by Bex Dane
"You abandoned your mission and your unit."
"For my wife." The week of torment I'd endured was evident in my voice as well as my unending resolve to find her.
The men of Alpha Squadron stood at my back. "We did the same," Falcon said.
"We'll deal with the consequences of your actions later. For now, do you have any leads who might've targeted you?"
"My number one enemy. Mustafa Ahmed Hakim Osmani. I took out thirty of his men in a convoy last year. His codename is Jericho. He and his brother Musab Al-Sayed have been vocal about their promise to find me and kill me. They've placed high bounties on my head. They call me Jalad, the Executioner. I didn't take it seriously. Didn't know they'd figured out my identity and were following me."
"It could've been them or unrelated."
"I don't think it's unrelated. More than five men attacked the safehouse."
"Let's make contact." Brightman set her intelligence team to work on finding him.
Twenty-four hours later, one of Brightman's men turned from his workstation and pointed to his computer screen. "They took the bait. Called the number we gave them. They're on the line." He manically typed on his keyboard, quickly setting up the technology to trace and record the call.
"Agent Broadwell will take the call. He's our top negotiator." Brightman looked at me as she walked to the workstation.
"I'll take the call. I speak Pashto," I said. I wasn't trusting any other man with this.
"Broadwell is fluent in Pashto as well. He knows what to say. He's also detached enough to handle this."
Detached? Was she saying I wasn't detached? I'm not detached. I'm attached. I could not be more attached to a mission. "Put them on speaker," I said and shook my head to focus on translating.
A man's voice rambled in Pashto for a long time. After a while, I recognized him as Osmani. I wrote on a piece of paper.
Jericho.
"What do you want?" I asked in Pashto. Broadwell gave me a dirty look for asking their terms too soon. He wanted to massage them first, try to develop some relationship with them. Screw that.
"Seven million American dollars or we kill her." The line went dead.
The silence in the room suffocated me. We'd seen this before. When kidnappers ask for a number that high, they have no intention of returning the hostage. They were playing with me because she was mine.
"Did you get the location?" I asked.
Brightman's man shook his head. "Working on it."
"Call them back and set up a meet to deliver the cash." I turned to Brightman.
"The U.S. doesn't— "
"Set it up!" I shouted. No way was Brightman going to feed me any protocol political shit right now. We were boots in the sand dealing with this, not Capitol Hill. "If you want to fake them out, fine, but at least go through the motions to give it to them until we ascertain their location."
"Negotiations take time. We can't rush in. That's not the way it's done, Saxton."
"I don't give a fuck the way it's done. This is my wife!" I got up in Brightman's face. "Get me the location now. None of this negotiation shit. It never works."
"Boggs…" Falcon took a step closer to warn me, but it was too late. The raging bull inside me was pissed as hell and not open to negotiations.
"Saxton! Calm down or I'll have you confined." Brightman spoke quietly, but I heard her loud and clear.
"Confined? You're gonna lock me up when me and my team are the only ones with any chance of getting her out alive? Send us in right fucking now!"
Brightman's communications expert raised his hand to speak. "They posted a video."
He rotated his screen so the rest of us in the room could see.
Never.
I'd witnessed a lot of torture in my career. In training and in the field. Mostly men. I'm trained to process it and deflect the inhumanity of it. I've seen my brothers’ arms and legs severed by bombs. I've seen dead children lying by the side of the road. But never have I seen anything this horrific.
Eden, in my T-shirt, her arms slack, her neck limp, and a filthy terrorist moving on top of her.
"God, fuck." Falcon's voice at my back.
Her mouth hung open. Still breathing. The man turned his head enough to make out his features. Jericho raped her unconscious body.
The boiling rage I'd barely contained for a week seethed into my eyeballs. Flames charred me at the stake from head to toe.
I heard a scuffle. Someone attacked me. I fought them off.
"Lock it down, Boggs." I heard Falcon. I heard my name. I had no idea what they were talking about. Kill. I needed to kill whoever was attacking me. I needed to kill Jericho. He was raping Eden. I reached for my weapon. Someone took my rifle.
