by Young, Tom
He wanted to assail his enemy right now, to open fire, to thrust with a blade, to smash with a boot, fist, or elbow. He wanted to cut loose with a flamethrower like Grandpa, get payback in grand style. But he had no place to throw the flame. Nothing burned but his own spirit. He balled his hands into fists, walked in a circle, dragged deep breaths through the filter of his gas mask.
“Guns,” Loudon said. “Are you all right?”
Loudon stood over a piece of an axle. The blast had burned away the tires completely. However, one rim remained bolted onto the axle, giving it the appearance of a giant steel mallet. Blount looked down at the incinerated metal.
“Give me that,” Blount said. Forgot about the “sir.”
Blount charged toward Loudon. Loudon stepped back, eyes widened in fear. But Blount didn’t want to hurt the lieutenant colonel. He wanted that axle.
He leaned over and grabbed it with both hands. Yanked it up from the ground the way a weaker man might lift a baseball bat. Blount hefted it by the broken end. At the other end, sand streamed from the edges and grooves of the bare rim. Blount ran at the chunk of wreckage that contained the scorched remains.
He swung the axle over his head like a battle-ax. Brought it down hard on the twisted metal frame of the destroyed vehicle. The impact made a loud clang. Dust and ash bounced from the burned steel.
“Guns,” Loudon said. “What are you—”
Blount wasn’t listening. He swung the axle again, sweating inside his gas mask. The rim at the end of the axle whanged once more into the wreckage.
“I’m gon’ get you,” Blount growled. He drew back the axle for another blow, wielded it like a maul. This time the impact tore away some of the wreckage that encased the burned body.
The blackened skull heightened Blount’s rage. As he raised the axle again, the effort twisted his gas mask so that the facepiece dug into his nose. He ripped the gas mask off and flung it to the sand.
“Gunnery Sergeant Blount,” Loudon shouted. “You will place that mask back on your head!”
Blount heaved the axle again. Ignored Loudon’s order. He smashed the rim into the grinning skull inside the wreckage. The skull exploded into flying shards of bone and soot.
Blount took in a long breath of unfiltered air. It went down clean; he felt no sign of chemical poisoning. But then he realized the insane chance he’d taken.
“Marine,” Loudon shouted. “You will pick that mask up off the deck and replace it on your face.”
Horror replaced Blount’s wrath. He’d let emotion break down his military bearing, his common sense, even his devotion to family. He’d let rage overcome judgment. After all he’d survived, he’d risked losing his life, widowing Bernadette, leaving his kids fatherless, in a fit of fury. He dropped the axle. Grabbed the mask, pulled it over his head. Sweat slickened its seals and straps.
Heart throbbing in his chest, Blount remembered the nausea and weakness he’d experienced from his earlier exposure to chemical weapons. He thought of Kelley writhing on the ground in Sigonella. What if Bernadette had had to learn he’d died the same way, and so unnecessarily? What if he never got another whiff of her lavender shampoo, never got to see his girls riding the new pony? He’d nearly thrown it all away.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Blount said. “I’m sorry.” He leaned against the burned and battered wreckage of the SUV. Loudon walked over to him and put his hands on Blount’s shoulders.
“That’s not the Gunny Blount I know,” Loudon said. He no longer used his command voice, but he poked a finger into Blount’s chest when he spoke his next sentence: “You better get yourself squared away.”
“I know it, sir. It’s just—I had to hear what they did to Farmer.”
Loudon took a step back.
“We all saw the video, Guns,” Loudon said. “We all loved Farmer.”
Blount didn’t reply. He just stared at the horizon and listened to the silence of a desert returning to the proper stillness of morning. Breathed in, breathed out. Let the flames inside him flicker down to embers.
“Payback is too big to carry in one man’s seabag,” Loudon said. “Let us finish this, whatever’s left to finish. You need to go back to your family for a while.”
Blount knew he’d probably never get the revenge he’d craved just moments ago. But he considered what he did have: He remained alive and healthy, despite his recklessness. He still had his family. Blount thought of Grandpa in his room at the senior center, coping with his own flames of anger.
“You know, sir,” Blount said, “my grandfather warned me about not getting eat up with vengeance. He said if you gotta fight, fight to protect and not to punish.”
“How’s that?” Loudon asked.
“Grandpa fought in the Pacific. He said revenge will burn you up like a flamethrower and turn you into something you don’t like.”
Loudon turned his eyes down to the charred ground, seemed to consider what Blount had said.
“Your grandfather’s right, Guns,” Loudon said. “You can’t let a mission turn into a vendetta. You let that happen, and part of you never goes home.”
Had that happened to Grandpa? Blount wondered. Did part of him still fight across the black sands of Iwo Jima? Blount wondered if he, too, might leave a portion of himself always at war, fighting across the sands of North Africa, the mountains of Afghanistan, and the alleyways of Iraq.
