Knife (9780698185623) (23 page)

Dalonna called their CO and told him Hagan wanted to speak with him, said he didn't look right. It was Shaw's idea. He was sure every CO worried about their guys and suicides, so they hid behind the shitters. They watched their CO come stomping out of the TOC, his long hair blowing behind him on the wind. He walked with a purpose, quick steps and shoulders tight. Then he saw Hagan and his shoulders dropped, his feet started slipping out from beneath him. He was laughing so hard he had to sit in the dirt. He pulled out a camera from one of his pockets and took a few shots, then hollered for them to “come cut this filthy Hog loose!”

So they did.

And everyone seemed to feel a little better after that.

•   •   •

S
tag1 had no known ties to al-Ayeelaa, but Intel flagged him the entire week the city raid was jamming the airwaves and the squadron was off the green. One of the Pike phones monitored after the failed raid popped briefly at his house and then died off. Stag1 lived in a small two-story house with a red clay roof sitting at the end of a long dirt path lined by trees on either side. It looked like a desert home in Nevada or Arizona. There was an iron gate cutting off the front of his house from the road and a large man-made wall spanning the other three sides of the compound. A child could slip through the posts of the gate and the wall could be hopped with a decent effort. It was a perimeter meant to slow down and control visitors, not necessarily avoid them. A lone tree stood inside the walls a few feet back from the gate and there was a tire swing hanging from a branch in the front yard.

Every weekday Stag1 would get picked up by a silver piece-of-shit van and take the same route into town. The drive crossed two major roads and numerous improvised ones. Altogether, about an hour's drive. He made a few stops in the bazaars every now and again to inspect melons and other fruits and run his hands through clothes he never bought. Then his driver would take him on a circuit of the neighborhoods. He'd stop off at different buildings for different lengths of time on no particular schedule and in no particular order. He visited his mosque regularly during the three prayer periods in which he wasn't at home, but after those he could be anywhere at any time. A local intelligence source on the ground let Intel know the drop-off points were cafés known to attract the occasional warlord and cell leader, but these instances were rare and the shops were mostly full of youths too young to fight and village elders discussing community issues. He visited families in the neighborhood, and everywhere he went people came outside to meet him and welcome him into their homes. None of these families were known to operate in cells, but they were mostly academics and business owners, people of influence. That was interesting.

Besides the cafés and friendly homes, he would stop in on his cousins and their children and then his silver piece-of-shit van would drop him off at home, and if it wasn't the weekend, he'd do the circuit all over again the next day. One time his van stopped on the side of the road and the driver got out to check a tire and Stag1 joined him, put a hand on the driver's back, and then they both got back in the van and carried on. Stag1 had gotten on his knees to check under the car with his driver.

He was from Oman and wore a white turban and a dark sport coat over a white salwar kameez. He'd take off the coat before entering the mosque but leave it on during his errands and neighborhood visits. He was a father of four and hadn't gotten his hands bloody directly since the jihad with the Soviets during the 1980s. He led a band of valley locals from the NWFP then and would shift allegiances with every new paycheck. He was known to be courageous and ruthless, and remembered for always having a cigarette in his mouth. He would switch sides at will but prohibited his followers from doing so. He demanded loyalty from his followers and would cut off the right arm and left leg of defectors so they wouldn't have an intact side for the rest of their lives. He also had a change-of-heart life story primed for the movies. The year the war ended, his wife got pregnant and he decided he didn't want to vie for control of the country. Instead, he decided to test a war friendship that promised a safer life over the border and he began construction work. He was smart and lucky. All the other warlords who stayed in the fray jockeying for political position would be dead within six years.

Without a formal education he learned on the job and developed a good reputation, started making a living off small government projects that turned into larger ones. Then the American war started and, oddly enough, he came back. Left his new life behind and moved his whole family to a war zone. Intel figured a man versed in putting up structures would probably be equally knowledgeable about bringing them down, so they kept tabs on him for years with cooperation from local intelligence networks. It was odd to move a family into a place where a war was pushing most of the peaceful population away.

