Last Son of the War God

by Clay Martin

  Daoud nodded. “It’s the only export Afghanistan has.” He took a pack of cigarettes from the folds of his shalwar chamise, tapped out a cigarette, and lit it with a gas lighter. “A few years ago, the former governor was removed because he had three hundred pounds of raw opium in the basement of his office, right over there.” He pointed to a plastered and painted office building in the middle of the compound.

  “The whole eradication program is joke,” Kyle said.

  Daoud nodded again. “Poppies can never be eliminated.”

  “A field here and a field there are destroyed each year,” Kyle said, “but only to appease the foreigners?”

  Daoud drew on his cigarette and stared silently.

  A few days later, Kyle’s story was on front page of the

  Washington Herald along with Kennard’s color photo of the tractor ripping through the field of pink and green poppies.

  Kennard had lived a full life, but it had been cut short. Kyle swallowed hard and sucked in a halting breath.

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  - Chapter 1 -

  Jake Silver inched his way across the dimly lit bedroom of his Manhattan apartment.

  Stopping by the bed, his eyes were drawn to the woman’s prone form, and beyond to the far nightstand where a pair of champagne flutes—one on its side, the other upright, its silhouette clear through the tiny garment flung over its mouth–recalled visions of an evening well spent.

  And, though the night had been special, it had not yet occurred to Jake that it was the first during which his sleep, however brief, had not suffered the nightmare and its aftermath. That this gutsy woman had chosen to remain by his side, would serve as adequate good fortune for the moment. Though they’d known one another a mere 36 hours, Jake felt an uncommon affinity for Sandy McRea.

  The bedroom was comfortably warm against the crisp autumn dawn, so Cassandra—as the decidedly unaffected Ms. McRea would soon become known—had let the bedclothes slip below her waist. Jake made no move to raise them, but instead allowed his eyes to wash slowly over his new lover’s sculpted upper back, indulge the ivory sweep of torso, the narrow waist, the sensual, summoning breadth of hips laid bare by the retreating folds of linen.

  He wanted to wake her, lift her to him. But he knew she’d need her rest if only to survive the upcoming day of job interviews at what seemed every ad agency in town. So Jake ever-so-gently moved an amber curl away from her face and bent to softly kiss her cheek.

  Opening one eye, Sandy smiled sleepily. “Is it morning already?”

  “Not for you. Not yet.” He adjusted her blankets.

  Reaching up to touch his face, she said, “You slept well, peacefully.”

  “I was tired. Can’t imagine why,” he teased.

  “Well, you think about it,” she countered, suppressing a mischievous grin, hoping he’d find himself able to think of little else.

  Both eyes open now, she girded her courage and asked, “Will I see you again?”

  “We both know that answer,” he whispered, pleased as much by her candor as her interest. “I’m flying back tomorrow night. We’ll put on our big-boy pants and celebrate your success.”

  “Success?” she laughed. “I haven’t landed anything yet.”

  “You will,” Jake said. “You’re beautiful, brilliant, and talented.”

  “Right,” she yawned, a hint of cynicism aimed less at the choice than the order of his words. “Maybe the last two qualities will carry the day for once.”

  Their faces nearly touching, Jake understood the distraction such a face as Sandy’s might impose upon a hapless interviewer of either gender, especially those unable to see the aspiring artist as anything other than an “aging” ingénue. He smiled. “I’ve seen your renderings, kiddo. Those drawings are gonna knock ‘em dead.”

  With that bit of encouragement, they shared one long and lingering last kiss before Jake playfully pushed Sandy’s distracting face into the overstuffed pillow, teasing, “Now, stop pointing that thing at me, or I’ll never get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow night... and remember, big boy pants.”

  They exchanged a smile, she closed her eyes, and Jake turned to leave.

  Suddenly, in wrenching contrast to the moment, he recalled the horror and the visions that had overwhelmed him two nights past. As he stood in the doorway, his back to the bedroom, vivid images of the recurring dream shattered his idyllic morning.

