by Matt Rogers
He’d never see from his left side again.
He lowered the mirror. ‘How do we explain this to Command?’
Brad said, ‘We’ll come up with something.’
‘What, like I tripped and fell?’
Otis cackled. He’d partaken in far too much of the bag he now tucked back in his breast pocket. He thumped a fist into the bunk bed frame again and the noise thundered, like a makeshift war drum. Then he placed a hand on both their shoulders. He had to reach up high just to get his fingers on Brad’s collarbone. ‘Stop worrying about shit that don’t matter. You still got one eye, Ronan. And look at you both. You did what you said you were gonna do.’
Brad said, ‘You did too.’
Otis smiled, made for the door, probably to go wash up. ‘Yeah, but I don’t care. Never did.’ He paused with his palm on the door handle, looked back at them. ‘That was nothing to me.’
He slipped out.
Ronan gazed at Brad in the lowlight. The PCP was building in his synapses. It hadn’t reached fever pitch yet. He only had half-vision, but in that moment he found it hard to care. He didn’t think anything could bother him anymore.
After a beat, Brad said, ‘You shaken up?’
Ronan said, ‘No. Didn’t enjoy myself like Otis, but…I feel nothing.’
‘Then we can do anything,’ Brad said, rising to his fullest height. ‘Like you said.’
Ronan felt something trickle out of his slashed eye, but he ignored it. ‘We’re gods.’
3
Dominic lay on the bed above his brother Zach in the dark hut.
The bunks didn’t let out so much as a creak.
In the neighbouring building, they listened to Otis whooping, hollering, shaking a bed frame. There was muffled conversation between Ronan and Brad, indiscernible. Otis cackled, then said something louder than the other two.
Dominic made out, ‘You still got one eye.’
He knew Zach heard it too.
No matter what you do, or where you are, or what you’re made of, there exists an overwhelming instinct to protect your little brother. Dominic wished he could do anything to wipe Zach’s memory, to keep him blissfully oblivious to what sort of men they worked with. But obliviousness had stopped the day they made the shift into the secret world, into ops that went unreported and undiscovered. Dominic was pretty sure he could remember joining this world for the right reasons.
Maybe.
Maybe it was just an idealistic fantasy. A defence mechanism to paint over the knowledge that he’d always been a piece of shit, always would be a piece of shit. He didn’t have to follow his band of brothers into a rural Korangali village to be complicit. By staying quiet about it, he was selling his soul to the devil.
But he’d do that to keep Zach alive, keep his brother safe.
On the lower bunk, Zach digested what they’d heard Otis say, then muttered through gritted teeth, ‘What did they do?’
Dominic kept his voice at a whisper. ‘Sounds like it got messy.’
‘Troy’s gonna be furious.’
‘Don’t worry about Troy.’
Cold quiet. The mountain wind howled.
In the distance, the muffled reverberation of a mortar strike echoed through the valley. In response, the troops of B Company set off their M777 howitzer artillery, sending a 155mm round back at the insurgents with a resounding whomp.
Just another night in the Valley of Death.
Nothing to lose sleep over.
Dominic rolled over and squeezed his eyes shut. He knew what he wanted to say to Zach, but he couldn’t voice it.
I can’t worry about Troy.
I can only protect you.
4
They were a squad of six.
Troy hustled through the outpost like there was a fire licking at his heels. The long-range firefight — RPGs from the insurgents and howitzer artillery from B Company — played out with a sick rhythm nearby, potshots exchanged in the dark. Any other base it’d be pandemonium, but you get used to anything, and this was Korangal, possibly the riskiest posting you could get.
Nothing about Troy’s posting was official.
Which didn’t excuse the rumours he’d heard.
“Off the books” doesn’t mean “off the rails.”
He strode up to the hut and shoved the door open, stepping through into the cramped and windowless space. Ronan lay on the bottom bunk of the frame directly opposite the doorway, his chest rising and falling, his face encrusted with dried blood. White bandage around his head masked his left eye. Brad’s hulking form draped the top bunk. Troy was always surprised the frame could take his weight, but the metal legs had never caved.
No sign of Otis.
Troy walked right up to the lower bunk. Ronan must’ve been high as a kite, because he only opened his other eye when Troy got within feet of him. Sure enough, it was bloodshot, the pupil dilated.
Troy crouched by the bunk to whisper in his face. ‘How the fuck did you let this happen?’
Ronan mumbled, ‘Leave it.’
‘No. No, I sure as shit ain’t gonna do that. You see yourself? How you gonna report that wound? You already got it patched up, so people know about it. How you gonna justify it? You think we can just claim—?’
Something thumped on the dirt floor behind him.
A heavy impact.
Troy spun, still irate, and saw Otis looming. The slimy man had dropped off the top bunk of the bed by the door. He’d been out of Troy’s line of sight when he’d entered. Almost like he’d been waiting there deliberately, anticipating this.
Troy jabbed a finger between Otis’ wide and feverish eyes. ‘You were the babysitter. You were supposed to make sure this didn’t happen, ’cause apparently you’ve done this before and you ain’t shy about telling everyone in earshot—’
Otis dropped his head like he was going for a takedown and Troy flinched, lowered his hands to waist height. Otis used that opportunity to burst upright and crack him in the face with a right hook, thick knuckles smashing against delicate nasal bones.
