Chapter Seven
It seemed like only seconds before someone touched Jesse on the calf. He jerked to half-sitting.
“What?”
“Time for watch, Byrney,” the shadowy figure said, and Jesse grunted in acknowledgement, hauling himself upright and grabbing his M4. He exited the hooch in the chilly predawn darkness, making a brief stop at the piss tubes before trudging toward the observation “tower,” which was nothing more than some wood stacked together and lined with sandbags.
Behind the wall of HESCOs nearby some dark shapes sprawled in the dirt, and as he drew closer, Jesse could see it was a Scout team returned from three days of recon patrol. They were piled in a heap, heads pillowed on shoulders, on thighs, on stomachs. Jesse imagined it was the first decent rest they’d gotten since they stepped off.
He made the short climb up to the overwatch position, bumping knuckles with the guy he was relieving. “Anything going on?” he asked, sinking down on a nearby ammo crate.
The guy leaned over and spit, a wad of dip stuffed in his lower lip visible even in the dim light of the moon. “Nah. Miller and his squad returned to base about 0300, said they’ll debrief Six once they grab a little shut-eye. Other than that, all clear, brother.”
They bumped knuckles again before the dude disappeared down the slope toward his hooch, and Jesse hunkered next to the powerful .50-cal machine gun, settling in for his two hours of watch. It was still dark, and there was nothing to do but monitor the radio and keep his ears peeled for the sound of enemy movement.
Time dragged as Jesse shifted around on the crate trying to get comfortable, almost wishing he’d taken up smoking just so he had something to do with his hands. A loud rustling in the trees came from somewhere off to his left, and he listened carefully, relaxing again when a monkey chattered, another one answering it. The forest was loud, even in the middle of the night—owls hooting, wild dogs on the hunt, the ever-present monkeys. In the darkness, sitting alone, it messed with the mind. Jesse remembered his first night on watch all those months ago, jumping at every sound, wondering each time if it was a contingent of Taliban creeping up to kill them.
As the sky lightened, the village below slowly became visible, smoke from the inhabitants’ early morning cooking fires starting to drift upwards. Jesse grabbed the binos and glassed down toward the collection of primitive stone dwellings, seeing women doing their chores, goats and chickens milling around waiting to be fed. A few children darted in and out of doorways, men with hoes over their shoulders going to till their nearby fields.
Jesse heard voices coming from the outpost, the acrid smell of cigarettes drifting to his nose as the men started to wake up. Footsteps crunched behind him, and Jesse turned to see Miller, the Scout team leader, approaching. He was filthy, his uniform caked with dirt and sweat and full of holes from crawling around in the unforgiving terrain.
He climbed into the gun pit and crouched next to Jesse, staring impassively out at the vista below. “Never fuckin’ ceases to amaze me,” he muttered around the cigarette hanging out of his mouth, “how pretty this place is.”
Jesse followed his gaze, nodding his agreement. The sunrise was spreading its pinkish glow over the lush forest, illuminating the soaring peaks of the seemingly endless mountain ranges that ringed them. Rivers and creeks winked in the light, birds wheeled in the sky. It was a gorgeous view, but what made it beautiful also made it deadly. There were countless caves, cliffs and fissures for enemy fighters to hide in and stage from, and those men, with their generations’-old knowledge of the land, took advantage of every one.
Miller smoked while a tongue-tied Jesse counted off the last minutes of his guard shift. Army Scouts were a breed all their own, hand-selected for their level of fitness, able to march for days with little food and no sleep. They were known as jacks-of-all-trades, mastering everything from reconnaissance to explosives. Intimidating badasses, every single one of them.
Finally Miller dropped the butt to the ground and kicked some dirt over it before ambling down the short slope back to the outpost, already lighting up another cigarette. As soon as his watch relief arrived, Jesse headed for his hooch. There was a flurry of activity just outside the command center, and Jesse glanced around at the assembled men, kitted out in full battle rattle, weapons slung over their shoulders.
“What’s up?”
Riley plopped his helmet on his head, buckling the strap. “Lieutenant ordered an HA run.” He tilted his head to his left. “PR op,” he said meaningfully, and Jesse followed his gaze to see Kimi standing there, wearing an ill-fitting vest of her own, the ceramic plates weighing her down. An oversize helmet perched on her head, and her eyes were bright with excitement.
“My first time actually meeting the villagers,” she said, settling her camera around her neck. “Humanitarian aid will make for some awesome shots. Can’t wait.”
She and Riley high-fived each other, and Kimi went to grab a five-pound bag of rice and another one of beans, hefting them and lining up in the middle of the group ready to step off. Riley followed her with his eyes, and Jesse punched his shoulder.
“Watch your six out there, not hers, you horny bastard.”
Riley grinned. “No promises, man. No promises. She’s mine, she just don’t know it yet.”
