The Valley

by John Renehan

  Someone’s hangout. Probably Caine’s, for him and his junior sergeants.

  He had led Black down two dark passageways until a patch of moonlight appeared ahead of them. Caine told Black to hang back a moment. He went ahead to the doorway.

  “Beat it,” Black had heard him tell someone standing out of sight beyond the exit.

  “Roger,” came a bored-sounding reply.

  Caine had waited, watching whoever it was go, then waved Black out into a long, narrow open space that ran between one exterior wall of the house and a high stone wall that marked the property’s edge. The area was dotted with shipping containers, generators, and water bottle pallets. COP Vega’s backyard, more or less.

  They’d made their way along, close to the wall, for about fifty yards. The entrance to the container faced the wall of the house, away from the mountainslopes, with barely enough room to open one of its doors halfway. Someone had stenciled the words TAJ MAHAL next to the door.

  Now Caine eased himself into one of the lawn chairs and motioned Black to the other. He sat.

  “All right, Lieutenant,” he said tersely. “So are you on the level here or what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you serious? Are you gonna follow through?”

  “Follow through with what?”

  “Look, sir,” Caine said impatiently. “I know you’re making some moves here. I need to know if you’re for real.”

  “What do you mean, making moves?”

  Caine sighed in exasperation.

  “Sir, can we cut the crap here? I’m coming to you, all right?”

  Black said nothing.

  “I know you’re making moves,” Caine said, “and you know you’re making moves.”

  “You want to tell me why you think that?”

  Caine crossed his arms.

  “No, I don’t. You want to tell me who it was that told you we were scheduled to go to Darreh Sin on Tuesday?”

  “No.”

  “So there we go,” Caine said. “You don’t trust me. That’s your job. Now I wanna know if I can trust you here, or if you’re just some lieutenant dicking around playing detective and throwing wrenches until he goes home.”

  “What do you want to trust me with?”

  Caine looked at him a long moment.

  “With something fucked up.”

  Black regarded the burly sergeant under the glow of the Christmas lights.

  “I’m not dicking around,” he answered.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see. That’s why we’re gonna do this one step at a time.”

  “Do what?”

  Caine leaned back in his chair and reached for the mini fridge.

  “You want something?”

  He pulled it open revealing rows of sodas and energy drinks, which soldiers drank like water, and several cans of beer.

  Caine grabbed two beers and offered one to Black, who shook his head.

  “Mm-hmm,” Caine murmured to himself.

  Caine swapped them for sodas.

  They cracked and drank. Black waited for Caine to speak.

  “Look, sir,” he said. “I know I kind of came on like a dick at first.”

  He took a slug of soda.

  “I don’t mean just beating your ass, I mean just the way I came off.”

  Black shrugged.

  “Seemed like standard N.C.O. to me,” he said, unnecessarily.

  Caine shrugged off the insult.

  “Yeah, I guess I deserve that,” he said. “Listen, sir, you gotta understand the reason for all that. I couldn’t really have you hanging around me or be too, like, associated with you right now.”

  “Why not?”

  Caine eyed him over the top of the can.

  “Because you’re not the only person trying to get to the bottom of something around here, that’s why not.”

  He drank.

  “What are you trying to get to the bottom of?”

  “Once again, sir,” Caine pressed, “I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me who it was that told you about our patrol schedule right after you’d shown up at the COP out of nowhere.”

  “That’s not what you’re trying to get to the bottom of.”

  “No, sir, but I gotta know who here in this unit I can trust and can’t trust. Just like you do.”

  Black eyed him sidelong.

  “Why would an innocent comment by a joe mean you can’t trust him?”

  “That’s my business, sir. You’ve got your business and I’ve got mine. We’re trying to get an arrangement going here.”

  “I don’t even know what the hell we’re talking about yet,” Black replied impatiently. “And no, I’m not revealing communications made to me in confidence in the course of my investigation. You want an arrangement, then tell me what’s going on.”

  Caine put the can down.

  “Sir, you don’t get the risk I’m taking just talking to you.”

  “Risk from who?”

  The sergeant shook his head.

  “I can help you, L.T. But you gotta help me do it.”

  “How?”

  “Slow your roll, that’s how.”

  “Slow my roll?”

  “Just ease up a minute.”

  “Ease up on what?”

  “On all this pressing.”

  “Pressing?”

  “You know what I mean, sir.”

  Black sat back and considered.

  “So you want me to freeze my investigation,” he said. “That’s convenient.”

  “Nobody’s talking about that,” Caine said. “But you gotta do it right. You start moving into the open like you are, and you’re gonna drag yourself into that risk too.”

  “I’m not moving anything into the open.”

  “Yes, you are, Lieutenant.”

  Caine looked square in his eyes.

  “Wide open.”

  Black regarded the burly sergeant.

  “I think you’re B.S.’ing,” he said.

