Knife (9780698185623) (2 page)

Then she died on a Saturday night in July and he got piss drunk with Hagan and Massey. He got the date of her death tattooed on the wrist covered by his watch before the hangover had time to sprout. Massey tucked him in that night, wrapped a blanket in the caves of Shaw's big body, and set a trash can by his face. When Shaw woke, the first thing he saw was Massey sitting on the floor against the wall.

“You okay?”

“No. I'm not.”

Then Shaw looked at the fresh tattoo on his wrist. The ink shiny and black, the skin red and raw. He smiled. Then he cried. Then he threw up.

He needed her. He didn't know it at the time, but whenever he visited her back home in Minnesota her smile absolved him of every mistake he knew he had made or ever would. She was his mother, his grandmother, and as he was a godless man, his single savior and saint. His kills weren't murders or ending the lives of others. They were protecting the country like his grandpa had, keeping his sweet grandma from getting blown up on the bus on her way to the market. She was his anchor to the civilian world. To peace. She was the only person he was close to outside the squadron—the boys from high school and college didn't understand him anymore—and after everything he'd seen and done, that didn't seem likely to change. When he saw her he saw approval, redemption. He was her Little Dutch, no matter how big he got or how many years passed. When she saw him she still saw the little boy with grass stains on his knees and truth in his heart. And he would be okay with that if he knew. But he didn't and never would.

After her death he replaced her as beneficiary with a Labrador retriever shelter back home. He loved dogs and had a yellow one named Patch growing up. Patch had a white tuft of skin scarred under his left eye that he got dogfighting before Shaw's grandparents adopted him when Shaw was five or six. He was a good dog, loyal and smart, with the right mix of goof. Patch used to steal Shaw's grandpa's hairpiece while he napped on the couch and then leave it on his slippers for him to find when he woke. Patch lay under the casket for hours after the cancer beat Grandpa—it had taken him like a bullet, unexpected and quick. Grandma ran her hands through his fur on their deck in the summertime, and Shaw and Patch would both fall asleep in her lap. A boy and his dog. So the Labrador rescue would get all his money when he died. He requested cremation over burial, and that made figuring out the contents of a casket pretty easy.

When Shaw finished looking over his will, Hagan was still gesturing with his air breasts. He was closing his eyes, rubbing and slapping the breasts around. Really getting graphic and into it. Dalonna just stared at him. Shaw laughed.

The team. The squadron. The only family left.

A Briefing Officer came into the pits carrying a megaphone and shouted, “Briefing room in twenty, buses in ninety,” and a couple guys booed him and he gave them the finger and walked out. Hagan let go of the breasts and smiled at Shaw, raised his eyebrows.

“Love me some Afghanipakiraqistan.”

Shaw nodded and took his kit out of his locker.

•   •   •

F
itted flush and tight against chest and back, the kit was an operator's life source. Everything on it had a purpose, and operators could access anything they needed blinded or in total darkness. They were consistent, yet unique. Each man had his tailored to his person and no two were alike. Shaw ran his hands over the dusty straps, fabric, and worn patches. He could smell on his fingertips the earth of a dozen countries and the smoke from countless firefights.

He shot righty, so he kept three mag pouches next to one another, starting to the left of his belly button and continuing to the right for quick changes. His bleeder kit was on his rear left side so if he had to harness his rifle and use his pistol, knife, or hands, he wouldn't have to worry about it catching on the bleeder and getting all snagged up. Snags lose time. Lose time, lose lives. Bleeder kits were for the wearer and no one else. Nothing selfish about it, just business. If a guy got hit, whoever came to his aid would be able to locate the wounded man's bleeder and not have to use his own to patch, clog, or wrap him back up. If a responder used his own to help a buddy and then got shot himself, the next person on the scene would lose time trying to find stuff to clog him up with. Again—lose time, lose lives. Shaw made sure his bleeder was packed tight with anything and everything getting shot or blown apart might necessitate. He packed reams of gauze, stacks of wrap bandages and cotton compresses, a few tourniquets, scissors, tape, and a hollow metal cylinder with plastic wrap for sucking chest wounds. He kept a pack of Skittles or two in there as well, plus a few tampons to plug bullet holes the size of a fingertip. Above the mag pouches he had a pouch for signal tape and others for frags and bangers. Flex-cuffs and ChemLights bridged the space between his radio and bleeder, and the rear of his kit had a water reservoir and eight other pouches for bangers, frags, and other things that smoke, bang, or flash. Front and back ballistic plates weighed about seven pounds each and three-pound plates the size of index cards protected his vitals from the side. All loaded up for a house call, the men's kits weighed anywhere from twenty to forty pounds. Shaw carried 5.56 in mags, not drums, so his kit weighed in at twenty-seven pounds all topped off. Carrying rucks on longer missions or in remote areas and they're humping another thirty to one hundred pounds. The teams slept and ran in their kits, climbed ropes, shot thousands of rounds, ate, and shat in their kits. They didn't fuck in their kits, but Shaw wouldn't have been surprised if some guys had tried. Hagan was a likely suspect.

