The soldiers scurried from shadow to shadow, seeking the safety of darkness, out of breath and surging with adrenaline. They came to rest against the side of a building and listened to the nighttime sounds of the coastal Somali town, hoping for a voice to come out of the dark and tell them where the hell to run.
They heard people shouting inside. Not too far off, they could hear a motorcade of late model Toyotas packedwith Somali militias, as fitted up as the soldiers but with more anger and less discipline. The sound came from both directions and the soldiers pressed themselves into the wall with the hopes of disappearing.
As headlights dawned on the street, a door to the building opened and a man stumbled out, weeping. Sergeant Porter planted the bore of his weapon into the man’s chest and drew a finger to his lips in a universal command to shut the fuck up. He pushed the man back inside and waved for his comrades to follow, holding the door open as Chipman and Ramirez carried in a stretcher holding the pale and unconscious Jones.
As they passed the threshold, the Somali man tried to rush out and Porter stiff-armed him and shoved himback inside. Then he kicked the door shut with his boot and rested his back against it from the inside.
The man babbled in Somali, pleading indecipherably. His hands shook and he tried once again to exit the home.
Porter shoved him against the far wall as Ramirez and Chipman cleared items off the table in a single swipe and laid the wounded Jones on top.
The man with his back against the wall clasped his fingers behind his head and clenched his eyes shut. His elbows drew together and his head sank and he began to pray and cry in his native tongue.
Porter tried to interrogate him. “Do you speak English?” He punched him in the arm like a schoolyard bully. “Hey, pay attention.” He shoved his fist into the man’s chest and the man opened his eyes. “Do you speak English?” Porter repeated slowly.
While Porter was working over the man with his back against the wall, Ramirez tended to Jones on the kitchen table. Chipman stepped into the adjacent room, pointing his weapons in every corner.
Porter lowered his weapon from the man’s chest, but continued to interrogate him. “Stop talking fucking African, man. Tell me, do you speak any English?”
The man stopped speaking but continued to quietly weep. Porter noticed Chipman’s absence. “Chipman,where are you?” “I’m in here,” Chipman responded.
“Is it clear?” Porter asked.
Chipman hesitated. “There’s a woman here.” Porter whisper-yelled, “Well, get herin here.” “Man, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” “Why?”
“She’s tied to the bed.” “What?”
“She’s tied to the bed, her hands and her feet.”
Porter glanced at the man with his back against the wall. “Is it like a sex slave kind of thing?”
Chipman hesitated, “I don’t think so.” “What’s she doing?
“I don’t know, man. Nothing.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yeah, she’s alive, but she’s just laying there smiling at me.” “Untie her and bring her in here.”
Chipman hesitated, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Porter gritted his teeth. “Why?”
“Because she’s creeping me the fuck out, is why.”
“Fucking hell.” Porter grabbed the Somali man with his back against the wall and dragged him into thebedroom. Lying on the bed was an elderly woman. She was small and wrinkled and her poof of gray hair was unkempt, taking the shape of unruly storm clouds. Her gown was soiled and the smell in the room suggested she’d been there for days. Despite her outward appearance, she showed no signs of distress or fear. Her eyes were wide and curious and a mischievous smirk further wrinkled her face.
Porter shoved the man towards the bed and pointed at the woman. “What’s going on with her?”
The man yelped and struggled like a frightened dog, trying to maintain his distance from the woman.
“Hey,” Porter slapped the man. “Talk.”
The man pointed a shaky finger at the woman and began to speak in rapid-fire Somali.
“Chipman, you took Somali. What did he say?”
“I didn’t learn shit in that class. All I caught was ‘maya’ and I can’t remember what maya means.”
The man pointed a shaky finger at the woman. “Jin, jin.”
“Maya Jin, huh? All right, Maya Jin,” he said to the woman tied to the bed. “Do you speak any English?Can you tell me what’s going on here?”
The woman stared at the soldiers with a wild, excited smile, then let out a satisfied sigh.
Porter tapped Chipman on the chest to regain his attention. “Untie her and get her in the other room. We can’t leave Jones alone.”
Chipman thought the idea over and finally acquiesced, reaching for the woman’s hands. The Somali man lurched at Porter. and shouted, “Maya, maya!”
