Silent Enemy

by Young, Tom

  She took off her headset and descended the steps to the cargo compartment. From above, on the ladder, the scene looked like an emergency room hastily set up in a metal warehouse. She found Mahsoud still asleep, a medic monitoring his vitals.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked.

  “Stable for now,” the medic said. “We’re keeping him on oxygen because he has smoke and heat damage to his lungs.” Gold looked at the plastic tubes leading to a cannula in Mahsoud’s nose.

  “Do you know what’s happening?” she asked the medic. He looked about twenty, with close-cropped black hair. His name tag bore his wings, and it read JUSTIN BAKER, AIC USAF. On his right sleeve he wore the patch of the 455th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, embroidered with the word “EVACISTAN.”

  “The MCD told me,” he said. He seemed worried. When he wasn’t checking Mahsoud, he kept smoothing the fabric on the legs of his flight suit, as if he couldn’t decide what to do with his hands.

  One of the American patients stared up at the ducting and wires in the ceiling, breathed hard. Just three of the Afghans were awake, and she told them in Pashto what was going on. One of them said only, “Wali?” Why? Another began to recite the Shahadah. The one who had lost both legs and an arm did not seem to care.

  At the front of the cargo compartment, two loadmasters began breaking down a baggage pallet, apparently following Parson’s orders to search for anything unusual. Gold found her backpack and pulled her flashlight from a side pocket.

  “I’ll help you look,” Gold said.

  “Thanks, Sergeant Major,” a loadmaster said. “You don’t mind if we search your bag?”

  “Not at all.”

  The loadmaster unzipped the backpack, paused to note the patch sewn onto the outside: the AA of the 82nd Airborne. Gold supposed he hadn’t seen a lot of women who were jump qualified. He pulled out Gold’s spare ACU uniform, a pair of jeans, a civvie sweater. Running shoes. Underwear, toiletries bag.

  “Sorry, Sergeant Major.”

  “You’re just doing your job,” Gold said.

  Then he found one of her books in Pashto. The Diwan of Rahman Baba. He looked at her without smiling.

  “Is this a Quran?”

  “It’s a book of poetry,” Gold said. “I’m a translator.”

  “Oh.”

  He thumbed through the pages as if looking for a razor. Then he put it back, replaced all her clothes, zipped up the backpack.

  “No bomb in there,” he said.

  Guess he thinks I’ve gone native, Gold thought, or maybe that I’ve switched sides altogether. Doesn’t matter what he thinks.

  Gold helped the loadmaster look through the rest of the bags. It felt strange to examine the mundane details of every life on board. The traditional clothing of the Afghans. Little else in their U.S.-issued bags. In the luggage of the Americans, hints of their tastes and lifestyles: an electric shaver, Men’s Fitness magazine, an iPod. PDAs and computer games. A bundle of letters from Alabama. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  After they had searched all the bags, the loadmaster paused to listen to his headset. Then he shook his head, keyed his mike, and said, “Yes, sir.” Unstrapped the baggage pallet again.

  “Major Parson talked to an EOD guy at Scott,” the loadmaster said. “He wants us to check all the electronic devices. Anything that doesn’t work could be a disguised bomb.”

  They dug through the bags again. Gold tested four portable DVD players, a half dozen MP3s, two laptops. All powered up okay.

  She wondered if the next ON switch would send her and everyone else to oblivion, but figured that probably was not how the bomb would trigger.

  “Well, it isn’t here,” the loadmaster said finally.

  Gold looked around the cargo compartment. Plenty of other places it could be, behind all the panels and tubing and wiring. A crew chief shone a light under a walkway along the left side of the aircraft, inched along on his knees.

  “I need to go check on someone,” Gold said.

  Mahsoud lay awake now. He gave a thin smile as Gold approached him.

  “My friend,” Gold said, “we have another problem.” She told him about the bomb threat.

  “Is it real?” Mahsoud asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  Was it real, indeed? Gold wondered. Parson seemed to think not, though he was doing a good job of making sure. Bet he’d feel differently if he’d been in my office a while back.

