As he staggered and fell across the mountains toward COP Vega, Black heard and saw many things, some of which he thought were real and some of which he thought were not real. After what must have been several hours night fell, and he knew he was hallucinating because he saw the smartass next to him, guiding him to his point.
He tasted dirt. At points he thought he was crawling. The air had turned colder overnight, and with it the ground. He was sure he heard thunder echoing off the mountainsides. He needed water so desperately.
He may have lain down to rest, though the yawning horrors that opened beneath his dreams pushed him back up through the dirt and onto his stumbling feet again.
He was sure only that he was on his face now, in the leaves and needles, and that a rough hand was turning him over. He felt his heels dragging through the brush as the same hand hauled him along like a sled, pulling him by the straps on his pack, until finally it released him to slough onto the blessed ground again.
He opened his eyes and saw daylight filtering through tree branches.
And Corporal Shannon, standing over him, brushing off his cruddy hands and working stiff fingers. Turning to see another figure stepping forward.
Merrick. Scowling down on him.
“Jesus Christ, Lieutenant. Can’t you take a hint?”
Black’s hand went weakly to his hip and managed to unholster his pistol, which felt like it weighed thirty pounds. He waved it limply in Merrick’s direction.
“Oh, hell,” Merrick said, exasperated, disarming him in a languid motion.
He turned to Shannon.
“Hurry, let’s get him out of here.”
More thunder in the distance.
Merrick squatted to inspect Black’s shoulder.
“I tell you this way, and I tell you that way,” he muttered, tearing fabric open to get a better look. “I try to tell you that I’ve got this. I thought you Regiment officers were supposed to be the smart ones. Jesus, did you even try to bandage this?”
Black’s body tried uselessly to flinch away from Merrick’s hands as the sergeant rolled him on his side to examine the back of his shoulder, which Black only then realized was still very damp.
“How’d you get shot, sir?”
“Fuck you,” Black whispered, his throat dry as ageless desert wastes.
“You’re welcome,” Merrick said irritably, rolling Black back more roughly than he needed to and rising to his full height.
Black brought his right hand to his pocket and fished in it clumsily, finally coming up with a crinkled piece of paper. He tossed it weakly in Merrick’s direction. It stalled in midair and made a rough landing at his feet.
“Do it,” he croaked, “yourself.”
The effort of forcing out three words left him panting and exhausted. Merrick picked up the paper and read it without comprehension.
“What the fuck is this? Who gave you this?”
He handed it to Shannon for him to look at.
“You,” Black managed.
“What?” Merrick snapped.
He snatched it back from Shannon.
“Bullshit I gave you this. This isn’t even my writing.”
He wadded it in a hand and tossed it onto Black’s chest. It rolled away and fell to the ground unwanted.
“Is this from more of your snooping around playing fucking detective?” Merrick said angrily. “Sir, how many different ways did I have to tell you I had it under control?”
Black did not understand this, but he was finding that he was losing the ability to distrust the tall, contemptuous sergeant. Or perhaps to care whether he was to be trusted. Too much made no sense to sort out inside his careening head.
“Caine . . .” he whispered with effort, looking forward to not talking for a while.
“Yeah, I know. Caine,” Merrick snapped. “Who do you think I’ve been investigating since before you ever came up here to help me out by fucking everything up?”
“He means,” said Shannon, pointing to the little crumple of paper on the ground, “Caine.”
That stopped Merrick. He shot a look to Black.
“When?”
Oh, another question. Surely Merrick didn’t expect him to talk again.
“Sniper,” Black wheezed finally.
Merrick looked at him blankly.
“Two days ago,” Shannon said. “You were still at the O.P. The sniper that was out there all day, that shot Garza on the roof.”
Merrick snatched the paper off the ground and read it again, processing.
“Shit,” he said finally.
Thunder again in the mountains. Merrick peered up through the trees at the ridges surrounding them.
“We can’t stay here any longer,” he told Shannon. “You got the flex litter?”
They began unfolding a long piece of black fabric with handles. A person could lie on it like a hammock and be carried by two others.
“Corelli,” Black said weakly.
“What?”
“Corelli,” he croaked again. “Blockhouse.”
“What blockhouse?”
His memories were fuzzy and running together.
“Signal,” he heard himself say hoarsely. “Mountain.”
Shannon jerked around to look at Black. Merrick shook his head impatiently.
“What are you talking about, Lieutenant?”
Black’s hazy thoughts focused. He tried to swallow.
“Telegraph.” Deep breath. “Station.”
“What the hell is he doing up there?”
“Prisoner,” he gasped, followed by a fit of painful coughing.
“What!?”
He needed to stop trying to talk. He needed to rest.
“Girl.”
“What girl?”
Merrick was coming into and out of focus.
“Shot me . . .” Black mumbled.
Merrick looked at him without comprehension, trying to decide if Black was simply out of his head. Black gestured weakly at Shannon.
