The Way Home

Chapter 21

PRIVATE FIRST CLASS DANNY GLEASON hated freaking night watch. Fact was, he hated everything about everything that had to do with the U.S. freaking Army. He was nineteen years old. He’d joined up because it was either that or get sent to juvie for a little run-in with the Georgia State Police. Hell, he’d just been having some fun. He hadn’t known that asshole Dale Feckers was going to boost some beer from an all-night liquor store on the other side of the state line and expect him to be his wheel man.

Some friend he’d been. And now, because of Feckers, Danny was in Af-freakin’-ghanistan, eating sand and watching his back for fear some Tali-freakin’-ban jihadists decided they wanted to kill themselves an American infidel.

They could have this country. And Uncle Sam could have his Army. He had twenty-three months left on his hitch, then he was out of here. Back home to some sweet Georgia peach who would think he was some kind of a hero because he’d worn a uniform and toted a gun.

He didn’t say a thing about that to any of these other yahoos in his unit. Hell, they were all gung-ho, God-and-country soldiers. The kind of men people back home looked up to. The kind who made him feel like maybe he had something missing inside him because he couldn’t swallow that line of patriotic BS. There was one in every crowd, right? In this crowd, he was the one.

He stubbed his cigarette out in the dirt and resumed his walk of the camp perimeter. He had another hour, then Winters would relieve him. Talk about gung-ho. Winters was Captain freakin’ America wearing sergeant’s stripes.

He yawned heavily, then stopped short when he saw a shadow move in the darkness about twenty yards away.

Heart slamming, he shouldered his weapon so fast he hit himself in the jaw with the rifle butt. “Who’s out there?”

“I am not armed.”

What the hell? That sounded like a woman. Yeah, and everyone knew Afghan women liked to hide bombs in their big tent dresses—or in this case, those baggy pajama pants.

“Show yourself. Hands in the air,” Danny barked, exactly as he’d been instructed.

A figure materialized out of the dark. With his free hand, he found his Maglite and switched it on, shining it directly in her face.

Now he wasn’t so sure. Was it a woman or a boy?

“May I please speak to the soldier in charge?”

Definitely a woman. Who spoke English. “No, you may not. Get down on the ground. Face in the dirt. Now! Keep them hands above your head when you’re down there.”

Satisfied that she couldn’t do him any damage and with his rifle still trained on her, he clumsily pressed the button on his shoulder mike. “Lieutenant Court, PFC Gleason. I’ve got a situation on the perimeter, sir. Need assistance quadrant seven ASAP. Sir,” he added for good measure.

He’d never had occasion to speak directly to the lieutenant, let alone wake him up in the middle of the night. He hoped to hell he hadn’t committed some major freaking infraction, but damn, this was big.

After a brief silence, Court responded, sounding pissed. “Say again.”

“An Afghan woman approached the perimeter, sir. Says she wants to talk to the man in charge. Request instructions on how to proceed, sir.”

Court replied that he would dispatch two men to assist and after completing a full body search to bring her to his tent.

“Roger that.”

Danny heaved a deep breath, glad there was help on the way. The woman hadn’t moved. And damn, he was glad for that. He didn’t want to shoot her. But he would, he told himself, if she even looked as if she was going to blow herself up and take him with him. He’d shoot her dead. He wasn’t dying on account of some Afghan, no, sir.

And as he stood there waiting for reinforcements, it occurred to him that he’d just acted like a real soldier. That, in fact, he might be a real freaking soldier. For the first time since he’d enlisted, it struck him that maybe he understood what all this gung-ho crap was about.

LIEUTENANT ALEX COURT was accustomed to interaction with the local Afghan population, specifically the Pashtun. He was not accustomed to being approached in the middle of the night by a woman dressed as a boy and telling a story like this woman had told him.

“Why didn’t he come himself?” he asked, after she’d told him a wild story about a Special Forces soldier who had been held captive by the ISI for over three years but had escaped during a prisoner exchange with the Taliban.

