by Jason Kasper
The gunshots had ceased, and I now heard two men shouting back and forth. I stopped, readied my rifle’s buttstock into my shoulder, and stood to aim over the dirt mound before me .
I saw both men moving among the scattered brush to my front. The more distant of the two was whirling away from me with his AK-47, turning to face the sound of a redlining truck engine as Jais’s pickup crested off the trail toward him. The closer man, holding a machinegun at his waist, did the same, sweeping his barrel toward the truck. I prioritized him through my sight and stitched three rounds between his shoulder blades .
He fell as I transitioned left, leveling my crosshairs on the last man standing as he emptied half a magazine before the truck’s front bumper hit him head-on. His body careened sideways with a sudden momentum that sent his rifle bouncing my direction with a series of jarring metallic clangs .
The truck skidded to a halt, a soaring cloud of dust rising like a ghost that had left its body behind .
I jumped atop the berm and raised a hand toward Jais as he yelled, “I’ve got these two. Go search the bodies in the road !”
“Moving!” I yelled back, running up the washout toward the column of black smoke drifting slowly from the trail .
The barrel of an abandoned PKM pointed skyward, crowning the vehicle as a monument to death that would remain a fixed landmark in the Somali desert until the elements washed it away. I fired two rounds into the single motionless body in the trail before moving to the teenager I’d shot in the head .
A red splatter shot across the sand from his fractured skull as I kicked him onto his back. Any horror I may have felt at the sudden carnage was swept away by a tide of sheer relief at our own survival. I slung his AK-47 across my left shoulder and stripped three magazines from his chest rig, sliding them into a cargo pocket before taking a single plastic canteen from a pouch on his belt .
I jogged to the other body lying face-down on the trail, then roughly grabbed his sleeve and turned him over. His head rolled to face me and I jumped back, overcome by a chill of horror as my breathing was reduced to sharp, panicked gasps .
My world narrowed from the horizon-split sand and sky extending in all directions to invisible oceans until all was darkness but the man before me .
His face was half-covered with his shemagh . The flesh of his visible cheek was singed an alien crimson hue mottled by blackened flesh. A single exposed eye wept profusely amid the burns, the pupil almost iridescent beneath a torrent of tears .
I stared at him and he at me, the crackle of flames from the destroyed truck becoming increasingly distorted. My head grew dizzier as his visible eye flicked back and forth between mine .
I was jarred to reality when Jais shook my shoulder, his voice sounding as if I were hearing it underwater .
“David! David !”
I looked up .
Our truck was now facing north on the trail, idling in front of the enemy vehicle. Jais squinted into my eyes just as Ian had when he found me in the Dominican Republic, trying to see if I was drunk or not .
“David!” he yelled again .
I blurted, “I haven’t gotten his ammo yet .”
Jais looked terrified, the expression shattering his normal composure. “Forget the ammo. Our vehicle is fucked—a bullet grazed the vacuum hose between the radiator and engine. It could burst any minute, and we still have thirty miles to go if they don’t find us first. We need to get as far north as we can .”
9
The truck’s engine noise was suddenly muffled under a high-pitched hissing sound blasting from under the hood. Without warning, a rancid smell like burning chalk wafted into my face. I coughed as I stood behind the now-useless Dushka, my vantage point serving only to watch for signs of pursuit .
“What in the hell is that stench?” I yelled .
Jais braked amid a wide patch of flat earth flanked by distant plants, killing the engine once the truck came to a stop. The hissing subsided, leaving us to the desert silence .
“Boiling radiator fluid,” Jais said eventually. “And that sound was it spraying under the hood. If we keep going, the engine will explode .”
It had taken us over an hour to drive eighteen miles northward, during which I had seen no movement behind us—no dust clouds, people, or animals, just endless dirt and scrub brush under the hazy swelter of a relentless sun .
I parted chapped lips to croak, “Explain why that would matter at this point ?”
He opened his door and stepped out, then reached back inside for his rifle before surveying the land around us. Only then did he look at me, his face holding an amused expression .
I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth .
“You tell me, David .”
I sighed. “Really, Jais? We have to do this now ?”
“They’ll be following our tracks, so make it quick .”
“Because we want them to think we ran out of gas so they try to fill it up to get their mobile Dushka back and get incinerated by the booby traps we’re about to set .”
He nodded approvingly. “Old Faithful here just became the last thing standing between us and them, and I want it to explode if they look at it wrong. Unless you were looking forward to hauling the weight of all those grenades for the next”—he paused as he consulted the GPS on his wrist—“12.9 miles .”
Instead of voicing my concern, I said, “Well, my bag’s already a lot lighter now that it’s not weighed down with…what’s that word again? Oh yeah. Water .”
It wouldn’t be a great distance to cover under normal circumstances, but nothing about our circumstances qualified as normal. In truth, we faced a grave lack of water, temperatures in the nineties, and a solid twenty-four hours of being awake, much of which had been spent fighting for our lives .
Jais rifled through his pack, found the Iridium satellite phone, and turned it on. “We’d be riding that last enemy vehicle all the way to the landing zone if you didn’t waste it with a grenade like a dick idiot .”
