“Everyone has fear before a battle,” my father had said a lifetime ago, “but what makes a good soldier is the ability to overcome that fear. You have to compartmentalize. You focus on what must be done right at that moment and forget everything else. That's why we trained you so hard, so when the time comes, you act on reflex and don't have to pause to think.”
Dad was right about that. I had known fear and managed to push it aside. I had charged into death and bullets with my teeth bared and a primal scream on my lips enough times that I was confident in my ability to act in the face of danger. What Dad never taught me, though, was how to deal with real pain, how to compartmentalize that. When I lost him on the Mississippi River years before, I was bruised and battered in my soul and I almost let darkness take me, almost disappeared into that black abyss, where all hope is abandoned and nothing really matters anymore.
Crystal and faith in God had saved me from myself then. Perhaps my faith in God was restored because of Crystal, finding love and acceptance in another broken person, and therefore being able to receive and accept God's love. There was a kind of synergy then that led to healing. Even so, I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night, haunted and hunted by the past. Images seared into my brain, things I wished I could forget, would rise unbidden and angry. And that was during the good years, the season of harvest and gentle sunshine sprinkled with laughing children.
How could Crystal save me when she needed me more than ever, when we were like two shipwrecked survivors who did not know how to swim, drowning in an angry ocean? Where I might just pull her down to save myself? How could she heal me when I had let our daughter be taken? Would she ever really forgive me? Could I forgive God?
These thoughts ate at me constantly, gnawing at my resolve, particularly during the tense stretches of waiting and concealment, when I was hiding from the enemy with nowhere to hide from myself. I tried to pray, but I felt as though I was talking to a rock.
The hangar smelled of axle grease and rust. Arthur was nauseated from his concussion and we worried that his wound might be more serious than we first thought, but he seemed to improve and his vision cleared. Max ultimately accepted some morphine and slept soundly.
“I'm sorry I let you guys down,” Arthur said. Clotted blood matted his sandy hair at the base of his skull.
“You didn't,” Chilli said.
“Dad's gonna kill me.”
“You did nothing wrong, Arthur,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“This was my first real combat mission. I got myself captured.”
I slapped him on the back. “I'm sure he'll be proud of how you handled yourself.”
“He didn't want to send me in the first place. I begged him to let me go.”
“He'll be glad you're still alive,” I assured him.
“I'm sorry,” Arthur said awkwardly. “I didn't mean…I know I have no right to complain.”
“Don't sweat it,” I said, feeling a little guilty. There was an innocence about Arthur that belied his past. Hawk had found the child somewhere east of the Rockies. The boy had been living in a shanty with his dead parents like a bear cub staying by his slain mother's side. Arthur had not spoken his entire first year in Jackson.
Chilli cracked the door and looked outside with binoculars. “Thirty minutes before full dark,” he reported. “Let's hope our handiwork has left them disorganized. Saddle up.”
*
We were desperate and we had no good options, only ones that were slightly less bad. Chilli decided on a direct approach. During the day, two helicopters had thundered overhead— an enormous and ungainly Chinook came in low early in the day, and later in the afternoon, a smaller, faster AH-64 Apache disappeared behind buildings—and had touched down on the airfield, we hoped.
We bounced back to the airfield in the truck on the road. Chilli and Arthur were in the cab, while Max and I hunkered down in the bed. The temperature had risen above freezing and the ice and snow were thawing.
We turned down a ruler straight road and headed for the main gate, which consisted of a single guard shack and an unknown number of troops. The suicidal nature of our assault bothered me little because I had already resigned myself to death, an ironically cowardly bargain I made with myself. Combat is easier in some ways if a soldier does not expect to live through it. That I would leave Crystal without a husband, and Ryder without a father, was an intrinsically selfish consequence. I had no real choice other than to make peace with that, and a part of me, I think, welcomed the excuse to die.
The truck slowed as we approached the gate and Chilli flashed his headlights. He leaned out the window and waved and shouted at the guards while we were coasting to the gate. Max and I jumped from the rear of the tuck bed and rolled on the wet road. I came up fast and followed the truck from behind, with Max to my right. His face, like mine, was darkened by face paint, otherworldly in the red glow of the taillights.
“I found 'em!” Chilli shouted.
“Stop!”
“Listen to me!” Chilli screamed, the truck still rolling. “I found them. Don't shoot!”
“Hands on the wheel!” I heard.
They were close now.
“We're friendlies; do not fire!”
The SCAR-H combined a rapid rate of fire with low recoil. I stepped from behind the heavy truck with my finger on the trigger and emptied a twenty round clip into the four soldiers approaching the vehicle. They jerked and pirouetted in a macabre dance with death and lead.
If they were fathers to small children or husbands to wives, I did not care. That they would kill me if they had a chance was more than enough to clear my conscience.
On the other side of the truck, Max was unloading on adversaries I could not see, the distinctive, rhythmic, clacking of the Kalashnikov weaving with the more subtle prolonged cough of my suppressed weapon. Chilli and Arthur peppered the guard house.
“Go! Go!” Chilli said.
I dove for the truck bed and Max reached out, grabbed me by the backpack, and hauled me in. Chilli killed the lights and drove into the air field. I slapped a fresh magazine into my weapon. Max grinned at me, wild eyed and skin taut against his skull. I pushed my back against the cab and held on to the railing.