He was clean by all accounts, never associating with known cell leaders or members, but once Intel noticed he'd been in-country for years and hadn't built anything, they got suspicious and started following the people he met with. Sources on the ground couldn't confirm a specific occupation for him other than some kind of consultant, and then his nephew turned up dead in a mountain ambush with another squadron and Intel decided to start monitoring the dead man's house. Stag1 never visited the place after the death, even though it was a known home of a relative in the neighborhood and grieving was a formality. Not to mention a familial and neighborly responsibility. He continued visiting other families and neighbors as he normally would but avoided the nephew's house. Intel didn't see that as so normal. Add in the Pike phone popping hot right after the raid and Intel decided it might be wise to pick him up and ask him some questions. So the teams got the 4 early on a Saturday night.

They debated whether they should take his van on one of the lesser-traveled roads or in his home, knowing his family would be there. The CO sat in front of them with his elbows on his knees. His hands were clasped and resting on his chin. It looked like he was praying.

“We want to talk to him. The van brings another FAM into the picture and groupthink leads to aggression. We don't want to put holes in him if we can help it.”

“And us being in his own home wouldn't lead to aggression?” Cooke said.

“Maybe,” the CO said. “Or maybe he's smart and would play the game to keep his family safe.” He looked around at the circle of men. Shaw was picking dirt out of his fingernails. “He might not have a lot of fight left in him after the eighties. Plus he's smart enough to still be alive. Maybe he's moved past the gangster phase and embraced the provider role—likes being a daddy. We're just going to talk with him.”

“I don't know,” Cooke said. “Someone comes into my home, I'm fighting. We can scare him out on the road all alone.”

Everyone was quiet for a while, shifting their legs over their knees and cracking knuckles and necks. Then Hagan spoke up.

“The last interdiction didn't go too well, Cooke.”

They agreed to take Stag1 at home.

•   •   •

T
he teams erected tape layouts of Stag1's home on the gravel outside the war room and ran tape drills over and over and over again until they knew the layout in their feet and could turn the corners on step counts in their sleep. Intel hired a second-degree source to approach the home and see if she could get inside selling herbal remedies, but the wife didn't bite. The source got to the front door, though, and reported lots of walls and blind corners leading to a stairwell. The teams marked those off on the tape layouts. Along with Stag1 and his wife, there would likely be at least two young boys at waist height—neither at FAM status yet—and a girl of roughly ten years of age. His oldest daughter was in her twenties and off in Europe at university.

They'd head in slow and smooth, hope for a silent breach and push in carefully. Two assault teams would enter the house and they upped their perimeter teams to three to keep as much attention away from the house as possible. The CO told them to expect the 1 at around 2300 hours, so they checked weapons and batteries, topped off water, and then settled in to wait. Dalonna went off to the phones and Cooke said he was going to rub one out. Massey and Hagan and Shaw sat on the concrete roof of the war room.

It was cold out but clear, so they grabbed jackets, winter caps, and gloves and watched the sun set. They rubbed their hands together and blew into their palms and packed their lips full to the brim, got a good juice flowing. The sky was on fire among the full clouds. Vapor trails from fast-movers crisscrossed the sky and oranges and pinks painted the horizon and swallowed all the blue that was left. It was beautiful.

“Sky's pretty,” Hagan said. He spat over the lip of the roof. “Too bad the rest of the country is such shit.”

Shaw looked at the sky and thought of the palm trees they flew over on the banks of the rivers to the south. The ancient ruins half swallowed by sand and the royal palaces with their deep green marble walkways. The gold-domed blue mosques that caught the sun and winked back into the sky. They seemed to fly over postcards at times.

“It's not shit, Hog,” Massey said. “Dumbass cell leaders and pricks just crap all over it and then we come over and piss on it some more and then everyone wonders why it's such a shit country. It's not. You could get some Manhattan contractors out here and they'd get hard-ons looking at all these cliffs. They could blast the holy shit out of these rocks, throw up some stockbroker towers, and then call their cousins over in Aspen. You'd have another Dubai surrounded by world-class ski resorts. Thousand-dollar whores would be running around with their executive pimps for long weekends. This isn't a country. It's a place full of people that wipe their asses with the land for God, oil, or country—whatever the fuck—and wonder why it stinks so bad. The land is beautiful. We're shit.” He shook his head. “I'd want to be buried in a country this beautiful.”

