Black Angel

by Jack Dayton

  “Now, Ma’am, who would do a thing like that?” Seelbach managed to sound outraged and amused at the same time.

  “Alright, alright,” Vance raised both hands in mock surrender. “I am not ashamed to admit that I took the responsibility for ensuring the safety and security of everyone at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Somebody had to.”

  Avery rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, that was the single point of failure that kept me up at night.”

  “Well, Ma’am, the way I see it, I get more steps on my pacer this way.” Seelbach pointed at a black band on his wrist.

  “Seelbach, you are a motivated Marine. A credit to the Corps.” Gunny Vance looked at Avery. “We can’t expect civilians to understand the burdens we carry, I guess.”

  “Well, I am duly impressed at the brotherhood of Marines on display here. In fact, I am no longer going to bellyache about the gate. Instead, I am going to call that portal the ‘Gunny’s Gate’ from now on.”

  “That’s got a ring to it,” Seelbach admitted. They were at the station now and they paused at the door.

  “You can make it a joke if you want. I accept the honor.” Vance stood at attention.

  “At ease, Marine,” Avery grabbed the station door and motioned them in.

  “Ma’am, until I join the 1st Civilian Division, there is no way you are holding that door for us.” Seelbach walked behind her and took the handle.

  “Ooh rah, Sergeant,” Vance said. “If you hadn’t gotten it, I would have.”

  “I do love working with Marines,” Quinn conceded and stepped into the warmth of the station, a lively island of light and bustle in the dark of the December night. The station was crowded now with the end-of-day crowd. The claxon signaling the approach of the train called them to the platform while the PA system announced the arrival on Track 1. The train whistle shrieked the train’s arrival in the station as the bell clanged and the trio continued out to the platform.

  Once on the train, they split up, finding spots among the riders who had boarded in the District.

  It had been a long, difficult day. Sitting in his seat on the train next to a 50-something guy dozing, his head against the window, the gunny didn’t feel cold anymore. He could see Dr. Quinn, headphones in, probably listening to some NPR broadcast, and Seelbach, standing up, holding on to the overhead rail, next to a young woman sitting, reading a paperback with the title “Book of Ruth Ann.” He felt a rush of something wash over him. It felt good to be alive. He decided he didn’t want to sit alone tonight. Tonight might be the time to call Patsy and the girls. He wanted to hear her voice and needed to have a little girl call him ‘Daddy.’

  He got up as the train rolled into the station at Fredericksburg and queued up to exit. Seelbach and Quinn were waiting down on the platform. “Want to get a drink?” Dr. Quinn wasn’t sure if Vance would be up for a beer at one of the many bistros and pubs on Caroline Street but didn’t want to walk away either.

  “Naw, Doc,” he answered, his head down. “I think I want to head back to the place and call Patsy.“

  “That sounds like a very good idea. How about you, Sergeant?” She didn’t give up easily.

  “Yeah, I’ll drink a beer, Doc. Where you thinkin’?”

  “Let’s try J. Brian’s. I feel like some wings.“

  They left walking together, dropping the Gunny off to go upstairs as they headed into the pub.

  Vance dropped his bag and clicked his wife’s cell number. He listened to the ringing, hoping it was a good time, imagining the look on her face when she recognized his call.

  “Well, what’s going on with you?” Patsy Vance was known to be direct.

  “It’s been a weird week, Pats. How are you? The girls?”

  “We’re okay, I guess. It’s kind of weird here, too, being a single mom and all.”

  Vance closed his eyes and sighed. “Do we have to go over this again? You made the choice to to to Florida.”

  “I made the choice?” She was raising her voice now. “I made the choice. Yeah, I can see how you would think that. I could have stayed there and lived with a shadow who showed up whenever he had the time or come down here and at least have my mom and dad to spend time with. That was the choice, so yeah, I made it.”

  “Pats, I am sorry, okay. You knew what being married to a Marine was like. It isn’t easy for either of us. I’m not blaming you. Can we just talk without going over all the things that can’t be changed?”