Ignoring him, I tossed our combat packs sideways one at a time, their weight now a fraction of what we had jumped with since we were nearly out of water and had consumed a majority of our food rations. Then I handed him my rifle and gestured to the bed. “You told me to hit a fuel line, and I followed orders. I’ll put a grenade under a fuel can back here .”
Jais took it from me, the phone tucked between his ear and shoulder as he waited for the satellite connection. He leaned my rifle against my combat pack, then opened the fuel door and unscrewed the cap. “Put one with the machinegun, too. And toss one of the empty fuel cans down here .”
I picked up a red, five-gallon jug and pitched it over the side for him to situate so it looked like it had been abandoned in despair. Then I reached into the wooden crate that held the captured grenades and plucked out a duo before lowering it to the ground for Jais. I knelt down in the bed, lining up the first grenade over the fuel tank and pulling one of the full fuel cans toward me .
“I’m ready to go live when you are, boss .”
“Go ahead.” Then Jais said into the phone, “This is Bobcat Actual. Current grid to follow …”
Taking a breath, I grasped a metal ring and delicately slid the pin out of the grenade, keeping the lever compressed with my other hand. Then I gently set it lever-down in the bed and laid the fuel can over it. Slowly spreading my fingers away from the grenade, I deftly withdrew my hand .
“…confirm all. Be advised, we escaped heavy contact and are currently under enemy pursuit. Critically low on food and water. Vehicle disabled, transitioning to foot movement due north toward landing zone. Request reception party move south to locate us …”
I rose very deliberately to a standing position and then lifted the Dushka handles enough to slip my second grenade between the body of the machinegun and its mount. After lowering the Dushka until its weight compressed the grenade lever, I inched out the pin and then pocketed it .
I rested a gloved hand
fondly atop the feed tray cover and whispered, “Fare thee well, Dushka. You always deserved better than me .”
“…continue until link-up complete or unable to proceed further. This is our final transmission .”
I glanced over to see him turning off the phone, and then I crept to the tailgate as if walking on a bed of eggshells. Gingerly lowering myself to the ground, I stepped back from the truck with a long, self-indulgent exhale .
As Jais was packing away the phone in his combat pack, I asked, “Those assholes coming to get us or what ?”
“Unconfirmed, but I was able to relay our position, so that’s a start. Get ready to move. I’ll booby-trap the cab and then we’ll step off .”
He approached the passenger door as I donned my combat pack, adjusted the shoulder straps, and hoisted my rifle to the ready. I walked a safe distance from the truck in case Jais had an accident while arranging his grenades .
I raised the optic to my eye and scanned the landscape to our south but saw no movement or rising dust to indicate immediate pursuit. Then I lowered my rifle and looked toward the horizon, which was flattened in a blur of rust-colored dirt and patches of plant life that became sparser as the land extended .
Jais joined me as I gazed off into the distance. “We’re going to haul ass until we get about a mile from this deathtrap. Then we can slow down for the long haul .”
I nodded and graciously bowed. “After you, my liege .”
He began walking as briskly as one could manage without breaking into a run, and I struggled to keep up with his long, easy strides. By then, the sun was descending from its zenith to cast our shadows slightly to the right, where they crawled over the baked earth and dry plants as we proceeded north toward our landing zone .
* * *
Jais slowed his tremendous walking pace so suddenly that I almost ran into him from behind .
“All right,” he said, “we’ve covered a mile. Let’s keep it slow and steady for the next twelve .”
“Good idea,” I answered, moving alongside him. I kept just far enough to his right that the long Galil barrel wouldn’t bump into him. “This would have been so much easier if we had just jumped on target .”
“I would have settled for our truck making it all the way north,” Jais said. “But look at the bright side—at least we didn’t land in the ocean last night .”
“Don’t remind me. It’s only been a couple months since my last drowning .”
“Well, the test worked. Sergio chose a good crop to interview for this job .”
“Did Sergio recruit you, too ?”
“No, I had this hairy Iranian dude named Roshan — ”
He stopped speaking, halting abruptly at the sight of a strange white framework rising to waist-height ahead of us. “What is that? A horse ?”
We approached the immense, sun-bleached spinal cord arced over the dirt, suspended as if prostrate in prayer by a pelvic bone and shoulders that disappeared into the earth .
“Camel, maybe,” I said over a blast of hot breeze rolling across us. “He was probably telling himself he had enough water to make the landing zone, too .”
We walked around the skeleton. “What were we talking about?” he asked .
“The drowning event .”
“Oh yeah. Anyway, it’s a great test .”
I released a quick laugh before I could stop myself. “Bullshit. I was hypothermic before I even went into the water. I’m surprised they could revive me .”
He shook his head. “That’s no accident. They make sure you’re hypothermic, because the cold slows your vitals and forces your body to conserve oxygen. That’s how they can do it without inducing brain damage. If they ran the same event in warmer temperatures, it would turn you into a vegetable or kill you .”
I considered that for a moment .
