheapest blast barriers on the planet.
They were entering a channel wide enough for the Humvees and not much wider. From the change in the tire sounds from below, it was lined with a thick layer of gravel.
The amber point resolved into a square, coming up fast on the left. A window, built into the blast barriers—no, a shack or some kind of low structure, sandbagged and incorporated into the walls of the channel.
As the lead vehicle approached the window, a pair of hands raised a windowpane from within. A head and shoulders squeezed out into the rain and wind. Black caught a glimpse of an enormous pair of safety goggles and an Army patrol cap squashed on a head backward.
“Woo!” cried the head and shoulders as they rolled past.
Thunder echoed off the mountain peaks above. The convoy came to a stop on the gravel bed.
“Ten minutes, sir,” said the sergeant from up front, pulling off his night-vision goggles and stretching in his seat. “Refueling only. Good time to take a whiz if you need it.”
Black pulled the heavy latch and leaned on the armored door. It swung open with all the ease of a bank vault. He stepped out into the rain.
His boots sank an inch into gravel. He bent a leg back until he could grab one foot with a hand and held it in a stretch, his other hand on the hot, rumbling vehicle. He rolled his neck to get the stiffness out and looked around him.
No part of Combat Outpost Arcturus was visible beyond the Hessco baskets forming the channel around their vehicles, and the weak amber light from the control shack. He guessed they weren’t really inside the COP’s perimeter but in a refuel lane designed to service passing convoys quickly and without having to open the main gate, wherever in the dark that was.
Soldiers and sergeants were climbing out of the vehicles and stretching as the begoggled figure hollered from his window at them.
“Nice night to visit! Thank you very much! Woo!”
He wore only a T-shirt on his top half. He was soaked to the skin. In one hand he clutched a radio handset, straining at the end of a coiled cord. He squeezed the button and spoke into it.
“Go, go! Let’s go!”
He tossed the handset back into the window and commenced hollering at no one, his goggles already obscured by water.
“Yes! A Heavenly night! This is the reason I joined the Army!”
The sergeant in charge of the shift. All the guy needed was an aviator’s scarf.
Black trudged around the vehicle and looked up and down the lane. The sergeant took one look at his shadowed form, standing there uncertainly in the dark, and figured his rank correctly.
“Pisser’s up there, sir,” he shouted over the noise of wind and engines.
He pointed up the gravel incline past the front of the convoy.
“Smoke on the other side of the Hesscos.”
He thumbed toward the control shack’s door a few feet away, next to a handmade sign which read PIT CREW.
“Coffee’s in here.”
Black raised a hand in thanks and crunched away. Ghostly figures appeared through the rain and streamed past him. Soldiers, carrying heavy plastic jerry cans full of fuel.
None spoke to Black as they passed. Some wore dark rain slickers. Others were bare-armed in T-shirts like their sergeant, who shouted overly chipper encouragements at them as they commenced filling the vehicles.
Just past the end of the channel of blast barriers was a blue plastic Porta-Potty. Black tried the door. Occupied. He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited.
There was a wooden signpost set into the gravel next to the john. It was straight from a war movie. Black could barely make out the series of handwritten crossbars as he stood there, rain stinging the side of his face, waiting his turn.
KABUL: 138 MILES
The arrow pointed back down the mountains the way they’d come.
BAGHDAD: YOU WISH
FALLUJAH: YOU WISH + 40 MILES
JESSICA ALBA: 7,602 MILES
YOUR ACTUAL GIRL: HOME BLOWING JODY
HEAVEN: YOU’RE IN IT
HELL: 0 MILES
“Jody” went back to the Second World War at least. He’s the guy who stays home and steals your girlfriend or wife when you’re off at war.
There was one crossbar below “HELL,” part of which was broken off. The remaining piece had a line painted through it.
XANADU:
The door opened and one of the convoy drivers came out. Black caught it before it slammed and let himself in. He locked it, closing out the rain and wind.
It was pitch-dark inside. He had a small red-lens flashlight fixed to the front of his gear. He switched it on. It shone straight ahead onto graffiti:
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
He emerged, letting the plastic door smack hard in the wind, and made his way around to the far side of the Hesscos. He didn’t need to smoke, but there was little point in him hanging out in the busy channel when the joes were trying to work.
There was less noise on this side, away from the diesel engines. The wind was still gusting down the valley, spitting rain slanting in diagonally. But he could hear himself think.
His eyes were adjusting. He sensed open space. He still couldn’t see any other part of the COP through the rain, but he could make out what looked to be an awning, ahead and to his left, running along the back side of the Hesscos and the control shack.
As he made for it he realized that there was a parallel row of blast barriers ten or twenty feet to his right. He was in another channel, this one apparently for foot traffic.
Looking skyward, he could tell that there was probably a partial moon behind the thick cloud layer. He could just make out dark peaks rising high and close on either side of the outpost. It sat at the juncture of two deep, steep valleys.
Those ridges, he figured, were probably a couple thousand feet above the elevation at which he now stood. He craned his head up until the back of his helmet hit the neckpiece on his body armor.
“Twenty-one hundred vertical feet, sir.”
The voice startled him. He turned to see a man standing there under the awning in a slicker and floppy-brimmed camouflage rain hat.
He couldn’t make out a face, but his chest had a sergeant’s rank on it. Under the shadowed brim of his hat glowed the orange point of a cigarette. A paint can filled with sand and stubbed-out butts sat in the gravel nearby.
“To the ridges?”
Black stepped under the handmade cover. The rain and wind were much quieted.
“Yup.”
More thunder rolled down from above.
As he stood looking up at the sky Black realized that it wasn’t thunder he was hearing at all.
Once again the sergeant seemed to read his mind.
“Fixed-wing out of Bagram. Probably F-15s. We got an Air Force guy in the C.P. talking to ’em.”
“They’re out here for you guys?”
“They’re out here for you guys,” the sergeant corrected. “Gotta come out every time a supply run comes through here.”
Black was surprised.
“Even in this weather?”
“Fuck, yeah, in this weather,” the sergeant replied. “Especially in this weather.”
“Taliban hate fighting in the dark and in the rain.”
“Not your daddy’s Taliban.”
Most foreign fighters knew that they couldn’t compete against American forces in most nighttime situations because they didn’t have the gear. And most just hated fighting when they were uncomfortable. Rain meant they stayed inside.
“These dudes,” the sergeant continued, “would sell their freaking daughter for the chance to come out here and rocket the shit out of your convoy while you’re sitting here getting refueled.”
He took a long drag, the cigarette momentarily illuminating a wide, weary face.
“Rain or no rain.”
Black considered this.
“Drones don’t see shit in this weather,” the sergeant finished, “so this is prime time.”
Which explained why the outpost had to be in blackout. Its existence was no secret, but in the rain and without night-vision gear, being invisible made a difference.
Black looked up at the sky beyond the ridges.
“Came on station before you got here,” the sergeant said. “And they’ll be up there until you go.”
“Who’s spotting for them?”
“We can’t see the tops of the ridges from here, obviously,” the sergant replied. “And like I said about the drones, so when it rains we gotta put observers on the ground up there.”
The guys who spotted targets and told the jets where to drop bombs.