It was the iPod that had done it. It had changed his luck entirely.
Brown developed a routine over the next few weeks as they patrolled. He’d leave the iPod earphones down around his neck, tucked tight against his collar, with the volume just high enough so he could hear the music. Then he’d turn his attention entirely to the patrol, concentrating on what he was doing. Twice, he heard strange music coming from the headphones. Exactly at that moment, he would drop to his knee, or press himself down, or do whatever he had to, to be ready for something to happen.
Both times, something did—the first time, he spotted a pair of Taliban soldiers on horseback in the distance, too far for them to attack. The second time, he noticed a truck careening down the road toward their roadblock before anyone else did. The driver turned out to be a would-be bomber. Gimme shot through his magazine, wiping out the motor and the driver before the bomb exploded.
No one made fun of him after that. Brown had gone from being the company screwup, from being maybe the worst soldier in the entire battalion, to being someone the NCOs could use as an example. He’d always looked like a good soldier; now he was acting like one. He felt as if his strides were longer when he walked.
Brown knew, though, that the real credit wasn’t due to his own abilities, or even to Corporal Gutierrez’s patient, almost wordless counseling.
“It’s my iPod,” he told some other soldiers in the company one night in the mess while they were eating. He didn’t feel embarrassed to admit it. If anything, it was easier to credit it. “I know something’s going to happen when I hear a song I’ve never heard before.”
“Get out,” said one of the soldiers, a specialist from the Bronx. “No way.”
“Really.”
“Let me see it.”
Brown took it from his pocket—the iPod was never far from him now, even when he was showering.
The other soldier turned it over in his hand, looking at it. There was nothing special about it—silver anodized aluminum, white plastic on the sides and the dial.
“You’re telling me this is magic?”
Brown reached to grab it back, but the specialist pulled it away.
“Magic?” said Bronx. “I think you’re loony.”
“Fuck you,” said Brown.
“What’s the problem here, boys?” said Corporal Gutierrez, walking over to the table. He’d just come from the food line.
“No problem,” said Bronx. He handed the player back.
Gutierrez sat down across from Brown. Everyone ate in silence. Bronx left a few minutes later; soon, only Brown and Gutierrez were at the table.
“How you doing, Brownie?” asked Gutierrez. “You feeling good?”
“Yes, Corporal, I’m feeling real good.”
“Relax, Brownie. Take it easy.”
Brown nodded. “Yes, Corporal.”
“You can call me Ray,” said Gutierrez.
“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
Gutierrez picked up the cola he’d brought over with his dinner. “What’s with the iPod?”
“Oh, you know. Nothing really.”
“You think it’s good luck?”
“I told you, Corporal.”
“Yeah, I know. You really think it’s good luck?”
“I hear all these songs that I never heard before, and it’s right then that something happens.”
“What do you mean, you never heard them before?” Gutierrez asked. “You listen to that iPod twenty-four/seven.”
“I know, Corporal, but they’re always songs I never heard before. And very different, too.”
Gutierrez smiled.
“I don’t know if I’d give the player too much credit,” he told Brown. “You’re working hard.”
Brown nodded.
“I’m just saying, take a little credit, that’s all.”
• • •
A week later, Brown was sleeping in his bunk when the ground began to shake. He rolled out of bed with the second thud; by the third, he realized that they were under attack.
Gimme, Jobbers, Van—everyone else in the barracks was up and scrambling outside. One of the platoon sergeants shouted at Brown as he came out of the building, yelling at him to get up to the northern perimeter. Brown, boots still untied, ran as fast as he could. The area beyond the fence line flashed with white explosions, the sound coming a quarter-beat later, as if they were part of a mistimed sound track. There were gunshots and screams—the Taliban were trying to rush one of the machine guns.
Brown ran to the HESCO barrier—a large earth-filled wall at the camp’s perimeter. He jumped on a large wire spool so that he could see over the seven-foot wall and began firing wildly at the flashes in the distance. He went through his magazine in seconds, flipped in another, and fired again.
He was in panic mode—heart crazy, unable to properly aim—but until the M4 was out of ammunition he couldn’t stop himself.
Two other soldiers ran up behind him. One had fresh ammunition. Reloading, Brown rose and aimed at the dark clump in front of the machine-gun post. Once more he emptied his magazine, though this time as part of a plan, somewhat more calmly. Still, he couldn’t tell whether he’d hit anything or not.
The machine gun was firing furiously at the Taliban, who seemed determined to overwhelm it with sheer numbers. Brown decided he’d fire where it was firing.
As Brown ducked down again for yet more ammunition, two soldiers ran up from the barracks area to help the machine gunner. Another private jumped up onto the spool next to Brown and began firing. The camp’s defenders were rallying, stiffening their resistance.
The mortar fire stopped, and for a moment it seemed as if the Taliban had given up. But then a fresh wave of rebels came out of the hill opposite the camp, renewing the attack on the machine-gun post. Two rocket grenades slammed into the dirt barrier near Brown. Then a half dozen, almost at once, hit the wall in a line that extended on either side of his position.
