The Traiteur's Ring (13 page)

The Blackhawk settled gently onto the tarmac with a swirl of dust in the morning sun, and Ben felt his heart rate increase a little. He really didn’t look forward to talking to Chris. He knew he had crossed a pretty serious line at the target house. Chris would keep it in the team, but Ben worried more about losing his team’s trust than getting in trouble from some higher authority.

As the rotors wound down with a whiny sigh, Ben pulled his pack toward him by a strap, flung it up onto his back, and pulled his rifle back behind his hip. Then, he heaved himself up off the canvas bench and stepped out of the helicopter. He realized he felt completely and utterly exhausted all of the sudden. He could easily drop onto the cracked cement and curl up to sleep right beside the helicopter. He felt a heavy slap on the back.

“Need anything from me?” the Air Force para-rescue jumper asked.

“Nah, I’m good,” he said with a smile. “Thanks for everything, dude.”

“Shit, I didn’t do nothing but ride with you,” the young medic laughed. “I should thank you for the free meal on the ship. You Squids eat like fucking kings.”

Ben laughed back at the age-old rivalry banter and waved as the man shouldered his own gear and headed towards the clinic, likely to restock a few items from his kit. Ben realized he should restock his kit right away, too.

Not that I’m putting off talking to the boss or anything
.

He kept his own stock of medical supplies back in the “box,” so he headed towards the barracks. He stopped at the cage where he and Reed kept their gear and stripped off his combat load, unloaded his rifle and pistol, and dropped his radio into a charger that already held a row of radios from the rest of his team.

“Reed doing okay?”

Ben turned to Chris and summoned a big smile. He actually felt pretty glad to see his boss and teammate – the inevitable conversation they would have aside.

“He’s great,” he said. “Surgeon on the ship says he can come back in a couple of days.”

Chris’ forehead wrinkled in confusion, though his eyes filled only with relief. “You kiddin’? Coupla’ days to get back from that chest wound? Christ, dude, I was terrified he’d die on the flight over.”

Ben summoned his best sheepish look. “Yeah, well, about that,” he began. “Turns out he didn’t really have a chest wound….” He had a lot more rehearsed but Chris interrupted him.

“What the hell are you talking about, Ben?” he asked. “He had a huge friggin’ hole in his back. I saw it. I watched you put a dressing on it.”

“Hey, I thought I saw it, too, boss,” Ben said. “Looked to me like he blew a hole in his back.” He took a big breath and dove into the cold water of his lie. “Turns out that a bunch of blood and bits of skin and stuff were stuck to his back from his leg wound. Looked like a hole, and I just covered it up, I guess, without taking a careful enough look. When we looked at it on the ship and cleaned it off, there was nothing there – not a scratch.”

“Ben are you just screwing with me or something?” Chris looked genuinely distressed.

“Hey, look, bro, I feel like a complete asshole, but I put a dressing on nothing but blood and dirt. His chest is fine. His leg’s a little dicked up, but they fixed it, and he’ll be back in a couple of days.”

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

“Not a scratch,” Chris said to the wall. Then, he looked up at Ben, and his face lit up. “Well that’s great news, right?”

“Right,” Ben replied.

Chris slapped both of his shoulders in obvious relief. Hell, maybe the good news would soften things for their next conversation.

“Why don’t you get your gear squared away, grab a shower, and then you and I can grab a bite to eat, okay?” Chris still looked happy, but Ben knew how serious the conversation would likely be. “Need to talk with you about a couple of things.”

Yeah, I guess to hell you do.

“Sure,” Ben felt a knot in his stomach like when you heard you had an appointment to talk to the vice principal after school.

“Meet me at the TOC, and we’ll walk over to grab some chow.”

“Okay, boss.”

Chris clapped him on the back again. “Man, I can’t believe Reed’s okay. I’ll go tell the guys.”

With that he strode off and left Ben alone with his guilt.

He finished storing his gear, restocked his medical bag and grabbed more ammo to refill his one depleted magazine for his rifle, then squared away his weapons. He didn’t obsess too much about the upcoming conversation, but he did dance around memories of what had happened with Reed – each time taking a short look in his mind and then scampering away from the thoughts like a puppy afraid of his own shadow. Towel in hand, he headed out for the shower trailer, careful to move quietly in the dark barracks so as to not disturb the sleeping warriors around him.

