Whatever.
Jack let his head fall back and closed his eyes.
Let’s ride!
He thought of Pam and Claire as his world went black.
“I’m coming, girls,” he whispered and hoped to God it was true. Then he was engulfed in what was becoming an all too familiar blackness.
* * *
He was asleep in his bed. Their bed. His arms were around his wife and he could smell the sweet smell of Claire and knew she was cuddled between them without even opening his eyes.
“I’m coming, Baby,” he said, squeezing Pam’s waist with his arm in the dark. “I’m trying so hard.”
“I know, Casey,” she answered, her voice a soft and melodic whisper. “I’m so proud of you.” She squeezed his arm under hers. Claire sighed a sleepy sigh between them.
Jack’s mind drifted again. Back to their hammock, but this time the three of them…
“Sar’n…Sar’n…” a gentle nudge to his shoulder as the whisper probed his dream-veiled mind. Jack stretched, eyes still closed. Man, he was tired.
He opened his eyes and found only darkness, thick and black, as if his eyes had not opened at all. Jesus, it was dark. He slowly and reluctantly accepted that he was no longer in his warm dream, lying in a hammock slung between two palm trees, his arms wrapped around his sleeping girls. No, he was definitely not on his faraway beach. He was…
Here!
Jack sat abruptly upright and heard the gasp of the startled Marine beside him.
“Shit, Sar’n!” the whisper hissed harshly. “You scared the piss out of me!”
It was Simmons’ voice. Jack strained to see the face through the inky darkness, but saw only a subtle silhouette, a shade of darkness different from the surrounding night. He knew from the voice, though, that it was the Simmons he wanted, the one without the bloody toothless grin, counting teeth into a bloody bandana on his patio.
“Where are we?” He whispered back in the direction of his young Marine. His hands flailed a moment before he found the young man’s arm and grabbed it.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Sar’n?” The boy sounded a little bit freaked out now and pulled his arm free. “We’re at Checkpoint Four, just like the last three days. You havin’ a dream, man?”
Jack became aware that he was stretched out in the sand, its usually smoldering surface now cool in the night air. His legs were crossed at his desert boot‐covered ankles and he felt the familiar crunchy grime covering his teeth and tongue.
Again.
Yeah, this was Iraq all right.
Jack released the boy’s arm and cleared his throat, which burned in a dry and familiar way.
“Yeah, Simmons,” he whispered in a cracked voice. “Dreaming I was far away from here and your goat-smellin’ ass…” Jack pulled his knees up stiffly, sitting upright. “Everything all right?”
Simmons plopped down on the sand beside him and stretched his back.
“Pretty quiet,” he said. He peered through the black at Casey. “You said to wake you when we changed the watch.”
Jack stretched his own back then rose to his feet beside the boy as things became clearer. He was here. He was at the right time and place. It was like the most intense deja vu of your life. He was supposed to say he had to go up to company and get their game plan for morning. Simmons would try and sound tough, saying it was fucking real now, but he would sound scared instead.
“I need to walk over to company and get the final game plan for morning,” Jack said, his mind reading from the invisible script.
“Fuckin’ real now,” Simmons answered on cue, his voice cracking.
“We’ll be fine,” Jack said, ad-libbing out of character. He squeezed the boy’s shoulder. They were more bonded now than before.
They had died together once already.
“Sure, Sar’n,” Simmons muttered, not sure what else to say.
Jack picked up his M16A and slipped his left arm through the sling, hanging the rifle across his chest in a combat carry. He checked that the safety was on and tapped his vest to ensure the extra magazines were there, both actions unconscious and reflexive. Then he headed east along the berm. He walked without hesitation, knowing exactly where he was going. He was both Jack and Casey now, he realized. He needed to hold on to Jack to save Casey’s life.
