“You’re avoiding the topic at hand, John.”
“Not avoiding it. Outrunning it with wit and wisdom.”
“You should know better than to rely on those.”
“And you know what happened to you-know-who.” Years before, Wells’s former fiancée, Jennifer Exley, had been wounded in an attempt on his life. “These guys, when they decide to come at you, they don’t care about collateral damage. Up here, it seems like a long way from that, but it’s not.”
Anne was silent. Wells stood, looked out the window. The warm months were almost gone. The easy months. The oaks and maples had shed their leaves and were waiting for winter.
“I believe you when you say you’re worried about my safety,” she said. “But it’s my choice, too.”
“Yes and no.”
“Sooner or later, the excuses won’t matter. Even if they’re true. Why don’t you go see Evan, at least? You’ve got a lot to sort out and that’s a good place to start.”
The next day, Wells called Heather, told her he wanted to see his son. A week after that, he headed west to Montana. Now the wheel had swung again, and he was on this jet, bound for the war zone where he’d spent half his adult life.
He wondered if the job—not necessarily this job, but the job—would cost him Anne. Experience said yes. It had cost him everyone else. Though she was still cutting him slack, for now. When Wells told her what Duto wanted, her first words were, “When do you go?”
He’d gone up from Washington to visit her for a night before flying out. In the morning she gave him a present, a neatly wrapped box about the size of a hardcover book. “Should I open it now or later?”
“Now. I want to be sure you’ll like it.”
“I’ll like it.”
In fact, Wells wasn’t very good at getting gifts. He was so self-contained that he wanted very little. Not that he insisted on living like a monk. He’d given away most of his money, but he still had plenty saved. And if he found something that he thought he would use, like a new motorcycle, he would buy it. But he had no interest in accumulating possessions for their own sake. Brand names and new clothes meant nothing to him. He didn’t want much, and what he wanted, he had.
In other words, buying presents for him was a nightmare.
Anne spun her finger, Stop stalling and open it. Inside, Wells found a pair of aviator sunglasses, gold Ray-Bans. “They’re vintage. That means they’re old.”
“They’re great. Thank you.” Wells put them on, went into the bathroom, and checked himself out. “Nice,” he said. “I look like the sidekick in an eighties action movie. The guy who gets killed a half hour in.”
“I think they’re very Dirty Harry. You really like them?”
“I do.” He came back into the bedroom and picked her up.
“They’re sexy.”
“You’re sexy.” He kissed her, chastely at first and then openmouthed. He laid her on the bed as Tonka grumbled and jumped off. She was wearing only a T-shirt and sweatpants.
She smirked. “I want you to leave them on.”
“That’s kinda creepy.”
She ran her tongue across her upper lip, intentionally lewd. “Remember I’m from the generation that grew up with Internet porn.”
“I thought nice girls didn’t watch porn.”
“All girls watch porn.” She reached up, pulled him down onto the bed. “You’d better leave them on.”
He left them on.
THE JET EASED into a slow descent. Then the overhead lights kicked on and the speakers crackled. “Captain Hawes here. Beauty sleep’s over. We’re about a hundred miles from Bagram. Buckle up, stow your gear, turn off anything with a battery. Should be on the ground in about twenty-five minutes. Though if you send a few bucks to the cockpit, I could be convinced to stay up here longer.”
The soldier next to Wells jerked awake. He was a specialist, an E-4. On his sleeve he wore a big yellow patch with a dark black horse’s head—the insignia for the 1st Cavalry Division, the famous 1st Cav, whose history dated to 1921. “I miss anything?”
“Nope. You’re with First Cav?”
“Yeah, Second Battalion. You?”
“I was a Ranger once upon a time. A while back. Then I worked at Langley for a while.”
“Now you’re a contractor? You guys usually fly commercial.”
“I get off on leg cramps and the smell of ten thousand farts. How’s business?”