“Meadows.”
Shannon just scowled at him, then turned to Merrick.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
C’mon, Shannon.
“Caine . . .” Black wheezed.
He realized he was getting ready to pass out again.
“Kill Corelli.”
“What?!”
Shannon, who’d been looking at the ground and muttering to himself, swore and looked up at Merrick.
“Yeah, he’s probably right,” he said tersely.
Black saw a fuzzy Merrick turn to look at Shannon questioningly.
“I think Caine knows where Corelli’s at,” Shannon said. “Shit.”
“Get him . . .” Black murmured.
Thunder crashed through the ridges. Merrick had no time to press Shannon.
“We’ve gotta move,” he declared.
He pointed at Black.
“Take him,” he ordered Shannon. “Can you make it back?”
Shannon turned his disdainful gaze down on the crumpled Black.
“Yeah, I can make it back,” he grunted.
Thunder, closer. It wasn’t thunder.
“What’s happening?” Black wheezed.
“It’s all going to shit, that’s what’s happening,” said Merrick, reaching for his rifle and assault pack.
“They’re coming,” Black said in barely a whisper.
“No, they’re not,” Merrick replied, shucking his pack over his shoulders. “They’re here.”
Shannon approached Black.
“Get him back to the COP,” Merrick directed.
“End of the world,” Black murmured.
“Go,” Merrick said, looking down at Black’s limp form.
“Roger.”
He turned to go, then turned back.
“Shannon.”
The big soldier, looming over Black’s wilted form, turned.
“Sergeant Caine does not leave the COP for any purpose.”
Shannon nodded his surly assent and turned back to Black. Merrick disappeared into the woods.
Another booming crash shook the ground around them. Closer.
“This,” grunted Shannon as he squatted next to Black, “is gonna hurt, sir.”
It did.
Shannon moved powerfully uphill. Black, draped around the corporal’s massive shoulders like a sack, his own shoulder and side screaming profanities at him, managed three words before he passed out.
“You didn’t tell.”
—
The Talib sipped his tea placidly and watched the chill wind move the trees.
It had been an odd morning. But she was an odd little girl indeed.
And from an odd people. He’d heard of their females shearing their hair in mourning. These valley people and their ways. But in this case the confluence of tradition and ruse was perfect.
Admirable, even.
He saw it clearly now, of course. The strange girl who’d come to him all alone, many weeks ago, desperate to fight the infidel. Apparently an American had killed her father and brother at their home. She was wild for revenge.
This actually had been quite useful information to have. Not because the death of a sinful poppy grower and his son among these godforsaken lands was of intrinsic interest in itself. But because the chief of Darreh Sin, that buffoon, had told him nothing of this.
He claims to want, pretends to accept, my help. And yet he tells me nothing when an American soldier, an officer even, executes one of his growers like a dog.
The fact of the not telling told the Talib everything he needed to know about the chief and his loyalties. And knowing the deep grief, the rage of the chief’s people, these backward, proud, emotional people—this had also been useful to him, regardless of what their chief wished. Very useful.
Then I must think, God, that you guided the girl to me for this purpose. She was, for a moment, your vessel.
Imagine that. God’s mysteries abound.
She had been spirited indeed. He remembered the fire in her eyes. Oh, she had been very unhappy when he’d sent her back to her mother. He had generously overlooked her insolence as a product of her understandable grief.
Now he saw it, though. The resemblance. The simplicity of the disguise. The even stranger boy who had come to him that night not long after, calling himself Tajumal. Always wearing the headband, always pestering him in the dark, always coming in his rain hood whatever the weather. So earnest and humorless. As eager as the girl had been to fight.
The Talib chuckled, now that he knew.
He was younger than they usually came, but he’d had talents. Well, she’d had talents. Or luck, and a talent for deception.
Knocking out the radio equipment had been impressive and bold. He’d give him—her—that. But the piece of clothing with the officer’s rank, and the prisoner, if this was true about the prisoner . . .
Here the girl had not yet learned how to stretch the truth convincingly.
Shot the officer and bound the soldier! An eleven-year-old girl!
The only thing interesting about this preposterous falsehood was to imagine what real story might lie behind the scene she had come upon. What had caused Americans to bind and shoot one another, up in the old English tower?
These things we will never know about one another. Our peoples’ secrets.
I bring you another prize, she had said somberly, with such portent, after she revealed her true self. Then begged once again to fight the infidel. I am the guardian of this valley, she declared, or something equally silly and bombastic.
He shook his head and sipped his tea. Youth.
The prisoner—well, prisoners are always useful, as far as they go. If this part of her story turned out to be true. He would know soon enough.
One of many revelations this cold day will bring.
He had felt the tiniest bit sorry for her as he sent her back to her mother yet again. A bold girl. But she really ought to be whipped for lying like this.