A Knife Edge

by David Rollins

  There were angles I'd asked Clare Selwyn to follow up for me in my absence—obtaining phone records and so on for McDonough and Demelian. While she wasn't, strictly speaking, in my line of work, I hoped she'd had the inclination—and the time—to carry through on my requests. The big question for me was this: What if Butler really had murdered Ruben Wright? It could be that I was about to parachute into harm's way with a guy itching to make a habit out of slicing the chute harness off of people he didn't get along with. And without doubt, Butler and I did not get along. Searching my memory, I couldn't recall reading anything remotely like this scenario in Have a Nice Flight.

  I decided I wouldn't be going on so much as a Coney Island ride with Butler until we talked a little more about Ruben Wright's death. I wanted a few more answers on his relationship with Amy McDonough, the woman who was both his lover and sole heir to the Wrong Way fortune. One and a half million give or take might not be a king's ransom these days, but I've known people killed for twenty bucks and change.

  I made it back to my quarters in the dark. It was late and I was beat. There was a note under the door. Be ready at 0500. It was signed with the letter F. That would be Fester. I cracked the seal on the fifth. There were no rocks in the small bar fridge so I chipped some ice clogging the freezer coil with a knife and put it in a glass with a couple of slugs of bravado. I watched the glass for a moment or two, wrestling with something inside that told me not to drink. The something lost. It tasted like I imagined fermented sock water might taste, so I guess the something also won. Maybe booze wasn't the path. I pulled a card from my wallet and dialed the number scribbled on the reverse side. A familiar voice came on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Clare.”

  “Who's that?”

  How soon they forget. “It's Vin.”

  “It's late, Vin.”

  “Sorry, what's the time?”

  “Forget it. It's good to hear from you. How's it going?”

  “Like a house on fire …”

  “Great.”

  “… where everyone's trapped in the attic.”

  “Oh. What's up?”

  “Guess who I caught up with today?”

  “The Queen of England? I don't know… can you at least give me a short list?”

  “Staff Sergeant Butler.”

  “Really? Did the meeting go well?”

  “We didn't get to talk. Listen, have you got onto those things I asked you to follow up for me?”

  “Vin, I haven't had time.”

  There it was again, the enemy—time.

  Clare continued. “Also, I have to go through civilian channels and all of them are on vacation. The judge I wanted to see got back to town this afternoon. I've got all the paperwork sorted out. I'm seeing her first thing tomorrow.”

  “Clare, would you mind seeing her tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Tonight's almost over,” she said.

  “It's important,” I said.

  There was a pause, the sound of reluctance.

  “She's in Pensacola.”

  My turn for a pause, the sound of I-don't-care.

  “You really expect to turn something up?” she asked.

  “I'm following my gut here, Clare.”

  “No, I'm following your gut, Vin.”

  “I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.”

  I heard a sigh. “I know.”

  “How's Manny?” I asked.

  “Asleep.”

  “Oh.”

  “Vin, it's past ten p.m. and he's only five. We're not exactly going to be sitting around playing cards at this time of the night. Perhaps when he turns seven.”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I don't have kids.”

  “That you know of.”

  “Very funny.”

  I heard her sigh. “It's OK, I'll throw him in the car. It'll be an adventure. And maybe I can use him as a little emotional blackmail with the judge when I get there. She's got kids of her own.”

  “Atta girl. Listen, Clare … thanks.”

  “Vin, if I'm going to do this, I'd better get moving.”

  I waited for her to hang up the phone. She didn't. She said, “So… is everything all right with you, Vin? You seem a little, um, distracted.”

  Yeah, Boyle was helping Pakistan get ready to hurl nukes at India. I said, “That's because I am distracted. Listen, when you get those phone and bank records for McDonough and Ruben's attorney, call me. It's important. If you can't get through on my cell, call Colonel Arlen Wayne, OSI, at Andrews. He'll know how to reach me.”

  “Will do.”

  There was nothing more to say that hadn't already been said, if not in this conversation then in previous ones. As we'd agreed before I'd left for D.C., it'd been fun, and fun was all either of us had wanted.

  “Be safe,” she said.

  “You, too, Clare. Now… fly like the wind.”

