Eden in Winter (23 page)

Adam nodded. ‘No joke. One guy I met in a remote village thought I was a Russian, even though they left here with their tails dragging twenty years ago. This place has a certain timeless indifference.’

They were in the countryside now. The dips and heights of the terrain became steeper, the rocks and potholes more punishing, sending jolts up Adam’s spine. They began fording shallow creek beds, the first few dry before they slowed to a crawl for another, this one swollen with water. Briefly, their tyres spun, spattering rivulets of muddy water on the front and side windows. Branch jerked the gear shift, rocking the S.U.V. back, then forward, straining for a purchase on the mud beneath. ‘Don’t like this for the wiring,’ he observed. ‘Getting wet won’t help a bit.’

Looking out the window, Adam hoped that the S.U.V. would not get stuck here in the open, leaving them exposed. The tyres kept grinding until, mercifully, the four-wheel-drive skidded forward on to dry land, a last stretch of rolling terrain before they hit the mountains. ‘Got a football team?’ Branch enquired.

‘College or pro?’

‘College, to start.’

‘Not much to say,’ Adam confessed wryly. ‘I went to Yale.’

Shifting gears, Branch shot him a look. ‘I can see the problem. What about pros?’

‘I used to follow the Patriots.’

‘I’m a Cowboys guy,’ Branch said with satisfaction. ‘“America’s team” – a stadium that looks like Disney World, and cheerleaders with perfect teeth and artificial boobs. Only one who’s had more plastic surgery is the owner. If that’s not All-American, I don’t know what is.’

‘Guess you’d have trouble with the Patriots, then. Their coach has the demeanour of a second-tier Kremlin bureaucrat. It doesn’t exactly warm the heart.’

Branch shrugged. ‘At least tell me you don’t watch soccer. Never got it – a bunch of guys in shorts running around in circles, most of them from shitbag countries that don’t like us. And now they’ve got actual teams all over our great land, like sleeper cells. I keep asking myself which of them are illegals. Makes me wonder what we’re fighting for, I can tell you that.’

The commentary, Adam realized, captured a surprising streak of irony, Branch riffing on his Alabama background. He was about to respond in kind when a goat cantered on to the road ahead of them, followed by two more.

The seemingly prosaic sight made Adam instantly alert. A string of goats blocking the road could be happenstance, or the precursor to an ambush. Swiftly, he glanced around them. They were stuck – to the right was a four-foot wall fronting some mud houses; to the left, trees lined the bank of a deep creek bed. More goats filled the road.

Branch braked to a stop. ‘No choice,’ he said, and felt for the weapon beneath his car seat. ‘If there’s a stupider animal alive, I haven’t met it.’

Amidst the goats, a human being appeared from behind the wall – a boy in his early teens, Adam judged, prodding the recalcitrant beasts with a shepherd’s crook. He glanced at the S.U.V., then kept moving his charges along. As the last goat crossed the road, Adam felt himself relax a fraction, and then four other men appeared behind the herd.

They were of a different cast – bearded, hard-looking men who stopped in the road, openly staring at the Americans stalled five yards away. Adam felt Branch thinking along with him, trained to survive, knowing that at any moment they might have to kill these men. He could not tell whether the Afghanis had weapons concealed in baggy shirts. What was certain was that they had seen two men who, despite their dress and beards, were betrayed by Branch’s colouring as foreigners.

‘So?’ Branch enquired.

Adam thought quickly. ‘Let them go, or we’ll have to shoot the boy as well. Even if we did, we’d be leaving five corpses in an inhabited area. No point drawing that kind of attention before we’ve even started.’

The men kept staring at them, as though marking their faces. ‘If they call the wrong guy on their cell phone,’ Branch observed, ‘we’re fucked.’ But the fatalism in his voice conceded Adam’s point.

At last, the four men resumed following the young shepherd and his flock. In solemn imitation of an imperial despot, Branch intoned, ‘Let the boy live.’

He resumed driving as Adam glanced around them. One of the Afghans, turning, gave the S.U.V. a final look.

*

They drove another eight miles or so, at some unknown point crossing the Pakistani border, unmarked by wire or sensors or guards. A no-man’s-land – the province of warlords, jihadists, and Adam’s sometime business partner, Colonel Rehman, whose Afghan agent had set their operation in motion.
A hall of mirrors
, Adam amended.

‘That shepherd,’ Branch remarked after a long silence, ‘sort of reminded me of my oldest boy. Stringy like that, with the body of a pass catcher.’

