The Valley (34 page)

T
he radio nets were a cacophony of traffic, everyone from every corner of the outpost talking on top of everyone else, crosstalk clashing in the speakers, all of which appeared to have been turned on at once.

The panicked kid had been in the CP by himself for who knows how long, trying to juggle it all. He'd been expected to monitor the radios and read his book during the quiet times, and step out of the way for his platoon leader or platoon sergeant when something real was happening. From the look of the brick-size paperback lying on the floor next to the cot, that's exactly what he had been doing. He hadn't been expected to do this.

“Yeah, I know!” the kid shouted into a handset. “I'm getting it!”

He was trying to secure ammunition for one of the guard towers that was nearly out. Every other radio was clamoring for his attention simultaneously.

“Take them to Two!” he yelled at one walkie-talkie, shoving another under his arm.

The medic squatted and tried without success to place his cargo carefully on the cot. Black sloughed off his shoulders and tumbled heavily onto the rack. The room upended itself and he clung to the cot rails, stomach turning, head filled to bursting.

“Ohhhhh,” he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.

The medic stood, stretching his back, and surveyed the situation dubiously.

“What the fuck, sir?” the frazzled sentinel cried between transmissions.

He snatched up the walkie again.

“No, take them to
Two!
”

“Go,” Black said to the medic, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Get back and do your thing.”

“You sure, sir?”

“Yeah,” Black replied, though he wasn't.

“Just stay still and rest, sir,” he said. “I'll be back to check on you, whenever I can.”

“Don't do that.”

“Right, sir.”

Someone hurled profanities at someone else over the nets. The medic gave a last skeptical look at the two of them and disappeared.

Black opened his eyes, blinking hard to clear the splotches in his vision. It was hardly quieter in here than it had been in the open air. The dissonant chorus of individual sounds outside was just buffed or dulled to sharper or rounder edges.

The kid was shouting into his radios.

“Where's Sergeant Caine?” Black asked the ceiling.

“What?”

He juggled handsets.

“No, to
Two!
I don't fucking know, sir!”

“Where did you last see him?”

“I don't know! Hours ago.”

“So he's still gone.”

“He's
what?
”

“What about Sergeant Merrick?”

“You tell me, sir!”

“He hasn't been by here or checked in?”

“No, he hasn't fucking been
by
here!” the kid shrieked at him. “Nobody's been by here!”

He craned to answer a different call.

“Two-forty ammo, not fifty cal!”

He tossed the handset.

“I've been here by myself the whole fucking time! I don't know where
anybody
is!”

“Has there been any traffic on the patrol net?”

“The
patrol
net?”

The radio channel used by personnel when they left Vega on foot.

“Yeah, the patrol net!”

“I'm not monitoring the patrol net! Why would I be monitoring the—”

Black cut him off.

“What is Battalion headquarters saying about getting us help?”

The kid looked at him like he was crazy.

“Battalion ain't saying shit, sir!”

“Why not?”

“The retrans!”

The retrans.

A pit opened in Black's stomach.

“We're not talking to anybody!” the kid hollered. “We're just talking to ourselves!”

He'd forgotten. The antenna hadn't been repaired yet.

“mIRC chat!” he countered.

“They put a rocket in the fucking dish!”

Their attackers had done their homework.

“The sat phone!”

“I told you, sir, it don't work down here!”

“That was
true?!”
Black exclaimed, flabbergasted.

“
Yeah,
it was true! Sat phone doesn't do shit!”

Black closed his eyes.

“Where the hell is Sergeant Merrick?” the kid cried desperately.

Battalion didn't even know they were under attack.

“Somebody,” the soldier spat as he snatched up a handset, “needs to get him the he—”

“Sergeant Caine and Sergeant Merrick are not on the COP.”

The kid gawked at him slackly. The radios, jabbering for his attention, went unanswered.

“What?” he cried. “Where the hell are they?”

“It doesn't matter,” Black said urgently. “You need to check the patr—”

“Well, who the hell is in charge of this place?”

“You are.”

“What?!”

In the noise and chaos of the fight, probably no one had figured out that both senior sergeants, one of whom would be expected to fill in for Lieutenant Pistone, were absent and the kid was in the CP all by himself.