Everything was in its place, so he strapped the kit to his ruck and laid it outside his locker.

•   •   •

T
he men grabbed seats in the briefing room wherever they could. In chairs. On or under tabletops. Sprawled out on the floor. Elements of two squadrons were relieving the one that had just lost nearly half its strength after the Chinook and Black Hawk went down. Multiple terrorist cells had claimed the kills and the government was still investigating. The party that fired the RPGs wouldn't take credit for it, though. Their founder forbade it.

The BO stood at the front of the room. He opened the file folder he held in his hands and started reading. “Those of you with families won't head home to them tonight,” he said. “Those with hot dates should consider them iced, and if you were trying to get out of one, you've got an excuse.”

Most of the family men's hands found their pockets and their fingers started fluttering. The unmarried and childless laughed. The BO spoke slow and calm, a smile curling on the edges of his lips. He looked pleased with himself and continued the speech, telling the men they would be relief for the sister squadron that had lost the fourteen men. Instead of visiting the familiar pussy they were used to, they'd hop on a plane for twenty-three hours and land in the country that'd been on the news lately for its recent surge in suicide bombings, executions, and kidnappings. He told them Intel had noticed a splintering of leadership among multiple terrorist cells and organizations. High-value targets from al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, the Taliban, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were leaving their organizations and joining under a new veil called al-Ayeelaa: the Family. Al-Ayeelaa primarily stressed bombings and avoided gunfights with coalition forces, and as a result, they were staying alive longer and causing problems. They also avoided the limelight, never putting out videos or accepting interviews. No one knew who led the cell or the full structure of the network. Intel barely knew any of the major players.

“So we're going to find them and hunt them down,” the BO said. He took a deep breath and paused. “If anything can roll down the damn street they'll put a bomb in it. Even if it doesn't have an engine, they'll blow it. Bikes, donkeys, dogs, fruit stands. Fuck it, they'll blow it.”

He closed the file and looked around the room for a while, tapping his palm with the folder. “Bad fuckers, men.” He let the room get quiet and then he pointed the folder at them. “Well, now they're fucked.”

Shaw shook his head and the room laughed. The BO tried not to smile and walked out. He was slight and clean-shaven, with brown hair cropped close at his ears, temples, and neck. He walked without moving his head or neck much, a desk jockey with his time on the ground so far behind him he probably couldn't remember what dirt on his boots felt like.

Hagan leaned in to Shaw.

“When's he moving to the Pentagon?”

“You don't move there, Hog. You get assigned. And I don't know.”

“He spoke well.”

“Yeah.”

“You think he practiced that speech?”

“Without a doubt.”

“You think he's jealous of us?” Hagan asked.

“Jealous how?”

“I don't know. Not kicking in doors anymore, sitting behind a computer all day.”

Shaw looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “You jealous of his job?”

“Hell no. Maybe. Yes. Kind of. I don't know. Dude drives a Lexus. He has a hot wife and doesn't have to worry about Hajji throwing a barrel in his nuts and shooting his guts out. That's not too bad.”

“Then yeah,” Shaw said, and laughed. “I'd guess it's probably mutual. He probably misses kicking in doors because he never will again and you think sitting behind a computer would be nice because we'll never do it. He's got his hot wife waiting for him at home and not just the Glock and bottle of Jack that's waiting for us.”