Troy’s face lit up like an inferno.
The six of them had spent years battling through internal disputes within the squad, but they all prided themselves on the fact they’d never laid a finger on each other.
The betrayal of that pact shocked Troy to his core.
The hesitation allowed Otis to step in and thunder a couple of punches into his gut, almost making him vomit. He dropped to his knees and Otis grabbed a handful of his hair and bounced his head off the metal chest-of-drawers, rattling his brain.
Troy fell to the floor and curled up, an elite soldier reduced to helplessness.
Both nostrils bled.
His head pounded.
His guts seared.
He was probably concussed.
The beating had been fast. They were all trained killers, and none of them needed much time to do egregious damage. Otis had savaged him. The man squatted beside Troy and said, ‘Now you understand. You’re the rented mule. I’ll finally start treating you how you should be treated.’
Troy spat blood.
Otis said, ‘Doesn’t have to be this way. You can fall into line. You can keep your mouth shut like Dominic, like Zach. They’re good boys. You’re a loose cannon.’
Troy didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The pain was horrific.
Otis continued. ‘You came in here all righteous. Like you were gonna do something about this. Is that the way this is gonna go?’
Even worse than the pain was the fact that Troy’s warrior spirit was nowhere to be found. He searched deep within himself.
All he saw was an empty shell.
He mumbled, ‘No. It’s not gonna go that way.’
It hurt to breathe, let alone speak. He cradled his ribs and winced.
Otis said, ‘Good. That’s good.’
He hauled Troy to his feet, which took some effort. Then shoved him toward the door. ‘Out. Go lick your wounds and we’ll lick ours.’
Troy limped away, hunched over and cradling his abdomen.
Trudged out into the night.
The last glimpse he got over his shoulder was of Ronan and Brad, still on their mattresses. Ronan stared at the underside of the bunk above him, and Brad stared at the ceiling. Neither of them moved.
Like nothing had happened.
5
Army Sergeant Wayne Roberts watched the howitzer round from their M777 impact the other side of the valley.
The concussive boom took a few moments to reach the outpost, ripping through thin mountain air between the slopes. He thought it might wake him up a bit, charge some life into him, but it didn’t.
He was tired to the bone.
Tonight, the firefight would stretch into the early hours of the morning, then tomorrow would be just as violent and frustrating and unsuccessful as today. Like Groundhog Day. They’d venture out into no-man’s-land and take risks trying to cooperate with the elders of the Korangal Valley’s independent tribes. As always, the elders would claim they’d never seen any insurgents in the valley, stonewalling the American invaders. At this point Roberts didn’t even blame them. They detested the troops, but it wasn’t personal — the locals detested government and authority in all its facets. They trusted their elders and their elders alone, and they wanted to be left alone.
By both U.S. and Taliban forces.
So who the fuck are we, Roberts thought, to talk them into siding with us?
But orders were orders, so tomorrow he’d do the same as today, no matter what he thought about the effectiveness of their actions. If he was alone for too long these days, with the mountain wind howling around him and the bitter chill of the nights leeching the warmth from his bones, he started thinking about why they were even here in the first place, what they were hoping to achieve. That was a road he didn’t want to go down, so he spent as little time alone as he could.
Wasn’t hard when you were getting shot at most days and nights.
He was focused on the other side of the valley through a set of magnifying night-vision binoculars when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He lowered the binoculars and turned to find one of the Dunharrows right behind him. The B Company boys had named that whole squad “Dunharrows,” some “Lord of the Rings” reference that Roberts hadn’t been privy to. Apparently, in the movie, the Dead Men of Dunharrow were wraiths, spirits who haunted great caverns, cursed to a life in the shadows. Spooked by the black-ops boys and the way they slunk off at all times of day and night to do their dirty work, one of the regular soldiers had slapped the Dunharrow label on them and it stuck.
This Dunharrow was beat to a pulp.
He’d given Roberts the name “Troy” when they all first appeared at Korangal Outpost a few weeks back, but the sergeant had no idea if that was really his name. The guy’s nose was bent to one side, broken grossly out of shape, and the swelling had puffed his lower eyelids like he’d been stung by a bee. There was a hematoma the size of a golf ball at the top of his forehead, across his hairline. It looked like a bunch of guys had jumped him for an extended period of time.
Roberts said, ‘What?’
Troy’s voice didn’t match his squad’s fearsome reputation. It was almost meek. ‘Can I talk to you somewhere?’
Roberts raised both eyebrows. Looked around, as if for witnesses. ‘You think that’s a good idea?’
‘Don’t care anymore,’ Troy mumbled.
His mouth hung open, a strand of saliva dangling from the corner of his lips. He couldn’t breathe through his nose. It was still swelling, ballooning in real-time. The blood on his face hadn’t dried yet. They were fresh injuries.
As in, Roberts thought, minutes old.
The nearest insurgents were further away than that. So this was internal.
