Green on Blue (6 page)

When one family is taken, God provides another, said Qiam.

So he does, said Commander Sabir.

His broken mouth unrolled into a grin that was almost a snarl. He moved through our formation, speaking the name of each soldier and some fact about him, usually the injury or insult that led him to the Special Lashkar. Then he came to me, gripping my shoulder as he spoke for all to hear: Aziz from the bazaar in Orgun, your brother, once strong, is now a legless cripple, another of Gazan’s victims. Your badal should be feared
.

Commander Sabir swept his eyes over the entire squad. Gazan and his Taliban thugs will fear all of you! he said. Then he leaned in close and grabbed the back of my neck. He whispered: Ali is well. Taqbir has recently visited him. He assures me of it and will bring more news soon.

Since I’d arrived at the firebase I hadn’t mentioned Ali to anyone. But the way Commander Sabir looked at me—his set jaw, his convincing eyes—I felt certain he’d learned every detail, even the worst one, which he didn’t speak of. We soldiers stood proudly in front of him, our chests out and heads back. He offered his ugly smile to each of us as though we were his dearest children. And we felt it to be true.

After Commander Sabir finished his inspection, we were spread between the two thirteen-man squads of the Special Lashkar known as the Comanches and Tomahawks. Issaq pulled a list from his pocket and read our assignments: Aziz, Tomahawk! And so too were Mortaza and Tawas. He continued down his list: Qiam, Comanche! The brothers
gave each other a pleading look, never having imagined that they could be separated. Issaq finished reading the rest of the squad’s assignments. He returned his list to his pocket and made his final announcement: Batoor is the leader of the Comanches. I am the leader of the Tomahawks.

I turned toward Mortaza. He gave me a look as desperate as the one exchanged between Qiam and Tawas. Without recruits to train, Issaq was free to lead our squad.

For the rest of the morning we followed Naseeb around the firebase. From his containers he issued the items that made us soldiers—Kalashnikovs, helmets, night-vision goggles, and body armor with steel plates for the chest and back. Mortaza, Tawas, and I then moved from our HESCO barracks to a plywood hut, the barracks of the Tomahawks. Inside it was empty. The rest of the squad had hiked out to the rifle range and wouldn’t return until lunch. Rows of wooden beds ran the length of the barracks. On top of every one was a foam mattress. Mine was so thin that I soon learned the pattern of nailheads in the bed planks by how they pressed into my back as I slept. Already our blankets and sheets had been made up. Printed on them were cartoon characters I’d never seen but would soon know—GI Joe, SpongeBob SquarePants, Masters of the Universe, and others. Later Naseeb would tell me how he’d stolen three pallets of this bedding off the runway at FOB Sharana. It’d belonged to a Christian charity, he’d said.

Silently we unpacked. Settling was not a matter of moving our belongings, but of the other soldiers’ accepting us. That challenge would begin when they returned. Until then we sat on the edge of our beds. Free time was a luxury we’d forgotten how to use, so we did and said nothing. The quiet lasted until the barrack’s door swung open, and the Tomahawks charged inside, their faces full of sweat and their mouths full of profanity.

Khar! shouted one soldier. I told you the barrel was worn!

Who has the extra batteries for our night vision? complained another.

What do you think that fat
shit Naseeb will have for dinner tonight?

On it went as one by one they filled the barracks and heaved off their body armor. Last to enter the long open bay was Yar, the second team leader of the squad. Where the others moved fast, he stood out in his slowness. His right pinky and ring finger were missing, and while the rest of the Tomahawks stripped off their equipment and chattered wildly, he unfastened his buckles and straps with a measured effort. I never learned how he lost the fingers. I heard he came to the Special Lashkar with them missing and I imagined his reason for being here was in the story of his disfigured hand. With only three fingers, the hand looked like a rooster’s talon. Although his talon made him slower than the others, it also made him focus his energies on simple tasks. Perhaps this is why he was the last into the barracks but the first to notice our group in the back corner. He considered us without acknowledgment. Set in his eyes was a tired heaviness. The skin beneath them was like an orange peel, rough and smooth both at once. He unclasped his helmet and it revealed a full mane of salt-and-pepper curls.

These are my new ones? he asked Issaq, who’d just entered the barracks as well.

Issaq nodded. They’re yours, he replied.

