He sat down and looked into the darkness, past the tents for the nurses, the Tactical Operations Center, and the soldiers who guarded them. He could see the soldier at post by the red tip of his cigarette, and beyond him lay the desert southwest of Kandahar, on the road to Lashkar Gah, near the Pakistan border. The night was still, the sky broken neither by ordnance nor stars, and clouds obscured the horizon, obliterating the division between heaven and earth. He found himself looking up, wondering if Chloe’s soul was there, somewhere.
“Hey,” said a voice, and Mike turned to see Chatty, in his blanket, cape, and boxers, his night goggles still on his scrub cap.
“Did I wake you?”
“Nah.” Chatty clumped over, eased into the chair, and crossed his legs, revealing a hairy calf. He sighed, wreathing them both in chalky breath. “I wonder how long this is gonna last.”
“The quiet?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe they went south.” Mike knew the Taliban didn’t like fighting in the cold, preferring to hide in Pakistan, in the lawless Federated Tribal Areas.
“I know, but I hate it.” Chatty shook his head.
“Me, too.” Mike also knew that Army communications being what they were, the FST hadn’t been told when or if the brigade would strike, and nobody knew when or if the enemy would attack. It was a life lived on tenterhooks, and the docs took it into consideration when they analyzed vitals, because nobody’s blood pressure was normal, ever.
“Silent night, holy night, eh?”
“Oh, right.” Mike had almost forgotten about Christmas. He had been en route at the time, and the gift shops had been decorated at the base in Kuwait. “How was Christmas? What did you do?”
“We were at Bagram, so the usual.” Chatty looked into the distance. “Strippers and pizza.”
Mike smiled. Bagram was the nearest base, about twenty-five miles north of Kabul. The FST was entitled to chill when they were at base, but lately they’d had to assist in the hospital, called Camp Lacy, because it was shorthanded. “Was it bad?”
“Not too. I drained some mighty heinous abscesses, and I&D.”
Chatty meant irrigation and debridement, or cleaning out the wounds, trimming away the dead tissue, and packing them, without closing. Most soldiers endured multiple surgeries on the same wound, but Mike never heard a single one complain.
Chatty looked over. “So how you doing?”
“Fine.”
“That why you’re out here? Because you’re so fine?”
Mike couldn’t smile. “Okay, my practice is imploding, and my wife bled to death because she was drunk when she cut herself.”
Chatty blinked. “You need cheering up. How do you hide money from a surgeon?”
“Tape it to his children.”
“How do you hide money from a plastic surgeon?”
Mike had heard that one, too. “You can’t.”
“How do you hide money from an orthopod?”
“How?”
“Put it in a book. Did you know the one about the two podiatrists? They were arch rivals.”
Mike groaned. “Please stop.”
Chatty’s expression grew serious. “So tell me. Start with your partners, we’ll ease into it. What happened?”
Mike sighed, then told him the story.
Chatty nodded, considering it. “My judgment? Haggerty’s a jerk.”
“You can’t blame him. He saw an opportunity and he took it.”
“I do blame him. He should’ve lifted you all up, invited you all to join, especially you. You can pin fractures with your eyes closed. When you go back, find a new group.” Chatty turned to the black horizon. “Now, what happened with Chloe?”
Mike told him, not finishing until it was almost dawn and the sky had lightened to purplish, but was still opaque, like a lid on a pressure cooker. “Hell, I don’t even know when she started drinking.”
“It sounds like she started after you left, which makes sense.”
“I think she drank with Emily in the car.”
“You don’t know that. Cut her some slack.” Chatty drew his cape around him. “Give her the benefit of the doubt. You’ll make yourself crazy. You’ll start doubting everything you know.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“So don’t. You know what you know. She probably started after you left and it got the best of her. It’s the war.” Chatty threw up his hands. “She’s only human. Don’t judge her. Just love her.”
Mike felt it resonate in his chest. He eyed the horizon, beginning to show itself, and squinted against the light of a new day.
“Don’t worry, the baby will get easier. They’re not real until they talk, and once they start talking, they never stop.”
Mike smiled. Chatty had three daughters.
“You’ll be fine.” Chatty chucked him on the arm. “Come on, Scholl’s. Let’s see that studly smile.”
Mike didn’t have a chance, because there was a commotion at the Tactical Operations Center, as Joe Segundo burst from the front flap.
“Wake up, everybody!” he shouted. “There’s four in the air and more to come! It’s
on
!”
