The Shadow Patrol

something in Greek that translated into “He is risen,” meaning Christ but also Corlou’s brother, a Marine who had died in Iraq five years ago. Sergeant Taz jerked off in his bed even if the lights were on and everybody was still awake. But Taz was the best around when the bad guys came to play.

“Wanna work out?” Roman said to Young across the barracks. Young ignored him. Roman had been looking for excuses to stick close to Young since the memorial. He wasn’t even crafty about it.

Roman’s Roshan — his local cell phone — rang. He answered, listened. “Right. I got it.” His eyebrows puckered as he concentrated. “No, I got it.” He had to be getting orders from Rodriguez, Young figured. Nothing else would make him think so hard.

“Who was that?” Young said.

“Nobody. Sure you don’t wanna go lift? Or grab chow?”

Suddenly, Young got it. Rodriguez must have told Roman to keep a close eye on Young for the next few minutes. The handoff must be happening right now. Young turned off Terminator.

“Yeah, let’s work out. Lemme just drop one.”

“You sure?”

“Am I sure I have to take a dump?”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, you won’t.” Young walked out of the barracks. He was probably making a mistake. In a minute or two, Roman would come looking for him. But Young thought of those stupid pink letters Fowler’s mom sent every week. He kept walking.

He turned left, toward the Porta-Potties, and checked over his shoulder. Sure enough, Roman was peeking out the front of the barracks. Young kept going until Roman couldn’t see him and then cut through the shower trailers and followed a blast wall north. The base was so big and so chopped up with walls and barracks that there were a hundred different ways to move across it, and a thousand different places to hide stuff.

But Young guessed that the handoff was happening at the junk pile at the northeast corner of the base, the area everybody called Zombieland. He kept his head down, didn’t break stride when a couple guys grunted hellos at him. He reached the big road that ran past the brigade aid station, where docs worked on guys whose wounds didn’t rate evacuations to the hospital at Kandahar.

He crossed the road and circled north past a rubber reservoir that held millions of gallons of water for the base’s showers and toilets. The thing looked like an overgrown water bed, forty feet square and three feet thick. Finally he came to a two-room concrete shelter marked “Casualty Holding Point” in no-nonsense black letters. Young ducked into the shelter. It was empty and dark and had never been used. Fortunately, FOB Jackson had never faced a ground attack, only the occasional rocket. Young peeked through a firing hole. From here he could see along the flight line to the blast walls that marked the outer edge of Zombieland. Sure enough, Rodriguez leaned against the wall, alone, smoking. Watching to be sure nobody was headed his way.

Five minutes passed. Then Rodriguez whistled and two men walked out of Zombieland. The front man carried a big backpack. Young didn’t recognize him. He was a couple hundred feet off, too far for Young to see his face clearly. He was tall and wore a uniform and had a black beard and non-reg boots. He had to be a Special Forces operator, maybe even a Delta. Nobody else could get away with the boots, much less the beard. And nobody else had the walk, the loose don’t-mess-with-me strut.

Tyler Weston followed. Young’s lieutenant. His platoon commander. Young had always suspected Weston of Fowler’s murder. He’d hoped he was wrong, but the truth was obvious. Weston ran the platoon. Of course he’d known about the deal. He’d probably been the one who’d actually pulled the trigger and killed Fowler.

The SF guy and Weston walked his way, Rodriguez following like a guard dog. Man, oh, man. Young leaned back, away from the firing hole. The shelter was unlit. Young didn’t think they could see him unless they stopped and looked directly inside. He hoped they’d get close enough for him to see the SF guy’s face clearly. But about a hundred feet from the shelter, the SF guy jumped into a pickup truck parked on the side of the road. The pickup rolled off. Weston and Rodriguez kept walking, past him, past the shelter. Young waited until he was sure they were gone and headed over to the DFAC for chow. Roman found him a few minutes later.

“Thought we were gonna work out.”

“I changed my mind. Got hungry.”

“You should have told me.”

Young ignored him, went back to his barbecued chicken. That night, he poked around Zombieland, looking for places Rodriguez and Weston might have hidden the stash. But nothing stood out in the piles of broken metal and plastic parts. Anyway, Young figured they’d given the stuff to the SF guy.

He wanted to push on Roman. Roman was the weak link. Roman had started talking about how he was buying himself a farm when he got home. Finally, Sergeant Taz asked him how the heck he was going to buy a farm when he had two kids by different moms and he’d been so broke he filed Chapter 11 three months before they deployed. Roman mumbled something about how he’d been saving his money. The next morning, Roman and Rodriguez went for a walk and after that Roman didn’t talk about buying a farm anymore.

Young figured that he’d wait until they were a couple days from going home and then try to bluff Roman into giving up the truth. It wasn’t a great plan, but he didn’t have anything better. And at least he wouldn’t be giving Weston and Rodriguez much chance to come back at him.

A WEEK LATER, Young was headed to the gym when he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Sergeant Young.” He turned to see Rodriguez.

“First Sergeant Rodriguez.”

“How you been, Coleman? Good workout?” Rodriguez clapped a hand around the meat of Young’s biceps and squeezed. “Damn, Sergeant. You got some guns on you.”

“You like that, Rodriguez? Didn’t think you went that way.”

“Take a walk with me, Coleman.”

Young followed Rodriguez to the big lot where Strykers that needed minor repairs were kept. The mechanics weren’t up yet. No one was within a hundred yards.

Rodriguez was short and broad shouldered and cocky. He stood close to Young, making sure Young could feel him. Trying to back Young up. Typical Mexican crap, Young thought. He’d dealt with plenty of them in south Dallas. Dealing with them didn’t mean he liked them.

“What’s up, First Sergeant?”

“Wanted to be sure you were okay, Coleman. I know you and Ricky were good friends.”

“Yeah? You seen us holding hands, First Sergeant?” Young knew he should keep his mouth shut. But Rodriguez had been under his skin even before Ricky got juiced.

“You saying you weren’t friends.”

“Friends, sure.”

“So it’s only natural to be depressed.”

“Let me ask you something, First Sergeant.” Rodriguez liked to be in charge. Giving it back was the way to play him. Young wondered whether he should speak up about the SF guy he’d seen, decided to keep that bit to himself for now. “It strike you as odd, what happened to Ricky?”

“Odd like how?”

“Like once he got hit, the enemy disengaged right away. Almost like he was the only target.”

“I think the shooter figured he got lucky, decided not to push. Dropped his gun and ran, knowing we couldn’t touch him.”

You and Weston would tell CID that exact story if I went to them, Young thought. All I got on my side is the word of a dead man.

“The lieutenant and I are worried about you. We feel you’ve withdrawn from the rest of the platoon.” Rodriguez put a hand on Young’s shoulder. Young brushed it off.

“I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself.”

“That’s your choice.”

“I think it’s safer for everyone.”

“Could be. Anyway, the lieutenant and I, we were thinking if you wanted to get out of here, chill at KAF for a couple weeks, get your head on straight, we’d get that. Maybe even finish out the tour over there. You know we got