by Ronie Kendig
It . . . worked? Split-second recon told him it had—the team, the whole team, still intact, in the trench. Six men. Still alive. Still breathing. No blood. No death. Oh, God, please let it be true.
A strangled yelp lurched from his throat.
“Quiet,” a voice hissed.
And in that split second, Hawk knew it had worked. Knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it had worked because that voice belonged to his longtime buddy, Greg Stratham. The man whose funeral he’d attended. Whose parents Hawk had offered his condolences and heartfelt apologies to. It hadn’t been enough. Nothing could fill the hole in their lives—or his—with Stratham dead.
But he wasn’t dead. Not anymore.
Wait. Maybe it was a dream. Or an illusion.
Yeah, that would fit the MO of that character who’d called himself Time. Were these men figments of his imagination?
Only one way to find out.
Hawk reached toward the master sergeant’s shoulder. If he could touch the guy, he’d—
Stratham slapped away Hawk’s hand. The one he didn’t have two minutes ago. Or two minutes thirty-two years in the future . . .
“What’re you doing?” His buddy scowled beneath the somber glow of the moonlight. “Sitrep!”
It worked! In his mind, Hawk saw himself yanking the guys into a man hug. He wanted to. Wanted to touch them, hear their voices, convince his brain that what wasn’t possible had actually happened. Tremors raced down his arms and through his legs, making him itch to leap up. Shout. Scream.
Instead, he laughed. Clapped Stratham on the back. “It’s good to be alive.”
“What’s with you, man?” Stratham shifted, the dirt beneath him grinding beneath his leather personnel carriers. “Sitrep. What’s happening?”
Afraid to look away and have this dream come true vanish, Hawk shook his head. He’d been here once before. He recalled, like a weird echo in his head, Stratham asking for the sitrep. “Nothing.” Yeah, that was the right answer. He remembered it. Saying it again felt like some sick, twisted déjà vu. This time, though, his voice felt weak, his mind even more so. “Clear. All clear.”
Maybe weak was the wrong word. Try tangled in the past . . . er, future. In what could happen. That in the look-see that went all kinds of bad on March 12 at 0435, every man in this trench could die again.
What time is it?
The watch!
As his neural net snagged the thought, he felt the metal, warm and round, in his left hand. He lifted it, his pulse chugging as moonlight streaked over its pristine surface, traced the number 7. What happened to Constant? Why hadn’t he come for the piece?
He slumped back against the ditch he and the others had prepped and covered before taking up position twenty-four hours earlier. It afforded them a clear view of the small village they’d been ordered to watch. Command wanted to know the goings-on of a certain Afghan security officer who frequented the area and seemed to have intel on key military placements and incredible—how had General Burnett put it?—awareness of Taliban movement.
Awareness being an intimate familiarity through corruption. Either through bribes or direct connection, the politician had undermined and sabotaged not only progress in stabilizing the region, but the camaraderie between US and Afghan forces. In fact, with what Hawk knew now, having lived thirty years with the knowledge that Burnett’s suspicions were dead-on, Hawk wished he could skip right to the end, cut short that politician’s life, and just take the heat for whatever happened. But that was another battle.
Or was it? After all, the boy had skipped home, and soon after, Taliban fighters had descended like a plague. The only way that could’ve happened so fast was if the politician had those terrorists on speed dial.
The boy.
Hawk jerked the watch up and stared at the face. Angled it, trying to tell the time. A flicker of movement caught his eye, but he couldn’t decipher the hour. He pressed himself to the ground and hauled a tarp over his head. Bent, he aimed his tactical watch at the who-knows-how-old timepiece. Dull-green luminance bathed the watch—and his hands. Two hands!
Focus. Time. What time?
21:35.
Wait. No.
15:18.
Huh? He squeezed his eyes and checked the face again. Trained his eyes on the glass. 21 . . . no, 15 . . . What in the world? Night, yet day. Two timelines? How could there be two times captured? That wasn’t possible.
Neither is being here. Thirty-plus years in the past. In a trench where everyone was killed.