“Ever been to Afghanistan before?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know. The problem with these guys we’re fighting is they like it, you know. After all these years they got a jones for it and they won’t ever stop. How it feels anyway. Only good thing is they’re lousy tactically. They’re not scared, but they can’t shoot straight, and half the bombs they make don’t go off. Otherwise more of us would be coming home in bags.”
“People have been fighting over these mountains for a long time.”
“I got six months left in my tour, and a year after that on my contract, and then I’m done. I thought I wanted to be a lifer, but one round is gonna be it. Lucky me, I only signed a four-year bid, I’ll only be twenty-two when I get out, so I can still do something else.”
“And how’s morale?”
“The PR is not the best time to ask.”
“PR?”
“Parole Revoker. What we call these flights back from leave. That’s why you’re not hearing any hoo-ahs or singing or anything to get us chunked up. But, you know. Guys hang in. My sarge and loot aren’t too bad, so I can’t complain. And on my base, we live okay. Hot food, showers, laundry, free Internet at the MWR.” The Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Office.
“Not everybody’s got it so good.”
“Heck, no. The small outposts, firebases, it’s MREs, cold showers, no coms. They live like dogs. Every so often, you hear about a platoon that’s got real messed up.”
Not exactly what Wells was here to investigate, but he was intrigued. “Messed up how?”
“Drugs. Target practice on civvies. Ugliness. But it’s just rumors.”
“It always is. Till it’s real.”
“Anyway. I’m Howard Gordon. Specialist Gordon.” The guy extended a hand.
“John Wells.”
“John Wells. Why do I know that name?”
“I did something interesting once. A few years back.” Wells had been a celebrity after his first big mission. Since then, he’d kept his head down. Most civilians had forgotten him. Wells saw that the amnesia had spread to the military. At least the junior guys. Not that he minded. He didn’t have an ego. Anonymity worked to his advantage.
Okay, maybe he minded a little.
“That bomb—in New York—” Gordon said.
“Yeah. That was me.”
“You don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here?”
“Somebody asked me to come check things out.”
“You want my opinion?”
“Sure.”
“I say we bring in a pile of AKs, RPGs. They got plenty already, but let’s make sure everybody has one. And some bigger stuff, too. Then you know what we do?”
“Tell me.”
“Build a wall around the whole country, twenty feet high, concrete. Then we leave. We set up outside, watch the perimeter, make sure none of them get out. And we let ’em have at it. Because they will, man. If they don’t have us to kill they’ll just take turns popping each other. Like checkers, jump, jump, double jump, clearing out the board. Until there’s only one left. When we see that one guy, you know what we do?”
“Kill him?”
“Too easy. Let him have it. He earned it. He’s King Turd of Asscrackistan.”
“Asscrackistan.”
“Never heard anyone call it that?”
Wells shook his head.
“You will.”
THE JET CAME IN hard and fast and stopped quickly, tossing Wells forward in his seat. A drawn-out sigh rose from the soldiers, air leaking fr
om a punctured tire, not a groan but not a cheer.
“Welcome home,” the captain said. Specialist Gordon raised twin middle fingers to the front of the cabin. Wells wished he had room to stretch. His hamstrings felt especially tight. Anne was pushing him to take up yoga. He might have to give in.
Gordon didn’t seem bothered. He was a head shorter than Wells and narrow shouldered, but he shouldered his pack easily, rolled his neck. “You look tired, man.”
“Wishing I were twenty again, instead of twice that.”
“I’ll be twenty-one next month. Get to celebrate here. Woo-hoo.”
“Should be fun.”
“I can’t believe that back home I’m not old enough to get a beer without sneaking around. When I get out of here, I’m going to Myrtle Beach with my boys, make up for lost time, drink until I can’t stand.”
The unspoken part of the sentence went, If I’m still alive. “Sounds like a plan.”
Gordon extended his hand. “Be seeing you, Mr. Wells.”
“John.”
“John. You get home, you tell those big boys my idea. About the wall.”
“Roger that. Watch your six, Specialist.”
“Always do.”
