The Shadow Patrol

by Alex Berenson

  “How is this nonsense winning a war for us,” Young said under his breath to Fowler. “Giving them soccer balls? While they kill us with IEDs. Killing me softly.” These last three words delivered falsetto.

  “With his song.”

  “Cracker boy knows the Fugees.”

  “Cracker boy, that’s a compliment, ’cause I can roll.”

  “Tell yourself that.”

  “You think you’re cool because you know the Fugees, Coleman? Everybody knows the Fugees. My grandma knows the Fugees and she’s been dead five years.”

  “I am the stupidest black man in the world, coming over here to fight this war. My uncle got two fingers blown off in Vietnam but at least he got drafted. What’s my excuse?”

  Fowler was spared from answering when two men and a boy stepped out of the school’s back door. One man had thick black hair and wore a powder blue warm-up suit. The other carried a canvas bag and a sledgehammer. The boy was shirtless and wore nylon pants, canary yellow emblazoned with white racing stripes.

  “A sledgehammer,” Young said. “Stupid Afghan Tricks. Oh, yes.”

  Without warning, the boy sprinted toward them and launched himself into a cartwheel and then three backflips. The man in the tracksuit followed with flips of his own. He finished beside the boy, picked him up, casually threw him in the air. The boy landed cat-quick and danced in a low furious whirl, kicking out his legs, the fabric of his yellow pants catching the sun. When the boy finished, the man raised his hands and said, in English, “Please welcome to Parwan”—he tapped his chest—“and Khost.” He pointed to the boy. “Famous father-and-son acrobat. Please like show.”

  “How about some applause,” Sergeant Rodriguez said. The soldiers clapped as Parwan unzipped his jacket, revealing a tight black T-shirt. Afghan men insisted on modesty for women but showed off their own bodies at any provocation, Fowler had noticed.

  When the applause ended, the man and the boy walked to opposite sides of the field. They turned and faced each other like cowboys about to duel. Then they sprinted at each other. Just before they were about to collide, Parwan ducked low and his son jumped. He flipped over his father’s head and landed and spread his arms wide like an Olympic gymnast. Pure energy. Even Young clapped, though as a rule he was impossible to impress.

  Parwan and Khost bowed to the crowd. The second man stepped forward and spun the sledgehammer over his head, an Afghan Thor. The hammer was handmade and brutal, a dull silver log flecked with red spots that hinted at a thousand atrocities. When he was finished showing off the hammer, he reached into the canvas bag and pulled out a board laced with nails.

  Beside him, the boy leaned backward until his palms touched the ground. His head was upside down. His skinny stomach arched high into the air. The man lowered the board onto the boy’s naked belly—nails first. The crowd was silent now. The man picked a flat brick out of the bag and placed it atop the board. He knelt and held the board steady as Parwan picked up the hammer—

  “Oh, no,” Fowler said involuntarily—

  And brought it down onto the brick. Which snapped gunshot loud. The nails quivered. The boy’s stomach trembled. Parwan dropped the hammer, raised the two halves of the broken brick. The boy stood. A dozen crimson spots flecked his stomach, an instant case of chicken pox. Otherwise he didn’t seem hurt. He touched his fingers to his stomach and raised them to show their crimson tips and kissed them. Father and son stood side by side and bowed as the men in the audience roared their approval.

  “How do you win a war against people who break bricks on their kids for fun?”

  Fowler had no answer for that.

  THEN THE SHOOTING STARTED.

  A short burst of AK fire, five or six rounds, a soft popping from the northwest. Sound traveled easily in the air here. Not much ambient noise. Fowler figured the shots were a way off. The threat wasn’t immediate, if it was a threat at all. Fifteen seconds later a single shot followed. Then silence. Weston and Rodriguez murmured to each other. Rodriguez ducked his head to his shoulder, murmured into his radio. “We’re taking a walk,” he said to Fowler and the rest of 1st Squad. Fowler wished that they would let the Talibs come to them for once, instead of the other way around. But Rodriguez wasn’t asking his opinion.

