13:57 PDT.
Inside, the wooden shed stank of stale beer and food rotting in the dark, close heat. At first, it was rank and sour, like a garbage dump, but then a wave of sweet ammonia, like meat, like bodies, swept up my nostrils. Sweat prickled on my skin. My chest tightened, squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. My ears filled with the buzzing of flies feasting, flicking against the plastic bags, dive-bombing my face, my eyes. And when I closed my eyes, there was Patrick, there was Havers, there were the flies crawling—
I opened my eyes wide, dropped to a crouch, then fell further, scooted backward on my ass, my hands flailing, swatting at flies that wouldn’t—
Stop.
Male voices, heavy footsteps, the jingle-jangle of keys being tossed in the air.
“I heard that blonde chick is coming tonight,” one said. His voice was still faint, muffled by the trees, but he sounded like a local.
“Yeah? The one you did last time?” A second voice, deeper, brasher, and definitely not from the Okanogan.
“Yeah,” the first said, his voice louder, closer. “Wouldn’t mind some of that again. You should try her, man. Nothin’ she won’t do.”
Gravel crunched under their boots. They were moving at a relaxed pace, but thirty feet away became twenty, became fifteen—
“Nah,” the second said.
“Why? You got watch tonight?” the first said. One of them spat a long stream of liquid—probably chew—into the dirt. “Fucking crazy setting a watch out here. Ain’t no one gonna come all the way out here.”
“Dude. The party?” The second one said it sharply, bluntly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. But I still couldn’t place his accent.
“Whatever. Everyone’s gonna be trashed. No one’s gonna do anything. Besides, they all know King don’t fuck around.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway. Sucks that you got watch tonight. This blonde, man …”
“I’m not on watch,” the second said. “I got other plans.”
“Yeah? Jerking off in the bunkhouse?” the first said, then laughed like a dog.
“Fuck off, Dougie.”
The footsteps stopped. My breathing was shallow, quiet. Theirs was loud, rapid, like they had been running moments before. They had to be just outside the shed, standing on the gravel drive. Then the door swung open and sunlight spilled onto the garbage bags.
“I got dibs on that little Indian girl,” the second said, like it was supposed to be confidential information. When he bent down and grabbed the necks of two garbage bags, his head and shoulders came through the door. His black hair glowed in the sunshine. “You know, that hot Pocahontas chick that’s been hanging around the last few days.”
My daughter. He was talking about my daughter and calling her a Pocahontas? It didn’t quite narrow down where he was from, but at least now I knew he was a racist fuck.
Silently, I maneuvered to the corner closest to the other door. It was the darkest corner, but I wasn’t out of sight, not if one of them turned, not if they really looked. Slowly, I flicked open the strap on the holster under my left arm, wrapped my fingers around the butt of the M9.
“Dude,” the first one—Dougie—said, his voice suddenly quiet like he didn’t want to be overheard. “You wanna think about that.”
“Why?” the other asked. He stepped into the shed, his back to me, and grabbed another garbage bag. He was tall and thin—wiry, really—and tan, just like Billy Boykin. They could have been brothers. Sewn onto the back of his BDU pants was a name tape: “Ibensen.” God knew if it was his name, but maybe it was.
Dougie—stubby and thick with mud-blond hair clipped short—stepped inside, facing me and Ibensen, then took the garbage bag from his buddy and stepped out. I heard the trash settle on the gravel and then he was back.
“Nick’s claimed her,” Dougie said, his eyes on the ground as he took another bag.
My grip on my weapon tightened.
“That fuckin’ beaner’s got plenty of women,” Ibensen said. “He ain’t gonna miss one girl for one night.”
Dougie shook his head.
“Ain’t you heard about California?” Dougie said, taking another bag.
“Yeah. Nice place.”
Standing in the doorway, Dougie looked both ways down the gravel drive, then stepped closer to Ibensen, lowered his voice: “Not if you fuck with Nick. He’s killed guys. Like, lots. For screwing him, you know. Screwing his women too.”
Ibensen paused, then shrugged. “Yeah, right. He ain’t gonna care about one fucked-up little red.”
