Wynne's War (15 page)

He was mistaken in both assumptions. As light was spreading among the leaves and limbs, he heard a sudden exchange of low voices and then watched in disbelief as four men came down the trail toward the clearing. Four Talibs. He blinked and counted again. There were five. They were dressed in oversize black shirts and thin black trousers, turbans that were a lighter shade of black, gray almost, and three of them lugged an ancient Soviet-era mortar that would have weighed well over a hundred pounds. There was no practical way of transporting this weapon if the wheel base was lost, and it was apparent to Russell that this was precisely the case.

The three men set the mortar crunching into the snow and began attaching its bipod. One of them—tall and lean, shod in cheap plastic sandals—unslung a canvas bag from his shoulder and started removing rounds, placing each six-pound shell within reach of the launcher, nose-down in the carpet of white. The others kept up a whispered exchange in Pashto or Dari, and the shape of the words caused a tremor of panic to run the length of Russell's body and settle like a boot in his back. He watched as the men finished assembling the mortar and began to dial in coordinates, one of them peering through a set of binoculars toward the hills where the American firebase was awakening in the early dawn. Russell drew a bead on the torso of the nearest combatant, aligning the red dot of his gunsight with the center of his enemy's chest, aiming center mass. He thumbed the selector, pressing it very slowly to
SEMI
, following the switch with the pad of his thumb and catching it before it clicked. He curled his finger inside the trigger guard and felt the cold metal against his callus. Then he just lay there, focusing on his breath.

One of the men had set a spotting scope on its tripod at the far end of the clearing and was staring at something to the north. He'd just turned back toward his comrades when a vulval slit perforated his Adam's apple and he went down very hard in the snow, legs crossed under him, a strange movement that almost looked vaudevillian. He gripped his throat with both hands as though he were choking. Blood welled between his fingers. Several of the Talibs had turned to watch. They seemed not to understand what was happening, and two of them went sprawling face-first and another's head burst like a melon and he staggered three steps before collapsing.

The suppressed rounds buzzed through the clearing like wasps. The remaining man didn't even raise his rifle. He took off sprinting toward the trees where Russell was concealed. Russell pressed the trigger twice very fast—two shots spaced on top of each other. He saw the man's face very clearly—eyes stretched wide, brows slightly raised, beads of sweat visible on his forehead. When the bullets struck him, he spun to one side and fell forward, his momentum carrying him until he collided with a tree. Russell came up on his knees and, keeping his rifle trained on the man, got his feet under him and moved up. The man lay on his stomach, both arms around the tree trunk as though he were embracing it. Russell stood a few moments and then lowered his rifle to the low-ready position and toed the man with his boot. The man just lay there. Russell glanced at the other bodies in the clearing. Pike and Wheels and Ox were entering from the south side, sidestepping the terrain with rifles to their shoulders, staring out over their scopes. Russell raised a hand and motioned to them, and Pike motioned back.

The two of them met on the level expanse of snow. The sun had crested the eastern mountains, and Russell turned his back to the light, squinting.

“You smoke him?” Pike asked.

“Yeah,” said Russell.

Pike swiped a gloved hand through his beard and glanced toward the man Russell had killed. Then he looked at Russell and gave him a tight-lipped nod.

Russell massaged the skin just above his left eyebrow. He turned and looked at the spotting scope on its tripod.

“What were they looking at?” he said.

Pike seemed not to hear him. He walked over to one of the corpses and began to search the body for intel. Russell watched him a moment and then he stepped across to the scope. It was a brand-new Bushnell 60x65, the kind the marines were using north of Baghdad, and Russell knew it had been taken from American personnel. He bent to look through the eyepiece.

The haze of mist and vapor rising from the rocks. Shadows. Tones of white muted brown. He stood and slung the rifle over his shoulder and leaned to look again. He drew a breath and began adjusting the focus. What came into view didn't make sense, and he blinked several times to correct the picture, but there it was: a man in a clearing much like the one in which Russell stood, staring at him through an identical scope. This man, however, was dressed in black—turban, shirt, and trousers—and to his left were several more men, likewise dressed, hovering above a mortar tube. The man was staring through his scope at Russell and gesturing to the men beside him. They were repositioning the tube, and the spotter seemed to be motioning them to hurry. Russell's breath caught in his chest and he turned to look at Pike. He'd just opened his mouth when he heard the barely perceptible hiss of the mortar round.

