Don't Go (18 page)

Mike tore through the rest of the report, reading to see if there was any other mention of a pregnancy, but there wasn’t. There was no toxicology report either, and under Toxicology, it stated, cryptically: “blood, bile, urine, ocular fluid, nasal swabs.” He understood that to mean that those fluids had been taken, but that the report would follow later, so he didn’t have any answers about the vodka. But that didn’t seem important anymore. Nothing seemed important anymore.

Mike sat in the freezing latrine, lost in the fog of his own breath. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be. Chloe had been faithful to him. They were in love. He rubbed his eyes, then his face. He told himself that this wasn’t happening, that it couldn’t be happening. He wanted to scream but the others would hear him, unless they thought it was a monkey, howling. Maybe the howling at night wasn’t monkeys at all, but men trapped in war, ceaseless, brutal, and far from home.

Mike felt tears come to his eyes. He couldn’t stop them and didn’t try. Everything he loved and believed in was gone. He could barely deal with losing Chloe, and now he had lost the knowledge that she loved him and was true to him. He dropped the papers and the flashlight, then doubled over and wept from the depth of his very soul.

Chapter Thirty-four

Almost a full year later, Mike could not get past the fact that Chloe had gotten pregnant by another man. He didn’t tell Chatty or anybody else, and the knowledge changed him, inside. He stopped saying his homemade prayer, though he couldn’t bring himself to throw away the crucifix Chloe had given him. He kept it in his Velcro pocket with the Emily picture and the milagro, and lately, found himself patting his pocket like a nervous tic, to make sure they were safe.

His stomach bothered him, and his weight dropped. He couldn’t sleep for wondering who Chloe’s lover was, when the affair started, when it ended, where they did it, when they did it, how they did it. He went online at base and tried to get into her Gmail, but it was password-protected. He’d even emailed Google at Decedent’s Accounts to see if they’d let him into her account, but they wouldn’t unless he sent them a death certificate and jumped through a bunch of other hoops, too difficult to do from Afghanistan. Still, he did his job and didn’t lose a single soldier, not even The First Woman Soldier After Chloe Died And Got Pregnant. The only person who could make him laugh was Chatty, but he’d changed, too. He became
El Jefe
again, but he never wore his new Batman cape, and he told Mike something that struck him as weird, but true:

Scholl’s, this war’s no fun anymore
.

The 556th was on its way to a new posting, a brigade to the north in the mountains, and Mike was crammed in the backseat of the Humvee, on a night too frigid to be warmed even by the body heat from Chatty, Joe, and the driver, Dermot. The engine noise filled his ears and the vibration rattled his teeth as the Humvee traveled along the dirt road behind the others, spaced the standard-operating-procedure distance apart, because if one Humvee ran over an IED, the others wouldn’t be affected.

Mike patted his jacket pocket and fought the impulse to take out Emily’s picture. He felt more distant from her than ever, and in their Skype sessions, when Emily sat in Danielle’s lap, it was like a TV show. And then there was the time she’d called Danielle “Mommy.”

She calls you Mommy?
Mike had asked.

I think it’s easier to say than Danielle, and when we go to Mommy & Me classes, I want her to feel like the other kids.

Sure, right.
Mike wondered how he’d feel the day that Emily called Bob Daddy.

Mike sat in the back next to Chatty, who was looking out the tiny window with his night-vision goggles. On any other night, he’d be stargazing, but he was scanning the terrain for the Taliban. It was mountainous, with dips, goat trails, and wadi to hide in, and holly oaks to use for cover. Everybody startled when they bumped over a rock, but nobody said anything. They were all thinking the same thing and the engine was too noisy, anyway.

Mike’s gut tensed. He knew Chatty worried about him, tacitly accepting the responsibility for his renewing his contract, which had the effect of making him turn more inward, because he kept his regrets about renewing to himself. Still he and Chatty were forever joined, like parents in a family that had lost a child, linked by shared grief.

Mike felt the Humvee slow its speed, as the ones ahead of them stopped. They were guarded forward and rear by up-armored Humvees, with turret gunners on top, and the Humvee behind theirs contained two new general trauma surgeons they’d finally gotten, Pat Freznick from Chino, California, and Peter Sullivan from Dallas, who was in his early fifties. Sullivan was typical of the end-stage wave of older docs who left successful practices to serve, and MEDCOM needed them so desperately that it age-waived them, even if they couldn’t make the fitness qualifications. Chatty teased Sullivan about it all the time, nicknaming him Gramps.

