The men stared up at him. He was speaking a language that they never knew existed, but always craved. It was nourishment to a group of souls that had been starved of respect since their first day in the service and much further back than that, and they ate it up.
Chapel placed the tobacco into the bowl of the pipe and slowly packed it with a pewter tamper. “All of our best efforts at fighting this enemy with one arm tied behind our backs have failed. We kill them in one country, and they reconstitute in another, like some goddamn supernatural entity. So I’ve decided to take the fight to them, where they rise again from the dead. I know where they do this, as I have many eyes that see many things, and we will hit them one by one, in this country that’s older than time, that’s laughed at a hundred armies throughout history, and lately at a thousand tons of American ordnance. Uncle Sam will not be laughed at. Our ego cannot take it. As such, creative measures must be taken. That’s where we come in. We are the creative measure.”
The older man looked at the younger ones sitting in front of him, hearts as open as their mouths. He understood humanity, even if he didn’t like it much anymore. But that keen understanding of how it ticked was why he was so good at what he did, and why what he was about to do would certainly work.
Chapel held up the loaded pipe. “In this pipe I have placed the best Carolina tobacco ever grown. It was first planted by slaves for their white masters. Out here, in this new world we’ve ripped apart by the seams, there are no slaves and no masters. We are all both. Slaves to fire and to death. Masters of fire and of death. We serve and command both. That is the nature of what we do, this business of war.”
Chapel struck a wooden match with his thumbnail, put the flame to the pipe and inhaled deeply as the bowl glowed orange. He blew out a small cloud of pure white smoke.
“We will smoke this tobacco, all of us, as this is a pipe of war, carved by my grandfather just before he went into battle against his own countrymen.” He took another drag, and the smoke billowed, slow and coiling, pulling the words out of his mouth. “The First Tribes smoked pipes as symbols of peace, but we are a different breed. We are dogs of war.”
He passed the pipe to Medrano, who inhaled deeply, expecting a cough as he blew out. Instead, he raised his eyebrows and smiled, passing the pipe to Render.
“I’ve read all of your files, from cover to cover,” Chapel continued. “But even then, I don’t know you. And lord knows you don’t know me, where I’ve been and what I’ve done, and I’m okay with that. But know that whatever you see, and whatever you hear, out in the jungle once we’re activated, trust me that I’ll see you through. I’ll bring you back in one piece, sound of body, and sound of mind, even if things get weird, and they will get weird.”
The pipe had moved on through Render and McNulty to Darby, who took an extra hit, and then to Broussard, who wiped off the stem and put it to his lips, sucking in air and bringing red life to the packed leaf under the ash. His lungs filled with hot, spicy smoke, making him dizzy as he passed it back to Chapel.
“We are messengers, gentleman, and we will deliver a message of strange vengeance to a very determined enemy that does not respect us, but is more that capable of fearing us.” Chapel inhaled deeply from the pipe, smoke billowing out from his lungs as he spoke like a pale dragon. “We will deliver to them the Fear, upon wings of sharpened steel. We have not earned his respect, this enemy in the jungle, and never will, but we will give him the Fear, pulled from the deepest part of his soul.”
Chapel stretched out his arms, indicating the bunker, filled with odd equipment and lined with radar and that strange audio equipment. “Witness the nightmare factory, gentleman. You are all now part of Operation Algernon.”
14. Sleeping in the Temple of Mars
That night, the five bedded down in a high-ceilinged tent next to the bunker, lying in sturdy cots with thick, clean blankets that smelled of pine crates instead of sweat, mud, and shit. There were no mosquitoes here, as if they feared disturbing this incongruous sanctity of secrets. The war sounded far away, coming to them as muffled thuds of heavy bombs far in the distance, with none of the close-by chatter of machine guns. In the relative silence, none of them slept, except for Darby, who snored to the ceiling, mouth wide enough to let in all manner of spider, if they were more heretical than the mosquitoes. One mission was the same as another to Darby. He was there to kill people as directed, and would do so when called up, and sometimes when he wasn’t, which was what brought him into the group.
“What was he talking about, the Fear?” Medrano whispered, mostly to himself, but loud enough the rest of the men could hear. “Nightmares and stuff. Operation Ala-non.”
“Algernon,” Broussard said. “Like the writer.”
“Which one?” Medrano said.
“Can you talk in your sleep with your mouth shut?” McNulty said, fighting with his pillow, the quiet creeping into his brain and waking up things the noise usually kept down.
“What do you think we’re doing out here?” Medrano said, eyes darting back and forth in agitated thought.
“Does it matter?” Render said.
“Of course it matters, man,” McNulty said, sitting up. “This guy could be fucking crazy.”
“All white people are crazy,” Render said, sounding tired.
“Hey!” said McNulty. “Present company included?”
“Most definitely,” Render said. He didn’t want to explain his entire conscious life to a guy who would never understand it anyway.
“Well, fuck you too,” McNulty said, jamming his head back onto his pillow.
“He ain’t crazy,” Broussard said.
Everyone waited for Broussard to continue, but he didn’t.
“How do you know?” Medrano said.
“His eyes.”
Broussard rolled over.
“What kind of fucking answer is that?” McNulty said.
He received no reply.
Now it was McNulty’s turn to sigh and roll over, which he did with big, frustrated moves. “Man, you fucking people.”
In the dark, Broussard and Render opened their eyes, sharing a look without even seeing each other. Medrano closed his and groaned. Darby snored through it all.
15. Beast at Bay
Another chair.
My life, this life, now,
spent in a series of chairs.
Waiting.
To kill or be killed.
To be told that you’re sick or that you’re a coward or that you’re going to be locked in a cage as a sick fucking coward.
Throw away the key.
Throw away the chairs.
Sitting here, sitting there, sitting and waiting in a fucking chair.
Becoming the chair.
Stiff, unwieldy.
Four legs and two arms.
One back.
Body of a beast with the arms of a man.
Fucking werewolf caught in transformation and stuffed and stuck in a museum of horrors.
Or a rich man’s den.
Same thing, sometimes.
Sometimes.
I’m not going to move from this chair.