The Watch (10 page)

Suddenly he walks right up to Whalen and looks into his face, close up. Whalen stares back with an empty glance, as at an inanimate object. From the expression on his face, I can tell that Ramirez is about to say something cocky, when Whalen lifts him physically off his feet and slams him against the Hesco wall. In a quiet, conversational tone, he tells the restive Mexican: The next time you feel the
need to scratch that itch to blab, your Mona Lisa face is going to be pulp, d’you get me?

Okay, First Sarn’t, okay. No sweat.

Do you
get
me?

Roger, First Sarn’t Whalen!

Whalen lets go and Ramirez collapses at his feet.

Whalen turns to me. You still here, Doc? Something the matter?

As a matter of fact, yes. Could we move the dead Af out of the medic’s tent to someplace where we don’t have to smell him? He’s stinking up the tent and it’s making it impossible for us to stay inside.

Whalen gazes at me for a moment. He shrugs his shoulders.

Hmm, I don’t know. Lemme think about it. Maybe I’ll sound out Lieutenant Ellison.

D’you want me to ask the C.O. directly?

Nope, no need to bother him. I’ll take care of it. Okay?

Okay, I answer, and walk away as he puts on what I think of as his blind expression. Ramirez is still on the ground, rubbing his neck. Whalen glances at him indifferently and resumes pacing.

Back in the medical tent, I nod at Svitek and tell him to take a break.

Why don’t you park your chair outside, I suggest. That way you don’t have to smell him at close range.

He agrees gratefully and lugs a chair out.

I wear a face mask and unzip the black body bag.

I stare at the dead man without emotion. He is young, fair, and sparsely bearded, and his staring kohl-lined eyes are a startling shade of gray that reminds me of the light outside—they seem to look at everything and nothing at once. His nose is small and sharp, his forehead wide, his jaw pronounced, but the skin of his face is beginning to lose its tautness and become spongy and discolored. The fatal wound was a clean shot through the heart. I unbutton his shirt and examine it for a good minute or two. Before I zip up the body bag again, I try
to picture him as he must have been in life, but here my imagination fails me.

I leave the tent feeling like I’ve come up for air from a hundred feet underground. Preoccupied, but not sure why, I walk around the base aimlessly. I try not to think of Frobenius and the others, even as I realize that that’s a lost cause. And I’m not the only one. Everyone’s looking subdued, and when a couple of men ask me to take a look at minor injuries, I oblige instantly, relieved to get my mind off our casualties.

A while later, I find myself passing the C.O.’s hut. His light is on, and he emerges into the open just as I slow down for an instant. His face is bloodless. I wonder if he’s had any sleep since the firefight or if, like Whalen, he’s gone without. He glances at me interrogatively and raises his eyebrows. Yes? he says sharply. What is it?

On the spur of the moment, I seize my chance and ask: Have we had any word on when they’re planning to resume the bird service, Sir? Our dead insurgent is beginning to smell up the medic tent, and we were hoping we could move him somewhere else, like over by the motor pool.

Have you spoken to First Sergeant Whalen about it?

I hesitate. Yes, Sir, I have.

And what did he say?

That he’d think about it and let me know.

His reply is acerbic: Then you’ll know when he tells you.

He pauses, and then, as if to make up for his asperity, beckons me into his hut. I hear you’ve been reading up on the Taliban, he remarks.

Oh, just a few things, Sir, like local customs and such.

I follow him in as he walks behind his desk and turns his laptop in my direction, angling the screen so that I can see it. He nods at me, giving me permission to relax. Take a look at this, he says. Tell me what you think.

The screen displays a photograph shot from the air. It shows a sun-dappled forest clearing with a couple of people in it. Connolly zooms in on the figures, and the picture magnifies to show a woman
sitting on a tree stump playing some kind of long-necked lute, and a man at her feet, listening. Intriguingly, the woman isn’t clad in a burqa. It’s the first time I’ve seen a young Afghan woman in these regions without a full body shroud, and I study her closely. Her eyes are shut, her expression concentrated: she is engrossed in her playing.