I screamed and yelled and slugged. I needed Takoda.
They released me. A metal door slammed shut. A wall pounded into my shoulder. Metal bars twisted in my grip. The screeching howl of a wild animal reverberated off the walls of the cage. But there were no wild animals in Afghanistan. Only goats. And goatfuckers. And soon there would only be dead goatfuckers because I would slaughter them all.
Chapter 14
As night fell, everyone left the confinement area except one guard. I hated to hurt a fellow service member, but the PFC they'd put on me was keeping me from my mission, so he had to go. I could disable him without killing him if I could grip his jugular. I could swap uniforms with him and walk out of this place.
Brightman must have not considered me a flight risk if she only placed one guard on me. Or maybe she did it on purpose? Maybe Brightman wanted to make it easy for me to escape?
The sound of chopper blades thumped close over the building. I hadn't realized Bagram ran helos this late at night, but I suppose it was the best time for an attack. The thud of explosives boomed over my head. I braced against the wall as the mud from the ceiling crackled to the floor. If we were being attacked, I was a sitting duck with no weapon.
Unless the guys...
A yellow nylon rope dangled in the hole the explosive had made in the ceiling. A handgun, tied at the finger grip, spun at the end of the rope.
Yes! Alpha Squadron was breaking me out. I sprang into action, grabbing the rope and brandishing the weapon at the guard who'd come to inspect the commotion.
He aimed his rifle at me as the rope hoisted me up through the hole in the roof. "Saxton! Get down here!"
"Sure, Private… What's your name? You don't have the balls to shoot one of your own, much less an expert marksman pointing a handgun at you."
He shook in his boots and his face scrunched up. Before he could process my words, I emerged through the hole into the Afghan night. The helo winched me up as we flew outside the base walls.
At the top, Diesel and Falcon assisted me till I landed on the floor of the helo. Takoda licked my face furiously.
"Koda, off." She backed off but her tail thumped as hard as the props.
Ruger and Oz sat in the cockpit.
"You hijacked a helicopter?" I asked Falcon. No one else would come up with an idea as insane as this.
"They won't shoot down their own aircraft," Falcon replied.
"We didn't hijack it," Blaze said. "We're borrowing it."
"There was only one guard, guys. I could've disabled him and walked out of the stockade in his BDUs."
"You coulda," Blaze said with a nefarious grin. "But this is a lot more fun."
I peered out the door to see where we were. We'd left the city proper and were out in Kabul Province flying over a valley.
"Where're we going?" I asked as I holstered the handgun and accepted the rifle Diesel offered me. It was loaded and ready to go. Not mine. But it would work.
"Diesel garnered the intel from the video to give us Jericho's location. We're going in hot before Brightman or anyone can stop us."
I opened my mouth to protest, but what was the point? We'd already broken me out of confinement and stolen a helo.
Falcon patted my shoulder. "We'll get her ou
t, man. We're not sitting on our asses while the politicians come to a consensus."
Ruger landed the helo on a flat hilltop above a collection of mud huts built into the side of a hill.
"Which one?" I asked, scanning the densely packed residential area.
"That one." Diesel pointed to one unit, the highest up the hill with the biggest yard and property footprint.
"You think she's in there?"
"There's a fifty-fifty chance she is, but we don't have time for surveillance. We have to go in and see for ourselves."
"Sun's about to crest. Let's take up position and go in at first light," I said.
The best visibility was from behind and up the ridge. We took positions flanking the building. I was hoping to get an idea how many insurgents were in there but didn't see any movement.
I raised my hand to give the go signal. As we advanced on the building, the zing of an RPG whooshed over our heads.
It landed dead center in the roof of the dwelling and burst into flames. Smoke mushroomed up like a black shroud of death.
We ran full speed toward the explosion, Takoda on our heels. Five men exited the building and skittered into the dense housing area below. Jericho and his men escaped. Where is Eden? Please, God, don't let her be in there.