“Stay cool,” Black replied unconvincingly.

Or things had just been too desperate for anyone to stop what they were doing and go help him.

“Oh, we're fucked,” the kid declared.

All the radios clamored at once.

“Oh, shit,” he said, ramping up. “Nobody knows.”

Black tried to sit up. The room promptly went sideways. Back down.

“Answer your radios,” he directed, eyes pinched shut against the nausea.

“Nobody knows! Nobody's gonna come!”

“Answer your radios!”

The kid snatched another of his handsets suddenly.

“No, don't try to go to the mortar p—”

Someone stepped on his transmission. He cursed.

“I said
don't
go to the mortar pit!” the kid hollered, kicking the desk.

“Calm down.”

“Fuck that, sir!” the kid yelled, his voice going shrill. “What are we gonna fucking
do?
”

“Calm down.”

“
You
calm down, L.T.! I'm trying to—”

He lowered the handset and crammed the walkie-talkie full against his mouth.

“Just
hold on!
I'm almost with you guys!”

A blast nearby shook the room.

“God
damn
it!” the kid yelled as the radio speakers doused him in feedback.

“CALM. DOWN,” Black shouted, his voice painfully loud in his head.

The kid threw all the handsets and walkies down onto the desktop at once. Black twisted to his side and pawed the big paperback off the floor. The kid made fists and hollered at him goggle-eyed.

“STOP TELLING ME TO CALM D—”

Black threw overhand. The book went splaying through the air in a straight line and made square contact with the middle of the kid's face.

He staggered backward, hands treading air, and gawked at Black wide-eyed.

“
What the FUCK!
” he screeched.

Black collapsed back onto the cot, dizzy from the effort of throwing.

“What's your name?” he asked the ceiling through squinched eyes.

He'd never seen the kid wearing his actual coat with his name tape on it. Just a T-shirt.

“What?”

“
What's your name?
” Black shouted, causing the kid to flinch.

“Hubbard!” he shrieked.

Black exhaled. The racket outside was unreal.

“Hubbard,” he said, holding the cot rails. “Look at me.”

His eyes were still closed against the dizziness.

“Are you looking at me?”

“Yes!” Hubbard retorted with all the petulance of a grounded teenager.

“Your compound is getting breached tonight.”

He heard the kid among his maps and radios, panting.

“You gotta calm down and hold this place until help gets here.”

“
What
help?” Hubbard shouted. “There's no help! No one even knows we're—”

“The convoy.”

“What?”

He opened his eyes and looked at Hubbard.

“The convoy,” he repeated. “It's Sunday.”

It was a day for forgetting the obvious.

“Shit!” Hubbard exclaimed in wonder. “The convoy!”

“Yeah, the convoy. Now get your radios up and put the patrol net on the speaker.”

Hubbard looked at his watch.

“That's not for, like, six hours!”

“Don't worry about the time. Just get on the radios.”

Hubbard kept staring until Black gave him a
Well, come on!
with both hands. He turned to the squalling radio racks, fumbling with a speaker cable and blowing out a long breath.

Black lay on his back on the cot, listening to the cacophony.

“Oh, Jesus,” Hubbard muttered, shaking his head as he fiddled with the radio. “Oh, we're fucked.”

“Probably.”

“Screw you, L.T.”

“One thing at a time.”

The speaker clicked on, its static joining the throng.

“Try to raise Sergeant Merrick.”

Hubbard took up a fresh handset. He seemed to be calming.

“Vega Seven, this is Vega X-Ray, over.”

They waited, Hubbard shifting his weight back and forth between his feet.

“Vega Seven, this is Vega X-Ray, how copy, over.”

Clear static was all that returned. Hubbard looked at the radio expectantly.

“Leave it,” Black directed. “Can you raise the O.P. without the retrans?”

Hubbard froze in place. His jaw went limp as he turned slowly to Black, a look of dawning horror in his eyes.

Black covered his face with his hands.

“Oh, shit!” Hubbard shouted, color leaving his face.

He twisted a handset cable free from one radio box, cramming it frantically onto the stubby output plug of another box sitting dormant at the bottom of the stack.

