Recall (3 page)

 

M
ajor Jim Mayard leaned away from the passenger-side window. Tires on the narrow Afghan dirt road blew fine dust over the entire convoy trailing behind them. Calling it a road was an exaggeration. By most standards it was a dilapidated mountain trail. His sight followed it as they rounded a corner. He needed to stay sharp, though his last sleep had been two days ago, and stimulants were a last resort. He checked his watch. Only been riding an hour. Still six, maybe seven hours till Bagram Air Base. He spread open a jagged tear in the knee of his trousers, inspecting a dirt-encrusted scab the size of a quarter.

Sergeant Crawler yanked the Humvee's steering wheel, narrowly missing an orange rock outcrop. Three-day stubble dotted the driver's tanned leather cheeks, splotchy from sunburn. His frame looked like that of a linebacker, retired a few years ago. Jim rubbed his own beard, itchy in the heat. It had been two weeks since his last shave.

The gunner squatted below the turret. “I swear I'll haunt you if you kill me on this mountain.” Sweat dripped off his chin, wetting his kneepads. Goggles were fogging up. Jim leaned back toward the window, trying to find relief from the locker-room stench.

“How long I been driving ya?” Crawler asked with a Brooklyn accent. The gunner said nothing. “This is your second deploy here. Been with me for the both. All that time, I ever run you into anything?”

“Do fence posts and guard shacks count?”

Crawler huffed. “The post only took off the mirror and the guard shack was shooting at us.” He wiggled upright in the ripped tan seat and rubbed his sweat-stained lower back.

“Whatever. Keep your damn eyes on the road. You wreck anything else and they won't let your crazy ass drive. Not even out here.”

The two had been jabbing at each other like a couple of sisters ever since Jim had sat down. Had they been doing this all the way out? He could put an end to their bickering, but they wouldn't care. What was he going to do? The pair were already in Afghanistan, driving convoys. Even Hell looked like a promotion. Jim and his team were cargo and at the end of the day they'd be delivered.

Crawler turned, facing the gunner. He draped one hand over the wheel and removed an unlit cigar with the other. He steered without looking at the trail, as if he knew it all too well. His eyes were focused on the reflection in the gunner's goggles. Jim thought he'd let him have his fun.

“What you think of them Yankees?” Crawler asked.

“I don't give a shit. Look at the road,” the gunner said.

“You see the game they had against the Orioles?” He turned the wheel and circumvented a VW-sized boulder outside Jim's window.

“The road, Crawler. The road.”

“Nine to one. Almost a shutout.”

“I don't care what the hell they did. Watch the damn road!”

Crawler smirked, then turned forward again, winking at Jim as he jammed the cigar back between his teeth.

Around the next turn the trail narrowed, running laterally across a steep ridge. On Jim's side rose a sharp hill and to the other was a steep drop-off, several hundred feet to a dry ravine.

Jim pushed the cover back from his watch, then grabbed the radio and held the mic close. He pressed the button and a shock wave swept over the Humvee with a deafening boom. He turned to see the front end of the M35 transport behind them on fire. He looked at the mic button. Had he triggered the explosion?

The M35 crunched into the hill and came to a stop. Fire billowed from the engine compartment and the driver was slouched back in his seat. Automatic fire crackled from the hill above, stitching holes in the hood near the wheel. The gunner stood upright into the turret and the fifty cal boomed.

Jim shouted into the radio, “Transport down! Suppressing fire!” Men leapt from the burning vehicle. Several scrambled behind a Cougar mine-resistant truck while another pulled the driver from the burning wreck.

The Humvee peeled away, tires spinning, pressing Jim back into his seat. “What the hell you doing?” The truck continued to accelerate. He aimed his M4 at Crawler's head.

“I ain't going nowhere,” Crawler said. “Point that at the guys shootin'.”

Ahead the trail widened. Crawler turned hard and slammed the brakes, locking all four wheels. They slid sideways, almost all the way around, then accelerated hard back toward the burning M35. Jim stuck his head out the window, then leaned away as if it were on fire. The wheels were riding on the edge of the drop-off.