Connolly points to the man: That’s the corpse in your tent. After I’d uploaded our headshots of the corpses for Intelligence, they came back with a match in less than thirty minutes. This particular photograph was taken undetected about four months ago by a Predator drone some two kilometers or so above the clearing. Neat, huh? Man versus machine: machine wins every time.

Who is he, Sir?

Connolly tells me his name.

Seems he’s known locally as the Prince of the Mountains, he continues. Correction: he
was
known as the Prince of the Mountains. He was some heavy Taliban dude. I don’t know the details.

I’m struck again by the incongruity of the photograph.

But if he’s Taliban, Sir, I point out, what’s he doing in the company of an uncovered woman, and one playing a musical instrument at that?

Connolly gazes at the screen quizzically, then shrugs.

I don’t know, Doc. Maybe it’s his wife, and the rules don’t count. But I’m speculating. I really have no idea. You’re the expert. What’s your take on it?

You got me there, Sir. I don’t have a clue either, I’m sorry to say.

I gaze at the picture, feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur, before angling the screen in Connolly’s direction again. He examines the picture some more, then switches off the laptop. Raising his head, he looks me straight in the eye. All of a sudden, he gets up and walks over to a corner of the room.

He returns with an AK-47 enclosed in a grimy blue silk gun cover, with elaborate floral patterns embroidered in red chain stitch, and with the hole for the trigger reinforced with black thread.

We found this on your insurgent, he says.

My
insurgent? Well …

He takes it out from its cloth cover and balances it on his palm.

I examine it without taking it from him. Its surface is pitted, and the weathered plywood stock strapped with duct tape. On the left side of the receiver, which is solid steel, there’s a triangular factory stamp with an arrow inside it, followed by the weapon’s serial number and date of manufacture: 1955.

Connolly contemplates the gun for a moment.

This is probably from one of the earliest batches of AK-47s, he observes, made when the Soviets were first arming their troops with assault rifles. Then, somewhere down the line in its long history—and who the fuck knows how?—it found its way here, where it’s now part of the Taliban’s arsenal. Can you think of any mechanical appliance that you’ve used that’s lasted as long?

Me personally, Sir? I think for a moment, then say, hesitantly: Perhaps the old ceramic toilets back at my folk’s place, Sir?

Connolly grimaces and falls into a meditative silence. After a while, he sighs and says: This thing is fifty-five years old. What a country.

He glances at me. Alexander the Great was here, you know.

I stare at him, trying to follow his train of thought.

He continues looking at the gun. They say the name Kandahar is a version of Iskander, which is what people called him in these parts; although it’s more likely that it comes from some ancient Indian place name.

Indian, Sir?

Gandhara.

I see.

He smiles wanly. I learned that from Lieutenant Frobenius. You know what he was like. Mad about history and geography and stuff.

I don’t say anything.

He glances at me again, and I see that his eyes are brimming with tears.

It’s all a bunch of bullshit, he says huskily, attempting to conceal his distress with a laugh. Did you know that the small arms fire in his vicinity was so concentrated that the men trying to reach him could only see the sand and dust kicking up?

I refrain from telling him that I was right there, the first to reach Frobenius.

He wipes his eyes hurriedly with the back of his hand. Clearing his throat, he says: He engaged the bulk of the insurgents, taking the fight right to them. It kept the pressure off the rest of us and fucking stymied the enemy’s attack. That brave, crazy fuck!

I look down. There’s a long interval of silence.

Eventually, he places his hands on either side of the Kalashnikov, straining downward as if attempting to snap it in two. His face turns red, and the veins on his neck stand out. Finally he relaxes and his shoulders slump. He gives a limp smile and strokes the receiver with his hand. Machine wins, he says in a quiet voice.

He pauses and wipes his eyes.

Lieutenant Frobenius majored in the Classics, did you know that? In some boutique northeastern college. Me … he pauses. Where I went to college—
state
college—if you were a guy, you had one of two choices: you either majored in Agro Science or Business Admin.

I remain silent while he nods a couple of times as if carrying on an internal dialogue with himself.

Have you heard of the Pingry School? he asks.

The Pingry School? No, Sir.

