Knife (9780698185623) (14 page)

On the night of the walk, Lou Reed played softly over the speakers in the war room while Velcro was getting strapped and refit. Hagan stood smiling in the middle of the lockers. He looked at Shaw, raised his eyebrows, racked his weapon, and checked the chamber. The metal slid smooth and echoed sharp.

“Hey, babe,” Hagan said. “Take a walk on the wild side.” He winked and put his helmet on, brought his NODs down, and turned them on. Then he switched them off and raised them. “Good shit. Lou Reed's badass.”

“You know what that song's about,” Massey said. “Don't you, Hog?”

“Nope. Don't tell me, either. You guys ruin my life.”

Shaw smiled. He was thinking of filling any extra space in his ruck with food or extra rounds. They could get stuck out there for a lot longer than they'd planned. His ruck weighed in at sixty-eight pounds and the nylon fabric stretched so much he could identify items by their bulge. Extra batteries. Extra mags. Extra rounds. Extra batteries. Extra CLP. Dip. Hide site cover. Extra batteries. Extra rounds. Extra strobe. Lemon pound cake. Shaw looked around the lockers and got on the floor. He would kill himself if he ran out of ammo or batteries but had extra pound cake. He saw three more clips of 5.56, a few more batteries, and a black plastic speed-loader under a footstool. He grabbed them and threw them in his ruck, taking out the pound cake and his toothbrush.

“Hog, you should bring your deodorant,” Dalonna said.

“Donna, you know we're going native, right?”

Hagan looked concerned, like Dalonna had forgotten something important that needed remembering and it worried him.

“Yes, I do. And I stand by my statement.”

Hagan looked at the ground and then up at Dalonna with fire. “Oh, dammit, Donna. We're all gonna stink like shit together.”

They all laughed and Hagan tried to get in a jab or two while they started funneling out of the war room.

“You smell like a dead cocker spaniel that fell asleep in his own shit! You hear me, Donna?”

Dalonna had a deep, rich laugh and it drowned Hagan out.

They grabbed their rucks and headed out into the night.

•   •   •

T
he 47 was up and burning holes on the tarmac when they got to the airfield. The length of two school buses, the helicopter had rotors on the head and tail and was trusted to climb the highest elevations. It was cooler out on the airfield and the clouds were so low it seemed like the men could just grab a few and push them out of the way to let the stars breathe a little. Hagan pulled on his cold-weather top after setting down his ruck and sitting in his canvas seat closest to the gunner on the back ramp.

Cooke sat next down next to him. “Hog, you gonna wear that on the walk?”

Hagan looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “No. But I'm sure as hell not gonna freeze my nuts off on the flight up there.”

“All right,” Cooke said. “Smart. And I got a sports bra and some tampons in my pack, too. When you need 'em, just give me a holler.”

They all laughed and buckled in, metal snaps echoing down the line. A gunner strapped himself onto the back ramp of the bird and sat on the floor with his legs straddling a minigun that poked aggressively into the night. The 47's rotors slapped hard at the sky like oars on water and the aviation fuel soured the air. Their bodies trembled on the roar of the engines.

“This'll suck,” Massey said.

Shaw laughed. “Probably.” He pulled a balaclava over his head, his mouth and eyes finding the holes. “I'm nervous,” he blurted out.

Shaw looked around to see how many guys heard, but only Massey looked at him. His white teeth seemed to glow.

“Fucking-A right you are. This is gonna suck ass. I don't wanna die in some shit valley reconning some piss village.”

The rotors found their lift and Shaw watched the tops of the clouds melt away from the bird and drop beneath them over the gunner's shoulder. The stars came out and spread across the sky like pebbles on a shoreline after the tide washes away. He watched them shine until the pilots voiced their approach.

•   •   •

T
he bird dropped them off about a klick from the mouth of the pass, in a shallow draw. Before they started walking they all took off the cold-weather tops Cooke had given Hagan so much grief for wearing. After a few minutes in flight they'd all put them on and Hagan had had a big shit-eating grin on his face.

“I'll grab that sports bra from you when you're through with it,” Hagan whispered to Cooke while Cooke stuffed his top in his ruck.