This scrap of information made the Seal seem complex. ‘You have a family?’ Adam enquired.

‘I have kids – two boys and a pretty girl in the middle. Looks like her mom, who had the ingratitude to divorce me.’ Hitting the brakes, Branch slowed to navigate the steep, twisting road. ‘Called me uncommunicative, if you can imagine that.’

‘I can’t. Think of how close we are already.’

‘Soul mates. Guess it helps to have killing people in common.’ The humour bled from Branch’s voice. ‘You’re with your family, and you remind yourself they’re the reason we do stuff like this – that, and the thrill of it all. But they don’t really want to hear about it, and you don’t really want to tell them. So you just wall it off.’

The observation struck a chord from Adam’s sessions with Charlie Glazer. ‘What choice do we have?’

Branch glanced at him. ‘You married?’

‘Nope. I’ve been hoping to miss the first divorce.’

‘Got a girlfriend, at least?’

Involuntarily, Adam found himself distracted by an image of Carla – her face close to his, the electric jolt that came from the feel of her lips, the press of her body. ‘Not really. Just someone I’d like to see again.’

Only after he spoke the words did Adam appreciate their context. He looked around him, seeing nothing but the harsh, jagged terrain of the mountains that enveloped them as they climbed. His last phrase lingered there, unanswered.

At length they reached the snow-topped ridges that marked the beginning of their descent into the badlands. ‘Crappy place for an operating base,’ Branch observed, ‘but perfect for Al Qaeda. They could stash our P.O.W. anywhere.’

‘Guess that’s what the rush is about. Right now, we may actually know where he is. But once they move him, he’s a ghost again.’

They crept with agonizing slowness down a narrow twisting road, Branch braking constantly, glancing at the G.P.S. as Adam scanned the terrain – a sheer cliff hugging the driver’s side, a deep ravine on their left. Branch slowed the S.U.V. to a crawl; the drop was at least two football fields in length, and skidding would be fatal.

Suddenly, the motor died. The S.U.V. was still, a metal shell.

‘Fucking electricals,’ Branch said between gritted teeth. ‘Why now?’

Both men knew their roles. Grabbing his weapon as he jumped out of the driver’s side, Branch slung it over his shoulder and raised the hood. Adam closed the passenger door behind him and leaned against it two feet from the ravine, cradling his weapon as he looked to the front and back for any sign of trouble.

Peering beneath the hood, Branch began tinkering with the wires. ‘Like the goddam Gordian knot,’ he said. ‘No wonder Japan got so screwed up.’ Then his concentration became too intense for speech.

‘Hate to ask,’ he finally said. ‘But I need you to hold a wire.’

Reluctantly, Adam abandoned his surveillance. Taking a string of green wire from the Seal’s hand, he scanned the road behind them, his sight line partially blocked by the hood.

‘Getting there,’ Branch muttered, and then Adam detected a faint new sound. Like the buzzing of a swarm of bees, he thought, but could not yet pick up its direction.

‘Hear that?’

Branch glanced up, cocking his head. All at once there was a crack of glass breaking, the percussive sound of bullets striking metal like the banging of a ball-peen.
From the road
, Adam thought, and cried out, ‘
Down!
’

A hammer blow struck the centre of his back, a round pinging off his body armour. Adam jerked upright. A second bullet passed through his left shoulder with the force of a blow from a steel bat.

Blood spurted out as Adam dropped to the ground, stunned, instinctively using the truck as cover. Clamping his wound with his good hand, he peered out from behind the truck and saw two men on a motorcycle – a driver and a shooter. ‘
Behind us!
’ he shouted.

Kneeling, Branch began spraying bullets. The driver veered to evade fire, the shooter stymied from aiming. ‘Loading magazine,’ Branch spat.

Out of bullets, Adam knew. Pulling himself upright, he felt a searing pain course through his left arm, then saw the
motorcycle steady itself, the shooter taking aim as they sped closer.

With one hand, Adam jerked his A.K.-47 and began firing at the driver, the percussive recoil jabbing his good shoulder. The motorcycle wobbled; in slow motion, the driver tipped to the side and toppled with his vehicle on to the hard dirt road. The haze of shock filled Adam’s eyes, white flashes obscuring his vision. As though he were watching from a distance, he saw the shooter rise to his knees and begin returning fire.

A round popped by Adam’s jaw. The shooter’s head snapped back, a gaping hole where one eye had been. As Adam slumped against the SUV, he saw Branch fire again, the shooter’s chest twitching as he fell backwards.

