Knife (9780698185623) (15 page)

“Yeah,” Cooke said. “Where's his staff or flock?”

Hagan keyed in.

“He's looking right at me.”

He was trying to speak slow and calm, but he sounded edgy.

The boy stood on an outcropping at the head of a bend in the pass. Shaw couldn't see what was behind him.

“Hold, Hog. Can you see anything behind him?”

Hagan came back quick and short.

“Negative.”

Shaw keyed the handset. “Cooke. Is he the same one you saw a couple nights ago?”

Cooke came over slow and even.

“Can't tell for sure. Hope so. Otherwise there's more than the one looking at us.”

“How old do we think he is?” Shaw asked.

Massey came over the comms.

“He's got fuzz on his jaw, so teens.”

“Teens,” Dalonna agreed.

“Fuck his age, he's staring right at me,” Hagan said.

Cooke came over slow and even again. “He's short, but I'd say scouting age for sure. He could be strapped with a vest.”

Shaw rapped his fingers on the trigger guard of his weapon. He licked his teeth and cracked his neck. “So he's either following us or just happened on our way.”

“You'd think a kid that just happened upon us would act a little surprised,” Cooke said. “Not count us out.”

Shaw nodded and swallowed dry air. He was thirsty. He radioed in again.

“Anyone see any goats or other shit that walks?”

“Negative,” Dalonna said. “Just the boy.”

When Dalonna finished keying the comms, Shaw felt a weight rolling around in his stomach. It seemed like his intestines were knotting themselves into a monkey fist. He felt like he had to take a spine-bruising shit. He keyed the comms.

“Kill. Capture. Let go.”

Silence won out for a little while and then Cooke keyed in.

“Well, it's not like we can ball him all up and throw him in our rucks.”

Dalonna came over next.

“You'd think he'd have run if he wasn't comfortable seeing us.”

“Which means he sees us as a threat and doesn't give a shit because he's a threat, or he doesn't give a shit because he's a friendly?” Shaw asked.

“I don't know,” Dalonna said. “Could be either.”

Shaw waited awhile in case anyone had anything else to add.

No one did.

“Cooke's right,” Shaw said. “We can't take him with us. So leave him alone or take him out?”

Hagan came over again. “I swear he's getting closer to me.”

The boy hadn't moved. His feet gripped the lip of the rock with his thin sandals, and his salwar blew light on the wind passing through the pass. He had a tuft of black hair that rose above his head every time the salwar moved, and the sleeve of his kameez brushed the leather bracelet he wore. He hadn't been standing there a whole minute.

“He's not, Hog,” Shaw said. “He hasn't moved.”

Massey keyed in.

“He sees us, so why doesn't he do anything?”

“I don't know. Take him or let him go?” Shaw repeated.

Cooke came over first.

“We've gotta take him.”

Hagan agreed.

“Donna?” Shaw said.

Dalonna keyed in but didn't say anything for a few seconds. “He's comfortable,” he said finally. “Definitely not afraid.”

“Mass, what do you think?” Shaw said.

“Hell, I don't know,” Massey said. “Everyone's right.”

Hagan was closest to the boy and Shaw saw his cover shift slightly. The boy hadn't moved since first counting them out like he had right away. Like ducks on a pond or friends for a game. He might not even have known what he was doing.

The suppressors screwed onto the barrels of their rifles would catch the pressure of the fired rounds and expand the area out of which they escaped from the barrels. The sound of the shots would be muted to more of a cough than a sharp crack. The boy would be down before he heard the slightest whisper of the bullets. He would never be able to see them, even if he'd been looking to. Shaw closed his eyes and shook his head. “Shit.” He thought of guys he'd known who had gotten ambushed after getting compromised. He'd known their wives and seen the kids they left behind grow up after the funerals. Then he looked back at the boy. He'd already memorized his face forever. “Hog, take him out.”

