“They should call the terp.” Chatty shook his head, watching with his hands on his hips.
All of a sudden, Mike didn’t understand what the grandfather was doing with the donkey, and in that split second, he sensed something was wrong. “Chatty, look,” he said, but Chatty’s eyes widened with horror.
“No!” he screamed, just as the grandfather pulled a grenade from a saddlebag, yanked the pin, and hurled it at Phat Phil, Oldstein, Jacobs, and Tipton.
KABAAM! A white-hot orange blast exploded in the middle of the men. The tent went up in flames, whoomp. The beach chairs flew into the air. A percussive wave knocked Mike backwards. He hit the ground. The boy and puppy went flying. Chatty fell beside him, his mouth open, screaming or saying something.
Mike couldn’t hear, deafened. He scrambled to his feet, reeling. The boy lay on his back on the dirty ground, his head to the side. The puppy was nowhere in sight. Mike rushed to the boy and felt his pulse. It was beating. He was unconscious.
Chatty staggered to his feet, his face covered with soot. He lurched toward Mike and grabbed his arm. His eyes were agonized, his lips moving, saying something Mike couldn’t hear.
“Oldstein!” Mike yelled, though he couldn’t hear himself. “Phil! Phil!” He tried to get to his feet, but fell down and Chatty yanked him up. They ran together to the explosion and threw themselves on the ground, looking for bodies on the scorched and smoking ground. Smoke enveloped them, stinging their eyes and filling their nostrils.
Mike couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A horrific nightmare, visions of hell. Body parts. A bloodied helmet. Oakley sunglasses. Bone fragments. A lid from a Copenhagen can. Soggy hunks of yellow fat. Skull shards. Brain matter, with its chemical odor. Donkey. Scraps of their tent, DVDs, a rifle, an ACU sleeve, the twisted beach chair.
Soldiers and vehicles raced to the blast from all directions. Flames flew skyward, superheating Mike’s face and body. He and Chatty coughed and frantically crawled around, looking for anything they could stitch back together, but they knew their friends were gone.
“Oldstein!” Mike screamed anyway. “Phil!”
Joe Segundo came running through the smoke, clamped his hands on Mike, and pulled him away from the fire. A soldier grabbed Chatty, but he fought him off, trying to get back, and it took another soldier to yank him away.
Mike broke free and ran for the OR, to check on The Kid With The Dragon Tattoo.
Please let me do one thing right. Just one.
Chapter Twenty-five
Mike hustled from one bay to the next, dragging the lone working lamp with him, treating nurses, soldiers, and staff for lacerations, smoke inhalation, and burns, while The Kid With The Dragon Tattoo rested in the recovery area. Soot streaked the air, and the stench of burned flesh clung to Mike’s hair and ACUs. The 556th had lost Oldstein and Phat Phil, and the brigade had lost Jacobs and Tipton.
Nurses and staff wept as they cleaned up the debris of the OR. The explosion had knocked over the sonogram, ventilator, and a laptop, but they were still working. IV stalks had blown over, and medical supplies and equipment lay broken on the floor. Saline, antibiotics, and packed red blood cells came in plastic bags, but blood had to be refrigerated and the generator was out. Soldiers were reattaching a replacement to power it back up.
Mike’s final patient was his nurse Linda, who had broken her ankle and sat on his table, her hair and face grayish with soot. He had already wrapped her foot and ankle, but he had to make a cast. His head hurt, and his ears were still ringing. He felt his jaw working to hold back his emotions. He poured sterile water into a bowl and began to bathe her bandages with his gloved hands. Outside, soldiers shouted to each other, trying to contain the fire. Chatty and Joe were with them, collecting and bagging the remains.
Linda sniffled. “One of the soldiers told me that we’re the only FST he knows of that’s been the subject of a direct attack. There have been FST docs killed in action, but never during a direct attack on a camp.”
“Really.” Mike didn’t feel like talking, and Linda had worked with him long enough to know as much. He kept smoothing the bandages, sculpting as he went, so the cast dried comfortably.
“There was a doc from Wisconsin who was killed when his Humvee exploded, but this might be a new thing, attacking the FSTs.”
Mike felt the cast start to harden, forming a nice, protective shell.