Yar stepped in front of us, his right hand extended. Welcome, is all he said.

He took us across the firebase’s dusty courtyard to the mess hall. Inside we filled our trays with chalow, naan, and a korma. We sat together and Yar ate in spurts and spoke in bullets as though he were going down a list: Issaq is a hard but good man, fearless in combat. Do not think ill of him because of your training. He stuffed his mouth with the naan and said: The summer will be bloody. With you all, we have
many fighters and weapons, but so too does Gazan. Yar guzzled a half can of Fanta and continued: We hear Gazan is hiding in the mountains near Gomal, a small border village south of here. Commander Sabir wants to build an outpost above the village. He picked a cube of meat out of the korma
and threw it in his mouth, speaking as he chewed: The spingaris
,
elders, in Gomal don’t support the idea. They worry it will worsen the fighting. One by one, he licked grease off his fingers. It will be hard to make them agree, he said. He grabbed a toothpick and cranked it in the back of his mouth. His last words, he spoke firmly: But we have many guns and fighters. They will agree.

And when do you think we will begin our raids? asked Mortaza.

You want to run to the guns, eh? said Yar.

Mortaza nodded, sheepishly.

Yar plowed the fingers of his good hand through his thick, graying hair. No need to run, he said. They’ll find you. First we patrol. If you want to kill you have to hunt. Issaq doesn’t teach the recruits much, does he? But our next mission is a good one, hard but good. Commander Sabir wants to have a shura in Gomal to speak about the outpost. He knows a smugglers’ route that we’ll take there. It will make the journey longer, but we can’t be seen on the way down. If the spingaris are warned we’re coming, they’ll leave Gomal to keep from the shura. We’ll take the north road back, though. And Tawas, the Comanches are coming too.

Tawas grinned. If the Comanches were coming, so was Qiam.

How long will we be gone? I asked.

Three days, said Yar. What other questions?

We looked back at him, silently, and I think our eyes seemed very open and white.

S
ix of our Toyota HiLuxes lined up so early in the morning that it was still night. The convoy idled. Engines warmed the darkness with their invisible hum. Loose-jointed doors, tailgates, and hoods rattled. Each truck was ten, maybe fifteen years old. The Americans could have given us better, but they chose not to. Like each of us, the HiLux was an economical choice, and usually reliable. Our squad was divided between two trucks. One led by Issaq, the other by Yar. Mortaza, Tawas, and I rode with Yar. Through my night-vision goggles the convoy glowed like the many green parts of a caterpillar, easing forward and back, readying to move. I perched on a pair of ammunition cans in the bed of our pickup. Standing behind the roll bars, I manned our machine gun. Nervously clutching its pistol grip, I felt anxious for my first trip to the southern mountains. I watched the drivers run up and down the convoy, making their last-minute checks. It’d be two days down the smugglers’ route, a half day for the shura, and then only a few hours to return on the north road. Three days.

Up front, Commander Sabir’s HiLux shifted into gear. Each side of its hood bore a small black, green, and red Afghan flag. The flags caught the wind and his truck looked as though it belonged in Karzai’s motorcade. Attached to the long antenna on his tailgate was an infrared
chem-light. It bounced overhead, keeping rhythm with the night like a finger taps a beat to music, and the convoy drove out the gate and onto the hard-packed north road. Behind Commander Sabir came Issaq’s truck and then ours. Trailing us were the Comanches, who marked their doors with two red vertical stripes. Our doors had one. Mr. Jack called this our war paint. He had a great affection for the American West. He thought we Afghans did not understand what it meant to be named after the Indians of his country, but we understood. To us, it seemed a small but misguided sort of insult. For our tribes had never been conquered.

As the truck gained speed, my machine gun swung from its swivel, threatening to strike me. I held its buttstock. We accelerated and the cold air spilled down my shirt and crawled up my pant legs, sticking to me. I tucked my chin into my waterproof jacket and grimaced with envy past the window where Mortaza, Tawas, and Yar sat in the heated cab. Through my many layers of clothing, I struggled to keep my ass from falling off its narrow perch. Every few minutes the HiLux bounced hard and slammed me into the bed as it went over a rut or hole. I kept my body stiff and ready for impact at all times. I felt like a boxer absorbing blows, round after round.

