The sun arced warily overhead, precisely marked midday, and then slid silently, one second at a time, into the afternoon. To distant Taliban watchers the weary platoon probably resembled a beleaguered funeral procession who had lost its way to the cemetery. They followed the switchbacks hither and yon, stumbling from one twisty game trail to another; they lost elevation; they gained elevation—again and again. More exhausted than exasperated, they backtracked nearly a mile before catching a break.
Staley limped. He’d strained a quad. “If we keep pressing due south we can’t miss the road,” he mumbled three times in an hour, trying to convince himself that they weren’t lost. The sat-phone was dead. “The Grand Trunk Road’s gotta still be there. I flew over it five or six weeks ago.” He fisted a hand into the air. The procession stopped. “Take ten. O’Dwyer, climb up there and have a look-see; and keep your head down.”
Jinny left the trail, hiked about sixty yards around and over some Volkswagen-sized rocks, then turned and waved to the children, who pretended to ignore her. After glassing the valley floor, she cupped her hands over her mouth, but then thought better of calling out her report. She loped down with the grace of a sure-footed mountain goat and approached her weary lieutenant, who was lying flat on his back, smoking.
“Sir, I saw the road. It’s rides above the valley floor and looks like a railroad trestle made of gravel. We’re on course and about an hour out. No snow. No sign of the enemy.”
“Did you hear any voices up there, Sergeant O’Dwyer?”
“No sir. No voices. No train whistle, and I saw no caboose.”
Staley climbed to his feet, swatted at his buttocks, picked up his weapon, and growled, “Okay men . . . and Nursery Nan, let’s move. We’re an hour away from the road and already late for the rendezvous.”
Nobody had trouble keeping up with the lame lieutenant, even with the children in tow. By the time they reached the base of the roadbed Staley was lagging behind. “That’s it,” he puffed, “The Taliban Tollway. O’Dwyer, double-time it up there and look for our ride. The rest of you keep an eye on our flanks and rear. Stay locked and loaded.”
Jinny signaled to the children to sit and rest and then clawed her way up the steep berm to the road. After kneeling to catch her breath, she unslung her rifle and let go the memory of Conor’s topple into Thrush Hollow, so very long ago and so very far away. Enough, Jin, focus. The asphalt—rippled by war machines and eroded by nature’s fury—was devoid of traffic for as far the eye could see, even with the rifle scope.
“Anybody coming?” yelled the lieutenant.
“No Sir, but I get the Taliban Tollway innuendo. Hang tight for a minute.” Jinny pivoted from glassing the mouth of the Khyber Pass and looked west again toward Jalalabad. “I see an outline of the city but no sign of our ride. I’m pretty exposed up here.”
“A little voice told you that, did he?” rasped Staley as he clawed his way up the embankment. “Give me a hand up. Where in the tarnation are they?”
“We are two hours late, Sir.”
He scoped the horizon. “You missed it, O’Dwyer. I see dust.”
And seeing dust out here is unusual?
“It’s about time.” The squad rallied to the announcement, but the children huddled like a couple of Koalas not wanting to be disturbed. They watched Staley open a can, stuff a chaw in his cheek, and plop down on the road. “O’Dwyer, look into your crystal ball and verify that whoever’s coming is on our side. I want to know if you hear the same voice that countermanded my order this morning.”
Jinny knelt, scoped the road, then leaned forward and pressed her ear to the ground. “You’re right, Sir, two Humvees. As for the voice I heard, I already explained that, Lieutenant. I fell back because I was ordered to fall back; but by whom, I do not . . .” Stopping mid-sentence, Jinny knew; she knew who’d given the order. “I’ll get the kids.” She slid back down the bank and extended her arms toward the children, who drew back until they heard two 6.5L Vu turbo-diesel Humvee engines careen the final one hundred yards and screech to a stop alongside the seated lieutenant. He waved off the dust, coughed, looked up, and said, “You’re late.”