The gunner ducked from the turret. “Son of a bitch! You can't make it past that truck! I can cover from here!” Crawler said nothing, keeping the accelerator down. They plowed down the side of the burning transport, tearing off the open door where the driver had been pulled out. Jim felt the tires beneath him slip down toward the ravine, but they held.

Red Harmon was in the middle of the trail, M4 aimed high and returning fire over the unconscious driver. Crawler headed directly for them at speed, then turned hard and slammed the brakes. This time, the skid was graceful. Red dropped to his belly and the Humvee came to a stop, straddling the pair. The fifty cal echoed from the turret as Jim helped lift the injured driver into the back.

“Get the rest into the other trucks,” he shouted at Red. Jim ran back to the cab and aimed his weapon up the hill through the open window. No enemy in sight. Only dust clouds along a ridge where the gunner was concentrating the fifty cal. Tracers from the combat mix ammunition snapped like lasers every fifth round.

The burning troop transport blocked their escape. Crawler sped up, slamming into the back of it and pushing forward. Gravel clinked against the floorboards as all four wheels on the Humvee spun. The transport wandered toward the cliff, the road curving away. After a few seconds, it rolled down the side and the convoy sped past. The sulfur stench of burning gear oil filled Jim's nose. He pressed one nostril closed and blew onto the floor. A quarter mile later the landscape leveled somewhat.

Loud groaning and white smoke came from the Humvee's engine compartment, but it kept running. The sweet aroma of burning antifreeze filled the cabin. Crawler leaned over and shouted above the engine noise. “Round the next curve's a bitch! A red zone, maybe half mile long. ‘The Gauntlet' we calls it. Tell your guys to get low till we're through.”

“Ever have trouble there?”

“No shots. But they ain't friendlies.”

Crawler slowed around the sharp curve. Several small white rocks the size of a man's fist were in the middle of the road, as if newly fallen.

“See those?”

“Nothing. We checked 'em on the way out,” Crawler said, speeding over.

An orange stone-walled town stood ahead, the road running straight through the middle. Situated on a ridge, it offered no way around. A burning car blocked the entrance. Jim put the radio down and shouted, “We can't go back. Our tail's got a vehicle in pursuit.”

Crawler leaned back his head. “Keep your eyes on the rooftops!” he shouted to the gunner. He slowed and slammed into the burning car, crunching it into the wall, clearing the road. Heads emerged atop a two-story home, peeking over the mud-brown parapet, like jack-o-lanterns on a wall. A man stood and an AK-47 clattered. The gunner spun and the fifty cal roared, blowing chunks off the low wall, puffing dust clouds that floated slowly away like they had on the ridge.

The engine revved higher as the truck accelerated. Jim smacked into the doorpost when Crawler yanked the wheel avoiding potholes. The turn made the gunner stitch the entire side of the home, shattering a second-story window. The AK stopped, but a block later a short bespectacled man stepped into the road in front of them. He raised a pistol and opened fire. Crawler swerved toward him, catching him square in the chest and bouncing his head off the quarter panel, spraying blood on Jim through bullet holes in the windshield.

The mad driver almost looked like he was smiling as he leaned over and shouted above the still-ringing fifty cal, “They's high on all kindsa shit. Don't even move!”

A few hundred feet ahead, atop a yellow adobe building, a brown turban peeked over a knee-high wall. The last tall structure before they were through.

“RPG!” Jim shouted, pointing to the rooftop. The gunner spun and fired. The turban sank back down.

Crawler slammed the brakes and stopped ahead of the building. Jim leaned out his window. Barely enough room for the convoy to pass.

The driver opened his door. “Keep that guy's head down!” he shouted, then drew his pistol and ran inside.

“What the hell,” Jim said, dropping the radio and jumping out. Dumbass just ran through the door. Didn't even clear it.

As Jim followed, gunfire broke from inside, the racket of a single AK mixed with a sidearm.

Shit. Now I'm gonna be driving us home
.

Jim stooped and ducked through the door, M4 raised. The room was dark and broiling, a concrete floor and dirty yellow walls. He blinked, adjusting to the dimness. The smell of mold was heavy. He knelt past the entrance, keeping aware of anything that may move in his peripheral vision. Ahead was an open room with rotting wooden crates stacked around, half of them caving in. Crawler's silhouette was a few paces forward, squatting beside a corner wall, sidearm pointed toward a body lying facedown on the concrete.