Hagan stared at Massey, his eyes wide and his mouth open. Dip was falling out of his lip.

Shaw laughed at Hagan and shrugged. “You've offended him, Hog.”

“Damn, Mass,” Hagan said. “You want to be buried here?”

Massey smiled and shook his head. He threw some pebbles off the roof. “Hell, no. This country is a shithole. I'm speaking out of my ass. Sky's beautiful, though. You're right about that.”

Shaw laughed again, and Hagan sat with his eyebrows raised to his hairline. Hagan seemed to sink into the concrete a little bit and he was quiet for a while. They watched the sky fade to black, and when the stars came out he spoke up.

“I guess you're right. It's not all bad. I wouldn't mind bringing my wife here one day.” Then he ran his hand through the air. “When all this is over.”

Massey and Shaw looked at each other and then back at Hagan. He had a small smile on his lips and cradled his head with one hand, kept the other on top of his stomach, like he was watching a football game back home. Shaw looked at Massey. He was laughing quietly, doing his best to hold it in and not break Hagan's peace.

Shaw smiled. “You got a wife you're keeping from us, Hog?”

“Not yet,” Hagan said. He kept his eyes to the sky, away from Shaw and Massey and the war below. “One day, though. Yeah.”

Shaw nodded and smiled, and Massey clapped Hagan on the shoulder. Then they watched the stars and satellites trade places and dance around the sky until they got the 1.

•   •   •

T
hey strapped on their kits just after 2300 hours and grabbed their weapons and helmets and walked outside. The heaters of the war room gave way to the hard, cold ground and the sky was clear. Their breaths fogged before them, rose like clouds. Fast-movers screeched above on their bomb runs and the wind bit at the skin exposed beneath Shaw's beard and above his top and kit. His beard was thick and he was glad for it.

“Closing the damn doors,” Hagan yelled. “We're sure as shit closing the damn doors.”

No one countered him, so they were all probably freezing. They sat in the Black Hawks while the birds spun up, then they clipped in and shut the doors and the birds carried them away. The Black Hawk was the taxicab of the American wars. Larger than a Little Bird but smaller than a Chinook, it was dependable and everywhere. It fought the strong crosswinds and the machinery groaned and whined as they flew on. The operators sat on the floor of the cabin with their legs cramped against the closed doors. They had to get creative to keep their boots out of one another's nuts, but eventually they settled in and waited for their legs and asses to go numb. They did soon enough. Hagan took out a pack of peanut M&M's and they passed them around and tried to find the ones they dropped in the dark. A low green glow from the gunners' NODs lit the cabin and a red light flashed every now and again and Shaw thought of the holidays he had growing up in Minnesota. They were flying high and opened the doors on the
Five mikes out
call. The cold air rushed in and hit hard. Hagan yelled out that he should've brought long underwear.

“Your nuts would freeze to your legs,” Cooke yelled. “Stop being a pussy.”

They all had a laugh and got some warmth, and hands got busy finding straps and snaps, checking weapons and seals on equipment. Shaw took off his helmet and put on a balaclava and then strapped up again. The other guys followed suit and let their legs dangle in the air. The wind blew Shaw's legs toward the tail of the bird and he could see small mounds of homes and scattered huts pass below them like moguls on a ski hill. Stag1's city was to the east, its lights scattered and twinkling soft on the horizon. It looked like a ski resort during Christmastime. Shaw could make out trees here and there without leaves, and they banked sharp to the north and then the pilots radioed in
Three mikes out
. Shaw put in a big chaw to get some nicotine and warmth flowing and gave one to Cooke. Then he cracked his neck and tried to loosen his shoulders. He looked past his boots and saw aviation fluid frozen to the underside of the bird, in front of the rotor. He thought of Stag1 and how he was probably sleeping in bed all warm next to his wife. Then he thought about how he was freezing and cold, and it made him feel old. He tried to scoot back and get his feet on the lip of the bird. Too much splatter and his bottoms would freeze.