But he was here.
And there were two times on the watch.
His heart bungeed at a sudden realization. The first time matched his present location. The other, his deathbed moments.
Both were still ticking.
Both . . . What? What did that mean?
“Hawk?”
Were both time frames still in play?
Wouldn’t that . . . could that mess up something? Fracture some continuum or something?
Pain jabbed into his side. The watch fumbled from his hand.
With a grunt, Hawk scrambled for the watch and jerked to the right. Stratham’s LPC slid away. Okay, hint—and toe of boot—taken.
Two times. One watch.
One me.
Talk about a split personality. But this went to the nth degree—one life that could alter six. No, wait—Sanders had kids. McLellan had a wife and a baby on the way. Stratham’s parents and brothers!
This moment, changing this mistake, could alter an untold number of lives.
Hawk’s fingers coiled around the metal and tightened. God had given him this chance. To right a wrong. Save these men that he’d come to think of as brothers. He slid the watch into his leg pocket.
“Hawk, you okay, man?”
On his belly, he scooted back into position with the heady responsibility weighting his shoulders. Shot a look at Stratham. Man, it was good to see him. See those clear, intelligent eyes studying him. With concern, but Hawk had no beef with that. At least he was studying, and if Hawk could just make this reversal work, his buddy could do all the studying he wanted to for the next thirty years.
“You wigging out? The hole—” he glanced at the suffocating space they’d dug into for the op— “getting to you?”
“No, I’m good.” Better than good. Ready to take down the whole sick world. But he’d settle for saving six men. “Just . . . want to get this done.” He trained his gaze on the sloping hillside, drawing in a long, stiff breath of chilly air.
“You and me both.” Stratham resumed his watch.
Hawk couldn’t help but steal another look around him. Make sure this was real. Not a dream. That he had this chance. That it was legit. The watch pressed into his leg. Real. His breath backed into his throat, still clobbered with the truth. It’s real. Constant honest-to-God sent me back.
If Hawk had figured out the two times, inlaid one over the other, then he had seven hours.
“Understand, you have seven hours, only those seven. When they’re over . . .”
I still die.
Ashley.
Her name alone felt like a kick to the chest. Nothing would change for her. So she was a nonissue.
The thought spiraled crossways through him. If only he’d been a better person. All those years, living with regret and anger as his bedmates. What if . . . what if he did alter things? Would that mean something . . . good with her?
It didn’t matter. These men, the ones holed up in a rat hole of a trench spying on enemy strongholds—they mattered. Saving them. Making sure they went home with all their parts in the right places and still functioning as the good Lord intended.
That was his mission.
“Twenty-two hundred,” McLellan muttered to no one in particular. Darkness pulled back the veil. Stars sprinkled across the sky. Late winter had a stranglehold on the cold weather, unwilling to release it from servitude.
Six hours thirty-five minutes.
For Hawk, it felt like e
ternity.
I can do this. I can. Save them. Give them back to their families. It was his fault in the first place, not killing that kid. He wouldn’t make that mistake this time. The eldest of eight kids, Hawk had younger siblings. He loved them. Loved kids. But he’d tried it the nice way once. And his team died.
Wouldn’t happen again.
His hand went to his leg pocket to reassure himself it was still there. That Constant hadn’t come for it—or him.
He ran his fingertips over the hard circular shape beneath the ACU material. No, that kid wouldn’t get the chance to go back to his family, tell them about the 5th Special Forces group at the top of the hill where the boy’s father had a herd of sheep and goats.
He wouldn’t get the chance to betray the men who opted to disobey their shoot-to-kill orders.
He wouldn’t flash those brown eyes and tug at the hearts of men willing to fight to protect the boy’s people. To give them the benefit of the doubt. He wouldn’t have the chance to lie to Hawk’s face and swear he wouldn’t tell a living soul about the team.
Hawk would make sure he didn’t have the chance again. Armed with both hands and an M4 . . .
Definitely wouldn’t happen again.
4
Six funerals in three weeks.