The paralysis Brown had banished only a few minutes earlier returned. He grabbed at a magazine to reload, then froze with it in his hand, unable to load. It was as if he’d forgotten how. The fury of the attack had driven all his confidence away.
The iPod, he thought. I have to put it on.
A mortar round came over the perimeter and landed behind him. Most of its force was contained by an interior HESCO wall, saving Brown and the men nearby, but fragments caught two soldiers on the other side. They screamed with their wounds.
The agonized yells pushed Brown into action—he reached into his pocket for the player and turned it on. He started to pull the earphones out, but before he could insert them, one of the soldiers near him began firing madly. Brown jumped up and saw three Taliban guerrillas within four feet of the wall.
He shook with the gun as it fired, his body seeming to punch each bullet out. The rebels fell into the darkness of the earth.
And still the Taliban kept coming. It was as if the soldiers were springing from the rocks themselves. Artillery began raining on the area beyond the perimeter, then suddenly stopped. Their explosions were replaced with the beat of helicopter rotors, pounding the air. Salvos of rockets screamed from the sky. Then the artillery returned again.
Brown reloaded, then peered over the berm. The flood of black streaming toward the walls had disappeared. The attack had been repulsed.
• • •
From that night on, Brown knew that the iPod was more than just good luck. It had a certain power in it, something that would protect him and keep him from harm.
He finally got the courage to call his half brother. He denied sending him the iPod. That only made it seem even more powerful.
Magic?
Brown didn’t care what the mechanics of the thing were. He only knew it worked. He kept it with him all the time, fully charged.
Two weeks later, the company joined another sweep near the Pakistan border, this one a large operation involving French troops and Afghan commandos. Brown’s fire team was
assigned to move up a valley about two miles, hold the area for twenty-four hours, then return.
“So now we just twiddle our thumbs,” said Gimme after the helicopter had dropped them off.
“Don’t be bitchin’ ” said Jobbers. “I’d hate to be with the Frenchies. They’re walking into heavy shit.”
“Better than sitting on the goddamn bench, half a million miles from the action,” said Gimme. “But shit, I’d hate to be with the French. Because you know they’re going to screw it up.”
“I wouldn’t mind a fight,” said Brown.
“Junior’s rarin’ for a rumble,” laughed Jobbers.
“Let’s get walkin’, boys,” said Gutierrez. “Separate. Don’t take anything for granted.”
They covered the two miles in under an hour, cutting their own path across the rock-strewn terrain. Afghanistan here looked more like the moon than the earth, a cold and arid vacuum where no human could thrive. But there were villages sprinkled all through the hills, places that had been settled for thousands of years. Smoke curled up from a crook in the peaks to their west, and the ruined bricks of a long-abandoned hamlet sat on the near side of a hill not two miles away.
They climbed up a ridge that cut like a scar across a low mountain. The view was as breathtaking as it was unworldly. After they reached the GPS point they were assigned, Corporal Gutierrez called in and got an update on the overall operation. Things were moving well, he was told, but so far there had been no contact with the enemy. The fire team should just sit and wait, as assigned.
Brown settled behind some rocks, relaxing a little as he began scanning the valley below. When he’d first come to Afghanistan, a two-mile trek with a full ruck would have left his thighs sore and his upper back cramped. Now he barely noticed the difference when he took his backpack and gear off.
By mid afternoon, everyone on the team knew their end of the operation was going to be a bust. Nothing was happening here, not today, not tonight, not tomorrow.
The hours dragged. They split up the watch to sleep, even though no one could. Finally, at 0200, the sky to the east began to light up with explosions. They were so far away that they couldn’t hear the rumble of the shells and bombs hitting.
The show continued for nearly two hours. The silence returned; the only sound Brown could hear was the distant whine of a jet engine, and his own labored breathing.
They started for the chopper at 0800, giving themselves about two hours of cushion to get there. Just as they neared the landing zone, Corporal Gutierrez received a change in orders—the operation they were supporting was continuing; they were to take a new position about three miles farther east of the one they’d held the night before. Things were fluid; they should be ready for anything.
• • •
Brown trudged up the ridge, Metallica pounding into his skull. His stomach felt as if it were stretching—the first sign of hunger.
“We have another mile to go,” Corporal Gutierrez announced.
Before Gimme could make any of his usual jokes about who or what was waiting for them there, the ridge above percolated with rounds from a .50-caliber machine gun.
Brown threw himself flat. Through the dust he spotted some boulders four or five yards from where he was. He scrambled to them, pushing in against the biggest as the ground percolated. Lead and dirt mixed in a mist around him, so thick that he started to cough.
His first thought was that they were taking friendly fire—the machine gun was across the valley somewhere, and the staccato as it echoed sounded exactly like the sound of an American M2 heavy machine gun. But he knew there weren’t any other Americans nearby.
As the gunfire continued, Brown slipped off his backpack. He curled around, trying to see the others. Corporal Gutierrez was in a ditch about five yards ahead of him. Gimme was behind him, a little farther down the slope. Jobbers, who’d been at point, was lying on the ground, writhing in pain.
The music in the iPod changed. Nickelback came on, playing a song from Darkhorse he’d never heard.