Chapter Twenty-four
Mike came out of the OR tent, squinting against the sun. The brigade had sustained heavy casualties in the attack last night, and the 556th had operated for thirteen hours straight. All cases were expected to return to duty, though two were injured severely enough to be transported to Landstuhl. Mike’s last patient was in recovery, The Kid With The Dragon Tattoo. The soldier had survived the fragment wounds, but his tattoo was KIA.
Mike inhaled, and the cold air carried traces of smoke and ordnance. The sky was cobalt blue, and the Registan Desert packed in frozen ridges. A dust devil whirled in the distance, a cyclone of sand spiraling upward on unseen currents. Mike looked around camp, which was calm after the chaos of last night. Chatty, Oldstein, and Phat Phil stood outside their tent, talking with two soldiers. Oddly, from their group came the sound of a child crying.
Mike walked over, and in the middle of the group stood a boy about six years old, holding a spotted puppy with a cut leg. Tears streaked down the child’s dirty face, and fabric wrapped around the dog was soaked with blood. Mike looked over at Chatty. “You gonna fix it, or am I?”
Chatty frowned. “Colonel Mustard says we’re not allowed.”
Mike sighed. Colonel Mustard was Chatty’s name for Lieutenant Colonel Colin Davy, the Deputy Commander of Clinical Services. Mike turned to the soldier, named Jacobs, whose eyes were bloodshot after fighting all night. “Jacobs, what’s the deal?”
“I don’t like it, either, but I got orders.” Jacobs shrugged, his cheeks dotted with acne. The soldier behind him, Tipton, looked grim. “Davy says you can’t do anything for the dog. It’s against regs.”
Chatty scoffed. “Jacobs, kindly tell Field Marshal Numbnuts he’s not the boss of me. This is my FST, and I don’t take orders from him or anybody else.”
“Aw, come on, Jacobs.” Mike knew the Army didn’t advertise it, but FSTs and Combat Support Hospitals routinely provided medical care to host nationals, coalition forces, Afghan army and police, even enemy detainees, because the Afghan hospitals were horrendous. “We’re supposed to help the host nationals.”
“I feel you, but Davy says the dog is not a host national.”
“We’re helping the kid, not the dog.” Mike’s heart went out to the boy, who gazed up at him, big dark eyes fringed with long eyelashes.
“Sorry.” Jacobs shook his head. “The kid shouldn’t even be here. I was taking him out of camp, but he saw the Red Cross and ran in.”
“Where’s his parents? How’d he even get here?”
“His village isn’t far, due north, where it gets scrubby.” Jacobs waved beyond the camp perimeter, marked with Humvees. “His grandfather brought him. He’s one of the elders. We checked him out.”
“Where’s your terp?” Mike meant the brigade’s interpreter. The boy could have spoken Pashtun, Dari, or Urdu, or any dialect thereof. The FST had English and Spanish, though Mike’s Latin was useless everywhere.
“He’s with the detainees. We got two. The grandfather’s waiting.” Jacobs nodded toward the gate, and Mike craned his head to see a frail old man in a
shalwar kameez
, or a white turban, and a brown
patu
, a shawl the men wore over their long traditional smocks, leading a donkey on a rope.
“If the grandfather’s an elder, doesn’t he have pull?”
Chatty scoffed, impatient. “We’re spending more time talking about it than it would take to fix. The dog’s gonna die.”
Phat Phil looked over, squinting. “We’re not vets.”
Oldstein snorted. “I taught at Johns Hopkins. I can duct-tape a puppy.”
“And I’m Batman,” Chatty added, and they all smiled.
Mike crouched and held out his hand, and the boy took a step forward, which touched him. “Aha! I see the problem, don’t you, Dr. Chatty?”
“Yes, I do, Dr. Scholl’s,” Chatty answered, playing along. “What is it?”
“This child is injured.” Mike pointed to the boy’s pants, covered with the dog’s blood. “That’s major blood loss, don’t you agree?”
“Agree, Major Blood Loss. Have you met my colleagues, Major Pain In The Ass and Major Faux Pas?” Chatty turned to Jacobs. “Soldier, we have to treat this host national. Please inform Colonel Mustard. He’s in the conservatory, with a pipe.”
Jacobs rolled his eyes. “Doc, that’s dog blood, and you know it.”
“Wrong. Dog blood is a lighter red, more cerise, less vermillion.”
“Let me have your puppy, buddy.” Mike held out his arms, but the boy took another step closer. “Does he want me to pick him up?”