“Shit! Shit!”

—

Fucking lieutenant
.

He splashed through a running creek at the bottom of a broad ravine and started upward through the pines on the far side.

Fucking Corelli.

He would have been cold had he not been working so hard.

Goddamn pussy God freak. I told him and told him that I'd take care of him.

The rumble over the mountains behind him continued unabated, calling him back to where the rest of his soldiers were trying to not die.

Brought this all on myself.

Not only himself.

What I get for doing the right thing.

It would all be over now, whatever happened today.

Sorry, Traynor.

He was getting closer.

Wanted to come get you, buddy.

Caine drove higher into the mountains.

I
forgot! I forgot! Goddamn it!”

Hubbard nearly knocked over the radio stack wrestling with it.

“I'm sorry, sir!” he stammered, fumbling cables. “I just . . .”

A vibration ran through the room. Something impacting the grounds nearby.

“Everything's been happening all at once, I just . . .”

“You don't need the retrans?” Black cut in.

“They're on a different retrans tower!” Hubbard replied, stabbing at numbers on the keypad. “On one of the peaks between there and here!”

He shook his head as though to clear it and punched up more numbers.

“What?” Black demanded.

Hubbard cursed, jamming the buttons.

“God
damn
it!”

He stopped, glaring at the radio.

“
What?
” Black repeated.

“The frequency!”

“What about it?”

Hubbard looked at him helplessly.

“I don't remember the goddamn frequency!”

Black was flabbergasted.

“It's not already in the radio?”

“We're not allowed to keep it in the radio!” Hubbard shouted. “We have to clear it any time we use it to talk to the O.P.!”

He punched more numbers then cleared them, muttering combinations and profanities one after the other.

“Which is like one time since I've been here!”

“Well,
get
it!”

Paper was strewn all about Hubbard's station.

“Where's it written down?”

“We're not
allowed
to write it down! Sergeant Caine won't let us!”

Black resisted the urge to punch the wall. Hubbard cursed and jabbed.

“Wait,” Black said suddenly. “Who's ‘we'?”

Something Caine had said came to him in a rush, and he answered his own question.

“Oswalt,” he declared.

Hubbard finally tuned in.

“What?”

“Oswalt's the other guy! That's allowed to talk to the O.P.!”

Hubbard smacked his head.

“Right! Oswalt! Wait, how'd you know th—”

“
Get
him!”

Hubbard scrabbled through the mess for his walkie-talkie, pinching the little dial on top and turning it several clicks.

“Yo, Oswalt! Oswalt, it's Hubbard!”

The radio crackled back without delay.

“Oswalt.”

It was very noisy wherever he was.

“Where are you at right now?”

“Taking ammo to Tower Three.”

“I need you to come to the C.P. right now.”

Black, lying on his back, threw up his hands.

“Just tell him to
tell
it!”

The classification level of the frequency was hardly top priority at the moment.

“Hey, buddy,” Hubbard said, lowering his voice. “I need the freek.”

“The what?” came the staticky reply.

“The FREEK,” Hubbard said, full volume.

“The freek?”

“Yeah, man, the
freek
freek. I need it right now. I can't remember it.”

“We're not allowed to—”

“Give it,” Black ordered.

Hubbard tossed the radio across the room. Black barely caught it using both hands.

“Oswalt, it's Lieutenant Black,” he said briskly. “It's okay, I'm authorizing it, but we need it right now.”

“Four-oh-six,” came the instant reply.

Hubbard smacked his head again and started punching numbers. Black keyed the mic.

“I also need you to go to Sergeant Merrick's quarters right now and check to see if the satellite phone is in there.”

“Roger,” came the unquestioning reply through the chaos.

“I
told
you, sir!” Hubbard cut in. “The phone doesn't work here!”

“Take the master key,” Black continued, ignoring him. “Bring the phone here as fast as you can.”

“Roger.”

He keyed off. Hubbard was yanking a connector out of one speaker and cramming a different one into it.

“What was that?” Black asked.

He could have sworn while he was talking to Oswalt he'd heard someone call his name over one of Hubbard's radio nets.