Roberts jerked his head toward a nook in the sandbagged barricades, where privacy would be afforded. Troy trudged that way like a defeated man. It made the B Company troops beside Roberts change their demeanours, shifting from openly hostile stares to something close to concern. Because if the goddamn Dunharrows were losing morale, then it was real bad.
Out of earshot of the grunts, Roberts reached out and pulled Troy in close, encapsulating him in the darkness. ‘Command told you to talk to me?’
‘No.’
‘Then this isn’t a good idea, son.’
Troy’s swollen slits locked onto Roberts’ gaze. ‘Three of our squad went off into the valley earlier today. I’m sure you and several others saw them leave in the early afternoon. The rest of us were supposed to tell our higher-ups that they were helping us with recon near Ali Abad, but really they went up near Landigal and killed villagers. Women, children, mostly. Just for the hell of it. If you send a squad out there you’ll find all the evidence you need. I think there’ll be over a dozen bodies.’
Roberts was a statue in the night.
Distant explosions and gunshots sounded intermittently, but apart from that, there was nothing.
Troy waited a significant length of time, then said, ‘I’m not bullshitting you.’
‘Okay.’
‘I confronted one of them about it and he did this to me. I think it’ll get worse.’
‘Okay.’
Troy let his mouth fall open again, trying to breathe.
Waiting for a response.
Roberts said, ‘I’m wondering what you expect me to do about any of this.’
Troy’s lips flapped. ‘I—’
‘You take this up with whoever you report to. You got that?’
Stunned silence.
Troy lowered his voice so he could hiss. ‘Did you not hear what I fucking said—?’
‘I heard you,’ Roberts said matter-of-factly, cutting him off. The sergeant widened his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
Troy said, ‘Are you serious?’
‘Deadly.’
‘You mustn’t have heard. Women and children. You—’
‘Lower your fucking voice,’ Roberts hissed, pulling the battered Troy in close. ‘Listen to me. You’re not my problem. Who you work for and what you do isn’t my problem. I’ve got enough problems. What, you think because I’m a sergeant I can fix everything bad that’s ever been done in the name of the war on terror?’
Troy looked like he might cry. ‘They didn’t do this in the name of anything…’
‘I don’t care. I’m trying to be a good man but I can’t help everyone. Take this shit to your superiors and get out of my sight.’
Troy took a step back.
Roberts said, ‘I mean it. I was told not to let my men make conversation with you, and you bet the same goes for me. You’re putting us all in jeopardy by bringing this to me.’
Troy’s nose had already turned a deeper shade of black and blue.
His broken face hung in gloom.
Roberts said, ‘You’re on your own.’
He walked away, returning to his original position along the barricade.
He forced what he’d heard out of mind and focused on his job.
He didn’t see Troy slink away.
Part I
6
Present day
Tyrell stood up on the pedals as a breeze blew up the road, gusting across the greens of nearby Belmont Country Club.
School was finished for the week, he’d hit a personal record on the deadlift that morning, Danielle had texted him like she said she would…
Life was good.
If there were better feelings in the world, right now he couldn’t think of one.
At thirteen, he was a year younger than other freshmen, but Lexington High School had allowed him to vault right into the ninth grade at his parents’ suggestion. Tyrell hadn’t been able to flaunt his accomplishments from Harvard Summer School because you had to be fifteen to enrol for that program in the first place (he’d only been able to participate thanks to a false identity.) But Harvard had taught him, in the span of eight weeks, all the intricacies of deep focus, how to apply
himself, and he’d taken that into the tests Lexington wanted to see before his enrolment. Coupled with a perfect PSAT 8/9 standardised score (also faked), he’d been accepted without any hassle.
Danielle was fourteen like the other freshmen, and athletically gifted, captain of the girls’ JV volleyball team. He’d known about her for weeks, ever since he started the fall semester. Blonde and blue-eyed and genetically blessed, she was the focus of almost all the male freshmen attention. He shared two classes with her but had only chatted to her a handful of times, either asking to compare class notes or mentioning that they kept seeing each other around. Each time he’d only made conversation briefly, seemingly without any romantic interest. He’d also made a point to compliment her on her work, not her looks, just so she could experience something different from the usual ninth-grade desperation.
Slater had told him to do that.
You’re born with your looks, Slater had said. You can change your personality and intelligence with diligent work, so it means more to get complimented on something you actually have a say in.
Tyrell had thought that was pretty much bullshit until today, last class of the day, when Danielle had brushed past him tapping away at his phone and hovered for a moment too long, until he looked up at her.
‘Your notes from last week were awesome,’ she’d said. ‘Thanks. You want a cheat sheet for Monday’s test?’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s a PDF.’
‘Right.’
He’d handed his phone over and she’d punched in her number and sent herself a text, giving it back with a half-smile. ‘I’ll send some stuff through.’
‘It don’t have to just be school-related,’ he’d said as she walked away.
That playful half-smile had remained on her face as she looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Might ask for workout tips.’
Now, as he rode the twenty miles home from Lexington to Winthrop — which took him a hair over an hour — he’d glanced down at his phone and read: There’s no PDF. Sorry. Just wanted your number.
