THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER Read Free Page B

Predator, version MQ-1. Initially, when they had been posted to Afghanistan, the Bagram base, they had existed inside the inner compound used by the Agency and had lived alongside the Agency teams, and those from the Feds, who ran the detention block behind a double inner fence of razor wire with its own sleeping, eating and recreation quarters - an apartheid cocoon for the elite that separated them from the Air Force people and the marines' units. At first they had not been part of the general life of the huge base. But the war was winding down, the Al Qaeda targets were harder to come by, and old disciplines were discarded.
    The best breakfasts at Bagram were served in the marines' compound. The marines had the best cooks, the best variety of food, the best coffee. And a good breakfast would last them through the day in the stifling heat of the Ground Control Station.
    He wore his ID card hooked on his belt. Hers, more provocatively, was clipped to her T-shirt between her breasts. After a sentry had checked them through the gate into the marines' compound, they joined the queue in the canteen.
    In front of them, a lieutenant was bitching at a loadmaster sergeant. They listened, rolling their eyes at each other, entertained.
    The lieutenant, dead tired and slurring as if he'd barely slept, said,
    'I just felt such a goddamn idiot. I never figured that the little bastard was setting me up to do a runner. What am I supposed to do? Mow the little fucker down? Didn't seem right. . . He was free - useless to us, no risk, but I'd his name on the docket and was tasked to hand him over at the Pol-i-Charki. I tell you, my only piece of luck, the people that were there at the gaol, they never even read the names, never did the counting, just kicked inside the four we brought. I just felt such a fool at falling for that old trick, wanting to pee. Just some simple gook, and free - after where he's been, in the cage at Guantanamo, why would he want to run?'
    'Don't worry about it, sir - I mean, he wasn't bin Laden, was he?
    You said just some taxi-driver.'
    They dressed down, Marty and Lizzy-Jo, to emphasize that they were not military. Foul-ups in the military were always entertaining.
    It had made a good start to the day.
    A half-hour later, with the dawn on full thrust and killing the mist, in the Ground Control Station, Marty took the Predator - First Lady -
    up off the runway, working the small computer-game joystick on the bench above his knees. Carnival Girl, the second craft, was back-up and would stay grounded unless needed. Lizzy-Jo thwacked her fingers on the console keys and watched as the first pictures flickered, then settled on the screens above her. The mission that day was for reconnaissance over the Tora Bora mountains to the south-west. The bird climbed, optimum conditions with light north-east winds at fifteen thousand feet. She reached across, tapped his shoulder and pointed to the central screen, which gave the real-time image from the belly camera. She giggled. 'On his way to the garage to collect his yellow cab . .. eh?'
    Below the camera, clear and in sharp focus on dun-coloured scree, the figure in the orange overalls was running, but slowly. Marty grimaced - not their business. The Predator hunted meatier prey.
    The orange-suited figure tripped, fell, and stumbled on. Then the camera's field surged forward and he was lost.
    'What do you think it's like in Guantanamo?'
    'Don't know and don't care,' Marty murmured, side of mouth.
    I'm going up to seventeen thousand feet altitude, which'll be our loiter height . . . OK, OK, I suppose Guantanamo would be kind of scary.'
    Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay.
    It was the end of the first week and he was learning. He had not failed the hardest test. Hardest was not to respond when an order, in English, was screamed in his ear. No movement, no obedience, until the order was translated into Pashto, or a gesture was made to indicate what he should do.
    The numbers coming into the