  Once again the specter emerged and walked toward him. Once again he saw its wet garments, its shredded hand beckoning, looming, horribly cold as it drew near. But this time, like no other time, the hand had touched his face. With no little embarrassment, Jake recalled how he’d awakened then to pitch his sweaty, shaking, combat-veteran’s fit, all of it playing out before the wide-eyed and terrified Sandy.

  Now, a full day and night later, Jake tried to shake the memory as he turned back to have one last, bittersweet look at the extraordinary person still sharing his bed, and despite himself, despite the nightmares and learned caution, despite Sandy’s earlier terror, despite all of it, he allowed himself to feel the rush of new romance.

  Stepping back into the bedroom, Jake picked up a pen from the nightstand, and scribbled a few words of endearment, along with an admonition—his second—that Sandy use the apartment for her remaining few days in New York. He closed with a promise to call when he got to LA.

  Tucking the note under his alarm clock, he also left a key.

  It meant taking things another step, leaving that key. But, he clearly cared for this woman, eight years his junior. He wanted her to feel at home at his place, safe, comfortable, naked, but most of all here when he returned.

  Setting the key atop the note, he checked the night table drawer. His pistol was there. Sandy, who liked to call herself a country girl, should have found that New York made her nervous. Since it didn’t, that made Jake nervous. So, and since this Iowan knew how to handle a weapon, he’d decided to leave the gun out of its locker for her quick access.

  With slight apprehension, he slid the drawer closed, and left the apartment.

  It was slightly past 6:00 a.m. when Jake stepped from the building’s lobby and into a fast-building rain shower.

  A few cabs drifted by. None were available.

  Then, just as he turned back for the shelter of the lobby and was about to ping Uber, a medallion taxi pulled up to the curb, discharging a man.

  His hat pulled down against the weather, the guy left the cab’s door ajar while gesturing for Jake to do the same with the apartment building’s door. On impulse, Jake obliged, but regretted his rote courtesy the moment the stranger disappeared into the building. Uttering a muffled, “Dammit,” Jake ran for the cab.

  “Airport this morning?” the cabbie asked, recognizing Jake’s uniform.

  “Yeah, JFK,” Jake responded, absent mindedly while looking back and making a mental note to find a new place, one with a doorman.

  As the cab wove its way east through an awakening Central Park, Jake peered from the window, impressed by the number of people out jogging so early on so dismal a morning.

  He recalled having once shown similar discipline as a light heavyweight boxer in New York’s Golden Gloves.

  Always disdainful of bullies and bullying, young Jake had found amateur boxing a sensible outlet for his adolescent-male aggressiveness. What began as an outlet grew to an avocation he’d later carry into intercollegiate competition. But despite his emerging pugilistic promise, everything changed when, in the final second of the final round of an otherwise unexceptional bout, a blow to the head caused Jake’s vision to flood white.

  And though he’d neither gone down, nor lost consciousness his clearest recolle
ction was of a doctor shining a light into his eyes as he sat on his stool in a corner of the ring while the referee raised his opponent’s hand in triumph.

  Given that the study of head trauma to athletes was in its infancy, Jake was simply declared fit, sent on his way and no medical record established. Only later did he learn that following the blow, he’d continued throwing punches despite that the bell had rung and his opponent had returned to his own corner as the crowd roared with laughter. The revelation so disturbed and embarrassed Jake that he’d never climbed into a ring again.

  So, these days, Jake Silver liked to boast that he kept his fitness regimen limited to the rigor of chewing an occasional airline steak.

  To the annoyance of some male colleagues, Jake’s cynicism was not entirely without motive. A darkly handsome six-footer, he was among those fortunate few who need put forth little more than a shave (and what his airline considered a too-infrequent haircut) to maintain his masculine good looks. In fact, the only thing at which Jake seemed to toil was the public projection of himself as the carefree New York bachelor: a less-than-accurate image, yet one he did little to assuage.