“Got here as fast as we could, Lieutenant,” replied a salty sergeant. “Me and Drifter here had to stop for a soda in Jalalabad.” Staley didn’t smile. He stood, stared down the driver and then cranked out an order.
“Mama Kangaroo, pocket your little Joeys, get up here, and hop your hips into this Hummer behind Sergeant Soda Pop and his side-kick, Bubbles.”
“My name’s Roger Blake, and this here’s Drifter Valdez, Sir.”
Jinny detected no humor in the introduction.
Staley pointed at the lead vehicle and talked down at his men. “The rest of you help Janssens and Alvarez get Sergeant Broshinsky up to the road and lash him on the back of this Humvee; and don’t drop him . . . I said, move it.” He leaned, watched, and spat. “Let’s get our hynies out of here.” Everybody scrambled.
Blake let the engine idle. He and Drifter, his number two, climbed out to help help hoist Broshinsky’s black bag and reverently tie it on the sloped rear-end of the lead Humvee. The solitary driver of the second vehicle jumped out and stood at half attention. Staley walked past him, climbed into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door. “Give me the keys. Never mind, they’re in the ignition. Let’s go. Alvarez, Janssens, and everybody but the Kanga and her roos climb aboard.” Moments later, the lieutenant spun his Hummer into a sloppy U-turn and yelled to Blake, “Follow me.” He sped west and got smaller and smaller.
“Treddlepinger! Who put a roach in his panties this morning?” chortled Sergeant Blake as he flicked ash from his cigarette and climbed back in the driver’s seat. Jinny shook her head without answering. Seeing her spotter, Arno Janssens, being hauled away, she lamented, Farewell Sniper Duty. Hello KP. Blake revved the engine.
“Those kids look hungry; you should resupply now, but with your sergeant tied to the back end, you’ll have to climb aboard and access what we’ve got from the back seat. Be quick. We’re about to run the gauntlet.” Jinny cranked open the passenger door on the driver’s side, and the older child helped his little brother scramble up and in while Drifter hustled around to the other side, hopped in to ride shotgun, and then shoved eight sticks of Wrigley’s gum into his mouth, two at a time.
“Help yourselfs and chow down, little Talibanys,” he twittered as Jinny climbed in and secured the door. “Do they speak any English, Sergeant Kangaroo?”
“Not yet, and the name’s O’Dwyer–Sergeant O’Dwyer.”
The engine revved; the vehicle lurched and stalled. Everybody tensed. Mounted front antennae rocked back and forth, pointing first in the direction of Jalalabad and then the Khyber Pass. Blake swore, rasped, and cranked the ignition. “Not to worry, folks. Just fasten your seatbelts and enjoy this six-ticket ride. It’s on me.” He turned the key; the engine cranked, and then cranked again. Nothing.
Jinny stretched her slender neck slowly from one side to the other and arched her shoulders trying to relax. With the rifle resting between her knees, she stared through the armored transport’s chain-linked window and without moving her lips prayed for the engine to start, then thanked God for seeing her safely through another sortie. She quickly resupplied the rucksack on her lap, and filled her camelback pouch with two liters of water. The boys gobbled as if they were eating their first meal in a week.
The engine cranked and sputtered to life, and so did Sergeant Blake. From deep in his diaphragm he bellowed, “We’re on the road again. Just can’t wait to get back on the road again . . ..” He’d memorized every word.
After he’d finished bellowing like a banshee, Jinny caught his eye in the rear-view mirror. “Hey Sergeant, nice ride,” she yelled over the engine’s din as she ran her fingers along the torn seat back. “Thanks for picking us up.” Blake’s eyes toggled down to watch the boys pinch their noses. The younger child sneezed. Blake puffed, coughed, and flicked his smoke out the window.
“Meter’s running, Sergeant. “Tell me when we get close to where you live. I’ve never been to Kansas.”