We rushed past Shkin village, where cooking fires glowed inside the few mud-walled homes. We drove on toward the darkness of the southern mountains. At the base of the range, our convoy slowed to a crawl. Here the north road continued south, but we turned off and traversed the uneven ground to a wet ravine that rolled out like a sloppy tongue. I watched Commander Sabir’s HiLux ease itself into the ravine’s mouth. It took the first bend and was swallowed by the mountain. Issaq’s HiLux followed and then, quickly, the rest of us. And our convoy disappeared.

The mountains closed around us. We drove through them like children playing in a window’s long curtains, chasing each other, all of us
near, but hidden in the folds. The route was narrow and dangerous. We were defenseless. Our gamble was that no one would find us. Hours passed. We walked alongside our trucks as they struggled to cross the shale-covered slopes. We shuffled into the flooded floor of the ravine, soaked and frozen to the chest, testing its depth before fording with the vehicles.

By late morning it seemed that Commander Sabir’s gamble had paid off. Since entering the mountains, we hadn’t seen a soul. If our luck held, we’d reach Gomal the next day. Into the afternoon we crept along the ravine. The bed of our pickup rocked me to sleep and the sky was of the sharpest blue, one I felt on the back of my eyelids.

Suddenly our convoy stopped. We sat with our engines idling. I soon grew bored. I jumped from the bed and ran toward the lead truck to see what was going on. Yar watched me go, reclining his seat as I passed so he might rest awhile.

A pool of water had collected in the ravine. Commander Sabir’s HiLux had crossed through its shallow end, but Issaq’s driver had chosen to make his own path and he was stuck in the deep water. Another HiLux raced up from the back of the convoy. The mechanic. His truck crossed the pool and stopped on its far side. A short man who fit easily under a hood, the mechanic desperately fastened and unfastened a tow strap to the fender of Issaq’s stranded HiLux. Both trucks revved their engines, straining without success. Issaq stood by the side of the floodwaters, arms crossed, a scowl plastered to his face, doing nothing.

I perched myself along the side of a hill and leaned against a pine. Looking down, I felt very smug thinking of the many ways I could lie in ambush and kill us all.

Spey zoy! What’s wrong with you? shouted Issaq to his driver.

The driver frantically cycled through each gear. First to second,
second to third, third to fourth
—
mud and steam frothed up from the submerged exhaust. On the far side of the pool the mechanic’s HiLux groaned, its tow strap twisting and stretching.

Commander Sabir’s HiLux came back around one of the range’s rocky fingers, its two flags flapping softly. He hopped out just as his front tires hit the far edge of the water. His truck crossed the pool without him, coming to a stop behind Issaq’s on the near bank. Commander Sabir waded, waist deep, into the frigid water. His face was calm and his thighs rose above the surface with his steps.

The driver’s eyes bulged as he saw Commander Sabir coming for him. Again he flailed through the gears and revved the engine. Again hot mud and steam spat up from below.

When Commander Sabir got within earshot of the stranded HiLux, he cursed from his stomach’s depths with words I couldn’t understand. His curses stopped the noise of grinding gears. Silence pierced the ravine. The driver remained in the cab, unmoving, cemented in his seat by fear. Commander Sabir continued to plod through the water like a thick-chested horse. He pulled himself onto the truck’s running boards, surveyed the pool, and then shot his fist into the cab’s open window, crushing the driver’s nose. The flat crunch of it echoed down the ravine, but the driver didn’t call out.

Commander Sabir opened the door from the inside, grabbed him by the shirt, and threw him into the pool. A slow thread of blood mixed with the water’s brine, forming a long gray streak. Commander Sabir sat in the driver’s seat and waved back to his HiLux.

The flags on the hood playfully caught the wind as it sped toward the stranded truck. I couldn’t believe what I was about to see, but in the instant before the crash, Commander Sabir popped the clutch. Like a wounded animal making a final push for life, the stranded truck shuddered forward. The collision plus the shudder was enough to knock the
truck up into the shallow water, and it drove under its own power to the far side of the pool.

Commander Sabir stepped from the cab. His driver passed him a handheld radio. He barked some commands into it. He then walked over to the broken-nosed driver, waved a finger in his face, and patted him on the shoulder. The problem solved, Commander Sabir climbed into his HiLux and drove back to the convoy’s front.