Gramps, it’s a war, not a retirement village.

Mike looked out the window, but it was all black outside, a void in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t know if the upcoming operation, Operation Rattlesnake, would be a success, and if it was, whether it would matter. Their old brigade had become infected with a nihilism, and the soldiers groused more about the Fobbits stationed at FOB Kandahar, or POGs, Persons Other Than Grunts, or worse, REMFs, which stood for Rear Echelon MFers. Mike had heard that the GMOs, or general medical officers, were prescribing more anti-depressants and sleep meds than ever before, and he had no reason to believe that the new brigade would be any happier.

BAM! Suddenly an earsplitting explosion rocked the Humvee. A blinding white flash went off. The front of the five-ton vehicle flew into the air and crashed to the ground with an earthshaking jolt.

Mike whipped wildly around in his shoulder harness. He fought terror to think. They’d hit an IED. It scored a direct hit under their front bumper. Rock and earth thundered onto the Humvee roof. The windows exploded. Hot shrapnel and glass flew everywhere. Mike screamed but couldn’t hear himself. Chatty slumped in his seat, his window cracked.

“Chatty!” Mike unlatched his harness and reached for Chatty. The Humvee engine burst into flames. Black smoke flooded the interior. Joe and Dermot became frantic shadows trying to get out of the vehicle. Flames licked under the dashboard, superheating Mike’s face, searing his lungs. He gasped for breath. They’d burn alive if they didn’t get out.

“Joe, Joe, you okay?” Mike couldn’t hear it if they replied. He unlatched Chatty and grabbed him by his jacket but his head flopped over. Flames erupted on the hood of the car, flooding the interior with light and heat.

Mike reached across Chatty to grab the door handle. He wrenched it down but it jammed. He lifted his leg and kicked the door open. The sudden blast of cold air made the smoke thicker, billowing everywhere.

Mike coughed, his lungs choked. He climbed over Chatty, grabbed him by the jacket, and yanked him from the Humvee. He dragged him through the snow, struggling with his weight. Horrific orange flames lit up the black night. Mike saw Joe and Dermot trapped in the burning Humvee. The doors on older models jammed, so buttons had been installed, to be pulled open from the outside.

Mike left Chatty by the side of the road and dashed back to the Humvee. Heat seared Mike’s face and smoke filled his lungs. He kicked the button on the door. It flew open.

Joe fell out coughing and hacking, engulfed by heat and smoke.

“Hurry, go!” Mike yanked him out of the way, and Dermot scrambled from the Humvee, coughing and spitting. Suddenly all hell broke loose.

Pop pop pop!
A barrage of gunfire echoed, loud enough to burst through Mike’s ringing ears. He spun around, reeling in a cloud of smoke. Red muzzles flashed from both sides of the road.

Dermot, Mike, and Joe threw themselves on the frozen ground. Dermot and Joe fired back, and Mike drew his weapon for the first time ever, then saw Chatty lying unconscious in the snow, exposed to enemy fire.

“Cover me!” Mike raced over to Chatty in a crouch and threw his body on top of him. He kept firing, his head down, his small caliber weapon a peashooter compared with the AK-47s. He felt the sizzle of their big bullets flying past him, their percussive waves rippling through the air.

Joe and Dermot returned fire. The brigade fought back, the gunners blasted their massive .50 caliber weapons, wheeling right and left in turrets, lighting up the night. Behind them, flames from the Humvee shot into the sky. Smoke billowed heavenward. Finally the Taliban stopped shooting, but the brigade didn’t let up, laying down suppressive fire.

Mike had emptied his gun and so had Joe, but both men remained prone, their heads down. Every sense stayed on alert. Adrenaline flooded their systems. Their hearts pounded against the inside of their body armor. In minutes, the firing ceased. Soldiers chased the fleeing Taliban or raced to grab fire extinguishers from their Humvees.

Joe looked over, eyes wide under his helmet. His face was blackened with smoke, and his head was silhouetted against the orangey fire. He was saying something, his lips were moving, but Mike couldn’t hear a word.

“Go see if there’s any casualties!” Mike told him, still adrenalized. “I’ll see about Chatty!”

Joe scrambled to his feet, and Mike rolled off Chatty, felt his neck for his pulse, and felt his heart lift when he found it blessedly strong. “Chatty!”