  Patsy let out a deep breath. “Oh, whatever. I’m sure you had a reason for calling. We’re kind of busy here with homework and getting supper. What is it?”

  “How are the girls?”

  “They’re okay. Charlotte’s starting with the middle school band. They needed somebody to play euphonium and she raised her hand.”

  “Euphonium? What is that anyway?”

  “It’s like a tuba . . . big, brassy thing. Just the kind of instrument a skinny 11-year-old should play.”

  Vance laughed, imagining his teeny, toothpick girl lugging a big piece of metal around.

  Patsy laughed then, too. “I think she just chose it so that I’d have to pick her up at school on band days so she doesn’t have to take the bus.”

  “How’s Molly?”

  “You know Molly. As long as she has a steady supply of Yoo Hoo, she’s happy.”

  “Yeah, she’s got that sweet tooth that needs feeding.” He paused. “How are you, Patsy?”

  “Fine. Okay. Does it matter?”

  “It does to me. I miss you, Patsy.”

  “I know,” she paused now, too. “I miss you, too, Ros. I missed you before, when we were in the same house. Are you okay?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean . . . ‘you don’t know?’”

  “Some serious stuff went down, Patsy and I couldn’t do anything to keep it from happening.”

  “Ros, what happened? What’s wrong?” She had never heard him sound this way, so low.

  “It’s a long story. I don’t want to get in your way. I know you got a lot going on.”

  “Don’t, okay? Nothing I got going on here is that big a deal.” She softened her tone. “You’re the big deal, Ros. You always have been for me.”

  Vance swallowed the lump in his throat. “Do you remember Les Guidry?”

  “Yeah, of course. Him and his wife, Annie. Two boys, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He’s gone, Patsy. He died a few nights ago. I was there but I couldn’t help him.”

  “Oh my God,” Patsy’s voice was almost a whimper now. “What happened, Ros?”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Hey, I am here, Ros. Take your time. We aren’t going anywhere.”

  Vance paused to collect himself. He knew that talking about this would be like walking back through the horror of it. But he had to push through it to get to the other side.

  A hard day but it would end okay. Patsy would take his hand and walk the path with him, lead him out to the other side.

  Chapter 4

  Combat Outpost Faizal, the “pleasure garden” of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, was the kind of space Marines reminisce about 20 years after they’ve left. Distant, dangerous, exotic, and the stuff of Marine Corps lore. Once the smells and climate are faded memories, the sea stories are rich with detail that may or may not exaggerate the actual reality. Some locations benefit from enhanced memory. Others have no need of exaggeration. Faizal would evoke memories that could compete with any from the shared history of the Marine Corps. Operation Khanjar or Strike of the Sword, the effort by 2nd Battalion, Eighth Marines, was designed to lure the incipient narco-state to convert poppy production to wheat. The full range of Marine Corps capabilities was in evidence from security to force protection to stability operations. Unfortunately, it would be years before the efforts would produce meaningful change. But that wasn’t the Marines’ problem. The immediate challenges were staying alive and finding a working AC unit.
r />   Sergeant Roscoe Vance didn’t smoke or dip but there were times he wished he did. Like now, coming off three days out, patrolling, sweat and grit stiffening his fatigues, grime embedded in the grain of his skin, nails rimmed black. The edge of the last three days was receding even as he made his way through the SWA hut maze of COP Faizal. His boots scuffed a rhythm on the oversized gravel as he and Sergeant Justin Freshwater made their way to the admin check point. This was the routine. The ritual of checking back in was a small way to decompress from the focused lethality of their time out.

  The admin hut was a short walk back to his rack in the hut where he could get a shower and collapse before going out again. His only hope was that the air conditioning was working. “Vance, can you check me in?” Freshwater asked. “I gotta hit the shitter.”

  “Yeah, but circle back when you’re done,” Vance nodded to the hut. “You know they’re gonna want to see you.”

  “Copy that. I’m gonna leave my kit with you, ‘kay?”

  “Sure.” Vance shot him a look. “Go, quick.”

  “Thanks, Vance. Five minutes.”

