Face-first in the dirt and rocks, he pushed himself up and checked himself over. His ears were ringing, but he seemed to be in one piece. Just a few minutes later, and Aiden might have been right at the point of impact.
Lesson learned, he thought. Get out of the way of the Air Force!
The firing had stopped. The air strike had broken the ambush. Aiden guessed that Manny had just made the grade with the team.
He made his way to the river and up the other side to where he had stashed his gear. With a quick shift, he was back to human. His radio was buzzing for his attention. That was another thing he’d forgotten. They would have been trying to reach him for quite awhile and probably thought he was dead.
He pulled out the connector to his headset and shifted his right arm back to werewolf mode. He bent the connector prong so it couldn’t fit, giving him an excuse, then shifted the arm back.
Things had worked out this time, but he had gone off half-cocked, and it could have gotten him discovered at best, killed at worst. If he was going to use his abilities, he was going to have to think things through much, much better.
Chapter 2
Zakia sat in the afternoon sun, sipping her green tea. Most of her tribe drank shomleh, the salted, mint yogurt drink of generations of her people. But the British had introduced tea in her great-grandfather’s time, and that was one habit that had caught on. No British asker[71] had been in her mountains since her father was a child, though. Zakia didn’t know where they had gone. Now, the only parangay[72] were the other Pashtun from the village in the valley and the steady stream of Pashtun, Tajik, Haraza, and even Punjabi that used her mountains as a highway for travel and smuggling.
Like most Muslims, even if her tribe might be considered only nominally observant, she had a distaste for those who dealt in teryaak.[73] The smugglers, however, rarely left the trails, and so her people left them alone. The less attention drawn to her tribe, the better.
As if to emphasize the point, far off in the distance, somewhere down near the village, the sound of gunfire broke out. Zakia snorted, then took another sip of her tea. Yes, it was better to leave the world of men alone. The tribe needed very little from the outside world in their own small village, and that could be acquired from a handful of trusted Pashtun traders, men whose fathers and fathers before them had provided goods for them.
Like this lovely tea, she thought, ignoring the distant gunfire.
Two of the little ones ran across the dusty area in front of her house, screaming and laughing, lost in their games. They were the ones who had to be protected. They were the future of her tribe, a people who had been feared and hunted since the mountains rose up to the sky.
She drained the last of her tea but didn’t get up. Time was not a pressing issue, and while a half-woven rug was on the loom in her home, she felt no compulsion to get back to it. It would get done when it got done, and that was good enough for her.
Qalandar, one of the oldest members of the tribe, came out of his home, spotted Zakia and hurried over to her. Most members of the tribe got along well with each other—divisiveness could be their downfall, and everyone knew that. Despite this, Qalandar tended to grate on her nerves. Stuck in the old ways—especially those of their human cousins—he had never been supportive of the tribe’s leadership falling on her shoulders. He was not a problem, but sometimes an annoyance. She made an effort to smile as he walked up.
“Did you feel it?” he asked.
“Feel what, Qalandar?”
“Over there,” he pointed over his shoulder down to the valley. “Someone shifted.”
That caught Zakia’s attention quickly. She didn’t bother to question the old man. “Qalandar” meant someone not concerned with worldly affairs, a sort of mystic, and Zakia didn’t know if he had simply grown into the name or if some other power had influenced his naming. Either way, Qalandar had the finest sense of their abilities and could tell when anyone shifted. If he said someone had made the transformation, then someone had.
For years, there were none of the Tribe in their mountains other than them. They knew that there were others. They knew about the Council that supposedly ruled over them. But that was out there, beyond the land they called home. They ignored this Council and stayed out of sight. It was bad enough that the humans hunted them, but to submit to this parangay Council was beyond imagination.
Could the Council of werewolves, who Zakia had thought had forgotten their small tribe, be on their trail?
“Gather the elders together, now,” she told Qalandar.
The tribe had to be prepared.
Chapter 3
“And our spy? No one saw him?” COL Jack Tarniton asked?