  “Were I not a useless cripple,” Mahsoud said, now in Pashto, “I could help you.”

  “You are hardly useless,” Gold said, “but now you should try to rest and let us deal with this.”

  “I have studied these matters.”

  “I know, friend. Sleep.”

  “I cannot.”

  Gold considered what she might do to ease Mahsoud’s mind if he was too fretful to sleep. Nothing, probably.

  “If you’re wide awake, do you want to see outside?” she asked.

  “I would like to see the sun,” Mahsoud said.

  The cargo compartment had few windows, and they were round and narrow, not much bigger than a dinner plate. They reminded Gold of portholes on a ship. A nylon shade attached by Velcro covered each one. Gold pulled the shade from the window just above Mahsoud’s litter. It came loose with a ripping sound.

  Just outside, she saw a jet engine bigger than the cab of an Army deuce and a half, and another engine like it farther outboard. Plumes of heat and gases shimmered from the exhaust cones. Beyond the wing, the earth met the sky at an indistinct, hazy horizon.

  Gold kneeled to look out from Mahsoud’s angle. No direct view of the sun, at least not yet, but a good wedge of blue along with a chunk of the right wing. A beam of daylight shafted down from the window onto the green blanket that covered what remained of Mahsoud’s legs.

  The search continued throughout the aircraft. The MCD gave commands Gold could not quite hear. But Gold saw the aeromeds begin searching the patients, lifting blankets, checking clothing.

  Under the covers, bloody bandages wrapped over stumps of limbs, dressings over burns. Fractures and lacerations and sutures. But no bomb. After all these victims have suffered, Gold thought, now the indignity of suspicion. She hoped they understood it was just procedure. She debated whether to go explain that to each one, but then she thought, No, they’ll get it. Leave them alone and let them rest; don’t do harm with good intentions. Any more than you already have.

  The waterfall roar of the engines dropped an octave. Gold knew little about airplanes, but she guessed Parson had pulled back the throttles a bit to slow down. No sense rushing to Germany at top speed if we can’t descend until the search is finished. She imagined Parson was on the radio, trying to get more information to make decisions, probably using every resource at hand. He had certainly made the most of terribly limited resources when they had been shot down together. Her life should have ended when the Taliban dragged her away. Captured Americans usually made one or two video appearances on extremist websites, then met an awful end. But Parson would have none of that. He gave her captors the martyrdom they claimed to seek, delivered through the barrel of his rifle.

  Now she and Parson faced a very different set of problems. Gold resolved to stay busy. Tasks could keep her from dwelling on things she couldn’t change. She switched on her flashlight again to help the crew chief. Then she lowered herself to her hands and knees to peer into what looked like a gutter along the floor on each side of the aircraft. She saw a jumble of cables and hoses, valves and junction boxes.

  “Is that wire supposed to be there?” Gold asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the crew chief. “That’s okay.” From the crew chief’s name tag, Gold saw his name was SPENCER. His uniform bore what she assumed was the badge of an aircraft maintainer: a wreath surrounding an eagle holding weapons in its talons.

  In spots along the gutter, pools of red liquid rippled with the vibration of the airplane. Whatever it was, hydraulic fluid or a strange kin
d of oil, Spencer didn’t seem concerned. But it put Gold in mind of some huge animal bleeding internally.

  When she came to the aft end of the cargo compartment, Gold stood to stretch her legs, and she peered through the window in the troop door. From that angle she saw the rear aspect of the wing. It was not a solid sheet of metal but made of segments and panels in a geometry Gold did not understand. To a paratrooper, airplanes were just a platform to jump from. Beyond the wing, a line of clouds looked like a mountain range blanketed in snow. The ground a dark mist beneath them, a mere suggestion of a solid earth.

  She wondered if anyone down there could see the plane. Gold supposed it would appear as a gray dart pulling a white contrail, traversing the sky in utter tranquillity.

  One of the wounded moaned loudly enough to be heard over the slipstream and the turbines. Gold could not tell who it was. Perhaps a soul in the depths of morphine or Vicodin, imagining some horror or recalling one that had been realized.