  Vance pushed his kit closer to Freshwater’s, scanning it with a critical eye. It was none of his business since he and Freshwater were both sergeants but his kit was unsat by Vance’s standards. Despite the specific parameters of their training, the pages of manuals written that stipulated the way Marines were expected to maintain their gear and the inspections that they were subjected to, it was up to each Marine to keep his gear fully operational, clean. There were always issues that got in the way of keeping things up to standard but Vance felt he needed to be squared away in order to be mission ready. Freshwater’s kit was not now and rarely ever was.

  Maybe it was his time at Bridgeport - Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training. It is hard enough to keep things tight without doing it in sub-zero temperatures at 6,000 foot elevations. The knots . . . the week spent testing the precise form of knots necessary to secure gear and travel quickly through mountain passes, in snow or navigating a sheer ledge had pushed him but he came away with a deeper appreciation for the need to get it right. Marines’ lives might hang in the balance. Coming at an early point in his career as a lance corporal when he was most open to shaping himself into the kind of Marine he wanted to be probably helped make the experience so indelible. He could allow that other Marines might not have the same standard and still be good Marines. He just couldn’t give himself that space.

  “Yeah, okay, five minutes.”

  Vance hiked Freshwater’s kit to his shoulder and opened the hatch to the SWA hut. No AC. Perfect.

  Somebody was leaning over the counter talking to the duty officer at the desk and Vance was mildly pleased to see Lieutenant Les Guidry turn to welcome his return. Guidry was a character whom Vance had developed a friendship with from their time at Bridgeport. They didn’t see each other off duty but the times they spent working together had brought them to a bond they prized and understood for the unique gift that their experiences offered.

  “Well, finally, we can relax. A real Marine now has the watch. Welcome back, Sergeant. Was your mission a success?” Guidry was oozing with pent up sarcasm, waiting for Roscoe’s return.

  “It was, sir.” Vance was ready for him. “We managed to keep the Afghan horde away from your cushy arrangement here.” Vance dropped both kits and propped his weapon on the floor.

  “And we are all grateful. We wouldn’t want anything to disturb the luxe circumstances we are enjoying, would we, Lieutenant Dahl?” Guidry addressed the officer behind the counter, who was now lounging back in his chair, a look of bemusement on his angular face. Lieutenant Aksel Dahl had heard this routine often enough that he enjoyed it, having been first exposed to it back at the Mountain Warfare Training program at Bridgeport when they were all there at the same time.

  “Oh, ya, we have it so good here and we have you to thank for the security we enjoy, Sergeant.” The lilt of his Norwegian accent made his rejoinder even more amusing than usual. “We have been relaxing here hoping you’d be back and bring a working AC unit with you. Any chance?”

  Vance shook his head. “I know what you guys are doing . . . While us warfighters are out in the bush defending your freedom, you officer types are cranking the temperature down to the 50’s like drill sergeants did at the barracks at Parris Island. No wonder it can’t last for more than a day.”

  “Hey, Sergeant, where did you grow up again?” Guidry was eying him directly now.

  “Sir, I am an Ohio native, a fact you are well aware of and which must drive you crazy because you keep bringing it up. I guess I understand how jealous that must make you.”

  “Jealous, that’s a hoot. I just mention it because, as a native of Nawlins, I can guar-fuckin-tee you I know more about managing HVAC in extreme heat than you do. And, by the way, if we did stress the system it was just to accommodate our joint operational colleague from Norway here.” Guidry nodded at Aksel.

  “Oh, now wait,” Lieutenant Dahl held both hands up. “It isn’t me, Sergeant. I like the heat. If you grow up on a Norwegian fjord, you actually look for opportunities to sweat now and then.”

  Guidry snorted “Well, you must be as happy as a pig in slop then, Lieutenant.”

  Guidry swept his hand across the top of the counter and a cloud of dust burst off the forms he had in front of him. It wasn’t sand . . . more like a cross between talc and silica. Light and smoke-like in the air but penetrating, leaving a coating on all surfaces and migrating to, collecting in and solidifying in every crack and crevice in machines and the human body.

