Читать книгу One September Morning - Rosalind Noonan - Страница 9

Iraq

Emjay

Corporal Emjay Brown is still in a daze when he steps into the orange light of the bungalow shared by eight soldiers. Despite the darkness outside, sunglasses shield his eyes against the curious gawkers who know that he was there, right beside John when he went down.

Another few inches and it would have been him.

Bam!

The slam of the door behind him sends him jumping out of his skin. His heart thuds in his chest, sweat trickling down his back.

And suddenly he is back in the warehouse, in the rapid hammer of gunfire, the muzzle-flash in the darkness, the alarm of John’s cries, and the blood…so much blood.

“Corporal Brown,” a leaden voice orders, and Emjay whirls, hands gripping his rifle.

“Lieutenant Chenowith, sir.”

“At ease,” the lieutenant says, as if he thought Emjay was moving to salute, which he wasn’t. The lieutenant removes his helmet to reveal a round mop of hair on the top, like a friar. Most guys in combat units shave their heads, best way to escape the vermin and bugs. Chenowith nurtures his grassy knoll, but it’s been a point of speculation among the platoon, some guys figuring he had rows planted in, others figuring he’s got some weird birthmark underneath, an inappropriate shape like a swastika or a dick.

“I’ve asked the others to assemble in quarters,” Chenowith says. “I’ll be addressing the platoon regarding my investigation.”

“Yes, sir,” Emjay says, and he waits for the lieutenant to pass, then follows him into the common room used for their quarters, the tiny bungalow where every inch is taken up with bunks, cots, desks, and small plastic tables and chairs, the kind they sell outside the hardware store back home in summer months for five bucks a piece.

This Forward Operating Base—FOB for short—is officially called Camp Desert Mission, though the men have dubbed it Camp Despair, because once you land in this bombed-out-highway town that is Fallujah, you’ve reached the end of the world. The base, rows of prefab bungalows that formerly served as a government retreat, sits on a desperate stretch of treeless terrain now encircled by sandbags and strung barbed wire. Although the officers were allotted more space, the rest of the platoon was packed into one bungalow—eight men sharing a space smaller than a chicken coop back home.

The Marines who were in here before nailed shelves into the plywood walls, and in the months since Bravo Company arrived, the walls have come to reflect the personalities of the men in the platoon, with pictures of half-clad girls taped to some walls, Christmas lights shaped like chile peppers to remind Lassiter of Texas, a Pacific Northwest calendar over John’s bunk, and a large mirror so Hilliard can check out his pumped muscles.

Emjay doesn’t like living in such close quarters, not at all, but he’s learned that opinions are worth shit in the army.

Doc looks up from the bag of licorice. “At ease!” he calls, as Lt. Chenowith enters the common room.

A card game is on at the table where Lassiter complains he’s got another losing hand. Doc returns to separating strands of cherry licorice, apparently part of a care package Antoine “Hillbilly” Hilliard just received from his wife.

Over in the corner, Spinelli, the greeny, remains prone on his cot, plugged in to his iPod. He must be pissed that his injury didn’t get him out of here, Emjay thinks. Spinelli can’t wait to get the hell back, back home to his mama—that’s what Doc says. But no one knows the kid’s whole story yet. Spinelli just joined the platoon a month ago, after they lost Spec. Willard Roland to a land mine. All they know is that he’s eighteen and lived with his mother, but Emjay knows that, eventually, Spinelli will spill. Everyone does.

The men playing poker pretend that they’re not tiptoeing around John’s brother, Spec. Noah Stanton, who sits on a bench organizing his gear.

Stone-faced and silent, as if sleepwalking, Noah splits his M-16 in two for cleaning. Cracked open like a Chesapeake hard-shell crab, the weapon seems useless, harmless, definitely not powerful enough to take down a big man like John.

Emjay goes to him, the elephant in the room. Trying to ignore the others who are pretending not to stare but watching anyhow, he squats down real close and whispers, “Sorry about John.”

