Entanglement (5 page)

Driving home, he found a brochure that William the recruiter had left behind that had been underlined and annotated in what he realized was Charlie's hand. He read the first paragraph:

“The Middle East is in the vanguard of the War on Terror, and the Marines support this effort with a number of operations. Those deployed in the region regularly provide security services or go into combat, but they may also work as instructors, trainers, protectors, and mentors. In Afghanistan, troops are involved in mentoring and training the country's national army. They may also be involved in combat with insurgent forces.”

Charlie had underlined the words
instructors, trainers, protectors,
and
mentors. That's me
, he wrote. But Jack focused on the word
combat
.

Each morning he studied the casualty list in the newspaper with his heart in his throat. Yet even as he exhaled with relief after scanning the list of names, he knew that for someone, somewhere, a name on this list would become the heartache of a lifetime, signifying the loss of a precious someone—father or daughter, son or wife—who could never be replaced.

CHAPTER 4

Charlie sat on patrol duty at five o'clock on a broiling Saturday evening, the sun still beating down on his back like a white-hot hand. He was cradling a heavy, futuristic rifle that had radio-controlled “smart” bullets designed to explode on contact with targets far out of conventional range. There weren't enough of these to go around, and all the soldiers wanted one, but Charlie was half afraid to use it, anxious that it might go off in his face. He was also smoking a cigarette—a habit that he'd picked up within days of deployment.

After basic training, he'd been transported to Wardak province, near Kabul—one of the most dangerous regions in the country. Rumor had it that this was where most newcomers were sent, after the area had taken its toll on more seasoned veterans. Lately there'd been an increase in convoys being ambushed and government officials being killed.

Charlie had witnessed one weary platoon pulling out as his moved in. He'd never beheld such grizzled faces on young men before. Sunburned, their beards sprinkled with what looked like salt, their eyes beyond weary.

“That'll be us,” said his new friend Ernesto, smoking beside him.

“We'll be lucky if that
is
us.”

“What do you mean?”

The answer was so obvious that he didn't bother to say it.

Ernesto was the kind of friend he probably wouldn't have had back in the States. Hispanic, a staunch Catholic, and already a father of two at 25, Ernesto worked at a chicken plant in southern Missouri and was the most important person in Charlie's immediate world. Ernesto already knew the ropes, so he kept an eye on Charlie as they scrambled up the mountainous terrain together. His new friend had even given Charlie a Saint Christopher medal. Charlie didn't know what it signified exactly, but he was grateful for it and wore it always.

At night, on patrols like this one, Ernesto talked about his family, especially his wife.

“I don't know if she'll wait for me if I'm gone much longer,” he told Charlie, who was shocked, though he tried to hide it.

“But why not? And what about the kids?”

“She's hot, man. You saw her picture. She could find someone else to look after the kids. She probably don't think I'll be making it back anyhow.”

Charlie contemplated this as Ernesto studied him. “What about you? Don't you have a girl?”

“Yeah, her name's Hannah. I don't know how she's feeling about me right now. We had a big fight about my enlisting.”

“She didn't want you to go?”

“Nope. Basically she found my papers before I told her, and she took it like a betrayal or something.”

Ernesto shook his head.

“And my mother was just as bad—she teaches history, so I had to listen to her talk all about U.S. involvement in the Middle East and the corruption of the military and how the war was a travesty and I was an obvious dupe, and on and on.”

“What about your dad?”

“Don't remind me—he squandered the money my grandmother set aside for college for me and my brother. Then he had the nerve to be upset when I enlisted. No one in our family's ever been in the service, except for an uncle who went to Italy during World War II. That I would actually enlist, of my own free will, wasn't even believable to my family.”

Ernesto shook his head. “Man, that's a mess. It's an honor in my family. They were thrilled—I'm the first one, too, but that's because I'm the first generation who's been a citizen.”

Ernesto lit another cigarette. Charlie looked out at the horizon—mountainous terrain as far as he could see. “My brother was the worst,” he said softly.

“Really?” Ernesto said.

Charlie nodded his head. “I never realized so many people were interested in my future.”

“Yeah,” Ernesto laughed and inhaled smoke, then let it out through his nose.

Jack fully entered Charlie's mind then, as he did several times a day. Charlie looked at his watch and translated the hour into California time, which he still thought of as the “real” time, as absurd as this was.

Where was Jack, and what was he doing now? It was painful not to know. It was 10
P.M.
at home, which meant that he was probably off partying somewhere. It seemed to Charlie that Jack had been getting high and drinking even more than usual; if he talked to him after nine o'clock at night now, his speech was slurred and his reactions hyper. Charlie couldn't help worrying about him.

He'd woken up last night, his heart slamming in his chest, unable to remember where he was … then he heard Ernesto snoring beside him and slowly started to put the jigsaw puzzle together. But why did he feel so anxious? He thought of all the obvious hazards at hand—bombs and snipers—but that wasn't what was causing his panic. It was the thought of Jack, who he'd dreamed was sinking in a pit of quicksand, just like in the Tarzan movies they used to watch together as boys. Charlie was too far away to pull his brother out of whatever trouble he might get into—his deployment meant he'd had to let go of whatever rescue rope he'd used in the past.