Cooke smiled and blew Hagan a kiss.

It was cold in the draw. Their breaths steamed in front of their faces and froze in icicles on their beards. The rocks and dirt had a shine glossed over them, and Shaw made sure his footfalls were balanced, sturdy. The air was clear and cool. Breathing it in felt like tapping into good drinking water. Massey slipped and landed on his ass as soon as the birds flew through the clouds, and they all dropped to a knee and scanned the ridgelines with their lasers. Shaw lit up a bunch of jagged rocks with pebble runoff spilling from either side, but the sound of Massey slapping hard on the ground didn't bring anyone out of the rocks. Massey got to his feet and keyed into the comms.

“Anybody planning on getting shot?”

No one said anything for a while and then Slausen came over the comms.

“That's probably a negative, Mass. Generally frowned upon in our profession.”

“Good,” Massey said. “Then I'm gonna throw this goddamned Skedco off a cliff.”

The big plastic stretcher was rolled tight on his back and he'd strapped it over his ruck. It looked like he was humping a bazooka. Shaw smiled and scanned the rocks and boulders knifing up before them, steep and jagged like ice in the mouths of winter caves. Slausen came over the comms again.

“Well, let's see if any of the dumbasses are stupid enough to get shot on the walk, and if not, we don't need the Skeds. We can throw them off a cliff when the bird picks us up.”

With that their teams split a laugh and then split up for the walk on separate trails. Mike and his team took a shallow trail north and Shaw and his team moved south of them, keeping the elevated rocks of the pass on their left. Mike's team would keep the same rocks on their right and they'd funnel into the large village together from either trail.

Shaw led their movement. They kept Massey in the middle to even out the distance he'd have to cover if they took casualties, and Hagan and Cooke fanned out on one side of the pass. Dalonna and Shaw took the other. They walked slow, aiming for fifteen to thirty klicks a night and then they'd pitch hide sites and squat during the day. Every turn in the pass was lit up by lasers from either side and breached like a doorway. They picked their way over sparse patches of dead, wind-chapped grass and around large boulders and weather-beaten trees and shrubs. It was quiet and the overhanging rocks of the pass kept the moon from lighting the way. They kept their NODs down until the sun lit the cliffs and then they hugged the boulders, pulled out camo tarps and blankets. They slept two men at a time, the other three awake and watching the rocks for movement. Then they'd wait for the light to fade so they could move again.

The first night Shaw watched a large cat or mountain goat bound up a cliff outcropping and fade into the mountains where the horizon hit the rocks, but that was it. Hagan had some nice, deep blisters on the sides of his feet and Cooke kept saying he saw a boy on the rocks but no one else ever saw him. Shaw's mouth was feeling grimy already, so he tried to keep a chaw or Skittle in at all times. He regretted leaving his toothbrush, should've offloaded another tin of dip or pouch of chew. The comms between teams stayed clear but faded in and out with their CO, Intel, and the air support back at the FOB or circling above. The men reeked of sweat.

The rain and snow held the first night. They watched clouds gather overhead in the morning, hoping for some moisture to beat down and smooth out the tracks they'd left behind, and it came in the early afternoon. They had buried their MRE wrappers or stuffed them back into their rucks, empty of their contents after they closed in on twenty klicks the night before. They sweated through their tops and bottoms in the cold dark during the movement and changed into dry ones in their hide sites during the day. Shaw picked at the crumbs from the crackers that landed on his top and sucked the peanut butter dry from its package. Then the sleet came. The tarps and covers of their hide sites sank under the weight of the water and ice, and water streamed through the sights thinned into the fabric for concealed viewing. Shaw shivered in his site. His dry top and bottom were soaked before he even lifted a foot for the night's walk. He had dug a shallow hole to piss and crap in under his cover and it filled up and overflowed so the fluids he'd released found their way back to him. Their tracks were smoothed out but their limbs were freezing and soaking wet.

