Captured(13)

You got in a lot of trouble for that stunt. But you found me. You knew my brother, who was walking with me at the time. You asked him who I was a few days later. He said he’d let you have a shot if I was willing, but if you broke my heart, he’d break your face. You showed up at my hotel room dressed in civvies.

Thundering gunfire. Assault rifles crackle, AKs bark. Helo rotors thump. Rockets whoosh-boom.

I tuck the letter between my belly and the pants. Flatten myself beside the door. Sure enough, the door is kicked open, and I see the flash of orange flame, hear shouts in Pashto, which I’ve learned a bit of now, simply through default: “Kill the American! Shoot him!” A figure swathed from head to toe, leaving only a slit for the eyes, appears in the doorway, wielding an AK. He doesn’t see me at first, is confused, pivots, AK held at waist level. Idiot.

I slam the knife edge of my hand into his throat, grab the barrel of the rifle, jerk it up, knee to his groin, desperation making me inhumanly strong despite my near-starvation thinness. Head-butt to the nose, crunch. He goes limp for a split second, and I wrench the rifle free, slam the stock into his face over and over and over again, until the white cloth of his clothes and mine are both spattered in red. He falls against the wall, slumps to the ground. I step over him and go outside into the flame-lit darkness. Shadows within shadows, darting shapes in desert camo. The gray of near-dawn glows above the serrated mountain ridge.

Crackcrack…crackcrack…crackcrack.

Precision, coordination, merciless onslaught. Oorah, motherf*ckers.

And then I realize it’s dark and I’m wearing native clothes and carrying an AK. I tear the shirt off over my head, toss it to the ground. My pale skin is a flag now. Risky, but better than being accidentally shot by the guys coming to rescue me.

I see a turban and a brown rifle stock in a window, and I blast it. Run to the window, lean in, see two more faces and rifles. I drop them, too. No training here. Just vengeance, empty the magazine into dead bodies.

I twist at the sound of ghost-quiet footsteps in the grit. See night-vision gear, helmets, compact assault rifles.

Grin. “Oorah. Took you f*cking long enough.”

They don’t respond. They just flank me, snatch the rifle from me, form a box around me, and march me through the burning rubble and bodies to the extraction point outside the village. One of them radios for pickup, acknowledging that they have me. Within seconds, rotors roar, and dust flies as a chopper descends. It doesn’t even touch down all the way. They escort me in, one on each side, rifles pointed out and down. A blanket is wrapped over my shoulders.

Airborne, adrenaline leaves me, and realization sets in.

I sob.

I’m free. I’m f*cking free.

“You’re safe, sir,” a voice says. “We’ve got you. You’re going home.”

I don’t even feel any shame as I bawl like a goddamn baby. Rest my head back against the vibrating wall.

“Tom. Did you find Tom? They killed him. I don’t know where they put him, but they took him after he died. You have to find him. You can’t leave his body here.” I’m rambling.

“We found him, sir.” The same voice, a young guy, maybe twenty at the most, sitting beside me, sharp-eyed, alert, fresh-faced.

I pat the cloth-wrapped letter, make sure it’s still there in my pants.

Exhaustion hits, and I can’t keep my eyes open. I feel myself leaning against the kid beside me, but I can’t keep myself upright. He doesn’t shift away. He lets me rest against him.

“How long?” I mumble.

“What, sir?”

“How long? How long was I gone?”

“You’ll be debriefed in full, sir.”

“Just f*cking tell him, pinhead,” someone else growls. “He deserves to know.”

“It’s twenty-ten, sir. You were a POW for three years.”

Three goddamn years.

Tom’s baby isn’t a baby anymore.

I have to find Reagan. Give her the letter.





*





Camp Leatherneck. Home away from home. At least, it used to be. Now it seems alien. Familiar, yet foreign. The helo sets down, dust whirls, and my head spins. I should be overjoyed to be back, to be among my own countrymen, but…I’m nervous. Scared. There, I said it. This ain’t combat, but I’m just as scared. More, actually. Damned if I know why, or of what.

Maybe it’s the stares. Eyes follow me. A whole goddamn base of jarheads, and it feels like they’re all watching me descend to the ground, blanket tossed aside to reveal how skinny I am. They see my shaved scalp and gaunt frame and haunted eyes. I know that’s how I look. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the windows as the Huey banked past the rising sun. Pale skin, sunken green eyes, thousand-yard stare. Used to have thick blond hair and a matching five o’clock shadow. Now all I’ve got is a nicked, scarred scalp shaved down to the skin. My jawline is pronounced, sharp, my skin sickly, the stubble on my head ingrown in places.

Hands grip my biceps, carrying me forward. I feel like a prisoner. Flanked by armed Marines, I’m marched across the tarmac.

“West?” a voice calls out from under a tent as I pass. “They f*ckin’ found you? Goddamn! Boys! They’ve got Derek!”

I pause, hunt for the voice. Billy Voss, Golf Company’s heavy weapons expert. Big, black, and badass. One of the few guys who can hit the broad side of a barn with a SAW while moving. He ducks out from under the tent, all six-foot-six of him, and lumbers toward me. Wraps me up in a bear hug. My throat seizes, and I have to swallow the onslaught of overwhelming emotion. What the f*ck is wrong with me?