by Will Mackin
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.
* * *
—
TIME PASSED MYSTERIOUSLY inside the clouds. Unlike when the orbiting drones could see the ground, and a haystack or a cow would spin around on the flatscreens like a second hand, we sat watching the spinning clouds without knowing for how long. Meanwhile, the UHF clicked like something radioactive. This was the night after Konduz, or the night after our return to Konduz. We had no intelligence, still. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I tried peace on for size. I felt proud that I’d fought, or something like proud, but also glad it was over. Hal asked for suggestions, and Joe raised his hand.
Hal said, “You don’t need to raise your hand.”
“I had a teacher, in primary school, who used to hit my knuckles with a ruler,” Joe said. “I would like to pay him a visit.”
“I had a teacher like that,” Hal said.
“Me, too,” Digger said.
The rest of us nodded, remembering.
Joe had last seen his teacher at his old school, in the town of Ghawas, in Wardak Province, in 1979. Joe had been eleven at the time. The teacher had seemed ancient to Joe back then. In hindsight, however, Joe figured that his teacher had been no older than thirty. Which meant that there was a good chance, in 2009, that the teacher was still alive. He’d lived in a cabin near a forest, Joe remembered, though he couldn’t say exactly where. Joe assured us, though, that he could find the cabin if we could find his old school.
We’d never had reason to patrol through Ghawas; therefore, we had no maps of tactical value. Digger, who always planned our routes, turned to the computer that contained the satellite imagery. Our imagery of Ghawas was both stale and irregular. Half of it dated from the winter of 2003, the other half from the spring of 2005. The school, Joe said, was a stone building on the eastern bank of a river. It had stood just north of a bend in the river that was shaped like a question mark.
Hal, Joe, and I stood behind Digger as he searched Ghawas for a river with a question mark. He found it in an image that had been captured by a satellite on a May afternoon in 2005. Digger zoomed in, and we saw the river’s banks overflowing with snowmelt. Sunlight sparkled in the eddies. Reeds grew from stagnant pools. Digger scrolled northbound in search of the school. The imagery changed to winter, 2003. The river narrowed and turned dark as slate. A hundred yards north of the question mark, on the river’s eastern bank, we discovered a stone foundation poking from the ice. Joe thought it was too small to be the ruins of his old school, but then he realized it had to be.
From the school’s foundation, Joe guided Digger along the path the teacher had walked on his way home. It ran north along the river for a snowy mile; then the imagery switched back to spring, and the path cut east into a warm field of grass. As a student, Joe used to follow the teacher at a safe distance across this field. Crouching in the tall grass, he would fantasize about leaping out and knocking his teacher down. More than revenge, though, he’d wanted to study his teacher. He’d kept his eyes on his desk in class all day, hoping to stay out of trouble. Following the teacher home was Joe’s chance to finally see the man. Joe described his teacher as tall and prematurely gaunt. He said that the teacher had worn a heavy robe during his walks home in winter. He remembered butterflies rising in the teacher’s wake when he crossed the grassy field in spring.
“Keep going,” Joe said to Digger.
Digger continued scrolling across the sunlit field to a snow-covered forest. The image of that forest had been captured on a January evening in 2003. Shadows cast by the tall, bare trees looked like minute hands, all showing ten past the hour. Halfway across the forest, the satellite imagery ran out. The computer screen turned black.
“He lives on the other side of that forest,” Joe said.
“How far?” Hal asked.
Joe touched a spot on the dark computer screen. “Here.”
The four of us looked at that spot.
“I’m thinking callout,” Digger said to Hal.
Callouts were best in unknown situations. Like, we didn’t know whether or not the cabin existed or, if it did, how big it might be. We didn’t know who, other than the teacher, might be hiding inside or how prepared they might be to mount a defense. To mitigate the risks posed by these unknowns, a callout would proceed in stages. The 47s would drop us off outside the cabin, beyond small-arms range. If we took fire from the cabin, we’d keep our distance, and I’d call in an air strike. If not, we’d run toward the cabin, then surround it on two sides. Digger would throw a flash bang through a window. Light would tear through the cabin. Bangs would echo in the night. After all was dark and quiet, Joe would read a statement into a bullhorn, informing the startled occupants that we were coalition forces, there to protect the rights of the Afghan people.