  As Gold made her way up the other side of the cargo compartment, she heard snatches of conversation between aeromeds and the English-speaking patients who were awake.

  “It’s nothing,” one medic said. “We’re gonna drag our asses around the sky all day and then we’re going to land and be fine.”

  “Yeah, they’re probably just screwing with us.”

  Another patient was sobbing openly. Gold thought maybe he was the one who had been moaning. By the unbandaged side of his face, he looked like a Westerner. There was gauze over the top of his head, an IV tube in one arm.

  “Just point this thing at the ground and get it over with,” he shouted. He had an American accent.

  A nurse caressed his hand and whispered, “Rest, Sergeant. We’ve all heard bomb threats before. How many are real?”

  “I know one bomb that was real. Don’t tell me these things aren’t real!”

  Then the nurse conferred with the MCD. Gold didn’t catch it all but heard: “I can’t give him any more now.”

  When Gold reached Mahsoud’s litter again, he held his bandaged hand against his good hand, both cupped in prayer. She kept a respectful distance until he finished.

  “How do you feel, buddy?” she asked.

  “There is that name again. Bud-dee.”

  He seemed to enjoy the sound of a single word. He had the heart of a Pashtun poet. Good thing he likes words, Gold thought, because we can offer him precious little else right now.

  “Do you want something to eat?” Gold asked.

  “Perhaps later.”

  Gold felt grateful that he wasn’t panicked like that sergeant. But then, life could be cheap in Afghanistan. Mahsoud was probably used to the idea that it could end quickly and violently or worse. He wasn’t old enough to remember peace.

  3

  While Parson waited for the loadmasters and crew chief to report back on their search, he pondered his next move. When we get to Germany, he thought, the controllers will probably put us into holding at Saarbrücken until they decide what to do with us. But I won’t hold forever. These patients need to get to a real hospital, and we’re not going to keep flying around in circles playing games. I’m in command of this aircraft, not some European air traffic controller or a clock-watcher at Scott.

  The radio interrupted his thoughts: “Air Evac Eight-Four, Gunfighter One-Zero.” A voice distorted by the suctioned acoustics of an aviator’s oxygen mask.

  Parson squeezed a TALK switch on his control column: “Gunfighter, Air Evac Eight-Four, go ahead.”

  “Gunfighter’s a flight of two F-15s. We’re going to come up on your right side. You probably want to put your TCAS on standby.”

  Somebody sure was taking this thing seriously if they were launching fighters. Terrorist threats didn’t usually get this kind of response. Parson pressed buttons on his CDU to silence the traffic collision avoidance system.

  “We’re set, Gunfighter,” he said. “Come on up.”

  The two Eagles slid into view out the right windows. Swept angles and sharp points of supersonic aircraft. Flying cutlasses. Faces of the helmeted pilots invisible behind oxygen hoses and black visors. Needlelike shapes under the wings: Sidewinders.

  “Makes me feel better to see those boys,” Colman said.

  “They aren’t here to do us any good,” Parson said. “They’re here to blow us away if they think we’re hijacked.”

  “How you doing over there?” called the lead fighter.

  “I’ve had better flights,” Parson said. Go fuck yourself.

  “Roger that. Sorry to have to ask this, but can you authenticate Tango Four?”

  Colman picked up a classified comms table, read across the columns and rows.

  “Don’t get it wrong,” Parson said. He watched Colman run his finger down a row of code letters until he stopped on one.

  “It’s Bravo,” Colman said over the interphone.

  Parson leaned across the center console to double-check.

  “Gunfighter, Air Evac Eight-Four,” called Parson. “Bravo.”

  “That checks.”

  So at least the fighters won’t open up on us yet, Parson thought. He looked out at them, watched them holding close formation, then looked past them. Dust hung in the air below the aircraft, giving that part of the sky a beige tint more like a painting than reality. A temperature inversion, he guessed, kept the dust from rising above a certain altitude. The effect created a line along the horizon like a layer of smoke.

  “Anybody find anything?” he asked over interphone.