Chipman shoved the man back towards Porter who grabbed his arm and replanted him back against a wall.
Ramirez poked his head around the corner. “What’s going on?” “It’s under control,” Porter said. “How’s Jonesy?”
“He’s not good. I’ve got him tied off as best I can but he lost a lot of blood. We need to get him back to base now.”
“We’re paper targets out there,” Chipman said. “The calvary’s coming, we’ll load Jonesy into the first AV and book it out of this shit hole.”
“Find me something to elevate his legs,” Ramirez said. “And get a blanket or something,”
Chipman found a wadded blanket next to the bed holding the woman and shook it out as he carried it into the other room. Porter followed, pulling the man with him back to the other room and shoving him against the wall near the table.
The dwelling looked less like a home and more like a county holding tank, concrete walls and sparse furniture. Porter took a cushion from the dirty couch and gently lifted Jones’ legs on top as Chipman placed the blanket over him.
“Hang in there, Jonesy,” Ramirez said. “You’re gonna be all right. We just gotta sit tight and wait for a ride. Before you know it, you’re gonna be back at base, playing Sega and eating shitty burgers. All right? You just gotta hold on, brother.”
A voice called from the bedroom, “You let ‘em blame it all on me, ese.”
The three soldiers looked at each other to confirm what they thought they’d heard, then they burst into the bedroom with the man in tow.
The woman still lay bound to the bed in a room that was otherwise empty. There were no closets to hide in and no furniture to crouch behind. Ramirez dropped to look beneath the bed when the voice came again from above him.
“You fuckin’ shot me.”
Ramirez jerked his head up level with the bed and the old woman looked into his eyes.
“You shot me and then made it look like I did it. That’s fucked up, hermano.”
“You do speak English.” Chipman said. He stepped toward the bed, “Ma’am, can you tell me what’s going on here? Why does he have you tied up?”
The old woman didn’t take her eyes off of Ramirez. “You was playing quick draw with Papi’s gun and you shot me in the fucking face. You pulled the trigger, motherfucker. Not me,” she whispered, “you.”
“Ma’am, what the fuck is going on? Who are you?” Chipman turned to Ramirez. “What’s she saying?”
Ramirez stared at the woman, his jaw slacked and his eyes the size of howitzer bores. He said nothing but stood up, shaking his head.
“Reuben,” the woman said, louder this time, her accent that of a youthful southern California cholo. “You put the gun in my hand to make it look like I did it, and everybody thought I was some stupid fuckin’ kiddie playing with his papi’s gun, but that ain’t how it happened.”
Chipman stood, mouth agape, trying to make sense of what was happening. “Ramirez, what’s she talking about?”
Ramirez took a step away from the woman as his face turned pale beneath the camo paint. “I don’t know,” heanswered, his lips barely moving.
“We were gonna be so fucking gangster bro, me and you. We were gonna play for the Padres and sleep onstacks of cash and drive whatever the fuck cars we wanted.” The woman shook her head at Ramirez. “But now I’m dead and you’re running around dressed like the fucking Ghostbusters, hiding from towel heads and shit.”
“The fuck is she saying?” Chipman asked. “Do you have a brother?” “He died when we were kids.”
“How?”
“It… It was an accident.”
“Liar!” the old woman jerked her arms against the ropes that bound her.
Ramirez stared at the spindly Somali woman tied to the bed as she continued to beckon a response from him.
“Mamá don’t know. Papi had his doubts, but he don’t really know. But I know. I know what really happened, hermano. And Jesus knows. You shot me; shot me dead in the head and then put the gun in my dead hand so your dead baby brother would take his own blame.” The woman had to pause and draw a huge breath to continue. “Youkilled me just like you want to kill all these fucking skinnies.”
Ramirez turned his head and tried to regain his composure. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Jesus ain’t gonna help you, cabrón. He knows what you did.”
Ramirez turned his back to the woman berating him and raised his hands to wipe the disbelief from his face.
“Look at me,” the old woman roared. As Ramirez turned to face her again, she sighed and melted back intothe bed. “Jesus didn’t die for your sins. I did. I’m the one died for your sins.” The woman smirked. “I guess that makes me your savior now.”