OUTSIDE, AFGHANISTAN. The air was crisp and cold, the sky thick with stars. White-capped mountains loomed over the hangars around them. Most Afghans didn’t live in those mountains. The fiercest fighting happened in the south, the scrublands of Kandahar and Helmand. But the Hindu Kush was as central to the idea of Afghanistan as the desert was to Saudi Arabia. Its peaks had defeated invaders for centuries. They could be occupied, but never truly conquered.
A wiry man in jeans and a light green windbreaker walked toward Wells. “John? I’m Pete Lautner. Good to meet you.” They shook. Lautner had close-cropped gray hair, piercing blue eyes, and a coiled awareness of everything around him. Losing your wife and brother to a suicide bombing would have that effect, Wells thought.
“The same.”
“Ready for the beautiful Ariana Hotel? We’ve got a room with your name on it.”
Lautner led Wells to a black Suburban parked fifty yards away. The air base at Bagram had been built up since Wells’s last trip. Hangars and concrete bunkers stretched along the main runway.
“Wonder what we’ll do with it when we leave.”
“MOAB.”
“Never heard of ’em.”
“You know daisy cutters?”
“Sure,” Wells said. Daisy cutters—officially called BLU-82s—had been the largest non-nuclear bombs ever built. Six tons of ammonium nitrate with a sprinkling of artificial flavors. The Pentagon had created them to cut through the jungles of Vietnam.
“Like those. But bigger. Nine tons of explosives, give or take.”
“The daisy cutter wasn’t big enough.”
“I guess not.”
“Wonder what the Air Force is compensating for.”
Lautner smiled. “Who said we’re leaving anyway?”
They stopped beside a four-seat helicopter, black, with a bubble canopy. The pilot stood a few feet away, cigarette in hand. He was Hispanic, with thick black hair. He was maybe twenty-six. Everyone in this war seemed to be younger than Wells. The pilot tossed aside his smoke, sending embers across the tarmac.
“One of these days you’ll hit some jet fuel and we’ll be screwed,” Lautner said.
“Stop, drop, and roll,” the pilot said. He extended a hand to Wells. “I’m Mike Hernandez.”
“John Wells.”
“Mike is the best,” Lautner said. “We can land Black Hawks at the Ariana, but these work better. And that glass is thicker than it looks. It’ll stop anything up to a .50 cal. And with the headphones, we can actually talk inside.”
“Good enough for you is good enough for me.”
“You will want to wear your Kevlar, though. And your Nomex.”
Wells pulled on his black fireproof gloves, strapped on his vest, climbed in, buckled up. Hernandez went through two minutes of clicking switches and consulting the computer screens in the center console. “Ready?” Without waiting for their agreement, Hernandez twisted back on the throttle until the helicopter vibrated with its power. He pulled back on the collective and they leaped into the night and rode low and fast onto the Shamali Plain.
Beneath them were the scars of three decades of war. Bomb craters pockmarked the earth. The houses that had survived were dark and shuttered against the world. Few Afghans had electric generators. Those who did rarely used them after dark. Noise and light attracted thieves. Faint plumes of smoke from the chimneys offered the only proof of life.
The helicopter swung south toward Kabul. Five miles away, headlights appeared below them, cresting a hill and speeding north. “Afghan police,” Lautner said. “This is probably the safest stretch of road in the whole country.”
“But we’re not driving.”
“Flying’s still safer. You’re a VIP, Mr. Wells. My ass if anything happens to you.”
“Generally I can feed and clothe myself. I do need a little help on the toilet.”
Lautner snorted, a half laugh. To the south, the yellow glow of Kabul appeared. “Brighter than I remember.” The embassies and aid groups have their own generators. “You don’t mind my asking, anything in particular you’re looking for on this trip?”
“Vinny asked me to come over, tell him what I thought. About the war and the station, both.”
“Is there a problem with the station?”
“You tell me.”
Lautner hesitated. “It’s tricky. Maybe a conversation we should have on the ground. So the director asked you himself.”
“Correct.”
“Rumor is that you and he don’t get along. Rumor is that’s why you quit.”