Jinny’s nearly relaxed eyebrows peaked like question marks, and her shoulders rolled forward. “How did you know?” Blake wrinkled his nose, winked, and squinted intermittently at Jinny through the rear-view mirror as he dodged back and forth trying to miss the potholes of life.
“Those kids got names?”
“They haven’t said a word.” She tapped her name patch, “O’Dwyer,” then pointed at the older boy.
Asad swallowed and volunteered, “Asad.” He pursed his lips and before licking his fingers pointed toward his brother. “Asif.” The Hummer pitched back and forth and side to side like a bronco. Asad gently jostled Asif a few times with an elbow, smiled for the first time, and hee-hawed in Pashto like a cowpoke taking his first ride in the Dickinson County Frontier Days Rodeo. Asif stared at Jinny as if he wanted to speak. She studied the tear-smudged little face and discovered by his expression that he needed to relieve himself. In Pashto, Asad confirmed what Jinny had surmised.
Roger Blake logged the message and looked for a place to stop where he’d have a clear line-of-sight–north, south, east, and west. A veteran of two tours, he pumped the brakes, created as little dust as possible, and brought the Hummer to a stop above a dry creek-bed that disappeared beneath the road through a large corrugated pipe. He batted good-naturedly at the salmon dry fly dangling from a short length of tippet tied to the overhead visor. Both he and the fly hailed from West Yellowstone, Montana.
“Okay, Sergeant, go, and make it quick, I don’t dare shut her down.” He left the engine idling.
The boys needed no help unbuckling their restraints. Blake opened the driver-side door, dropped one foot to the ground, and glassed the foreboding landscape looking for signs of life—and death. Lots of places to hide. Jinny and the boys bailed out the far side, crossed the road, and slid down the steep berm.
“Drifter, keep your eyes peeled. Tell me when you hear them climbing back to the road. I smell trouble, and trouble stinks . . . too.”
“I surely will do that. I surely will do . . . that.” Born in Atlanta but raised in Nashville, Drifter wished he had a cell-phone so he could call his girl back home—either girl. He glassed mechanically back and forth, magnified the side of Blake’s head, and forced a grin. The regular motion of his jaw made the field glasses jog rhythmically up and down. He quipped, “Been meaning to ask you something, Sergeant.”
“What’s that?”
“ ‘Scuse me for sayin’, but was you born with that de-formation on your head?”
“What de-formation?”
“The cauliflower ears. “
“No, I earned them on the mat.”
Drifter shrugged and mumbled good naturedly, “It don’t look like they shoulda cost you much.”
Jinny and the children slid to flat ground and landed on their feet. “Guess I ‘shoulda’ left my rucksack and rifle in the Hummer,” she said sarcastically as she brushed off the dirt and signaled the boys to stay close. “Let’s duck in here so you can do your business.” Without ducking, Asad and Asif followed Jinny five or six feet into drainage pipe. Jinny leaped, screamed, stomped, and stumbled backward. “Oh my gosh! A snake. A snake.”
The Hummer backfired twice. It sounded like a cannon. The engine died.
Totally spooked, Asad and Asif backed out of the pipe and dashed away. “No, no, no, no, get back here.”
Before Sergeant Blake could slide back into his seat and restart the engine, he heard a pop, looked at Drifter, and whispered, “Incoming . . .” The RPG’s vapor trail hissed from hiding; the grenade slammed into Roger Blake, exploded, and instantly incinerated both men—and the dry fly.
Concussed and thrown backward, Jinny landed in a heap inside the pipe. Shrapnel zipped and zapped and ricocheted off the nearby rocks. The death-blow had been launched from two hundred and fifty yards. The shooter’s knotted kufiyah, fashioned from the remnant of an American flag, wagged triumphantly from side to side atop his hoary head; his accomplice sported a surly grin, unseen by Jinny and the boys. The launcher was reloaded and the shooter’s shoulder tapped. The second missile popped, hissed, and blew the Humvee laterally off the ground; it clawed the berm as it rolled over, down, and obliterated three sets of innocent footprints. Exploding ammunition racked a door panel back and forth—making it look like it was fanning the fire—and left the ground blackened to a radius of forty feet. The stench of burning rubber and black smoke billowed upward in nauseous puffs, while the shooter, two hundred yards away, squealed in plain English, “Double Jeopardy,” and high-fived his accomplice. They slipped into cover, squatted, opened a package of powdered opium, took turns snorting and babbling in an unknown tongue, and waited for the fire to burn down. They were soon oblivious to their surroundings.
