by Tom Young
“We don’t know, ma’am,” the SP said. “Too many.”
“Let’s get moving,” Parson said. He slapped the back of the driver’s seat. “Go.”
Both the armored vehicles rolled through the entry point. The SPs chained the gate shut, and the Cougars turned left onto the parking apron. From this angle, Parson could see the bomb had detonated within the refugee tents.
“Oh, my God,” Gold said. “Stop. Let me out here.”
The driver stepped on the brakes, opened the ramp. A burning odor filled Parson’s nostrils. Gold grabbed her rifle and descended the ramp in two steps, ran for the tents. Parson unsnapped a first-aid kit from its mount inside the vehicle and followed Gold at a jog. Blount and the Marine Corps women caught up with him.
Outside the tents, the medical people had already set up a casualty collection point. A French doctor in blue overalls kneeled among a row of wounded lying on the ground, perhaps two dozen. Farther down the row, Reyes worked with another pararescueman. He held down a screaming man while the other PJ applied a tourniquet above the patient’s elbow. Below the elbow, mangled flesh hung from a few inches of bone that ended in a sharp point.
“Fatima!” Gold shouted. Then some words Parson could not understand, and again, “Fatima!” She stopped, looked around, called once more for Fatima. Checked inside a tent, left it, disappeared inside another one.
“What can I do?” Parson asked Reyes.
“Do you know how to make a splint?”
“Yeah.”
Reyes pointed to an Afghan boy sitting up, crying, and holding his hand. “Splint that kid’s wrist, sir.”
Parson made his way over to the child. His face and arms bled from cuts and scrapes. Flying debris, Parson supposed. The boy’s left wrist displayed an unnatural bulge, and a dark bruise had formed around the bulge. Parson kneeled beside the child and opened the first-aid kit. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. The boy turned away, shielded his arm.
“Let me help you, son,” Parson said. “I know how much that hurts.” He knew the kid didn’t understand him, but he hoped it would help to talk anyway. And he knew well the boy’s pain. After getting shot down during a winter storm years ago, Parson had trekked through the mountains with Gold for days, all the while nursing a cracked wrist.
Inside the first-aid kit, he found a roll of KERLIX gauze. Now he needed something with a straight edge to immobilize the wrist. Parson got up and searched among the tents—some collapsed, some torn and burned. One of the fallen tents had a wooden floor. With the toe of his boot, Parson kicked at the splintered planking. He found two lengths of cracked wood he could use for a splint.
As he stooped to pick up the lumber, he noticed a lump of some wet substance on the ground. It took a moment for him to realize it was charred human flesh, blown away from the bone.
Around him, medics and nurses moved among the injured, stopping to treat some, abandoning others. Parson had made hard calls in his life, but he did not envy medical workers the rapid-fire decisions of triage: This one has a chance; give him a tracheotomy. That one won’t make it; just leave him alone.
In the midst of the wounded, Parson heard not just their screams but a steadier undertone of groans through gritted teeth, cries with no syllables, no form but the breath required to utter them. The moans of the dying.
Shake it off, he told himself. He stepped around tent stakes, lumber, and corpses. So much blood smeared the pavement, it looked as if an aircraft had blown a fitting and dumped red hydraulic fluid across the tarmac.
When Parson returned to the casualty collection point, the Afghan boy still cradled his broken wrist. Parson sat beside the child and tore off strips of gauze.
“Let’s see it, now,” Parson said. He wished Gold were with him to talk to the kid, but she was still looking for Fatima. Though he didn’t see Gold, he heard her calling the girl’s name.
Parson placed his hand on the boy’s arm. “Let go,” he said. “You’re a tough kid. You can do this.”
The boy took his hand off the injured wrist, held his arm out to Parson. He sniffed, tried to stifle his crying. Parson felt compelled to keep talking. Maybe it was helping.
“That’s it,” Parson said. “We’re going to make what we call a splint.” Using some of the gauze as padding, he placed one piece of wood under the child’s arm. That must have hurt; the kid cried out but did not jerk away.