“No, sir,” MAJ Keenan Ward answered, glad that the colonel couldn’t see his grimace at the word “spy.”
The colonel was just too much into all of this, Keenan thought. “Spy” was a rather grandiose term for someone who was merely ordered to keep an eye on Cpl Kaas and report back any observations.
This entire operation was too cloak-and-dagger for Keenan, from getting Kaas into MARSOC, getting a secret MSOT formed and assigned to the regular MARSOC company being deployed, and then getting Kaas assigned to it. The “accident” that took two members out of the team still made Keenan feel guilty, even if he had had no direct part in that. At least the accident had been minor—it could have turned out worse for the two men who had been removed to make way for Kaas and HM2 Redmond.
Keenan would never have thought all this would be possible, but evidently, the colonel had more pull than a mere O6 should have. Not only did they form up the secret MSOT, but he got the team out of Marine control. While most of the Marines were in Helmand and the MARSOC company was supporting the Army’s 101st Airborne Division along the Uzbekistan border, MSOT 8229 had been quietly attached to another Army unit, the 10th Mountain Division. If he could have, Keenan was sure the colonel would have transferred Kaas to the Army, but this was almost as good.
The fact that the area had long been rumored to be a haven for werewolves was not lost on Keenan, either. He was sure the colonel was well aware of that as well.
What had surprised Keenan was that the colonel had sent him, missing leg and all, to FOB Ballenstein as well, to keep an eye on their prize subject. He and MT had been assigned as a “special advisor” team to the company assigned to the FOB, where the company commander was sure the two were higher headquarter spies.
There’s that word again: “spies,” he thought as he listened in on the secured satphone.
“So Kaas climbs a cliff, throws off three Taliban and kills another, and no one saw him?” the colonel persisted.
“That’s about right, sir.”
“‘That’s about right, sir,’” the colonel mimicked, his voice raised high. “I’ll tell you what’s ‘right,’ Major. What’s right is that you are there for a mission, and you’d better accomplish it. You know damn well that he had to have changed into a werewolf. What he did was beyond any human’s capabilities. But we need concrete, actual proof, and I’m expecting you to get it. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir, 100 percent. I’ll find out one way or the other,” Keenan responded.
“You do that, Major. I’ve got plans forming here, but we need the proof,” the colonel said. “Also, I don’t like the fact that the friggin’ Air Force is dropping heavy ordnance all around our boy with only an enlisted JTAC controlling them.”
Keenan didn’t understand the colonel’s point. His tone of voice when he said “enlisted” left little doubt as to his opinions on the capabilities of enlisted men to control close air support, but the team needed the Air Force security blanket. If by some weird chance Kaas was more than he seemed, then it wouldn’t do any good to get him killed by the Taliban.
“I want you to see about getting an officer JTAC with that team. And until then, I want you to approve any fire. The new CG’s[74] ROE’s[75] are trying to limit civilian casualties, so that’s your excuse to canc any clo
se air that could cause friendly fire accidents.”
“Yes, sir,” Keenan dutifully said but having no intention of following through on that.
The colonel didn’t understand the Marines, and especially MARSOC. Sgt Manny Rugieri was not only competent, but he had graduated number one in his class, finishing ahead of the officers in the class as well. The Marines would not take kindly to some Army major telling them they had to get an officer JTAC on the team. No, that wasn’t something he was going to tackle.
“OK, then. Let’s get the proof I need. Give me a call tomorrow at the same time. Tarniton, out.”
Keenan disconnected the phone and placed it on the small table next to his cot. Despite his mission, he still was not convinced that there was any such thing as a werewolf. Yes, Kaas had active blood cells that seemed to fight off infection. Yes, he was a badass fighting machine despite his deceptively normal appearance. But a werewolf?
He shook his head and lay back down, hoping to get a few more hours of sleep before morning. This was a dead end job. It was much harder to prove a negative than a positive. How do you prove someone is not a werewolf? But he knew “Tarnation” was like a rat terrier, and he wouldn’t let go of Cpl Aiden Kaas simply because Keenan said the young Marine was just a normal human being.