“Fuck this.” Ramirez backed away with his hands up in surrender. “I’m gonna check on Jonesy,” he said as he stepped out of the room.
“Porter,” Chipman called, “bring that guy back in here, something fucked up is going on.”
The Somali man lurched into the room, having been shoved by Porter. He shook like a white flag and held hisarms close to his chest like he was protecting himself, not from the soldiers, but from the woman on the bed. He backed himself into the corner as the woman grinned and began whispering to him in Somali.
“Jonesy’s not doing good,” Porter said. “If we don’t get him to a proper medic like right fucking now, he’s notgoing to make it.” He looked at Chipman who was circling the bed, sizing up the woman. “What’s going on?”
“She speaks English.” “What?”
“She fucking speaks English. She was talking just now.” “What did she say?”
“She was going on about Ramirez.”
Porter turned to the woman. “Ma’am, do you have any weapons in the house? Do you have a phone?”
The woman averted her gaze from the crying Somali man with his back against the wall and her eyes rolled back into her head, as if she was in great pain or total ecstasy. She convulsed on the bed, arching her bony back off the mattress before coming to rest once again.
Porter went to the woman and touched her forehead. “Jesus Christ, she’s burning up. And not like fever hot, she’s like fire pit hot.” He reached for her wrist to check her pulse and she grabbed him by the hand.
Her eyes opened. “Aw yeah,” she said as an unholy grin metastasized across her face.
Porter tried to pull his hand away but the woman held fast.
“Poteet,” her accent had shifted from Southern California to pure West Virginia, “come here and sit on Paw-Paw’s lap.” The old woman dropped her chin. “I think it’s blanket time.”
Porter wrenched his wrist away from the woman and stared down at her. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Don’t you wanna play with Paw-Paw’s puppy?” She laughed and gyrated in her dirty gown. “Come on now, puppy wants to play. You was so good at it.” The woman’s smile gave way and her gaze hardened. “Git over here, boy.”
Porter gripped his weapon tighter. “Shut up.” Porter turned to the man. “Why is she doing that? Make her shut her fucking mouth.”
The man shook his head as the old woman cackled, “Come on now, for old time’s sake, kiss it, and make it jump.”
“Shut up!”
The old woman got angry. “Milk it! Don’t you make Paw-Paw mad, gotdammit, do it!”
Porter raised his weapon and sighted at the old woman. “Shut the fuck up now.”
The old woman got excited at the sight of the weapon. Her eyes widened and she continued. “Oh, that’s good, Poteet. Be a good boy and git it!” She barked with glee at the soldier. “Git that puppy.”
Porter turned his weapon to the man., “Make her shut the fuck up or I will.”
Chipman yelled, “Porter, let it go. Leave her in here, she’s not going anywhere.”
Porter didn’t let it go. “Shut her the fuck up,” he screamed.
But the man with his back against the wall stood frozen, as if in mid flinch.
Porter dropped the butt of the weapon from his cheek and lifted it chin-high. “My grandfather’s dead you bitch.” He brought the butt of the weapon down hard against the old woman’sforehead. She floundered for a moment, then laughed like a drunk in a barfight, hardly phased by the sudden show of force.
Chipman wedged himself between Porter and the old woman and shoved him out of the room, grabbing the Somali man and dragging him out as well.
Neither noticed Ramirez with his hands pressed to the table next to Jones, his head down and eyes shut. “Jonesy’s dead.”
“What? No, do the compressions again.” Chipman lurched to the table, but Ramirez blocked his hands from pounding on Jones’ chest.
“He’s done, Max.” Ramirez motioned with his head to the dead young man on the table. “He bled out. There’s nothing left to pump, it’s all on the floor.”
Chipman looked down at the soldier lying in a congealing pool of blood. He rung his hands and filed through scenarios in his head of how to save his buddy. He finally settled on grabbing the dead soldier by his flack vest and shaking him.
Ramirez grabbed Chipman and threw him away from the table. “Max,” he boomed. Then lowered his voice, “Jonesy’s gone but we need to focus on getting the fuck out of here, all of us. No one left behind. Hooha?”
Chipman nodded and quietly responded, “Hooha.”
“So, I want you both to focus on the objective and not the skinny bitch on the bed.” He pulled Chipmanto the doorway and pointed to the woman. “Skinny bitch.” Chipman followed Ramirez’ finger as it motioned toward the door, the portal that represented escape. “Objective. Hooha?”
