Entanglement (6 page)

The platoon stopped, and they pulled up next to two other Humvees near an empty creek bed.

Oh, man, I don't want to go in there,
Charlie thought just as Benjamin said to him, “Charlie, you and Jim check out the graveyard over there for weapons caches, and keep an eye on that ridge. We'll be back.”

Benjamin and JD climbed out and joined other troops, who cautiously approached the mud and stone village. In the distance, a fruit orchard sat in a small fertile crescent. The rest was mountainous rock. Two mangy dogs barked and ran their way, and then a small herd of children appeared out on the bumpy dirt road, all chattering at once.

Even though heavy guns were mounted to their vehicles, the dusty-faced children ran right over to greet them.

“Sir, candy?” a small boy in a cap cried.

“I thought they were supposed to be frightened of us,” Charlie said to Jim.

“Yeah.” Jim handed the boy a couple pieces of Bazooka gum—the familiar wrapping looked surreal to Charlie in this new and foreign land. “They're scared of us, but they love us, too.”

Charlie knew it was dangerous to let his guard down, but the kids were so adorable. He hoisted up a little girl with a shattered hand and carried her around on his shoulders for a few minutes before Jim gave him a warning look.

”You have dollar?” the girl asked, and he put her down abruptly. She was older than he thought—maybe as old as ten.

“Ask her if the Taliban's been here in the last days and if they harass them,” Jim said to him.

“No, they not here,” she answered without waiting for Charlie's question. She took the quarter he handed her as if it were solid gold. “Thank you,” she said and ran off.

“She's probably lying,” Jim said, giving him a rueful look as they watched the soles of her dirty feet recede into the distance.

The two soldiers walked through creek beds to a cemetery, where they found nothing but rock and thorny brush, not a weapon in sight.

All the while, Charlie kept studying the ridge that surrounded them. At one point he saw what looked like an auburn dog—perhaps a coyote—but the next second, it was gone.

They trudged back to the Humvee, over a punishing terrain of rocks and boulders. There was a buzzing menace in the air that Charlie could not ignore nor easily identify.

His feet hurt, he was starving, but even worse, he suddenly missed Jack with a ravening pain that took his breath away.
Where are you, brother? How did we ever allow ourselves to get so far apart?

That morning, Charlie had heard Skype ring on his computer as he was getting ready to leave and get into the Humvee, but he ignored it—even though there was a chance it could be Jack. Charlie was trying to concentrate on the task at hand and didn't want to be distracted by his brother, whose anxiety was often infectious. He found it disorienting to talk to Jack, then walk a few yards and find himself in the heart of the hostile desert again. He also found it hard to talk about anything neutral or upbeat. He couldn't tell his brother what he was doing or even where he was doing it. Because of this, their conversations were often stilted and one-sided. Jack delivered news about their mutual friends—who'd lost a job or had broken up with a girlfriend. Or he talked about himself: he'd seen a movie or lost a filling; his car needed a new transmission.

Charlie often had trouble concentrating on all the facts and details, let alone even hearing them over the static. Sometimes he became exasperated with Jack's petty problems.
Who gives a shit about your transmission?
he wanted to say.
Do you realize where I am?
The people he once knew didn't even seem real to him in this world of sun and dust.

And he could never explain, even to Jack, how different it was here. Basic services that they had always taken for granted—hot showers, for example—were now luxuries. In the desert, water was liquid gold. The weather was no minor matter either; it was central to the day's mission and outcome. And the members of his team had become more than minor sidekicks and partners—they were blood brothers, who could, and often did, save your life.

Young men like JD, who'd put himself on the line for his unit and Charlie so many times that he'd lost count, or Joe, the farmer's son from Alabama, who was as right-wing as Charlie was liberal, yet told him after a recent firefight, “I love you, man—I really love you. We almost died together.”

This was the kind of bond that Jack would miss out on entirely. Not only that, but he would be fiercely jealous if he knew how close Charlie had grown to these other men.

As often as Charlie wished that he had never come, he also wished that Jack could have accompanied him. As it was, there would always be a central event that he could never share with his twin—maybe the crucial event of his life. He felt guilty about this, as if Jack were being cheated, instead of him.

CHAPTER 6

It took more than half an hour for the traffic caused by the accident to clear so that Jack could finally move again. He couldn't stand to think of all the time he'd lost—more than 40 minutes. He shook himself alert and began driving again through the late-night streets. Traffic was sparse now, except for a few taxis. He had his laptop open on the passenger seat and reached over to click the wireless icon; the computer searched for a signal as he drove. He moved into the right lane and slowed down in front of various establishments, hoping to pirate an open-access Wi-Fi network.

Jenny's Cafe on the corner of Main and Summit had a network, but it was password-protected, as was the Creamery Ice Cream Shoppe and the Dixie Coffee Spot. He tried the hardware store, two insurance companies, and even a funeral home. All were locked.

Jack quietly cursed and pressed down the gas to leave downtown. Desperate for a connection, he decided to steer his car through a series of residential areas. He drove farther afield, out of the city center. His car, nearly alone on the sleepy, rain-soaked streets, emitted an otherworldly glow.

Various networks popped up on his laptop. Most were simply last names: the Sandy family, the Conners, Le Compte. All were locked. They appeared and disappeared in seconds. Then a new unlocked network appeared: the Tankian family. The signal was strong.

“Yes!” Jack said and pulled over to the curb.

Opening a browser, he sent Charlie an e-mail, typing like a machine gun.

are you ok? i need 2 talk to u!!

He hit S
END
.

But even this didn't seem enough.

