The Valley (8 page)

It was pitch-dark inside. He had a small red-lens flashlight fixed to the front of his gear. He switched it on. It shone straight ahead onto graffiti:

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

He emerged, letting the plastic door smack hard in the wind, and made his way around to the far side of the Hesscos. He didn't need to smoke, but there was little point in him hanging out in the busy channel when the joes were trying to work.

There was less noise on this side, away from the diesel engines. The wind was still gusting down the valley, spitting rain slanting in diagonally. But he could hear himself think.

His eyes were adjusting. He sensed open space. He still couldn't see any other part of the COP through the rain, but he could make out what looked to be an awning, ahead and to his left, running along the back side of the Hesscos and the control shack.

As he made for it he realized that there was a parallel row of blast barriers ten or twenty feet to his right. He was in another channel, this one apparently for foot traffic.

Looking skyward, he could tell that there was probably a partial moon behind the thick cloud layer. He could just make out dark peaks rising high and close on either side of the outpost. It sat at the juncture of two deep, steep valleys.

Those ridges, he figured, were probably a couple thousand feet above the elevation at which he now stood. He craned his head up until the back of his helmet hit the neckpiece on his body armor.

“Twenty-one hundred vertical feet, sir.”

The voice startled him. He turned to see a man standing there under the awning in a slicker and floppy-brimmed camouflage rain hat.

He couldn't make out a face, but his chest had a sergeant's rank on it. Under the shadowed brim of his hat glowed the orange point of a cigarette. A paint can filled with sand and stubbed-out butts sat in the gravel nearby.

“To the ridges?”

Black stepped under the handmade cover. The rain and wind were much quieted.

“Yup.”

More thunder rolled down from above. As he stood looking up at the sky Black realized that it wasn't thunder he was hearing at all.

Once again the sergeant seemed to read his mind.

“Fixed-wing out of Bagram. Probably F-15s. We got an Air Force guy in the C.P. talking to 'em.”

“They're out here for you guys?”

“They're out here for
you
guys,” the sergeant corrected. “Gotta come out every time a supply run comes through here.”

Black was surprised.

“Even in this weather?”

“Fuck, yeah, in this weather,” the sergeant replied. “
Especially
in this weather.”

“Taliban hate fighting in the dark and in the rain.”

“Not your daddy's Taliban.”

Most foreign fighters knew that they couldn't compete against American forces in most nighttime situations because they didn't have the gear. And most just hated fighting when they were uncomfortable. Rain meant they stayed inside.

“These dudes,” the sergeant continued, “would sell their freaking daughter for the chance to come out here and rocket the shit out of your convoy while you're sitting here getting refueled.”

He took a long drag, the cigarette momentarily illuminating a wide, weary face.

“Rain or no rain.”

Black considered this.

“Drones don't see shit in this weather,” the sergeant finished, “so this is prime time.”

Which explained why the outpost had to be in blackout. Its existence was no secret, but in the rain and without night-vision gear, being invisible made a difference.

Black looked up at the sky beyond the ridges.

“Came on station before you got here,” the sergeant said. “And they'll be up there until you go.”

“Who's spotting for them?”

“We can't see the tops of the ridges from here, obviously,” the sergant replied. “And like I said about the drones, so when it rains we gotta put observers on the ground up there.”

The guys who spotted targets and told the jets where to drop bombs.

“We got one team on
those
ridges”—the sergeant pointed—“watching the
other
ridges and the other valley walls, and one team on
those
ridges watching the
other
side.”

“That's a long climb.”

The sergeant took a smoke and nodded.

“Pain in the ass at this altitude. They start out the night before the convoy comes through, then conceal themselves and camp out up there during the day. After you guys go they'll come back down. Probably break their asses in all this rain.”

Black imagined the two small teams, each sitting in a puddle in a hunting blind on a mountainside, looking across through a night-vision scope at the other team and wondering whose puddle was deeper.

“Are they hitting targets or just doing area denial?”

The sergeant shrugged.

“Sometimes they'll just drop some stuff here and there to let anybody on the mountain know to just stay the fuck where they are. Who knows in this weather? Could be blowing up a dude with his goats.”

Black didn't know what to say to this. Finally the sergeant laughed.

“Relax, L.T.,” he said, shaking his head. “I'm kidding. We ain't savages up here.”

He flipped his chin upward to the mountainsides.

“If they see something and can't get a good I.D., they just put munitions close enough to scare the shit out of whoever it is.”

He sent a long streamer of smoke from the corner of his mouth up the Valley.

“So tell those Vega dudes we hope they like their chow and happy mail packages from home, 'cause guys got their asses on the line down here so they can do sniff-a-panty up there.”

“Will do.”

A flash from over the top of a ridgeline caught Black's eye. The light hit the clouds, and the boom came rumbling down the valley walls a few seconds later.

“So what are you, sir, the new platoon leader?”

“Huh?”

“Only seen but one officer go up to Vega, and that's the lieutenant up there.”

He appraised Black top to bottom.

“Dude looked more tore up than you.”

“Thanks.”

“No sweat. So you ain't the new P.L.?”

Black shook his head.

“I'm doing a fifteen-six.”

“Shit,” the sergeant declared. “This whole valley's a fifteen-six. What's yours?”

“Warning shot in a village, no injuries.”

The sergeant said nothing and stood still for so long Black thought his cigarette would go out in the damp. Finally he took a long draw and got it back to life. He exhaled slowly and considered his words carefully.

“Son,” he said. “Of a goddamn bitch.”

“Yup.”

Time to get going.

“See you later, Sergeant.”

“Take it easy, L.T.,” the sergeant said as Black trudged away. “Don't end up in Xanadu.”

Black looked back over his shoulder but the man was bending over stubbing out his cigarette in the can. He turned without looking and disappeared through a low doorway.