Chipman nodded, “Yeah, yeah. Hooha.”
“Maxi.”
“Goddamnit, what’s she saying now?” Chipman said, exasperated.
He looked into the room and the old woman’s eyes lit up at the sight of him.
“Maxi? Baby love,” she smiled. “Pleeease come in here, baby.” Chipman’s spine went stiff as a gun barrel.
“Maaaaxi,” the old woman cooed. “I need you baby.”
“Max? Don’t go back in there,” said Ramirez. “Son of a bitch.”
Her legs jumped with excitement as he stepped into the room. He stood over her and the old woman’s smile faded. “Oh, Maxi,” she whimpered, “I’m sorry.”
Chipman cocked his head like a German shepherd as his shoulders went limp.
“Maxi.” The woman’s face puckered and she squeezed a tear from her eye as she suppressed a sob. “Baby. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Chipman stared as the other two soldiers appeared in the doorway. “I did it,” she continued. “I finally did it.”
“You can stop now.” Chipman smiled. “You’re fucking with us.” He turned to Ramirez and Porter. “You knowhow I know?” He turned back to the woman. “Because Lexi’s not dead.”
The old woman pleaded, “Babyyy…”
“I don’t know what fucking counterintelligence you’re working on us, but you just fucked up, cause my wife’s not dead.” He looked to the two soldiers standing in the doorway. “This skinny cunt is lying.”
“No, baby, it’s true. You gotta believe me.”
“Just stop,” Chipman said. He stepped to the bedside. “I just spoke with my wife yesterday, so your intel isfucked and now I don’t have any issue waterboarding the fucking both of you.”
“Maxi, I’m sorry. I couldn’t take it anymore,” the old woman said with an East Texas drawl before turning her head to the wall and weeping.
Chipman stepped to the Somali man and grabbed his shirt, twisting it and pulling before shoving him back against the wall. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little impressed,” Chipman said to the man, “but you fucked up and now we’re on to your bullshit, so start talking.”
“Maxi, it’s true,” the woman whimpered. “I’m so sorry.”
Chipman turned to the bed. “You keep this up and I’m gonna end you.”
“It was so hard, and you were gone, and Momma was in Greenville, and I didn’t have anyone.”
“Quit it,” Chapman yelled.
“I didn’t have anyone to talk to, Maxi. It was just me and the baby and…oh God. I hate myself for saying it, butshe scared me. I was so scared and…,” the old woman blurted out “I did it last night!”
Everything went silent. It was as if the dwelling itself had fallen on its back and knocked the air from it. No one yelled. Gunfire paused. Explosions in the distant village square ceased. Chipman waited.
The old woman caught her breath and sobbed, “I did it last night. I took the box cutter in the junk drawer and…I did it. I did it right this time. I did both wrists long ways like you’re supposed to.”
“Stop it,” Chipman said quietly, barely forming the words.
“It didn’t even hurt this time. It just felt like,” the old woman stuttered in a soft gulf coast tone, “like relief.”
Ramirez grabbed his friend’s arm. “Chipman, don’t listen to her.”
“Maxi,” the woman said, her eyes locked on Chipman. “I’m sorry, but I did it, and I feel ashamed. I feel bad because I ruined the bathroom floor. All the little tiles you installed that you thought looked like daisies, but I told you looked like lions.” Tears poured from the old woman’s black eyes. “It’s all red now. The whole bathroom floor is red.”
Ramirez stepped between Chipman and the bed. “Don’t listen to her. She’s making shit up.”
Porter stood and seethed in the doorway. “I say we smoke ‘em both and get out of here.”
Ramirez raised his hands in peace and placed them on Chipman’s chest, easing him away from the crying woman. “She’s lying. She doesn’t know a goddamn thing.”
“No one knows yet,” the woman said, “and no one cares. No one’s even found us yet.”
“Us?” Chipman said. “What?”
Ramirez grimaced like a man who’d been kicked in the gut. “Shut up you skinny fucking bitch!”
“The… The baby?” Chipman whispered. “Ashleigh?”