Jesse snorted. “Tell that to her fiancé.”
“She can tell him herself when she dumps his ass for me.”
Riley waggled his eyebrows before hefting a ten-pound bag of flour to each shoulder, falling into place at the rear. Jesse couldn’t help but wince as they wended their way out of the outpost down the narrow path toward the village, everyone with their hands full of food, guns dangling uselessly from their straps. Not a good tactical move, but the humanitarian aid missions were never attacked. Big surprise.
“Didn’t join the Army to deliver food to the Taliban like we’re motherfuckin’ Pizza Hut.”
Jesse glanced over at Enriquez, who was watching the departing squad with disgust.
“Do what I do, and think of the women and children,” he said mildly. “They didn’t ask for this war.”
Enriquez guffawed in derision. “You know damn well those people don’t get one bean or piece of rice, Jess.”
Jesse couldn’t argue. “Well, at least no one can say we don’t leave the enemy well-fed, right?”
The sudden, sharp crack of gunfire off in the distance sent them scrabbling for their kits, and they ran toward the sandbag wall to throw themselves down behind it.
“What’s going on?” Jesse demanded breathlessly, priming his weapon, ready to rock whatever threat was presenting itself.
“Squad is in contact!” Watkins screamed from the guard tower, peering through the scope down at the village and swinging the .50-cal wildly in a semicircle as he looked for something to shoot at. “Fuck! Can’t fire and risk hitting our own guys!”
“They’re ambushing the HA mission?” Jesse asked in disbelief, his adrenaline surging, just as Miller rushed past with his Scout team, all of them fully kitted out and loaded down with weapons and ammo.
“We’re going out as the quick-reaction force,” he yelled at Jesse. “Let’s go!”
Jesse leaped to bring up the rear, Enriquez’s urgent words into the radio following them out. “Battle Base, this is Two-Five. Reporting troops in contact east of the village, break. Repeat, troops currently taking heavy contact. Request immediate air support, over.”
Jesse’s boots skidded over the loose shale as he and the Scouts ran pell-mell down the mountain. In the back of his mind, Jesse couldn’t help but think of the Taliban’s recent strategy—ambush a squad, then have a second team lying in wait to attack the rescuers as they rushed to help. Fear coursed through Jesse in a sickening wave, but it wasn’t for himself, it was for his brothers, pinned down by the bullets he could hear being fired at them in an endless barrage.
Miller, in the lead, held up a closed fist to call a sudden halt. “An old Taliban ratline we found the other day goes up that ridge,” he panted, pointing to a narrow spur that ran behind the village. “If we can stage up there and lay down enough suppressing fire, we can give our guys a fighting chance to get clear.”
Without another word, the eight men turned and charged up the footpath worn into the side of the mountain by generations of insurgents. Jesse half-expected to run into a hail of bullets that would cut them all to pieces, part of a counterattack to their counterattack, but it didn’t happen. They ranged themselves along the spur, lying prone, weapons pointed down into the village.
“Seeing muzzle flashes from the long house,” one of the Scouts reported, binos to his eyes. “Don’t think they’re coming from anywhere else.”
Miller nodded tersely to the dude manning the Mark-48 machine gun. “Villanueva. Light it the fuck up.”
The gun roared. Jesse held the hundred-round ammo belt steady for him, feeding it into the tray to make sure it didn’t jam. Even without binoculars, he could see it wasn’t doing anything to penetrate the stone house, but all they could do was pray it forced the enemy’s heads down long enough for their guys to make a run for it.
“Platoon is on the move,” Miller announced, his own binos to his eyes. “Keep it rockin’, V!”
The gunner continued to pour it on. Jesse could see the distant figures of one group of American soldiers bounding up the trail before dropping to one knee and firing over the heads of the second group, covering them. Suddenly the man in the lead jerked and spun around, falling to the ground, limp.
“Got one down!” Miller yelled. “Hostile fire from the north tree line! Motherfucker!”
It became clear in an instant what was going on. The attack from the house in the village had served its purpose, to drive the Americans back toward their outpost...and straight into the arms of a second, more concerted ambush. With the firing behind them, and now in front of them, they were flanked.
“Go, go, go!”
At the order Jesse pushed to his feet and ran back down the ratline toward the main trail, five other guys hot on his heels. Behind him, Villanueva kept pressure on the house, not letting up.
The Americans had all jumped off the road again, taking cover as best they could behind the meager shelter of rocks or trees. The second someone tried to raise up to shoot, bullets stitched across the ground toward them, pinging off the rocks with deadly ricochets, keeping them pinned down.
The body of the fallen man lay unmoving in the middle of the road. Jesse refused to think about who it was; there was time for that later. Now the job was to get his surviving brothers and Kimi out of this mess and back to the outpost. He and the Scouts took a knee behind yet another cluster of rocks, and focused their fire on the spur that rose just above the tree line to the north.
