Fire in the Blood

by Perry O'Brien

  “Get the fuck back inside!” said McKenzie. But her eyes stayed on Coop.

  Coop started blinking. First at the clerk, then at McKenzie. He didn’t understand.

  “Hooah,” muttered the clerk, and banged back into the operations center.

  “What did you say?” Coop managed. He was trying to follow these impressions down a new, darkened path. Everything was starting to buzz, and Coop turned his back on McKenzie. He put his hands on his helmet. There was a moment of pure relief, the thrill of amnesty. Then came the acid, gushing up from his bowels in a caustic wave. Coop bent forward and spit up his stomach on the gravel. He sank forward and stayed there until he was lifted away.

  * * *

  —

  Coop sat alone in the commander’s office, a bottle of water shaking in his hand. The office had a single small window, shaded by sandbags, and a fluorescent light bolted to the ceiling. A large map of Afghanistan bristled with pushpins. Captain White’s only other wall decorations were a Celtic cross soldered from bullet shells and concertina wire, and a hand-painted plaque that read BE POLITE. BE PROFESSIONAL. BUT HAVE A PLAN TO KILL EVERYONE YOU MEET.

  On the captain’s desk was a short stack of folders held down by a glass paperweight. Trapped inside the glass was a rearing camel spider. Coop tried counting the tiny hairs on the spider’s legs. Then he looked back at the map, avoiding the gaze of the chaplain, who sat across from him, his face a crinkled frown.

  “It was a real mess-up,” the chaplain said, “you finding out the way you did.”

  Coop risked a look into the chaplain’s gray eyes and instantly shifted his gaze away. In these early minutes of grief he was beginning to learn there were consequences for allowing his mind to stray.

  “I won’t presume to know your sufferings, right now,” the chaplain continued. “But son, I need to ask, are you a person of faith? Because you’re being tested very seriously.”

  Coop yawned. He couldn’t help it; he needed to flex his jaw, as if some suffocating thing was crawling up from his throat.

  “Now listen, we’re gonna get you home, Cooper. Captain’s already talking to Brigade. Give you a break, you can go to the funeral, sort some things out.”

  Finally, this got Coop’s attention. Going home.

  “There’s just one hang-up, Specialist, so bear with me. Do you remember signing your wife up with DEERS?”

  The chaplain went on to explain there had been some bureaucratic confusion. The emergency Red Cross message had clearly identified the late Katherine Bellante as Coop’s wife, married in the state of North Carolina, but the Defense Enrollment system didn’t have Kay registered as Coop’s dependent. Until they could get things sorted, Brigade wouldn’t be able to cut orders for emergency leave.

  “I’ve already talked with your commander, and what we’re gonna do is get you to K2 while we sort this out, so you can be on the first plane home. Okay, Coop? You listening?”

  Coop stood up. His helmet rolled from his lap and hit the floor with a bony crack. He left his rifle leaning against the wall and walked out of the captain’s room and into the TOC’s main chamber, past the computer clickers and map scanners and book counters, outside across the empty road and into the city of tents. Coop unbuckled his Kevlar armor, let it slump off his back. His body trembled with nervous energy.

  Overhead came a volley of cackling birds. Coop tracked them as they flew west to hunt the desert floor.

  Then, suddenly, he could smell her. Dandelions and bug spray, the perfume of Kay’s body, this smell of home rising up from the crust of the desert. All he had to do was go to her. Behind him Coop heard footsteps, the slow crunch of gravel. Someone scooped up his vest. He ignored them and followed Kay’s smell through rows of giant Conex containers. She was there somewhere, hiding.

  He went faster now, running over rubber cables and humming air units. Onto the airfield and across the tarmac, where Chinooks lay like upended windmills, and beyond, to a short stretch of scrub grass and windblown litter. Wading through the grass Coop collected a tangle of plastic fibers around one leg, trailing like unspooled innards. He stopped by the final boundary between camp and desert, a high fence of coiled razors. She was out there, Coop felt, just past the concertina, her scent drifting up from the pores of the desert. All he needed to do was hurdle the wire, slice his palms, find her in the hollow of sand beneath a red-painted rock.