  Back at the Stryker, Rodriguez grabbed his backpack and then huddled up the squad—seven men in all, since 1st Squad’s driver and vehicle commander were staying in the village on sentry duty. “Lieutenant wants us to take a look-see for those shooters. Rest of the platoon’s staying here. It’s probably nothing, and he doesn’t want to mess up the show. What we know, there’s a bunch of houses about a klick northwest. A canal runs that way. We’ll go in dismounted. We’re fishing for them, they’re fishing for us. If there’s somebody out there, let’s take them out. Any questions?”

  Rodriguez stepped up to Fowler, tugged on his Kevlar.

  “No fear, Private. Say it.”

  “No fear.”

  Rodriguez looked over the men. “Huddle up and Hoo-ah!” The two syllables were the all-purpose Army cheer—the sound of soldiers coming together.

  “Hoo-ah!”

  “Hoo-ah!”

  “Hoo-ah!” Even Fowler felt his spirits rise.

  THEY WALKED THROUGH the village’s empty streets to the irrigation canal on the edge of town. Seven men. The tip of a sword that stretched halfway across the world. A hundred billion dollars a year to put them here, support them with drones and night-vision optics and ground-penetrating radar and every tool that the Pentagon’s procurement managers could imagine, the more expensive the better. Now they walked, as soldiers always had and always would. They turned northwest, walked on either side of the dry irrigation canal, eight feet wide and four feet deep. A gray hole in this gray land. Their footsteps left no trace on the hard ground. They walked slowly. They didn’t speak.

  Rodriguez put four guys on the left side, three on the right. Fowler was second on the left, twenty yards behind the point. He didn’t like the approach. Mud-brick walls dotted the fields around them, low and irregular, along with scrubby bare-branched trees. If they were walking into an ambush, the hostiles would have cover and a clear field of fire. But Rodriguez was gung ho as a rule, and the platoon hadn’t sniffed a firefight in months. Fowler thought Rodriguez was probably hoping to engage.

  They moved toward two shapeless clusters of huts, none more than ten feet high, protected by low walls. Donkeys and goats munched on garbage in a hand-built pen. No doubt everyone who lived here was related, a dozen families of kissing cousins.

  Fowler kept his eyes up, looking for movement on the roofs. If any hostiles were hiding here, the ambush would start before 1st Squad got too close. For the most part, the Talibs used simple guerrilla tactics. They blew bombs at a distance and opened up with their AKs, trying to get American soldiers to chase them into fields of IEDs.

  But the ambush didn’t come. The soldiers stepped closer, their boots scrabbling along the canal’s edge. On the left, one house had been painted bright blue. But sun and wind had bleached its paint until only a few snatches of color remained. All of Afghanistan felt drained of color to Fowler. Reduced to monochrome.

  Rodriguez raised his left hand. The centipede of soldiers stopped. Rodriguez squatted low. Fowler followed his eyes toward a piece of metal that looked like the top of a soup can. He was trying to decide whether he was looking at a mine or a piece of trash. Finally, Rodriguez poked at the metal with the tip of his M-4. It flipped away harmlessly and skittered into the canal. Rodriguez stood, twirled his finger: Keep moving.

  Two Afghans walked out of the hut that had once been blue. Both wore the shalwar kameez, the simple long tunic and pants that were standard for Afghan men. But one was wearing distinctly un-Afghan headgear, a black cowboy hat. “Halt,” Sergeant Kevin Roman, on point, shouted in English, lifting his M-4. The two men stopped, raised their hands. The squad closed around them, forming a loose semicircle around the men.

  “Gentlemen,” Rodrigue
z said. “Why were you shooting?”

  The men looked blankly at him.

  “You have Taliban here?”

  “Taliban? La, la.”

  “Anybody speakee the English?” Rodriguez said. “Come on.” He turned toward the huts, where little boys and girls peeked at them. “Anybody home?” Rodriguez shouted. The kids disappeared. Fowler caught movement from a hut maybe fifty yards ahead and swung his rifle to cover. A man in a blue shalwar kameez stepped out, his hands high. “Hello!” he yelled. “Don’t shoot! Everything is okay.”

  The man walked toward them. Waddled, really. He was heavy, with a wide, rolling gait. He reminded Fowler of an Afghan they’d seen a couple months ago at a checkpoint they’d run maybe thirty miles from here. But he didn’t seem to recognize them. Fowler stepped toward the guy, but Rodriguez shook his head. “I got this, Private.”