“The soldiers can’t figure out what was up with the old man. He checked out. They radioed it into the brigade. He was even at the shura last week.”
Mike nodded. A shura was a meeting with the village elders, to hear their grievances and have Civil Affairs pay them for any damage the Army might have caused. Money was the dirty little secret of the hearts-and-minds campaign, but Mike didn’t think you could pay people not to kill you.
“They searched him and even the boy, but they didn’t check the donkey. They think the Taliban planned the attack for today, knowing we’d be standing down after last night.”
Mike used the side of his hand to squeegee the water from the bandages, so it wouldn’t take too long to dry.
“I doubt very much that the boy was even his grandson. I think they just used him, and they didn’t care if he lived or died.”
Mike had heard that the boy had been taken to brigade command. He didn’t know what had happened to the puppy. Oddly, it mattered. He still wanted his cat back, too.
“I bet they picked the cutest kid and used him as bait, and they knew we’d feel sorry for him.” Linda’s voice trembled. “You know they cut that puppy’s leg. That’s sick. Sick.”
Mike took off his gloves, finished. He was thinking about how the boy looked over at him, so timidly. He had assumed the boy had been afraid of him, but maybe he had been afraid of what was going to happen. He wondered if the boy knew.
“What kind of people will sacrifice a child? How many times have we helped villagers? Even detainees?” Linda slumped in her bloodied T-shirt. “We may not be perfect, but we’re good, and good people can’t imagine evil. It catches us by surprise, and it always will. We don’t know the first thing about the kind of evil that would sacrifice a child.”
“It’s okay.” Mike gave her a hug around the shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Linda broke down, and Mike held her, rubbing her back. He had to admit to himself that she was right.
He didn’t think it was going to be okay, ever again.
Chapter Twenty-six
The Afghan night fell hard and moonless, the black sky as dense as onyx, making an impenetrable backdrop for the Chinook that lifted off, carrying the remains of Oldstein, Phat Phil, Jacobs, and Tipton. Mike was next to Chatty, choking back tears. All of the soldiers and the 556th FST stood at attention and saluted, crisply and in unison.
The Chinook ascended, catching up with its Apache escort. Mike couldn’t see it anymore and neither could anybody else, but none of them looked away. They faced the engine noise until it vanished and the outline of the transport disintegrated, the blackness swallowing all four men, like death itself.
Mike looked over at Chatty, but couldn’t make out his expression. The lamps were behind them at the blast site, running on generators to help with the cleanup, and all he could see of Chatty was a silhouette and his hair, blowing crazily. He worried Chatty was in trouble by the bizarrely stooped way he was standing. “Chatty, you all right?”
Chatty swung his head toward Mike, and the light caught the wetness on his cheeks. “You believe this, Scholl’s? This cannot happen. This is just unacceptable.”
“I know.”
“Oldstein, Phil, those kids. Did you see Jacobs, after?” Chatty’s words sped up. “I saw his boots, I saw his face, I saw him shredded. So I say no.”
“I know,” Mike said, to soothe him. Linda and Joe Segundo looked over, frowning. Soldiers craned their heads as they fell out to resume cleanup. Mike caught Joe’s eye and made a motion for a syringe, behind Chatty’s ba
ck, then Joe took off.
“No, no.” Chatty clutched Mike’s arm, squeezing tight. “I want to ask you a question, what’s worse, what you see or what you don’t? Tell me, because I didn’t see this coming, I didn’t see that the old man was gonna kill us, I didn’t see any of that, not any.”
“Neither did I,” Mike said, stricken.
“I’ll tell you what I see. Oldstein’s glasses, don’t ask me why they survived, because Oldstein sure didn’t. I cannot live with this, I cannot.”
“Chatty, we’ll deal with it, we can—”
“No. No. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what we’re gonna do or how we’re gonna help these kids. I can’t believe I let this happen, I can’t believe I made this mistake.” Chatty kept squeezing Mike’s arm. “I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I made the biggest mistake of their lives, I cost them their lives, Scholl’s.”
“No, we both did it. We both let him through.”
“No, I did,” Chatty raised his voice. “I did it, I told Jacobs to back off, I bullied him, you saw it, I told him, it’s my command. He went against orders and now he’s dead, because of me.”