He fell to the snow with both hands cupped to his ears and his elbows pressed together. His knees had risen to his chest, and he lay there as the air went hot and pieces of earth rained around him. His head was buzzing and he couldn't hear anything but the blood rushing inside his skull, and before he opened his eyes he began to check his limbs to see if they were there. Smell of gun smoke. The sharp smell of shredded pine. He rose onto his hands and knees. The sun that shone through the dust and smoke was an orange morning sun, and he saw Wheels and Ox lying very close to one another, almost touching. He called to them but he couldn't hear the sound of his own voice, and when he looked to his left, he saw Pike.

The sergeant lay on his back beside the overturned mortar, eyes blinking and a bright arterial mist spraying from the cut on his jugular, a thin serum leaking from his ears. He'd lifted a hand toward the sky and seemed to be grasping for something which only he saw. He closed the hand into a fist and turned it slightly, the motion of someone unlocking a door. Russell crawled to the sergeant and pressed his palm against the man's neck. He reached into a pocket and pulled out his bandana, then folded it over the wound to make a compress. Pike's eyelids were fluttering, and Russell shouted for the men to bring their trauma packs, but his words were sucked away into a great humming void.

He pulled the sergeant to the edge of the clearing and was joined by Ox and Wheels. Together they began to drag Pike deeper into the trees, leaving behind them a trough of snow and frozen earth and the bright dribble of blood. Another mortar detonated up the slope about a hundred meters and then another even farther. Russell stopped and applied pressure to the sergeant's neck. He looked up at the faces of the two men across from him.

Ox leaned toward him and began mouthing words, but Russell stopped him, gestured to his ears, and shook his head. The large man studied him a moment, then reached and touched his hand to a torn place on the outer thigh of Russell's fatigues. Russell glanced down to examine his leg where shrapnel had torn through the fabric. He couldn't feel his injury through the adrenaline, but the wound didn't seem deep. He took hold of the drag handles on Sergeant Pike's body armor and motioned for Wheels and Ox to take his feet. They picked the man up and started down the hillside, finding their way among the pine trees and oaks, the sun bright on their faces and the sergeant's pupils widening.

 

They fought their way onto the valley floor. They bore Pike on a foldable litter they carried, but there was no hurry in this regard now, for the sergeant was dead. They'd shot through most of their ammunition, and Russell's back felt strange and his rifle had malfunctioned. He'd fired through twenty-eight rounds, and when the bolt slammed back and he slapped in a fresh magazine, he couldn't get the weapon to go into battery: the bolt release lever was locked in place and wouldn't budge. He tried to pull the magazine out, but it was locked in place as well. They laid the sergeant's body on the ground and tried to form some kind of a perimeter. Russell scoped the terrain farther out onto the valley floor, looking for cover. The rattle of an AK came from the higher hills. Russell went prone in the dirt, laid his rifle in front of him, and pressed the bolt release hard as he could. The paddle was frozen solid.

There was a wadi about fifty meters out, but he didn't know if they could get to it. He looked over to Wheels and Wheels looked back. The man glanced toward the hills from which they were taking fire. Then he glanced back to Russell. His eyes were calm, the pupils motionless. Russell had seen this before during firefights: the surge of adrenaline seemed to act as a sedative. He slung his rifle, got to his knees, and motioned toward the dead sergeant. Then he moved over and took up the litter's front handles. A rifle shot passed overhead—the sharp crack of it several feet from his ear—and he hunkered into himself. Ox and Wheels came up behind and grabbed hold of the litter, and they set off at an ambling shuffle with bullets caroming off to either side.

