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Forty
JULIUS
“The details don’t really matter, although there were a lot of details at the time. The whole mission was complicated. Too complicated.” I lowered my gaze, remembering. “That’s why things went sideways so quickly.”
The memory was almost as fresh as it was the day it happened. I could see the brilliant blue sky. The thin white clouds streaked so high they seemed impossible to reach. I could even taste the smoke lingering in the air, from a nearby village that had burned two nights ago. That should’ve been our first warning.
None of it made any sense, because I’d tried so hard to forget it.
“Afghanistan,” I said mechanically. “2017. We were in Paktia province, retrieving a high-value target with low-value manpower.” I shook my head. “And not because the manpower wasn’t good, either. It was goddamn elite. It just wasn’t considered valuable to the handful of assholes privileged enough to even know about the mission in the first place.”
I glanced over at the twins warily, suddenly aware of my bad language. I’d have to watch my mouth. Luckily they were so busy spooning food all over their faces they hardly noticed me.
“So you were expendable,” Delilah guessed correctly. “That’s what you’re saying.”
Man,I thought to myself.She’s even better than we could’ve imagined.
“Yes,” I nodded, making sure she knew I was impressed. “It was one of those missions we liked to call ‘come back with the ball, or don’t come back at all’.”
“Fun,” she said grimly.
“Totally.”
It was a tribute to her that she could make light of such a heavy topic, yet still be fully attentive to what I was saying. I tried to ignore the wild mess being made over her shoulder while somehow continuing. It wasn’t easy.
“The entire mountain range was chaos,” I said bitterly. “The whole province had been in a state of perpetual civil war since the Taliban were tossed out, back in the early 90’s. As a result we had very limited intelligence. Even more limited resources.”
Delilah was listening intently. In the meantime, Courtney and Jace were smearing food all over their happy, chubby little toddler faces. Somehow it took some of the resentment out of the story. But not all.
“We got ambushed,” I said, remembering the cold feeling of betrayal that stole over me as the self-professed ‘freedom fighters’ came screaming down from the hillside. “They came from three directions at once. Our only choice at the time was to retreat to the southeast, but Duncan was at the head of the column. Somehow, in all the smoke and gunfire, he ended up on the other side of the hill from us. We found out later he’d mag-dumped his primary weapon and his secondary jammed.”
She didn’t need to know all this. I was giving her too many details. Then again,Ineeded to tell the story this way. Probably because I needed to absolve myself of what happened next.
“They converged on him,” I continued bitterly, “and took him down once they realized he was unarmed. By the time we regrouped they’d disappeared back into the hills again. We searched that range for weeks afterward…”
“Did you lose anyone else?” Delilah asked.
“No.”
“Only Duncan?”
“Yes. He was the only one who got separated.”
Gingerly she touched my hand. “It’s okay then,” she said simply. “He’sherenow. Whatever happened back there, he made it home.”
Delilah’s eyes were soft, full of caring and understanding. Only she didn’t understand. Not yet.
“He did, yes,” I said. “But not for half a year. Those bastards kept him hidden away, tucked deep in whatever hole they crawled into. He was locked up in a cage within a cave, in what amounted to near total darkness.”
I saw her eyes flare wide at first with shock, then fill with pity and remorse. She got very quiet. I nodded.
“You’ve slept beside Duncan enough times by now,” I said, “so I’m sure you’ve noticed. He bolts up from a dead sleep. Sometimes he’s even screaming.”
I could tell she knew this part. She’d experienced it for herself.
“I just thought he was having nightmares,” she said quietly.
“He is. Of the worst possible kind.”
