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I shook my head, gathering up the food and putting it back into the basket. She had already made it to the Humvee by the time I finished.
After throwing the stuff in the back, I climbed in.
“I freaked out. I’m sorry. I have got nothing on this story I’m supposed to be doing, and now I’m being sent back even sooner than my short stay was originally going to be.”
“You haven’t? I thought that’s why I took you to the village.”
“That’s not the story I’m really working on.”
We stared at each other from across the front cab of the Humvee. I shook my head and turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired to life.
“You’re something else,” I said.
“Hold on. Don’t you want to know what story I’m working on?”
“I can imagine. Something about the military being corrupt, or…”
“The smuggling,” she interrupted. “I know about it.”
I turned the vehicle off and looked over at her.
“Are you involved?” she asked.
“Is this off the record?”
“Sure.”
Can I trust her?
“You don’t want to be digging in this, okay? It goes high up the food chain. There are billions of dollars at stake. Do you even understand what you’re getting yourself into?”
“Billions of dollars? That’s a lot of drugs.”
“Don’t you get it?” I shook my head. “It’s not drugs. They’re smuggling rare earth minerals back to America and China. Both countries are making a bundle. Why do you think the Afghanistan war has dragged on so long. Do you see an army anywhere capable of defeating us if we put our mind to it?”
“There are a lot of caves in the mountains,” she said.
“Fuck those caves. The only reason we’re still here is to protect the Chinese and American civilians who are pillaging the mountains like there’s no tomorrow.”
“You need to tell me more,” she said, her hungry eyes staring into mine.
“I said too much already.”
“Are you involved?”
I fired up the engine and put the Humvee in gear.
“Not anymore,” I said.
We rode back to the base in silence.
NINE
Jade
When we arrived at FOB Cobra, everything looked a bit different somehow. The knowledge of a huge conspiracy just out of my reach drove me crazy.
“You’re going to cut it out with the investigating, right?” he asked after parking.