Noah just nods, his dark eyes trained on his disassembled rifle.

Emjay wants to go on, wants to tell Noah that he was right beside John when he got hit, that the shots came out of nowhere because the power was out in the windowless warehouse and Emjay’s night-vision goggles weren’t working. Does Noah know that Emjay did everything he could to stop the bleeding? The blood…Christ, it was everywhere, smeared between his fingers, blossoming over John’s shirt so fast that Emjay knew it was real bad. Emjay wants to lean his head close to Noah’s and talk, really talk, but he doesn’t want Lassiter and Doc and the others listening, and besides that, Chenowith seems to be in the middle of some half-assed speech.

“Bravo Company lost a good man today,” Lieutenant Chenowith says. “Every casualty is a great loss, but I know you’ll all agree John Stanton was a special individual, a man of courage and moral strength, a leader and a fine soldier. He will be missed.”

Silence. Emjay lets his eyes run up to where the cheap plywood walls meet the ceiling. The air is charged with pain and alarm. Even Spinelli reacts, hunching over the side of his bunk wistfully.

“I miss him already, sir.” Gunnar McGee folds his cards, his baby face as earnest as Charlie Brown’s. Beside him, Lassiter gestures to Noah and smacks Gunnar in the arm, as if he’s said the wrong thing. But Gunnar stands firm. “It’s true. John’s the heartbeat of this platoon. Was, I mean.”

The men glance nervously at John’s brother, but Noah continues cleaning his rifle, ramming the rod down the barrel methodically, as if there is some therapeutic value in the ritual.

“Sorry, man,” Gunnar says.

Noah nods but doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Specialist Stanton,” the lieutenant begins, then clarifies, “Specialist Noah Stanton…you’ll be dispatched stateside just as soon as you’ve been debriefed. Corporal Brown, I’ll want a full report from you, as well.”

“Yes, sir,” Emjay responds, a thorny branch spiraling through his chest at the prospect of recounting the incident to his commanding officers. Part of him wants to let it all come spilling out, even as he is sickened at the prospect of reliving the event.

“And any other personnel who witnessed anything in the warehouse incident that might be helpful to our investigation should report to me. That is all.” Chenowith steps toward Noah. “Sorry for your loss,” he says, and though his voice is brusque, Emjay thinks it’s probably the kindest act of Chenowith’s sorry life.

“Sir,” Noah answers, trancelike.

The day’s events rush through Emjay’s mind like a rip cord, and he cranes his neck, writhing uncomfortably. It was a nightmare day for him, but it had to be a horror show for Noah, who’s the medic for their platoon. Christ, he was already outside the warehouse, stitching up a gash on Spinelli’s leg, when he sees his own brother hauled out of the warehouse, bloody and fading fast. That must have smacked him hard, the moment of realization that the man dying on that stretcher was his own brother. At least Noah wasn’t in the warehouse when John went down, but the sting of seeing his brother carried out, the sudden knowledge that he was unconscious, bleeding out, almost dead, the fact that Noah couldn’t save him even after the guys had carried John out of the warehouse and into the stark sunlight…

It’s all fucked up.

Somebody should have gotten to Noah Stanton first, pulled him aside, got him out of the way so he wouldn’t have to live with that image of his dying brother stuck in his head.

And Noah’s immediate reaction—the curses, growling at the other guys to stay back. The tears in his eyes. So fucking humiliating, in front of the other men. And now Chenowith telling Noah he can’t head home for the funeral until he gets grilled by the higher-ups.

“Unbelievable,” Doc says, bringing Hilliard’s cardboard box of licorice over to Noah, who shakes his head. “You should be in Kuwait already, buddy. On a flight to Frankfurt, out of here. And the COs are going to hold you back for debriefing? That sucks.” Doc, their platoon leader, doesn’t usually talk against the brass that way.