  “I feel like I’ve seen this guy before, Sergeant.”

  “Yeah, well, they look alike.” Rodriguez was right on that. The Pashtuns had dark brown skin and brown eyes and thick beards and big noses and hands and feet. When the guy got close, Fowler saw he had a nasty scar down the right side of his neck, like somebody had just missed getting his head on a platter. Fowler was sure he’d seen that scar before. Weird.

  “You are looking for Taliban?” Scar said.

  “Always, my man.”

  “No Taliban here.”

  “Who was shooting at us?”

  The guy shook his head. Rodriguez adjusted the plug of dip in his mouth with his tongue and spit a stream of brown saliva at the canal. His dipping and his temper had earned him the nickname Volcano.

  “We heard shots.”

  “No shooting.”

  “Liar. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Roman, come with me. I want to talk with this dude in private. In his compound. Fowler, Young, you stay here, keep an eye on the huts. B Team, you flare left, case we spook somebody out the side.”

  “What about the right side?”

  “Right side’s going to have to look after itself. Can’t do more with just seven guys.”

  Fowler didn’t like the plan. They were looking at only a few huts, but even so, they could be walking into an ambush. The Taliban didn’t usually set up attacks inside villages, but there was a first time for everything.

  “You steady, Private?” Rodriguez said.

  Have to rub my face in it, don’t you, Sergeant? Every time. Can’t help yourself. An ugly thought flitted across Fowler’s mind, an idea he couldn’t have imagined having when this tour began. I hope somebody lights you up. Mine, ambush, whatever. I hope you die, Rodriguez.

  “Like a rock.”

  “Good.” Rodriguez walked toward the Afghan man in quick, confident steps. “Quicker you show us around, quicker we’re done.”

  The other two Afghans tried to follow, but Young lifted his rifle fractionally and they stepped back. When Rodriguez and Roman were out of earshot, Fowler stepped toward Young.

  “Coleman, I’m sure I’ve seen that guy before. At a checkpoint.”

  “Like Rodriguez said, they all look alike.”

  “They don’t all have a scar like that.”

  “More than you think.”

  “I can’t believe we’ve still got three months left. I can’t do it.”

  “You can. You will. And come home a hero.”

  “Hero.”

  “That’s what they call us, isn’t it?”

  A hundred yards ahead, the scarred man pulled open a gate. Rodriguez and Roman followed him inside. The way they were moving bothered Fowler. Rodriguez might be a dickwad, but he was a good soldier, always vigilant. Now he seemed relaxed. As if he were certain that nothing inside the gate would threaten. Fowler had the strange feeling that this patrol had been a sham, its only purpose to get Rodriguez to that compound. He watched the gate close and wondered why.

  2

  MISSOULA, MONTANA

  T

  he house at the end of the flagstone driveway was wide and brick and faced west toward the Bitterroot Mountains. It had two chimneys and a three-car garage. It looked . . . in truth, it looked like a nice place to live. Like it had a den filled with books that had actually been read and a refrigerator stuffed with leafy green vegetables. John Wells hadn’t gotten inside and he was already feeling defensive.

  Though the flagstone was a bit much.

  Wells rolled up the driveway, which turned to asphalt beside the house. A thickly padded pillar supported a regulation-size basketball backboard. A teenage boy faced the hoop. He dribbled the ball between his hands like a three-card-monte dealer hiding an ace. He was maybe six-foot-two and, despite the cool fall air, wore only knee-length white shorts and a blue Boise State T-shirt. As Wells drove up the flagstone, the kid stepped back and launched a fadeaway jumper. It traced an easy arc and dropped through the net.

  Wells parked his rental Kia a few feet from the boy and grabbed the bouquet of orchids and lilies he’d bought in downtown Missoula. He didn’t want to open the door, but after a couple seconds he forced himself out.

  The boy kept dribbling, skittering the ball between his legs. He was still growing into his body. His chest was flat, but his calves and forearms were thick with muscle. He had Wells’s deep brown eyes and solid nose, and his hair was long and straight and pulled back in a ponytail. He launched another fadeaway jumper, this one just short. Wells collected the rebound.