  “Will do,” she said, and there was a smile in the space between the farewell and the dial tone.

  THIRTY-NINE

  I dreamed of silent mushroom explosions, puffed-up orange balls of dust and flame, but the specifics had gone by the time I opened my eyes, a damp sheet wound around me clinging like Gulf seaweed. Before Sergeant Fester's Humvee rumbled up to the front door, I'd showered and dressed and inhaled a large can of beans I found in a kitchen cupboard. It was cold and wet and miserable outside. I threw on a jacket and walked out into the rain.

  We drove in silence out to Pope AFB, pulling up to a building I knew from the old days. Seeing it again made my nuts go light and my feet heavy. I walked into supply. Other men and women were being issued equipment; most were eager, a few quiet, shitting themselves. I was handed a flight suit, helmet, O2 bottle, and the MC-5 ram-air chute. I'd used MC-5s before on numerous occasions and, unlike Ruben Wright, had walked away every time.

  I sat through the one-on-one briefing Fester conducted via a whiteboard and took mental notes in silence. Emergency procedures—malfunctions, cutaways, entanglements… all the things that could go wrong and sometimes did. Fester covered off jump commands as well as the oxygen system. There was also a nav board refresher—the instruments strapped to the chest that facilitate navigation at night and in all weather conditions.

  I'd done almost as many jumps as Sergeant Fester but there was no apology for the spoon-feeding. The first jump would be from 10,000 feet with minimal equipment. The second—if everything went well with the first, he informed me reassuringly—would entail a group exit from 25,000 feet with a full hundred and seventy-five pounds of equipment, including survival gear, M4 carbine, plus ballast to simulate ammunition. On this and all subsequent jumps, I'd be required to land within twenty-five yards of the group leader—Fester. This was leap frogging the course. I knew that and so did Fester. If he knew why we were in such a big hurry, he wasn't saying and I wasn't offering.

  A group of us walked across the apron to the rear end of a C-130. On this first jump, Fester and I were the only pair exiting at 10,000 feet, and so we entered last.

  The ramp at the back of the plane came up, blocking out the natural light, and a low growl grew from somewhere, from within my belly, in fact. After a minute or so, the plane's turbines joined in. No escape. My fingertips were going numb, there were pins and needles in my toes, and my mouth filled with saliva that tasted metallic. My body was going through its own preflight checks. My breathing became shallow as my heart rate soared. A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead into an eyeball, causing my eyelids to blink rapidly. The loadmaster seated opposite blew me a kiss.

  On the flight deck, the pilot edged the throttles forward and we began to move. A few twists and turns later and we were screaming down the runway on the takeoff roll. The aircraft rotated and climbed away at a steep angle. My stomach reacted: I vomited into the O2 mask.

  The Hercules continued to climb, leveling off at 10,000 feet. Ten minutes later, the red light began to flash as the ramp c
ame down and the aircraft filled with the roar of its own jet blast and slipstream. I felt a slap on my helmet. From the corner of my right eye, I saw Fester's boots. The sergeant was standing beside me. I didn't think I could move.

  I heard Fester scream in my ear, “Get up, mister!” I felt a hand under my armpit, lifting. I stood and swayed while he checked my gear again. “You can do this, sir,” he yelled. “You've trained for it. You've done it.”

  I thought for sure my legs were going to crumple beneath me. I took a step and then another, walking backward toward the edge of the ramp, knowing nothing but air lay behind if not this step, then the next.

  * * *

  “You're not fit for this,” said Sergeant Fester over a Heineken in the club.

  I didn't reply.

  “You might get to where you have to go but then you're going to freeze up.” He looked me straight in the eye, searching for clues. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Whatever you think you have to do about it.”

  Fester didn't answer right away. He thought about it, drank his beer, and thought about it some more. Waiting for enlightenment, I guessed.

  “What if I do nothing?” he asked.

  “That's an approach.”

  “You need to see someone.”

  “When the job's done.”

  “That's the point, ain't it? What if you can't get the job done?”

  Fester had seen the yellow bile bubble out from under my oxy mask and streak my webbing and BDU. He'd seen my hands shake. For a moment up there, my knees had almost caved. I thanked the God of Clean Underwear that He had at least heard my prayer.