Shows you how out of control it all is, Emjay thinks. Noah’s own brother was killed and they still won’t let him go. As Lassiter always says, The only way out of Iraq is in a body bag.

“Here’s a news flash for you.” Lassiter lowers his cards beneath his homely face, those big ears and a nose like a carrot. Emjay has chalked it up to Lassiter’s insistence that everything is bigger in Texas. “The army sucks.”

“Amen to that,” Doc says, extending the licorice toward Spinelli, who peels one out and lies down again with the strand balanced on his chest. Odd bird, that Spinelli.

“Where’re the goddamned peanuts?” Hilliard digs into the care package from home, causing bags of bubble gum and chips to squeeze out and topple to the dusty floor. Hilliard likes his treats, and since Camp Despair is nearly fifty miles away from the small PX in Baghdad, he’s got to rely on packages from home. “She sends me Jelly Bellies, but no peanuts?”

“Are those the jelly beans from the Harry Potter movies?” Gunnar McGee asks. He’s the only guy called by his first name, as the guys in the platoon enjoy the irony of a soldier whose name is Gunnar. “They taste like vomit and snot and poop and shit?”

Lassiter smacks Gunnar’s shoulder with the back of one hand. “Idiot! Shit and poop are the same damned thing.”

“Is that the kind?” Gunnar’s eyes twinkle at the prospect of a taste of home, even if it is a foul taste.

“I don’t know.” Antoine Hilliard tosses a handful of foil packets to Gunnar. “Take ’em. Like I need to be popping jelly beans in the desert. I married the goddamned Easter Bunny.”

Normally the men would laugh over a wisecrack like that, but the airless room is void of humor. Emjay sits on his cot and watches unobtrusively through his dark sunglasses as Noah sets his rifle aside and turns his attention to a pair of combat boots, which he begins to unlace. There’s a dark stain on the side that extends over the toe of the boot. Blood, most likely. John’s blood? It’s possible, though with Noah’s medical assignment, it could be any number of things.

Still…as Noah rubs polish into the black leather, Emjay fights off a sickening chill at the thought of one brother cleaning off the blood of another. It seems to make this war too small and personal, and way too close. Beside the boots Noah has laid out his belongings—ammo, desert fatigues, a few canned rations and books, skivvies, and equipment like his rifle, a gas mask, and an NOD, a night operation device, goggles that clip over your helmet.

“You getting everything in line for the trip back home?” Emjay asks Noah, who nods over one boot.

Emjay shoots a look to the cot behind him, where John used to sleep. The floor beneath the metal frame is bare. John’s gear is gone.

“Hey, what happened to John’s stuff?” Emjay shouts to the room at large.

“Whaddaya think? Chenowith,” Lassiter says, venom on his tongue.

Lieutenant Chenowith, a West Point graduate, views the army differently than these enlisted soldiers, many of whom came to this career by default. Lassiter worked in a shoe store, Gunnar McGee mowed lawns, Hilliard drove a beer truck till he fucked that up by getting a DUI. Most of the guys in the platoon are here because they have no direction and they need to get out of debt, while Chenowith’s direction has always been to rise up the ranks in the U.S. Army, just like his old man, who was some hotshot in another war.

“The lieutenant confiscated all of John’s gear,” Doc explains. “Pending investigation. He wouldn’t even let Noah here go through and take out some personal items for John’s wife.”

“Goddamned army,” Hilliard grumbles over a mouthful of licorice. “They fuckin’ own you, even when you’re dead.”

Unresponsive, Noah briskly swipes a stiff brush over the toe of one boot.

Weary to the bone, Emjay shakes his head and stares at the NOD lined up with Noah’s stuff. What the hell happened to his today? Last time he used the night operation device it was working just fine, but today when he lowered the equipment over his eyes, he saw nothing—just blackness. He’d been complaining about it to John when the first shot rang out in the dark warehouse.

Now he kicks himself for not having working equipment. If the device had worked, he would have seen the shooter. Maybe he would have seen the gunman taking aim, closing in on John. Maybe, he might have saved John’s life.

