Fade to Black - Proof (23 page)

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 saying 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
for 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.