  Coop started toward the wire. Behind him came a quick murmur of boots.

  His collar tightened and he was tugged backward, strangled, the smell of his wife flashing like gasoline as Coop toppled backward into the grabbing hands, riding them toward the ground. He saw it was Greely flailing underneath him, and with a growl Coop put a forearm across the private’s neck. Abruptly the earth slammed into his back. Gravity had turned on him, and now a hunched mass straddled his chest, stealing the air from his lungs. Coop growled and stabbed his hands into Anaya’s belly, trying to wriggle away. One leg kicked free and he hooked it around Anaya’s neck. But the sergeant keeled sideways with cunning momentum, pivoting in the hard scratch, and Coop had barely drawn breath before a new force filled the space under his chin.

  Black flies congregated at the periphery of Coop’s vision. Just before going unconscious he thought he saw the chaplain, a wicker figure against the firelight, watching Coop get choked unconscious. Then smoke and shadow pressed in on him, blooms of fire in the infinite black.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kafe Skanderbeg was empty but for the three saints, gathered as usual around their television in the corner. Kosta stood on the sidewalk, spying through a frosted window. On the big television screen was a scrambling of black and white soccer uniforms, KF Tirana at Belarus. The three old men were in midritual, as if conducting the game, a pantomime of finger-jabbing obscenity and vigorous supplication.

  The saints turned as Kosta entered. They watched him shed his fine wool topcoat and shake away the snow. Underneath he wore his tailored black suit and a chunky, onyx-colored Bulgari. The watch was fake but it was a good fake. He hung the coat among the pillowy jackets of the old men and took a table at the other end of the room.

  The sounds of the game mingled with turbo-folk coming from the kitchen—a pandemonium of violins and synth beats—and under this landscape of noise Kosta could make out whispery tunnels of gossip. One of the old men stared at him with hard eyes and spat into his cup.

  “Coffee,” said Kosta, as one of Luzhim’s runners came over to his table. “And tell him I’m here.”

  Kosta waited for his drink and tried to ignore the old men’s curses. Normally he would wear their judgments proudly, the same way he wore his clothes. But tonight he felt a chill on his hackles; the last breaths of the girl they’d left dying in the snow.

  The coffee arrived. Surreptitiously Kosta lifted the cup and held it suspended a hair’s width from the saucer. He heard a slight clink of porcelain. His hand was shaking. Kosta continued to grip the cup, the muscles in his forearm straining, and gradually the clicking took on a menacing, hungry quality, like the pincers of crabs.

  The runner returned from the kitchen and Kosta swallowed the remainder of his drink in a scalding chug.

  “What?” said Kosta.

  “He’s ready for you.”

  * * *

  —

  The door to Luzhim’s office was on the second floor of the Kafe. Kosta knew the protocol. From inside a tin box next to the door he retrieved a pouch made of antistatic mesh, the kind they used to ship computer components. He placed his cellphone inside this envelope and returned it to the tin container, then knocked.

  “Come in,” replied a low, croaking voice.

  The lights were off, but street glow illuminated the room. Luzhim sat with his feet propped up on a battered aluminum desk, a wiry old geezer with a full beard and military buzz-cut, sipping rakia from a china teacup.
<
br />   “Sit down, sit down,” said Luzhim. He offered Kosta a bottle from his desk drawer, sloshing it around. A glass was poured and they toasted.

  “Gezuar.”

  The rakia tasted of apples and gasoline.

  “The three saints,” said Luzhim, sipping from his cup, “they give you a hard time?”

  Kosta shrugged.

  “Old fuckers,” growled Luzhim. “For them it’s football, football, football.” He held up a finger. “It has nothing do with a man’s country.”

  “Luzhim, we need to talk—” Kosta paused. He was eager to report on the run-over girl, but didn’t want to sound panicked, as if the situation was out of control.

  “Of course, of course,” said Luzhim. “But first a matter of business.”