Vampires. We really are like vampires.

“Hey, dude,” a whispered voice called. “Is it true Reed’s okay?”

Ben looked over to see Lash, who peered out from around the poncho liner that hung from the ceiling around his bunk.

“Yeah,” Ben said, hoping not to get into any details. “Doc says he’ll be back in a couple of days.”

“Shit hot,” Lash said. “Ben, you are the fuckin’ man.” The camouflage cloth fell back into place, and Ben stood there a moment, not really feeling like the fuckin’ man. Then he headed out towards the showers.

He kept it short, as required to conserve water, but the heat (and the extra minute or two) melted away the knots in his muscles. The tension in his brain seemed to unkink a little, too. Now he stood outside the TOC in the harsh sunlight (harsh to a vampire like himself) and took a deep breath. Just as he reached for the door it swung open, and Chris walked out.

“Oh, hey, dude,” Chris said. “Just looking for you.  Change in plans – chow will have to wait, at least for you. We got a minute or two, and then I need you to do the medical screen on our crow.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably at the thought. It seemed strange that he should do the medical exam on the only one from the target house he hadn’t smoked.

“Why me?” he asked, and immediately regretted the tone towards his officer and boss.

“Penance,” Chris said simply, not nearly as bothered by Ben’s insolence. “You feelin’ okay?”

Ben sighed.

Hell, no I don’t feel okay. I feel like I’m sleepwalking through a nightmare based loosely on an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

“Sure,” he answered. He actually did feel fine physically. In fact, he felt a lot better mentally than he had a half an hour ago. Not just the shower or the catharsis of his killing spree at the target – he believed he had let go of a lot of other confusing shit this morning.

Focus on letting it all go, and maybe you can have your life back.

Chris put his arm around Ben’s shoulders and walked him away from the TOC.

“Look, bro,” he said as they walked, his voice low but intense. “What happened at the target is unsat – no question about it.”

Ben opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. What the hell was there to say? It was unsatisfactory. He had killed everything he saw when they had orders to take crows off the target for intelligence purposes.

“No excuse, boss,” he said and felt his throat tighten.

Chris stopped and faced him.

“However,” he said. “You are an exemplary operator and member of this team. The last few days have screwed with all of us, and I know the massacre at the village hit you particularly hard for whatever reason.”  Chris paused and watched him a moment, and Ben thought maybe he expected him to provide the reason. Since he had no friggin’ idea he just stayed quiet and held his officer’s gaze. “Anyway,” Chris continued, “we’ll keep this in the team. Consider this a counseling session, and get your shit together if you haven’t already. Fire discipline is what separates us from them.”

That hurt, and Ben felt a knot squeeze tighter in his chest.

“I know, boss,” he said. He wanted to say more but didn’t know what.

“Shake it off, and let’s get back to work,” Chris said ending the discussion. “Keep it to yourself until I brief it later, but I just got word we’re out of here in a couple of days, so hang tough until then.”

“Couple of days?” Ben said. “I thought we had three weeks left.”

“Yeah, well the task force commander thinks the hit last night really cut into the bad guys, and he’s leaving Charlie platoon, Delta, and the Rangers here to finish their rotation. Guess we’re not needed anymore, so home we go.”

Home. Home to Christy. Home away from this shithole and the memories of the night in the village. He felt a huge grin on his face, and his cheeks felt hot. This would sure as hell make the conversation with Christy easier in a little while. He would tell her in their own little code – perfected over many deployments – that he would be home soon. 

“Head over to the pokey and document your medical exam for the spooks so they can do their interrogation, okay?” Chris ordered. “Then, we can put this whole fucked up thing behind us.”

Chris slapped him hard between the shoulder blades and headed off the other way.

“Thanks, bro,” Ben called after him.

The SEAL officer responded with a simple wave over his shoulder without looking back.