The radio interrupted his thoughts. Chartier called again. “Thor Six,” the Frenchman said, “be advised Dagger flight is bingo fuel. Do you require further air cover?”
This time Loudon answered. He stepped over to the radio operator, lifted the handset and said, “Negative, Dagger. I think we’re done here. We’ll see you back at base.”
Blount looked up toward the reverberation of jet engines. Two flecks of metal traversed the sun’s glow as the Mirages joined up in close formation and turned to the north. The pair of fighter planes rose higher, grew smaller and fainter, until they became but a memory. They left Blount standing on the desert floor, a long way from home.
THE STORY BEHIND SAND AND FIRE
In the first days of the Iraq War, my Air National Guard crewmates and I flew a C-130 Hercules to an airfield in Numaniyah, southeast of Baghdad. We carried tons of Meals Ready to Eat to Marines who had pushed north from their line of departure at the Kuwait border. We didn’t stay long; the devil dogs helped offload the MREs quickly, and we took off to return to our base in Oman.
But during our short time on the ground, I could see the fatigue in the men’s faces, and I wondered what they’d experienced and what challenges lay ahead of them. I heard not one word of complaint, and I saw in those faces not just exhaustion but an unshakable commitment to the mission and to their fellow Marines. They lived in pretty rough field conditions, and I felt guilty about flying back to my air-conditioned tent and hot meals. These guys seemed willing to endure any hardship to carry out the core mission of a USMC rifle squad: “to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy.”
This is my fifth novel in the Parson and Gold series, but the first with a focus on the Marine Corps, and the furthest from my personal experience in the Air Force. I wanted to make the novel as authentic as I could, so I reached out to the Marines for help with questions about tactics, weaponry, and Marine Corps culture.
The Corps allowed me to observe an exercise at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, and to chat with instructors at the Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico. Much of what I learned in those visits, especially with regard to Marine Corps Scout Sniper training, made its way into this novel.
When I put in requests to visit USMC units, I appreciated the way Marines did business; they gave prompt replies with a refreshing absence of red tape and foot-dragging. Ask a Marine a question and you’ll get a straight answer.
As a former reporter in civilian life, I noticed something else that impressed me. Mari
ne Corps leaders trust their people. Many times when I visited a corporation or other institution as a journalist, a public relations official would sit in on every interview, listening for any word that strayed from approved corporate spin. On Marine bases, however, senior leaders allowed me to speak with junior officers and enlisted personnel without a PR officer standing over them every minute.
Make no mistake: Marines are very conscious of their public image. But they don’t seem to live in fear that a private will say something stupid. I suppose they have two reasons for that: One—they have more important things to worry about. Two—Marines are professionals, not usually given to stupid comments.
Formidable as they are, however, Marines don’t win wars by themselves—not even those as tough as Gunnery Sergeant Blount. So I tried in this novel to demonstrate how different services, and even different services of other nations, work together toward a common goal. If you spend much time around the modern military, one of the watchwords you hear often is “jointness.” That means teamwork between various branches of the military. In both exercises and real-world missions, my Air Guard career gave me opportunities to work with the Marines, the Navy, and the Army, as well as the armed forces of several countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Chile, and Bangladesh. I don’t think the general public realizes how much international cooperation goes on, and I hope this novel brings that picture into sharper focus.
Readers of my previous novels may remember Blount’s introduction in The Renegades. He began as a minor character, but I got so much positive feedback about him that I decided to give him a star turn in Sand and Fire. I certainly enjoyed writing him, and I hope readers enjoy getting to know him better.
Though this book required me to research Blount’s branch of service, I needed only to call on my past to write Blount’s recollections of farm life. Blount’s memories of Southern tobacco fields are my own. I grew up on a Carolina farm, where my parents, Bobby and Harriett Young, taught me the value of hard work. Incidentally, my parents continue to live on that farm. “Blount’s” catalpa tree is dead now, but the ponds still contain fish, the fields still produce crops, and the woods still harbor game.
I can’t say I know anyone exactly like Blount; he’s a composite of people I’ve known. So is his grandfather, for that matter. I used to hunt quail and pheasant with a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who had survived some of the most hellish fighting imaginable in the Pacific campaign during World War II. Though he told lots of stories, most of them had to do with garrison life. I heard him talk about combat against the Japanese just once. Even on that occasion he said very little: “We had to dig those bastards out.” And in reference to severe losses among officers and senior NCOs in one particular battle: “We lost a lot of high-priced help.” On most days he preferred to talk about dogs, birds, and wildlife management.