Only seventy-five yards or so east of where Simmons was (no doubt stretched out in the dirt now, eyes open and staring into the blackness, sleep impossible), Jack came to a small makeshift command post of two tents. Neither had been there the last few days, since they were just guarding the barren berm perimeter around the city. Jack pushed through the flap into the first tent, the dim red light still briefly blinding after the pitch blackness of the moonless desert night.
“Hoorah, Sar’n,” a young officer no older than Casey said as he entered. His eyes were grey and looked older than his face. Much older. Combat did that, Jack thought.
“Hoorah, sir,” Jack replied. Then he stood quietly for a moment, arm draped over the butt of the rifle across his chest. He waited, unsure what to say next, but now comfortable that it would all happen as it should. The officer, Lieutenant Parquay, Jack remembered, finished talking to the corporal seated beside him in a metal folding chair, hands resting on the edge of a filthy, dust-covered laptop computer. Then he turned to him again.
“Second Platoon all squared away, Sar’n?” the lieutenant asked, his voice, like his eyes, much older than his dirty face.
“Good to go, sir.”
“Very well, Casey,” Parquay said and rubbed his tired face with the back of one dirty hand. He pulled out a can of Copenhagen snuff, took out a pinch and stuffed it behind his lower lip. Then he held the can out to Jack.
“No, thank you, sir,” Jack said.
Parquay looked surprised, as if a routine had been broken. Then he shrugged and dropped the can back into the cargo pocket of his desert cammies.
“Bad luck to quit a bad habit just before going to battle, Sar’n.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack responded. “Not to worry, sir. This has all happened before.”
The old/young lieutenant looked at him curiously, not sure what he meant. Jack realized he wasn’t entirely sure either.
“Bring your guys up at oh-four-hundred for a final brief and weapons check, Casey. You guys will be left flank of the group. We are going into Jolan at oh-five-hundred, and it’s going to be a shit storm.” Parquay looked at him for a moment then his eyes dropped back to the laptop computer in front of the boy beside him. “Problems you need to share?” he asked without looking back up.
“No, sir. My guys are shit hot and ready to rock.”
“Thanks, Sar’n.”
“Hoorah, sir,” Jack responded, then ducked back out of the tent.
Jack stood in the dark beside the tent and let his breath out heavily. He was here, all right. Right place at the right time. All he had to do was keep his guys away from that fucking wall. Save Bennet. Save Simmons.
Save Casey and Jack.
There should be no more Hoag to fuck things up. He didn’t have shit for a plan, not yet anyway. But he did have a chance. He really believed he had a chance of getting home for good.
Chapter
27
The brief had been no surprise, especially for Jack who, theoretically, had heard it all before. The plan was Marine Corps 101, simple and tested in two hundred years of battle. They would take their respective platoons into the Jolan neighborhood, kick in doors, find and shoot bad guys, and push the enemy south towards the final kill zone at the other side of the highway. Fire control and discipline were emphasized. There might still be innocent civilians here, “so make sure what you’re shooting at.”
Nonetheless, the rules of engagement were much looser than they had been over the recent months. If a guy (or girl, he supposed) wasn’t in a U.S. Army or U.S. Marine Corps uniform and was carrying a weapon, then they were the enemy and could be “engaged,” a polite way of say
ing shot and killed. Innocence was given up for weapons here, and the city had been so warned for weeks. They intended to kick ass without taking any fucking names and push the insurgents into the free‐fire kill zone quickly. Casey’s (or Jack’s or who-the-fuck-ever’s) platoon would be on the left flank of the company charge into the neighborhood, but still to the right of the army unit working east of them. The point was to know who you were shooting and avoid any “blue on blue” friendly fire casualties. He had heard it all before.
Now they walked, unconsciously crouched a little low, trying to make themselves small targets, just across the outskirts of the city and into Jolan. Their weapons were up at the high port ready position and their safeties were off.
