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Authors: Elliot Ackerman

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BOOK: Green on Blue
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Get off the ground, Aziz.

It was Taqbir, still trolling the hallways in his neatly pressed uniform, just as I’d first met him. He offered me his hand. I grasped it, thick and strong compared to mine. He pulled me up.

You look well, I said.

You look tired, he replied, the same as when I first met you. Commander Sabir told me you’d soon arrive. He said I needed to be ready to greet you. It seems you are a very important man now.

His smile was equal parts warmth and contempt.

My brother? I asked.

He’s doing well, said Taqbir. Come.

He escorted me down the long linoleum hallway until we reached a corner room at its end.

Ali’s in there and quite comfortable, he said with some pride.

He’s no longer in the tent with the others?

Of course not, replied Taqbir. We care for our own.

He swung open the door.

Take your time, he said. I’ll be just outside.

The room was too big for Ali. He lay in its far corner in a bed by the window, his head turned, looking through it, his face stubbled and hollow. A light blue hospital gown hung cleanly from his shoulders. His linen was fresh, but beneath his left side I could see that the flatness now rose all the way up to the hip. No one told me they’d taken more of the leg, and I thought of Ali being cut on alone. The stump that remained stuck out from beneath his sheets, as black and rotted as a winter log left in the snow. On a table by the door, flowers were clustered in two crystal jars.

I shut the door behind me. His dead stare continued out the window. I walked toward his bedside. There was no chair in the room for a visitor, so I knelt and grasped his palm. Through my thumb, I felt the tendons on the back of his hand and they were delicate as bird bones. I could feel where each one fused with his wrist. The muscle covering those connections had starved.

You are well, Aziz? he whispered in a rasp.

I am. And you? My question seemed ridiculous.

I am better since they moved me, he replied.

I didn’t want to ask when he’d been moved. I assumed it was once I’d become indispensable to Commander Sabir. We sat together for some time. He gazed out the window. I rested my head on his bedside and shut my eyes. Once again exhaustion rolled over me, but I didn’t sleep. I lay there with my brother and held on to the past I’d always known, the one in which he’d cared for me. Then, breaking the stillness, he draped a weak hand across my shoulder. You must work very hard to keep me here, he said. I imagine you’ve prospered and made a life for yourself, yes? Have you started some business? Have you? Your education, it has served you well, has it not?

It has, I said.

Yes, he said, whatever business you’re in must be doing well for me to get this treatment.

It is, I said quietly.

Ali looked past me toward the back of the room. Taqbir opened the door a crack to check on us. His green uniform was framed against the white walls of the hospital. Ali shut his eyes and looked away from him.

Tell me how you’ve prospered, my brother asked.

He didn’t want to hear of badal. He wanted to hear about a life I could never have. I smiled and made a last deceit for him.

I’m apprenticed to a good man in Kabul, I said. That is why it is difficult for me to visit.

Ah, replied Ali, his voice scratching. No apologies. But tell me, what does this man do?

He is a great merchant, I answered. He has a trucking business.

Trucking. He breathed the word as though it were a prayer. This is a fine business and steady work.

Yes, I said. I have a knack for it.

That’s good, replied Ali. You always learned quick, Brother.

I continued: Yes and I’ve received a promotion.

In such a short time? What a thing.

With my promotion, my boss gave me some vacation to see you, I said.

It seems you are an important man now, said Ali.

Perhaps, I answered.

Your boss sounds very generous, he said. You must thank him for me.

I held his one hand between my two as I spoke: I will, Ali, of course I will.

Good, he replied. Now I must rest. I’m not strong as I used to be.

His admission made my throat turn thick. I told him: I know, Brother.

You’ll come visit again soon?

Of course, I said, and of them all, this was my worst lie.

Ali looked back at me and offered a smile with his thin lips. Then he let go of my hand and rolled his head toward the window. He stared outside and his face changed. Once again it was empty.

IV

I
stand on the lip of a wadi, looking north. My HiLux is parked in the empty streambed below. The moon reflects off its dark paint. It is a horned moon, carved down to its ends. Across the high plain, tucked among the foothills, is FOB Sharana. At night, its towers are all that can be seen. The Americans wall themselves in with a ring of lights. While everyone sleeps, only they run their generators.

I climb down from the lip of the wadi. The moon casts thin shadows in the dry streambed. Here the earth breaks easily and is covered by stones. I kick it up as I go. My steps release the wet smell of old floods, a reminder that violent waters often pass through here, sweeping away all but the strongest stones.

But always it becomes dry again.

I pull a wool blanket over my shoulders and lie across the backseat of the HiLux. I shut my eyes.

I imagine what it’s like behind their walls. There will be an American there who debriefs Afghans. This I’ve heard. I’ll ask for him. I’ll tell him he has a problem, that he’s lost control. Mr. Jack had wanted to work with Gazan, to control him, now I’ve become Gazan. When I return to Gomal, Commander Sabir will ensure that I am armed from funds their government pays him for the Special Lashkar. I will be the leverage
Commander Sabir uses against the village to get his outpost built. The Americans influence none of this. I’ll offer them my help, but they have two things I want, two things Sabir can’t give me.

Without anyone to care for her, Fareeda will die. I will ask them for the medicine Mr. Jack once gave Atal. He purposed his life to care for hers. Now I have done the same. I will return to Gomal and lead Gazan’s men so she might live.

And with the Americans’ help, I’ll get rid of Sabir. I’ll replace him. With his position, I’ll prosper in the war and succeed where Gazan and Atal failed. I’ll take enough to someday leave it, and bring with me those I love.

Thinking of all I can offer the Americans, I find sleep. I am filthy and cold, alone in the wadi.

Then, with the first light of the morning, I am again awake, surrounded by the smell of the wet and violent earth.

It has begun to rain.

I crouch among the stones. Between them, water pools. I wash my hands and face in it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
his novel is dedicated to two Afghan soldiers who, consumed by their war, will likely never have a chance to read it. My hope is that the book proves a worthy acknowledgment to the world they lived in and the war they fought.

My gratitude to Dick Snyder, a stalwart mentor to whom I am indebted.

I am blessed to have PJ Mark as an agent and friend.

Marya Spence provided a second set of eyes on everything, there’s none sharper.

Liese Mayer and Paul Whitlatch at Scribner made this book better, and believed in it. I couldn’t ask for more thoughtful and talented partners.

Lea Carpenter and Judy Sternlight read early drafts, and both proved generous with their time and insight.

And my family, who’ve always supported me, but particularly my mother, a novelist herself, who taught me to tell stories on the sofa in her office, and my wife, Xanthe, who always believed, both when it was easy, but especially when it was hard.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter van Agtmael

ELLIOT ACKERMAN
 served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. A former White House Fellow, his essays and fiction have appeared in 
The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic,
and 
Ecotone, 
among others. He currently lives in Istanbul with his wife and two children, and writes on the Syrian Civil War.

MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

SimonandSchuster.com

authors.simonandschuster.com/Elliot-Ackerman

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Scribner

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Elliot Ackerman

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First Scribner hardcover edition February 2015

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Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4767-7855-6

ISBN 978-1-4767-7857-0 (ebook)

Contents

Epigraph

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Part II

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part III

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Part IV

Chapter 15

Acknowledgments

About the Author

BOOK: Green on Blue
3.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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