“Hey, baby, it’s me.”
“How are you?” she asked, sensing at once a heaviness in his voice.
“It’s been a rough day.”
She knew better than to ask specific questions, but she didn’t much care. “You didn’t lose anyone, did you?”
“No, nothing like that,” he said, his voice sounding thin to him.
“Well, I’m glad you called,” she said, giving him time. “Oso just came into the kitchen. I think he can tell from my tone when I’m talking to you.”
“I refused to carry out an immoral order.”
“Well, good for you. I’m proud of you.”
“I never thought I’d…” He gritted his teeth, hard put to conceal his emotions.
“It’s nothin’ to be ashamed of, baby.”
He gripped his temples. “Listen, baby… you may hear somethin’ on the radio tomorrow… or see somethin’ in the paper… I dunno… but don’t worry. I ain’t involved in anything right now… not for at least the next forty-eight hours.”
“I never listen to the news when you’re gone. You know that.”
“Well, in case some dumbass calls or somebody says somethin’ at the store. Humor me a little, will ya?”
She laughed softly in his ear. “Aye, aye, sir.”
He simmered down at the sound. “I just don’t want you to worry.”
“Well, that’s an easy fix,” she said helpfully. “Take an assignment at Hampton Roads until your enlistment’s over.”
He lowered his head, knowing he’d walked right into it. “I’ve got three more years until my twenty, baby. I’d lose my mind at Hampton Roads.”
“All right,” she said evenly, “then stop sayin’ you don’t want me to worry. A forty-eight-hour reprieve ain’t nothin’ to me, Gil. I don’t take no comfort in it. If there’s an emergency ten minutes from now, you’ll be the first one on the damn helicopter, and you know it.”
“Damn, woman. I called you ’cause I was feelin’ down.”
More of her gentle laughter. “How ya feelin’ now?”
“Like paddlin’ your backside.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you’re callin’ me from the moon,” she said breezily.
He laughed. “I ain’t that far.”
“Well, you’re far enough all the same. What time is it where you’re at, anyway?”
“Nice try,” he said.
She laughed again, enjoying teasing him. “I’m a trier, you know that. Mama says hi.”
“Give ’er my love.” He glanced up to see Steelyard through the window, coming toward the building with his cigar glowing. “Listen, baby, I gotta go. I love you.”
“Got your boots back on the ground now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right then. Love you, too.”
He was off the phone a few moments later and opening the door for Steelyard. “They about ready to go over there?”
Steelyard grunted as he stepped into the room. “Nothing left to do but roll the birds onto the tarmac. You don’t have any booze hidden around here anywhere, do you?”
“Ain’t I in enough trouble?”
“Shit, Gilligan, you came out of this smelling like a rose.”
Gil put his hands in his pockets. “Would you have shot ’er, Chief?”
Steelyard snatched the cigar from his teeth and looked him in the eyes. “I’d have blown her shit away.”
Gil nodded and looked at the floor.
“And then I’d have spent the rest of my fucking life waking up to her face,” the older man went on. “So what’s that tell you? Anyhow, you made sure that’s not going to happen to you. Listen, I support whatever keeps my SEALs alive and out of trouble. That’s what I told Metcalf, and that’s what I’m telling you. So let it go — it’s over. I told Crosswhite what’s up, and he understands why I jumped your shit. I didn’t want him thinking you’d gone soft.”
“Hell,” Gil said. “He knows I’d never beat up on an old man.”
“By the way,” Steelyard said. “The Iranian broad went into labor half an hour after surgery… so congratulations. It’s a boy. Damn kid will probably grow up to hunt your ass down in twenty years. That or drive a nuke into Times Square.”
Gil smiled. “Ever heard the parable about the partisan and the horse?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard the damn thing.” He stuck the cigar back into his teeth. “Don’t play granddaddy with me, boy. What you know about life, I can fit under my foreskin.”
CHAPTER 26
After fast-roping from two different Night Stalker helos to the valley floor six miles south of Waigal Village, Captain Crosswhite and eight SEALs from SEAL Team Six made their way two miles northward over rugged, forested terrain. Along for the ride was their Afghan interpreter, Forogh. He was as much a member of the team as any of them, equally armed and wearing the same multicam ACUs.
The column was stretched out over roughly eighty yards along the winding mountain trail, everyone wearing an IBH helmet with integrated radio headset and night-vision goggles. Their primary weapons were suppressed M4s. Most of them carried a variety of secondary weaponry as well, along with assorted types of explosives.
Alpha was walking point when the bleating of a goat caused him to stop short. He held up a fist and lowered himself into a crouch at the edge of the trail, then called Crosswhite forward over the radio. The rest of the team found cover among the rocks and trees.
Crosswhite arrived and took a knee beside Alpha. “What do we got?”
“Goats,” Alpha said in a low voice — whispers carried in the dark. “Every fucking goat in Afghanistan, I think.”
Crosswhite scanned the clearing ahead where a rock slide had shattered the forest centuries before. He saw what looked like hundreds of goats scattered among the rocks, most of them resting peacefully with their forelegs folded in front of them. A few kids wandered about. “What the fuck are they doing here?”
Alpha pointed out a pair of goat herders bedded down beneath a lone tree near the stream that ran through the rocks. Then he spotted two more herders fifty yards farther off, bedded down at the tree line where the forest began again. “Can we cut through these animals without waking those men up?”
Forogh arrived to take a knee between them, resting a hand on Crosswhite’s shoulder. “No. The herd will spook and make a lot of noise if we try to cut through. They are very jumpy animals.” His accent was thick, but he was easily understood. “I am afraid this is a problem. Do you see the goats sleeping uphill to both sides of the gorge? Going around them will take a lot of time. We’ll have to go very far up the hill to avoid spooking them.”
“Then fuck it,” Alpha said. “Let’s take out the herders from here and keep moving.”
Crosswhite shook his head. “This is an unauthorized mission. We can’t go murdering anybody. We’ll have to think of another way. What if we just crawl slowly through them, Forogh?”
Forogh shook his head. “That is a bad risk. Wait a moment…” He rose up for a better look into the clearing. “Something is wrong here.”
Aside from the odor of goat shit, the scene looked innocent enough to Crosswhite. “What is it?”
Forogh crouched back down. “They don’t all look like goat herders to me.”
Crosswhite strained his eyes, trying to discern in his greenish-black field of vision what Forogh was seeing that he was not. All four men wore herder’s robes. There was an AK-47 leaning against the tree in the center of the clearing, but the land was hostile and this was to be expected. He checked his watch then double-checked the GPS he was using to keep track of their position. So far, they were keeping to the schedule, but they were beginning to lose time now, and the steepest part of their ascent still lie ahead of them. “How do you know they’re not herders?”