We won’t be enough. We’re not enough! Where’s fucking air?
Movement in the forest as a small band of enemy fighters scurried toward the body. The platoon on the road was helpless to stop it, cut off from their fallen brother by the wall of lead the shooters were laying down between them. The Taliban grabbed the body by the chest rack and began dragging him off.
One of them suddenly screamed and fell, hit by either his own friendly fire or an American who’d managed to get a shot off. The two other hostiles doggedly persisted, and Jesse saw it was only a few more yards until they’d disappear into the trees. Without another thought, Jesse surged to his feet and rushed directly toward them, M4 blazing.
Bullets shredded the tree limbs around him, but Jesse ran on. He’d die before he’d let those assholes carry off one of his brothers, their purpose to desecrate the body and post images of it on the Internet, devastating his family even more. A primal roar rose up in his chest and spilled through his lips, his single-minded goal to stop that from happening. The Taliban dropped the body and dove for cover from the hail of bullets Jesse rained on them in a furious burst.
In the next instant Jesse had to drop to the ground himself as an RPG exploded not far away, the enemy trying to keep him and the Scouts back. He could feel white-hot shrapnel pelting his thick uniform, and unbelievably one of the hostiles crawled along the ground toward the body, while more Taliban materialized in the forest behind him. The dead soldier was too big a prize to easily abandon, both for the PR opportunities he represented and the wealth of combat gear he carried.
Jesse started running again, determined to take those bastards to hell with him. Suddenly a cloud of white smoke bloomed between the body and the enemy trying to reach it, disorienting them, forcing them to fall back. Jesse sprinted toward his fallen brother. Here was his chance to retrieve him before those motherfuckers could lay hands on him again.
Gunfire cracked around him, and Jesse recognized the distinct bark of the Mark-48 coming from the ridgeline above as Villanueva abandoned shooting at the house and instead covered him. To a man, the mission had shifted from escape to recovering one of their own.
Everyone goes home. Everyone.
The battle was fierce on all sides as Jesse shot and ran. A second smoke grenade exploded, and Jesse could see out of the corner of his eye that Riley was loping toward him from the opposite side of the road, already pulling the pin on yet another one. Their eyes met in silent, intense communication. Riley lobbed the grenade, and they each took a knee, shooting into the haze, creating a withering crossfire. Screams from the enemy echoed around them as some were cut down, shredded into pulp.
The rest melted off into the forest, and Jesse and Riley headed toward the body, each grabbing a hold of his chest rack and dragging him unceremoniously off the road behind the shelter of some rocks. Smitty was there immediately, kneeling next to them, his gloved hands sure and swift as he made his assessment.
Jesse and Riley flanked him, covering him with suppressive fire while he worked. The crack of guns from the ridgeline stopped, and soon Jesse became aware of the reason: the beat of rotor blades from the sky as a pair of Apaches buzzed in, hosing down the cliffs with powerful bursts of their guns.
The platoon rose up as one, raking the forest with lead, hoping to pick off some of the fleeing enemy before they got away. With the immediate danger passed, Jesse turned his attention to the fallen man. He’d taken a round to the jaw, shattering it, and another to the forehead. His face was purple with trauma, eyes slitted, staring unseeingly up at the sky.
“He’s gone,” Smitty muttered, and Jesse at last glanced down at the name tape. Patterson, a twenty-one-year-old private first class on his first combat deployment. He was newly married, a baby on the way, and he’d proudly showed everyone the sonogram picture of his unborn son he kept tucked in the liner of his helmet.
Around him, men were rushing up, breathless, calling out.
“Who is it?”
“Is he alive?”
“It’s Patsy, oh my God.”
Then, “Get that fucking camera outta his face, bitch!”
Jesse looked up to see Silvera, who’d been Patterson’s closest friend, advancing threateningly on Kimi. Riley leaped to restrain him.
“Calm down, Sil,” Riley murmured in his ear, wrapping around him. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
“She get a good picture?” Silvera screamed, struggling to get free. “She get a good fuckin’ picture? Get that camera outta here! Get it out.” His voice trailed away as he sagged in Riley’s arms, sobs wrenching from his chest.
Kimi backed off, tears streaking her own ashen face, her eyes dark with emotion and the lingering remnants of horror.
The Apaches still swarmed angrily overhead, driving the Taliban back to their hidey-holes deep in the mountains. Someone laid a poncho liner gently over Patsy’s ruined face, and Silvera sank to his knees beside him, placing his hand on his shoulder.
“Rest easy, brother,” he whispered hoarsely. “Rest easy. We’ll finish this.”
“Hey, Doc!” one of the Scouts called out from the woods. “Got a live one here for ya.”