“Come on, don’t do this.” Mike tried to force Chatty to the ground, instinctively wanting to settle him. “Sit, sit down.”
Joe Segundo hurried over, discreetly passed Mike the syringe, and grabbed Chatty’s other arm. “Sit down, chill. Sit down and we’ll talk about it.”
“No, no, no.” Chatty went to the ground, so that the two men ended up sitting down opposite each other, with Joe kneeling beside Chatty, pressing down on his shoulder, talking into his ear, his accent more pronounced under stress.
“Jefe, you gotta keep it together. You the chief. You can’t lose it now. We need you now.”
“I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t.” Chatty dropped his face into his hands and rubbed it hard with open palms, up and down. “What a colossal, colossal, blunder. I was so wrong, so wrong, I didn’t think.”
“That’s not true, Chatty.” Mike put a hand on his other shoulder. He wouldn’t use the syringe unless necessary. “They checked him out, he checked out. We had no reason to suspect—”
“Not we, not we, not we, me, I. I’m the one responsible.” Chatty started to rake his cheeks with his fingernails. “No, no, no. This cannot be. I will not accept this, I cannot.”
“Chatty, stop.” Mike caught his hand in alarm, but Chatty pulled it away. “You’re gonna hurt yourself—”
“Stop!” Joe tried to catch Chatty’s hands.
“No!” Chatty clawed his face, leaving welts on his cheeks, dangerously close to his eyes.
“Stop, Chatty!” Mike fought to stop him. The only thing a surgeon worried about more than his hands was his eyes. Soldiers and nurses came running over to help, and Mike knew it was go time. He took the syringe, tore off the cap with his teeth, and pinned Chatty’s right arm to the ground with his knee, while Joe knelt on top of his left. “Count of three, hold him down. One, two, three!” Joe, the soldiers, and two nurses bore down on the struggling Chatty, and Mike yanked Chatty’s sleeve up, plunged the syringe into a bulging vein, and depressed the plunger.
“No!” Chatty kept saying, blood bubbling from the scratches on his cheeks, but Mike succeeded in injecting him. They didn’t let go until Chatty’s head had fallen to the side and he had passed into merciful oblivion.
“Hurry, let’s get him inside,” Mike said, pocketing the syringe. It was a violation, but it was also an emergency.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Mike was back in the OR, treating Chatty’s eyes as he lay sedated on the table. He wouldn’t have expected Chatty to melt down, but he was starting to let go of any expectations. After all, he’d expected to be part of a four-man FST until he went home to his loving wife and baby.
“How’s his eyes?” Joe Segundo approached the table, hooking a mask over his ears. Soot dulled his hair on the sides, under his scrub cap.
“They’re fine.” Mike put a drop of ophthalmic wash in Chatty’s bloodied right eye, then closed the lid. He couldn’t tell if the lens or cornea was unscratched without eye drops and a special light that the FST didn’t have, but as far as he could tell from his examination, the only ocular injury was some broken capillaries.
“Thank you, Jesus.” Joe crossed himself.
Mike didn’t realize Joe was religious, but he didn’t know him as well as Chatty did. He expected that was going to change, then he reminded himself to stop expecting things. Goldstein and DeMaria had expected things, too, and so had Chloe.
“We gotta get him up and running, so he can be El Jefe again.”
Mike scanned Chatty’s face. Long scratches scored his cheeks, oozing blood and raising welts, but none required stitches. Still he couldn’t imagine Chatty would be wearing his cape, anytime soon. “Joe, I don’t think he’s going to be feeling like El Jefe for a long time.”
“No way, he can handle it, yo.” Joe frowned, his face dusted with silt, plugging the pores on his nose.
“It’s not going to be easy for him.” Mike crossed to the restocked shelves and fetched antiseptic wash, sterile water, and gauze, then brought them back, ripped open the gauze pads, and made a nice stack. “They’re going to investigate, talk to him and me, too. He already feels responsible and he’s only gonna feel worse. I feel it, too.”
“But you did the right thing. I was there when they radioed it in and got clearance.” Joe blinked. “He’s Batman, no question, no doubt. He don’t do it for himself, any of it. He does it for us, to keep us going.”