Chapter 4
“Well, that’s about all the time I have. It’s been good talking to you,” Aiden said as a soldier waited none-too-patiently for his turn.
FOB Ballenstein was way out in the sticks. The only electricity there was what the Army generators could produce. With no internet connection, communications with home were only over two satphones, and each person had to sign up for ten short minutes.
“OK, I understand. Miss you,” Claire said from Camp Smith. “Keep your head down, OK?”
“Sure thing. You know me.”
“Unfortunately, I do. Leave it to me to fall in love with a hero-type,” she said.
Love? That still gave him a thrill when he heard it.
“Sorry, Corporal, you’re time’s up,” the civilian contractor said, an overweight Filipino.
“OK, OK, I gotta hang up. I’ll call again next week,” he said hurriedly before cutting the connection and handing the phone to the attendant.
The man took the phone, logged in the waiting soldier, then handed the phone to him. Aiden had to wonder about the man. Who would take a job out in the mountains of Afghanistan with none of the trappings of civilization?
His call with Claire, though, had put him in a good mood. The “love” word had a way of doing that. He and Claire had an interesting relationship, to say the least. Claire was more gung-ho than he was, more dedicated to the Marines, and she took her career seriously. On the job, she was a no-nonsense Marine. As a very attractive and fit woman, she had her share of attention, but she didn’t mix her professional life with pleasure and ignored every come on. When Aiden had met her, most of his fellow Marines assumed she was a lesbian because of that lack of interest in them.
In private, though, when out of uniform, she was totally different, and Aiden often got glimpses of the little girl that still made a home in her heart. He was proud of her professional achievements, but that little girl side of her touched him deeply. It had taken him awhile, but he finally realized that he loved her, and he was constantly amazed that she seemed to love him back. Girls just didn’t fall for Aiden Kaas—at least not until he’d been infected. Sometimes, when he was in a pensive mood, he thought about his life, and he wondered if he would turn back the clock and keep out of that room in Fallujah, keeping away from Omar Muhmood, the patron he’d never really known. But if he hadn’t become a werewolf, he knew Claire would never have gone out with him. For that reason alone, he knew he would have marched right into the room and been bit again, if given the choice.
Aiden had visited Claire in Hawaii after his last deployment and spent ten wonderful days there. The two had checked into the Hale Koa Hotel, the best hotel in which Aiden had ever stayed. It was right on Waikiki beach, next to a beautiful greenspace. The best part was that the room charge was based on rank—the lower the rank, the lower the rate. Claire was already a corporal, but Aiden was still a lance corporal waiting for his promotion, so they got the lowest rate available, about the same amount as a Motel 6 would be back in Vegas.
On about the third or fourth day, exhausted after lying on the beach, getting lunch, lying out by the pool with a mai tai, taking a nap on the pool chair, then getting up to shower and get dinner, they had gone online to check out the local clubs for a fun evening out. Somehow, they found themselves looking at real estate, and outside Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, there were several neighborhoods, such as Northwoods, where a basic home could be bought for $60,000. That led them to the Navy Federal Credit Union site where they discovered that with the combined income of two corporals, they could qualify for a mortgage. That turned into a discussion of future duty stations.
They had never spoken about marriage. The thought was still scary to Aiden, who kept half-way expecting Claire to come to her senses and leave him. But with that evening, it seemed almost like a done deal. He wanted to make it official and ask her to marry him, but he chickened out, and when he left her to go back to Lejeune, nothing was planned. Now, sitting out in the Hindu Kush, he was kicking himself for not asking her. When he was with her next, if she seemed like she was expecting it, he would steel himself and ask. Really.
Aiden’s stomach growled, and he checked his watch. He needed to get some food inside of him. With only one hot meal a day, mornings were MREs.[76] After the attack the day before, they had been recalled back to the FOB, much to their surprise, but they had missed hot chow, and Aiden had been starving. MREs were supposed to have all the caloric and nutritional needs of a fighting man, but they just didn’t cut it with him. Aiden needed calories, raw calories. Shifting took a lot of energy, energy that had to be replenished.
