Shockwave (2 page)

I’d never heard of “post-traumatic stress disorder,” but I’d
seen
it. Seen men paralyzed by something that went way deeper than any fear could. Seen men never stop shaking inside. Seen men grab their rifles and start shooting at empty darkness, certain “they” were out there.

And I didn’t find out what
secondary
PTSD was until much, much later. Had I known, I would have understood why the relentless inevitability of the broken, bleeding, suffering, and dying had made Dolly flee for the same reason I had, so long ago: to save herself. Not her life, her
self
. I couldn’t think of another way to put it.

The French—not the men I served with, but the privileged elite who spent their lives in cafés, smoking their cigarettes, sipping their espressos, analyzing a world they would never enter—never stopped talking. None of them ever listened; their empty-room lectures always ended the same way. They would shrug off the pain of others, devoutly proclaiming their anthem,
“Chacun fait ce qu’il peut.”

“One does what one can.” For such people, “can” was always limited to talk. Endlessly, they would discuss, argue, debate. Circles within circles. That was their self-assigned role. That men such as me had our roles assigned by others, even forced upon us, that was not their concern.

And certainly not their
fault
. So there was nothing to stop them from judging us. And they have not stopped to this day.

M
aybe it was different for those who wore their own country’s uniforms into battle.

The frontline medics who patched up the wounded and
sent them back into combat, maybe they believed that a war was made noble by its necessity. To protect democracy from dictatorship, that was worth whatever it might cost.

Still, it was sometimes all down to them. That ultimate decision: would the soldier they had just repaired go back to the fighting, or would he be sent home?

And who better to make such judgments? They were unarmed warriors, always under fire. Whether a man truly deserved the medals others pinned to his chest—that was a political game. The true test was black-and-white clear: had he placed himself in harm’s way? From the dawn of combat between men, there were always those who could avoid this. But no medics did—the only time
they
went home would be in body bags.

Dolly’s people didn’t have even
that
luxury. Their cloak of neutrality had no room for pinned-on medals. They were always in harm’s way, but when they returned, not even gratitude awaited them.

Soldiers obey orders. Soldiers can be conscripted, but Médecins Sans Frontières personnel were all volunteers. And they had to know that some of those they saved would soon be creating new patients for them, or even be returning to take
their
lives.

The truth of their mission mattered not at all to those whose only mission was to kill … sometimes in combat, sometimes at their leisure. Why else would the Médecins Sans Frontières nurses have “rape bombs” strapped to their belts?

What Dolly wanted more than anything was to live the rest of her life in peace. Not some “paradise,” just a place where the climate wasn’t a permanent rainy season, an unending downpour of violence and death. She’d even found a place where she believed she could do that.

From the moment I was entrusted with that secret, my
mission—the only one I had ever truly volunteered for—was to give Dolly that life she wanted. I never lied to myself, never pretended unselfishness. Every step I took toward finding that place of peace Dolly wanted came with my prayer for a chance to share that life with her.

A
gainst insane odds, I got that done.

And once my prayer was answered, I thought I was done, too. Not dead, but finished forever with doing the only work I knew how to do.

For a long while, it seemed as if the dream would hold. Dolly had a place in that little community, and I had … Well, I had Dolly. All I wanted.

But then I was forced to start a fire that drove the rats from their hiding places. That was no accident, and I didn’t act alone. Dolly had been the one who handed me the matches.

T
o live in peace, we’d both had to leave our lives behind.

Not just the work, all the ID, too. We had to be different people.

Dolly had to give up being an R.N. She still had all the skills, and she was always finding ways to use them—healing isn’t always about the wounds you can see or stitch.

I still had my skills, too. But no real use for them. Not anymore. Yes, even after we came here, I had done some things I would never tell Dolly about. But once I was satisfied that our perimeter was secure, I was done working.

Dolly never stopped nursing. Teenage girls flocked to her as if she were the only flower they could feed from.

Dolly cared for them all. She didn’t make judgments, but she always had rules. You do what’s right, or you do it somewhere else.

B
ut even though Dolly was able to go back to her own mission—the one she created for herself—I couldn’t tell if she was feeling what I was.

I didn’t think so. A soldier and a battlefield healer would share the awareness of some things, but not all—same jungle, but very different reasons to be there. Ever since we put those heads up on stakes surrounding our village, my soldier’s sense could feel a dirt-gray haze hovering overhead.

Part of the climate now. Not the climate people in this part of the country are always bragging about. Maybe they don’t look close enough to see it—or they deliberately look away. For most of them, even if they did see it, they wouldn’t know what they were looking at.

Rats always return. Survival is their sole genetic heritage—they breed constantly, and they’ll kill each other as quick as they’ll kill anything else. Food is food. Put up all the barriers you want, spray all the poisons you like, some of them will still get through.

Rats only tackle what they can handle alone—they don’t work in packs. They only tolerate the presence of others of their kind up to the point where the food supply is threatened. Then they use death to achieve maximum volumetric efficiency. Put a thousand rats inside a cage that any two of them could tear open if they worked together, come back a few weeks later, and the cage will be intact. With only one rat left.

The only difference between rats and human vermin is that rats don’t have food preferences. But once human vermin taste
something that fires every synapse inside them, that’s
all
they want. Such humans are always hungry, and they stick to their chosen diet as closely as they can.

No rat ever dies from obesity. Except lab rats, force-fed by humans experimenting on them.

W
hen you work a jungle for the first time, you find yourself under a canopy of leaves and vines so thick it blocks out the sun.

Until you learn better, that canopy creates an illusion of safety. You can hear the planes overhead—supply ships carrying food, death dealers packing missiles. But you don’t worry about sounds: you can’t see them, so how could they see you?

