The Valley (9 page)

He pulled off the goggles and gave them back to the gunner, who snapped them in the UP position on his helmet. He clearly had no interest in watching the proceedings himself.

Black decided it was probably just as well he'd left his own set of goggles in his pack. The gunner read his mind.

“Better this way, L.T.,” he hollered, settling back into his seat and closing his eyes again. His chin bobbed right and left to the cycling music.

—

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

“Cyclone Mobile, Vega X-Ray.”

The connection was clearer now.

“Passing Checkpoint Two, time now.”

“Proceed.”

“Evans!” the sergeant shouted again at the turret.

“Sergeant!”

“Be awake!”

The gunner cycled the big .50-caliber machine gun.

The sergeant called over his shoulder at Black.

“All right, sir. When we pull in to Vega it's gonna be hop-hop. We ain't stopping except to drop the trailers and peel out.”

“Okay.”

“I'm sayin' you're gonna have to un-ass the truck in a hurry.”

“Got it.”

Black leaned forward in his seat and squinted past the sergeant and driver. Nothing but dark. The sergeant saw him out of the corner of his eye. Now it was his turn to unhook his night-vision goggles. He handed them back over his shoulder wordlessly.

“Don't crash, Nelson,” he said to the driver.

“Roger, Sar'nt.”

Black took the goggles and held them up in front of his eyes. The world turned green and bright again.

Hints of a rutted track appeared in front of them. The ground was wider now but they were driving basically cross-country, hand-railing a black area below to their left that must have been the river. To their right the ground rose sharply.

They were running along the right side of the Valley, gently uphill. As they came around a bend, he saw it, ahead and well above them.

Combat Outpost Vega was situated on the hillslope, as high above the level of the track as was feasible before the ground became too steep. Immediately above the collection of squat structures and blast walls, the valley side rose sharply.

The whole site was directly exposed to fire from the hills opposite the river and the steep slopes above. High ground on all sides, with minimal ability to see who or what might be coming down the hillside. All in all, a terrible position.

“Need 'em back, L.T.”

Black handed the goggles up. He sat back. There was nothing to do at that point but wait for the word to bail out.

The vehicles slowed and turned, began to grind upward. After several minutes like this, the sergeant took up a different radio handset.

“Fighting Fours X-Ray, this is Cyclone Mobile.”

Moments passed.

“Cyclone Mobile, Fighting Fours X-Ray.”

The return call from FOB Omaha, from the headquarters of 3/44—the “fighting fours”—was distant and staticky. Black realized they were talking through multiple retransmission towers between the convoy and its home, over all the peaks and across the plain to the antennas on Radio Hill.

“Roger, Cyclone Mobile, R.P. Vega, time now.”

“Roger, Cyclone Mobile, copy R.P. Vega, time now.”

The sergeant set down the handset.

The ground leveled. Black felt the vehicle accelerate and veer into a sharp left turn that pressed him against the door. He put his hand on his rifle and unbuckled his seat belt. The Humvee decelerated sharply.

“Hit it, sir,” called the sergeant.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Hooah,” came the bland reply.

The vehicle came to a halt. He grabbed the handle and yanked it up, shouldering the sluggish door open into the dark.

Cool air hit him. His boot squashed into mud. He swung around but before he could push it closed another soldier had shoved past him and climbed into the open door. Someone catching a ride back to Omaha.

Lucky.

He looked around himself in the noise, finding his bearings in the poor light.

He was standing in a courtyard, more or less. Seventy-five or a hundred feet on a side, low structures and Hessco baskets all around the perimeter, save for a single ingress-egress point barely wider than a Humvee. There were no visible lights anywhere.

The first three vehicles of the convoy had pulled a wide U-turn before stopping, arraying themselves in a semicircle facing the exit. The rear vehicles had peeled off and with the smooth precision of an aerial acrobatics squad had arrayed themselves side by side, backing the trailers up against one row of barriers.

Before they'd even stopped, their rear doors had come open and a pair of soldiers jumped from each, stomping to the rear of each vehicle and unhitching the trailer latches. Moments later and they had completed the reverse operation with three empty trailers that were waiting for the convoy. Then back into the trucks, which immediately lurched forward and into formation. The lead vehicles were already rolling toward the exit.

It was an obviously well-rehearsed drill, and had taken no more than ninety seconds total. The convoys must have gotten some heat at the drop-off point in the past.

The last Humvee rolled past him, splashing mud and rumbling toward the exit. Before he had really processed what was happening, he was watching the convoy clear the barriers and disappear into the dark. Only at that moment did he notice that someone from the convoy had extracted his rucksack and dumped it in the mud beside him.

