Knife (9780698185623) (16 page)

No one came out of them, and the captors flew away.

•   •   •

S
haw took his helmet off on the flight back. The cool air passing through the cabin from the open gunner's perch in the rear felt good, cleansing. He looked around the bird and everyone was asleep. The metallic scent of the bird was harsh compared with the earth they'd just left. A soft red glow lit the inside of the cabin and their faces looked gaunt and haggard, tired. They looked like shadows and ghosts. Then the light went out, or Shaw fell asleep, and he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. The 47's drone and the
thump, thump, thump
of the rotors rolled into a steady stream of white noise. His ears popped and the pressure lifted. He felt light. Weightless.

Back at the FOB they did their AAR and told the CO about the boy and the two other men they'd killed. The CO didn't comment much on it one way or another, but Shaw saw him wince for a moment after they said they had killed the boy. Then he caught himself and said they'd done well, what they had to do, and that Intel would monitor the pass and the village around the clock. Future activity in the village would open the possibility for air strikes and they probably wouldn't get boots on the ground for the tunnels. JDAMs would fit in better.

Dalonna said he was going to call his family. The rest of them got to their tents and collapsed into their beds. Shaw dreamed of the boy. He was standing on the rock and waving at them, not pointing at their positions. A soft light from the sun brought warmth to his body and he looked like a stained-glass window churches put up. He seemed to glow. Then Shaw woke up and the tent was cold. And there wasn't a light anywhere.

•   •   •

H
agan yelled out in the dark.

“Oh, fuck off!”

Shaw shot out of bed, startled. He hadn't even felt the beeper vibrate in his pocket. It glowed with a 1 and headlamps started popping off in the tent. They hadn't been in bed for more than a few hours. Shaw looked at his watch. Not even 0900 hours yet. He still hadn't brushed his teeth from the long walk. He could taste too many days of chaw and dirt and Skittles and filth. His breath smelled like something had died in his gut.

“Interdiction,” Cooke said in the dark. He sat up straight on his bed, his headlamp on and the glow hiding everything but his mouth. “Ten bucks.”

“Of course it's an interdiction,” Hagan said. “Screw your ten bucks. I want to sleep. Fuck you, interdiction.”

They ran out of the tent and into the sunlight.

Cooke was right. Resting at the foot of their lockers were laminated cards of a white pickup and a clean-shaven man with a crescent-moon strip of hair standing guard over the rest of his balding head. The man wore small, circled glasses that looked like wire Easter-egg droppers. He seemed like a professor, or maybe an accountant. The CO pointed to the images on the laminated cards and spoke while the men strapped on their gear. His voice peppered the straps of Velcro and snaps of helmets, the weapons racking.

“There are two guys in the truck. The driver's a courier for the Scars and we're not exactly sure who the other guy is, yet. Get them and bring them back.”

The operators ran out to the pickups and sped to the airfield, tires slinging gravel and kicking up clouds of dust. Two Little Birds sat spitting fuel on the tarmac and shaking under the rush of their wings. The helicopters looked anxious, trembling on their skids, as the sun beat down on the tarmac. The engines screamed and sent waves of fire blasting into the air. The heat and the smell of burning fuel and trash were dizzying. Shaw was sure he'd be sick. Cooke threw in a chew, sat on the bench, and offered him one. Shaw waved it off. They clipped in and plugged in their comms, and Dalonna, Hagan, and Massey hopped on the other side. Mike and Ohio did the same with their team on the other bird. Slausen was the last to sit down and clip in. He ran to the bench with his helmet snugged between his arm and chest. His boots were untied and he was buckling his bottoms. They were already sweating, even though it was getting cooler during the days. They had rolled their sleeves and bottoms up to their elbows and knees. Hagan wore no top save for a T-shirt. Their hairy legs glimmered in the sunlight. The pilot asked if they were clipped in and ready, and the birds rose off the ground before they finished a response.

“Well, Baldy's fucked,” Cooke shouted over the wind.

The birds dipped their noses and charged straight ahead. They headed west.