Charlie's unit set up this outpost after climbing for hours, scrambling through creek beds and over crumbling rocks. By the time they'd arrived, Charlie had blood on his face from the thorn trees that snagged his skin as he blundered along. He'd been exhausted, but there was no one to complain to, nothing to be done. They were all in the same boat, laboring under heavy body armor, struggling to breathe in heat that would hit 120 by afternoon and only drop ten or so degrees at night.

And what were they doing exactly?

Looking for IEDs—according to Ernesto. What else? This seemed to be, more or less, his full-time job so far. The enemy had realized that full-out assaults were less effective than these deadly, nerve-racking explosions.

Charlie saw evidence of them everywhere—in the blackened metal piles that once were jeeps abandoned on the side of the road; in crippled villagers whose legs had been torn off, or their arms mangled.

In the first few months, he had already engaged in the most strenuous physical activities of his life—climbing mountains, walking in obscene heat, toting weight on his back like a burro. But what else physical had he ever done? Phys ed in high school? Handball at his gym?

Everything Jack had said about the service turned out to be true: Charlie wasn't cut out for the Marines or for desert life, though this was irrelevant now. He had signed up for the long haul. Except for going AWOL, which he would never do, there was no way out. He'd signed papers, as if in blood.

So far, this was the most dramatic instance of Charlie actively rebelling against his brother's opinion and venturing out completely on his own. Now he felt that he was paying for this folly daily.

He'd not only undergone a physical transformation but a mental one. He experienced fierce new emotions every hour that he spent here. Almost every minute, he was afraid—terrified, really—of some unseen danger or threat that it was hard to put his finger on but that followed him everywhere.

Life had become deadly serious. Each day, there were situations that required him to reach inside himself and come up with pockets of strength and fortitude that he'd never known he had.

He held an assault rifle to cover Ernesto while he went into a crumbling stone building that could be booby-trapped; he looked into the bloody face of an old woman who had gotten caught in the line of fire while she was standing in line to buy bread. He took into his arms a mongrel dog that had been hit by a military transport—a mutt with a slender snout and white spots reminiscent of their childhood dog, Joey. Could Charlie really pick him up, clean his wounds, and eventually bury him? Yes, yes, he could.

Dying wasn't an abstraction here but an every­day occurrence, as common as taking a breath. Any moment a sniper's bullet could travel through the air or an IED could explode, and you'd be gone, forever—all of you, every nickname and fondest dream, every fingerprint and strand of hair that had once been yours alone.

He tried not to show Jack how unnerved he felt when they talked on Skype. This usually was easy enough, particularly because the connection was so lousy; it was hard to see or speak to him in any extended, meaningful way. The service cut off or froze every few minutes.

Frankly, Jack seemed terrified about being so far away from him; Charlie could see it in his eyes and in the frequency of his calls. He had the impression that Jack would have preferred to keep Skype on indefinitely, just so he could experience some fragment of what his twin was enduring.

When it got too intense, Charlie fobbed him off on Ernesto, who found it easier to joke about the weather and the bad food. No one else called, because no one else knew how.

CHAPTER 5

That night Charlie fell asleep as soon as he got off patrol, only to be awakened what felt like minutes later. He'd been in the middle of a deep and complex dream when Ernesto shone a light in his eyes and shook him.

“Time to head out, dude.”

Charlie rolled over with a groan, shielding his eyes. “What? You mean now?”

“Yeah, just got a call. Some big doings west of here—up and out.”

“Aw, man.” He rolled over, then sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What kind of doings?”

“Not sure—some kind of massacre in a village is what I hear.”

“Great. What time is it anyway?”

“Four.”

“Christ.” He sat up for a moment, then stood and began reaching for his clothes.

Charlie looked over at Ernesto, who was standing there watching him.

“You ready to go?”

“I ain't going.”

“Why not?”

“They need someone to stay here and monitor the computers and shit.”

“Damn.” Charlie didn't like going without Ernesto; somehow he considered him good luck.

“You'll be all right—be back before you know it.”

Charlie was silent as he finished dressing.

They set out in a convoy in the fading darkness. In his Humvee were two blond, blue-eyed soldiers from the Midwest, Benjamin and Jim, and a young black guy from Brooklyn named JD. They all were laughing and smoking and drinking weak coffee with dried milk that someone had gotten at the last minute. Radio information kept filtering through. Ernesto was right: there'd been some kind of massacre.

They drove into the Afghan Valley, heading toward a village in the west. As the sun rose, terraced fields rose up before them. Charlie was only half awake, and he opened and closed his eyes at this dreamlike world—trees with gnarled apples on one side, a burned and twisted jeep on the margins of the road on the other. As they neared the village, the sun came up with a white ferocity, and a thin breeze blew a terrible scent their way.

“The village,” Charlie said. “We must be almost there.”