“Yeah,” Hal said. “Let’s go with a callout. But no flash bang. And Joe, I want you to say something different tonight.”
Hal chose a line from the end of a song by Pink Floyd called “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).” The song opens with the lyric “We don’t need no education” and goes on to denounce teachers as repressive and cynical. The song ends in a riot. As the students tear down their school, a teacher’s voice can be heard above the din. He’s hollering admonishments, such as “Wrong! Do it again!” and “Stand still, laddie!” Hal chose one such rebuke for Joe to shout through the bullhorn. Joe practiced it on the helicopter ride out to Ghawas.
“ ‘If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding…’ ”
“No,” Hal interrupted. “You need more fear in your voice.”
Joe and Digger sat on one side of the helicopter, Hal and I on the other. Night parted around us and mended in our wake.
“I don’t think ‘fear’ is the right word,” I said.
“It’s Joe’s teacher,” Digger said. “Let him say it however he wants.”
“The teacher in the song is staring down an angry mob,” Hal said. “He can’t just say the words.”
“I think my teacher is more crazy than afraid,” Joe said.
“All right,” Hal said. “Let’s hear it again.”
The windows in the MH-47 were made of Plexiglas. They were shaped like mixing bowls. Looking through them, I saw things on the outside as either close and blurry, or far away and blurry. There was a sweet spot in the lens, however, where something would emerge perfectly magnified. Thus, when we banked over the highway that ran between Kandahar and Kabul, I saw a bleary-eyed trucker behind the wheel. When we floated over the mountains into Wardak, I saw a waterfall cascading into a crystalline lake. And when we turned above the ruins of Joe’s old school, I imagined the school as it had once been—stone walls, slate roof, and leaded glass windows.
We cut across the field of tall grass and sped over the woods at treetop level. The rotors beat louder as we pulled into a hover. We touched down on either side of the teacher’s cabin, without taking fire. The 47s lifted off behind us as we ran. Rotor wash shoved me through clumps of dry grass and over the tops of warm, surfacing boulders. Archie, carrying Yaz’s massive gun, ran ahead of me, while Joe, carrying his red bullhorn, ran behind. The teacher’s cabin was made of logs. Grass grew on the roof. A curl of smoke rose from its stone chimney. A neatly stacked woodpile stood behind it. Empty rabbit traps leaned against a wall. We formed lines on two sides of the cabin. Taking position next to Hal, I saw myself reflected in a dark blue window.
We stood, still and quiet, outside the teacher’s cabin as the 47s descended into a valley. Soon enough, their noise became a memory; then that memory faded. A cold wind rustled the grass. Our breath rose in thick clouds. I imagined the teacher lying awake in bed, wondering if he’d only dreamed of helicopters landing outside.
Hal nodded at Joe, and Joe raised his bullhorn.
“ ‘If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudd
ing! How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!’ ”
Joe’s message echoed. A match flared inside the cabin, turning the windows orange. The teacher emerged in a nightcap, carrying a lit candle on a brass candlestick. He squinted at us standing in the darkness.
Digger slapped away the candle. Hal stepped on the flame. I zip-tied the old man’s wrists, and Joe forced him to kneel on the hard ground.
“What have I done?” he asked.
We didn’t answer. Rather, we left him, knees bleeding, to think about it. Then we burst into his cabin to see how he lived.
Rain soaked the flatbed. It drummed off the deuce-and-a-half’s rusty cab. It ran down the sides of the blue shipping container—half-sunk in the marsh, 150 meters south of our position—that was our target on that December evening in 2008. Moby was on the radio, running the control. Reed and I were both JTACs, or joint terminal attack controllers, or those who, from the ground, directed air attacks against the enemy. We were training Moby to be a JTAC too, but it wasn’t going well. Only one of the four jets that we’d scheduled had shown up. Then the storm had blown in. And now the sun had gone down, leaving the sky to the west—in which we searched for the jet—dark gray.
“Got him,” Reed said.
“Where?” Moby asked.