  “You must be Evan.” You must be my son. Though I’m more or less guessing, since I haven’t seen you since you were a baby.

  “I must be.”

  “I’m John.” Wells stepped in for a hug, but the boy took a quick half step back and extended a hand.

  “Nice to meet you.” Evan spoke softly, his words clipped flat. No hint of emotion. He sounded like a state trooper talking to a driver he’d pulled over for speeding. Without affect, the psychiatrists said. Though not without effect. Wells watched his son watching him. He supposed he’d earned that voice.

  “Practicing your jumper.”

  “Actually working on my dunks.”

  “Right.”

  Evan cocked his head at the flowers. “Those for me? I’m more into roses as a rule.”

  “Noted.”

  Evan dribbled twice, threw up a fadeaway. This time the ball clanged off the front of the rim and bounced at Wells, who laid the flowers on the ground and corralled it.

  “Coach tried to get me interested in ninth grade, but football was more my game,” Wells said. “Now I wish I’d listened to him. All those hits add up. I still feel some of them.” Though Wells was lying. He wouldn’t have traded football for anything. He’d loved the sport’s raw power, its velocity and contact. War without death.

  He spun the basketball in his hands, dribbled once, flung up a jumper. The ball bounced off the back rim. Evan grabbed it and tucked it under his arm, an oddly adult gesture, as if he were in charge and Wells the teenager. His self-possession impressed Wells.

  “You should probably tell my mom you’re here.”

  “Sure.” Wells turned to the house as Heather—his ex-wife—opened the door. Her hair, once a light honey brown, was streaked with gray and cut short, just above her shoulders. She and Wells had divorced barely a year after Evan was born, when Wells left them to go undercover in Afghanistan and infiltrate al-Qaeda for the first time. These were the prehistoric days before September 11. Wells had seen Heather only once since. Now he crossed the driveway and the stairs and hugged her. She hesitated and then reached for him and stretched her arms around his back. She was tiny, half his size. “You look great,” he said.

  “You lie.”

  “Never.”

  “Fairly often, I suspect. But come on in anyway.”

  “What about . . .” Wells nodded at the side of the house, where Evan was once again shooting jumpers.

  “Let him be. He’ll come in on his own once he sees us talking.”

  SHE LED HIM THROUGH a house that was as handsome as Wells had imagin
ed from the outside. The American dream alive and well in three dimensions. The pictures stung the most. Heather had remarried, a lawyer named Howard. They had two children, George and Victoria—Wells had looked up their names this morning. Family photos covered every wall. Victoria playing soccer. Evan spinning a basketball on his index finger. George standing on the Golden Gate Bridge. The five of them somewhere in Mexico or Central America, standing on a ruin, grinning.

  Wells knew that the photos weren’t for him. They’d been up long before he arrived. But he couldn’t help feeling they were meant as an object lesson, a reminder of the life he’d traded away. Though he was probably fooling himself. Probably this life had never been open to him.

  “They’re beautiful. All of them.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And they get along?”

  “You know, they’re kids, they fight, but the fact that Evan has a different dad, that’s never part of it. At least as far as I know.”

  “That’s great.” What about me? Wells wanted to ask. Does he ever ask about me? Even in his head, the question sounded impossibly self-centered.

  Heather put Wells’s flowers in a glass pitcher and they sat at a marble-topped island in the kitchen. She didn’t ask whether he wanted anything to drink or eat, a reminder that he wasn’t truly welcome.

  “Howard’s not around? Or the kids?”

  “At the mall. And then a movie. I think something in three-D.”

  “I’d like to meet them.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “Give me a little credit.”

  “I know you, that’s all.”

  Her certainty nettled Wells. “What do you know?”

  “You’re very goal-oriented, John. ‘Must reconnect with son.’” Heather delivered that last sentence in a mock Terminator voice. “‘Building family ties, very important. Highest priority.’”

  Wells nearly flared up, said something like, Still bitter after all these years. But he hadn’t come this far to argue. “I don’t even think of you as an ex anymore, Heather. We’ve been apart so much longer than we were together.”