Francesca felt that high-pitched laugh rising in his throat and stifled it. When had he started thinking about shooting his fellow soldiers? “I guess it is,” he said aloud.
“What?”
“Enough. Three tours.”
“I’m starting to think it’s too much.”
Francesca laughed, for real this time.
BACK AT THE PICKUP, Alders slid under the back bumper, opened the hidden compartment, came out with the dope and a thick plastic bag that held their uniforms and toiletries. “Showers?”
“I don’t know,” Francesca said. “I think I smell pretty good.”
“You smell like a wild animal.”
Francesca had gotten into the habit of taking the hottest showers he could. Today, he turned the handle left until the water scalded his skin. He closed his eyes and smiled. Two minutes later, he stepped out, feeling almost human.
He brushed his teeth and ran his hands through his black hair and looked himself over in the mirror. He was an okay-looking guy. His nose was a little bit of a bulb and his ears stuck out. Growing up in Orlando, fifteen minutes from Disney World, he’d inevitably been nicknamed “Mickey” in elementary school. He pulled on his camouflage, laced his boots. The pants and blouse looked clean and crisp. And even if they hadn’t… the tag on his left arm was all he needed:
He packed the bricks of heroin into his pack and headed over to the airfield, a giant gravel square where the helicopters landed. Moqor was the next big base past FOB Jackson, more or less halfway between Kandahar and Kabul. But only a few helicopters were permanently stationed there. The Chinooks and other big passenger birds were mostly based at Bagram and Kandahar.
Francesca stepped into the oversize wooden shack that housed the soldiers who ran the airfield. Inside, hundreds of heavily thumbed paperbacks testified to the countless hours of waiting for flights. When the wind and dust kicked up, helo rides got canceled.
“Got anything heading east today?” he said to the private behind the counter. The kid was so young he still had teenage acne, the pimply, oily kind.
“There’s a Presidential”—a contractor helicopter—“to Kabul at seventeen hundred. Also the Canadians are running a Chinook to Kabul and then Bagram at 2030. Guessing you don’t have an AMR.” The letters stood for “air mobility request.” Having one meant a confirmed seat.
“You are correct. Flying Space-A.” Space-A meant “space available,” the military equivalent of standby. Flying Space-A sometimes meant waiting for days. But Francesca much preferred it, because it left no record. Space-A requests were logged by hand on a paper chart. Once a flight landed safely, the records were tossed. He had flown all over Afghanistan on a Space-A basis and left no trail. Which made him feel more confident about the thirty-plus pounds of heroin in his pack.
“They’re stuffed,” the private said. “Chinook looks a little better.”
“I can wait for the Chinook. Long as I get out tonight.”
“I’ll jump you to the top of the list. But I still can’t guarantee it.”
Francesca put his elbows on the counter and leaned forward. “Can I trust you?” The kid’s breath was terrible. “I don’t want to say too much, but I have got to get to Bagram tonight. I got something in RC-East and it can’t wait. Way east. You see what I’m saying.” Francesca knew he was laying it on thick, implying he had a mission in Pakistan. He also knew he looked seriously high-speed with his beard and tags. He thought the private, who probably had never gotten outside the wire, would bite.
The private’s eyes widened. He nodded once and backed away like a kid who’d walked in on his parents going at it. And Francesca got on the 2030, the last man on, when a half dozen guys got dumped. As he walked toward the Chinook, ducking the gravel caught in the backwash from its double rotors, Francesca smirked to himself. Too easy. He pressed his way into the Chinook, took the last seat on the bench, tucked his million-dollar bag between his legs. Better make sure it didn’t slide out the back.
The engines whined and the chopper’s front end rose and then its rear end lurched up into the night. The Chinooks were so big that sometimes they gave the illusion that they were moving in pieces, like accordion buses, instead of all at once. Francesca couldn’t see much, but he didn’t need to. He’d killed people all over this damn country.
He untied his boots and put in his earplugs and closed his eyes and let the Chinook’s vibrations put him to sleep. Strange but true, these rides were the only place he truly relaxed anymore.
In Kabul, only a couple guys got off, so the copter stayed stuffed. Fifteen minutes later, the Chinook touched down at Zebra Ramp in Bagram. Francesca’s job was almost finished. Though this last bit was the trickiest.
THE CHINOOK HAD LANDED north of the airport runway. The passenger and cargo jet terminals were on the south side. The runway was supposed to be impassible. Anyone connecting from a helicopter to a jet was supposed to leave the tarmac and reenter through the passenger terminal.
But Francesca didn’t have that option. Bags at Bagram were examined before they were allowed on the tarmac. The screeners were mainly looking for explosives, but the plastic-wrapped bundles of heroin in his pack bore an uncanny resemblance to bricks of C-4. Francesca couldn’t put the bag through an X-ray machine. Fortunately, he was on the tarmac already. He just needed to cross the runway to get to the passenger side.
Francesca stepped out of the helicopter, looked around. Unlike civilian airports, Bagram never slept. Planes took off and landed twenty-four hours a day. Even now, close to midnight, the air was thick with jet fuel. As he watched, an F-18 pulled off the runway almost vertically and disappeared into the night. A minute later, a Reaper drone took its place on the runway, slowly gaining speed, finally rising from the earth. Compared to the F-18, the Reaper looked like a hobbyist’s creation, spindly wings and a long, narrow nose. Yet the Reaper was a far cheaper and more effective weapon.
Around Francesca, the Chinook emptied like a clown car, passengers pouring out the back, glad to leave the noisy bird behind. They grabbed their bags and made their way toward the gate that separated the helicopter landing area from the rest of the base. Francesca lit up a cigarette, an excuse to wait on the tarmac.
“You need a ride somewhere?” a white-haired guy in a General Dynamics jacket said.
“Thanks. I’m good.” Francesca smoked until he was the last guy by the bird. When the cigarette was finished, he edged toward the gate. After a few steps, he bent over and tied his boots. The pilots were finishing their final postlanding checks. All the passengers were close to the gate. No one was within a hundred feet of him. No one was looking at him. Chinooks weren’t exactly loaded with classified technology. They’d been around forty years. And nobody cared too much where passengers went after a helicopter touched down.
Francesca turned, walked purposefully away from the gate. Sure, somebody could have run back to ask him whether he was lost. But folks had rides waiting and didn’t want to be late. The Special Forces tags helped. He ducked behind a hangar and waited. A few minutes later, he heard the pilots joking with each other as they left. He waited fifteen minutes more. Now he was alone for sure.
He headed for the gate, which had been closed and locked. An all-terrain vehicle was parked beside it. The mechanics rode them around the airfield. A lucky break. Even better, the key was in the ignition. Francesca rolled east along the outer taxiway, leaving the Chinook behind. He passed an enormous hangar filled with fighter jets. Mechanics stood by an A-10 Warthog, the ugliest and arguably most useful plane the Air Force had. The Warthogs flew low and slow and fired rounds the size of Coke cans. They could slice through tank armor or reduce a house to rubble. The mechanics looked over as if wondering who he was. He nodded, didn’t say anything, kept driving.
Finally, Francesca reached the northeastern edge of the runway, where dozens of old Russian Mi-8 helicopters slept in a fenced-off pen, as if to prevent them from contaminating American choppers and jets. Contractors flew the Mi-8s, which were rickety and slow but famously indestructible. The finicky turbines that powered American helicopters needed clean fuel or they seized up in midair. Mi-8s ran on practically anything.
At the edge of the tarmac, Francesca turned south and steered the ATV to the end of the runway. “No