  Because, to Jake’s mind, despite his entreaties that Sandy stay on at the apartment, and despite her clear desire to do so, once the woman now asleep in his bed stirred to wakefulness, he suspected she would come to her senses and take flight as had so many before her, wisely choosing to disappear before anything akin to real feelings for Jake could develop. Yes, Jake Silver had long ago convinced himself that as long as his nightmares and nocturnal ravings continued, each new liaison, however promising it might first appear, was likely to end with a frightened woman beating a hasty, often pre-dawn exit, leaving Jake’s ostensibly precious bachelorhood securely, if not preferably, intact.

  So, on this fateful morning, he would do that which he’d done on so many mornings; he would steel himself against what he’d come to consider inevitable. He’d endeavor to deny his feelings for the alluring, but ultimately sensible woman of the moment, and prepare to face the day, his singular expectation being that Sandy McRea remember to leave his key as she left his apartment, his life, and in time, his thoughts.

  The latter, he’d learn, was not to be.

  As the taxi pulled up to his airline’s curbside entrance, Jake over-tipped the driver and made a dash for the crew room.

  The brightly lit room was empty but for the lanky form of Ed James, a first officer with whom Jake had trained a few years back.

  A compulsive talker, Ed was the kind of roommate Jake knew awaited him in hell.

  Without looking up from his newspaper, and before Jake could bolt, the rangy Southerner drawled a hearty, “Jake-boy!”

  “Mornin’ Ed. What brings you to the frozen north? I thought you were living out your golden years on the Miami milk run.”

  “I’m deadheading to La La Land with you and Cap’n Willie today.” Ed spoke the words with a wink and a smirk. “I got some important bidness out there, if you catch my drift.”

  “Would that bidness be of the blonde or brunette variety?”

  “Oh, my Yankee friend,” Ed admonished, “a Southern gentleman does not kiss and tell.”

  In contrast to his own romantic reticence, Jake suspected that Ed did a great deal more telling than he did kissing.

  “So you won’t be regaling us with details of your little peccadillo?” Jake said.

  “My little what?”

  Leaving the answer to Ed’s question dangling, Jake decided to forego his coffee, and as he turned back for the door, he fibbed. “It’ll be nice to have some company up front this trip.”

  Jake was pleased to see Captain Bill Gance already seated in the cockpit when he arrived. Gance was talking to Operations on the company channel. Jake, who had a special affinity for his boss, had given up a regional captain’s spot so that he might spend a year or so flying the big iron beside this universally revered chief pilot. To the younger man’s mind, knowledge gained at the knee of Captain Gance would prove more meaningful than a seniority-based promotion. A pilot to the core, Jake placed profession before career.

  “Mornin’, Number One,” Gance said warmly, welcoming his copilot as Jake took the right hand seat. “She’s holding thirty-four tons,” meaning fuel, “and three-hundred souls.” Turning then to their hitchhiking colleague, who’d entered behind Jake, Gance added jovially, “Top-o-the mornin’ to you, Edwin.”

  As Ed wiggled into the small jump seat, Jake’s brow furrowed at the clutter of planes on the JFK ramp. Though the rain had subsided to a mist, he was eager to climb into the sunlit upper air.

  “Get me the current ATIS, please,” Gance directed Jake, ATIS being the airport’s automated terminal information system for flight crews.

  While Jake and his captain worked as one, the radio crackled with the ground controller’s instructions: “NorthAm Two-four heavy, Kennedy Ground, taxi runway Three-One Left at the Kilo-Echo intersection, via left on Bravo, hold short of Lima. Holding short of taxiway Lima, monitor tower, one, two, three point niner. They’ll have your sequence. Good day.”

  As the big jet pushed back, Ed said, “Looks like we’ll get out on time this mornin’.”

  “Clear on the left.” Gance announced.

  “Clear right,” Jake responded in the opening movement of a cybernetic ballet that would ensure safe carriage of this crew and its charges across a continent.

  Again, the radio crackled to life. “North Am Two-four heavy, Kennedy Tower. Wait for and follow the second heavy Boeing 767 from your left at Lima. They’ll be your sequence. You’ll be number eleven for departure.”