Until the moment of detonation, Drifter Valdez had been trying to remember the punch-line of an off-color joke; Roger Blake hadn’t lifted his left foot from the ground. His tour of duty had ended one day too soon. The inferno had fried a one-way ticket to Bozeman, Montana. Nothing survived to be sent home to his widow and four daughters except a dog tag, still legible, lying in the middle of the road.
Blake
Roger J
OPOS
L.D.S.
Jinny lay unconscious on her back, entombed in the pipe. “Rabbit, wake up. You need to get out of here.” Someone gently shook her shoulders and repeated, “Rabbit, wake up. You need to get out of here.” Her singed eyelashes fluttered.
“Curly? . . . Help me. My arm . . . gone.” Except for her left arm—pinned clumsily beneath her back—Jinny couldn’t fathom a place where she didn’t hurt. Her head throbbed; a beating tympani had replaced one of her eardrums. “I must be alive,” she mumbled without opening her eyes. “Dead people don’t hurt like this—I hope. Where’s my helmet? She strained her head to the side and then relaxed. “It’s still there . . . help.” Floating, drifting on a stormy sea, Jinny shivered in a drainage pipe devoid of living water, heard a breaker crash against the rocks, and lapsed into unconsciousness. When her eyes fluttered open, out of focus extrusions of pipe reminded her of confinement in an MRI scanner.
An inaudible breeze soothed her burned cheeks and forehead. “Jinny, please wake up. You must go.” She struggled, rescued her left arm, and went to sleep while it woke up. The sun had marched two blocks toward the western horizon before her vision cleared, and before she could hear someone breathing.
“The CHILDREN!” Her echo reverberated through the pipe. The snake had fled; time had stalled long enough. Children’s voices answered as if calling from the far end of the Ellinwood Tunnel in Kansas. “But why are you speaking in Arabic? THE TALIBAN!” Circulation improved. Painful sensations returned to her bruised limbs. Jinny tucked her chin and squinted toward her feet. Nestled up close, the children—one on each side—held her blistered hands and tendered consolation in a language she little understood, in a culvert far from civilization.
Jinny propped up on her elbows, then sat up, drew in her knees and joined hands with Asad and Asif. “You came back. Yes, yes, and you’re okay. You are okay?” She kissed each outstretched hand. Asad wiped away the kiss and shrugged. Neither child smiled. Neither boy was okay, and Jinny knew it. She lowered here expectations and looked at her watch. Hours would pass before Jinny’s ringing ears stopped expecting someone to answer.
Asad and Asif stood and, without letting go of Jinny’s hands, pulled her upright. She straightened, but not quite; she was still taller than the pipe, and she had a stiff neck. Her rifle was banged up but, after giving it a quick once-over, it appeared to be in working order.
Asad pointed at Jinny’s face and formed a word with his lips but didn’t speak. “Am I bleeding?” She touched her skin then examined her finger. “Yes, but it’s not bad.” Jinny felt for her rucksack. Still in place. She rubbed her cracked watch crystal, and then followed the boys out of the pipe. “Why the hurry?”
Billowing smoke coughed into the sky. Jinny fell to her knees. Her headache pounded like an Apache tom-tom beating inside the aging walls of Fort Sill. “The explosion! Blake! Drifter!” As if she had come to worship in Mecca, Jinny fell forward and touched her forehead to the ground. Too hot. The sanctified Hummer’s smoldering skeleton eerily collapsed inward. The boys knelt silently on either side of their only friend in the world as she wept.