“Oh, sweetie.” The woman suddenly seemed terrified, like she just remembered a long-forgotten horror. “Oh God, I’m… I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I was giving her a bath and she was cooing and smiling and so happy and she didn’t know…aaah,” the old woman groaned. “She didn’t know yet all the things I know. How hard it all is. How lonely it can get.”
Ramirez turned toward the woman. “Shut up.”
“She was laying in the water,” she continued. “I don’t know if I lost track of myself, the time or what, but the water was too deep and when I looked up, she was just laying there. So still and peaceful. I wanted to be just like her.”
“Let’s fucking smoke them,” Porter yelled from the doorway.
“Shut up, Porter,” Ramirez growled. “Don’t listen to her,” he said to Chipman. “This bitch has some fucked up intel, but right now she’s just making shit up.”
As Ramirez pleaded with Chipman to ignore the sweet young voice coming from the woman on the bed, something stirred in the other room. The legs of the blood-soaked kitchen table creaked. The dead soldier lying on topbegan to whimper, then wail. Jones let out a cry, high and nasally like an angry newborn.
Porter ran to the table. “Jonesy! We thought you were dead.” He threw off the blanket and put two fingers on the soldier’s neck. Ramirez followed behind him. The body on the table was no longer dripping blood, and his face, where not smudged with camo paint or dried blood, was pale as the moon. His skin had taken on the parlor of white candle wax.
“I can’t find a pulse,” Porter yelled. “Ramirez, fucking help me.” Ramirez felt Jones’ neck and flinched his hand away.
“Do something,” Porter said.
“What?” said Ramirez. “There’s no pulse.” He looked to Porter who remained locked on Jones. “He’s still dead.”
“Then why’s he crying like that?”
Chipman slowly stepped into the room. Tears were streaming down his face, streaking the gun oil and dirt on his cheeks. “Ashleigh?” he whispered. “It’s my Ashleigh, my baby girl.”
“No, it’s not her,” Ramirez said.
“Just listen to her!” Chipman screamed. “How does she know stuff?” “She doesn’t know shit!”
A cackle floated from the bedroom, followed by a weeping drone of a twenty-three-year-old dead wife and mother from Texas City. “Baaaby, I’m sooorry,” the voice drowned out the infant-like cries from dead soldier and the frantic prayers of the Somali man with his back still against the wall.
Chipman placed his hands over his ears and bellowed, “Stop!”
Porter unholstered the pistol that had been strapped to his thigh. “Fuck this,” he mumbled, walking into the bedroom. He leveled the pistol at the woman who cackled before resuming her cries to Chipman in the other room, her face melting into a tearful, weeping plea.
“Maxi, it was all I could think to do. I couldn’t handle it all by myself.” “Shut up,” Porter yelled, his pistol poised at the woman’s head.
Jones’ cries continued, only interrupted by short coughs to expel blood or bath water. Chipman raised hisweapon at the man with his back against the wall and shouted. “Make them stop!”
The man flinched, but continued with his prayers as the muzzle of Chipman’s weapon pressed an o-shaped indentation into his forehead.
Ramirez waived his arms. “Lower your weapons.”
The first shot came from the bedroom. It was chased in quick succession by a short burst fromChipman’s weapon into the head of the man with his back against the wall. Before the echo had worn out, Porter stepped back into the room and shot the dead soldier crying on the table, producing a bloodless void on the sideof his face.
And all was quiet.
The Somali man lay on the floor. The impact of the bullet from Chipman’s weapon sent his feet out from under him and his head back, splattering blood, brain, and hair into a vortex shape against the wall.
The three soldiers held their positions in silence, waiting to see who would move first.
Chipman was the first to break, crumbling into sobs and backing into the wall.
Ramirez’s hands trembled in the air as Porter holstered his pistol with a look of sober satisfaction. As soon asit was strapped to his thigh, he reached over and pulled the blanket back across the gaping head of the now quiet Jones.
Ramirez’s arms finally fell slowly. “Clock’s ticking. We just drew a shitload of attention and this block is gonnabe crawling with skinnies. We need to evacuate.”
Porter had calmed down. “No,” he said, “we need to keep quiet and wait for the cavalry.” He looked around the hovel. “Chipman, close those shutters. We gotta get everything locked down and dark.”
Chipman didn’t respond, didn’t move.
