He woke in midmorning after very little rest, feeling like he’d slept a year. He lay in his bunk and felt stillness. It felt familiar.
There was only one thing he really needed to accomplish, and there was no rush about that.
He took his time showering and walked the short distance to the market on his side of the FOB. He bought a pack of smokes at the little PX—the “post exchange,” or FOB store—and shoved them in his pocket without opening them. Afterward he sat for a long time with his book at the unfamiliar Green Beans Coffee stand there.
Late in the afternoon he gathered all his gear and went to the S-1 shop. Sergeant Cousins was there.
Black apologized about the evening before. Cousins was good about it and told him don’t sweat it, and be careful. There was nothing else that needed to be said.
Black went straight to his desk and dumped his stuff, pushing out his chair and switching on his computer. While it was warming up he took the manila envelope he’d left there the night before.
With a black marker he scribbled BLACK on the outside, and REFRAD below that. He got up and carried the envelope past all the desks and out the door. He thought he saw Cousins shaking his head slightly as he passed.
Gayley’s office was empty, but the door was unlocked. Black pushed it open and went inside, crossing straight to the colonel’s tidy desk and tossing the envelope down right in the middle of it. He turned and went.
That evening when Gayley returned he would find a memorandum inside titled REQUEST FOR RELEASE FROM ACTIVE DUTY, with all the appropriate documentation appended. It was Black’s quitting-the-Army paperwork.
Back at his desk, Black’s computer was ready. He opened his e-mail.
Hesitating only long enough to check that no one in the office was about to walk over, he clicked on the message that had been sitting unread since he’d returned from R&R leave the week before.
I don’t know if you are even near any kind of computer and will get this anytime soon. I hope you do, even though I know you won’t respond. I wanted to tell you anyway.
I dreamed about you last night. Dreamed that you were here, in my room, sitting in the window watching me. You came close to me, and then you left.
I’m not being irrational or ridiculous. I know you weren’t here. I know you are on the other side of the planet somewhere. But I wanted to tell you about it.
I know you don’t want to hear me say that I miss you, but I hope you will accept that I am thinking about you. And I know why you won’t respond, and I understand. But you should respond anyway and let me know that you got this, at least. That would be good.
I hope you are safe.
Black clicked open a reply window and typed out a few short sentences. He saved it and opened a menu of options, setting the message to send itself in ten days’ time.
He was about to turn the machine off when another came in.
RE: The Final Insult
It was the wiseass. Close to a computer after all. He opened it.
Mediocrates—
Ah, the warrior-scholar departs for a short walk in the Hindu Kush. I am envious. You might find it more, um, picturesque than you would imagine. Also more explosions. Take your unabridged travel guide and remember: There is no survival of the fittest in the mountains. There are only those creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
You caught me at the oasis, but I am off again. Not drunk, but bearded, which is insufferable. Enjoy your revels at the pleasure dome, Padre. And when you return, you simply MUST come for summer at the ocean house with Bradley and Eliza and, of course, yours truly. Squash! Mother asks after you incessantly.
Semper Ubi Sub Ubi,
—Chaz
Weird. Nothing useful either. He switched off the computer and gathered up his ruck and rifle and helmet.
Cousins had his copy of the convoy manifest waiting for him, courtesy of their counterpart S-1 shop over at 3/44 headquarters. Black took it and feigned surprise.
“What, no helicopter?” he said dryly.
“Funny, sir.”
He stuffed it in his pocket.
“Thanks, Sergeant Cousins.”
“Stay low, L.T.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Do it.”
He left.
The Humvees were lined up outside 3/44’s headquarters with their engines running when he arrived. Six diesels echoed between the stone buildings. He shucked off his ruck and sat down on a wooden bench outside the command post, waiting to be called on.
Soldiers readied the vehicles, moving with the drab efficiency and lack of drama of a rolling unit that goes outside the wire every day. Black knew this was by far the longest regular trip they took, so everything got a little extra attention.
He watched ammunition cases, extra water, and boxes of MREs—the military’s famous meals ready to eat—go into the trucks. Three of them towed open-top trailers whose contents were tied down with tarps. Basic resupply for the outpost, Black figured. Medics appeared and tossed their big black treatment packs onto the seats.
A sergeant approached.
“Black?”
“Yeah.”
“I can take your ruck, sir.”
He didn’t like people offering to carry his gear, but the guy’s matter-of-fact tone told him he wasn’t doing Black any favors. He probably just didn’t want him packing it into the wrong corner of the already overstuffed vehicles.
“Thanks.”
“You gotta take a whiz before we go?”
“Yeah.”
“Around that corner. There’s coffee in the C.P. if you want it.”
The command post.
“I’m good.”
“Cool. Rolling in ten, sir.”
He shouldered Black’s ruck and trudged across the gravel to the open back of the lead vehicle.
When Black returned, soldiers were piling into driver’s seats and turrets. The sergeant pointed him to the truck where his bag was, and he climbed into the back seat.
The convoy wove its way through the buildings and trailers of the base, radios chirping as vehicle commanders made their perfunctory commo checks with one another. Black looked out the little armored glass windows as the buildings fell behind, replaced by sandbags and blast barriers on either side.
The convoy rolled to a stop at the FOB’s east gate, in the exit channel. Electronic jamming equipment was switched on, and the vehicles filled with the clatter of weapons being charged. The manifest was passed to the guards, and the gate was opened.
The convoy rolled forward beneath the guard towers and machine-gun nests and wove left-right-left-right through a serpentine channel designed to slow down car bombs. They cleared the walls and the golden plain opened up before them, mountains rising from the horizon ahead.
Over the next hour of lengthening shadow they grew larger, slowly filling the front windows of the vehicles. General features that Black had seen only from Radio Hill emerged into detail and focus, rising above his eyeline. By the time the ground began noticeably to rise toward the mouth of the first valley, the setting sun was throwing orange haze all across the front of the range.
Black, leaning forward in his seat, craned his head and looked up through the gunner’s hatch. Ahead and above the looming peaks, another raft of black cloud was moving in from the east. Rain in the mountains again tonight.
He fished out his headphones and put them in his ears. He closed his eyes and felt the stillness returning. The violinmaker’s Fantasia on a Theme strings soared across his vision and roiled the black ocean of his thoughts below. As the convoy climbed into the range and the road gave way to wild dirt track, he slept.
—
This time in the dream she lingered in the window as he fell, never turning away as he slid down and into the depths. He still could not see her face.