He and another member of his team came into view dragging a body between them, and they let him fall unceremoniously to the road. It was a young Taliban fighter.
“Where’s he hit?” Smitty called back, his voice hoarse.
“Fuck if I know,” the man said carelessly. “Saw pieces of his brain all over the place back there, so I’d guess head. He’s still breathing, though.”
The Scouts loped off, and Jesse glanced over at the enemy. He wasn’t much more than a teenager, skinny, with a little bit of peach fuzz on his upper lip and chin. The top of his head was a red, gelatinous mush, and every few seconds his chest jerked up and down with wet-sounding, labored breaths.
Smitty sat and finished his cigarette before walking over to the body to stare down at him for long minutes. The agonal breathing continued, and finally Smitty knelt and wrapped a length of gauze loosely around his ruined head.
“Goin’ to see if the other medics need any help,” he muttered, grabbing his medical pack, shouldering his weapon and striding back toward the main conflict area. Riley followed him, so Jesse sat next to Patterson’s body, keeping watch over it, the dying Taliban in his peripheral vision. Soldiers walked around the wounded boy, every now and then prodding his leg with their boot.
The breathing grew more labored, with a horrifying sucking sound to it, and at last the body twitched violently two or three times and went still.
Smitty returned clutching a black body bag, and Jesse helped him zip Patterson into it. When they were through, Silvera appeared to help Smitty bear him gently away.
Jesse gathered up Patterson’s bloody ammo belt and slung it over his shoulder, along with his ruck. Just as he climbed over the rock wall, the man in the road twitched again, his chest heaving with another long, gasping breath. Nausea welled up in Jesse’s throat, and he doubled over. He didn’t have anything in his stomach, but clear, acidic bile burned its way up to splatter at his feet. When the spasms stopped, the tears started.
Suddenly Riley was there, slipping his arm around his shoulders. “Gotcha, buddy. Come on, brother. I got you.” He was solid and warm against Jesse’s side. Jesse clung to him, soaking up the comfort he offered as the adrenaline of the firefight leached away, leaving him weak.
“God, Riles,” he choked. “Oh, my God. What the hell are we doing here?”
Riley tightened his arm. “I don’t know, Jess.”
“This fuckin’ Valley. It’s not gonna let us leave here alive, is it?”
Riley didn’t reply as they stumbled down the path toward the rest of their platoon, leaving the enemy to finish dying alone.
* * *
“Hero Flight on station in forty minutes.” Lieutenant Farrell’s voice was quiet, subdued, as he addressed the group slumped outside the command post. Nobody spoke, although there were a couple of jerky nods in acknowledgment. “It’ll be a hot landing, so we won’t have a chance to do final respects the way we normally would.” Farrell took a deep breath and blew it out, the picture of weariness. “So we’ll do it now.”
Again, nobody spoke, but at last Silvera pushed away from the wall he was leaning against, squared his shoulders, and with ramrod straight posture, slow-walked to where Patterson lay in his body bag. Not wanting to just set him on the ground, someone had dragged several ammo crates out, arranged them together and made a sort of bier for him.
Silvera rendered a crisp, perfect salute and reached down to touch the edge of the bag, his shoulders drooping as he said his goodbyes to his friend. After that, each man took their turn, saluting their fallen brother and saying their farewells. By the time it was done, the beating of the rotor blades could be heard in the distance. Silvera and five other men arranged themselves as pallbearers, three on each side of Patterson.
When the bird touched down, they lifted him and rushed toward the Black Hawk, handling him with as much care as possible despite their need for haste. The rotors screamed as the helicopter lifted off toward Jalalabad, the first leg of Patterson’s long, sad journey home to his family.
After that Farrell left them alone, to smoke, to grieve. It wasn’t long before the Patterson stories started, how proud he was of his impending fatherhood, how he was a rabid Cowboys fan, how his slow Texas drawl and quick, fiery temper were at odds with his bespectacled appearance. Someone remarked that when he was all spun up, he looked a little like a demented Harry Potter.
In the end there was a lot of laughter and some affectionate, raunchy jokes. It was the simplest kind of memorial service, the only one they’d get to have. Jesse looked around at the assembled men, some sprawling with an arm slung around a buddy’s shoulders, a couple of them leaning against each other, still others with tears openly streaking their dirty cheeks. He swallowed the lump in his throat.
Jesse glanced over to where Riley was sitting, head hanging, his arms propped on his widespread and upraised knees, a lit cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers. Silvera wasn’t far away, and Kimi crouched next to him, speaking to him earnestly. Jesse couldn’t hear what they were saying, but when Silvera looked at her, anguish on his face, Jesse could see his lips form the words “I’m sorry.”
Kimi cupped the back of his neck, drew his forehead down to her shoulder, and let him cry.