“I guess that’s true.” Mike had never thought of it that way. He squirted solution and water on the gauze.
“The 556th can’t do it without him, and he can’t do it without you. You gotta stay, Doc.”
“What?” Mike wasn’t sure he’d heard him right.
“Will you volunteer for another tour?” Joe’s eyes were a plaintive brown over his mask. “Give us a year. He won’t ask you, but I will, for him, for all of us and the brigade.”
Mike couldn’t believe the turn the conversation had taken. Water from the soggy gauze dripped through his fingers. “Joe, I’m out in a month. I have to go home. I have a baby. My wife just died. I just buried her.”
“I feel you, but we need you. Jefe’s done two tours, and this is my fourth. Once you’re here, you’re here. I already called about replacing Oldstein and Phat Phil.”
“Already?” Mike asked, aghast. “We just put them on a bird.”
“It’s my job.” Joe opened his palms. “We could get a call anytime. Taliban could kick us while were down. We can’t sit aroun’ with our thumbs up our asses.”
Mike knew he was right. War didn’t stop for the dead. War didn’t stop for anything or anybody. He wiped the blood from Chatty’s cheeks.
“They got no docs to send us now, not even a general trauma surgeon. They won’t have nobody outta training for a month, and he’s a general trauma surgeon. They don’t even have another bone doc they can transfer us, much less a foot doc.”
“You’re sure?” Mike’s mouth went dry as he cleaned the wound. He tossed the bloodied gauze on the tray and reached for a new piece.
“Sure I’m sure. It’s a long-ass war, Doc, and we’re tapped out. There’s only, like, fourteen FSTs left. They could shut us down.”
“Then who’ll support the brigade?” Mike asked, appalled.
“Ain’t nobody but medics and buddy care.” Joe frowned. “They’ll medevac ’em out to Bagram or another base hospital. You need the stats? Sixty percent of wounds here are orthopedic. Sixty percent of those are lower extremities. That’s you. And now it’s heating up.”
Mike thought of Jacobs and the rest. Their faces, their acne, their water bottles for spitting chew, their American flag tattoos.
“Even if they replace you with a rook, when we got two other rooks, it’ll be a disaster.” Joe lowered his voice, so the staff didn’t hear. “Experience makes a difference, yo. We all got
better from the beginning of the deployment. Our DOW rate down to 2 percent.”
Mike didn’t have to ask. DOW meant Dead of Wounds, and he knew death now. He knew what loss felt like, and the families left behind.
“If we add in the very severe injury, or ISS that’s greater than twenty-four, and severe injuries, or ISS between sixteen and twenty-four, our DOW rate only goes up to 9 percent.”
Mike knew that ISS meant Injury Severity Score, but these kids weren’t numbers to him, anyway.
“Our transfusion rate went from 18 percent to 10 percent.”
Mike didn’t have to ask why that mattered. The FST only carried twenty units of packed blood cells, or PRBCs. If they could conserve it, they could stay out longer and treat more causalities.
“That’s better than any hospital in theater, even Bagram.” Joe’s tone gained urgency. “They can’t make you extend, it’s up to you. They know you’re non-mission after the tour.”
Mike felt non-mission, which was Army jargon for burnt out.
“Do a year. You can do it, Doc.” Joe’s eyes grew animated, and his heavy eyebrows flew upward. “I watched you, I seen you. You never get tired. You don’t even talk. You keep your head down and you do your thing. You’re like a surgery machine, yo.”
“When do I have to decide by?” Mike reached for a tube of antibacterial ointment, uncapped it, and smoothed a glistening layer onto Chatty’s scratches, like a father fixing a playground boo-boo. He’d never thought of Chatty as needing him and if he didn’t re-up, he’d be leaving not only the brigade, he’d be leaving Chatty.
“ASAP. I want to get the jump.”
“I’ll think about it,” Mike answered, spent. All he wanted to do was rest, then he remembered that their tent had gone up in flames. “I’m finished here. Let’s get him to recovery, and he’ll sleep it off, then we can help outside.”
“Sure.” Joe nodded. “Hey, you know what I just realized? It’s New Year’s.”