The wind blew softly, and instead of the shots, Shaw heard his own breathing and a harsh pulsing in his head. It felt like his eyeballs were throbbing with each beat of his heart. The boy seemed to crumble off the rock in slow motion, almost gracefully. He landed on the ground with one of his sandaled feet propped on the rock, pointing up toward the sky. The sun was bright and had made its way directly over the short gap in the pass. Oddly, Shaw felt warmth. He realized that for the first time in weeks he hadn't smelled the stench of burning shit for the last few days. And his clothes were dry. They could've been camping in their backyards or in a national park on a holiday weekend.

Hagan keyed in. “He's down.”

There was a long silence in the valley. The sun was so bright Shaw had to strain his eyes into slight slits. “We need to move the body behind the rocks,” he said. “And cover him.”

It was quiet again for so long that Shaw wondered if he had spoken the words out loud or been speaking to himself. Then Hagan came over again.

“I'm not moving him.”

•   •   •

S
haw moved the boy himself.

He got out from his hide site and walked up the pass while the team covered him. The sky was clear and the sun warm. Any clouds in the air moved fast, racing toward the mountains and then covering them briefly before passing on and disappearing out of sight.

The boy had two holes in his chest, not a finger width between the two entrance points. The salwar was raised to his knees and the sandal not propped on the rock rested in a pile of mud unearthed by his heels. The blood spread in a large dark patch in the middle of the kameez, from his shoulders to his waist. The sun gleamed off the wet fabric like it was gold panned from a stream. The boy looked unimpressed, like death hadn't fazed him. He looked young. He had some mud and dirt splashed up under his chin that had looked like a beard. Shaw could rub it off with his fingertips. A thin river of blood ran from the corner of his mouth to the ground and colored the earth around him in tones of rust. He was surprisingly heavy, lean but broad-shouldered. He had probably worked in the mountains his whole life.

Shaw set his hands under the boy's armpits and dragged him into a tight spot between the loose rock and boulders on the opposite side of the pass. The rocks were shaded and it was cool, the moisture not yet dried by the sun. It would be a nice place to rest after a jog. The boy could fit between the rocks if he nestled him on his side, so Shaw knelt down and tried to place him on the ground gently. He saw the bracelet the boy wore, the red rock shining in the sun, and the boy's body pressed against Shaw's kit and he felt a stinging in his chest from the agate necklace. Shaw moved any shards of rock or loose dirt away from the boy's face and folded the boy's hands gently over the wound in his chest. He tucked his cover around the body tightly, folding the edges around the boy so the cover doubled as a body bag and his own personal hide site. Then Shaw walked away. The boy's blood was on his gloves, on the sleeves of his top. He couldn't see any of them through their hide sites, but he knew the team was watching him. He keyed into the comms.

“Who's got room for another in their site?”

There was a pause and then Massey came over.

“I got some space.”

Shaw walked past Hagan and his old site, and Massey opened his cover for Shaw to crawl under. Massey had dug in between a large pair of boulders on a sharp rise. He had a shithole dug into the low ground.

“Watch your step.”

•   •   •

N
o one said anything over the comms for the rest of the time the sun was up. Massey offered Shaw some diet pills to keep him cranking and Shaw told him Hagan could probably use some as well. Hagan accepted the offer and Massey threw a pack into the rocks toward him, but it fell short. Hagan left his site when a cloud passed over and retrieved the pills, then covered up again. The team covered him, and when the sun dropped the comms opened.

“Rook2, this is Rook1, come in, over.” It was Mike.

Shaw answered.

“This is Rook2. Go ahead.”

Mike's voice was light and the transmission spat static.

“How'd the situation with the little one go?”

No one said anything.

“Rook2,” Mike said. “You there?”

Shaw let out a heavy breath and Massey watched his face in the failing light.

“We're good, Rook1.”

“Okay, then,” Mike said slowly. “Stay up. Razor1 out.”

“Two out.”

Shaw couldn't see the tarp he'd used to cover the body from Massey's site, but on the right side of the pass and wrapped around the boy, the tarp, Shaw knew, was doing its job.

