Then Coop turned back to the truck and pretended to make a few more adjustments with the tie-downs until he heard Greely shuffle away. He looked back and watched Greely join the other soldiers as they finished breakfast, leaving their rucksacks and gear in little hillocks throughout the ruins. The grunts began to thicken, standing together without helmets or BDU jackets, bare arms showing tattoos of barbed wire, sugar skulls, and Jump Wings bearing gothic proclamations like “Death from Above.”
The gathering provoked a thin sense of longing in Coop. He marveled at the grunts’ ability to freely answer the call to come together, to join with your fellows; a shared goodness to which Coop no longer felt he had any claim. But still it pulled at him, and after watching a few more minutes Coop found himself venturing down the hill.
* * *
—
Soon the chaplain arrived, coming weaponless into the disorderly pack. He was lean and bowed like a rusted lumber blade and seemed to belong elsewhere, not to the soldiers and their coarse slackness but to the bare desert and the sky that shadowed them all. The chaplain wore Special Forces and Ranger tabs on both shoulders, and on his right lapel an embroidered crucifix. At his arrival the other soldiers quieted, put out their cigarettes, scooped chaw from their lips and flicked it on the ground.
“Gather round, troops,” said the chaplain. “Gather round.” Coop hung at the periphery. He imagined the farther he was from the center of the group, the less his misgivings would contaminate the ritual.
“What is this gaggle?” barked the chaplain. “Come around now, everyone link arms.”
The grunts became a dense wall of human camouflage. Coop saw Greely grinning within the press, wearing those ridiculous sunglasses. The chaplain began to speak:
“Now, troops, this is a nondenominational prayer. There’s no litmus test for faith in my Army, men. You can be a Christian, pagan, Satanist, Jedi, whatever you may feel. I’m going to say some words about my God, and all I ask is you consider who exactly you’re appealing to for protection on this blessed morning. You wouldn’t kick down a door without knowing who had your six, hooah?”
“Hooah,” the circle responded.
The chaplain lowered his head and began to pray.
Almighty God, I ask for your blessing.
These are humble creatures before You,
this congregation of infantry.
Pay no attention to their ferocity,
for though they are made of sand and steel,
these men are fragile and require your favor.
These are killers, God, but they are your killers.
“Hooah, amen,” said the grunts, and they began to release one another. But the chaplain let forth with a second movement. His voice lost its bark and took on a low, quivering quality, a seizured crooning—like a Pentecostal Elvis, Coop thought.
There are IEDs out there, Oh Lord, and forces
of the devil who would do them harm!
You, Lord, who cast out the serpent,
help us destroy the enemies of salvation!
Save your mercy for these men.
I beg for their protection from wickedness
so they may enjoy each other’s camaraderie
and the fruits of this world for one more day.
Amen.
Coming back up the hill Coop heard the roar of truck engines, the mechanical swiveling of turrets, the thwunking of rucks being loaded into the bed of humvees. Anaya stood by their truck wearing a big grin.
“Fuck the rain,” he said. “Mission’s a go. You ready to mount up?”
* * *
—
The sun shone hard over the battered desert. Coop drove with one hand raised in salute, trying to block the glare while his foot fluttered rapidly between gas and brake. The team’s sapper vehicle was next to last in the order of march, and all day the convoy had stretched and collapsed like an accordion, a constant flashing of red brake lights. Several times they became lost and were forced to execute tactical halts and turnarounds until it was discovered that some of the vehicles had different versions of the same Soviet map.
At dusk the convoy chugged down a narrow mountain pass, slowing to ease around a series of switchbacks.
“Ahoy,” said Greely, pointing to a cluster of flat-roofed buildings huddled beneath a hogback ridge. Coop heard a whump of displaced air and looked up to see three black Kiowas taking the lead. Coop leaned on the accelerator, speeding them toward the enemy.
“Easy,” said Anaya, patting the air with a cautionary glove. “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
The convoy snaked toward a gap in the village wall. By the time Coop brought their truck to a halt, teams of infantry had already dismounted. Anaya gave the radio a “hooah” and an “over-out,” then presented Greely and Coop each with a gloved fist.
“All right, engineers, let’s bump it. C’mon Coop, bump it!”
Coop dropped from the humvee. Using the door as cover he squatted down to take up a firing position, cushioning his cheek against the plastic stock of his M4.
The village was made up of about forty buildings, each an angular mound of clay. There wasn’t a body in sight: no one in the tapered alleys, nothing moving in the square. Engines idled. Radios scoffed with tactical gossip. Outside the perimeter Coop heard the intermittent shouts of infantry across the dusty courtyard, and over their heads, the steady hum of the Kiowas.
From the top hatch of the command vehicle Coop saw Bill pop out with a megaphone. Bill was the unit’s hired interpreter, a stumpy Afghan wearing glasses and an oversized helmet. He lifted the megaphone to his mouth, cleared his throat, and coughed out a tirade of back-throated Pashto, the voice echoing off the clay walls. Coop understood the gist of it: Come out with your hands up. For added effect one of the Kiowas performed a low buzz, tracing the dusty architecture with its spotlight.
As if they had been waiting for this courtesy, men began to emerge from the village huts. They came a few at a time, palms raised, robes blowing around them, squinting into the weapon lights. Their mouths moved emphatically, as if trying to reason with Bill and his megaphone, the soldiers, helicopters, and all their millions of rounds of ammunition, held in suspense.
As the men began to show themselves, grunt teams swept forward to clear the village. Raids were conducted in three stages. First came the infantry, bounding like a pack of pit bulls, sizing up the villagers for signs of a fight and then happily and viciously barking off. After the infantry came the MP shepherds, pulling everyone from their homes, separating men from women, corralling them in the village square. Finally, Coop and the other sappers, bloodhounds with their snouts to the ground.