•   •   •

A
s the birds flew on, Shaw had to piss badly. Before running out of the war room he'd felt the piss coming on, so he'd grabbed an empty Gatorade bottle and thrown it into one of his cargo pockets. His bladder weighed heavily in his stomach and felt like it would drop out of his skin if he stood up. He knew if he didn't let loose soon he'd probably piss himself on the hood of the pickup during the interdiction, so he grabbed the empty Gatorade bottle from his cargo pocket and tightened the sling of his weapon around his chest. He undid his bottom buttons and edged up off the lip of the bird. Cooke watched him.

“Cooke, I gotta piss.”

Cooke shrugged. “So piss.”

Shaw closed his eyes and tried to relax, hung himself limp inside the bottle. Nothing came out. He opened his eyes. Cooke was still staring at him.

“Cooke, what the hell?”

Cooke laughed and yelled over the wind, “I'm just messing with you. Go on and piss.”

Shaw clenched the bottle and looked at Cooke, then at the other bird flying next to them. Mike and Ohio sat on the bench across the sky. They waved. Shaw looked back. The CSAR birds trailed behind them, small and black, a few klicks to the southeast. They looked like black flies in the sky. Shaw closed his eyes, tried to relax, then tried to blast and push it out. Nothing came, so he swore and threw the bottle. It fell to the earth, tumbling end over end, the orange cap fluttering on the wind and the sun flashing bright in the plastic.

“Shouldn't litter,” Cooke yelled. “We're trying to rebuild this country.”

•   •   •

T
he Little Birds hugged the earth as miles of dry flatland sped under the operators' feet. Clouds of dirt and packed earth thrown into the air by the white pickup stretched across the empty land like smoke.

“Target ahead,” the pilot said over the comms.

The dirt trail from the truck spread over hundreds of meters and their bird banked to the left side of the trail, the other bird hopping onto the right. Shaw couldn't see the truck yet. Then the piss came. He swore and undid his pants, whipped out and let fly. He pissed all over his bottoms and sent a trail along the bench and tail of the bird.

“You're a savage,” Cooke yelled, laughing.

Then the white pickup broke through the clouds of dust and the lead bird throttled forward. The other bird decelerated as Shaw's shot past them. They sped in front of the truck and cut hard ninety degrees to the north, cutting the vehicle off. The truck slammed on the brakes and the operators were on the ground before it was in park. The men were hidden in dust.

Shaw had his sight on the driver. He wore dark sunglasses and had an overgrown face that dwarfed his nose. Fat folds dripped from his chin and his mouth was frozen open. The birds were screaming behind them and it sounded like the world was blowing itself up.

Dalonna and Shaw led, yelling,
“Motar sakha raa wudzai,”
and
“Barah.”

Then a pressure wave hit and the lights went out.

•   •   •

T
he sky was beautiful, blue and vast. Shaw opened his eyes. Black smoke curled and flexed across his face like passing clouds, dark fingertips. He lay on his back, on the ground, dizzy. It felt like his head had caved in. Massey stood over him, his mouth moving, but Shaw didn't hear a thing. A loud drone rang in his head, spreading from ear to ear like a siren before settling in the middle and drowning everything out. Everything echoed or muffled and he blinked slow. Then fast. His limbs tingled and felt impossibly heavy. He could see the tips of his boots and a black mass of clouds. Red-and-orange flames danced in the wind over the ground. He smelled gasoline and fire. Burning metal.

Massey helped him up and Shaw saw Dalonna on a knee a few feet away on the ground. Slausen, Hagan, and Cooke were holding him upright by the shoulders. Dalonna spit out some blood and what looked like a couple teeth. He took his helmet off and let it tip over onto the ground, then he collapsed onto the dirt and stared up at the sky. Clots of blood were matted in his beard, shimmering in the light like beads of sweat. Mike, Ohio, and the rest of their team stood around what was left of the truck, kicking up pieces of burnt metal and rubber, sifting through the wreckage and what was left of its inhabitants.

There wasn't much.

There was a blackened piece of leather sitting just beyond Shaw's feet, skin melted into the stitching. It was the top half of a sandal. Next to it was a hand cut at the palm, missing all its fingers. Hagan saw Shaw and ran over. Hagan's eyes were wide and he pointed at Shaw's crotch, the veins in his forearm popping like little snakes. Shaw was dizzy. The burning tires and metal had stirred up his guts. He looked at the fingerless hand and saw the blackened bone sticking out of the charred flesh. It looked like a burnt piece of charbroiled chicken. He felt faint and nauseated and then he got sick, threw up all over his boots. There were grains of rice stuck between his laces. He couldn't remember having eaten anything in hours. He felt Hagan's hands rummaging around his crotch, the fingers fluttering between his legs and grabbing bare skin. Then Hagan stopped and patted him on the back, and the black took Shaw away.

