CHAPTER NINE

That afternoon, when the entire compound lazed away the hour after lunch waiting for the one o’clock rains to pass, I sat in my room and put together what I knew so far, which wasn’t much.

The hotel was training bodyguards and home security. I still didn’t know who the guests were, the men who would be the employers of the hotel’s graduates, so I’d have to work on that, and the compound in the jungle still needed a look, but even if the guests turned out to be cousins of Saddam Hussein, and the facility was the exact layout of Madonna’s Malibu beach house, that still only told me what was going on, but not why. And who, besides Phil Ramirez, was on the ground working for Smith? Who had bugged the Colonel’s meeting with the foreign man, and could I depend on his help if I found myself wearing my ass for a hat?

The rains stopped and the sun turned the afternoon into a sauna. I was dreaming about air-conditioning and bored, beautiful women when Phil pushed open my door and said, “Frag class. Let’s go.”

“Me?”

“Hog’s giving a class on frags. After you wasted everyone with the Claymores, he wants you there.”

“What’s to know about a grenade? You pull the pin and throw it.”

Phil leaned against the doorjamb, his hands in his pockets. “I know you’re not arguing with me.”

Phil could have pinched my head off with two fingers, so I said, “Let’s go.” While I was locking up, I said, “What do you know about Coop?”

“He’s okay.”

“You served with him?”

“No, but I know guys who have. He’s on our side.”

That might have been good enough for Phil, but it wasn’t good enough for me.

The class was held on the same range as the morning’s instruction on Claymore mines. This time the students stood behind a bunker made of earth and wood and watched as Iceman and Hamster demonstrated from a concrete bunker set into the firing line. Hog stood in front of us, his hands behind his back. “Has anyone here ever thrown a live grenade?”

All but two of the Latinos raised their hands. I had tossed exactly one hand grenade in basic training, but I’d tossed it far enough away, and it did explode, so I had my hand up with the rest of the men.

“New Guy, so, unlike the Claymore, this is a skill you’ve acquired?”

“I wouldn’t exactly—”

“Come on down, show us how it’s done.”

“It was a long time ago,” I said.

Hog nodded and said, “Okay, New Guy, fair enough. We don’t want you fucking up with a live frag, so we’ll give you a quick refresher.” He turned to Iceman and Hamster who waited in the bunker. “You men ready?”

Iceman nodded. Hamster, a boy-faced kid with chubby cheeks shifted from foot to foot. “I want to throw this time, Hog, let me throw.”

“Fine. Ice, you spot him.”

Ice nodded again.

As Hamster went through the motions, Hog explained what was happening. Once again, the translator did his thing.

“You grasp the hand grenade in your right hand,” Hog said, “if you’re right-handed. Then raise both hands to your chin, elbows out, left index finger inside the pin.”

Hamster raised his arms, elbows out.

“You pull the pin.”

Hamster pulled the pin.

“You let the spoon go. That’s this handle here, and it arms the fuse.”

Hamster let the spoon fly.

“Now count to three, and throw.”

Hamster counted to three and tossed the grenade like a football. When it was in the air, he and Ice ducked behind the bunker, shielded by three feet of steel-reinforced concrete. Those of us in the class dropped behind the earthworks and waited for the grenade, fifty yards away, to explode with a spray of dirt and a satisfying crump.

The men, turned on by the sheer power of a palm-sized piece of mayhem, went, “Oooh.”

“Now, New Guy, since you did so well this morning with the Claymores, I want you to take Ice’s position and spot me as I throw. Once we take you through it, then it’ll be your turn to throw.”

“Okay.” I stepped into the bunker. Hog waited for me, an olive-drab grenade already in his hand. As I took my place next to Hog, Hamster and Ice stood behind us. I was a little nervous, and I wiped my hands on my pants.

“Don’t be scared, New Guy,” Hog said. “Your job as spotter is to make sure the grenade clears the bunker. You got that?”

“Uh-huh.” I blew out a short breath and wiped my palms again.

“You ready?”

I nodded.

Hog repeated his instructions as he went through each step. “Lift the grenade, elbows out. Remember, this isn’t any John Wayne bullshit. You’re going to throw this from just behind your ear, as if you were a quarterback.”

I heard the translator repeat “quarterback.”

“You pull the pin.” He pulled the pin. I watched him pull the pin.

“You let the spoon fly.” I watched the spoon fly.

“This arms the fuse. Now you count one—”

I watched Hog cock his right hand behind his ear.

“—two and shit.”

I watched the grenade slip from Hog’s right hand, bounce off the dirt, and roll toward Ice and Hamster. Their eyes and mouths gaped in frozen terror. The students behind the earthworks scrambled for cover. I heard a rushing in my ears, like a flood of water over rock. I had no time. The seconds clicked by, the grenade sat in the dirt, and I dropped and covered the grenade with my body.

Lying there with the smell of the earth in my nostrils, the rushing in my ears, seeing Hamster’s boot, a speck of red mud on the toe, I felt the hard lump of the grenade in my gut and I thought to myself, “So this is how it ends. My first unselfish act will also be my last. And I’ll go out looking at a speck of mud on a stranger’s boot.” I closed my eyes and tried to think of something better, and for no reason, I saw Kris Kelly’s face.

Hog tugged at my shoulder.

I stood up. Silence hung over the range like a blanket. Hamster picked up the grenade. Hog blinked, and brushed dirt from my cheek, which was wet. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said, his voice a whisper edged in wonder. “You jumped on that grenade.”

“I fell,” I said, still unsure if I was whole or halved. “I didn’t jump.”

“He jumped,” Hamster said. “I saw him.”

“He jumped on a live grenade,” Ice said.

“No, really, I fell.”

The men behind the earthworks were all silent.

Hog said, his jaw unhinged, “We’ve done this to a hundred guys, and no one has ever jumped on the grenade.”

“Most guys wet themselves,” Hamster said.

“But you jumped on the damn grenade.” Hog’s face pulled itself out of surprise and into wide-eyed, illuminated appreciation of something he’d never seen before and probably didn’t ever expect to see again, like Elvis pumping gas along Route 666. “Goddamn, New Guy,” he said, “that was in-fucking-credible.”

“He looked like a monkey,” Phil hollered, “jumping on a coconut.”

The word “monkey” swept through the group, English and Spanish speakers alike. Laughter followed like rain and washed away the remaining tension.

“A fucking monkey man,” Hamster said.

Hog gave me a one-armed hug and said, “Monkeyman, you got some damn brass balls, I’ll give you that.”

The thought drifted through the blind haze of the adrenaline rush. “You mean this was a joke?”

Hog was decent enough to be embarrassed. “It’s how we break in the new guys. A hazing, kind of. We never expected anyone to do that,” he stammered, his hand wheeling about, searching for words to describe what he had just seen. “To jump, to throw himself…” He trailed off.

I stood there in the bunker as, one by one, men walked past and shook my hand and called me “Monkeyman,” my new name already polished by their respect. There was still rushing in my ears and my knees trembled. I felt like I might throw up, or let go of my bladder, but I didn’t. Instead, I held on to a bright and shining thought of hunting these men down, one by one, and killing them in cruel ways as payback for the strain they had just put on my heart.