Trying to be more careful, Parson put the other board over the arm and secured it with gauze strips. He didn’t want to cause more pain by squeezing the injury between the boards, so he tied down the splint just enough to immobilize the wrist. “You’re doing good,” Parson said. “Tell you what. You study hard in school and then come fly with us. We can use tough guys like you.” The boy looked at Parson with what seemed like interest, as if he actually understood the words.
Just a few yards from Parson, Reyes’s patient had stopped screaming. Reyes gave him an injection, checked his pulse.
“Have you seen Rashid?” Parson asked.
“Flying, sir,” Reyes said. “We’ve already sent some of the most critical to hospitals. He rounded up enough crew to get a chopper in the air.”
“Damn. Good for him.”
Gold still called to Fatima, more distant now. Finally, he heard the girl’s high-pitched shriek: “Sopheeeeeeee-ah!” Thank God for that, at least. He would have hated for the girl to get killed, hated what that might have done to Sophia.
Parson stood, tried to think of words he’d heard from Sophia that he could say to the boy with the injured wrist.
“Salaam,” Parson said. Wondered if he’d said it right.
“Salaam,” the boy answered.
Parson left the child to wait for more expert help. Along the rows of tents he saw some of the Marines. Blount, Ann, Lyndsey, and a corpsman searched for more of the wounded. The corpsman pointed, shouted instructions, dropped his medical bag, and kneeled by an injured man.
Farther into the encampment, Parson found Gold with Fatima. Gold led the girl by the hand, steered her away from the dead and wounded.
“You got your hands full,” Parson said. “Want me to take your M4?”
“Please.” Gold passed the rifle to him, hugged Fatima, said something in the child’s language.
“Is she okay?” Parson asked.
“She’s pretty scared, but she’s all right. When I got her calmed down, the first thing she wanted to know was if the giant black man and my pilot friend were hurt.”
Fatima looked up at Parson. “I’m good, honey,” Parson said. “So’s your buddy Blount.”
“What about the others?” Gold asked.
“Reyes is over there. And Rashid’s in the air. Scrounged up a crew and already flew out some wounded.”
“Thank goodness. Butcher’s bill is high enough today as it is.”
“How bad, do you think?” Parson asked.
“I counted eleven dead, and I wasn’t even looking for them. I was just looking for Fatima.”
Parson noticed Air Force security policemen and Army MPs searching among the refugee tents. The men scanned the ground, seemed to look for evidence. At the edge of the camp, four of them gathered around something they’d found on the pavement.
“You two stay here,” Parson said. “I want to see what those guys are looking at.”
As he neared the four policemen, he began to hear their conversation.
“That’s the most fucked-up thing I ever seen,” one said.
“It happens,” another said. “I’ve seen it in Iraq.”
“Me, too,” said the third. Of the four, he was the most senior. A tech sergeant. “Hajji detonates himself. The head goes flying, but it stays pretty much intact.”
Down at their boots, Parson saw the severed head of the suicide bomber. It rested on its side, cheek to the pavement. Both eyes remained open wide, as if caught in a moment of surprise. No beard stubble. A boy of about twelve.
18
Even before
all the wounded were treated, the OSI began investigating the bombing. Inside the air ops center, Gold interpreted for three terrified Afghan gate guards. None looked older than twenty. One trembled as he sat at the table with the other two.
“Will I be imprisoned?” he asked in Pashto. The man looked at Gold with the eyes of a frightened animal.
Gold wasn’t sure of the answer, so she said only what she knew: “They have not handcuffed you, Private. Because you are not bound, they are treating you as a witness and not a suspect.” She meant for that statement to give the young man relief, but his shaking did not stop.
This OSI agent was not the one who’d questioned Aamir, and he did not give his name. He began by saying in English, “Gentlemen, I ask that you tell me the truth. Whatever you’ve done or not done, telling me the truth might not improve your situation. But I promise it will not make it worse.”
The agent never shouted or threatened. Gold appreciated his manner, but if anything that just seemed to scare the guards more.
“Please tell him we are not terrorists,” the trembling man said.