*   *   *

Ben leaned back against the small wooden table in the tiny room and tried to figure out why he felt anxious. Hell, he wasn’t the one blindfolded and led around by flex cuffs. The thin, middle-aged man that shuffled across the dirt floor, led by the two soldiers on “pokey detail” actually smelled like fear, and Ben was glad for that. So why did he feel anxious?

Just get his vitals, do a quick history through the interpreter, and give him a once over. With any luck this will be the last asshole I have to see before we head home to the beach.

The soldiers guided the man gently into the metal folding chair and pulled off his blindfold. . He looked around anxiously, but Ben could see he struggled to still appear tough and unafraid.

Shocked to be treated like a human being, no doubt.

Ben had seen it a hundred times. The prisoners expected to be brutalized like they would do to their own prisoners and didn’t know how to react when they were treated humanely.

Not that you deserve it, you fuck, but no one here will break your knees and carve your tongue out like you did to that poor boy from the village.

He felt a flash of rage flush his cheeks, and he shooed it away. The interpreter came in and nodded. He gave Ben a thumbs-up and smiled, and Ben noted that he still wore the Def Lepard world tour T-shirt that Lash had given him. He had worn that damn shirt every day for nearly a month.

Ben pulled a standard medical form toward him from the table and copied the numerical code off a card handed to him by one of the guards into the space marked “name.” There was a flash as a Polaroid picture was taken of the prisoner (which made him jump in surprise), and Ben stapled it to the top of the form.

“Does he have any medical problems? Has he had any surgeries? Does he take any medications?” Ben said to the ‘terp.

The interpreter babbled at the man who growled back an answer in a harsh whisper.

“He say dat God be take him to paradise, but all you be dey devils, and one day he piss on you dead bodies.”

Ben sighed. Same old shit.

“Ask him again.”

The interpreter did and chuckled at the response. “He say you mother be wit a dirty goat, Ben.”

Ben smiled and shook his head. He took his pen and under medical history on the form, he wrote “subject unresponsive to questions, but appears well.” Then, he heard a whispered voice – not in English but somehow he heard it like English.

If I grab his pencil, I can stab him in the throat before the others kill me. My reward in paradise would be great for taking this devil with me.

Ben looked up and saw the hatred-filled eyes staring hard at him, but no one else moved or seemed disturbed by the words. He looked around to see if someone else had come in.

“Did you say something?” he asked the ‘terp.

“I say he say you mother…”

“No, I heard that. Did you whisper something?”

“Whisper?”

Ben shook his head. “Never mind.”

He began checking boxes on the form about the patient’s, or in this case the prisoner’s, overall appearance and level of distress.

Wait for a moment until he relaxes and strike before the others can stop you.

Ben looked up again, this time slowly and directly into the prisoner’s eye which continued to burn back at him with unconcealed rage. He realized the weirdest thing was this didn’t feel the least bit weird. He thought a message back to the terrorist.

Go ahead, asshole. Please go ahead. We’ll cut you down before you are out of your chair, and then I can go and call home. You wanna stab me in the throat? Come on and get some – right here it is. I’ll send you to hell where your friends I killed at your house are waiting for you.

Ben moved the pencil towards the man just an inch or two and raised an eyebrow. The man’s rage dissipated, and his eyes filled instead with fear. He looked around frantically and, then, babbled again at the interpreter. The interpreter shrugged and looked at Ben.

“He wanna know how you put deh whisper in he head. He say you Mawi Wata—deh serpent – have much bad Ashe – evil power he say.” Ben felt a chill at the words. They felt uncomfortably familiar for some reason, and his mind flashed for a split second to a clearing in the bayou where Gammy stood ankle deep in blood. Ben squeezed his eyes shut, and the image went away – another childhood nightmare that followed him even here. “Me tink, maybe he got deh – you know dat word? He got deh crazy head?”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “He’s got the crazy head alright.”

The man in the chair started babbling again, and this time his voice rose to a trembling shout. His balled fists beat the air in front of him. The two rangers on guard duty moved forward and held the man down in the chair by the shoulders as he squirmed and screamed. Ben realized he could hear the words in his head also, softly but still clear over the foreign tongue echoing in the room.