The sound of the trucks faded. Black turned in a slow circle.

The rain had lightened, the whistling wind eased. Moonlight was breaking through the clouds and throwing shadows.

He could make out more detail now in the structures lining the courtyard. Some sort of awning or overhang ran the length of it, creating a breezeway all round. Beneath it, darkened doorways beckoned at intervals.

Elsewhere shadowed pathways opened between gaps in blast barriers, presumably leading to this or that part of the outpost. But he saw not a single light in any direction, and heard not a sound save the whisper of the invisible breezefront sweeping gently down through the tree-covered mountainside above him.

He'd been left alone.

Figures.

He turned in another circle. The courtyard was empty and silent. He hadn't been expecting much of a reception at Vega, but a living person would have been helpful.

Black sighed inwardly.

“Figures,” he said out loud, a fraction of a second before the fist struck the right side of his face, sending him reeling and disorienting him enough that he didn't even see the dark body coming at his midsection. The blow knocked his rifle out of his hands, driving him off his feet and into the mud.

—

The one whom the talibs
called Tajumal rose from bed at the sound of the distant bombs, dressed quickly, and stepped before the cracked little shard of mirror hanging on the dirt wall. It had been removed from an American military vehicle.

Tajumal saw the face of a boy, perhaps twelve years old, scarf tied as a headband, looking back from beneath a hooded cloak.

For you, Father. For you, my brother.

Always they rained the bombs on the people of the valley on the nights they came. So easy to know. Their stupidity would lead them to justice. Soon. It was time to go see.

Guide me, Father. Show me what I need to see.

Through the little stone house on tiptoes past where Mother slept. The woolen curtain, covering the door against the rain, barely rustled as Tajumal slipped past it and was gone into the night.

H
ARAKAT MAKAWA!”

The face was close above Black's, screaming something in Pashto, eyes wide. All the weight pinned him on his back, grinding him into the wet ground.

“HARAKAT MAKAWA!”

Spittle stung his eyes. The hard point of a pistol drove into his left temple. A forearm rammed hard against his chin, rooting to get beneath it to his throat. He struggled uselessly, his boot heels driving channels in the mud.

“MUQAAWAMAT MAKAWAYE!”

It was only his panicked attempt to keep his chin down and protect his airway that drew Black's eyes downward below the face. It took him a moment to process what he saw.

An elbow forced his chin upward, and he gargled out the only word that came to mind.

“American!”

The weight still pressed down but the wild eyes came into focus, darted up and down across Black's person.

“Speak!” his attacker cried. “Speak English!”

“American!” Black gasped again. “Get off me!”

Still pressing him down with one hand while moving the pistol roughly to his throat with the other, his attacker leaned back until he was straddling Black. His eyes settled on Black's chest. With his free hand he reached for Black's chin strap, yanking it free and flipping his helmet off into the mud.

The man's legs released their crushing hold around Black's middle. He threw his arms up in total exasperation.

“Jesus
Christ,
Lieutenant! What the hell?”

He planted a boot in the mud and hauled himself up to his feet, holstering the pistol. Black lay on his back, panting.

“Goddamn it! I thought you were one of
these
assholes again.”

He jerked a thumb up toward the night, to the mountainside.

The man was not particularly tall but was built like a professional wrestler. His bearing was that of a sergeant, not a junior soldier. He stomped around the prostrate Black and scooped his helmet up from the mud. He offered his free hand, which Black took.

With his body armor, gear, and ammunition, he weighed more than 250 pounds. The sergeant hauled him to his feet with ease. Black stood, teetering, his entire back half coated in mud from head to toe.

“Sorry,” he panted.

“Don't apologize to
me,
” the man snapped, agitated. “I was about to put a goddamn bullet in your face.”

He wore boots and fatigue pants cinched with a tan equipment belt. Both were now smeared with mud. The requisite tan T-shirt, with dog tags now flung loose from the collar, was tucked into his waist. Black could see the bare-armed muscles massing beneath it.

Black spat a brown mouthful between heavy breaths and thumbed over his shoulder.

“I was with the convoy.”

“Yeah, I got that,” the man shot back irritably, as though Black thought he was particularly dense. “Nobody told me they were dropping off passengers.”

“I'm the only one.”

“Gee, sir, are you sure?” the sergeant vented sarcastically. “You sure there aren't any other anonymous wandering lieutenants creeping around my outpost?”

He held his hands up in a question and looked around himself theatrically. Black let it go.

The man looked past him, still annoyed.

