The Severance (22 page)

“Fuck you.”

And with that, the young lieutenant cocked the hammer of his pistol and jerked the trigger. The top third of Ali’s head exploded and the room filled with the smell of burnt flesh and cordite. Dust and brain matter flew into Jake’s eyes and he fell back on his buttocks blinded and paralyzed.

Rawls and Zeke stood, mouths agape, unable to formulate words.

“Hell, yeah.” PFC Scott said.

Now, Jake knew he had to control his rage and summon his strength, mentally and physically.

“Walters, you have two choices. You either take what McBride cut you in for and walk away, or you can stay greedy and get nothing.” Jake took his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms across his chest, widening his stance. Walters grabbed the pistol grip on his rifle.

“Why would I share all that money with anyone? I did all the real work.”

“Real work?”

“Do you really think you could take 4.6 million taxpayer dollars without raising a few red flags? The second that Afghan contractor decided to make a break for it with the money, U.S. intelligence spun up to track him down. Signal Intel, Human Intel, Remote Surveillance, you name it. The spooks knew exactly where he was when you dumb fucks killed him, and it didn’t take long for them to find the car in that ravine, and even less time to put together the pieces.”

Walters continued to expound on how ignorant Jake was for thinking he could just take the money and run.

“And they had a decorated C.I.D. agent already inserted. For the spooks, it was a dream come true. I told them all that local Taliban fighters intercepted the contractor and the money and that you idiots never even saw the car that night. That money was radioactive. Without me, it would have been reclaimed in a week. You retards were about to get yourselves thrown in prison until I got involved!”

Jake felt his hurt at McBride’s betrayal turn into a terrible guilt. Walters might be an undercover agent, but he was still Olsen, the fat, pompous idiot who talked too much. That essence, not an act or a con, had been his greatest ally. Jake, McBride, and everyone else had been so repulsed by Olsen/Walters that no one had bothered to learn enough about him. No one ever asked him about his paper-thin cover story or even troubled to have a decent conversation with him. From day one, he had exuded a personality that caused the platoon to dismiss him as a generic asshole. The Severance had been compromised from the moment they had laid eyes on it.

Jake’s anger grew exponentially—suckered by an idiot? He could feel the blood pulse in his ears. He needed to keep calm, just a little longer.

Walters gripped his carbine with both hands, and leveled it at Jake’s chest, bellowing, “You don’t have control of this situation, I do! I have a rifle and you don’t! Where is the container?”

Jake didn’t move. “Whatcha going to do with that?” he asked.

“I’m going to shoot you in the fucking face if you don’t tell me where the container is!”

“I don’t think you have what it takes to shoot me, but I told you that I’m not sure where the thing is. I never bothered to pinpoint it specifically,” Jake said.

Walters took two steps forward and pointed the rifle at Jake’s face. “You got lucky last night. I could blow your head off right now and have your death ruled a suicide 20 minutes after you hit the meat locker,” Walters said. Jake noticed he was starting to perspire. This gave Jake confidence.

He stepped forward toward Walters until he was only an inch from the rifle’s muzzle. “You have to shoot me first,” he said.

Walters walked around Jake, waving his rifle, examining the platoon leader from every angle. “You’re playing with fire, boy! I will kill you, just like I killed Harris. Don’t doubt me on that. I’m ser—”

“What did you say?” Jake asked, his voice cracking.

“Yeah, I killed Harris! There, I said it! Where is the fucking container?” Walters bellowed.

“Y-you killed Petey? He died at Narizah—” Jake said. He’d watched Harris die, and suddenly remorse and pain hit him again.

“Yeah, that night the little faggot grabbed my pack by mistake and looked through it. He found my damn badge and ID. He had to go,” Walters said.

“I’ll burn in hell before you touch one goddamn dollar, I promise that. You’re a chickenshit son of a bitch,” Jake said, fighting back tears.

Walters narrowed his eyes and snarled. Gripping the rifle tightly, he flipped the rifle’s selector switch from safe to semiautomatic and squeezed the trigger in one fluid motion. There was a loud mechanical click inside the receiver and the rifle failed to fire. Walters took a step back, looking at the weapon. Rapidly pulling the rifle’s charging handle and chambering a new round, Walters attempted to fire again. As before, there was only a click.

“Maybe I should have been more specific. You don’t have what it takes to shoot me, because you don’t have a firing pin,” Jake said.

Walters took a step back.

“I pulled everyone’s firing pin. Even mine,” Jake said, cracking his knuckles. “Now I’m going to beat you to death, put you in the container with the money, and deal with it when I get back.” He’d come to Walters ready to cut a deal, but now there was no way.

Walters reached into his pocket and in a flash of motion, pulled out a spring-loaded folding knife and slashed at Jake’s midsection. Jake leapt backward, narrowly avoiding Walters’s blade. He hadn’t figured on facing a knife. Walters made another powerful slashing motion with the knife that Jake was unable to avoid. He used his left forearm to keep the blade from slashing his abdomen, but it tore into his upper forearm and cut deep. Jake howled in pain and clutched the wound, blood now seeping through his fingers. Why the fuck had he not brought his rifle? He backpedaled frantically, looking around for anything that could be used as a weapon.

“Now I’m going to cut your fucking head off, you scheming little murderer,” Walters said.

As they say in books, Jake’s misspent life flashed before his eyes. At some point, he’d been a good person, but he had now come to being stabbed to death in a container yard 6,000 miles from home by a fellow U.S. Army officer. Joining the Army had never seemed like a worse decision.