We charged through the front door. Bodies of women and children lined the floor. Takoda signaled Eden's unconscious body. She'd been hit. Blood covered her shirt. Black streaks marred her face. In two seconds, she was in my arms and we raced to the exit.
"Diesel! Ruger!"
They followed me out the door and back up to the helo. I dropped to the floor and cradled her on my lap. I vaguely heard the engine power up and lift off. Ruger grabbed his kit and lifted her shirt.
God.
God.
Her intestines protruded from a huge gash across her abdomen. Ruger worked frantically, trying to find the source of the bleeding. "There's so much fucking blood!"
Oz kneeled next to Ruger and poured water over her to clear the blood. Blaze held a light so Ruger could see. Ruger dug around inside her, placing clamp after clamp.
"God. God. Save her. God, please." I chanted a prayer to a god who had forsaken me.
When I pressed my ear to her chest, a faint heartbeat reached my ear. She's still alive.
"Ruger!"
"I'm trying, Boggs. I've stemmed the major bleeding, but her organs are shredded."
The flight to Bagram took forever. As we descended, the rise and fall of her chest stopped and a frigid ghost invaded my soul.
"No. No." I pulled her to me and kissed her. "No. Eden. Don't leave me. No. Come back."
Nothing but blood. Everywhere. On my lips, my hands, my clothes.
Bones.
She was bones in my arms.
"No!"
Medics met us as we landed. They took her warm body from me, but it was too late.
Eden was dead.
***
Red.
Nothing but red.
Men holding me down. Too many to fight.
Takoda barking.
"Ruger, we gotta sedate him."
No!
A prick in my arm.
Black.
Nothing but black.
***
I sat in the front row at the memorial service at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Wilmington, North Carolina. The Army arranged a full military traditional service for Eden. Brightman granted us a stay of leave to return to the States and attend the funeral.
Colonel Langbow crafted a public story that she'd died in an accident while traveling in Turkey. It was all a farce for appearances.
I killed her.
The men of Alpha Squadron sat to my right to create a partition between me and her family. None of us cried. We couldn't weep in our service uniforms, but the grief rang through us all like a bullet ricocheting through our hearts.
Bones.
Eden was bones. A vibrant life killed in a senseless act of violence. I was so close to getting her out. A few minutes and I could've extracted her before the rebels threw explosives into Jericho's dwelling. A minute the other way and I could've got her safely out the back door of her safe house. The wrong decisions made in split seconds and Eden was dead. My wife was dead. We'd never had children together. We wouldn't grow old together. Only blackness remained.
The chief of Special Ops Command presented me with a medal in her honor. Her mother and father accepted the American Flag that had hung over the State Capitol at half-mast when her death was announced. Hector Bustillo sat next to Eden's parents and bowed his head. He tried to hide his tears, but the man's eyes watered and everyone saw it.
The priest talked of her love for life. The chaplain sniffled as he spoke. They called it a celebration of life. They called her an angel. And when the bagpipes played "Amazing Grace," my love for her cracked into infinite fractals of ice. Painful, jagged shards expanded beyond comprehension. The bitter regret, denial, everything I should've done, magnified to the point it eclipsed my physical being. It filled the air, my vision. I'd heard the song before. I'd lain many a brother to rest. I’d watched them bury my father in this same ceremony. But my wife lay in the casket this time.
This rendition of "Amazing Grace" didn't transmit peace to the crowd of hundreds who'd gathered to pay respect. The strident refrains wrenched her soul from the earth and tossed her kicking and screaming to God in heaven.
"Her body has returned to ashes, but her spirit resides in our hearts and in God's love forever."
***
At the burial, Hector informed me Langbow wanted me to stand at the back of the crowd. Alpha Squadron formed our own ranks behind the other service members in attendance. They lowered my wife into the ground next to her brother. Her mother fell to her knees and wept on her casket. Her girlfriends who had been so carefree and full of life that night in Vegas stood with their heads down, faces puffy and red, the grief etching years into their youthful faces. A crane lowered cement blocks on top of the casket. Hector and the other pallbearers shoveled dirt into the rectangular hole in the ground that would be my wife's final resting place.