Adam dropped his rifle, right palm pressed against the hole in his shoulder. It pulsed with pain; blood seeped from between his fingers. Without glancing at him, Branch ran forward, firing at their prone attackers. Their bodies skittered with each bullet in an eerie death rattle. Only then did Branch turn to see Adam sliding down the side of the car, his white shirt soaked in carmine.

Adam was bleeding profusely. Hurriedly, Branch grabbed a medical kit from beneath the rear seat and wrapped a compress around his shoulder. ‘You saved my ass,’ he told Adam. ‘I’m getting you out of here.’

Slumped by the S.U.V., Adam leaned his shoulder against a tyre to help the compress stop the rush of blood. He could not argue. The mission was done; if the P.O.W. had ever been in the village, he would soon be gone. He felt the weight of their failure merge with shock and enervation. His wound was serious; unless he was tended to, the loss of blood and pressure would kill him. As to the men they had shot, he felt nothing except a vague relief that his training had not failed him.

Watching Branch throw the bodies and motorcycle into the ravine, he considered the logistics of their dilemma. ‘We can’t turn around here,’ he told Branch when the Seal had finished. ‘You drive forward until we find a place to turn. Then I’ll take over driving and you ride shotgun. Your aim will be better than mine.’

Branch glanced around them. ‘It’s a left-hand shift,’ he objected. ‘Your wound’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch.’

Adam’s shoulder felt as though it had been crushed by a sledgehammer. ‘It does now. I’ll go as far as I can.’

He stood, wrenching the passenger door open with his good arm. Branch gave the wiring a last tweak before getting behind the wheel. When he pushed the gas pedal, the S.U.V. started.

Branch expelled a breath. They inched forward for agonizing minutes, at last finding an indentation in the cliff side big enough for them to circle back toward Afghanistan. Both were silent, their failure confirmed, dangerous hours still ahead.

Branch stopped so they could trade seats, taking his A.K.-47. Throwing the car into drive, Adam felt a bolt of pain shoot from his shoulder to his fingertips.

‘What blew it?’ Branch wondered aloud.

Jaw clamped against the pain, Adam husbanded his speech. ‘Could be anything. But if our sources set us up, the Taliban would have watched to see where we went. The guys we killed were amateurs.’

Branch considered this. ‘Fucking shepherd,’ he said under his breath. ‘Didn’t help they sent us out in daylight.’

Adam said nothing. Edging along the ravine, he peered down into its depths. He already felt weakened by the strain of keeping the S.U.V. from plummeting over the side. Each jolt from the road caused a stabbing pain; the compress was soaked with blood. Adam wondered how long he could keep driving.

He stopped talking altogether. As the sheer, rugged terrain closed around them, he kept shifting with his damaged arm,
steering with the other. A feverish sweat dampened his forehead.

The S.U.V. reached the summit again, began creeping downward with Adam shifting and breaking. Still they saw no one. Perhaps an hour passed. Though his shoulder screamed in protest, Adam forced himself to keep driving. If they could make it to Camp Chapman, they would be safe. The idea of sanctuary began merging with an image of Carla Pacelli.

His shoulder started freezing up, drained of feeling – at once a mercy and a warning. He was still losing blood, and the harrowing descent through the stark mountains showed no sign of ending. ‘Shoulder’s done,’ he told Branch. ‘I’ll tell you when to shift.’

Adam gave an instruction. Rifle cradled in his left arm, Branch shifted with his right. This worked for perhaps a mile. ‘Enough,’ the Seal said. ‘My turn.’

Adam did not argue. He was too faint, and his arm felt dead, a limp appendage.

He braked again, stopping the car. Stepping out, he felt his legs buckle. Inhaling deeply, he sucked in the chill air of late afternoon, its bright blue sky slowly fading. He seemed to walk from muscle memory.

Branch began driving. Window cracked open for air, Adam kept looking to the front and back, A.K.-47 in his lap. Each turn of his head produced wrenching pain.

At last the road began flattening out. In what seemed like a mirage, Adam saw the village where the herd of goats had stopped them: their fatal moment, most likely. He tensed, finger on the trigger of his rifle. But they passed the mud wall without seeing anyone.

Taking out his cell phone, Branch called the number they were given for emergencies. When someone answered, he said, ‘We’ve had to abort mission. My partner’s hit. We need medical assistance at Chapman.’