  From a drawer Luzhim produced an old metal device that looked like an intercom. While he fiddled with the knobs, the old man’s other hand scratched at the gray hair on his throat, where just beneath the beard was an angry rupture of scar tissue. Kosta found himself staring at this raised asterisk of flesh. The old wound a visual echo to the red star of Communism, a symbol featured prominently on the walls. All round Luzhim’s office hung awards from the Sigurimi, Albania’s long-disbanded secret police, these certificates displayed alongside plaques of recognition for his humanitarian efforts. Luzhim’s official job was director of Rebuild the Homeland, a charity whose ostensible mission was fundraising for reconstruction efforts in Kosova.

  Luzhim finished tinkering with the box, and a low, steady hiss filled the room.

  “Okay, business,” said Luzhim, clapping his hands together. “The boat arrives this morning, and for you I have a quarter key, high-cut.”

  “A quarter. You need, eh…” Kosta was preoccupied, he struggled with the math. “So, eighteen five?”

  Luzhim shook his head. “For this I’m thinking twenty-two. And remember, Kosta, you still owe me eighteen five from the last—”

  “I know, I know,” said Kosta, waving away the conversation. As if his debts to the old man could be so easily banished. “Look, my guys, they couldn’t sell the last batch for more than forty-five per ticket. You feel me?”

  The smile vanished from Luzhim’s face. He set down his teacup and put his palms together. “Kosta,” he said. “Why must you talk like a nigger?”

  Kosta stared. What he wanted to do was grab the old man by his beard and smash his face through the window. Instead he lowered his voice and, switching to Albanian, said: “We killed a girl yesterday.”

  Kosta watched the flicker of shock in Luzhim’s eyes. Luzhim lifted his chin and began urgently scratching at the red scar. “It’s bad timing, Kosta.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow on important business.”

  Kosta nodded. One of Luzhim’s regular trips to Macedonia, though Kosta hadn’t been told the purpose. This was one of his grievances with Luzhim, how little information was shared. He couldn’t be sure if this secrecy was the man’s paranoia, or just paternal disdain. I’m your father figure, Luzhim had said, once, when he was very drunk. Figura patrona. The expression always made Kosta think of the church ruins near his old village, back in the mountains. All those headless statues.

  “Okay,” said Luzhim, pressing his temples. “So this girl, she was business?”

  Kosta shook his head. “Just something stupid.”

  “What’s your liability?”

  “One of our street-level associates, he saw the thing. But we’ve got him.”

  Luzhim nodded. “At least there’s that. Where are you keeping him? Not at the duplex?”

  “Of course not,” Kosta lied.

  Luzhim sat back, sipping his rakia. “Why don’t you tell me. What would you do if I had already left?”

  Fuck, thought Kosta. He hated coming for advice, hated reporting a mistake to this man.

  “That’s why I come here,” said Kosta. “To get your advice.”

  “And that’s why I make the question. Walk me through. What next?”

  Kosta sucked air through his nose. “We already got rid of the car,” he muttered.

  They’d taken the Volvo to the junk-filled swamp under the Port Morris tunnels, then discharged three cans of oven cleaner into the interior to scour away any incriminating residues.

  “As for our associate,” Kosta continued, “I figure we have to let him go.”

  Luzhim held up a finger. Fuck. Kosta knew he’d stumbled.

  “Even though someone might be looking for him?” said Luzhim. “His family, maybe? Or what about his clients, a whole tribe of monkeys needing their fix.”

  “He’s an artist, lives alone. Makes drawings on the wall.”

  “So maybe he’s a faggot, with a faggot boyfriend who goes to the police.”

  Kosta sat back. He looked out the window, wanting to crawl out there and bury himself under all that freezing slush. He could sense, overhead, those vast meteors—consequences—and all their gravity, ready for collision.

  “This associate,” said Luzhim. “You can sit on him for a while?”

  Kosta nodded. He could see Luzhim’s gray eyes working in the darkness.

  “Keep him junked. Hang on to his phone, see who calls. Watch the news. A few weeks pass and you don’t hear nothing, it’s maybe safe.”

  “A few weeks?”

  “In the meantime I’ll give you something. A formula. Something the Czechs used to make.”