“Got it!” Hubbard shouted, not hearing him. “Hopefully these fuckers out there didn't take out the retrans already, or we won't be able to talk for sh—”

An earsplitting splash of static and reverb washed out the speaker, causing them both to jump.

An agitated voice cut midsentence through the noise.

“—p the goddamn radio one of these days!”

Hill.

“I say
again
,” Hill went on, voice all annoyance. “Vega X-Ray, this is Traynor X-Ray, how about a damn acknowledgment!”

The chatter of automatic weapons was clearly audible through his words.

Hubbard snatched up the handset.

“Traynor X-Ray, this is—”

He was holding it upside down.

“Hill, it's me, Hubb!” he cried, righting it. “It's Hubb, man! We're here!”

Hill came back through the din, angry.

“Nice-a' you to answer the goddamn phone!”

“What's your situation?”

“There's a fucking fuck lotta fighters out here, that's our situation!”

Black heard urgency in Hill's voice, but he couldn't hear panic.

“Casualties?” Hubbard asked.

“Chen's K.I.A. and Snoop's K.I.A,” Hill rattled off, Hubbard cursing after each name. “Everyone's pretty much shot one way or the other but we're still fi—”

An explosion on Hill's end overloaded the speaker.

“Fightin',” he finished tersely.

He left the mic open as he lowered the handset to yell something at someone. Black and Hubbard could hear the horrible patchsmack din.

“But we, uh,” Hill continued, bringing the handset back up, “we could use some help in a hurry if it ain't too much trouble down there.”

“Roger,” Hubbard sent back. “We're in some heavy shit down here too, but we're, we're trying to figure—”

“Tell him stand by,” Black cut in.

“The L.T. says stand by,” Hubbard transmitted.

There was a long moment's pause.

“Uh, roger that,” Hill came back. “But there ain't a lotta ‘by' to be standin' on right now, if you get the picture.”

“Roger, we're working it.”

Hubbard keyed off and turned to Black.

“What're we gonna do, sir?”

Black was already on the walkie, calling Oswalt.

“Oswalt,” came the reply.

“Status.”

“I'm in Sergeant Merrick's now, sir. I'm not seeing it here.”

“Sir,” Hubbard said urgently, “I'm telling you the sat phone doesn't work down here.”

“How do you know?”

“Whatta you mean, how do I know?”

“How do you know?”

“Sergeant Merrick said so!”

“Have you ever tried it yourself?”

Hubbard hesitated.

“No, I . . . I just . . .”

“Tear the place up,” Black said to Oswalt over the radio. “Hurry.”

“Roger.”

He keyed off.

“Sir,” Hubbard pressed, “even if the sat phone works, which I'm telling you it ain't gonna work, it'll take ages to get birds up here! We gotta do something for those guys
now!
”

He hopped from foot to foot.

“We gotta send a squad or something!”

Black looked at the kid and stated the obvious.

“There's no squad.”

“Well, goddamm it, sir! What?”

It was madness. Units kept backups upon backups of every form of communication possible. Communication was life. You could always improvise
something.
Hell, an American officer in Grenada had used a calling card and pay phone when everything else failed, to route a call through his unit and get air strikes.

There was no pay phone in the Valley.

Wasting time.

Whoever was attacking COP Vega had come prepared, systematically taking out any long-range communications capability that . . .

Son of a bitch.

“Oswalt!” he called into the walkie.

“Here.”

“Forget Sergeant Merrick's hootch! Go to Danny's!”

“What?” Hubbard cut in, confused.

Black jabbed a finger impatiently at Hubbard's radios, which clamored relentlessly. Hubbard grabbed them up.

“Go to Danny's,” Black repeated into the walkie. “Look in there!”

“Roger.”

Black heard it again. Someone calling his name on one of the nets.

“What was that?” he asked Hubbard.

Hubbard, drowning in crosstalk, cocked his head uncomprehendingly.

“What was what?” he called over the din.

“Someone was calling m—”

“Yo, Vega X-Ray,” Hill cut back in on the big speaker. “I get ya that it's hot down there, but if y'all can maybe divert some of your air over here, that could, uh . . .”

He trailed off a moment, the sound of weapons filling the space.