In one movement, I pulled the Beretta free of its holster; slid my thumb over its safety, releasing it; aimed my weapon. Fucked up? I’d show him fucked up. Fucked up was his brains sprayed all over the inside of a crap shed.
Just inside the doorway, Dougie shook his head. “Your funeral.”
They shifted a couple more garbage bags. My hand was shaking, I wanted to pull the trigger so badly, but the one brain cell that was still coherent screamed at me, wouldn’t let me do it. Firing shots at that stage would alert everyone within a mile. It would sabotage the mission, keep me from finding my daughter.
“Dude, she’s always with him,” Dougie said as though he’d had a bright idea. “How you gonna get her to go with you?”
Ibensen picked up the last garbage bag and grunted. “I can be pretty persuasive,” he said. “Shouldn’t be too hard anyway. She’s always lit.”
“Yeah, but, dude,” Dougie said.
Ibensen stepped past him, the muscles on his arms rippling with the weight of the garbage bag. Briefly, I saw his profile in the light of the doorway: long nose, thin lips, high cheekbones. Dougie followed him out of the shed.
“What if she won’t fuckin’ go with you?” Dougie said. “She makes a scene and you’re a dead man.”
The door of the shed swung closed. A shaft of sunlight pushed through the crack, fell on the packed earth floor. In the corner, in the dark, I stood up, pivoted toward the door.
“She’ll do it,” Ibensen said. He cracked his knuckles. “And if she don’t want to, it’ll be even more fun.”
My entire body shook with the effort of resisting the urge to go out the door and empty my magazine into that motherfucker’s head.
Minutes crawled past. Through the crack in the door, I watched Ibensen walk away while Dougie stayed, smoking a cigarette just outside. A few minutes later, a truck rumbled up, gravel crunching under its tires until it came to a halt beside the shed. The two grunts tossed garbage bags into the bed, the crackle of plastic and aluminum buckling against steel punctuated by the pounding of blood in my ears. They finished and jumped in the truck. The truck’s engine started, diesel gurgled, tires lurched forward and gathered speed.
Silence.
I closed my eyes, breathed—in, out, in, out—until the battle cry in my throat settled in my stomach. I flicked on the Beretta’s safety and slid the gun back into its holster. I sank back into a crouch, shuddered, stayed there until the stream of hate and terror ripping through my brain faded. Until the horror film stopped playing in my head. When I opened my eyes, I saw what I needed to see: a cell phone, its screen glittering in the sliver of sunlight that slanted in under the door.
I stood up, crossed the floor of the shed, and picked it up. The screen was crushed, half the glass turned to dust. It looked like Sophie’s, the one she had left on the counter after Patrick Beale’s funeral, the one that had been destroyed. But when I turned it over to inspect the back of the case, I saw that it was my phone, the one I had pushed into Sophie’s hand that night when she was slumped—stunned and terrified—in the passenger seat of Lyle’s car. My personal phone. The one I had closed her fingers around while she stared at me, her eyes wide and black with fear, her face as pale as mine.
15:01 PDT.
I retreated, picking my way methodically through the underbrush, pausing periodically to survey the clearing. There was still no sign of Sophie, but at least I knew
she had been there. I reached a high point, a small rise just outside the southwestern quadrant of the clearing. It wasn’t the best reconnaissance point, but it was the best within striking distance.
Sophie was still there—had to still be there—but there were few options for extracting her. The clearing was one big open space. Both houses had several vantage points, good sniper holes if Captain Jimmy was as paranoid as me. Nowhere to hide except in a crowd, but I doubted I would fit in with the party people. There were the woods—thick, dark, choked with underbrush—but it was difficult to maneuver in them quickly and even more difficult to get close to anything in the clearing. My best option would be to wait for her to show up, track her movements, and try something after dark, after they were all shitfaced.
So I waited.
16:22 PDT.
Several vehicles had arrived. A van carrying supplies for the party: a couple of kegs, some handles of cheap booze. Ice. Tiki torches. The rest of the vehicles had been filled with foot soldiers coming in from God knew where. Maybe the bunkhouses Dougie had mentioned. Why Jimmy King needed twenty dumbass kids to run his operation, how their vehicles had gotten past the fallen tree on the drive, why King would even throw a party out there, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I only cared about Sophie.