  Fester said, “Jumping when every part of you says don't takes a lot of guts.” He had another long conversation with his beer before getting back to me. “I'm going to pass you,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “even though you've got a mountain of fear to climb every time you get in a plane.” He ordered another round by pointing his chin at the enlisted man behind the bar. “I'd still get help if I was you.”

  “I'll buy a book,” I said.

  FORTY

  Pakistan was closed to U.S. aircraft. Therefore, the C-17 ferrying me and five U.S. Army engineers into Kandahar, Afghanistan, had to take the long way round. Refueled in flight, we flew nonstop via Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. I spent most of the flight time grinding my teeth or filling a paper bag on my knees with yellow slime from my stomach. I finally got some fitful sleep but then the plane began its descent, a wild descending corkscrew. I braced myself against the fuselage and waited for the crash. There was a rumor circulating that the local Taliban operating around Kandahar had somehow managed to get their hands on a bunch of late-model Stingers. The C-17 twisted and writhed, either to avoid being shot down by the aforementioned rumor, or because the pilots were a couple of sadists.

  A series of rapid explosions erupted, the vibration from them pulsing up through the floor and the fuselage. Keeping time with this, a strobing staccato of white light flickered through the sky outside, close to the aircraft. The pilots had banged off flares and chaff to confuse and divert inbound infrared and radar-guided missiles. Maybe the missile threat was genuine. Whatever, we were thrown around like kids on a fairground ride designed to make people sick. It succeeded. I threw up as usual, along with two of the engineers. With all this puking, I was starting to feel like a bulimic. I glanced at the loadmaster strapped in opposite to get some clues about the wild approach. He was yawning.

  The aircraft felt like it was slipping sideways out of the sky as the flaps deployed and a rumble below my feet told me the landing gear was now hanging in the breeze. And then suddenly the aircraft pulled up and the turbines screamed and my earlobes almost kissed my shoulders under the weight of the G-forces driving me down into the seat. There was a massive thump as the tires smacked onto the runway. Thank Christ. Touchdown, Afghanistan.

  * * *

  It was sleeting out on the runway. The icy water stung my face, but I needed the wake-up. I turned my head into the wind and took the punishment for a full minute. Veils of rain and sleet hung below licorice-colored clouds lumbering in from the south. The familiar mass of Zaker Ghar Shomali, a hill away to the northwest, looked like a white roll of sugar. I'd only seen it once before when it was a drab gray-green, the color meat turns when left to the bluebottle flies too long. My hand ached. More snow was on the way. That wasn't so bad. Snow would bury the powdered rock that settled on everything here and blew into ferocious dust storms capable of stripping paint from steel.

  I was processed through the APOD, the aerial port of debarkation—the military's version of immigration and arrivals. This was housed within the structure of Kandahar Airport, a series of high, sixties-style egg-shaped arches butted up against each other. The place reminded me of a Wild West wagon train set in a defensive circle, waiting for the Indians to attack, which, given what was going on in Afghanistan, was not an inappropriate metaphor. Neighboring Pakistan had turned its sociological clock back to around the time the Magna Carta was signed, and the Taliban and al Qaeda units were rubbing their hands together with glee because of it. According to various Web sites known to host prime-time decapitations, the coup in Islamabad was an omen from God that the struggle to make everyone's life small, mean, and miserable was destined to succeed.

  The APOD was packed, the buildup anounced three months previously still going on. I hoisted my gear over my shoulder and walked over to a big-framed USAF sergeant who was seated behind a desk playing a computer keyboard like it was a baby grand. The group Nickelback was on the comeback trail and their latest track blared through the airport's speaker system. I came up beside the sergeant and saw that he was in the middle of some kind of shoot-'em-up game. “Oh, damn it!” he said when the leg of the character on screen got blown off. He glared up at me, annoyed, like it was my fault. “Sir… ?”

  I said, “Can you tell me where th—”

  “Special Agent Cooper. You're in serious danger of looking like a soldier.”

  It was a familiar voice behind me, though not one I'd have considered friendly.