The fortitude of my brothers held me up. Without them, I would fall. My spine would crumble without Falcon's elbow bumping mine, without Diesel and Blaze standing strong at my side. Ruger and Oz remained ever faithful, even though I'd betrayed them on our first mission. Their blind confidence in me was based on what they'd seen at selection and mission preparation, but I was unproven in the field to them. They could've easily written me off as an idiot and turned on me to avoid the shit that would rain down on us for going rogue. They had no reason to stand here with me except respect, brotherhood, and pure compassion.
Alpha Squadron is a second family. Never below you, never above you, always beside you, and never forgotten. We tease each other, but the love we share endures through times of loss like this.
Hector approached me again. "Her father says you're not welcome at the wake."
I nodded.
When the formalities were over, a dullness as hard as steel coated my soul. A self-defense mechanism to keep the pain from killing me.
Late that night, I returned to Wilmington National Cemetery, and in the pelting rain, I knelt in front of her stone. On top of her, where I belonged, grief flowed from my eyes, blending with the rain from above. The fresh sod over her body felt so wrong between us.
I smashed my forehead to the damp earth. "I'm sorry, babe. I'm so sorry. I swear I will avenge your death. I have no other purpose than to honor your memory. You will not be forgotten. You are not alone. You will live in my heart forever."
Chapter 15
I spent ten days in our bed. Didn't clean the sheets. Anything to keep her scent around. Four quarts of whiskey and nothing could take the edge off the burning regret in my gut. Eden died because of me. It's that simple. I killed her.
I stared at the black and white wedding photo she'd framed and put on the wall so we could see it from our bed. Her whit
e dress with the mesh over her tits ended up being perfect for a Vegas courthouse wedding. Her genuine smile in the photo gutted me. We were so young and idealistic. And stupid.
Falcon knocked on the door again. Not another one of his damn eat something speeches. "Fuck off."
He opened the door carrying an over-the-shoulder rocket propelled grenade launcher.
"Where the hell did you get that?"
"Borrowed it from Bixby."
"Shit."
"Get out of bed, loser. Let's go blow stuff up."
How Falcon passed his stability tests continued to shock me. He'd clearly gone round the bend if he thought shooting grenades—of all things—would be beneficial somehow.
"It won't help."
"Are you kidding me? Imagine the damage we can do with this thing." He admired the long, four-inch barrel. RPGs were impressive and fun to launch—for anyone but me.
"I'm drunk."
"I'll spot you."
"Shit."
***
We drove Betsy, my camouflaged Wrangler with the pillowcase-sized American flag on the back, up to a massive bunker at Bixby Boggs.
"Did you get permission for this?" I asked Falcon.
"Of course."
Bullshit. We're going to jail for firing a rocket launcher. He set it up and loaded it on my left shoulder. The weight of the weapon felt like a ton, not its actual fifty pounds.
"Look! There!" Falcon pointed to the hill. "Jericho and Zulu escaping their dwelling."
"Shut the hell up, you idiot."
"Realistic rehearsal leads to mission success."
He was right. Practice should always feel authentic or it's useless. I envisioned Jericho and Zulu scrambling up and over the hill. The grenade zinged from the launcher and exploded in a rewarding arch of flying dirt.
"Again," I said to Falcon. "Before the cops show."
"I told you I got permission from Bixby."
"Sure you did."
"He wants to build a mud pit here. Free excavation."
He loaded the RPG again and this time I launched the grenade at the assholes who unloaded the grenade into Jericho's home. The cowardly insurgents who make fake alliances with us then attack with no forethought and no approval from allied forces. Their version of justice and warfare is worlds apart from ours. The boom resounded in my chest, defibrillating my dead heart one beat. The dirt pattered like rain as it settled into the concave crater.