It’s one of the best private schools in the country. I mean, it’s
fucking
elite—a
mint
school. Lieutenant Frobenius went there, and then he went to Vassar. Vassar! he repeats softly and shakes his head in disbelief. If he’d wanted, he coulda walked into West Point and come out a ringknocker with a friggin’ stellar record. But for some reason he
chose a prissy joint like Vassar. Never could figure that out. I asked him about it once, and he only laughed. So I don’t know. Maybe some people want to do things the hard way. But with his background, you’d think …

I suppose so, Sir. Yes, Sir.

He glances at me and then turns away.

What was most special about Nick was his enthusiasm. He was able to communicate his passions like no one else. I still have one of his books of Greek plays lying around here someplace. Problem is, every time I pick it up, I’m so damn tired I fall asleep.

He holds up the gun and, aiming it past me at some distant point, he continues: In any case, what all this means is that these fuckers … these
fuckers
have been around for a long—a
very
long time. And there’s probably Macedonian blood in them, which would explain at least some of their disposition.

And some of their features, I add. The dead man in my tent has fair hair and gray eyes. Very European.

I think the technical term is Indo-Aryan.

You’re right, Sir. Indo-Aryan.

He extends the AK-47 in my direction.

Here—have you ever held one of these things?

No, Sir, I have not.

I take it from him. It feels rickety compared to our M-4, its closest equivalent. I tell him so.

He grimaces. You could leave that thing under a rock for ten years and still use it when you came back, no problem. It’s the ultimate killing machine.

And still the Russians lost, I remind him, handing back the gun.

The Russians lost because they fought bunched up in motorized convoys. They didn’t fan out in foot squads like we do. Their tactics were wrong. We’ve learned from their experience. We’re not gonna make the same mistakes.

He puts down the gun and sits at his desk. Carefully folding the
blue silk gun cover, he places it next to his laptop. I’m keeping this as a souvenir, he says. Years from now, when I’m shitting away my time in Flyover Zone in bumfuck Indiana or wherever, I want to look at this thing to remind myself that I was really here, in the middle of nowhere, following in Alexander’s footsteps.

Alexander never returned home, Sir.

But I intend to, he says grimly, before correcting himself:
We
will go back, Doc. That’s a promise. We’ll see this through.

It’s summer back home, Sir, I say reflectively. The schools are out. Summer camp starts in two weeks in Williamsfield. My kid brother’s a counselor this year.

That summer’s miles and miles away, he says. He leans his head on his hand.

I’m tired, he says.

Everyone is, Sir.

He looks at me with an unseeing expression. I don’t know if they’re gonna attack again today, he says, but if they do, we’re not taking any prisoners.

I hesitate before asking: What about when they come to collect their dead?

He doesn’t answer. I wait for a few moments, but he remains silent. Then he turns his back on me and goes back to studying a map. I realize I’ve been dismissed.

I leave his hut and pause for a moment, digesting the conversation. I feel dejected and, as I lift up my eyes to the mountains looming over the base, strangely apathetic. With an effort, I pull myself together, and set out to find Whalen. It’s just before 1600, and I want to catch him before his shift ends and ask if he’s spoken to Ellison about the corpse.

I find him by the ECP, just about to hand over to Sergeant Tanner.

He looks at me bleary-eyed when I ask him.

I’m still thinking about it, he replies.

What about Lieutenant Ellison?

He said he’s gonna think about it as well.

He slaps his cheeks. Boy, he says wearily. I can hardly stand. I guess I’m gonna get some rest. And he shambles off.

I look around. Ramirez and Pratt have left as well, and in their place there’s Alizadeh as the only relief who’s showed up so far. Tanner’s in a lather. He’s just beginning to flay Alizadeh about the others’ whereabouts when Jackson comes running up. Sorry I’m late, Sarn’t, he pants. I was trying to bring Grohl, but no luck. He’s taken Spitz’s death hard. Maybe you should talk to him …

Oh, for fuck’s sake! Tanner says exasperatedly. Where is he now?

Holed up in his hooch.

I say: I’ll go get him.

Thanks, Doc, Tanner says. Tell Grohl I’ll have his ass if he isn’t here ASAP.

Jackson offers to come with me.

We’ll be gone a couple of minutes, I say. That okay?