His heartbeat picks up, thumping in his ears as he pictures the scene. After the two shots, Emjay had grabbed John’s NOD and soaked up everything around them. That was when he saw the soldier—one of them—walking away.

A goddamned soldier.

But John must have seen the guy. That’s why he was yelling that he was a friendly, that he was John Stanton, U.S. Army. John knew who shot him, and it wasn’t some Iraqi insurgent.

Had the raid of the warehouse been a staged mission? A way for Lieutenant Chenowith to get rid of John so that the media would stop dogging his platoon?

Crazy theories from a crazy man, but Emjay can’t think who else would have wanted to kill John. He removes his helmet and presses two fingers into each temple. Wish I had an NOD in that warehouse, a way to see the shooter.

Who was it? One of you?

Did one of you fuck with my NOD? Screw it up so I wouldn’t see your face when you took out my friend?

His eyes obscured by shades, Emjay studies the faces of the men in quarters. Hard to believe it could be one of your own. Noah and John are brothers, and Doc played football with John back in college, so those three are pretty tight. Antoine Hilliard isn’t the aggressive type. He’s been goldbricking the army since they got here, claiming a back injury so he could stay behind the wire to do paperwork—until a mortar round came through and took out an Alpha Company soldier while he was asleep in quarters. But Hilliard, he and John got on okay. Gunnar McGee is too much of a pansy, which leaves Lassiter, who was obviously jealous of John’s popularity. It could have been Lassiter, but Emjay would have trouble buying that, given Lassiter’s lack of follow-through. The guy is a big talker, but Emjay suspects he’s all talk.

So who else was in that dark warehouse? Who hated John that much?

Emjay removes his helmet and sits down on the edge of his cot. There will be no sleep for tonight. No rest. No escape.

“Just a tip, Brown,” Doc says, one blue eye squinting in half a wink. “You can lose the shades at night. Especially in this pit.”

Emjay stows his helmet and flak jacket but makes no move to remove his sunglasses. “Didn’t you know?” he says as he leans back on his bunk, hands crossed over his chest like a corpse. “I’m legally blind.”

Doc and the guys chuckle for a moment, but their attention quickly shifts to the poker game. Hilliard is munching through a can of macadamia nuts as Noah Stanton methodically laces his combat boots.

Through the dark shield of his shades, Emjay watches them all. It’s a damn shame the sunglasses can’t cover everything, can’t hide the shaking of his hands or the sour pucker of lips on the verge of sobbing. If only he could be alone, walk into the cocoon of nightfall, the dark wrapping around him like a forgiving blanket. You never get to be alone in the army. In that way, it’s like a prison.

He misses the privacy of home, the freedom to fly out the door and walk the farm, any time of the day or night, without getting his ass shot at. Sometimes he walked to the back acres of the farm, past the chicken coops, the thicket and the pond, night opening to him like a dark blossom. Walking to get away from his old man, to escape the arguments, the drunken fits, the smell of the stale beer and chicken shit and malice. Truth was, nobody enjoyed culling dead chicks or sucking in the ammonia smell, so acidic in the chicken houses it burned right through your sinuses into your brain. Emjay signed up to get away from that chicken farm on the Maryland shore, and damned if he didn’t trade one hell for another. Only, this new nightmare was bigger and more twisted than anything he could have imagined.

Without turning his head, Emjay can see Noah Stanton pulling on his boots. He doesn’t bother to lace them, but strides out of the bungalow without his helmet or flak jacket or rifle, defying regulations.

“What the hell’s he doing?” Lassiter asks, scowling toward the slamming door.

“Living dangerously,” Gunnar agrees, “but, really, what are the chances? Taking down two brothers in one day? Odds are against it, I’d say.”