  “Thank you, Guidry. That makes my job easier,” Lieutenant Dahl swept what was now settling on his desk off away from his papers. “What can I do for you anyway? There is a warfighting sergeant here now. Why are you here in his way?”

  “Oh, I just need to pass these contractor reports and evaluations on for the approvals. Looks like Kool gets a big thumbs-up.”

  “Ah, yes, Anton Kulyak, our favorite fixer with the poppy cartel.”

  “Shhh . . . Kool can’t help that he’s made a name for himself as a member of the Russian Mafia.”

  “I hope you never call him that,” Dahl raised his eyes to Guidry, a glint of mischief readily apparent. “You never want to call a Chechen a Russian. They take that kind of insult seriously. Chechens consider Russians wimps.”

  “I can only imagine what they think of Americans then,” Guidry mused.

  “Oh, Americans are much further down the food chain . . . like maybe clowns. With one excepted category . . .”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Marines . . . they actually respect American Marines.”

  “You hear that, Sergeant Vance, the Chechens respect us. They must have been watching those recruiting command commercials where we fight monsters. That dragon one. That’s the one that got me.”

  Vance nodded “Not me . . . I like the one where we get all dressed up and stand out on cliffs and go through rifle drill. So realistic.”

  “That’s why you’re a sniper and I am just a little old infantry company commander.”

  Lieutenant Dahl had had enough. “Let’s get this paper going, Guidry.”

  Guidry had other ideas. “Hey, Aksel, why don’t you help this young Marine get checked in so he can get to his rack.”

  “Thank you, sir.” There was no irony in Guidry’s offer or in Vance’s gratitude. He was ready to sleep for a week but would probably only get an eight-hour break before getting back into the cycle.

  Vance stepped up to the counter and Lieutenant Dahl started keying in the codes that would quickly get him out and to his rack. The banter and the normal of it felt good. A little closer to the well-ordered world they would eventually return to.

  And then it wasn’t . . .

  The whoosh and crack of the RPG ripping through the plywood wasn’t explosive. It was frightening in its speed though. The one nano second it took to recognize what it was and know that it was going to impact s
omewhere was filled with cold fear. It passed through the flimsy counter, hit Aksel in his upper arm and continued to spiral through the hut until it spun and broke into the open and hit a HUMVEE parked outside. Before any damage assessment could be made, Vance could see Aksel’s arm was surging blood in regular jets that sprayed across the void left by the RPG and covered both Marines in a sticky spatter. Aksel was white, his face blank. His eyes registered a wordless plea already being met. Guidry had his belt off and was encircling Aksel’s upper arm. Vance jumped what was left of the counter and grabbed Aksel’s other arm and his leg, drawing him onto his shoulder’s in a fireman’s carry.

  “Go, Sergeant!” Guidry was right behind him as they bolted for the aid hut about 50 feet away. Vance almost tumbled as he ran through the hatch. He kept his feet and ran, talking to Aksel through his breaths.

  “This is good, . . . we got the blood stopped . . . very normal. . . . Aid hut is right ahead.”

  Guidry had the hatch opened as they ran full tilt through to the triage area. A Navy corpsman was on his feet pointing to a gurney. “Right here, Marines.” He started talking to Aksel, his stethoscope seeking his heart sounds. He called over another corpsman and directed him to apply pressure as he prepped Aksel’s arm for treatment.

  Vance and Guidry stood apart from the triage and for a moment, were hesitating. Stay or . . . ?

  Vance turned abruptly and ran from the hut. “Vance, where are you going?”

  “Those guys are out there.”

  “Okay . . . sonofabitch . . . let’s go.”

  The planning meeting was the back and forth as they ran back to the admin hut.

  “Sir, with all due respect, you’re not my partner in this.”

  “Who else you got, Sergeant? I have seen you work and I am going with you.”

  “Sir, seriously . . .”

  “Sergeant, oscar mike . . .”

  “Ooh rah, sir. Okay. Let’s go.”

  They were back at the admin hut now, a torn mess with Marines running around making sure there were no other wounded buried under the junk made by the exploded missile.