“Enough!” a voice bellowed from behind Jake. There was McBride, rifle slung on his back. From around the corner, Big Joe, Bena, and Doc Ramirez appeared, each carrying his rifle. Walters took a step back. “I told you to stay in the tent until I got back.” Jake scowled at the men, and they stared back at Jake’s bloodsoaked sleeve.

Ramirez gently took Jake’s hand away from the wound and examined it.

“You’re going to need stitches, Sir,” Ramirez said softly, as he replaced Jake’s hand on the wound to apply pressure.

“Anyone lays a finger on me goes to federal prison!” Walters blurted out.

“I’m sure your superiors are going to love hearing about how you killed Peter Harris and stabbed a commissioned officer. You’re working without a net,” McBride said, inching forward. Walters slashed at McBride, missing him.

Big Joe brought his rifle up, holding it like a club, ready to swing.

“Don’t do that again,” Big Joe said.

“You big stupid motherfucker. You’re going to throw your whole life away by killing me? They will give you a lethal injection!” Walters bellowed. McBride held up a hand, indicating to Joe to lower his rifle.

“You know what,” Bena said, as he stepped to Mc Bride’s side, “I’m going to take that knife from you and put a couple of holes in your lungs. Then you can know what it’s like to drown in your own blood, just like Petey did.”

The men slowly began to encircle Walters, like lions stalking prey. He needed a convincing argument to keep the lions’ jaws from his neck.

“Come on, guys. We need to focus on what’s important—there is a ton of money in this yard. Hurting me won’t help you. People will look for me if I disappear. We can all win in this.”

The men continued to advance on Walters, his words falling on deaf ears. At that moment, none of them cared about The Severance. They were only bent on revenge.

Bena, Ramirez, and Eastman clenched their fists almost simultaneously. Instinctively and without uttering a word, they knew exactly how to subdue Walters. They’d spent their entire lives brawling in bars and back alleys. This was no different.

“Stop right there!” It was Jake. He stood up straight, wincing as he applied more pressure to his forearm. Every man here had killed someone or demonstrated that he could. They were violent, antisocial men—just the right kind for the task at hand. All Jake had to do was choose. He could spare Walters or kill him. He could show mercy or seek vengeance.

He had been faced with a similar decision before. The choice he’d made had almost ruined his life. If he could go back in time, he would not have shot the Iraqi. It had been an impulsive and stupid act. He had been irrational, crazed.

Without warning, Walters broke away from the group in a sprint. Overweight though he was, he managed to lumber around a corner, McBride, Bena, Joe, and Ramirez right behind him. They disappeared from Jake’s sight as, panting and dripping blood, he struggled to catch up.

When he finally limped around the corner himself, he found everyone standing around Walters, flat on his back. The container row had ended abruptly, leaving no exit. Ramirez was kneeling next to the man.

“What happened?” Jake asked.

“Don’t know, Sir. He was trying to climb up the door of one of the containers and he just fell down,” McBride said, shaking his head.

Walters’s skin was eerily pale and he didn’t appear to be breathing.

“He’s had a stroke,” Ramirez said.

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” McBride said, crossing his arms and looking down at the dying man at his feet. Jake suddenly had a flash of inspiration. Here was the answer to their problems.

“No, absolutely not,” Jake said, wincing in pain. The rest looked at Jake like he was an escaped mental patient.

“What are you getting at, Sir?” McBride asked.

“Take him to the hospital,” Jake said.

“The hospital? Come on, why are we going to save him?”

“Just do as I say. Take him to the hospital,”

“But—”

“Get him some help! Do it!”

Bena, Ramirez, and Big Joe looked at each other. Their platoon leader had just told them to chase down Walters and now he was asking them to save him. McBride locked eyes with his officer.

“Okay, we’ll get help,” McBride said finally.

“No, get him out of this yard. Then get help.”

Big Joe and Bena strained as they lifted the heavy, inert C.I.D. agent and began moving toward the yard’s entrance. Ramirez checked Walters’s vital signs as they walked.

“What about you, Sir?” McBride asked.

“I’m going back to the tent,” Jake said, wobbling a bit.

“Can you patch me up?” Jake asked Ramirez.

“It’s going to take more than a cold compress and a couple of pills to fix that wound. I don’t have the right stuff, Sir.”

“That’s not what I asked. Can you do it?” Jake asked.

“Theoretically? Yes I could do it. But I’d need a suture kit at a minimum.”

“Get one and bring it to the tent. I’ll be waiting,” Jake said.

“You going to be able to make it to the tent?” McBride asked. They had stopped walking with Walters, who was now wheezing and coughing weakly.

“I can make it back, no problem. Just get Walters to a doctor, and don’t tell them what happened. Just say you found him like this,” Jake said.

McBride tapped Big Joe on the shoulder.

“Make sure the captain gets back, and stay off of Disney Road,” McBride said to Big Joe as he hefted Walters’s considerable weight.

Ramirez, Bena, and McBride got Walters to the entrance of the container yard, where they began to shout for help. As a crowd of onlookers assembled, Jake and Big Joe quietly slipped away in the confusion.

Big Joe and Jake were able to avoid populated Disney Road by using side streets and cutting through various motor pools and barracks complexes. Jake did what he could to keep from leaving a trail of blood, but without much success. In the distance, he could hear the faint sounds of ambulance sirens. Walters was being taken to the hospital. In the meantime, Jake found that he couldn’t walk very well himself.