“Cover me!” he yelled to Gimme and Gutierrez. Then he jumped up and ran to Jobbers. As soon as he realized what Brown was doing, Gimme raised the M249 and began firing in the general direction of the enemy machine gunner, hoping to draw his fire. Brown stooped down and ran to Jobbers, pushing down and sliding his right arm under the private’s chest. He pulled up, then lost his balance as the gunfire turned back in his direction. As he started to fall, he managed to pitch his weight toward the shallow ditch where Corporal Gutierrez was waiting. The corporal caught him and Jobbers, falling backward against the side of the rill but breaking their fall.
Jobbers groaned. He’d been hit in the right leg as well as his armored vest. The vest had taken a beating, but the ceramic inserts had managed to deflect most of the bullets’ force. His face was pockmarked with blood from rock splinters.
Gutierrez ripped off the bottom of his pant leg with his knife and used it to stop the bleeding. Brown squirreled back around and tried to figure out where the machine gunner was.
“Bastard has to stop soon,” said Brown. “His frickin’ barrel’s gonna melt.”
“Grenade him,” said Gutierrez.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Brown. But his grenade launcher was back with the rest of his gear near the rock.
“You take this,” the corporal told him. “I’ll do it.”
The grenades seemed to make the machine gunner more determined.
“I gotta go get the radio so we get support,” Brown told Gutierrez.
The corporal shook his head.
“Just wait. He’s going to have to stop. His barrel’s going to melt down to nothing.”
But the machine gunner didn’t stop.
“I’m going,” said Brown.
“Next lull,” said Gutierrez, grabbing his arm.
Brown eased down off his haunches. The music had faded, and for a moment he felt a twinge of panic rising in his chest—what if the battery had died? But it was just a pause before changing songs.
The player dished up a gospel song by Johnny Cash, old and obscure.
He’d definitely never heard that.
“Now!” said Brown, leaping to his feet.
Gutierrez tried to stop him, but he moved too quickly.
The machine gun stuttered and then stopped firing abruptly. By the time the enemy gunner got the weapon unjammed, Brown was back with the radio and his gear.
Command said that the main units were still engaged some miles to the east, but promised artillery. The barrage started a few minutes later. Within three or four shells, the machine gun stopped firing.
They had to get Jobbers out, but the helicopter would be an easy target if the Taliban across the way were simply hiding in the rocks or a cave.
“I’ll check it,” said Brown.
“No, I’m gonna go,” said Gutierrez. “You and Gimme stay with Jobbers.”
“I can do it, Corporal.” Brown tapped his iPod. “Nothing’s gonna happen to me.”
“That thing ain’t magic, Brown. You stay here.”
There was no arguing with Gutierrez this time. The corporal trotted away.
Brown leaned against the side of the ditch, eyeing the area where the machine gunner had been. He touched the volume on the iPod, amping Megadeth but leaving the earphone out of his ear.
“How’s Jobbers?” asked Gimme, trotting over.
“I think he’s going to be okay,” said Brown.
“Yeah.”
Gimme leaned down to his friend.
“You’re going to be okay, man,” he told him. “We’re getting you out.”
Jobbers grunted. His breathing was normal, but he was going in and out of consciousness.
“You okay here with him?” Gimme asked Brown. “I want to back up Guts.”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Gimme rose and began trotting down the trail.
The Taliban gunner had been splattered by an artillery shell. Only pieces of him were le
ft, scattered around the small rift in the hills that he’d used as a nest.
He’d been using an American-made M2, old and battered but obviously still deadly. The shells had smashed the body on one side and blown off the barrel. Even so, Gutierrez took away the belt feed, cartridge stop, and some of the rest of the guts, worried that it might somehow resurrect itself.
The corporal stayed on the other side of the valley when the chopper came in, making sure there was no possibility of an ambush. The Black Hawk popped over the ridge, hovering so close to the hill that it looked like its blades would scrape the rocks. The basket it lowered for Jobbers swung and bashed Brown in the face as he grabbed it; he pushed down on it, settling it next to his comrade. He reached over and scooped Jobbers into it, closing his eyes as grit kicked off from the hill peppered his face. With one eye closed, he pulled the straps tight, then leaned back.
“Take care, Jobbers,” he said as the winch began hauling him away.
The pickup took less than ninety seconds. Brown didn’t draw a breath the whole time.
Adrenaline spent, the fire team began making its way back to the original pickup point. The operation to the east had petered off. Like many, it had been successful and frustrating at the same time. Three dozen Taliban had been killed, and one taken prisoner, but at least another dozen had managed to escape into Pakistan, where they couldn’t be pursued.
Corporal Gutierrez didn’t think that there’d been only one gunner on the hill when the fire team was ambushed—a lone machine gunner would have been unprecedented—but at this point it made no sense to look any further. They were all tired, they’d used a little more than half their ammo, and the best thing to do was go back and regroup.
The team stopped about a half mile from the pickup, climbing into some rocks that gave them a good view of the landing zone and the area around it. The chopper was about an hour away; Gutierrez decided they’d wait until it was nearby to descend.
Twilight Zone Anthology Page 26