“Chipman!” Porter snapped. Wake the fuck up and close that shutter. We can still survive this.” He turnedaround. “Guys, make sure everything is battened down.”
Chipman sat and stared into nothing like some zombie in a B-movie, waiting to charge at the living. He finallylooked up as if he’d been awakened from an afternoon nap. “We need to go.”
“No.” Porter didn’t even look up. He moved to the center window and side-eyed through the shutters at the unlit street. “I don’t see any movement.”
Ramirez peered beneath the linen curtain that hung above the window beside the door. “Nothing yet.”
“We… We need to get to base,” said Chipman. “I need to call—” “We’re not going anywhere,” Porter said.
“I need to get back. I need to call home. Let’s go. Come on. Hooha?” “No,” Porter said.
“You let me die.”
The sentence syphoned all the oxygen from the room.
The three men swung around to the blanketed corpse on the table, but all was still, not a movement, not a sound.
“You let me bleed out.” Sadness and anger infected the voice coming from the floor. “It hurt so bad and you just let me die. You’re my brothers, and you just stood there.”
The corpse of the Somali man with a hole in his forehead pushed himself up to a seated position, his legs splayed out in front of him. Jonesy’s voice spewed from the man in a venomous tirade. “Ramirez you spic fuck, you’re a medic, and you let me die. Twice.”
“No,” Ramirez argued, “Jonesy, you were bleeding out, there was nothing—”
Porter placed a hand on Ramirez’s shoulder as he pressed past him, pistol in hand.
Jones’ words were still coming from the Somali sitting on the floor as Porter wedged the barrel of the pistolbetween the man’s teeth and fired up into his skull, again showering the wall with the Somali man’s brains.
When Chipman’s ears stopped ringing, he heard his name called from the bedroom. “Maxi, why are you doing this? Why did you leave me? Us? Your baby?”
Chipman brought his hands to his ears and his body sank down until he could wrap his arms around hislegs. The sad, East Texas drawl coming from the bedroom was interspersed with the cackle of the elderlySomali woman, as if the two voices were sharing a microphone, battling for attention. “Maxi, you abandoned us.Haaa ha ha. Ashley’s not moving. She’s just laying there in the tub and now there’s so much blood on the floor—” The woman’s voice was cut off by a cackle, spewing bile and mockery.
Just then, Jones’ corpse jerked and bellowed like an infant. The blanket fluttered as the corpse’s lips and chin quivered.
The Somali man restarted shouting invectives in the clipped, quick, Chicago cadence of Sergeant Jones. It was difficult to discern through broken teeth and a massive hole in the back of the man’s throat. Everything came out garbled. “First you let me die and then you killed me. Fuck you,” he screamed. “You all deserve to fucking die!”
Chipman pushed himself off the floor and bolted toward the door.
“No!” Ramirez jumped to block his exit. Chipman shoved him aside and flung open the door, charging into thenarrow street as the din of voices chased him into the darkness.
Sgt. Ramirez followed, reaching out to him in an attempt to drag him back inside, but as soon as they cleared the doorway, a light flashed and gunfire rang.
Sgt. Chipman took the round squarely to the Kevlar plate on his chest, knocking him to the ground, and as Sgt. Ramirez reached for him, a blaze of enemy fire appeared like a river of neon, lighting up the street.
Copper jackets spilled to the ground meters away as a flurry of lead slugs planted themselves into Sgt. Chipman’sface while Sgt. Ramirez took one to the knee, bringing him down and drawing fire to his neck and head.
The tide of enemy fire ebbed, and from that pause, Sgt. Porter exploded from the doorway, weapon first, spraying the street and littering the ground with hot spent shells. Enemy fire resumed and riddled his body as hecontinued to unload on the unseeable militias hiding in the darkness.
A bullet caught the brim of his helmet and it flew forward. As soon as it cleared the bridge of his nose, a spray of tracers like sparks from an angle grinder found his head, erasing it in a pall of red and dropping him to the street like a discarded doll.
The bullet-pocked door trembled like a bell above a small-town church. It swung open as a voice from high above began to chant and call the faithful to morning prayers. The door bounced off the concrete wall and shook as it closed, finally reaching the door jamb as the latch fell into place with a click.