The Shadow Patrol

“Sure,” Wells said.

“Anyway, the DEA guys were in a village — and before you ask, Yancy didn’t say which one, told me he couldn’t — and this farmer takes them aside and says to them, ‘Why should I work with you when the CIA is buying opium?’ The DEA guys say, ‘No, that can’t be right.’ But he insists. Tells them that he knows that the CIA is working with the Talibs. But no specifics.”

“How would it work?” Wells said. “A CO goes outside the wire, comes back with a suitcase of junk? How does he make sure he doesn’t get blown to bits or kidnapped? And what does he do with the stuff then? Put it out at the Christmas party?”

“Yancy said his agents felt this farmer was credible. He talked to them alone, didn’t want anyone to hear.”

“Let me walk through this,” Shafer said. “A farmer in Kandahar whose name we don’t know told a DEA agent whose name we don’t know about a dirty CIA officer whose name we don’t know. Now you’re telling us. That’s a lot of telephone, don’t you think?”

Duto turned to Wells. “He’s right. It’s all smoke. Only we’re having an awful lot of trouble over there.”

“It’s Afghanistan, Vinny. And they’re rebuilding the station on the fly. In the middle of a war.”

“I’m going over in a month,” Duto said. “With Travers and McTeague. They’ve been asking me to go and I’ve been putting them off, but finally I had to say yes. So it’s set and I can’t change it, not without a really good excuse. I would like to introduce them to the fine men and women of Kabul station without wondering whether one of the people they’re meeting is working for the other side.”

“No wonder you’re taking time from your busy Saturday to beg John for help,” Shafer said.

“It would be a disaster. And not just for me. All I’m asking, you go over, see what you find.” Duto squeezed Wells’s shoulder. Another new move. His handlers must have told him that real politicians weren’t afraid to touch. Though Duto still needed to work on his technique. His grip was too strong. Like he was trying to tear Wells’s arm off. “Sniff it out. You don’t come up with anything, fine. Still be a good trip. The speeches you give to the Joes, those guys will be happy to see you.”

Wells removed Duto’s hand from his shoulder. Wells knew that, as director, Duto had broken more than a few laws. Yet for that very reason, Wells trusted Duto’s instinct about Kabul. Set a thief to catch a thief…. If Duto thought the station had been corrupted, he was probably right. Why he’d chosen to involve Wells was a question Wells would consider later.

“A poorly defined counterintelligence mission without official authority? Based on rumors from an anonymous Afghan farmer? Where do I sign?”

“Thank you, John.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Inshallah”—God willing—“I won’t find anything.”

5

FORWARD OPERATING BASE JACKSON

The folding chairs were cheap and gray and lined up in tight rows. Before them, a framed photo of Ricky Fowler sat on a homemade plywood table. The picture had been taken at the beginning of the tour. Wearing his uniform, his floppy camouflage hat low on his head, Fowler smiled shyly. He seemed almost hopeful.

Wartime memorial ceremonies at combat bases followed a rigid formula. The dead couldn’t just be forgotten. Their buddies needed to say good-bye. But the ceremonies couldn’t be too long or mawkish. At home, the death of a healthy twenty-something was rare, an occasion for waterfalls of grief. In Afghanistan, healthy twenty- somethings died all the time. Fowler’s family and friends in Texas would have time to mourn. His platoon mates could not afford the luxuries of grief and depression. Not when they would be back outside the wire in a day or two.

So the Army focused funeral ceremonies on the fact that the fallen had died as soldiers. Fowler’s empty combat boots stood beside his photo. His rifle was placed behind the boots, muzzle down and stock up. His helmet and dog tags topped the rifle. The combination of boots, rifle, and helmet symbolized his corpse, which had already been sent back to the United States. They were as important as his body. They were the reason he’d died.

The chairs were set up in a quiet corner of the base, behind the brigade aid station. But life at FOB Jackson didn’t stop for a funeral. Behind a blast wall a hundred yards away, Stryker engines roared to life as another platoon got ready to go outside the wire. A pair of Kiowa helicopters circled low, their turbines thrumming. Meanwhile the soldiers of 3rd Platoon bowed their heads and sang the national anthem. Then Lieutenant Weston stepped behind the plywood podium and unfolded two sheets of paper.

“Private First Class Richard Edward Fowler. Ricky Fowler. All of you knew him. In a unit this size, after this many months together, we all know each other. He was a good kid. A good man. If it was hot, he’d share his CamelBak. For some reason he liked the Dallas Cowboys and I could never convince him he was a darn fool for that. He loved his mom and dad and he wasn’t afraid to tell them so. Every night you could find him at the MWR talking to them. I know we gave him grief for that, but it was the right thing to do. Day after he got killed, I called my folks and told them I loved them. I hadn’t said that to them for a long time. Too long. And I was thinking about Ricky when I did it.

“I’m not going to lie to you. We all know that Ricky wasn’t necessarily our top soldier. But the truth is that he improved a lot over the tour. Every day, he made himself stronger. A few weeks ago, I asked him to stand point on a motorcycle registration. You all know that’s a crummy job. Hot and dangerous and you’ve got to deal with a lot of hajjis pretending they don’t understand when they know exactly what you want. But someone has to do it. I think a few months ago, Ricky would have bitched about it. But I saw the soldier in him take over and he said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and he went right up there for four hours and got it done, registered, like, fifty motorcycles. I was proud of him then for being a man, proud of the Army for making him one.

“In the movies, these stories have happy endings. This war is tough but we get through, and when we’re home, our families and wives and girlfriends put their arms around us. But Fowler didn’t get the happy ending. His trip ended too soon. We have three months left on this tour. We owe him the honor of keeping up the fight. Taking it to the guys who did this to him.”

Weston folded up his papers. It was a good speech, he thought. Better than Ricky Fowler deserved. The platoon’s soldiers looked up silently. Captain Mark Field, a logistics officer who served as the battalion’s chaplain, stepped forward to read a benediction and the Lord’s Prayer. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”

Then Sergeant Rodriguez stood for the final act, roll call. One by one he read the names of the platoon’s soldiers. “Private Acosta—”

“Present.” Acosta stood.

“Specialist Alexander—”

“Present.”

Until Rodriguez reached Fowler’s name. “Private Fowler.” Silence. “Private Fowler.” Silence.

“Priv-ate Fow-ler!” Angry this time, almost desperate. Rodriguez let the silence hang, giving Fowler one last chance to return to his buddies. And when the truth of his absence could no longer be ignored—

“Sergeant Gentry—”

“Present.”

The man, gone. The platoon, alive.

When Rodriguez finished calling roll, Weston connected his iPod to speakers beside the podium and played the long, mournful notes of Taps. The soldiers of 3rd Platoon shuffled their feet and stared at the boots and rifle and helmet and waited. Finally the song ended and the men drifted away in ones and twos, murmuring to one another.

Weston turned to Rodriguez. “Thank you for that roll call, Sergeant. Well done.”

“Your speech, too, sir.”

“I’d like to speak to you in private.”