•   •   •

I
ntel broke through that night as they walked. They reported that a group of three FAMs had left the village shouldering weapons and disappeared north into the rocks. The teams acknowledged the movement and added that weight to all the rest. They moved heavily, picking their way through the hard rocks with soft feet on their final approach to the village. They were tired, and Shaw watched the stars and clouds trade places. No one joked over the comms or said much of anything. The pass rose sharp and then fell flat at the entrance of the village. Cooke, leading the last leg of the movement, halted them when he thought he saw something in a shallow inlet off the main pass. Their lasers painted the opening, but it was nothing, just some earth that'd broken away from a larger piece of earth at some point. Like the rest of the rocks in the pass they walked through.

Mike came over the comms and announced they had eyes on the village.

“Waiting on you, Razor2,” he said.

Shaw could see a section of the first dwelling's roof off to his right, over Cooke's shoulder. Cooke was on a knee, painting the dead space behind the first dwelling. The village was set between a group of large boulders in a clearing some size bigger than the pass. The clearing emerged from the pass like the head of a tadpole. In some cases the dwellings used the sides of the boulders and pass at large to form their fourth walls. Three dwellings inhabited the outermost ring of the village, nearly flush with the mouth of the pass. There were nine huts in total, the three at the mouth of the pass and the other six trailing off the first ones like scattered raindrops. Shaw and his team were responsible for the three huts immediately to the front and Mike's team would take the northernmost three. Whoever was able would take the remaining three huts in the southeast sector until all had been searched.

“Check, tape, and tie down,” Shaw said over the comms.

He ran his hands along his ruck, made sure all the straps were tied off or taped in rolls. Then he checked the mag in his well and those snug in his kit. He synched the ruck down tight on his back and the shoulder straps bit into his back and chest. He cracked his neck and squatted up and down a couple times.

“Good to go,” Cooke and Hagan said.

“I'm good,” Dalonna said.

Massey said he was as well and Shaw radioed over.

“Razor1, we're set. Moving on your mark. Over.”

“Roger that, Razor2. Moving now,” Mike said.

They broke off and flowed into the village.

Hagan and Shaw approached the first dwelling. It was made of hard-packed mud, and long strands of straw and tall grass lined the walls. Dalonna and Cooke took the next in line and Hagan brought his boot up fast and hard and kicked in the clapboard door. The door splintered in the middle like kindling and collapsed on the dirt floor. Shaw stepped over the splintered pieces, and the room was empty except for a garment thrown over the dirt in one of the corners. Hagan lit it up and Shaw checked beneath it. Nothing. They left the hut and lit up the door of the next dwelling while Dalonna and Cooke made their way to the next line of huts. Shaw could see the other teams checking the remaining huts at different points in the head of the tadpole. Again Hagan brought his boot up and crashed it through the door. Again they stepped through the doorway and over the broken wood.

Nothing.

Shaw walked outside the hut and painted the surrounding rocks and other dwellings, expecting targets, or even goats. Anything. Hagan pointed at one of the dwellings in the distance. Then one of the Razor1 teams emerged from the doorway. Soon enough all of the men stood outside the empty dwellings, scattered in teams of twos, shrugging and kicking aside clumps of earth. Guys painted the rocks of the pass surrounding the village or lined up against the huts and took a knee. The comms came to life.

Nothing.

No one.

More voices came over with the same response.

Shaw radioed over to their CO.

“This is Razor2. Objective secure. The village is empty. No one in the huts. Requesting exfil.”

“Roger, Razor2,” the CO said. “The bird's en route. ETA forty-five mikes.”

“Roger ETA,” Shaw said. “Holding for exfil.”

The comms quieted down.

“Nothing, man,” Hagan said.

Shaw shook his head. He spat on the ground and closed his eyes. The village smelled like trampled earth and livestock. The pass smelled fresh where they had killed the boy. He wondered where the people of the village had gone, if the boy had lived in one of the huts. Then Mike came over the comms.

“We got tunnels,” he said.

The teams searched the surrounding rocks while they waited for the bird to pick them up and found nearly twenty different tunnels carved into the rocks surrounding the village. Some were large enough for a grown man to walk through standing up, while others could be accessed only at a crawl. They radioed them into Intel and were told not to enter. The 47 came in and landed in the dead space between the dwellings, its rotors blowing the roofing off some of the dwellings and throwing rocks and dust into the walls of others. The teams climbed on board while the gunners of the 47 kept the visible openings of the tunnels painted.