  Luzhim stood from his chair and consulted the bureau again.

  Kosta felt a bad taste in his mouth. The formula. Something from the old days, a toxic mix of brain fryers and hallucinogens, developed to neutralize the People’s Enemies. A potion to inflict hell.

  Luzhim returned from the storeroom and placed the rectangular metal container on the desk. A Russian snakebite kit. Gingerly he opened the tin, revealing three glass ampules packed in sawdust.

  “You give your dealer the formula, understand?” Luzhim rasped. “Play the angles with me. Worst case, the police come looking, but when they find him, what? He’s crazy. A fucking junkie, they’re all crazy.

  “But let’s say nobody comes looking,” he continued. “Then disposal becomes a confident matter, and easier, because he’s—” Luzhim’s throat seemed to seize up, he coughed raspily, opened his mouth, coughed again. Giving up, he twirled his finger around near his temple to indicate insanity.

  “Got it,” said Kosta. “Super.”

  “Super, yes, indeed,” said Luzhim. “Now, about the girl. Who was she?”

  Kosta shrugged, and Luzhim lowered his head again, in disappointment.

  “Kosta, you know what I went through, for you to get your papers? Check the obituaries. And don’t fuck this up.”

  Kosta stood up. “You don’t need to worry.”

  Luzhim sat back. He nodded to himself, clearly satisfied at his role in repairing the crisis.

  “Good luck in Macedonia,” said Kosta.

  “Of course.” Luzhim grinned. “And about the other thing?”

  “I’ll get your twenty.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dusk came down over Karshi-Khanabad Airbase, the last pit stop before the war. Falling from the orange horizon came an endless procession of aircraft, big planes landing on the pitted runway, discharging their load, then returning to the sky. Coop tracked the planes as he drifted through the commotion of the airbase. All around were jib cranes and flashing lights. Forklifts scurried past like giant ants, freight clutched in their jaws, going out to the supply yard where towering monuments of cargo were erected and torn apart.

  Out in the distance was a bright orange lace among the foothills. Wildfires. Coop had seen them every night of the last week, ever since he’d been marooned at K2. Moko had explained the phenomenon of the wildfires: “What happens is, these Uzbek hunters load up with ol
d Russian tracer rounds, they hit the dry brush, and whoosh.” Even from the great distance, Coop imagined he could smell the stench, wood-char mingling with the tang of jet fuel.

  Arriving at the terminal, Coop was confronted by an unexpected silence. Usually the station clamored with voices, the nonstop bullshitting of transient grunts. But now it was quiet as a church. Frozen in the doorway, Coop heard a single, broken voice:

  “—the whole kitchen was rocking, then I saw this jaggedy smoke trail—”

  On a nearby television screen, white-hot fragments cut across the sky. Like shrapnel from an explosion in heaven. Coop stood for a moment in the dilapidated Soviet-built airport, trying to make sense of what he saw. Now one half of the screen was replaced by a red-faced woman:

  “—and something fell back there in the thicket, up in them piney woods—”

  “What’s happening?” Coop said to the nearest group of soldiers. Nobody seemed to hear him. He looked back at the television. The headline proclaimed MULTIPLE TARGETS STREAKING OVER PALESTINE, TX, which only confused Coop further. Then the banner changed again and Coop understood that a U.S. space shuttle had exploded.

  The news struck him with a funny kind of irritation, and soon he couldn’t stand to look anymore. The same contrails through the same empty sky.

  He scanned the heads of the crowd and found Moko, a skinny guy wearing big glasses and a ridiculous uniform of blue tiger-stripes, some experimental pattern the Air Force was testing. Coop made his way across the terminal floor. Soldiers were everywhere, waiting their turn to fly, their gear spread all across the airport, a maze of rucksacks, poncho liners, and sleeping bags. Coop thought about the Russians who built this place, what they’d think seeing their airport turned into a hobo camp for American soldiers.

  “During reentry you have some major heat buildup,” explained a NASA technician as Coop crossed the terminal.

  “You believe this shit?” said Moko, leaning in to bump shoulders with Coop, never taking his eyes from the television screen.