No one responded. They’d all heard it at least twice before.
Montes reverted to his favourite refrain.
‘I mean, who even wants to be here? TV say soldiers want to be here. Where they get that from? Make folks feel better? Maybe if you wanting to get your star, make some rank. All we want is get the fuck outta here, right Black?’
Black shrugged, not because he didn’t have an answer: he just didn’t want to have this conversation right now. He was thinking about the email home he would write tonight. Dear Mom and Dad. Today was 115°F. That’s the hottest we’ve had. He spent another ten minutes trying to come up with the next line. Three positives. That was his rule. His mother could find a silver lining in a tornado. The school they built just by the base has opened. He’d leave out the fact that no kids had turned up, that the deputy head had become the head because the original head had been shot in front of his family. He couldn’t think of two more positives right now. He abandoned that and considered writing to Charlene. Just to let you know I’m still sane. . Perhaps she’d take it the wrong way, think he was in doubt. She’d always known he’d enlist from the get-go, all through Senior High, but when it came to it, she said it had to be her or the army — not both. There wasn’t going to be any waiting for him. You may come back — she’d struggled for a word — different. She thought his father would sway him. She knew what he thought about the whole army thing. She just didn’t get it. But Blackburn still loved her, still hoped she’d come around.
He had been counting the days to September 1st, when they were due to go home, crossing off the days on a grid he had drawn in the back of his log. Since last week he’d stopped. Home didn’t seem to be getting any closer.
Black’s radio squawked: Lieutenant Cole.
‘Misfit 1–3 this is Misfit actual. Listen up. We lost contact with Jackson’s squad in grid eight zero, ten klicks west. You’re the only element I got to send. Last known position Spinza Meat Market. Bad freaking part of town. Go find ’em, got that?’
‘1–3. Copy that.’
Jackson was out of contact. That could only mean something bad.
Black looked at the crew. They’d all heard the order on their headsets. No one spoke for a few seconds, as if they were conserving every last grain of energy.
‘So, anyone else don’t get what we’re doing here?’ Montes was off on his high school debating society riff again. Blackburn wished he would shut up and just do his job. He was tired, and this was making him feel tireder.
‘Quit being a fucking hippie, Montes.’ Chaffin ripped the wrapper off a stick of gum and folded it into his mouth.
Montes loosened his grip on his weapon.
‘All I’m saying is we’re here to keep a lid on things, not start a fucking war with Iran.’
‘The PLR’s not Iran.’
‘Man, we been over this a hunnert times.’
Chaffin put his hands over his face.
Black continued. ‘They’re in Iran though, because that’s where they’re coming from. And Iran is just’ — he cocked his head leftwards — ‘right over there.’
‘You got that now, Montes, you fucking tree hugger? We want your opinion, we’ll give it to you. All right?’
Blackburn hoped this wasn’t going to evolve into something full-blown and personal between Chaffin and Montes. Debating the relative merits of twin cheerleaders or a one-on-one with the new British princess was a pleasantly pointless diversion. Questioning their entire purpose in this hellhole could develop into a discipline problem.
They’d served in the same platoon for eighteen months. They were family. But the terms of engagement had changed. They’d gone in thinking they’d be the last American deployment in the area, and Chaffin wasn’t the only one whose patience was running out. The whole place was sinking back into chaos. Montes was becoming the target for his frustration, and Blackburn didn’t blame him. Privately, he knew Montes had a point. He wondered what a man like him was even doing there, when he should have been handing out flyers about the decline of capitalism on a leafy campus somewhere. But Blackburn didn’t have time to be anyone’s camp counsellor. Jackson’s Stryker had gone silent and they had no choice but to go look for it. It’s what you did. What you didn’t do was sit in a 104°F sardine can discussing it like a bunch of liberals on PBS.
He raised his voice a notch.
‘Look at me. Montes? This is our job.’
‘Yeah, baby, I hear that.’
Black raised a hand.
‘And to finish the job, we gotta deal with the PLR. And to do that, sooner or later we gotta go cross the border.’
Chaffin opened his mouth to speak, but Blackburn silenced him with a look.
They dismounted from the Stryker and fanned out. The Spinza Meat Market was an old cloistered building with a gallery on the upper level. A week ago it had been swarming with activity. Today it was deserted: not a good sign. Campo tapped Blackburn on the shoulder. ‘Check this out.’
A freshly painted mural of Al Bashir, the PLR leader. A good likeness, Blackburn thought: someone had taken their time.
‘They sainting him here. He their man, now.’ Montes was next to them. The artist had given the Iranian former Air Force General a fierce glare of certainty. ‘Dude looks like he means business.’
‘Jerkoff. It’s just a painting. He’s gotta be as old as your granny. They just left out the wheelchair.’
‘Ever ask yourself how this part of the world got so fucked up all the time?’
‘Hey I just work here, Montes. Other people work that shit out.’
Montes persisted. ‘How long before we rolling ourselves into Iran?’
Blackburn waved them forward. ‘That’s way above my pay grade. Let’s go find this patrol.’
The old man was squatting in a doorway. Montes was crouched down, talking, his weapon pushed behind his shoulder, out of the way. He held up ten fingers, made fists, then another ten, and then another ten, then mimed using a machine gun. To give him his due, he was trying to be useful.
‘He’s saying there were thirty, all armed. Came through half an hour ago.’ He turned back to the old man. ‘Thank you, Sir.’
‘Thanks, I’ll take it from here.’
Black leaned down, continued in Arabic.
‘Were they PLR?’
The old man shrugged.
‘Local boys?’
He shook his head, although it could have been more of a tremor, and pointed at the westward gate of the market.
‘Well, let’s go the way the man says.’
The gate led into a narrow street of three-storey buildings. Blackburn heard a couple of shutters close and a baby crying. A Toyota pick-up lay sideways across the street, the front fender torn away as if it had been swiped by a much heavier vehicle and in a hurry.
Black signalled to the others to hug the walls. ‘Big cross street here, exposed.’
They all heard the rumble at the same time. Tracked vehicle. Blackburn flattened himself against the corner wall and peered round. He saw the vehicle nose out of a gateway, a block up the cross street, and turn left, moving away at patrol speed.
Black got on the radio.
‘APC, no markings, headed north, taking its time like it owns the place.’
‘That’s some serious metal.’
‘Flag him down, ask what side he’s on.’
‘Shut up Montes. Take a right up that street, where he just came from.’