16:31 PDT.
A long black lowrider rumbled up the hill and turned onto the dirt track that snaked past the older house and up the hill, terminated at the front porch of the newer house. It was familiar, that car. King had gotten into it at the lawyer’s office; it had been at Patrick Beale’s funeral. And the male who stepped out of it was familiar as well. I clenched my jaw, ground my teeth, when he slammed the vehicle door behind him and walked toward the house. The late afternoon sun shone on the black hair he had pulled into a man bun, flashed off his mirrored sunglasses, glowed on his brown skin. And on his neck, a serpent twisted.
Victor, alias Nick.
Jimmy King’s number two. My number two.
17:11 PDT.
The shadows of the trees had lengthened into black spears piercing the clearing, their forward assault moving closer and closer to the houses, to the vehicles parked beside them. There was still no sign of Sophie, little sign of anyone except a few of the younger males pushing tiki torches into the ground, layering bottles of booze and ice in massive tubs. No additional vehicles had arrived, none had left. But it was early yet.
17:47 PDT.
I had forced down an energy bar and was reaching for the mouthpiece of my CamelBak when I heard helicopter rotors, their steady thump-thump-thump bouncing off the hills. I scanned the air. One moment there was nothing but blue sky; the next, the bird swept in from the north, the evening sun flashing off its windshield, its windows, its mud-brown paint. It was a Sikorsky and it was coming in fast. Suddenly, it slowed, crawled over the treetops, swept through the air immediately above me, the downwash pounding against my scalp. Even after I couldn’t see it through the trees, I could still hear it: the tempo of the rotors quickening, then the scream of the engine powering down and the roar of the rotors steadily slowing, fading.
Half a mile, maybe three-quarters. It couldn’t be far. The helicopter existed. Even if it wasn’t at the airfield, even it had been scrubbed from all the records, it existed.
I shoved my binoculars into my vest and scrambled down the rise. When I reached the bottom, I heard a shout, a girl, crying, “Hey!” like a valley girl on TV. Dropping to a crouch, I strained to hear, every nerve on fire. A few males shouted something, their words unclear over the last of the helicopter’s noise, but testosterone dripping from their voices. Then more girlish babble, squealing. Two girls, maybe three. But none sounded like Sophie, none had the gravel in her voice she had had since she was tiny. No bird voice for my girl.
I still had the photo I had taken to boot camp; I took it with me that night. It had gone on every tour, every mission, taped to a piece of cardstock and laminated with plastic wrap. During the war, I’d kept it in my helmet so it wouldn’t be damaged if I caught a round or if someone bled out on me. In the photo, she was perfect: chubby cheeks and wispy black hair, bright black eyes, toothless grin. In it, she was the perfect baby I hadn’t wanted. The perfect baby I loved fiercely. The perfect baby I left behind. It was the only photo I had.
The helicopter was still. The trees were still. The party had gone inside. For now.
18:09 PDT.
The helicopter sat idle in a long clearing, its rotors drooping, a wide circle of brittle, golden grass flattened by the downwash. It was the same one I had seen at the Chelan airfield: a Sikorsky S-76, gritty with dust, the brown paint shiny where the dirt had been wiped away.
I stayed back in the trees, panting, catching my breath after running through the heavy undergrowth to where I suspected the helo had landed. I could hardly believe what I saw: no guard, no cameras. It was a temporary site, had to be. Something hasty, so quickly used that even Jimmy King thought he could get by without security. But there were other tracks in the grass, long and narrow and just wide enough for a helicopter. This wasn’t the Sikorsky’s first trip out there.
Slowly, I circled the clearing, photographing the bird from all angles with my phone. But I had to stay too far back in the trees to maintain cover, and I couldn’t get a shot of the open cargo door without crossing a track wide enough for a Jeep. So I got as close to the path as I could without breaking cover, then low-crawled until I was even closer, pulled some dead branches over my back, and waited in prone, the Beretta in one hand, my phone in the other. Someone would come to get whatever was in the bird, or maybe they’d come and load it up. Either way, I would get the evidence I needed to put these bastards away.