  Groans from the two younger men.

  As the plane slowly moved up in line, Jake felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Ed holding up a rumpled copy of the New York tabloid he’d been reading in the lounge. “Seen this yet, Jake-o?”

  Looking over his shoulder, Jake read the headline whose font size would overstate Armageddon: IRAQ WAR HERO KILLED IN DRUG CRASH.

  “Yeah, right,” Jake said, his voice dripping with cynicism as he turned to Gance, whom the younger pilot knew would disapprove of Ed’s cockpit discipline breach. “Everybody’s a hero now. Some drunk drives into a tree and it’s news because he’s a vet.”

  “Not a car crash, y’all,” Ed corrected, shaking the paper, demanding attention. “This boy flew an old Charlie-four-six, Commando into the ocean. Thing was full of drugs. So was the guy, I reckon.”

  Annoyed by both the breach and Ed’s penchant for military nomenclature, Jake grabbed the newspaper from Ed’s outstretched hand, aware, as was Gance, that acquiescing to their dead header’s compulsion would be less distracting than ignoring or upbraiding him.

  Reading the article, Jake became visibly upset, frantically leafing through the paper, looking for the continuation of the story, tearing pages in his frenzied search.

  “Knock it off,” Captain Gance barked, tired of the whole affair.

  Rather than comply, Jake crumpled a page in his fist and said, to his colleagues’ surprise, “We gotta go back to the gate.”

  Incredulous at his normally disciplined first officer’s behavior, Gance looked askance at Jake over the half-lenses of his wire-rimmed reading glasses. They’d already advanced, and were now fourth in line. “Go back to the gate?” Gance asked. “Is this your hobby now?”

  Not responding, his breathing coarse, his expression somber, Jake stared straight ahead.

  Gance realized his copilot was serious. “This’s a helluva time...” The captain paused, took a breath. “What is it, Jake? You sick? Got a pain?”

  Jake could see his captain’s patience dissipating. “It’s personal,” he said.

  “Nothing’s personal on my flight deck. Spill it.”

  Two airplanes were released in rapid succession.

  Gance picked up the microphone as if to abort, but Jake raised
a hand to stop him.

  “Talk to me, Number One,” Gance commanded, inching toward the runway. “We’re runnin’ out’a yellow lines, here. What’s this about, son?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Jake said, embarrassed, forcing calm against the gravity of his outburst. “It’s...it’s this story. It’s about Swede Bergstrom.”

  “Bergstrom?” Gance replied. “Oh, sure. Bergstrom,” the captain recalled, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “Your flight leader in the sandbox.” Sandbox being GI slang for the Middle East. “He got hit on your first sortie. Right?”

  “Right,” Jake said, reigning in his emotions, “after saving my sorry ass.”

  Unlike Ed James shifting uncomfortably in the jump seat behind him, Bill Gance had not seen the newspaper article. “What’s it say?”

  “Says Bergstrom was killed yesterday flying dope out of South America. Claims he got lost and went down off Cuba, a hundred miles west of his flight planned route.”

  “Really?” Gance asked, surprised. “He was flying an old Curtiss Commando?”

  “This’s bullshit, Skip,” Jake affirmed, “Pilots like Bergstrom don’t get lost, and c’mon, what drug runner would be dumb enough to file a goddam flight plan? I gotta find out what’s behind this.”

  “North American Two-Four-Heavy, I say again, this is Kennedy tower,” said the irritated voice of the overworked controller, indicating the crew had ignored his initial call.

  “North Am Two-four,” Gance responded. “Go ahead, tower.”

  “I repeat. North Am Two-four is cleared for immediate takeoff, Three-One-Left, Kilo-Echo. No delay on the runway. Take off or get off, sir.”

  “Roger,” Jake responded to the tower in a reactive protocol breach that preempted his captain. Turning to Gance, he then said, “I’m good to go, Skipper.”

  Knowing his first officer as well as a mentor could, and ever conscious of both the CVR and sterile cockpit rule, Gance found himself committed to act.