The OSI agent placed a photo on the table. The picture showed the face of the suicide bomber—eyes still open, head ripped away at the neck by the force of the blast. Skin remarkably unburned, with the smoothness of childhood. A sight, Gold thought, that violated every notion of decency in any kind of society.
“I do not remember that face,” another guard said.
“Neither do I,” the third said. “Truly, I would tell you if I did.”
Gold believed them. They’d probably paid the boy no notice. And that’s how he’d gotten in to kill eighteen people and injure thirty-four.
At the end of the interrogation, the agent said the guards were free to go. The Afghans seemed hardly to believe it when Gold translated that bit of news. Perhaps they’d expected to be taken outside and shot. After they left, Gold hung around the air ops center until no one remained in the flight planning room. Her cell phone displayed no signal, so she lifted the receiver of a landline phone. She wondered for a moment if the line was monitored or recorded. Then she decided that was the least of her problems. Fished the scrap of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and punched in the number.
The phone line hissed, clicked, popped. Phone service remained out over much of Afghanistan, and she’d not necessarily expected the number to work. But then it began ringing on the other end. After ten rings, Gold started to hang up. That’s when someone answered. A male voice said only, “Yes?”
She put the receiver back to her ear, glanced through the doorway to see if anyone was coming in. No one was there.
“This is Sergeant Major Sophia Gold,” she said. “I met with the wife of—”
The voice interrupted her. “I know who you are, American. You wish to speak with Mullah Durrani.”
Gold collected her thoughts, tried to remember what she’d planned to say.
“That is correct,” she said. “My superiors will not likely approve a face-to-face meeting. May we do this by telephone?”
“You may not. The mullah does not use electronic communication. If we allow this meeting, you will see him in person, and only on our terms. Is that clear?”
The answer she’d expected, but it had been worth a try. So she said only, “It is clear.”
“Our terms are this: You will come alone. You will come unarmed. Needless to say, we will search you. If we discover anything that looks as if it might be a tracking device, we will kill you. Your body will never be found. We will make no claim of responsibility. You will simply disappear, and your friends and family will never know what happened to you.”
The man sounded like an educated Pashtun. Perfect grammar, each word enunciated with precision. Probably middle-aged. As he issued his threat, he did not raise his voice, did not seem excited at the prospect of an easy kill. His tone lacked all bluster, but it lacked caution as well. He spoke with confidence. Gold knew she should not read too much into the sound of a voice on a scratchy phone line. But the man sounded like someone accustomed to taking life, though tired of it.
Careful, she told herself. Don’t just hear what you want to hear. If you meet with these people, it could be the most dangerous mission you’ve ever undertaken. And even if the mission doesn’t kill you, it could end your career.
“I understand,” Gold said.
“If you agree to these terms, you will see the mullah tomorrow.”
“I am not sure if—”
“Then you will not see the mullah.” Still no raised voice, no contempt or irritation. Just a statement of fact.
“All right. Tomorrow. How may I find you?”
“You will arrive at the home of Mullah Durrani’s wife and daughters at oh-nine-hundred local time. You will be blindfolded and driven to the mullah. Assuming you do nothing foolish, we will return you to your vehicle in time for you to get back to Mazar by nightfall.”
Gold wasn’t sure how to wrap up the conversation, what attitude to take. She opted for courtesy. It usually didn’t hurt.
“It is kind of you to make these arrangements,” she said.
A pause on the other end. Perhaps this was strange territory for him, too. The man said, “We do not act out of kindness, American. Know this: We bear you no goodwill at all. However, in this briefest of moments, we may have a common purpose.”
“I believe we do,” Gold said. She kept assessing what she heard. And she noticed what she wasn’t hearing—the three words that had come out in nearly every other conversation she’d had with a Talib, usually a man in shackles: Bitch. Whore. Infidel. This man clearly did not like her, but he showed no disrespect.
“Please follow our instructions to the letter,” the Talib said. “Otherwise, we will eliminate you.”
Please? Whatever these people intended, it was certainly different. Without another word, the man hung up.
