Will Mackin - Bring Out the Dog

“Ready?” he asked, like I hadn’t answered the first time.

WE PATROLLED WESTWARD along the north side of the river: across dry opium fields whose pods bumped softly against my thighs; through emergent wheat fields whose tillering shoots appeared white-hot on night vision; and over stubbled cornfields clustered with roosting crows. Every now and then I’d stop and look behind myself, to make sure no one was sneaking up. I saw a slinking dog or two. I watched sissoo trees bend in the wind. I considered a glacier, snaking down from the Hindu Kush, glowing like uranium. Turning back toward the patrol, I saw Hal in the distance, standing off to the side.

Whereas everybody else’s infrared signature appeared bright and, therefore, a little desperate in the cool night air, Hal’s was muted. Hal ignored Q as Q walked by. He nodded at Goon. He stared Hank down as Hank walked by. Precisely at smile range, Hal smiled at me.

“What happened back there?” he asked, nodding up toward the plateau.

“Hank shoved Q,” I said. “Q jumped Hank.”

“Then what?”

“Goon and I broke it up.”

Hal spoke in a forced whisper, directly into my ear: “I want those fuckheads slapped around when we get back. I want their shit burned and the ashes dumped in their mouths.”

We crossed a hard stretch of dirt while Hal stared off into the distance—past Hank, Q, and the rest of the patrol, past where the mountains ended and the valley opened on what the Afghans called “the Kingdom of Sand.” Judging by the look on his face, Hal saw something out there that we’d someday have to deal with. For now, though, right in front of us: Q dragged his heels, creating dust clouds, and Hank swayed, causing the tethered lens cap of his night-vision monocle to swing back and forth.

“They’ll just send us two more,” I said.

“Fuck that,” Hal said.

A faraway donkey brayed. The day’s heat rose from the ground.

“You say anything to them?” Hal asked.

“No,” I said. “You want me to?”

“I should probably do it,” Hal said.

“I don’t mind,” I said.

I stared into the distance, trying to see what Hal saw.

“I think it’d be better coming from me,” he said.

It used to be we’d do hard knocks on every raid. We’d creep in under the cover of darkness, position ourselves covertly, and hold very still. A nightingale might chirp, a cow might low, then— BAM! —we’d breach the door/hatch/gate, tear through the courtyard/living room/boudoir, and kill whoever needed killing. And if anyone managed to escape, for example, out a back door to run into a wide-open field—tripping over dark furrows, splashing through muddy troughs—I’d call the gunship in from its hiding place in the sky, and it would trip into the field, buzzing, with green light shining out its cockpit windows and blue sparks falling from its engines. Hearing the buzz, the runner would try to pick up the pace only to fall more. I’d mark where he lay in the mud with my laser, drawing green ovals around him as his panic traveled backward through the beam into my hand, up my arm, and into my brain, so I’d feel his hysterical need to get up out of the mud and run. When the runner stood I’d steady the laser between his shoulder blades. The gunship would drop its infrared spotlight—like the magic that turned Cinderella into a princess—on top of the runner, and I’d transmit clearance to fire. Next there’d be a hollow whack, like a suitcase falling onto a baggage carousel, and the shell would appear in the sky, glowing from the friction of aerodynamic drag as it made its slow descent into the field. But those days were over. Higher had decided that the war needed to move in a new direction. After jamming Hank and Q down our throats, they eliminated gunships and hard knocks.

Upon arrival at our first compound, we set up for the callout. The compound’s outer walls formed a square. We lined up along two sides, in a bear-trap formation that hinged on Hal. Hal nodded, and Digger hooked a flash bang over the wall. It landed in the courtyard on the other side with a thump. The fuse cooked for half a second more; then flashes bleached my night vision. Bangs and echoes overlapped. Smoke floated over the wall. Hank raised the bullhorn to his lips to read the statement from memory.

That statement, crafted in English, translated into Pashto, went something like this: “We are coalition forces, committed to the future of Afghanistan. Our presence outside the walls of your domicile, in the middle of the night, should not be construed as a threat to your person, or to the persons you hold dear. Instead, we urge you to look upon this encounter as an opportunity for us to work together, to forge a new bond of cooperation and trust, by which our mutually freedom-loving cultures will prosper.”

Hank’s reading ended with an electric click, followed by silence. No one from inside the compound offered a rebuttal. No babies cried, no donkeys brayed. No faraway dog barked, Fuck off!

Hal kicked down the compound’s steel gate with a clang, and we followed him into the courtyard. We torched a woodpile, fragged a well, then weaved through an open door. We ran from room to room and found the place vacant. During our search for intelligence, Goon discovered a live hen under a pail. Lex salvaged a bundle of copper wire from a compost heap. I lifted a mildewed tarp and uncovered a laboratory-quality balance scale resting on a splitter log.

The scale’s aluminum beam was bright red, its fulcrum made of brass. Starlight pooled in its silver weighing pans. I tapped a finger on one of those pans and the instrument started to seesaw. In its dampening rise and fall I saw the weight of my touch reduced by half, then half again, and so on. Meanwhile, the troop unwound, single file, into the night, folding into that seam that Hal had created. The same seam, I supposed, that he’d created years ago, on our very first mission. Which would explain why it felt so comfortable and safe. It had delivered us this far.

“You coming?” Goon asked. He was standing on the metal gate Hal had kicked down.

I stopped the scale from rocking, and in so doing absorbed the remaining weight of my touch. Stashing the scale in my ruck, I took my place at the end of the patrol.

OUR NEXT COMPOUND was five clicks southwest. Along the way we jumped over a stream like a liquid mirror. We passed a sleeping bull with its eyes squeezed shut and its lower lip hanging down. We crossed soft, dry fields that smelled like medicine. Occasionally, I’d sense the enemy behind me, and, turning around, I wouldn’t see him. But as I searched the empty spaces where I thought he might be, I’d feel the approach of another déjà vu, and I’d try to clear my mind in hopes of inducing its onset. I wanted to know how everything came to be again, and I wanted to see, however briefly, into the future. Each déjà vu’s approach felt like a whirlpool that I might fall into, but then it would recede, and I’d turn to face the patrol, disappointed. We arrived at our destination around zero two, local.

The second compound’s walls were curved. We formed more of a gooseneck than a bear trap around them. Digger had trouble with the pin on the flash bang and wound up tossing it late. It detonated at apogee, lighting our unsuspecting faces.

Q delivered the statement this time, reading off the laminated card that he carried every night, which had delaminated in one corner. At some point water had seeped into that corner, smearing the ink and blurring some of the words. When Q got stuck on those words, Hank would whisper them into Q’s ear. Q’s repetition of Hank’s whispers echoed.

There was no response from inside the walls, again. The compound’s gate was made of tree branches lashed together, like a castaway’s raft. Hal broke right through it, bodily. We followed him into the courtyard, and under the canopy of an enormous willow. We gained entrance to the rooms via a long passageway with wooden doors on either side. I took the last door on the left and entered an empty room with mud walls, a dirt floor, and another wooden door in the far wall. These doors—fixed with knobs, hinges, and striker plates; hung in what smelled like pinewood frames—fit snugly within the adobe walls. Behind that second door was a third room, with a third door.