“Sometimes grief will make a person act recklessly.” Doc picks up his helmet and removes the gold medal he keeps tucked into the camouflage mesh for good luck. It’s a replica of a Purple Heart he got in Afghanistan, and Doc’s so proud of it he wears it like a fishing hook in his hat, even when they go out on missions. Doc’s sort of a dick that way. “And I have to say, I get it. I still can’t believe he’s gone. Goddamned sniper. Goddamn them all.”

Emjay’s mouth goes dry as silence pervades the room. Usually he resents Doc’s declarations of pop psychology—the nuggets of mental health tips Doc tosses off each day in his role as what the army calls field counselor, which they all know means head shrinker. But this time Doc seems sincere, and rightly so. Before he was Dr. Charles Jump, Doc played football with John back in college. This had to cut deep, even for a cat like Doc. They were old friends, but then John was a friend to everyone. He was that kind of guy.

Doc goes to a calendar on the wall, grimaces at the breathtaking photo of a huge potato-head rock in the surf, and marks off a square with a felt pen. “One more down,” he says, and for a moment Emjay thinks he’s referring to a man down instead of a day to mark off on the calendar.

“You gonna take on the calendar now?” Lassiter asks.

“Guess I’ll have to,” Doc says, capping the pen.

John was the one who had hung the calendar with photos of the Pacific Northwest on the wall, the one who’d kept their spirits up, counting down the days until their deployment ended, crunching the numbers in countless different ways. Three months is ninety-one days. Less than a dollar in pennies. Less than eight dozen eggs for the son of a chicken farmer like Emjay.

Spinelli rolls up one pant leg and lifts a fat bandage to press at a raw cut underneath.

“You get that sewn up?” Doc asks.

“Noah gave me two stitches,” he says flatly. When Spinelli fell outside the building and sliced into his knee, he’d been sure it was a serious injury. “Look at all that blood,” Spinelli had said, awed by his gruesome knee. “You’ll probably have to medevac me to Germany.”

“I don’t think so,” Noah answered solemnly as he pressed gauze to the wound. “See? It’s deep enough for stitches, but no tendon damage. I can sew you up right here, if you want.”

Chenowith tipped his head to the side, obviously put out by Spinelli’s latest injury. “All right, okay. We’ll pull you two from the operation.”

Which left Doc partnering with Hilliard, who couldn’t tell his ass from his elbow under the best of circumstances.

Now Emjay bites into the licorice strand and wonders what it all adds up to. It must be the eighth time he’s gone through the details of this day, but he can’t seem to piece it together.

“I’d love to take down the bastard that got John,” Gunnar says, extending one arm and pretending to stare through the scope of a rifle. “I wish they’d let me go out of the wire and track him down. I would.”

“Who the hell did fire at him?” Hilliard asks, his jaw working on a handful of nuts. “Did anybody ever find the sniper?”

“Hell, no.” Lassiter reaches toward Hilliard and grabs some macadamia nuts for himself. “Alpha Company searched the perimeters after it happened, never located the insurgent. But let me ask you, Hilliard, did you see us nabbing the sniper? Where the hell were you, anyway?”

“I guarded the door, like Doc told me to do,” Hilliard says defensively. “You know I don’t want to be doing that crap.”

“Yeah, we know, Hillbilly,” Lassiter says. The platoon is well aware of Hilliard’s reticence to do the patrols.

Hilliard stops chewing. “You gotta wonder, what the hell were we doing in that warehouse in the first place?”

“The mission objective was to detain suspected insurgents and search for rocket-propelled grenades,” Doc says succinctly. Sometimes he acts as if he’s keeping everyone in line, though Emjay thinks it’s mostly an act. Without rank, nobody gives a shit.

“Anybody find RPGs?” Gunnar asks.

Lassiter shakes his head. “Chenowith said there were reports of insurgents taking back some buildings in the warehouse district.” He wipes his palms against each other, brushing off salt. “I’d love to know how we got that intelligence. From the goddamned sniper, probably. And some officer believed it, some boss with his head up his ass.”

For once, Emjay suspects Lassiter’s got something right.