* * *
With Gold loaned to interpret OSI interrogations, Parson made do without her as he helped coordinate medical flights. An Afghan crew in a beat-up C-27A flew in from Herat and picked up a load of patients. Parson tried to talk to the aircraft commander, but the man spoke such poor English that conversation was impossible. He kept talking about grass, and Parson started to wonder if he was some kind of pothead who needed his wings taken away. Then Parson realized the poor guy was just trying to talk shop. The man had seen pictures of the new C-27J. The J model had computer-screen flight instruments—a glass cockpit, as fliers called it.
“I hope they get that model for you,” Parson said. “Once you’ve flown glass, you’ll never want to go back to round dials.”
The man looked at him blankly. Figures, Parson thought. I let Sophia out of my sight and everything goes to hell.
An American C-130 picked up another load of patients—U.S. military personnel and European aid workers. The big turboprop growled off the runway and headed for Germany.
Rashid landed as the sun sank low on the horizon. Parson greeted him inside his aircraft as soon as the rotors stopped. At least Parson could converse with Rashid, however haltingly.
“Good work, buddy,” Parson said. “You took some wounded to the hospital in Kabul?”
“We fly sortie,” Rashid said. He unbuckled his harness, took off his helmet. His black hair looked matted and sweaty. Rashid’s ad hoc crew—copilot, flight engineer, and crew chief/gunner—unstrapped and walked to the perimeter fence to smoke. Rashid watched them as if he wanted to go with them.
“The aeromeds have four burn patients they want to send to Kabul. You up for one more run?”
Rashid unzipped a flight suit pocket and found a shriveled pack of Marlboros. He took the one remaining cigarette, placed it between his teeth, nodded. As he rose from his seat, he patted his pockets until he found his lighter. He moved like he was tired.
He took the unlit cigarette from his mouth, held it in the same hand as his lighter. “We fuel, then we go,” he said. Rashid wasn’t good about the sirs of military
courtesy, but Parson did not call him on it.
“I’ll fly with you,” Parson said.
Rashid brightened a little. “Very good,” he said. Then he climbed out of his helicopter, joined his crew at the fence, and fired up his Marlboro.
A few minutes later a fuel truck rolled up to the Mi-17. The truck had TS-1 painted across the tank. TS-1 was a Russian jet fuel similar to American Jet A-1. Didn’t really matter, Parson thought. Those Klimov engines would burn anything.
Rashid’s crew chief dropped a cigarette butt, stepped on it, and walked back to the helicopter. Parson watched as the man connected the truck’s hose to the aircraft and began pumping fuel.
After the truck drove away, an ambulance brought over the wounded. Reyes supervised as medics loaded the patients through the clamshell doors at the back of the aircraft. When Reyes closed the doors, Rashid and his crew strapped in. Parson and Reyes rode in the back with the patients as the helicopter lifted off into twilight.
In the soft light of early evening, the foothills seemed to anchor the mountains below. The pressure gradients that had kicked up such nasty winds earlier had gone away, and now the air lay calm. The Mi-17 flew as smoothly as a simulator set for zero turbulence, and Parson felt safe unbuckling his seat belt and standing at the rear of the cockpit.
Terrain flowed underneath, shadowy in clear night air lit by moonlight and stars. In the reflected glare of instrument lamps, Parson noticed what he thought was a crack in the windscreen. He stared at it until he realized it wasn’t a crack but a strand of spiderweb, clinging to the glass at well over a hundred knots. Maybe someday, he mused, we’ll figure out how to fabricate material as light and strong as spiderweb. Then we’ll build airplanes with it.
Rashid leveled off at altitude and turned over the controls to his copilot. He slumped in his seat a bit, adjusted his helmet’s boom mike. Parson reached over the flight engineer and patted Rashid’s shoulder. That guy was turning into a good officer.
“Tough week, huh?” Parson said on interphone. Helicopters didn’t spend much time in cruise flight like this. He’d had almost no chance for small talk with Rashid in days. Parson held his interphone cord loosely with his right hand, the talk button between thumb and middle finger.