  “Really?” shot back Caine, finally flashing irritation. “Let me ask you this, sir. Have I asked you word one about what happened back in Darreh Sin?”

  “No.”

  “No. I haven’t asked you, even though it is one hundred percent my sole duty right now to find out what happened and why, so I can protect my soldiers from whatever fucking hornet’s nest you stirred up out there. I’m violating that duty right now. But I’m not asking you, because there is something more important, okay?”

  “You sound like Sergeant Merrick,” Black replied.

  Caine sighed. When he spoke again the edge was gone.

  “I know you don’t trust me, sir,” he said. “But you gotta try and trust me a little bit. I’ll help you get what you want, but you gotta let me take the lead a little.”

  Black sat in silence.

  Careful.

  “Why is Sergeant Merrick directing soldiers to lie about how long they’ve been here at Vega?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “He’s got soldiers who have been here longer than they’re admitting.”

  Caine squinted at him.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, for instance, when I went to talk to Specialist Brydon, Merrick was telling him that—”

  “Brydon is a part of this platoon,” Caine cut in, “and he’s a goddamn good soldier. Now, sir, you know soldiers say crazy things, so if there was—”

  “What?” Black cut in.

  “What?” Caine repeated.

  Black eyed the sergeant.

  “I was going to say,” he continued, slowly, “that Merrick told Brydon that I was here from Colonel Gayley’s unit. But I know that your guys haven’t been back to Omaha but once or twice
in the last six months, and when they did go it was for about twenty-four hours and you kept them practically under lockdown.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Caine said. “That was for their own good. We started that for a reason. Those guys don’t need to get a taste of the FOB life and then come back up here to this hellhole. That fucks with their heads too much.”

  “Exactly,” Black answered. “That’s my point. There is no way some joe stationed here at Vega, who’s only been in theater a few months, knows the name of the commander of some other unit on the other side of FOB Omaha. Unless he’s been stationed here for a lot longer than he says he was, back when guys used to get more R&R time back there and actually knew their way around the place.”

  Caine shrugged.

  “Eh, sounds like you’re reading a lot into it.”

  “Nope. Brydon acknowledged Colonel Gayley’s name without questioning who he was.”

  In the yellow light, Caine’s face looked as though it lost a little color. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

  “I think,” he said finally, “that you are missing the most important thing, there, sir.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I never told Sergeant Merrick you were from Colonel Gayley’s unit. I never told him what unit you were from.”

  The two men looked at one another.

  “Then who?” Black asked.

  Caine didn’t respond immediately.

  “I think, L.T.,” he said, speaking slowly, “that this is a good place to call it for tonight.”

  He stood from his chair, leaving his soda unfinished on the table.

  “Who’s Traynor?” Black blurted out.

  “Who?”

  “Traynor. Jason Traynor.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  Caine looked at him blankly and shook his head.

  “Gotta give me more to go on, sir. I don’t know no Traynor.”

  “Never mind.”

  Caine pressed the air between them with his palms.

  “I’ll find you, sir. Soon. Just cool it for a minute, okay?”

  Black looked at the sergeant.

  “I’m not dicking around,” he repeated.

  “Yeah, I kind of almost believe you, L.T.,” he said. “Just cool it, all right?”

  “Right.”

  Caine went to the door.

  “Wait three minutes before you come out,” he instructed Black. “You don’t have to lock it when you go.”

  “Okay.”

  Caine toed the switch and sent them into darkness. Black heard the door creak open and saw Caine’s silhouette above him in the skinny frame of moonlight.

  Don’t.

  “What’s ‘Xanadu’?” he asked.

  He watched the silhouette turn toward him. He saw it shake its head.

  “Oh, sir, just leave that alone.”

  Caine went.

  Black sat for about a minute looking at the doorway before rising and squeezing out the door. He walked briskly and quietly along the wall of the building, then continued swiftly through the passages toward Pistone’s hootch. Something Caine had said had stuck in his head.

  He pulled the door to his room shut behind him and went straight for his rucksack, pulling from it the sheaf of paperwork he’d brought with him from Omaha. The mystery roster with Traynor’s name on it was at the top of the stack.

  He ran all the way to the bottom with his finger.

  No way.

  By the time he pushed back out through the door he’d forgotten his promise to Caine entirely.

  21

  He’d figured the Wizard for a night owl, and he wasn’t wrong.

  “What?” came the bored answer to his quiet knock.

  Black took that as permission to enter.

  The overhead lights in Bay Two were out, leaving the shadows punctuated only by dusty splays of light rising from a few of the plywood enclosures. Looking left and right he noted that the immediately adjoining hootches were all dark. At least one was emitting snores. He pushed open Brydon’s door.

  He was lying on his bunk, hands behind his head, staring at the darkened ceiling. No book in sight.

  Black brandished the roster, creased and wilted in his hand.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Brydon exhaled heavily but didn’t answer.

