ABOUT A QUARTER of the men at Kleos had arrived with King and were still wet from their swim across the river. The rest had been at the compound for some time and obviously considered themselves superior. Ben, meanwhile, was the FNG, the Fucking New Guy, the kid who showed up green to the infantry unit and was hated because he didn’t know how not to get them all killed. He was no better than the hapless Willy Owen from the CO’s story. Not even Reno, who’d somehow latched onto the mass of them like a parasite, was looked at with such obvious disdain.
But none of this mattered. In Iraq, Ben had fought for his men. Every single day, he’d risked his life for them and them alone. When King collapsed, Ben realized that he’d been given new orders. He would do for Becca—for their future—exactly what he’d done for his soldiers. This was his pledge to her.
As the hoplites led the vets through Kleos, Ben evaluated the CO’s guard force. They were all like Arne: old and beaten. Their hair was gray and their stomachs were soft, but they had real weapons and they’d been trained to use them.
After giving the competitors new clothes, the hoplites led the men toward the forest at the base of the great mesa. The group passed a couple of camouflaged guardhouses and headed along a dirt path into the gloom. It was hotter now, as though the cottonwoods’ canopy had trapped the heat. Long mess tables were set up beneath tarps. Something in the air smelled delicious, but all the hoplites gave them were bowls of steaming broth and slices of tough, tasteless bread.
Reno slid in beside Ben, so he shifted over, unhappily. He was eager to take a swing at the guy, but clearly this wasn’t the right time. One of the men who’d come with King’s group landed heavily on the bench across the table. He was tall with overly long arms, pockmarked skin, and cheekbones so high and sharp they looked capable of drawing blood.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” the man demanded of Ben.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m pissing you off.”
Ben wasn’t sure whether this guy was picking a fight or merely responding to Ben’s eyes. They frowned at the corners, made people think he was angry even when he wasn’t. “I don’t have a problem with you,” Ben said.
“Yeah, you do,” the man said.
“Bull, for Christ’s sake,” Reno hissed. “Just drink your soup.”
“I want to know how some stranger can just show up all of a sudden and take King’s place.”
“You’re just pissy ’cause the kid’s younger than you are and in better shape,” Reno said. “You thought you were a sure thing and now you’re not.”
“This ‘kid,’ as you call him, has done some pretty awful things.” Bull held his eyes on Ben’s face. Ben let him look.
“Sergeant Thompson has been on this earth half as long as you and a third as long as me,” Reno said. “He hasn’t had the time to rack up enough bad behavior to come within shouting distance of either one of us.”
“Why the hell are you defending him?” Bull spat. Frankly, Ben wondered the same thing.
“Everybody, just drink your soup.” Reno scowled.
Ben lifted his bowl to his lips. He dipped some bread into the watery liquid. It tasted okay. It just wasn’t substantial. At least the hoplites had given him a decent breakfast: fresh eggs and bacon from Kleos’s animals, strong coffee.
After lunch the hoplites led the men into a large hogan deeper in the woods.
The single room was dim, lit by a wood-burning stove, and the walls were lined with a kind of white canvas. A network of lights and speakers hung overhead. The CO entered and arranged himself yogi-like on a pile of blankets. The men sat cross-legged on the ground before him, like schoolchildren.
“From this moment, the competition officially begins,” the CO said. His resonant voice seemed to emanate from everywhere. “Twenty-four hours from now, one of you will be selected to carry on Durga’s legacy. You will take my place as leader of Kleos and become the new CO. This is both a privilege and a burden. And it is the reason we compete. You must have enough strength to shoulder the responsibility.”
The CO unfolded his heavy body and stood up. Ben glanced to his left and right. All eyes were straight ahead.
“To prove that you are fully committed, you must be bound irrevocably to the service of Durga. Your willingness to do this is your first test.”
The CO walked to the wood-burning stove and pulled out a metal poker. The tip was the size of a child’s fist and had been fashioned into the shape of a Greek military helmet. Ben deflated. So these were the trials the CO had in store? Ben thought about how King had begged the CO for this opportunity to be branded with a hot iron.