Jack knew what would happen next. He wasn’t hours ahead, except for the part where they were cut to pieces at the wall, which he had seen over and over in his nightmares and planned to avoid today. Rather he was just moments ahead, a terribly disorienting bout of the world’s longest, continuous deja vu. He would see a certain window or hear a certain sound and with crystal clarity, he would know what they would see next, or know that Bennet would cough…right…now.
“Caawwf.”
‘Shut the fuck up,’ from Ballard in his tinny Boston accent.
“Shat da fuck up, Bennet!” A harsh whisper, the accent still thick.
They would come to a corner now and a scrawny dog would limp past. Simmons would jump.
The dog limped away and Simmons looked sheepishly at his sergeant who patted him firmly on the back. It was maddening, like watching a movie in one room while the sound played three seconds behind from another room. It was driving him nuts. Jack felt himself tense up and he braced against the wall. There would be a gunshot from their right. No one would see the muzzle flash and no one would be hit, but McIver and then Simmons would both burst a few rounds down the block anyway. He would have to remind them about the civilians and fire control discipline.
The shot rang out and McIver, from Northern Virginia and soon to be a survivor of a bloody battle in Fallujah, dropped to one knee and squeezed off two, three‐round bursts down the block. As he sent the second burst down, Simmons leaned against the wall and sent his own burst of bullets down the street, too.
“Cease-fucking-fire, you guys,” Jack barked. He slapped McIver on the back of the helmet and looked at Simmons. “You see anything?”
“No, Sar’n,” Simmons admitted, looking down.
“Then what the fuck are you shooting at?” He looked down at McIver who shrugged and then stood up. “Come on, you guys. Fire discipline. Keep your shit together. We won’t be the platoon that caps some little girl stuck in this shithole city, okay?”
“Sorry, Sar’n,” Simmons said, the pain in his voice real. Jack didn’t know if it was the thought of killing a kid or of letting down Casey that hurt him. He suspected it was a little of both.
“No sweat. Just keep it together guys,” Jack peered around the corner, though he knew he would see nothing…again. “And go back to single shot. You don’t need three‐round bursts right now. Save the ammo.”
“Roger that Sar’n,” McIver said and flipped his weapon back to single shot with his thumb. Simmons did the same, but said nothing, his face embarrassed.
Trying so damn hard.
They crossed the street one at a time, Jack going first, weaving quickly but drawing no fire, which of course Jack knew beforehand would happen. They would be okay for now. They would engage a group of insurgents on a roof in a few hours, after kicking in what would seem like a billion doors, each to empty rooms. They would be just on the verge of complacency when they would take fire from a low rooftop and they would light it up in a two‐minute firefight that would feel like two hours and leave five insurgents dead. In the confusion and rapid fire there would be no way to know whose bullets had killed who, and Jack remembered that he would find comfort in that.
(Ballard was certainly responsible for some, if not all. He was the best shot in the platoon.)
More importantly, they would take no injuries—except McIver would get dirt in his eye from a ricochet—and then they would move on. The boy from Northern Virginia would bitch about his eye for nearly an hour. They were still many hours from the time when they would start dying near that wall. That was good because other than avoiding the street altogether, Jack had no idea what he would do to keep Kindrich, Bennet, Simmons, and Casey Stillman alive. Not yet, at least. He worked hard to keep his mind from wandering to his sleeping wife and baby girl, thousands of miles and still only inches away across some mystic fucking threshold he didn’t understand. He had to keep his mind on the game and off the prize for now, while he still had time to win.
I’m trying, baby, he allowed himself.
“I know,” she echoed warmly in his mind.
Then he set his life aside and, unsure what else to do, he followed the script, hopeful that the answer to how to change things would come to him in time. They started kicking in door after door, searching the rooms, finding them empty, and moving on. Each door brought more strain to the men he led, but for Jack it was rote. He knew they would find nothing, but played the part to a tee. They could hear the occasional bursts of both friendly and higher‐pitched enemy small arms fire in the distance all around them. Now and again there would be louder and deeper booms of mortar and RPG rounds reeking larger damage on both Marines and Hadjis. These would make the ground shake and cause dust to rattle off crossbeams above them, falling on their heads like thin brown snow.