  “Hey,” I said, with not a hell of a lot of warmth.

  It was Sergeant Butler and Corporal Dortmund. “If you're looking for the welcoming committee, boss, we're it. Good flight?” asked Butler.

  “Nope.”

  “We're out the front,” he said as he led the way through a swirling sea of brown, desert-patterned DDUs.

  I followed.

  “Nice to see you again, Mister Cooper,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Really,” I said. The conversation had the easy flow of a glacier.

  “You seen the dailies, by any chance?” Butler asked.

  I wasn't sure what he was talking about. He straightened this out by handing me a folded copy of the Trib. One of the headlines sharing the front page said, Pakistan Announces Bomb Tests. Closes Borders.

  “We've just had the word from SOCOM—they want us to pull our fingers out. There has been some movement at the facility. Intel is suggesting an imminent move.”

  “What's the schedule?” I asked as we pushed through a door and into the sleet. I wondered how Butler had managed to keep the tips of his hair so perfectly blond.

  “This way, sir,” said Butler. The two SAS men made for a nearby Land Rover. I recognized the driver—Lance Corporal Wignall. When we arrived at the vehicle, Butler said, “The schedule is that we go tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night?” A little fear escaped along with my words.

  “Yep.”

  Tomorrow night? Jesus! While I'd long since passed the point of no return, it still felt like I was in a car heading down a hill with the brake lines ripped out. Dortmund took my gear and threw it in the back.

  “You first, Agent Cooper,” Butler said, as he opened the door for me. I climbed in and he followed. Dortmund took the seat beside Wignall. The Land Rover coughed into life and moved off slowly through the ice rink
the parking lot had become. “We're ready,” Butler said, continuing where he'd left off. “We've got a good setup back at the safe house. We've got a scale model of the facility, we have the blueprints of the place, the transport squadron has given us the thumbs-up. The weather's not playing by the rules, and the report for tomorrow night looks iffy, but we knew that would always be the case at this time of the year, right?”

  “ Uh-huh,” I said. The vehicle stank of diesel oil and sweat.

  “We've been doing quite a bit of work with the Ski-Doos—got ‘em modified the way we want ‘em—and we've managed to pack in quite a few practice jumps with them. How about you, guv? If you don't mind me asking, when was the last time you jumped? I mean, you might have been Special Forces once, but you're a copper these days, right?”

  The vehicle's windows fogged. I didn't wipe it away. There wasn't much to see—the snow shower had turned into a serious dump, and, besides, seen one parking lot crammed with U.S. Army light infantry vehicles, seen ‘em all.

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Mind you asking,” I said. “But, since you've asked, don't worry about me.” Yeah, ‘cause I'm doing enough of that for both of us. “I jumped up and down with excitement for days when this job came up.”

  Butler smiled. “Have we got issues, Special Agent? You and me?”

  “That depends on whether you killed Ruben Wright,” I said.

  Butler shook his head. “I wondered whether those bollocks would come up … No, actually, I was sure they would. I told you already—I didn't kill Sergeant Wright. Got anything else on your mind, guv?”

  “Nothing that can't wait. Where are we going?”

  “Safe house,” said Butler, sitting back, wiping away at his window. Apparently, a sudden desire to do some sightseeing had overcome him.

  I kept my eyes on the windshield framed between Wignall's and Dortmund's ears. The snowfall had ended. Snow in Kandahar was unusual. The city was in the southern part of the country, away from the high mountains. It sat in the middle of the farming belt, where the weather was a little less malevolent. Today, the more usual browns and tans of Kandahar were hidden beneath a layer of soft whiteness. The place reminded me of a Christmas card. The image was reinforced when we turned down a narrow street and Dortmund slowed to give three Afghan men leading donkeys a little room. I wondered if they were on their way to visit a newborn king. If so, they were late: Christmas was over. Maybe they were on their way home. None of the men looked at us, though one of the animals snorted, raised its tail, and dropped a couple of pounds of crap onto the ground. Or maybe it was myrrh. The men leading the donkeys were hunched over as they kicked through the freshly fallen snow, their bodies wrapped in tan capes and their heads wound up in light-colored turbans—protection from the elements.