“Stand,” the CO commanded, “and remove your shirts.”
Ben’s entire body tensed, but he could hardly think about himself, because the branding had begun. The men stuffed their T-shirts into their mouths and tried to stifle their cries. Their faces contorted. A few of the older vets fainted. A few ran from the hogan before it was too late. The poker approached.
“She doesn’t want you to do this,” Reno hissed between his teeth. “Drop out, for Christ’s sake.”
“You won’t get me disqualified,” Ben hissed back, certain that Reno wanted him kicked out.
“We can get out of here,” Reno said with new urgency.
We? Ben thought. But then he remembered his black eye and Reno dumping him on the roadside. “I don’t trust you.”
“Like husband, like wife,” Reno said and shook his head. But before either one of them could say more, the CO arrived. He held the poker like a monarch’s staff. The tip was so hot, it glowed white.
“This pain is for all the men you failed to save,” the CO intoned. “For all the brothers you disappointed. We receive our pain together, because only we know what it feels like to have entered the crucible of war and returned.”
“Thank God you did it too,” Reno said, forcing joviality into his voice. “Otherwise I’d feel like a sucker.”
The CO looked down at his own chest, which bore a similar brand, long healed. He nodded, completely missing Reno’s sarcasm. “This marks us forever as separate. No one outside understands what you have been through, Reno. Hear the words of Achilles: ‘My heart bids me shun the society of men.’” And then the CO pushed the iron into Reno’s chest. Tears poured out of Reno’s eyes and his face contorted, but he did not cry out.
“Say it!” the CO commanded.
Reno struggled to speak against the pain. “‘My heart . . . bids me . . . shun . . .’”
A loud voice in Ben’s head agreed with Reno: This was crazy. This was wrong. But Ben silenced the voice. It was his turn.
More men failed the CO’s first test. Some fought the pronouncement of their defeat, and once or twice a Taser was used to subdue them. There was something brutal about the Tasers. They degraded the men, turning them into soulless, sniveling creatures.
Ben sat on the hogan floor with the other victors, breathing through his pain. On two tours in Iraq, he’d received no substantial injuries. Nothing worse than sunburn, blisters, and some damaged olfactory nerves. He had no right to complain about this.
“Who among you burns with pain?” the CO asked.
“Not I!” Bull shouted. He staggered to his feet. “Not I, sir.”
“Who here burns with pain?” the CO repeated.
“Not I!” Ben jumped to his feet. If Bull was going to be his main competition, it seemed advantageous to follow the man’s lead. But no sooner had Ben spoken than hoplites seized the both of them and dragged them to the CO.
“Not you?” the CO asked, breathing heavily into their faces.
“Not I, sir,” Bull said, though Ben held back. If they’d given the correct answer the first time, the CO wouldn’t keep asking. It seemed that Bull had forgotten the unwritten rules of facing a drill sergeant.
“Not you?” the CO spat at Bull. “‘When Hector saw great-hearted Patroclus fall back after being wounded with sharp bronze, he went down through the ranks, up close, and struck him with a spear-thrust to the belly, drove the point straight through . . . Now vultures will devour you here, poor wretch’!” The CO made a stabbing motion into the air that caused both Ben and Bull to flinch. The CO smiled. “You feel no pain?” he said, still directing his ire toward Bull. “How about you, Sergeant Thompson?”
“I feel pain, sir.” He did not understand why this was the correct answer, only that it was.
The CO nodded. “You lie to me and to yourself,” he said to Bull. “All you feel is pain. And if you ever hope to achieve catharsis, you must give yourself over to it. Do you understand?”
Bull nodded vigorously.
“Do you understand, Sergeant Thompson?”
“Yes, sir.” Ben nodded and the movement made him horribly dizzy. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself not to faint. His chest burned. It throbbed. He felt pain, all right.
“You are blind, all of you,” said the CO. “But within the day, every single one of you will be made to see.”