They had taken a ten‐minute break for water and power bars inside one low building, a shop of some sort, though Jack could understand nothing of the Arabic symbols. Whatever had been bought or sold in the now empty room had long since been moved or stolen or destroyed. He read his lines, followed the stage descriptions, and moved the story, whose ending he intended to rewrite along the way. But all the while his mind fumed, searching furiously for the answer of how to stay off the fucking street with the low wall, where the script called for him and most of his guys to get cut apart.
It was the firefight with the five insurgents on the roof that brought the answer to him as clearly as if he had been born with this plan.
Surprise. That was the key! It wasn’t anything in the middle of the chaos and horror at the wall that he had to change, it was the beginning. As they returned fire from the zealots on the roof, Jack realized that he was fighting very differently. He knew that none of them would be hurt and remembered where the next muzzle flash would come from. He couldn’t be certain, but he had the distinct feeling that this knowledge let him fight differently and maybe even ended the battle more quickly. The epiphany occurred when he realized that McIver had failed to deliver the line that Jack remembered vividly from the “script.”
Fucking sand in my eye… He was supposed to say, and then start cursing. Jack waited.
Nope.
McIver had dropped a line.
It was different this time! Different because Jack knew what was going to happen and did things differently, right? He fired his rounds with more accuracy or moved through the battle more quickly, or something. Whatever small and subtle change his foreknowledge created, the ricochet round never came and McIver never got dirt (instead of a damn bullet, the big baby) in his eye. A small change that changed everything. All he had to do was make a change again, a small change, at the wall when it would matter much more.
Jack ran over in his mind what he thought he remembered from the battle at the wall. They had been driven behind the wall by the initial attack on his platoon. They had joined up with first squad just yards from that first attack which had left Kindrich dead beside that fucking wall. There they had decided to swing around opposite corners of the block and meet back in the middle, clearing the two corners and then working the opposite side of the street. As they had come around the corner they had moved along the low wall, and Kindrich had taken that horrible shot to the head. That had driven the rest of them over the wall fo
r cover and then—well, the rest he had lived over and over in his waking nightmare.
What if they started off from that corner on the offensive? He knew roughly where they had taken fire from. What if they laid down suppressive fire from the corner before they moved into the open? And then, with the Hadjis down and defensive, what if he moved his men quickly to the far corner he had tried to get to in his mad dash, the one that left him with a smoking hole in the center of his chest and his throat torn out, bleeding to death in the dirt and choking for breath? Could it be that simple, one little change in the script at the beginning?
It could change everything.
Jack felt his excitement grow and his uncertainty wane as they searched the now dead bodies of the five insurgents, looking for additional weapons to deny to the other shitheads scattered in the city. He felt a tug on his sleeve and turned a little too quickly. Simmons jumped back.
“Y’okay, Casey?” Jack realized that the other men were looking at him as well. He scanned the young and uncertain faces. Bennet had a cigarette dangling from his dirty lips.
“I’m good,” he said and wiped sweat from his face with his grimy sleeve. “Let’s keep moving.” Then as an afterthought, he tugged on McIver’s sleeve. “How’s your eye?”
McIver looked at him with confusion and fatigue, maybe even annoyance.
“My what?”
“Nothing,” Jack said, certain that his shit-eating grin would confuse and annoy the Virginia boy further, but unable to contain himself.
Chapter
28
Jack leaned back against the dirty and deserted building, knees up against his chest, as he poured warm water from his canteen onto his face. Brown rivulets of mud trickled down his neck and into his blouse, feeling nothing but good. The wall behind him tipped his Kevlar helmet down into his eyes, and he tipped it back with the open mouth of his canteen. His rifle was slung awkwardly in this position, the butt up above his chin, and he cocked it over to one side with some annoyance.
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