This novel describes chemical weapons attacks against civilians in Sicily and Gibraltar. Those incidents are, thank God, fictional. But they reflect events that did take place in Iraq in 1988 and in Syria in 2013. The threat of chemical weapons in the hands of terrorists and rogue nations represents a nightmare scenario, and chemical weapons are easily produced. Each day that goes by without their use comes as a result of hard work by intelligence agencies, military personnel, and international groups such as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
On a personal note, as I wrote this novel I retired from the Air National Guard after twenty years of military service. I can scarcely find the words to express my gratitude to my brothers and sisters in arms for their friendship and professionalism.
While you read this, many of my friends in uniform remain in harm’s way. As the guardians of an elected democracy, they serve in your name no matter how you voted. Never send them into battle lightly. Always keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
TOM YOUNG
Alexandria, Virginia
July 2014
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A few months before I finished this novel, I made my last flight as a member of the Air National Guard. After landing, I descended the crew ladder of the C-5 Galaxy and saw dozens of my squadron mates and dearest friends waiting for me. A fire truck had pulled up near the aircraft’s parking spot for the traditional spray-down of a retiring aviator. My buddies gave the hose to my wife, Kristen.
Payback time.
Kristen didn’t just throw a few drops in my general direction; she opened the valve and let me have it. Full force—in a good-natured celebration of a closing chapter. To the cheers and laughter of the squadron, I learned something interesting: A fire hose can blast you so hard you have to turn your head to breathe. Then I gave Kristen a soggy embrace in my dripping flight suit.
She had earned a little fun with that hose. For two decades she had put up with the war deployments, the long absences, and all the inconveniences and uncertainties of life as a military wife. Not only that—she had also served as my adviser and writing coach, critiquing each manuscript line by line, draft after draft.
I owe a word of thanks to several of my comrades-in-arms. Instructor pilot Joe Myers served in a number of leadership positions in the 167th Airlift Wing, and I logged many pleasant hours of flying with him. Now in retirement, Joe reads all my manuscripts and helps keep me straight on technical details.
Retired brigadier general Wayne “Speedy” Lloyd, former commander of the West Virginia Air National Guard, provided valuable input on how my character Michael Parson would go about leading an air expeditionary group. General Lloyd spent a tour running a forward air base in Kyrgyzstan, and the aircraft operating out of that base included French Mirage jets. He provided a great account of his time there in my nonfiction book, The Speed of Heat: An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his stories informed my description of Mirage crews in this novel. (Yes, they really had a masseuse.)
Dennis Philapavage, a former helicopter pilot turned C-5 driver, gave me helpful details about choppers, especially emergency egress procedures. Fellow flight engineer Al Rigdon, a former KC-135 boom operator, told me about boomer checklist items for aerial refueling.
My brother, Ron Young, and his colleague Bill Oestereich—both black-belt martial artists—helped me conceptualize Gunnery Sergeant Blount’s fight scenes. They came up with a good idea as soon as I described the scenario: If he’s chained, they said, he’ll use those chains as weapons.
Longtime friend Jodie Tighe helped refresh my dim memories of French as I penned the character of Mirage pilot Alain Chartier. Merci beaucoup, Jodie.
Air Force veteran Drew Pallo very kindly provided memories of serving at the old Wheelus Air Base, before it became Libya’s Mitiga International Airport.
I’d like to thank Tony Scotti’s Vehicle Dynamics Institute for a great course on Protective/Evasive Driving. That course helped me evade errors as I described Sophia Gold’s escape from a vehicle ambush.
The Marine Corps contributed a wealth of information for this project. The views expressed by the characters herein do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the United States Marine Corps. Any mistakes are purely my own. I’d like to express my appreciation to the Marines of the Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico for their input on sniper training, and to one of the Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams—Alpha Company—for allowing me to observe a mission rehearsal exercise.
Several retired Marines also provided very helpful details about the Corps. (Note that I didn’t say ex-Marines. Once a Marine . . . ) They include Lieutenant General Jack Klimp, Major General Paul Lefebvre, and former aviator Jim Porto. A tip of the hat goes to my cousin Elizabeth Watts for introducing me to General Klimp.
As always, my thanks to the team at Putnam and Berkley for the privilege of working with them. They include Putnam president Ivan Held, Putnam publisher and editor in chief Neil Nyren, and Berkley executive editor Thomas Colgan. Thanks also to Al
exis Welby, Michael Barson, Ashley Hewlett, Sara Minnich, Kate Stark, and everyone at Penguin Random House.
My agent, Michael Carlisle, makes it all possible, along with his colleague Lyndsey Blessing. Author and professor John Casey helped me get this adventure started. I also owe thanks to old friend and mentor Richard Elam and to author and editor Barbara Esstman for their help in fine-tuning the manuscript. Thanks also to Bobby Siegfried for proofreading. In various ways, each of these folks helped me bring this story to you.