Reed pointed. “Right there, turning in.”
Moby shook his head.
“Out over the Alligator River,” I added.
“That doesn’t help,” Moby said.
The jet—a Hornet, call sign “Ripper”—appeared low over the trees, turning hard toward the range, its wings wrapped in a bright cloud of white vapor. Rolling out of the turn with its nose pointed at us, the jet became invisible.
“Ripper, inbound, heading one-zero-three,” the pilot radioed. I thought his voice sounded familiar.
“What do I tell him?” Moby asked.
“Do you have him in sight?” Reed asked.
“No.”
“Then say ‘Continue’ and keep looking.”
A gust of wind sharpened the rain at our backs. Moby held the radio’s hook like a phone as he keyed the mike. After five seconds of dead air, he said, “Continue.”
Navy Dare Bombing Range was at the center of a wide, brackish marsh. At the western end of that marsh, roughly three miles from the flatbed, stood a forest of tall pines. Beyond the pines was the Alligator River, so called because that’s what everyone thought it looked like from the air. But I’d flown over that river dozens of times, and I’d never seen the alligator.
Before becoming a JTAC, in 2004, I was a pilot, which was all I’d ever wanted to be. I’d joined the navy wanting to fly the F-14 Tomcat, like Maverick in Top Gun. I’d dreamed of speeding into dogfights at Mach 1. After flight school, however, I was assigned to fly a subsonic monstrosity known as the Queer. The Queer was a Vietnam-era bomber that had, as a bombsight, grease-pencil crosshairs on the windscreen. Every now and then I used to fly a Queer to Navy Dare, to work with SEAL JTACs. Approaching the range from the west, I’d look down on the river and try to see the alligator. Its jaws, I’d heard, opened north; its tail curved south; tributaries formed its legs. I didn’t see any of that. At the center of the river was a star-shaped island that was supposed to be the gator’s eye. I’d begin my target runs over that island, heading east-southeast toward a dead cypress that stood taller than all the pines.
I elbowed Moby and pointed at the cypress. “Ripper’s over that dead tree now,” I said.
“There’s, like, a million fucking dead trees,” Moby said.
Ripper approached the target at over five hundred knots. Vapes thick as whipped cream flashed on the backs of his wings.
“Okay, now I see him,” Moby said.
“Clear him hot,” Reed said.
“Ripper, two miles,” the pilot said. He could’ve been Biff, who I’d known in flight school.
“What the fuck’s he talking about, two miles?” Moby asked.
“He wants clearance,” I said.
Ripper disappeared into a thick, dark squall, the type I would’ve avoided at all costs because the Queer’s engines had a tendency to flame out in heavy precipitation. Something about the shape of the intakes allowed too much water to pass into the compressor, which then sprayed it all into the burner cans. But the Hornet had better intakes, apparently, along with better everything else. Ripper popped out of the squall unscathed.
“Clear him,” Reed told Moby.
Moby palmed the big green radio in his left hand while holding the hook to his ear with his right. He keyed the mike and froze. Sometimes, as soon as he remembered what to say, he’d unfreeze. But this time Moby remained frozen. He stared off the flatbed into a murky rush of sawgrass with his mouth hanging open and rain dripping off his chin. My hypothesis was that the ten watts radiating off the transmitter triggered a petit mal in Moby’s brain. I imagined the tight waves of radio energy penetrating Moby’s skull and short-circuiting his thoughts. Then again, it didn’t happen every time. Just often enough to cast doubt on his ability to control air strikes in a combat situation, which was more than enough to jeopardize the plan.
The plan was for Moby, a SEAL with Team Four, to replace Reed at the top secret unit to which Reed and I belonged. Moby wanted to leave Team Four because, according to him, they didn’t deploy enough. Reed wanted to leave our unit because we deployed all the time, and he was burned out. Over five years, in fact, Reed had made seven deployments, plus however many contingency ops—including that last one, in Yemen, that had gone sideways. In order for Reed to leave, though, he needed to find his own replacement, i.e. Moby, then train and qualify him as a JTAC. And he needed to do it before Christmas, because that’s when Reed’s troop was scheduled to deploy again.