Fifty-four rifle volleys cracking the chilled Arlington, Virginia, air.
Seventeen parent and stepparent condolences and apologies.
Two sobbing wives.
One sergeant wishing he’d died.
Said sergeant now holding the power to erase all of that.
Erasing all that . . . untwisting fate. Wasn’t that playing God? The thought gave Hawk pause. Unease slithered through his stomach as he lay on the hard-packed earth. Something niggled at him, but he nudged it aside. No doubt a side effect of jumping back in time.
Hawk stretched his neck and gazed down the sight and through the reticle. Tracing the terrain, he scanned left. Farther left. What’re you doing? He’s going to be coming over the rise directly in front.
And he’d take the shot. Save the team. Relieve his guilt.
But kill a seven-year-old boy?
Pete’s age.
“I’m going to be just like you, Hawk—be a soldier. Kill the bad terrorists, the bad guys.”
When his little brother had thrust those words into the air and into Hawk’s heart, they’d embedded deep. He’d felt like a hero, and he’d just earned his green beret with Special Forces. Though he’d been a starting quarterback, dated the prettiest girl at school, and wore the uniform he’d aimed for since he was Peter’s age . . . those words had done something to him.
Then everything fell apart with one Afghan boy.
A mistake he had to fix.
So he had to kill the boy. But did he have what it took?
Technically, he had the skills. Emotionally . . . that was a different story. Last time, he hadn’t been willing to do it. Neither had anyone else in the trench. They were going to hold Abda . . .
Hawk’s thoughts slipped out of warp and slowed. Abda. That’s right. He fisted a hand as memories tumbled one over another. He knew the boy’s name from their conversation.
“I promise. I won’t tell them.” Abda smiled. “Americans—heroes, yes?”
“I don’t know about this. . . .” Though McLellan had voiced everyone’s fear, nobody listened. And it’d angered McLellan, normally a reasonable soldier. Bloodlust wasn’t something that infected the team. They’d seen enough bloodshed. Been at the center of enough firefights. Enough was enough.
“Can you shoot him?” Hawk remembered Stratham growling. “Because if you can, then do it.” He swiped a hand over his face. “No. Forget I said that. No way. I can’t let it happen.”
“What if he tells his family?”
Another argument. Tension high. Emotions higher. Hawk and others became convinced they could persuade the kid . . . so much like Pete.
“Yes, our secret.” Eyes as bright as his smile, Abda convinced hardened soldiers to let him live. “I not tell them.”
But he had. And the team died.
Hawk’s heart sped a little faster. He dragged his gaze back to the knoll. The spot where the kid would amble over, oblivious to the den he would step into. The lives he would alter, including his own.
Hawk would pull the trigger. As soon as the kid crested the hill.
His mind played games with him, knowing what a bullet from an M4 would do to a child’s body. It was more information than he wanted to think about. The shot would have to be quick and fatal.
He groaned.
“Whaddya got?”
At Stratham’s question, Hawk reined himself in. He hadn’t realized he’d groaned out loud. “Nothing. Just . . . boredom.”
“It’s a disease,” Stratham said as he sighed.
Silence dropped like a dead weight.
Dead. The kid laid out on the field, bleeding out like one of his father’s lambs on slaughter day. Could Hawk live with himself?
Augh!
There had to be another way. God . . . please. I need options here. I’m begging you! There had to be a way to stop this from happening. He was here. He had the gift of time.
“I have a bad feeling.” Okay, that was a start.
“You and me both, but what’s new?” Stratham shifted to the side and looked back at their comms guy. “Holl, radio in.”
As Kent Hollister reported back to command with essentially nothing noteworthy, Hawk grabbed at hope, which seemed as slippery as a wet tile. “We haven’t seen anything. Maybe we should move. Maybe to the other side.”
“Negative.” Stratham’s brows dove toward his nose. “Are you out of your mind? Command said we stay. So we stay. I’m not breaking orders, no matter how ready I am to claw out my eyes.”