If you live long enough, you learn that the only thing that jungle canopy protects is its own undergrowth. It won’t stop a bomb, or turn a missile off-target. That kind of delivered death has its own vision.

And the shade-shielded undergrowth is perfect for constructing camouflaged deadfalls, with poison-tipped punji sticks awaiting anyone who takes a wrong step.

If you walk a wrong path, every step is a wrong one.

Those deadfalls were the handcrafted weapons of the primitives. The more sophisticated enemies used land mines. “Sophisticated” doesn’t mean non-native; it means subsidized.

No paid invader is half as dangerous as those born in the jungle. The professional isn’t defending his home, he’s just … killing. And soon enough, those he’s been paid to hunt become the ones hunting him.

Sometimes, there’s more than one paymaster pulling the strings. If the strings they use to pull the pins are long enough, they can detonate their grenades at a safe distance.

In the jungle, there’s no such thing as property rights. No deeds, no titles, no mortgages. Those who hire invaders
don’t want the land—they want what’s under it. “Extractable resources” is their term. In the jungle there’s only one law of property—if you can’t defend it, you don’t own it.

And if it’s valuable enough—diamonds that can be mined, oil that can be sucked out—some land is worth much more than any human life. Those inert riches tempt the wealthy more than life itself … as long as the lives are not their own. Not just diamonds and oil; some of the land covers gold, even radioactive yellowcake. All prized because the supply is finite—diamonds can’t breed more diamonds. But there’s never a shortage of humans who have to be moved off the land that covers those riches—so there will always be work for a man like the one I’d once been.

The equation has only one common denominator: human life. That’s what it costs to take what the “investors” want, and that’s what it costs to keep their pipelines open.

Everybody walking that jungle is part of the same death chain. Labels don’t matter. The government soldiers hunt “rebels.” That turns the hunted into “guerrillas” who hunt the government soldiers. If the guerrillas prevail, they become the rulers.

This will never change. Just recently, not far from where Dolly had first come into my life—that place had a lot of names, but to us, it was just “the Congo”—native soldiers who took the city of Goma were “deserters” who had formed themselves into what they called M23. They said the rulers had deserted
them
, paying them next to nothing, keeping none of their promises. The world, as always, withheld judgment. Waiting on “reliable data” before making a commitment, they would say.

But profiteers know they can’t afford to wait—they know others of their kind are in a permanent state of readiness. When there’s enough of a prize at stake, you can’t wait your turn—if another force gets in first, you won’t
get
a turn.

They can always find “rebels” to subsidize. Profiteers can
range from individuals to a collective of private investors … even to entire countries. If those other countries are open enough about it, any non-native who signs on to defend the existing regime becomes one of those universally hated “mercenaries.” Those non-natives sent to aid the rebels are “private contractors.”

Such labels are as twisted as the centuries-old vines that are powerful enough to hold even a dead tree upright. Subsidized “rebels” can hire their own soldiers. Countries with an interest in the outcome can send “advisors.”

What is written on labels depends on who does the writing.

In all such wars, the winners become the government. And “winner” soon becomes a synonym for “legitimate.”

In openly declared warfare between countries, ships and planes carry markings. But most wars are never declared. On
that
ground, there are no uniforms—no insignia is worn on camouflage. There are no battle lines. There is no “front.” No rules of engagement. No Geneva Convention.

No POWs.

There’s only one rule both sides agree to, and actually obey. Never, under any circumstances, can there be truth. Some journalists are sent in already armed with the “reports” they are expected to send back. Sometimes, it’s the reporters themselves who are sent back. In plastic-lined canvas coffins. When the coffins stack up too high, the journalists are called home. The ones that can be located, anyway—a fax message can’t be sent to a tree; a shattered sat-phone can’t take a call.

When you watch from a distance, like on your television screen, you see only what is shown to you. Mercenaries only “change sides” in movies. Who would trust a hired gun, anyway? When you soldier for money, it is understood that your loyalty is
to
that money.

The people who lived on land before value was discovered under it never try to fight off the invaders. They can always
find more land. Invaders come in all colors, but there’s one sure way you can tell who the true natives are—they’re the ones running for their lives.

In such places, there are endless ways to die.
How
doesn’t matter.
Why
doesn’t matter. The jungle undergrowth doesn’t care who feeds it—all blood is red, and the earth it enriches is always black.

This is what you learn: Only the jungle itself is permanent. Self-renewing. Not like you—what
you
are is replaceable.

La Légion taught us that we could always count on our comrades. Weren’t we the finest fighting force in history? The best-trained, most sharply honed soldiers on the planet? And were we not bound by an
esprit de corps
that made us all one?

Only the officers asked that last rhetorical question. All the soldiers knew the true answer. And none would ever speak it aloud.

I
left as soon as I could.

The five years I served granted me French citizenship, under the name I had picked. For most of us, that was the reason we enlisted—that new name; that chance to create our own pasts.

The name I picked wasn’t really a new one—I had never known my true name, only what I was called. Maybe there was a birth certificate somewhere, perhaps inside the “clinic” I had run away from when I was still a child. But, somehow, I thought not.

I was taught to survive by an old man who had survived the invaders, and the Gestapo they left behind. I don’t mean he was a collaborator—he had been a valued member of the Resistance. But when the Nazis were driven out, his usefulness was over.

And when he knew his own time was up, he sent me to the one place he knew would ask no questions.

P
rior service as a
légionnaire
was enough of a credential for any merc outfit.

And once I went freelance, even that transparent
esprit-de-corps
curtain was lifted. We might be called “teams,” or “units,” but each of us knew every man was there for his own reasons. Some more complicated than others, but each one personal. Reasons rarely shared, and, when they were, never believed.