sleep.
The tent's entrance flap was lifted back. The wind came in behind her. The sand spewed round her, spraying on to his legs and body, and over his face.
She dropped the flap.
She sat on the bed. Her hips, in the tight short trousers, were against his knees. He could have covered himself, could have reached for the boxers or his singlet, but he did not. Too tired, too dead, too cheated to care. The bed bent under her weight.
'That's a fine sight,' Lizzy-Jo said, and winked. 'Might frighten a girl in the Carolinas – but not a New Yorker.'
She had not buttoned up her blouse. Her hand rested on the hairs of his chest.
'Did you sleep?'
'No. Tried to, didn't.'
'You want the news?'
Her fingers pulled at the hairs, teased them.
'What's the news?'
'You look like you need a lift-up…'
For months, Marty had worked with Lizzy-Jo, had shared a workbench with her. She'd been good, he was raw. The guys said, at Bagram, that she was assigned to mind him. Half the pilots at Bagram would have given a month's pay to work alongside Lizzy-Jo. He'd wondered often enough whether she'd complained about being put with him because he was new and given the dirty work, hadn't been an Air Force flier, had acne and fat-lensed glasses. He didn't know her – knew about Rick, who sold insurance, and about Clara, who was watched over by Rick's parents during the working day, knew about a marriage that had died, knew about her dedication… and nothing of her.
' Langley says that flight out of Shaybah was of the highest quality technical achievement, that it was pressed home in the most adverse conditions, that the video record of the flight and the missile firing will be used for training programmes in the future. It's what Langley said.'
He felt the blood pound in his cheeks.
She was bent over him, her breasts hanging close to his chest where her fingers played in the hairs. 'And Gonsalves came through from Riyadh. He said he was proud of us. If you'd stayed around in the trailer you'd have heard what he said.'
He blushed, felt like a kid. It was like when his high-school grades had come through – and he'd thought he'd flunked when he hadn't.
'I'd say it's party time.'
She leaned over him, reaching for the can. He did not know her, did not know what she felt for him… and her finger was into the ring and tugging it. The beer's foam sprayed over him, ran on his belly. She tilted the can for him to drink and the beer spilled from his mouth as he swallowed. He thought he'd drunk half the can, then she put it down. She licked the warm beer off his chest, took the hairs in her mouth, then her tongue was on his stomach.
'You good to party?'
Marty nodded, closed his eyes. She kicked off her flip-flops and wriggled out of the tight short trousers. Her face was serious, set – like the business was important – as she stood and pulled down her panties, then her weight was on him. The condom had been in her pocket, and she ripped the wrapping off with her teeth and peeled it over him.
He turned his head away so that he could not see her face… and he did not know why, what she needed from him, whether she had done it like this with the insurance salesman. The sweat ran in rivulets between her breasts and on to him, oiled them and fastened them together. The last time had been with a girl at Nellis, from the management of the base canteen, and she'd had thicker spectacles than him and had weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds.
She'd hoped he'd marry her. Then he'd gone to Bagram and she'd never written.
He had killed. The reward for him, for killing, was to get laid twice in a half-hour. Maybe she had done it many times at Bagram, in her own prefabricated quarters or in a pilot's, but it did not matter to him. He gloried in the feel of her and squeezed deeper inside her the second time. He heard her shallow cries and the pace of her breathing, and he hung on to her as if in fear that it would finish. He did not see into her eyes, did not know her. He pushed his hips against hers. At the last moment, he yelled out, gasped, and sobbed his thanks to her. She squealed… He wondered how many of the technical guys or Maintenance heard her, if George did. He could go no deeper. His nails gouged her back and the sweat came off her and was in his mouth and he tasted the salt of it, with the beer.
Lizzy-Jo took the second one off him, knotted it, dropped it beside the bed.
She kissed his cheek, like she was his aunt.
She knelt on the bed over him and her head was cocked up. 'You know what's different?'
Marty panted, 'You and me, us? That was fantastic, it was-'
'You dumb ass,' she said, sharp. She showed no passion. Her face was the same, serious and set, as it had been when she'd zoomed the camera for the freeze-frame and when she'd launched. 'It's the wind.'
'I don't hear any wind.'
'You fool. That's what's different.'
He looked at the sides of the tent, then at its roof. The tent shook in the wind but not like it might collapse. He heard the sing of the wind but no longer its scream. She had her panties back on, was dragging up her short tight trousers and slipping on her blouse. The wind was down. Now it was not carrying sand under the flaps and on to the groundsheet. She bent over him and he tried to kiss her, but her face turned away and she only reached down to pick up the two knotted condoms, which went into her pocket… He did not understand anything of her. 'Why did you come here, to me?'
'I thought we deserved a party – didn't we?'
She went out through the flap and it dropped back. Marty kicked himself off the bed. He dressed slowly. A clean shirt, boxers and T-shirt from his bag, and the old jeans. His mother and father, up in the cabin overlooking Santa Barbara, had never asked him whether he had a girlfriend, seemed to expect that one day he'd turn up with one; he didn't know how they'd feel about a woman like Lizzy-Jo. He wrote to them once a month, was due to, but he would not tell them about his party. He drank the rest of the beer, stale and flat, and s; plashed water on his face. He did not go for a shower, did not want to take the smell of her off him.
Outside the tent, the sun hit him.
A small windsock flew from a pole on the far side of the satellite-dish trailer; it was out but not rigid.
A little knot of men worked around the port-side wing of Carnival Girl, and George and Lizzy-Jo blocked his view of the forward fuselage. He walked towards them. George faced him, stepped aside and made a mock bow of respect. It was black on the white of the fuselage. Marty gazed at the skull and the cross-bones under it, clenched his fist and raised it above his head. It was a confirmed kill.
Marty felt on top of the world.
She said impassively, like she'd shared nothing with him, 'We're going back up tomorrow. You look like you need some sleep. Take-off an hour before dawn. Get over the strike site, get a damage assessment, then go after any of the bastards we missed. Got it?'
Alive, the body had been thin. Dead, it was swollen and grotesque.
When they stopped in the dusk, as the sun sank, they did the burying before taking the share of water.
There were no stones for them to make a cairn to cover Fahd's corpse. Rashid, Ghaffur and Caleb scooped away sand with their fists, used their nails to dig, and made the hole. Hosni said the prayers.
With their feet, they pushed the sand back over him, covered what remained of his head.
After the sand had taken him, the stench of the body stayed with them. Caleb thought it clung to his robe. Then they drank their water, a quarter of a mug each, and moved on.
The wind only flapped their clothes, did not rip them. He knew the growing danger. They were hunted. The boy sat rigid and upright on his camel, rode and listened. The darkness settled on them, and the cool came.
Hosni said, 'I asked you – do you hate enough?'
Caleb whispered his answer. 'I told you, it has not changed -1 hate enough.'
'Without hate you will fail.'
