The Valley (7 page)

T
hunder woke him, and the spatter of raindrops on his face.

It was pitch-dark outside. The convoy was still moving. There must have been a decent wind because the rain was making it past the gunner standing in the open turret, through the opening, and back to where Black sat in his seat.

He looked at the poor kid's legs, soaked almost down to the knee.

Had he not known to a certainty that no soldier worth a damn would voluntarily give up his post to an officer, he would have offered to take a turn up on the machine gun. He didn't really mind getting rained on. Instead he sat and stared past the kid at the lights of the driver's console and the green displays of the stacked radios.

There was nothing to see out the windshield. The convoy was rolling through the mountains in “blackout” drive, using no headlights and relying instead on night-vision gear.

He drew his little leatherbound book out of a pocket and opened it. He scratched a mark in the red glow of his utility flashlight. He stowed it away again.

More thunder. Distant.

“Hey, sir, you might want to get awake back there,” the sergeant called over his shoulder, goggles covering his eyes.

“Yeah, I'm up.”

“Roger. We're coming into Heavenly.”

Black craned his neck and squinted through the windshield but could see nothing in the darkness ahead.

Good light discipline.

The vehicles, still grinding up a gentle slope, began to slow. Finally a dim amber point of light appeared in the rain not far in front of them.

Dark hulks filled the left and right windows. “Hessco” baskets, eight-foot-tall wire-framed cylinders lined with fabric and filled on the spot with rocks and dirt. The cheapest blast barriers on the planet.

They were entering a channel wide enough for the Humvees and not much wider. From the change in the tire sounds from below, it was lined with a thick layer of gravel.

The amber point resolved into a square, coming up fast on the left. A window, built into the blast barriers—no, a shack or some kind of low structure, sandbagged and incorporated into the walls of the channel.

As the lead vehicle approached the window, a pair of hands raised a windowpane from within. A head and shoulders squeezed out into the rain and wind. Black caught a glimpse of an enormous pair of safety goggles and an Army patrol cap squashed on a head backward.

“Woo!” cried the head and shoulders as they rolled past.

Thunder echoed off the mountain peaks above. The convoy came to a stop on the gravel bed.

“Ten minutes, sir,” said the sergeant from up front, pulling off his night-vision goggles and stretching in his seat. “Refueling only. Good time to take a whiz if you need it.”

Black pulled the heavy latch and leaned on the armored door. It swung open with all the ease of a bank vault. He stepped out into the rain.

His boots sank an inch into gravel. He bent a leg back until he could grab one foot with a hand and held it in a stretch, his other hand on the hot, rumbling vehicle. He rolled his neck to get the stiffness out and looked around him.

No part of Combat Outpost Arcturus was visible beyond the Hessco baskets forming the channel around their vehicles, and the weak amber light from the control shack. He guessed they weren't really inside the COP's perimeter but in a refuel lane designed to service passing convoys quickly and without having to open the main gate, wherever in the dark that was.

Soldiers and sergeants were climbing out of the vehicles and stretching as the begoggled figure hollered from his window at them.

“Nice night to visit! Thank you very much! Woo!”

He wore only a T-shirt on his top half. He was soaked to the skin. In one hand he clutched a radio handset, straining at the end of a coiled cord. He squeezed the button and spoke into it.

“Go, go! Let's go!”

He tossed the handset back into the window and commenced hollering at no one, his goggles already obscured by water.

“Yes! A Heavenly night! This is the reason I joined the Army!”

The sergeant in charge of the shift. All the guy needed was an aviator's scarf.

Black trudged around the vehicle and looked up and down the lane. The sergeant took one look at his shadowed form, standing there uncertainly in the dark, and figured his rank correctly.

“Pisser's up there, sir,” he shouted over the noise of wind and engines.

He pointed up the gravel incline past the front of the convoy.

“Smoke on the other side of the Hesscos.”

He thumbed toward the control shack's door a few feet away, next to a handmade sign which read PIT CREW.

“Coffee's in here.”

Black raised a hand in thanks and crunched away. Ghostly figures appeared through the rain and streamed past him. Soldiers, carrying heavy plastic jerry cans full of fuel.

None spoke to Black as they passed. Some wore dark rain slickers. Others were bare-armed in T-shirts like their sergeant, who shouted overly chipper encouragements at them as they commenced filling the vehicles.

Just past the end of the channel of blast barriers was a blue plastic Porta-Potty. Black tried the door. Occupied. He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited.

There was a wooden signpost set into the gravel next to the john. It was straight from a war movie. Black could barely make out the series of handwritten crossbars as he stood there, rain stinging the side of his face, waiting his turn.

KABUL: 138 MILES

The arrow pointed back down the mountains the way they'd come.

BAGHDAD: YOU WISH

FALLUJAH: YOU WISH + 40 MILES

JESSICA ALBA: 7,602 MILES

YOUR ACTUAL GIRL: HOME BLOWING JODY

HEAVEN: YOU'RE IN IT

HELL: 0 MILES

“Jody” went back to the Second World War at least. He's the guy who stays home and steals your girlfriend or wife when you're off at war.

There was one crossbar below “HELL,” part of which was broken off. The remaining piece had a line painted through it.

XANADU:

The door opened and one of the convoy drivers came out. Black caught it before it slammed and let himself in. He locked it, closing out the rain and wind.