But, God, I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept—really slept—for weeks, not since I had found Patrick Beale’s body. And I couldn’t remember the last thing I’d eaten that hadn’t come wrapped in plastic. I rested my chin on the ground for just a moment. Twigs dug into my ribs, my stomach. A beetle crawled over my hand. Dry, sharp pine needles burrowed into the skin of my face. And then—
I was running, the metal pole of the gurney digging into my shoulder, the weight of the soldier on it weighing me further down with every step. There was blood everywhere, bone fragments too. We had done what we could, but the only thing for him now was the operating room. And he was the lucky one; his buddies were still out on the sand, their bodies waiting to be collected.
The orderlies met us just outside the hospital, with a table. We set our lucky soldier down and stood back, watched the white coats wheel him in, poking him, prodding him, prepping what was left of his leg for surgery.
I rubbed my shoulder, rotated it to get the blood flowing again. That had been the fifth trip of the day, the fifth ambush or IED or whatever else that made Americans bleed in the desert. Me, the pilot, the doctor—we were all exhausted, the kind of weary that feels like the hand of God pushing you into the ground.
It was time for a break. On the other side of the airstrip was an air-conditioned shed with sodas and a huge box of cheap crackers someone had brought back from Baghdad, and behind the desk, a fat civilian in an orange shirt who always scoped my boobs. I loosened my chin strap as I walked through the door, took it off after bolting the latrine door. In the mirror, I was a stranger; dirty, spiky blonde hair and a deep tan on the band of skin between my sunglasses and my chin strap, deep purple blotches like bruises under my eyes.
I splashed water on my face, wiped it off with a rough paper towel, the kind that’s already so brown it doesn’t show the dirt. Leaning against the steel sink, I closed my eyes and the day replayed, the day before replayed, and the day before that and before that and before that and before that … My eyelids flew open, and there I was again, a stranger in the mirror. Slowly, I ran my hand through my hair, broke up the dirt-crusted chunks. Then I picked up my helmet and saw my baby, her photo taped inside so I would see her every time I put on my gear. So I would remember. I kissed the pad of my index finger, touched it to the
photo, and tucked my helmet under my arm.
Back in the lounge, my pilot was watching a telenovela; my doctor was sprawled on the fake leather couch, one arm over his face. The door opened and a cloud of dust and heat puffed in ahead of our commanding officer.
I sounded off: “Major Brittan.” The doc was already on his feet. The pilot was standing at attention in front of a black screen.
“Waresch,” the major said, “you’re standing down.”
“Sir?”
But he wasn’t talking to me anymore, he was talking to the doc: “Thompson will go with you on the next mission. Waresch is coming with me.”
The major turned on his heel, marched through the door.
“I don’t understand, sir,” I said, stunned. Had I screwed up? Did the guy die? But there hadn’t been much I could do about his wounds, not much the doctor could either. There were just too many pieces to put together again.
“Sergeant!” the doc said, pointing out the door. “Major Brittan said you’re with him.”
I took off, slipped my helmet onto my head, and tightened the chin strap as I jogged out the door and across the tarmac.
“Sir,” I said. “Permission to speak, sir?”
“Go ahead.”
“Is there anything more about Private Havers, sir?” I shouted over the grinding of the trucks nearby, and the staccato slap of helicopter rotors rotating, preparing to take off.
Major Brittan kept striding across the airfield.
“Sir! Is there anything about Havers, sir?” I repeated, more loudly this time.
“Not now!” But then he turned, flashed a bright, pearly-white smile. “Patience, Sergeant.”
“But, sir—”
“Not now, Sergeant.”
“But, sir, I know who killed Havers. Sir!”
That’s when he began to whistle, a lilting back-and-forth, up-and-down tune that steadily quickened his steps, that had me running after him. Whistling like—
Whistling like a bird. My eyes flew open, my head jerked up. How long had I been out? But it was still light, still hot, even down in the dirt. Still quiet. But then, again: whistling. To my left, toward the west. The same lilt, the same back and forth, and up and down, and steady quickening. And then footsteps, like heavy boots swung casually, carelessly. I dug in, readied my camera.
Little Falls Page 26