We did not know where we were going, not sure either helicopter was at the airport. Chili navigated toward the brightest lights.
I leaned over the side and looked forward, seeing the two aircraft up ahead, sitting sideways to us from our direction of approach. The giant Chinook was behind the Apache, which was being fueled from a truck. Beyond the helicopters was a low building, lit from within and above. There were infantrymen all around the aircraft. Chilli gunned the engine.
*
This assault violated nearly every principle I had been taught about tactics, many of them by Chilli himself. We had not performed any reconnaissance, we had little element of surprise, we faced a superior force with more firepower, our means of extraction was dubious at best, and we were unable to communicate with one another properly as to how we would deal with the rapidly changing battlefield. The mantra “adapt and overcome” had also been thoroughly dinned into my head, and my years of working with Chilli had given me a sixth sense, a way of quickly anticipating and interpreting his actions, that was more valuable than a radio.
I used a hand signal and Max and I retreated toward the rear of the truck. We were moving at about forty or fifty miles per hour. Chilli's door opened, and I jumped. I tucked my knees to my chest and rolled on the pavement, shooting needles of pain through my ankles and legs. When my long roll ceased, I came up on one knee with my weapon raised in time to see our vehicle smash into the fuel truck. The two vehicles exploded in an angry yellow and orange blast, sending a convulsive fireball high into the night air. I threw myself forward and put my hands on the back of my neck just before a hot wind rushed past.
The hose ignited and the fire spread to the Apache. The next series of deafening concussions made the initial blast seem small as the ordinance in the aircraft blew. Had I been standing, the shockwave would have knocked me down. A piece of a rotor pinwheeled past and metal rained down from above while bullets popped and cracked from within the burning husk of the helicopter.
I caught a glimpse of Chilli and Arthur ahead, fast moving shadows silhouetted against the flames, already on their feet and sprinting toward the Chinook. I pushed myself to my feet and ran, my weapon raised and adrenaline pumping on overdrive. Wide to my right, I heard Max open up with his confiscated AK-47.
The Chinook's large side door was open, and one of the enemy soldiers began to fire the heavy Gatling gun, spraying tracer rounds across the open tarmac. Then the gun went silent. I found targets as I moved forward, men emerging from the barracks behind the helicopter, and smacked the last magazine into my weapon. Chilli and Arthur had made the bird. I ran past it and threw myself to the ground, using the body of a fallen soldier for cover. I paid no attention to the wheezing sounds he made as I rested the barrel of my rifle across his torn chest and squeezed the trigger methodically and carefully, cutting down the closest men first with single shots.
The enemy counterattack faltered, and the remaining troops took cover behind vehicles and machinery, still firing relentlessly at the helicopter. The rotors started turning and the engine whined, then the bird lifted unsteadily.
I was about to rush ahead and cross to the open door when the old Army jeep with a rocket launcher mounted on the back burst onto the runway. The first rocket whooshed into the burning wreckage of the Apache. If they had heat seeking missiles, I knew there was no way Chilli and Arthur were going to make it.
I fired on the jeep, trying to take out the driver. It swerved wildly then reversed back behind the side of the barracks while I pumped my last rounds into the vehicle. I dropped my SCAR and pulled my sidearm as I ran toward the building. The tremendous wash from the rotors stirred up dust and dirt on the airfield and flung small pieces of metal into the air.
In my head, I could hear Chilli cussing me.
The jeep almost ran into me when I rounded the building. I jumped against the metal structure and fired at the gunner as it swept past. I used my last round on the Jeep when it slowed. The gunner toppled sideways from the Jeep and fell to the pavement. The driver jumped out, seemingly unaware of where the shots had come from. He headed for the rear of the Jeep. The helicopter began to gain speed and altitude. I dropped my sidearm and pulled my blade. He was fumbling with his weapon when I leaped onto the rear of the Jeep. His eyes were wide with terror and surprise when I quickly closed the gap between us and plunged the serrated Ka-Bar into his stomach, thrusting upward and twisting, and the man's face was full of pain, his mouth frozen in a great “O.” I heard boots slapping on pavement.
I jumped to the ground and turned to face the sound. Five men were coming from behind the building. I turned, thinking I could try using the jeep. More men in a semi-circle were stalking me from the front. I spun and faced the five men, my knife still dripping with blood. I prepared to make my last mad rush. I was ready.
“The Prophet wants him alive,” someone said.
“Put down the knife.”
I waited. They were not close enough yet.
“Put it down,” said the soldier. “We're not going to kill you. Doesn't mean we can't hurt you real bad though. Drop the weapon.” They stopped about ten feet away. “Then again, accidents happen.”
I feinted left, as if I were going to run for cover, and I did not wait for the shots. I changed directions and sprinted for them. Several strides and I was in their midst. I lashed out with my leg, trying to take out a kneecap, and spun with the knife. I connected with the kick, but my knife bit air.
A rifle butt to my kidney brought me to my knees. I lurched ahead onto all fours. Another blow to my back put me down. I tasted asphalt. In a final act of defiance, I plunged the knife into the nearest boot, and the ensuing blow to my head was so hard it did not even hurt.