Back in the cacophonous refuel lane, soldiers were still finishing up with the vehicles, and their goggle-faced leader was still exhorting them with false or crazed enthusiasm from his little window. Black helped himself to a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the PIT CREW shack.

It was a small hive of radios and laptop computers lit only here and there by little red or amber lamps, to minimize any light spillage into the night. People were busy and left him alone. Radio traffic from the teams up on the ridges crackled down periodically through the rain. He downed the coffee quickly and left quietly.

Back outside people were climbing into vehicles for the last push up the valley. The refuel soldiers had disappeared. Goggle man turned his attention to the departing convoy.

“Have a Heavenly evening!” he cried from his window. “Enjoy your stay! Beware he who would be king!”

Black climbed into his seat and pulled the heavy door behind him, shutting out the strange sentinel's ravings.

He was fairly well soaked by then, but it didn't bother him much. He was mostly glad to be leaving Arcturus behind. It gave him the creeps.

The driver and vehicle sergeant were already in their seats, doing radio checks and getting ready to go.

“What was all that?” he called up to them.

“All what?” the sergeant asked.

“About being king.”

“Always says shit like that. Bible or something.”

“Freak,” offered the driver.

“What's ‘Xanadu'?” Black asked.

The sergeant shrugged and went back to his checks.

In two minutes the convoy was rolling, the familiar churn of gravel beneath tires. The end of the refuel channel passed the windows. Their view opened up to the familiar blackness. Gravel gave way to dirt, and the invisible outpost fell away behind them as though it had never existed.

Black settled in. He closed his eyes but didn't sleep this time.

—

“Vega X-Ray, this is Cyclone Mobile, over.”

The sound of the sergeant speaking the name of their destination into the radio roused Black from a near trance.

He pushed the light on his digital watch. It had been another ninety minutes of slogging wet travel. The ride had gotten bumpier and slower the farther they went.

The sergeant keyed the hand mic again. Tried his call again.

Moments passed as the signal made its way up into the dark, dancing among the windswept peaks and stone faces above them. Black wondered how far they were from the outpost, how many mountain passes or switchbacks still lay ahead of them. The vehicles ground on through the muck.

A burst of static from the radio.

“Cyclone Mobile, Vega X-Ray,” came a scratchy call back.

“X-Ray”
denoted a command post or operations center. The voice on the other end was probably a soldier pulling late-night duty in Vega's radio room.

The sergeant keyed the mic.

“Cyclone Mobile inbound, six vehicles, twenty-five personnel. Checkpoint Grapevine, time now.”

“Roger,” came the voice through the static and interference.

A checkpoint in the military didn't always mean what it sounded like. In this case it was just a common point of reference on a map, so a headquarters could follow the progress of a convoy.

Black was opening his mouth to ask what “
Grapevine”
referred to when the sergeant hollered up to the gunner in the turret.

“Evans!”

“Sar'nt!” from above.

“Down!”

He dropped down from the turret and flopped into the passenger's seat opposite Black. He was good and soaked.

The sergeant turned to the driver.

“Hit it,” he said.

The kid pulled off a glove and reached up to the ceiling, touching something with a bare finger. A square of sky blue illuminated on a tiny MP3 music player. He tapped it.

The vehicle erupted in sound. Black jumped.

The crew had wired speakers into the four corners of the Humvee. Not regulation, but not uncommon. Black hadn't noticed the black boxes until now.

An obviously old rock recording echoed in the darkened crew compartment. A punctuated three-note electric guitar figure repeated itself over and over, starting on a higher pitch each time, layering dissonances as it climbed the scale then falling back down to where it had begun and cycling over again. A string section ducked and wove like a serpent through the guitar. Bass and snare drums circled and thudded on a different track, lining up with the guitar only every few bars.

Black saw a dizzying, endless flight of broad stone steps, bounding upward through vaulted caverns to the dark heavens. He liked this song.

The gunner rooted around and found his seat belt. He buckled it, flipped his night-vision goggles up off his face, and settled back into his seat, eyes closed.

“What's this?” Black shouted.

The soldier opened his eyes and looked at him incredulously.

“Seriously, sir?” he shouted. “‘
Kashmir'?
”

Black changed the subject.

“Why ‘Grapevine'?”

The kid reached up and unsnapped his goggles, handing them across to Black. He put them on and looked around the compartment.

The soldier, now highlighted in green and white, thumbed toward the left-side window. Black unbuckled his belt and half stood, leaning way over to see beyond him.

Out the side window he saw nothing. He thought he could make out a valley wall a few hundred yards away, but it was tough through the rain. He leaned farther. Then he saw.

The roadbed ended abruptly about four feet to the vehicle's left. Stones and dirt gave way to open space. Beyond it, blackness.

“What?” he asked, pointing.

“River,” the gunner said.

Black sat down in his seat, shuddering, and rebuckled his belt. He looked ahead, through the front windows.

They were driving along a mountainside—a cliffside, really—on the narrowest of dirt tracks. The road was barely wide enough to accommodate the trucks. A rock wall rose to the right of them, and empty space fell away to the left. Pulling a trailer behind a vehicle under those conditions was madness.

The gunner read Black's mind.

“Supply truck,” he said.

“And a Humvee full'a bubbas,” the sergeant called over the din.

“Twice,” added the gunner.

“And a helicopter another time,” offered the driver, prompting the sergeant to tell him to shut up and watch the road.

They had slowed to a crawl. Ahead, the harrowing track wound upward and left, then further up and right. It looked like it curved around into the night sky itself.

He understood now why the gunner had come down inside. It wasn't to keep him from being thrown under the vehicle in the event of a rollover. There was no rollover here. It was to make it more likely the bodies would all be recovered in one place.