It made no sense at all. ISI? Seriously? Still, he listened because she was here for a reason, and he could possibly find out what it was.

“He is unwell,” the woman said. “I believe his leg was once broken and never set. Walking is difficult. He has also had head injuries. This has caused him problems with memory, headaches, and vertigo. He is unable to travel alone, and it is unsafe to attempt to transport him with the many Taliban checkpoints on the roads. The Taliban are actively searching for him. They have already searched our house once.”

“Why didn’t they find him?”

“He was hidden under the floor.”

If this was a story, it was a well-crafted and imaginative one.

He could not get a good read on her. She was soft-spoken and intelligent. And her English was perfect, which was a point of interest to him.

“You’re educated.”

“At my father’s insistence. My father has also aided in harboring this man. We wish to help him connect with the U.S. military so that he can return home.”

This was absolutely bizarre. Court wasn’t aware of any MIA troops in Afghanistan. And the U.S. presence in the Kandahar Province specifically had been minimal.

“You’ll understand if I’m not convinced. This is a pretty wild story.”

Almost as an afterthought, she reached into the pocket of her loose trousers.

“Stop right there,” he commanded, drawing his pistol.

She held her hands up. “I wish only to give you a letter he has written. May I?”

Because his men had searched her, he nodded.

“The letter provides Jeffery’s full name, rank, and serial number, his unit, battalion—more. He also explains how he was captured and when. Also, there is a recent blood sample and live hair follicles. His fingerprint is also on the letter.” She handed it to him.

“Put it on the table.” He didn't want to touch it and compromise the evidence, if there was, in fact, evidence.

“What’s in this for you?” he asked, because he was not only cautious but also curious.

“We wish only for Jeffery to return home.”

He stared at her, trying again to get a read. She seemed sincere enough, but there were a million sincere faces in Afghanistan. Some of them had led U.S. troops into ambushes.

“We also wish to make the exchange in such a way that there is no possibility of my father and myself being linked to him. As I said, the Taliban are searching for him. If they find out we harbored him for these several months, we will be killed.”

He stared at her long and hard, compelled to believe her yet wary. “OK. Once more. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

THE AMERICAN LIEUTENANT was a tall, lean man with blue eyes and an air of wariness that made Rabia realize he could, if he chose, decide to hold her as a possible enemy combatant.

She told herself to remain calm, that she spoke the truth, and because it was the truth, he would believe her.

“We’re pulling out in the morning,” the lieutenant told her after offering her a seat on a camp chair. “When we get back to our forward operating base tomorrow, I’ll pass your story and the material you brought with you to the camp commander. He’ll have everything run through our computers. If it checks out, it’ll go immediately up the chain of command. Once they give the word, we’ll be back to get him.”

Rabia struggled with both relief and regret. “Then you believe me.”

He hesitated a moment. “I believe that if we have a soldier out there in danger, we need to get him home.”

“You will promise to do what you said? To check thoroughly?”

“We’ll investigate. I can promise that.”

While his response gave her a measure of relief, she was not convinced. “How long will this investigation take?”

“It depends on a lot of things. But it will be done as rapidly as possible.”

She nodded. “When will you be back in Emarat?”

“You’ll understand that’s not information I can share.”

Clearly, he still did not trust her. And she did understand, as she was still deciding if she could trust this man to do what he said he would do. “It is my understanding your patrol arrives here every five days. We, too, have our ways of gathering information, Lieutenant Court,” she added when he gave her a look. “Just as the Taliban will also know of your coming and going, since you are clearly not conducting a secretive mission.”

He nodded, conceding the point to her.

“Would it be correct to assume I could make contact five days from now?”

“Possibly sooner if your story checks out.”

“There is more Jeffery has done to assure you that he is alive.”

“More?”

“Do you have a map of the area?”

He nodded.

“May I see it?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he dug a map out of a satchel.

“Here is my village.” She pointed it out for him when he spread it out on a small folding table. “It is a three-hour drive by car from here. Jeffery assures me there are surveillance drones in constant flight over the area. Direct them here, to my village. Jeffery left a message on the roof of my father’s house to prove he is alive and there.”