As much as I’d been in a claustrophobic panic after being pulled from the water, not to mention the many nights since then that I’d burst awake in a gasping struggle to breathe, in hindsight I didn’t recall the event with any particular feeling of dread. Instead, its memory was haloed by a resistant willingness akin to the initial plunge from the highest hill of a rollercoaster. For all my chronic and compulsive flirting with disaster, for all my hypersexual pull toward death, I had never crossed over as I had in that steel drum .
And in the wake of the rolling gunfights culminating in our lonely walk across the desert, I began to second-guess myself. Maybe I actually did want to run with the Outfit—not out of revenge, but out of a true calling. In a world defined by precious few moments where I felt truly alive, much less wanted to remain living, a job that tied my very existence to the evasion of death seemed as natural as drinking .
I asked, “Did you have to do the same test ?”
“Everyone goes through one variant or another, but the location and scenario change over time. It’s all designed to seem random, but it’s not. Even the way they bind your arms is a deliberate preparation for revival so candidates can’t fight off the medical staff. It’s all rehearsed .”
“So what happens to the guys who confess instead of keeping their mouth shut about the task? How do they escape the scenario ?”
“They don’t. Everyone goes in the water. When someone confesses, they’re just not resuscitated. Then it’s off to the acid bath for the chemist on staff to supervise total decomposition. Last I heard, the average was around three lost for every new recruit. In some rounds, nobody makes it .”
“That’s crazy .”
“Crazy?”
“Yes, Jais .”
He shot me an unsympathetic glance. “That’s called responsibility. The guys standing behind the mirror need to know that anyone they choose for the next job isn’t going to quit on them. You get me ?”
“Yeah, I guess .”
“You recognized that guy coming off the plane at the Complex .”
“He put out a few cigarettes on me. Hard to forget that face .”
“You’d better start appreciating the genius of the selection process. Because once you get some seniority in the Outfit, you’re going to be a part of running it .”
I watched my boots drift for a few steps before asking, “Have you helped run it before ?”
“A few times. Everyone has to before they get to lead a mission .”
“How do you deal with that? I mean, I get killing in combat, but what about just dumping motherfuckers into a river ?”
“Look at it this way: you’re maintaining the sanctity of the Outfit and the organization it protects. It’s about loyalty, David .”
I opened and closed my mouth, feeling as if lockjaw was setting in as my dehydration worsened. “You know, you never finished your story about ending up in the Outfit. Before we found that break in the riverbed, you were about to be a major league baseball player .”
“Ha. I wouldn’t say that—minors, maybe. But Momma wouldn’t have that. Wanted me to be the first in the family with a college degree .”
“You get a scholarship ?”
“Yeah, buddy. An ACL injury ended that real quick, though, and I had to start racking up debt to graduate .”
“College loans,” I said with a knowing nod. “Best military recruiting tool since the draft .”
“Fuckin’ A, man. Had to join for debt repayment, but I missed the fraternity of baseball and ended up finding it when I went over to special operations. Buddy of mine left the service and went to one of the paramilitary teams picking up jobs from the Outfit, and he wanted me to come over and work with him. Eventually, I did .”
“Paramilitary team money was better than government pay ?”
He gasped suddenly, and I turned just in time to see him fall, his left leg buckling before he smashed into the dirt, cursing .
I reached out to help him to his feet, and he reluctantly accepted my hand. I leaned back to hoist him up as he slowly rose to a standing position. Then he shook out his left leg, his face strained in anguish .
I a
sked, “ACL flaring up again ?”
Jais continued walking without looking at me, then called over his shoulder, “Just shut the fuck up for a while, David .”
Soon thereafter, he withdrew into an inner sanctum of pain, though whether physical or emotional I couldn’t tell .
I said nothing, continuing alongside him in silence .
* * *
Our shadows lengthened considerably as the sun fell to our left, casting shallow rays that bathed the desert in a rose hue. Pant legs starched with dried sweat turned to sandpaper against my inner thighs, the chafing taking precedence over the throbbing objections of my knees .
Above all, the lust for water rose to unfathomable levels of desire .
I could see Jais favoring his right leg as we proceeded, his limp worsening with each quarter mile .
He stopped before another bleached skeleton .
“What’s wrong?” I said .
He just nodded toward the ground .
I looked closer and saw the remains were human, half a ribcage curling above the dirt beside a skull lying on its side. The face glared hollowly with a sand-packed interior visible through every orifice, its remarkably white teeth biting onto sand with an open jaw .
We trudged on in silence. Less than a minute later, Jais suddenly fell sideways, landing on his side with a “Fuck !”
I sat on the ground beside him before he could object, facing the way we had come. Leaning on my combat pack, I aimed my rifle at the horizon and scanned for movement through my optic. “Nobody. Take five, man .”
He grunted and sat up, and together we faced our own tracks receding into the distance .
We remained in place for a few minutes before he broke the silence. “Bad luck to stop next to human remains ?”
“Groundless superstition.” I pulled at the long hose clipped to my shoulder strap, indulging in a long mouthful of murky, iodine-cured river water until the liquid drained to nothing. I swallowed. “That’s the last of my Jubba River refill .”