During his time to rest, Shaw didn't sleep as much as stop thinking. It was welcome rest even if it wasn't sleep. He grew dizzy from scanning every crevice of rock or sliver of irregular earth. It was all irregular after a while. His pants and hands were too cold and wet to free himself when he had to piss, so he just let fly through his bottoms and enjoyed the warmth for the little while it lasted before the cold and misery crept back in. He looked at the extra food he'd packed into his ruck and wished he'd brought a good pair of thick gloves instead. But he didn't. So he shadowboxed with small, choppy jabs when the cold got to be too much.

Hagan came over the comms a few hours into the sleet.

“
National Geographic
would hate us. There's a falcon circling at eleven o'clock.”

Every head of the team strained through their hide sites to get a better look. Shaw angled his head up through the recon slits and sure enough, to their northwest a big dark bird arced in lazy circles around a peak out of reach. Watching the bird's graceful arcs let him forget about being wet and cold for a while, and he acknowledged the dramatic expanse of the surrounding cliffs and jagged rock. He watched the falcon circle and swoop, paying no mind to the water getting in his eyes, until after some time it came to a dead stop in the air and dove at something in the rocks below. It was beautiful, it was gone, and it didn't come back.

Then they were alone with the cold again.

•   •   •

T
hat night either the fog settled in high on the mountains or they were walking through the clouds. The movement didn't bring much warmth, but it kept the deep-setting cold from clawing at their arms and legs. Shaw changed underwear before they moved, so at least his nuts were clean and warmer than they'd been in a while. They all changed socks and kept the wet tops and bottoms on because they'd be soaked after the movement anyhow. Visibility was at a rifle barrel's length, and Mike's team radioed in that they'd just shot two men.

“They walked right past us down the pass,” Mike said. “We put a couple through them after they'd passed. We nabbed a wood-stocked PRK with a Soviet sickle in it, but we'll probably drop it. It's heavy as shit.”

Cooke came over the comms. “Don't toss it. That's a keeper. I can offer Hog for it when we get back to the FOB.”

They laughed quietly as they picked their way through the rocks and Hagan radioed over that Cooke and him weren't friends anymore if anyone was looking for a new best friend. Shaw asked Mike if they were going to continue down the pass or radio in and request an exfil back at the draw.

“They're dead, so we're not compromised,” Mike said. “Yet, at least. We'll push on. Whoever sent them out is gonna come looking for them anyhow, so we'd rather meet them than have to watch our ass for twenty to thirty klicks.”

Shaw told them to keep an eye out and Mike radioed back the same.

•   •   •

T
he next day, while they were set in their hide sites, a boy appeared on the rocks.

Cooke came over the comms in a whisper.

“There he is.”

The sun was out and the pass had softened and evened out some; the nest of dark boulders and rocks surrounding them had brightened in the light. They were under the tan tarps and covers of their hide sites. The boy stood on a large rock not fifty meters from Hagan, who'd taken the lead of their movement. The boy was facing them and raised his hand. Then he pointed at each of their hide sites as if he were counting birds in a park.

“We're compromised,” Hagan radioed in.

Shaw radioed over to Mike. “Rook1, this is Rook2. Come in, over.”

“Go ahead, Rook2.”

Shaw watched the boy. “Did you guys see anyone else with those two you nabbed last night? A boy, maybe?”

There was a pause that lasted longer than Shaw was willing to wait.

“Rook1,” he repeated. “Did you guys see a boy?”

“Negative,” Mike said. “The men were alone.”

Shaw let out a slow breath and Hagan came over the comms.

“He's looking right at me. No weapon, but he's staring bullets.”

Shaw keyed the comms again. “Rook1. What were the two wearing?”

Another pause.

“They both wore salwars and one had a vest and the other a coat,” Mike said. “Not a field jacket, more of a windbreaker. They both wore black taqs on their domes. We just balled them up and left them in the rocks.”

The boy was standing like a statue in the light, straight and tall. It looked like he had a few wisps of early beard that added a little smoke to his jawline. He had light brown skin, as if he'd gotten suntanned permanently. He wore a dark brown kameez and a white salwar that left a couple inches of bare skin between the hem and his sandals. He didn't have anything in his hands or on his head.

“There are shepherds around here,” Dalonna said. “Goat herders.”