“Obviously, Scholl’s. Just don’t drop him.” Chatty chuckled, and the others joined in.
“Here we go, honey.” Mike scooped up the boy and puppy, and they rose and walked toward the OR tent. The boy felt surprisingly light, and his timid gaze shifted toward Mike, then away. “Don’t be afraid. We’re gonna take care of your doggie.”
“Wait. Oh, hell, no.” Chatty glanced over his shoulder, then stopped. The grandfather was walking into camp with the donkey, motioning to the little boy, and the guards were talking to him.
Mike halted. “Looks like he didn’t expect us to take the boy. He probably thought we’d just take the puppy.”
“They should call the terp.” Chatty shook his head, watching with his hands on his hips.
All of a sudden, Mike didn’t understand what the grandfather was doing with the donkey, and in that split second, he sensed something was wrong. “Chatty, look,” he said, but Chatty’s eyes widened with horror.
“No!” he screamed, just as the grandfather pulled a grenade from a saddlebag, yanked the pin, and hurled it at Phat Phil, Oldstein, Jacobs, and Tipton.
KABAAM! A white-hot orange blast exploded in the middle of the men. The tent went up in flames,
whoomp
. The beach chairs flew into the air. A percussive wave knocked Mike backwards. He hit the ground. The boy and puppy went flying. Chatty fell beside him, his mouth open, screaming or saying something.
Mike couldn’t hear, deafened. He scrambled to his feet, reeling. The boy lay on his back on the dirty ground, his head to the side. The puppy was nowhere in sight. Mike rushed to the boy and felt his pulse. It was beating. He was unconscious.
Chatty staggered to his feet, his face covered with soot. He lurched toward Mike and grabbed his arm. His eyes were agonized, his lips moving, saying something Mike couldn’t hear.
“Oldstein!” Mike yelled, though he couldn’t hear himself. “Phil! Phil!” He tried to get to his feet, but fell down and Chatty yanked him up. They ran together to the explosion and threw themselves on the ground, looking for bodies on the scorched and smoking ground. Smoke enveloped them, stinging their eyes and filling their nostrils.
Mike couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A horrific nightmare, visions of hell. Body parts. A bloodied helmet. Oakley sunglasses. Bone fragments. A lid from a Copenhagen can. Soggy hunks of yellow fat. Skull shards. Brain matter, with its chemical odor. Donkey. Scraps of their tent, DVDs, a rifle, an ACU sleeve, the twisted beach chair.
Soldiers and vehicles raced to the blast from all directions. Flames flew skyward, superheating Mike’s face and body. He and Chatty coughed and frantically crawled around, looking for anything they could stitch back together, but they knew their friends were gone.
“Oldstein!” Mike screamed anyway. “Phil!”
Joe Segundo came running through the smoke, clamped his hands on Mike, and pulled him away from the fire. A soldier grabbed Chatty, but he fought him off, trying to get back, and it took another soldier to yank him away.
Mike broke free and ran for the OR, to check on The Kid With The Dragon Tattoo.
Please let me do one thing right. Just one.
Chapter Twenty-five
Mike hustled from one bay to the next, dragging the lone working lamp with him, treating nurses, soldiers, and staff for lacerations, smoke inhalation, and burns, while The Kid With The Dragon Tattoo rested in the recovery area. Soot streaked the air, and the stench of burned flesh clung to Mike’s hair and ACUs. The 556th had lost Oldstein and Phat Phil, and the brigade had lost Jacobs and Tipton.
Nurses and staff wept as they cleaned up the debris of the OR. The explosion had knocked over the sonogram, ventilator, and a laptop, but they were still working. IV stalks had blown over, and medical supplies and equipment lay broken on the floor. Saline, antibiotics, and packed red blood cells came in plastic bags, but blood had to be refrigerated and the generator was out. Soldiers were reattaching a replacement to power it back up.
Mike’s final patient was his nurse Linda, who had broken her ankle and sat on his table, her hair and face grayish with soot. He had already wrapped her foot and ankle, but he had to make a cast. His head hurt, and his ears were still ringing. He felt his jaw working to hold back his emotions. He poured sterile water into a bowl and began to bathe her bandages with his gloved hands. Outside, soldiers shouted to each other, trying to contain the fire. Chatty and Joe were with them, collecting and bagging the remains.
Linda sniffled. “One of the soldiers told me that we’re the only FST he knows of that’s been the subject of a direct attack. There have been FST docs killed in action, but never during a direct attack on a camp.”