So the story of his struggle with Duto had spread all the way here. Wells didn’t see the percentage in denying the truth. “We don’t. But this is too important.”
“And you’re gonna be speaking to soldiers, too.”
“I’m set for a couple speeches in Kandahar. Honestly, I’m not sure they even know who I am. But it’s a decent excuse to hear what the frontline guys think.”
“Look, I’m glad to talk to you, and so’s everyone else. You know, there’s going to be specific programs and intel we can’t discuss. I hope you’re not offended, compartmentalized stuff that you’re not read in for.”
“I figured as much.” Though Wells hadn’t. He was here with Duto’s direct support. He was surprised Lautner was pushing back. He was glad now to have read the station’s files at Langley, and doubly glad that no one in Kabul knew.
“But in terms of questions about morale, how we’re putting the station back together—”
“Since Marburg—” As Wells said the word, Lautner’s lips tightened slightly, but he had no other reaction.
“Since Marburg. It’s been a struggle, but we’re getting traction. I don’t have to tell you it’s a very tough environment. Traditional rules of intel and counterintel don’t apply. There’s no ideology, no consistency. They’ll switch sides instantly for a better offer. Tough to build anything lasting. Especially since they know we won’t be here forever.”
“But we’ve got the money.”
“That we do.”
Lautner hadn’t lied, Wells thought. Instead he’d given Wells generalities about Afghanistan that had been true twenty years ago and would be equally true twenty years from now. Nothing about the station’s real problems. Lautner obviously saw him as an outsider, sent by Langley to second-guess. The attitude didn’t mean Lautner or anyone else was a mole. Quite the opposite. A mole would be more welcoming, Wells thought. He decided not to press Lautner any further, at least for now. Maybe Arango, the chief of station, would be more willing to talk.
Wells looked out the window toward Kabul. A quilt of shacks and mud houses and garbage mounds covered the land. During the civil war in the 1990s, refugee camps had sprung up on the outskirts of the city. Now the refugees didn’t want to
go home. The camps had food and water and basic sanitation, all luxuries in rural Afghanistan.
The helicopter swooped left. For a few seconds it seemed to be flying almost sideways. If a double-rotor, forty-passenger Chinook was a bus, and a twelve-passenger Black Hawk was a sports car, this little chopper was a motorcycle. A racing bike, not an overpowered Ducati, but a Honda CBR600 with sticky tires that gripped the pavement.
A low hill loomed ahead, topped by a mound that looked at first like a funeral pyre. The sour stench of a garbage fire filled the cabin. The chopper hopped over the hill and down the back side and turned right, following a narrow two-lane road that headed toward the center of Kabul. They were no more than forty feet off the ground, so low that Wells could count potholes on the road beneath them. Each turn blended into the next. Even if someone had an RPG on them, hitting them would be impossible.
The pilot leaned forward in his seat, his helmet almost touching the canopy, his hands loose. “Looks like he could do this with his eyes closed,” Wells said.
“Mike’s got those nice video-game reflexes.”
Two minutes later, the helicopter approached the Ariana Hotel. “Home sweet home,” Lautner said. The hotel was unlit and painted dark gray so it would be a tougher target for RPGs. The concrete blast walls around it glowed under arc lamps. The combination turned the hotel into a devil’s flower, a black hole ringed by light.
The helicopter’s engines revved down abruptly. For a moment, they hung motionless. Then they descended gently and touched down in the very center of the painted white cross that marked the hotel’s landing zone. Hernandez nodded to their thanks and went back to checking the chopper’s displays. Wells realized that he and Lautner were nothing but cargo to the kid, an excuse for him to play a real-life video game. Even so he was a great pilot.
Lautner led Wells to a room on the fourth floor, in a part of the Ariana used by contractors rather than CIA employees, another none-too-subtle reminder that Wells was no longer part of the club. After the flight from Washington, Wells was happy just to have a bed. He fell asleep with his shirt and pants still on. He woke once, in the deepest part of the night. He didn’t know where he was.
The Shadow Patrol Page 9