Next he opened a Skype window; he and Charlie had talked on Skype numerous times since he'd enlisted. Jack still couldn't get over the power of seeing his brother's living, breathing face, talking and laughing in real time, on another continent, with the sound of mortar exploding behind him.

Once he'd asked Charlie just to leave Skype on, even if he couldn't stay on it himself, and for an hour or so, Jack sat listening to the sounds of a marine's life halfway around the world. It sounded completely different from his California existence. There were coughs and laughs and snippets of unintelligible conversation. There was an alarm, then a distant explosion; there was the beeping of Skype alerts and cell phone rings. He found it all fascinating—listening in to the most exotic and distant locale—a place where his brother was bound to remain without him.

On Skype tonight, Charlie's name was grayed out; he wasn't online. Jack smacked his hand against the steering wheel. He scrolled through other names on the Skype list, and found Ernesto Olveiros, one of Charlie's closest friends. Jack and Ernesto had talked several times before when he couldn't get ahold of Charlie. He was frequently on Skype, trying to call his family in Missouri. Besides that, he was friendly and eager to talk to Jack about Charlie—or anything else.

Jack was glad to find anyone who was in close proximity to his brother.

He clicked on Ernesto's name, and in a moment, his face appeared on the screen. The connection wasn't great; the image kept freezing, but Jack was still thrilled.

“Hey, hippie. How's slacker-ass commie life treating you?” Ernesto wore desert fatigues, a T-shirt, and sunglasses pushed back on his head. Charlie had told him that Ernesto had his own family, with two small kids, but he looked like a kid himself to Jack.

“Where's Charlie?”

“Made any hemp blankets lately?”

“C'mon, man, where is he? Where are you guys?”

“I can't tell you that, dude. You know that.”

The connection suddenly dropped. Ernesto's face froze.

The rain pounded against the hood of the car. The Wi-Fi bars indicated a weak signal, and Jack tried holding the laptop up in the air toward the house. The connection became only a little stronger. Jack quickly slapped the car into gear and coasted forward a bit, to get more in line with the house.

“Ernesto? Can you hear me?”

Ernesto's face became unfrozen, and Jack barely heard him say, “I can't hear you. It's not a very …” He faded out again.

“Is Charlie there? Is he okay?”

“He's fine … call back.”

The words and images were skipping, then settling.

“Are you guys still in Kandahar? Is his unit out on a mission right now?”

Ernesto shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. See, I shouldn't have even told you that. What's with the third degree, dog?”

“Ernesto, please, it's important.”

“Well, he's not anywhere where he can have a conversation right now. But they gotta be back by 1500 hours, 2:30
A.M.
on your side. If you wanna wait up—”

“Tell him to Skype me the second he's back, okay? I'm going to try to stay online.”

“Can't hear you.”

“Tell him to call me!” Jack rubbed his temple.

“What's up with you, man?”

Even across the world, it must have been apparent that he was overwrought.

“I'm going to try to wait online, all right? I'll try to stay on Skype until he's back.”

Ernesto leaned closer to the camera. “You in a car?”

Jack ignored the question. “If he gets back sooner, make sure he talks to me.”

Ernesto's words and image skipped, then settled.

Jack put his hand to his head; something was happening again. He looked up at the rearview mirror into his own eyes. They glowed, and a strange halo of sparkling lights appeared around his head. Like hundreds of dancing stars, they grew steadily brighter.

He had a vision of a desert as seen out of a cracked window, sunglasses reflecting the sun.

“Hey?” Ernesto asked. “What's the matter with you? Are you okay, kid?”

Jack opened his eyes and blinked several times. Seeing Ernesto's face, he was about to respond when there was a banging sound from right next to him.

A gloved hand was knocking on the car window. Jack jerked around in panic to find a young security guard in a bulky uniform standing at the window, pointing his flashlight on him.

Glancing back in the rearview mirror again, Jack now saw that a security car had pulled up behind him. He realized that the headlights hitting the raindrops on his windows was probably the cause of the dancing lights.

“Shit,” Jack muttered under his breath.

“Excuse me, sir?” The security guard's voice was so high that he sounded like an adolescent.

He tapped the window again, and Jack rolled it all the way down, unable to keep the annoyance from his voice.

“Can you please stop shining that light in my eyes?”

On the computer screen, Ernesto moved, leaning close to the camera.

“Jack? Are you there?”

“Hold on, Ernesto—”

The guard eyed the laptop suspiciously.

“Sir, what business do you have in this neighborhood?”

“I'm parked on a public street.
That's
my business.”

“May I see your license and registration?”

“Hey, you're a security guard, not a cop. And I'm allowed to be here.”

Jack turned back to Ernesto.

“Ernesto, don't hang up. Sorry—”

The guard pulled out his radio, and after a few bumbling seconds, announced in an officious voice, “I've got a 251 in progress at 1501 Euclid. Requesting police backup.”

“What the hell is a 251?”

“Sir, you appear to be stealing Internet access.”

Jack started to get out of the car, but the guy was so jumpy, he suddenly changed his mind. “You can't steal Internet access! It's in the air. It's not like stealing a car!”

“It's
exactly
like stealing a car.”

Suddenly from the laptop, there was what sounded like a radio transmission of men yelling and swearing, and a far-off explosion.

Jack turned back to it. On the screen, Ernesto looked behind him, then turned back to the camera.

“Jack, I gotta go.”

“Wait! What's happening? Ernesto!”

“Gotta go, dude.”

“Tell Charlie—I'll be online no matter what,” Jack said frantically. “I'll find a place.”