“Where'd your rifle go?” he asked gruffly.

Black, his breathing slowing, scanned the wet ground and finally spotted it, a few steps away. He trudged over and gathered it up. It was covered in mud and useless until he could clean it.

“All right, you found it. Now come over under here before you get shot for real.”

Black glanced up toward the hillsides. The sergeant scooped up his ruck and carried it underneath an overhang, into the breezeway that ringed the courtyard. Black followed, stepping under the overhang as the man dumped the ruck at his feet.

His host blew out a long breath and seemed to compose himself. The agitation was draining out of him. He surveyed Black from top to bottom.

“So,” he said wearily, “who the hell are you, sir?”

“Fifteen-six officer,” Black answered.

“Fifteen what?”

“Fifteen-six. I'm the one that got assigned to do the investigation.”

The sergeant looked at him blankly.

“What investigation?”

“The shooting in the village.”

The sergeant's gaze remained blank for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his tone was hard and accusatory.

“
What
shooting in the village, Lieutenant?”

“The warning shots.”

“The warning shots,” the sergeant repeated.

“Yeah.”

The man was becoming agitated again.

“Um, pardon my being so bold, sir, but what fucking warning shots?”

“On the twenty-third, last month. Dispersing the crowd.”

The sergeant's eyes went elsewhere, then clicked back into focus.

“Wait,” he said. “What, the thing with the goat? The guy with the bullets in his fucking mud hut?”

“Yeah, that. Someone in the village complained to a Civil Affairs officer.”

“Someone complained to a Civil Affairs officer,” the sergeant repeated dryly.

“Yes.”

“Okayyy . . ?”

“And the Civil Affairs officer told Brigade, and I drew the investigation.”

“And you got sent all the way from Omaha to this shithole,” the sergeant stated flatly, “to do a fifteen-fucking-six on a bullet hole in a wall.”

“Yeah.”

There was another long silence during which the sergeant stared at him blankly. He blinked several times, and then it became clear that his face was straining not to smile. His face lost.

“God bless the God damn Army,” he chuckled, shaking his head.

“Yup.”

“So now,” the sergeant said cheerfully, smiling while his eyes hardened, “you're gonna waste my soldiers' time doing your little interviews with your sworn statements and all the bullshit.”

“Yeah.”

The sergeant nodded thoughtfully.

“Mm-hm. Figures.”

He spat in the dirt.

“I mean, no offense or anything, L.T. I know you didn't choose yourself for the fifteen-six, but up here we call it what it is.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

He eyed Black for another few moments before seeming to come to some conclusion in his head.

“Okay,” he said, businesslike. “So you're here for, what, till the run next week? Or are they gonna send a helicopter just for you once you're done being Columbo?”

“Here for a week.”

The sergeant shook his head again.

“All right,” he said, shrugging. “Well, shit.”

“Yup.”

“Well, you're gonna need someplace to rack out, then.”

“If you got one.”

The sergeant pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt and thumbed it.

“Corelli.”

A scratchy voice came back.

“Here.”

“Come to the quad.”

“Roger,” said the radio. “Miller's in the latrine.”

“When he's done.”

He hooked the radio back on his belt, put his fists on his hips, and exhaled through pursed lips: What to do, what to do?

He looked at Black and extended a hand.

“Caine.”

Black shook it.

“Black.”

“I have Second Squad. Don't expect a bunch of saluting here.”

“Didn't.”

Caine gave a grunted laugh that was unreadable.

“That's good. Get you shot anyway.”

He thumbed upward toward the hillsides again.

“Snipers,” he said with mock wonder, “seem to think bagging an officer is some great catch, for some reason.”

He stumped off toward a homemade wooden bench along the wall a few steps away. He eased down onto it, pulling his camouflage patrol cap off his head and extracting a smoke and lighter from a cargo pocket. He tossed the cap onto the bench next to him.

“Welcome to Vega, sir,” he said, cracking the lighter. “May as well take a load off. Miller takes forever in the shitter.”

Black walked over and sat in silence while the sergeant lit up. In the orange light he could see a square jaw below full cheeks, and close-cropped sandy hair over an open face that managed to be babyish and manful at the same time. He could have posed for the Burly Army Sergeant pin-ups calendar.

Black figured him for about thirty. Caine offered a smoke from his pack, which Black waved off.

“So, sir,” Caine said, blowing a cloud, “how'd
you
get picked for this glorious duty?”

“Luck of the draw.”

Caine snorted.

“Gotta love how you officers find new ways to fuck each other over,” he said, sending smoke into the breezeway.