They made it to the wadi and down the embankment to the hardpan bed. Russell tried to determine if it was the same trench they'd traveled along the night before, but he wasn't sure. Ox went to cover their backtrack, and Wheels knelt above the corpse of the sergeant as though he'd resuscitate him. Russell could see plumes of smoke rising from the mountains to the east. Mortars were falling once again on the firebase. He fetched another bandana from his pocket and spread it on his lap, sat and began disassembling his rifle, pressing the takedown pins and pulling them out the other side of the receiver with his thumbnails. He laid the upper across his thighs, took his knife and began prying at the magazine, trying to work it free of the well. When this didn't work, he fit the upper and lower receivers together and pressed the pins back into place. Sweat was running into his eyes. He smacked the magazine with the heel of his palm and then he took the rifle by the stock and forward grip and slammed the magazine against the ground. He sat there a moment. The pain in his back was a dull red knot. He glanced at the frozen ground on either side of his legs, dug a fist-sized piece of sandstone from the snow, and, laying the rifle across his thighs, struck the bolt-release paddle. The sandstone cracked in half, but the paddle gave way and the bolt snapped forward and chambered a round. He pointed the rifle at the sky and fired. Then he fired twice more. He pressed the magazine release and the clip fell into his lap. He examined it to see whether there was anything he could see that might have caused it to stick, but nothing looked damaged. He snapped the magazine into place, fired two more rounds, then moved to the lip of the gulch and stared out through his scope toward the mountains, the mortars, the bright winter sun.

 

They expected to be all day bearing back the sergeant's body, but at noon a Black Hawk appeared over the ridge to the north, and fifteen minutes later they'd loaded Pike onto the craft. A medic knelt over him, searching for his pulse. Then the helicopter lifted into the sky, snow blowing up on either side of it in great fountains of white.

There were two air force PJs on the helo—one large, one small. Russell sat on the rumbling seat with the terrain blurring past the Plexiglas window—very clear, someone must have cleaned it with Lemon Pledge—and then the smaller PJ reached to touch the torn place on Russell's fatigues. This man's nametape read
DIAZ
, and he pulled back the fabric to study the wound, then produced a pair of scissors and sheared away the pants leg to Russell's thigh. He was pressing gauze against the quarter-sized gash when he looked up and his brow furrowed. He put a hand to Russell's vest, and Russell looked down to see that blood had soaked the brown fabric. Something had gotten through the ballistic panel on the left side, but Russell had just watched five men die, one of whom he'd killed, and his entire body had a numb, floating feeling. The PJ set about removing Russell's body armor, removing his undershirt and jacket. Russell closed his eyes.

When they landed at the firebase, there was a small crowd awaiting them, members of the surgical team standing to one side. A row of wounded soldiers lay along the sandbag wall, Sara and the other nurses attending them. The chopper put down, and two medical techs came up with a litter. It took Russell a moment to realize they were coming for him. Sara was watching. She nodded to Russell and massaged the skin just below her throat. Russell looked at her and waved. His hearing had partly returned and he told the med techs he could walk on his own, but they didn't seem to care what he could do, and finally one of the surgeons approached.

“Soldier,” he said, “they do it for a living.”

Russell stared at the man. Then he turned to seat himself on the thin canvas stretcher. He felt the doctor swipe something cold across the skin below his shoulder, and when he looked to see what it was, the man sank a needle into his deltoid and pushed the plunger.

Then he was in the medical tent. He could tell that his back hurt, but he couldn't feel it beneath the drugs.
Could tell it hurt but couldn't feel.
He'd have something he wanted to say and then he'd try to form the words and they'd evaporate from the tip of his tongue. Something seemed to have caught up with him. He kept closing and opening his eyes. The scene unfolded before him like bodies caught in a strobe: the doctors across the room, the doctors up close. There were men on tables screaming. Men wheeled past on gurneys.

Then a surgeon was speaking to him. Time seemed to have passed. They'd removed shrapnel from his torso and thigh, debrided the wounds but for some reason hadn't stitched him. He both seemed to recall the procedure but couldn't remember a thing about it.

“You have a mild concussion,” the surgeon was saying. “Mild TBI. On the scale we use, about a thirteen.”