Chatty struggled to sit up.

“You okay? You feel okay?” Mike scanned Chatty’s body but there was no evidence of injury, though a concussion was always possible. “Chatty, who’s the president?”

Chatty’s lips were moving, and he wrenched off his goggles, leaving whitish rings on his sooty face. His eyes went wide with disbelief when he saw the fire.

“You missed the fight!” Mike laughed, finally understanding the rush of combat. He couldn’t hear a thing, but he was so happy they all had lived that he couldn’t stop talking. “We made it! I shot my gun like a big boy!”

Chatty was saying something, but Mike rose unsteadily, his thoughts racing to the others.

“Chatty, we have to get back to the Humvees! We need to see if there’s wounded!”

Chatty grabbed him, reached for the medical pack at his belt, and flipped open the Velcro pouch. He was saying something, looking down, so Mike looked down, too, but didn’t understand what he was seeing. It must have been a trick of the light, from the fire. Something was lying in the snow, in the dark.

Then, suddenly, he collapsed.

Chapter Thirty-five

Mike opened his eyes, groggy, and looked around a familiar recovery room, with fluorescent lighting and walls lined with shelves of medical supplies. He realized, dimly, that he was at Camp Lacy, Bagram’s Combat Support Hospital. He’d assisted here and checked on soldiers in this very bed. His world had gone topsy-turvy, and the doctor had become the patient.

He was snowed under, anesthetized. He hurt all over, in a vague, achy way. His could feel in his throat that he’d been intubated, but he didn’t know how he’d been injured. He must’ve caught a bullet, but he could see and hear. He moved his legs and they responded. He closed his eyes and was about to drift back into sleep when an Afghan doctor-in-training passed through the room, carrying a rattling tray of instruments.

Mike felt agitated under the morphine. He knew that Bagram trained local doctors, but now it disturbed him. He wondered if the doc knew the Taliban who had ambushed them. They lived in the same area and probably spoke the same dialect. He heard voices nearby, speaking English and Dari, the most common language around Bagram. He drifted back into a restless, anxious sleep.

“Dr. Scanlon?” said a voice, and Mike woke up to see a doctor in a scrub cap, his goggles still on. He had a five o’clock shadow, probably from a night in the OR, and he looked to be about Mike’s age, with crow’s feet around brown eyes. “I’m Scott Peddie. How are you feeling?”

“Yes, hi.” Mike felt his brain waking up slowly. His body hurt more than before.

“Do you feel comfortable?”

“I’m fine.” Mike shifted under the covers to shake Peddie’s hand, but felt an excruciating pain in his left arm. “Oh, that
hurts
.”

“No, please, don’t move it.” Peddie guided Mike’s arm down.

“What? Why?” Mike looked down at his arm, which lay under the covers but was grotesquely short. He shifted over to withdraw it, feeling a pain he’d never known. His elbow and lower arm were gone, and there was a massive bulb wrapped around his upper arm. He gasped. “What is this?”

“Relax, please.”

“What did you do?” Mike flashed on last night, with horror. He’d looked down to see his sleeve and arm blown off. He hadn’t felt anything, he’d been so adrenalized. “Where’s my arm? Where’s my
hand
?”

“Let me get you something to calm you.” Peddie looked toward the OR. “Jamie? Jamie?”

“No, I don’t want that.” Mike kept shaking his head, his mouth agape. “You didn’t take my arm, did you? I need my hand!”

“I’ll explain everything—”

“What happened? This can’t be.” Mike looked over as the nurse hustled in with the Afghan doctor. “Get him out of here! I don’t want him near me!”

“Okay, calm down.” Peddie waved the nurse and doctor away, then looked down at Mike, pursing his lips. “I’m sorry, and I can imagine how you feel.”

“No, you can’t!” Mike couldn’t believe this was happening. “What did you
do
? Are you
insane
?”

“If there was any way to avoid it, we would have. Please, try to remain calm. I’ll strongly suggest you take a—”

“I said, I don’t want a
pill
!”

“Okay, you don’t have to take one then. We won’t do anything you don’t want us to do.”

“Except take my arm, my
hand
?” Mike couldn’t stop shaking his head. “This
can’t
be! What did you do? Tell me exactly!”

“I’m sorry, but it was necessary to perform a transhumeral amputation to the left arm above the elbow, taking your non-dominant hand. We left as much as we could for your prosthesis, including your shoulder—”