“Got one,” he whispered, then dropped an empty magazine to the floor. The clatter echoed off the concrete.

Before he grabbed a second magazine, a skinny, thin-bearded man in brown kameez ran from behind a crate a few feet away, charging Crawler with a knife. Jim leaned to get a clear shot around him, but Crawler stepped into the line of fire, readying himself for the attack. He dropped the sidearm and snatched his KA-BAR, pushing it through the attacker's belly on the upstroke till it stuck out his back. The blow lifted the skinny man from his feet. Crawler threw him backwards on the cement, pulling the knife out and returning it to a scabbard without wiping the blade, then stooped and wrapped the sidearm in a hairy fist. “That's the other.”

Jim inhaled the heavy scent of entrails, like an eviscerated deer after a successful hunt. “Stupid shit! I could've gotten him! Next time get the hell out of my way!”

Crawler turned and ran up gray-plank stairs that bent under his weight.

Runs like a damn elephant. Gonna kill the both of us
.

Jim followed, weapon and eyes focused behind them. Crawler was almost at the roof access when a shower of wood splinters exploded. Bullets riddled the door from the outside, stitching the rafters. Crawler pulled a grenade from his belt and tossed it across the jamb, the door flapping on its hinges, smacking the munition, almost sending it back down the stairs. Footsteps pounded above, running in opposite directions, one cracking the thin wooden roof. A second later the grenade blew a crater where the crack had been, spraying splinters and dust against Jim's goggles. Crawler barreled up through the door and turned toward the RPG, halfway blocking the opening, back to the other soldier.

Son of a bitch was gonna get shot. Jim pushed his shoulders between the doorpost and Crawler, slicing a neat line in his arm on a sharp nail. Crawler fired twice.

Across the crater, Jim saw a soldier with a green bandolier lying facedown. The enemy rolled over, pulling a pistol from under his leg, bleeding in gushes. Jim squeezed a double tap, stapling his head to the roof. He checked the rest of the area. Crawler started toward the door. Jim stepped in front and went down first, angling his rifle into the darkness. Sweat dripped into the gash on his shoulder, burning. The last truck in the convoy was passing as they closed the doors of the Humvee. Crawler pulled out and took up the tail.

The radio was alive with chatter and a headcount confirmed no one missing. Only serious injury was the driver of the M35, now stretched in the back of the Humvee, a doc wrapping gauze around a charred face. Then silence. Precious silence.

Jim glanced at Crawler. His shoulders were hunched. Splinters stuck to one forearm like the whiskers on his cheeks. “Didn't have a clue what you were doing, did you?”

The driver squinted. “Nope!” He winced as he pulled out a bloody sliver. “But I wasn't gonna let that sonofabitch hit my train.”

Jim grabbed at the slice in the shoulder of his fatigues and gave a yank, tearing the rip-stop fabric with a
snap-snap-snap
. The gash in his shoulder ached as he pinched the flesh together. “For a dumb shit, not bad. You got lucky. Do that again and you'll be going home in a C-17, zipped in a body bag.”

“That's what the Army's hopin'.”

“What?”

The driver rubbed his forehead, squeezing dirty sweat droplets down his cheeks. “Long story.”

“Know how to drive anything other than a Humvee?”

Crawler smiled for the first time. “Only if it's got wheels . . . or tracks.”

Jim glanced back at the medic, who'd jumped from his own transport into the Humvee as the convoy had passed. He was sticking a fentanyl lollipop between bandage strips into the injured driver's mouth. “Sergeant Crawler, thought you'd kill us squeezing past that burning truck. Interested in getting stateside?”

Crawler frowned. “Love to, but I gotta finish my tour. Volunteered. Third one. Some tickets need to drop off my record stateside. Trucks out here is the only thing the Army is letting me do.”

“Drive like that for me, and I'll have you licensed tomorrow. Don't care what your record says.”

Crawler's forehead wrinkled. “You fuh real?”