•   •   •

T
hat night the five of them sat around the TOC, watching the monitors together.

“I thought you'd lost your nuts,” Hagan said.

Shaw had a cold pressure wrap tied around his head and he offloaded some of the chaw from his mouth into a foam cup. Spit streaked his beard. He probably didn't need the nicotine. He was dizzy enough from the painkillers. Hagan looked over at him, his feet propped on another chair. He spoke through a thick horseshoe, drooling into a white foam cup.

“That's why I was molesting you. Why the hell was your fly open, anyway?” Hagan rested his hands on his thighs. He balanced the cup between his belt and his stomach.

Shaw shrugged.

Dalonna lost his front teeth and had his mouth and cheeks cut up some. Shaw didn't remember the blast or the flight back, just Hagan feeling his nuts and seeing body parts lying next to charred metal. Both Shaw and Dalonna were diagnosed with concussions. The two of them were off mission status until their concussions cleared, and the rest of the team was given the option of continuing on as attachments or waiting it out with Shaw and Dalonna. They chose the latter and the five of them watched the monitors together, the birds flying out to an objective like dragonflies on the screen.

Shaw had a metallic smell in his nose and a headache ever since the blast. It reeked of hot metal and sawdust, pennies and blood. His brain felt like it was trying to breathe but couldn't through the thick walls of his skull. The cool wrap wasn't doing much, but without it he'd probably be sweating and miserable. Massey and Cooke stood behind the other three, facing the monitors, arms crossed over their chests like bandoleers. Dalonna sat next to Shaw, his face puffy with gauze. He had holes shaved into his beard for the stitches. The black sutures looked like hairy moles. He smiled at Shaw.

“How are the nuts?”

Shaw looked down at his pants.

“Donna, the nuts are good. No nut problems. Dandy nuts, guys.”

“It was piss,” Hagan said. “You had piss all over you. The dirt and all from the explosion made it look like blood. That's why I was checking down there.”

“You're good, Hog,” Shaw said. “Thanks for looking out for my nuts.”

Hagan nodded and turned to the monitors.

The birds hovered over the target building long enough for fast ropes to drop and then two teams rode the ropes to the roof, entering the dwelling from a protruding doorway while another entered from the ground. The kill TVs weren't tapped into any sound, so the team watched the screens like a silent black-and-white movie. White flashed on the screen from the doorways as the teams threw in bangers, and then all the screens showed for a while were the teams pulling security around the compound. They scanned the surrounding buildings with their lasers, waved a few neighbors back inside their homes, and then a few more operators entered the building. Minutes later the teams exited the objective, leading four men with hands bound behind their backs. Then all of them walked a ways to a clearing and the birds swooped down and carried them away.

“Good shit,” Cooke said. “Hey, Hog. What were his nuts like?”

They all laughed, and Hagan's faced turned red. “I explained myself, Cooke. I was worried about his nuts.”

Cooke didn't say anything else, and Dalonna winced and brought his fingers to his mouth. The stitches were raw and part of his lip had split like he'd gotten caught on a fishhook. Smiling made him bleed.

Massey got up.

“Glad you two are good,” he said. “Donna, have you told the lady yet?”

Dalonna shook his head.

“I don't think I will.” He ran his hands across his face and touched the stitches. “She wouldn't be able to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Hagan said. “Probably better if you didn't.”

•   •   •

T
he docs told them to stay out of the gym for a few days while their concussions cleared, so Dalonna and Shaw loaded their rucks and walked around the base for hours. They walked at night and during the day. They walked under the stars on the cool desert dirt and against the sun and dust storms and the heat. It was a good distraction. Dalonna got a fake set of teeth made up and never told Mirna about the blast. He'd just come home with a few more scars. She might not even notice. During one of the days they were off, Mike and Ohio came in to check on Dalonna and Shaw and told them about the courier and the professor.