Moby failed to transmit clearance. Ripper passed low over the shipping container without dropping any of its inert training bombs. The noise of the Hornet’s engines at full power sounded like everything in the world being torn apart. I followed Ripper’s ascent into the clouds via its anti-collision light, which made those clouds blink red. Reed followed, too. Moby turned up the volume on the radio to hear the pilot say, “Ripper’s off target, no drop, RTB.”
RTB meant “return to base.”
“I guess we’re done,” Moby said.
“Gimme that,” I said.
Moby passed me the hook. “Is this Biff?” I transmitted.
Last I’d heard, Biff was flying Hornets on the West Coast, though he could’ve been transferred.
“Negative. This is Keebler,” the pilot radioed back.
“Listen, Keebler. We need more passes.”
“No can do,” Keebler said. “There’s a large cell of convective activity moving in. If I were you, I’d seek immediate shelter.”
* * *
—
THE M35 TWO-AND-A-HALF-TON flatbed, a.k.a. the “deuce-and-a-half,” was, like the Queer, a piece of Cold War equipment that had been nursed along for decades. At some point, this one had been farmed out to Navy Dare, where all nursing stopped. Where everything eventually got sucked into the marsh to decompose. The deuce-and-a-half’s windshield was cracked, its clutch burned out. Its dim headlights surged whenever the worn-out alternator belt found purchase. A hole in the exhaust pipe pumped carbon monoxide into the cab. Reed rode shotgun with the window down. Moby rode bitch. I drove over washed-out dirt roads, through a thunderstorm, toward the control tower.
Moby pinched his nose to make his voice sound like Keebler’s. “I advise you to seek immediate shelter,” he said. “There’s a large convention of dorks moving in.”
I remembered looking down on a thunderstorm at night, from my perch in the Queer, seeing green lighting shudder in an anvil cloud, watching blue streaks of hail shoot out of the top.
A clear bolt of lightning tore the dark sky in half.
&nbs
p; “Keebler was right, though,” I said.
“That’s the problem with you pilots,” Moby said. “You’re wrapped too goddamn tight.”
SEALs had their own problems, but being uptight wasn’t one of them. If anything, they’d gone too far in the opposite direction.
“Like, why can’t you just sign me off?” Moby asked.
I rolled into a muddy pond in third gear without saying a word. Cold water seeped up through the perforated floorboards. Moby was asking me to forge his paperwork, to make him a JTAC without having him jump through the requisite hoops. Which I probably could’ve done, and nobody would’ve cared. But this was Reed’s question to answer, not mine, because if Moby failed to qualify then Reed would have to deploy again. And it was Reed, not me, who was haunted by that contingency op back in Yemen, which had gone so wrong back in October. Reed and I were brothers—by fire, not blood—and I only wanted what was best for him. If that meant working overtime to get Moby legally qualified, then so be it. And if that meant forging the paperwork to give Moby a qualification that he didn’t earn, well, then, so be that, too. The muddy water had risen above my boots. Feeling my way through a downshift, I dug out of the pond in second gear.
“You gotta do the whole JTAC syllabus,” Reed said. “Start to finish.”
“Like we have time for that,” Moby said.
“Stranger things have happened,” Reed said.
“What if I asked Jimmy to sign me off? You think he’d do it?”
Jimmy was a SEAL, too, and the leader of Three Troop, to which Reed was assigned. Jimmy was also the Hero of the Battle of Koshwan Ghar.
“Jimmy can do whatever the fuck he wants,” Reed said.
* * *
—
THE CONTROL TOWER, with its faded red-and-white checkerboard paint job, appeared in the headlights. Its entrance was boarded up. Rainwater gushed from a broken drainpipe. I parked the deuce-and-a-half at the base of the tower, and left the keys in the driver’s-side visor. We transferred all our gear—radios, compasses, laser range finders, et cetera—into the Suburban, which was brand-new, bone-dry, and smelled like leather. Its high beams obliterated the rain, and I could barely hear the thunder from inside. I drove east off the range and took a left onto 264—a wide, freshly paved highway, with deep woods on either side. As I navigated the highway’s gentle curves through the storm, Reed and Moby fell asleep.