“Just my turn.”

“Bullshit.”

Caine shoved the smokes and lighter back into his pocket and continued.

“I mean, no offense, sir. But someone fucked you, whether you know it or not. You probably cut in front of some colonel at the ice cream line on the FOB.”

“I don't eat that stuff.”

“Yeah, right,” the sergeant snorted. “I'm just messing with you, L.T. I eat the
shit
out of that chow hall when I'm back on the FOB.”

“When was the last time you were back?”

“Let's see. Three months? Something like that. Was back there for one whole day to pick up some incoming joes, then back up here to the glory life.”

He took another drag on the smoke and took his time letting it out.

“What was that you were yelling at me?” Black asked.

Caine pawed the haze in front of him.

“Just stuff,” he said, shrugging. “You pick up stuff. ‘Get down,' ‘Drop your weapon.' You know.”

He filled his lungs again.

“‘Suck faster.'”

He chuckled at his own joke and turned to Black.

“How's the face?”

“Hurts.”

Black worked his stiffening jaw around. He'd been trying not to rub it in front of Caine.

“Sorry,” Caine said, not sounding it. “Like I said, no one told me you were coming. It wouldn'ta been the first time one of those suicide fuckers snuck on board in a U.S. uniform to blow his ass up.”

He jerked his chin at the muddy courtyard.

“It was during a convoy stop last time, too. Snuck through the gate while the trucks were doing the drop-off.”

“That's weird,” Black said. “I thought you guys knew I was coming.”

“Maybe they told our fearless leader,” Caine muttered. “If so, he didn't tell me shit.”

He could only be referring to the young officer in charge, or nominally in charge, of the platoon. Black had seen his name listed in the 15-6 paperwork.

“Lieutenant . . . Pistone?”

“Not ‘Pist-OH-nee,'” Caine corrected him. “‘Pis-TONE.'”

He exhaled haze.

“Like ‘alone.'”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, yeah, that's the one.”

Caine said it in a tone that told Black everything he needed to know about what he and probably the other sergeants and soldiers in the platoon thought of their lieutenant.

“I should probably link up with him in the morning,” Black said.

Gayley had told him Pistone would be his point of contact.

“Ain't here,” Caine answered through a cloud.

“What?”

“Left on the convoy. R&R leave, or the commander needed him or some shit.”

Black recalled the figure passing him in the dark to climb into the Humvee he was exiting.

“Too bad,” Caine deadpanned. “Not sure how we're gonna make it out here a whole week without his guidance and mentorship.”

Black was flummoxed. A 15-6 investigation was officer business, and he'd expected to coordinate things through the platoon leader.

“Who's the platoon sergeant?” he asked.

The platoon sergeant was the senior noncommissioned officer in the unit. He would be second only to the lieutenant, though in reality it was often the sergeant and not the officer who ran things.

“Dead.”

“Oh.”

“You got me, and you got Sergeant Merrick,” Caine explained. “He had First Squad, but he just got his E-seven, so he's the acting platoon sergeant.”

“E-7” was the administrative designation for a sergeant first class. The stripes on Caine's cap said he was a staff sergeant, one rank below Merrick.

“But we pretty much split the duty,” Caine added.

“Okay.”

“Merrick is just gonna
love
you and your investigation, sir, by the way.”

“I don't doubt it.”

Caine tapped his smoke and sent ashes to the stone walkway.

“Anyway, we're it. Us and some E-fives”—buck sergeants—“and a buncha joes, out here flappin'.”

Out there flappin'.
Army-speak for being left alone to do a thankless or dangerous task with no backup.

“Got it.”

Caine looked at him.

“Don't worry, L.T.,” he said. “You can do your little investigation. You can talk to the joes you need to talk to, and make all your paper.”

“Right.”

“But you do it on
our
time and you don't disrupt our operations.”

“Don't intend to.”

“These joes are wrung out and they got jobs to do and they got buddies dead,” Caine went on. “They hardly got any downtime as it is and they don't need to spend it on some chickenshit that some FOBbit officer dreamed up.”

He took another drag.

“No offense.”

“None taken,” Black answered, but the sergeant was already looking past him, scowling.

Black turned at the sound of footsteps jogging down the breezeway toward them.

“'Bout time,” Caine said crossly. “Tell Miller to eat a bran muffin.”

“Roger, Sar'nt,” came the earnest answer.

A soldier stood bolt upright before them, feet apart and hands crossed behind the small of his back, staring at an invisible point in the universe above Black's and Caine's heads. Parade rest—the position a junior soldier assumes when talking to a sergeant of any rank.