“Damn, that's depressing.” Hagan narrowed his eyes and bit at his fingernails and then turned up his palm. “And I don't have a Glock.”

“No, you don't. But you can use mine,” Shaw said.

“Thanks. And I'm gonna have a hot wife. No doubt.”

“Of course,” Shaw said, and the room cleared out.

•   •   •

T
he teams had an hour to get all their gear together and onto the wooden pallets assembled on the hot concrete outside the pit. Rucks, hop bags, and TVs all went in. Shaw saw a couple footballs and a recliner, too. The Commanding Officer of one of the squadrons that didn't get spun up was sitting in the recliner on top of one of the pallets. He was in his underwear, drinking a bottle of whiskey, and the top of his balding head was getting sunburned. His blond chest hairs gleamed in the light. He was whispering
Fuck you
to everyone as they put their bags in the pallets. It took only a few minutes to pack the pallets, so Shaw dropped his stuff in, received his
Fuck you
, and winked back at the CO and headed into the pit.

Back inside, some of the younger guys were beating their chests, grabbing ass, and mouthing off, but it seemed forced. Most guys just sat together in circles quietly and didn't say a whole lot while Walker, Beam, and Daniel's made their way around in handles and fifths. They had at least twenty hours of flying ahead of them, so most guys took advantage of getting their last drink in for the next couple months. Once they got in-country they couldn't even smell it. They were on a twenty-four-hour mission clock. When Shaw got back to his bay, Hagan was sitting on his footstool with his eyes wide. A bottle without a label sat at his feet. It looked like half piss and half moonshine. Copenhagen was swirling around and settling at the bottom.

“Did you see Thomkins?” Hagan asked.

Shaw nodded and shook his head.

“He was drunker than shit,” Hagan said. “Than. Shit.”

“Yeah. Good thing he missed church.”

“Did he tell you to fuck off?”

“No,” Shaw said. “He said ‘Fuck you'
to me. But the sentiment was probably the same.”

Hagan laughed. “How old is he, like fifty or sixty?”

“I don't know, Hog. Probably not any older than forty.”

“He looks old. Too old to be all pissy in his boxers because he didn't get spun up. Doesn't he have kids?”

“Yep. A wife, too.”

Hagan shook his head. “Man, what a goof.” He looked at his feet and rubbed his boots together. “I think I saw one of his nuts.”

“Bummer, Hog. Sorry about that.”

Then Dalonna came into the bay, grabbed something from his locker real quick, and left. “Shitters,” he mumbled.

Hagan watched him leave.

“That sucks.”

“What does?” Shaw said.

Hagan rubbed the back of his neck. “Donna was talking about taking the girls to some lake up in the mountains this weekend. He wanted to teach them how to swim. He's gonna be pissed. The girls probably don't understand it yet, though, huh? They're what, two and three?”

“Just about three and not yet two,” Shaw said. “And no, they probably don't understand it. Not yet.”

Hagan nodded and started chewing at some calluses on his trigger finger, and neither one of them said much for a while. “Did he have his phone?”

“Yeah, I saw him grab it,” Shaw said.

“Tough, man.”

Most of the men had codes set up with their families. They'd run into the bathroom stalls and call with a code word or send a text that let the wife and kids know Daddy wouldn't be home for a while. Rumor had it that the bathroom stalls deflected some of the bugging devices, so all the married guys and family men coincidentally headed for the shitters right after the briefs. It seemed like every time a squadron got spun up early a minivan would come through the gate, tires screeching toward the pit, and a wife or soon-to-be would jump out of the car, hair a mess and wearing workout clothes under a sloppily buttoned sundress. They'd hug and kiss their men, restrained for the most part—sometimes a guy would get some tongue or a slap—and the rest of the squadron would give them their moment and then joke about it later on the bus. Kids coming along was different, though. Usually they didn't know exactly what was going on, the younger ones especially, but they fed off the mood and it messed guys up, family men or not. Pissed-off teens were old enough and knew what was happening, so they would stand by their mothers with hard faces, but the tears still came. No one had gotten kicked out of the unit for breaching classified material in years, so the codes or deflecting walls must've worked.