“That could make a difference.”

Hubbard looked helplessly at Black, who waved him to go ahead
.
Hubbard took up the handset, lips pursed.

“Uh,” he transmitted. “We don't got no air support down here right now, Hill.”

Several seconds went by.

“Roger that,” Hill came back through hails of noise.

He keyed off and keyed on again.

“Standing by, over.”

Hubbard lowered his handset and looked at Black somberly.

“Sir,” he said in a low voice. “We need to do
something
to hel—”

WHUMP.

Something very large and powerful exploded within the compound, shaking the walls of the CP and setting the radio stacks buzzing. Black felt the air in the windowless room compress all around him, sending light washing through his vision.

He cried out and clutched his head, which felt as though two cars had run into it from opposite directions.

“What the
fuck
was
that
?” Hubbard shouted, grabbing at the radio stacks to steady himself.

Black was doubled in a situp crunch, forearms clutching his head.

“Recoilless rifle!” he heard himself shout through his hands.

It was only a guess, but the blast had been different from the others. Someone was trying to break through the walls.

“They're supposed to be suppressing that shit!” Hubbard cried, rooting among his handsets.

Hubbard's other radios were all squawking at him at once again. He'd been neglecting the rest of the outpost while they'd been hailing the O.P. A junior sergeant hurled curses and epithets at the CP through his walkie.

No one had been calling Black's name. One of the guard posts had been frantically reporting “black” on machine gun ammo—meaning, they were out—for the past couple minutes. While Hubbard and Black had been talking to Hill, fighters from that direction had been able to move a mobile artillery tube into position unmolested and get it online.

It had just blasted a hole somewhere in one of the compound's stone walls, and the sergeant was letting them know all this in the most colorful terms imaginable.

Black knew how it would go. That kind of lapse would only build on itself if not stopped. That's what the forces surrounding the COP were counting on. Death by a thousand huge cuts.

Hubbard worked the radios and verified that guys were already en route to the tower with fresh ammo. When he finished he tossed the handset and kicked the little desk chair, sending it spinning to the corner.

“Goddamn it!” he shouted.

Lying on his back again, palm across his forehead, Black held out a hand toward Hubbard.

“Give me Hill.”

Hubbard stopped his venting and looked at Black's outstretched hand in silence.

“C'mon!” Black spat sharply.

Hubbard stretched the black telephone cable of the handset across the desk and put it in Black's hand. It barely reached.

Black took the hard plastic handset and pulled it to his throbbing head, one hand covering his eyes. He hoped there wouldn't be more blasts like that one.

Hurts.

He keyed the rubberized transmit button, waiting for the signature
beep
of encrypted radio communication.

“Hill, it's Lieutenant Black.”

Nothing.

“Hill, you there?”

Static.

“Hey there, L.T., watcha got?” came Hill's drawling voice at last through the ongoing torrent.

Black swallowed.

“Listen, man,” he began. “We're doing everything we can here to get some birds up to you guys. Break.”

You didn't want to let an important transmission run longer than a few seconds. The signal tended to drift, especially on a poor connection. He keyed the radio afresh. Beep.

“You will be ahead of the COP in order of priority as soon as we get air on station. Break.”

Hubbard closed his eyes.

“But I cannot tell you when I can get you help. Break.”

Hubbard crossed his arms and lowered his head. He kicked the desk again, hard.

“Probably not soon,” Black finished. “How copy?”

Nothing came back for several seconds. Hubbard raised his head and looked at Black.

When Hill opened the mic, all they heard at first was the merciless cacophony from his end.

“Roger that, bud,” came the breezy reply, as though he'd just been told the week's mail would be an hour late. “I gotcha. Keep us posted.”

“Do the same.”

“Out.”

Black let the handset snake back along its taut cable, clattering against the metal side of the desk. Hubbard didn't retrieve it.

“Oh, man,” he moaned, arms still crossed.

“Get the radios back up.”

“Oh, Jesus, we're just leaving all those guys to die, aren't we?”

“No we're not.”

“Yes we are!” Hubbard wailed, rocking back and forth and hugging himself. “Aw, fuck, they're all gonna die!”