When he looked up from the map, he was frowning. “What kind of message?”

“This I do not know. He said the American military would understand and recognize it.”

The lieutenant, while still skeptical, was clearly interested. “Let’s say the blood and hair follicles confirm they’re recent samples belonging to Sergeant Albert. How do you propose we extract him without implicating you and your father?”

“Jeffery is now in hiding in a safe place away from my village. When you return here after confirming that I am telling the truth, I will provide directions to where you can find him.”

“This could all be an elaborate trap,” he said thoughtfully.

“The proof I provided will confirm that Jeffery is alive. He needs medical care, Lieutenant. He needs to return home. I urge you to bear that in mind. I urge you to hurry. We cannot keep his presence a secret much longer. I am also fearful that in an effort to protect my father and me, he will attempt to find his way to you on his own. In his physical condition, he will be captured. And then he will be dead.”

RABIA WAITED FIVE days. Each evening, she dressed in black and carefully made her way through the streets to the edge of the village. Heart pounding, she would search the flat, barren landscape for signs of the U.S. patrol.

Lieutenant Court and his men did not return.

She expanded her search of the perimeter of the village then, scouring the entire area every night, thinking they might have set up camp somewhere else. One night, she encountered a Taliban patrol. Thank Allah, she heard them before they saw her.

She dropped to the ground, lay as still as the earth, and listened as they passed within twenty yards of where she hid in the open with only the dark as cover.

As frightened as she had been, she still came back every night for five more nights.

The Americans did not return.

She did not know how that could be. The blood and hair—they had to find a match. Jeffery’s letter. The message he had left on the roof.

Finally, her father made her accept the truth. They had not believed her. They were not coming back.

JEFF LAY ON the roof, his refuge, and attempted to deal with the disappointment and despair. Beside him, Rabia lay in troubled silence. It had been more than a week since she’d returned from Emarat, tears in her eyes because she feared she’d failed him.

He stared at the night sky. She didn’t understand. He was the one who had failed. He’d let her risk her life for him, and because of his guilt, he’d died a thousand times alone in that cave, waiting, certain something had happened to her. Certain she lay dying or dead somewhere with a Taliban bullet in her head.

He’d been half out of his mind with fear for her when she finally came back to him. That’s when he made up his mind. No matter what happened, she had to leave here—or he did.

“You need to go,” he said again, as he’d said every day since she’d returned. “How can I convince you? You and your father need to go to Kabul. You have relatives there who will take you in. You have a life there as a teacher. You have rights there that you’ll never have if you stay here with me.”

“And what of you. Jeffery? If I go, what happens to you?”

How did he tell her that he no longer cared what happened to him? How did he tell her that the patrol had been his last chance?

“They’ll come for me,” he said, not believing it but wanting to convince her that he did. “They’ll put it all together, and they’ll come. And they’ll come here. That’s why you have to leave.”

He still couldn’t figure out what had happened. Had the lieutenant simply written off her story as fantasy? Had he thought she was trying to lead them into a trap?

In the end, it didn’t matter. They hadn’t come. They weren’t going to come.

And he was done. Done putting her at risk. Done hiding out like a coward.

The Taliban would not give up searching for him, and because of that, Rabia would always be in danger—unless he could persuade her to leave.

“Let us not talk of this tonight,” she whispered, and snuggled closer. “Let us be together. The world and war do not exist in these moments when we are together this way.”

When she bared herself to him like this—heart, body, soul—it was so easy to let himself be lulled by her soft words, her soft lips, her giving flesh. But when it was over and she slept, exhausted and sweet beside him, the guilt beat at him like a fist.

One more week. If he couldn’t persuade her to leave, he vowed on everything he had once been that he would sneak away and put as much distance between himself and Rabia as he could.

Let the Taliban do what they would to him.

He would not put her in danger any longer.

And he would no longer be less than a man.