  A loadmaster called from downstairs: “Negative.”

  “Nothing up here, either,” came the answer from the troop compartment.

  “Engineer,” Parson asked. “You guys did a thorough preflight, didn’t you?”

  “We did,” said Dunne. “I’m sure there’s nothing in the wheel wells. The scanner and I both looked.”

  That was good. If it were in a wheel well, they couldn’t do anything about it. No access from inside the plane. Parson decided to check in with TACC again.

  “We’re negative on anything suspicious so far,” he said. “We’ll keep you advised.”

  “Roger that,” the flight manager said. “Also, we have a tanker launching from Manas to refuel you. And the DO says he’ll waive crew duty day limits.”

  Parson rolled his eyes, pressed his TALK switch. “You think?” he said. He usually tried not to use sarcasm over the radio, but this was asking for it.

  “Hilda out,” came the response.

  Good, thought Parson. Talk to me when you’re not going to say something stupid. Sounds like things are more in control up here than they are down there.

  He felt he could afford to let his guest come back upstairs. “Cargo,” Parson said, “what’s Sergeant Major Gold doing now?”

  “She’s talking to that Afghani guy.”

  “When she finishes, tell her she can come up here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Perhaps her presence would keep his thinking clear. It certainly had four years ago. Back then, at a moment when rage had overcome his reason, he’d nearly killed a valuable Taliban prisoner. Gold had prevented it, by a swift blow to Parson’s cheek with the stock of her weapon. Getting your ass kicked by a girl wasn’t something you bragged about, but it had kept him focused on the mission.

  When the flight deck door slid open, Gold sat at the nav table and put on the headset Dunne had loaned her.

  “Thanks for coming, Sergeant Major,” Parson said.

  Gold leaned forward and patted the headrest of Parson’s seat. She didn’t actually touch him, just his crew station. But it seemed to say what Parson wanted to hear: You were there for me, sir. I was there for you. If things turn bad, we can do this again.

  She pulled up the hot mike switch on her comm panel and asked, “Any new info?”

  “Negative,” Parson said. “Except that we have company.”

  Gold looked out the windows at the F-15s. Her face darkened, and Parson knew she und
erstood their real purpose.

  He scanned his instruments, tried to think. No warning lights or OFF flags. Mach zero-point-six-two. Vertical speed: zero. Flight level: three-four-zero. More than six miles above the earth, where the temperatures are always below freezing. Getting a little cold inside, too. Parson hated to be cold.

  “Engineer,” he said, “can you throw another log on the fire?”

  Dunne twisted a rheostat on his panel toward HOT. Parson nodded to him in thanks. Think about the crew, Parson told himself. Some of them are pretty young and haven’t seen much action. They could be letting their imaginations run away with them.

  “Crew,” Parson said, “this could turn into a long day. I want everybody to eat at least a little something for lunch. Stay hydrated, too. We don’t know how long we’re going to be up here now, and I need all of you at the top of your game.”

  Parson knew he’d better be at the top of his own game, too. Everybody would expect him to know what to do, to have a plan. Always, no matter what. Up until now, he had been a crew member, responsible for knowing his job and providing good suggestions to the aircraft commander. Now he was in charge. He’d once heard someone say, To command is to serve. He couldn’t remember where that quote came from, but he felt its truth. Yes, he was the leader; people answered to him. But he answered for their fates. If you didn’t want this burden, he told himself, you shouldn’t have asked for it.

  “Engineer’s going off headset,” Dunne said. “I’ll bring us some stuff out of the galley.”

  Dunne returned with a six-pack of Pepsi, cans lettered in English and Arabic. From the chow hall at Balad. A jar of Spanish olives, from outside the base at Rota. Wurst and crackers from the commissary at Spangdahlem. All stops before arrival at Bagram.

  Parson had no appetite at all, but he decided to set an example and follow his own order. He drew his boot knife and, with paper towels in his lap, cut a few slices of the wurst. Wiped the blade on the sleeve of his flight suit. Passed some of the meat and crackers to Gold and his crewmates.