News From the Red Desert Read Free Page A

these calls are expensive.”
    “I’ll call you as soon as things settle down here.”
    “Sure.”
    “Bye.”
    “Demetrios?”
    “Yeah, Susie?”
    “Be safe, okay?”
    “You bet.”
    “Are you drinking?”
    “Of course not. Are you?”
    “No!”
    “Okay.”
    Anakopoulus hung up and put his satphone back in his pocket and surveyed his maze of pallets. He really needed to get some rain cover built for them.
    The skinny Brit with the dog approached and said, “Hello.”
    “Hello, sir.”
    “Looks like you have about a thousand balls in the air here.”
    “It’s all under control, sir. A challenge, but challenges are what we do.”
    “Indeed.”
    “Anything I can do for you?”
    Before Robinson could answer, Deirdre O’Malley joined them. Anakopoulus had been briefed about her, too. “Ma’am, I’m afraid you can’t be here. This is a controlled area.”
    “Oh, I’m so sorry, Warrant Officer—I’m still getting my bearings. Can you point me toward the admin office? I can’t get my email to work.”
    “It’s just around back of the hangars over there, ma’am. And it’s Master Sergeant.”
    “I can show you,” the Brit said.
    “Would you? I’d be grateful.”
    Anakopoulus watched them walk away. He shook his head. No matter what kind of VIP that man was, he was still a moron.

    And then the real killers were on the Herc, strapped in like so much equipment. Soon they were airborne with all of Afghanistan spread below. They flew north for a time and then they flew west to Ramstein AFB in Germany. Most of the men, from long habit, went to sleep. The sergeant from Boise could see out a small scratched window if he craned his neck. Through it, he traced the valleys they had fought through, one after the other. Detail flooded back to him. The audio came in snatches, but the video was uninterrupted and perfectly sharp. Every ridge he had flanked, every man he had shot and had seen fall, illumination flares lighting up startled, sleepy, Taliban sentries, a moment later pierced by tracer fire. He could describe days-long stretches of some of that time down to the minute. There was so little summary in his memory, justall that living, crammed in as tight as it could fit. The valleys below him looked like textured paint. Grey stucco. Like his stepfather’s house. Sour cigarette smoke and quiet. As opposed to that RPG hitting the other side of the rock he was lying behind. His friend catching a 12.7-mm round in the chest and exploding in front of them. Seeing the sun coming up over the Arghandab from the back of a Chinook, the morning after they took Spin Boldak. None of this would submit to condensation. It would equally defy categorization and understanding. And so endure. Like a pebble in a shoe.

HOME AND GONE
    H e had lied to Susie for weeks after he got his notice of deployment, claiming he had heard nothing. There was a reason, more than the simple craven wish to avoid upsetting her. He would be gone soon enough, so why make her unhappy before he had to? He knew she would find this very difficult. They had both gotten their one-year chips just the summer before. She wanted him close to her. For her sake, he thought. But he was wrong about that.
    She knew. Twenty thousand soldiers were posted to the base they lived near and every ATM lineup featured military spouses who talked to one another. Anyway, there was the news. After the towers came down, they all expected to be spending time overseas. And mostly, they would be. She knew that every other healthy soldier had been notified when he could expect to go. Why hadn’t he? Was there something about his health he hadn’t told her?
    When he did tell her, it was after she had put her son to bed, and they were sitting in the lawn chairs in her backyard. The sun was almost down and it was quickly growing cool. He said he did not know how long the deployment would be for. And he told her he had found out only today.
    He could tell she knew he knew more.