  “Why aren’t you on this roster?”

  Brydon closed his eyes. He didn’t seem surprised by the question.

  “Soldier,” Black repeated, sternly. “Why are you not on here?”

  Brydon sighed.

  “’Cause I’m a ghost, sir,” he murmured.

  “What? What does that mean?”

  Brydon didn’t open his eyes.

  “Means what it means, sir.”

  “What are you talking about? Who’s Traynor?”

  Brydon sighed again and shook his head slightly. Black felt his blood pressure rising and had to remind himself to keep his voice down amidst the warren of open-air hootches.

  “Brydon, you can’t play games with this,” he pressed. “I remember what you said. You said you’d been at Vega for three months. That’s not true. Who told you to lie?”

  Brydon said nothing.

  “You know what’s going on, and you’re not telling me.”

  Still nothing.

  “Why did you say you figured I’d be a captain?” Black asked, urgently. “Why would I be a captain?”

  “I think,” Brydon finally drawled, “that I’m all done talking to you.”

  Black shook his head in disbelief.

  “Soldier, are you seriously invoking your rights against self-incrimination? Don’t do it like this.”

  Brydon didn’t respond.

  “Brydon, I’m not after you here,” Black said placatingly. “I don’t even think you did anything wrong. Don’t make it go ugly on you.”

  Brydon opened his sleepless eyes and turned his head to face Black.

  “Lieutenant,” he said flatly. “It has been ugly on me for a long time.”

  “What?”

  Brydon closed them again and lay back.

  “Good night, sir,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  Nothing.

  Don’t ask.

  “What’s ‘Xanadu’?” Black demanded.

  Brydon reacted as though suffering a sudden pain in the abdomen.

  “Ohhhhhh . . .” he groaned.

  He rolled away from Black, curling on his side like a dog finally released from the beating.

  —

  You’re getting sloppy.

  It was the kind of trivial comedy of errors that got soldiers killed in Afghanistan every day.

  All the stuff you used to not screw up.

  It was a lapse indeed. Poor attention to detail, and poor communication practice. He’d been so focused on names of all the other soldiers in the unit that he hadn’t even noticed, as he went through his roster with Corelli, that Brydon’s name wasn’t on it.

  He’d told Corelli, I need to know how many guys are here right now, today, besides you, without realizing that the meticulous soldier would take him literally and subtract one from his count to exclude himself. Black hadn’t thought to clarify, hadn’t noticed there was anything to clarify.

  That’s why Corelli came up with forty-six guys to Black’s forty-seven, when in fact both rosters had forty-seven men on them. Black’s roster, straight from 3/44’s headquarters, was missing Brydon but included the absent Traynor. Corelli’s was the reverse.

  He roamed the silent corridors and passageways, moving slowly, more than once absently losing his way and having to turn back, his mind following his unguided path. Questions were piling upon qu
estions now, branching beyond his ability to sort them.

  And lies upon lies.

  He found himself in front of Lieutenant Pistone’s hootch. His watch told him it was almost three A.M. He let himself in and commenced pacing the room.

  Why did 3/44’s headquarters believe two facts that weren’t true?

  Who had tipped off Merrick that he was coming to Vega? Had someone down at Omaha radioed ahead to warn him? If so, why did they tell Merrick and not Pistone, the officer in charge of the platoon?

  Everything else, he felt sure, started from knowing this.

  He slumped down onto the chair against the wall. His eyes roamed the room, pausing at the footlocker, past the picture of Pistone with his girl in the headlock smiling out at Black, and came to rest on the Celtic journal, gathering dust on the end table.

  He sighed. The guy obviously had enough on his young plate dealing with sergeants like Merrick and Caine and a crew of soldiers who had no respect for officers. He didn’t need one of his own rooting around through his personal effects.

  Stop stalling.

  He rose and let himself out for the Porta-Closet. He was so distracted he nearly missed that there was new graffiti text added to the old.

  CHUCK

  SEES YOU

  AT THE END OF THE WORLD

  —

  On his knees next to the bunk, the picture of Pistone and his girlfriend facedown on the shelf, he tugged Pistone’s footlocker out from underneath it.

  “Sorry, brother,” he murmured as he tried the lock.

  The trunk came open. Why would it be locked? Pistone had had no idea a stranger was going to be living in his space for the next week.

  He peered inside. At one end sat a softball and glove that looked like they’d seen little use. At the other, a pair of civilian khakis and a polo shirt sat folded neatly atop a pair of well-worn loafers. Usually people kept one set of civilian clothes buried somewhere in their gear, for when they went on their proper two-week leave back home. As long as you had something to change into from your uniform when you got there, you could buy whatever else you needed.

  In the middle was a stack of books, CDs, and magazines. Something large and hardbound sat amidst them. He levered it out, spilling CDs among the clothes. A photorealistic painting of a school, done by an inexperienced hand, adorned the cover.