The Shadow Patrol

SOLDIERS CALLED the northeast corner of the base Zombieland. Here, maintenance units dumped vehicles that couldn’t be salvaged and garbage too toxic to burn. A blown-out Stryker and three Humvees sat together, their wheels missing. The vehicles were less than two years old, but already they looked prehistoric, their paint flecking off, bits of rust creeping in.

Weston peeked inside the trucks, making sure they were alone. Most soldiers considered Zombieland bad luck and avoided it, but some guys came here to smoke hash. “You know, a couple years, we’re gone, these’ll still be here,” Weston said. “Hajj kids playing jungle gym on them. We should get rid of ’em. They’re bad for morale.”

“You know what’s bad for morale, Lieutenant?”

“What’s that, First Sergeant?”

“Shooting your own fucking men.”

“You see an alternative? Or did you want him to come back here and narc?”

“I would have handled it.”

“How? Told him that buying smack by the kilo was the new COIN program? How did this even happen, Rodriguez? That pickup should take five minutes. Even if you’re testing the stuff. You guys get a circle jerk going?”

“All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he got some balls, decided to snoop. Improving as a soldier, Lieutenant? I had to bite my lip so I didn’t laugh when you said that. As a soldier, he sucked. Truth is the unit’s safer without him. Puta.”

“Rodriguez—”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Enough, Sergeant.”

“Don’t make like you care about him any more than I do, Lieutenant. You’re even colder than me, only you’re better at hiding it.”

“It’s not about whether I feel sorry for him, Sergeant. It’s a problem. Don’t you get it? A KIA means my after-action report gets read all the way up to brigade. Losing a man on a routine patrol looks bad. Worst case, somebody decides the whole thing sounds weird, sends a couple guys to ask the squad what really happened. Maybe even goes over to the village, starts trying to figure out how a shooter just vanished into thin air. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible. You want that?”

“I’m not the one who shot him, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks for that insight. Long as nobody talks, we should be fine. I used an AK, so even if there’s an autopsy nothing’s going to show up.”

“Nobody’s going to talk. Not when we’re out there every day.”

“All right then.” Truth was that neither Fowler’s family nor anyone else had any reason to suspect what had happened. Guys died over here every day. A standard two-paragraph press release marked their deaths.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Pfc. Richard Edward Fowler, 20, of Midland, Tex., died in Zabul province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Regiment, 7th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Ft. Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Wash.

Fowler’s hometown newspaper back in Texas would add a few paragraphs, throw in quotes from Fowler’s parents, maybe a buddy or two. Not a girlfriend. Fowler didn’t have one. The guy might even have died without breaking his cherry. Too bad for him. His friends would update his Facebook page for a few weeks. Then Ricky Fowler would be forgotten. One day his name would wind up on a memorial somewhere.

“You’re right,” Weston said. “Fowler shouldn’t be a problem. You sure nobody’s going to talk.”

“Coleman’s the only one who might, and I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Good. What about the stuff?”

“I’m no chemist, but it looks good. When’s your high-speed buddy coming?”

Weston shrugged.

“Sooner we get rid of it, the better.”

“Agreed.”

“Kinda weird, isn’t it, Lieutenant?”

“What?”

“We’re partners now. Blood brothers. White boy from Florida and a gangbanger from Chula Vista. Might as well get each other’s names tattooed on our asses, because there’s no going back.”

Rodriguez was right, Weston realized. Together they’d committed crimes that could land them in jail for life. Whether they liked each other was irrelevant. “You sorry we did this, Rodriguez? Got involved in this shit?”

Rodriguez shook his head.

“Not even after this, you know, hiccup?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither.”

COLEMAN YOUNG SAT on his bunk in the back left corner of 1st Squad’s hutch. He put in his earbuds and turned up his music. Didn’t help much, but at least it gave him a chance to think. The bunk above him, Fowler’s bunk, was empty now. His stuff had been inventoried and bundled into a green footlocker. Soon enough, Weston would come by with Fowler’s helmet and tags and boots. He’d wrap them up, put them in the footlocker. They’d ship it back to Texas, and Fowler would be gone for good.

Young opened the footlocker. Fowler didn’t have much in the way of personal effects: The Stand by Stephen King, DVDs of The Office, a cheap laptop, last year’s Cowboys cheerleaders calendar. And a packet of letters from his folks. Fowler had saved them neatly in a Ziploc bag. He’d been a mama’s boy, no doubt. The letters were written in a cheery red scrawl on sheets of pink paper. Fowler had told Young that his mom was a teacher. For sure she had teacher’s handwriting, that I believe in you, you can do better if you just apply yourself handwriting. Must have been fifty letters. Young didn’t think anybody could have that much to write about, much less Ricky Fowler’s moms from Nowhere, Texas, but the letters kept on coming. One had come yesterday. Posted weeks ago. Posted before Fowler died.

Before Fowler got murdered.

Maybe Fowler hadn’t been cut out for soldiering, but he’d been a decent enough guy. The whole thing put a knot in Young’s stomach. He didn’t believe for a second that Fowler’s death was a coincidence. He’d wondered for a while whether Rodriguez was buying drugs. But he’d figured on a few ounces of hash. What Fowler had said was kilos of heroin. Industrial-strength. Young was from Oak Cliff, a tough part of southwestern Dallas. He knew guys who dealt. But nothing like this. You had to be seriously connected even to think about that kind of weight. Otherwise the dudes on the other end took it from you and put a bullet in you so you didn’t come back on them.

Young was sure that Rodriguez wasn’t keeping the stuff at FOB Jackson for long. Too risky. Some of the minesweeping dogs around here had been drug sniffers back home before they got retrained. What was he doing with it? Had to be a bigger gang involved. Or maybe helo pilots. They could go from base to base easy enough.

Young wished he could bust Rodriguez, and whoever was working with him. But Young had nothing but smoke for evidence, and not the good kind. Sure, he could protect himself better than Fowler. But outside the wire, anything could happen. He didn’t know whether he could afford to have Rodriguez on his back.

He looked once more through the footlocker, Ricky Fowler’s sad legacy, and snapped its top closed. Coward, he whispered to himself. Maybe he was. But unless he could be sure that an investigation wouldn’t come back to bite him, he was keeping his mouth shut as tight as that locker.

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