Redeployment(95)

I turn sharply away from the gun line. It’s too pristine. And maybe this is the wrong way to think about it. Somewhere, there’s a corpse lying out, bleaching in the sun. Before it was a corpse, it was a man who lived and breathed and maybe murdered and maybe tortured, the kind of man I’d always wanted to kill. Whatever the case, a man definitely dead.

So I walk back to our battery area, never turning around. It’s a short walk, and when I get back I find a couple of the guys playing Texas hold ’em by a smoke pit. There’s Sergeant Deetz, Bolander, Voorstadt, and Sanchez. Deetz has fewer chips than the others and is leaning his bulk over the table, scowling at the pot.

“Oo-rah, motivator,” he says when he sees me.

“Oo-rah, Sergeant.” I watch them play. Sanchez flips the turn card and everybody checks.

“Sergeant?” I say.

“What?”

I’m not sure where to start. “Don’t you think, maybe, we should have a patrol out, to see if there were any survivors?”

“What?” Sergeant Deetz is focused on the game. As soon as Sanchez flips the river, he throws his cards in.

“I mean, the mission we had. Shouldn’t we go out, like, in a patrol, to see if there are any survivors?”

Sergeant Deetz looks up at me. “You are an idiot, aren’t you?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“There weren’t any survivors,” says Voorstadt, tossing his cards in as well.

“You see al-Qaeda rolling around in tanks?” says Sergeant Deetz.

“No, Sergeant.”

“You see al-Qaeda building crazy bunkers and trenches?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“You think al-Qaeda’s got some magic, ICM-doesn’t-kill-my-ass ninja powers?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“No, you’re goddamn right, no.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

The betting is now between Sanchez and Bolander. Sanchez, looking at the pot, says to no one in particular, “I think the 2nd and 136th does patrols out there.”

“But, Sergeant,” I say, “what about the bodies? Doesn’t somebody have to clean up the bodies?”

“Jesus, Lance Corporal. Do I look like a PRP Marine to you?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“What do I look like?”

“Like an artilleryman, Sergeant.”

“You’re goddamn right, killer. I’m an artilleryman. We provide the bodies. We don’t clean ’em up. You hear me?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

He looks up at me. “And what are you, Lance Corporal?”

“An artilleryman, Sergeant.”

“And what do you do?”

“Provide the bodies, Sergeant.”

“You’re goddamn right, killer. You’re goddamn right.”

Sergeant Deetz turns back to the game. I use the opportunity to slip away. It was stupid to ask Deetz, but what he said has me thinking. PRP: personnel retrieval and processing, aka Mortuary Affairs. I’d forgotten about them. They must have collected the bodies from this morning.

The thought of PRP works and worms through my brain. The bodies could be sitting here, on base. But I don’t know where PRP is. I’d never wanted to know, and I don’t want to ask anyone the way, either. Why would anyone go there? But I leave the battery area and walk around the perimeter of the Battle Square, over to the CLB buildings, dodging officers and staff NCOs. It takes a good half hour, sneaking around, reading the signs outside of buildings, until I find it, a long, low, rectangular building surrounded by palm trees. It’s offset from the rest of the CLB complex, but otherwise just like every other building. That feels wrong—if they cleaned up from today, severed limbs should be spilling out the door.

I stand outside, looking at the entrance. It’s a simple wooden door. One I shouldn’t be in front of, one I shouldn’t open, one I shouldn’t step through. I’m in a combat arms unit, and I don’t belong here. It’s bad voodoo. But I came all this way, I found it, and I’m not a coward. So I open the door.

Inside is cool air, a long hallway full of closed doors, and a Marine at a desk facing away from me. He has headphones on. They’re plugged into a computer that’s playing some sort of TV show. On the screen, a woman in a poofy dress is hailing a cab. She looks pretty at first, but then the screen cuts to a close-up and it’s clear she’s not.