Urgency fired through his veins. Do something. He had 1.5 hours before everything stepped onto that slippery slope to tragedy.
“I don’t mean leave the location. Just . . . set up elsewhere.”
“This is best vantage,” Stratham said. “You told me so.”
“But maybe best vantage isn’t the most advantageous.”
“Dude.” Stratham’s quiet laugh was hollow and coated with disbelief. “What is with you?” He shook his head and hunkered down, gaze out. “Just do your job. Eyes out.”
M4 stock pressed to his shoulder, Hawk fought the paralyzing fear that screamed he would fail. Again.
There was nothing worse than knowing your time of death.
Except knowing the time of death of your friends. And being unable to stop it.
“We’ve got movement.”
* * *
Bleating seeped through the windows and cracks near the door.
Abda glanced out the filmy pane, willing his eyes to see into the night-darkened void.
Moor set a bowl of nuts and dried fruit on the table, nodding toward the door. “They are noisy tonight, yes? Keeping your sisters awake.”
Should he tell her? It probably meant nothing, but something tugged at his mind. “It’s strange.”
“Sheep bleating?”
He managed a smile as she lifted Ara from the floor where she’d been playing with Afsoon, whom his mother took by the hand and led toward the back room. “Really, Abda. You can be so silly.”
He swiped a cashew from the tray.
“Leave them! They are for the guests.”
He’d already stuffed the nut in his mouth and let out a sheepish laugh. Guests. They were not guests. Guests did not come after dark. Also, the men who came and went with his father were mean. They didn’t say mean things to Abda, but he could tell they were not nice. Especially the short one with the gold ropes on his shoulders—the colonel. He reminded Abda of a sand spider. You don’t see them until it’s too late; then they strike.
Bleating carried through the night, reminding him of the ewe he’d raised since birth, the one Plaar had promised he could keep. She was three and had her own ewe now. “Delaram. She’s led h
er baby to the clefts.”
His mother stopped in the shadow, the lone light hiding her face. But Abda could tell she was looking at him. “The clefts?”
He nodded. “Normally she doesn’t like the cold winds at night.”
“Indeed.”
Light erupted through the home and streaked along the walls.
Abda heard his mother’s quick intake of breath. “Hurry. Outside. Don’t come back till the car is gone.”
As he spun, he spotted his mother’s blue hijab. He swiped it from the chair and rushed it to her.
“You are a good boy,” she said as she set his sisters in the back room. Then she swung the hijab around, and with a flutter here and a flicker there, she wrapped herself in the material. “There. Better?”
He nodded. “Beautiful.” It was his favorite scarf. The shiny-soft fabric made her face seem brighter. Prettier. His plaar said so. Many times. Of course, only in their home. It wasn’t right to speak of things around others.
She smiled at him, then rippled her fingers at him. “Go, hurry.”
After another quick nod, he dashed back down the hall, across the main floor, to the door. Voices and laughter boomed in front of the home.
The box! He could not let Plaar or the Sand Spider find it or see inside. They would get very angry.
He jerked back and looked to the spot beside the cushions. The metal box glinted beneath the light. Did he have time?
He peeked out the window. Maybe. Hurry!
Abda bolted to the red cushion, snatched up the box, and lunged toward the door.
The knob turned.
His heart backed into his throat.
The Sand Spider didn’t like children. Especially Abda.
Abda shoved his gaze to the side window. With fast fingers, he lifted the window and slipped out just as he saw the men entering the living room prepared by his beautiful moor. He scurried across the night-darkened yard and up to the hills. Far enough away, he turned back and watched as more men arrived in a second car. Maybe Moor had not set out enough snacks. He huffed. That meant there would be none left over.
Abda climbed a little higher and sat down on a big rock. With the moon as his light, he opened the box. Lifted out the circular patch. Fingered its stitched edges, remembering the soldier who had given it to him. Metal jangled against metal as he pulled out a necklace with tiny balls connected on a rope with a metal tag dangling from it. Letters were stamped into it, but he could not read it. Not yet. Moor said one day maybe he could go to school.