He entered the tent that served as a DFAC, reached in the food box, and pulled out Spaghetti in Meat Sauce.
It could be worse, he thought.
The spaghetti was not too horrible, and Aiden rather liked the Cherry Blueberry Cobbler. There just wasn’t enough of it.
He made his way to the table the team had staked out. About half of the guys were there, and he plopped down beside Cree, who as usual, was arguing football, this time with Brett. Cree gave him a nod, but didn’t stop his logic for why the Raiders would break through this year. The nod was a good sign, though. After yesterday, he had fully been integrated into the team. He was one of them.
He had barely gotten back into his uniform and battle gear when several of the team had come back down the trail looking for him. They were relieved to find him and pissed that he hadn’t been answering the radio. He showed them the bent connector, glad he had thought of that. They rushed back to the rest of the team only to find out that the mission had been scrubbed. There were two of the mujahideen Aiden had killed on the trail. One was looking sort of smushed, but the other looked pretty torn up as well. He was probably the one that had been hit by the grenade, and then he’d been badly mangled by rocks on the way down. That body had actually hit Brett as it landed. It was a glancing blow on Brett’s leg, and Doc was checking him out as Aiden came up. There was no sign of the third body.
Dave—Master Sergeant David Teller—the team chief, wanted to know what happened, so Aiden gave a very sanitized version of things. With the mangled body, Aiden said he’d shot the man first, and the Taliban had fallen off the cliff. He said he’d shot the man still up on the top as well as the missing mujahideen, and that in a struggle, he’d managed to push the third man over the edge.
That got the attention of the others within hearing. Then Norm—Captain Norman Hockstetter—the team leader, walked up, and Aiden had to start all over again.
Calling a Marine captain by his first name still seemed odd to him, but for members of MSOTs, that seemed to be SOP. There was no doubt that Norm was in command—it was j
ust that instead of “Captain,” he was “Norm.”
The team had escaped serious injury. Javier had a badly broken finger, Brett was bruised, and both Jim and Kyong had taken some shrapnel from a grenade that had landed near them, but both were mobile and while pissed, were fine after Doc had been able to pull out the little bits of metal in their legs. A little closer, and the outcome for those two might not have been as favorable.
Doc spotted Aiden’s punctured trou and the blood on them and asked him if he needed help. Aiden knew his body would be working furiously to heal him, pushing the shrapnel out of his flesh, and he didn’t want Doc to see that. He told him that he’d just gotten a few scrapes on the rocks during his climb. Doc looked concerned, but he let it be.
If the Taliban on the other side had been able to get a little higher, their plunging fire would have wrecked havoc among the team, and they would not have been able to wait for air. They would have had to rush out of the kill zone, and more of them would undoubtedly have been killed or WIA.[77] The Taliban ambush had been well-planned, but the terrain, while favorable to the mujahideen, had not been perfect.
With the surprise order to scrub the mission, Norm told Aiden’s element to try and police up as many of the grenades he’d dropped as possible while Husni’s—Staff Sergeant Husni Fawzi—element provided security. Aiden took some good-natured grief over dropping the grenades, and they were only able to find 15 of them. Aiden was sure there had at least been double that number, but that was the best they could do.
They were back at the FOB by evening, and then the debrief started. Norm was more than a little upset that no one seemed to know who scrubbed the mission or why. For Aiden, with hunger pangs shooting through him, he just wanted to get done with the debrief and out of there so he could eat. With that one-legged Army major and his one-legged assistant standing there silently listening in, of course it was Aiden’s debrief that took the longest. The Army lieutenant actually doing the brief seemed barely older than Aiden, and he seemed dutifully impressed with what Aiden said, even if Aiden downplayed as much as he could.
The Werewolf of Marines Trilogy Page 25