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CHAPTERONE
Ghazni Province, Afghanistan
October
Ridge Dawson illuminatedhis watch once more, the dim blue carefully shielded by his hand to avoid being seen, and read out the numbers that stared back at him through the pitch-black. “3820 meters, 0121h, 21°F.”
“So, what you’re saying is,” Nick whispered back, “we’re way, way up a mountain, it’s the middle of the night, and we’re freezing our asses off?”
Ridge sighed. “That’s a roger, Senior Chief,” replied the younger man, tiredness obvious in his voice. They were perched on a snowy ridge in a remote, frozen landscape. In the daytime it had been a beautiful sight, the undulating hills topped with fresh snow, gleaming white under clear, high-altitude sunshine. From their position, were it not the wrong side of midnight, they could have seen the whole valley, a swooping half-horseshoe with towering, domed peaks on either side. The long, scenic overview was, in fact, exactly why they were there.
Fighting at night was a SEAL specialty, of course, even in conditions like this. Tough and experienced, neither man wished to let his tiredness, boredom, or freezing extremities distract him from keeping an eagle-eyed watch for any movement down below.
“Sweep fifteen left and confirm,” Nick instructed. Ridge panned his night-vision goggles to view an area of the valley floor where, earlier that evening, both had felt they’d seen movement.
“Nothing,” Ridge said, seemingly for the hundredth time.
“Screw this, Ridge.” Senior Chief Petty Officer Nick Vines had been in this line of work for long enough that he knew a freezing, mind-numbing waste of time when he saw one. “I’ll bet it was a herd of damnedgoatsor something. There ain’t nobody dumb enough to be wandering around in this cold. ‘Cept us, that is.”
Ridge muttered in agreement. He yearned for a warm tent and a hot cup of coffee back at their tiny patrol base, but despite their bellyaching, the two SEALs were professionals and left their overlook only when they were finally relieved, far too long into the freezing night, trotting briskly downhill to warm chilled limbs.
Their little cluster of dome tents was quiet. “No news is good news, right?” Ridge muttered as they stripped off their gear.
Nick grunted impatiently. “We’re here to kill terrorists, right?”
“Damnright,” Ridge agreed.
“I don’t remember doing any of that this evening, do you?” He tossed his heavy jacket onto the cot and stretched at length before removing his boots.
“Patience, Senior Chief, patience.” Ridge was on his fourth tour in Afghanistan and knew perfectly well that their jobs would consist of endless waiting, a brief and terrifying period of outrageous noise and confusion, and then a lot more waiting. “This is chess, not checkers,” he said.
The two men sheltered in their tent, which was as warm as they could make it. “Think they’ll bring us back down tomorrow?” Ridge asked. With a senior rank, Officer Vines was somehow expected magically to know the plans of their superiors.
“No idea,” was his usual reply. “Looking forward to getting out of this little paradise, are ya?”
Ridge hadn’t been home in four months, although his longest stretch away had been twice that. “Much as I love the place,” he joked, “I’m ready to move on.” His voice carried a weight he hadn’t intended, but which he sincerely felt down in his soul.
“Got plans for when we get back?” asked Nick gingerly. “I’m thinking I’ll fix up my boat and do some serious damned fishing in the gulf,” he breezily added, smiling at the thought. “Got a whole bunch of snappers just begging to make the journey from the ocean to my backyard barbecue.” He looked up. “What about you?”
This was sensitive territory, and Nick knew not to ask too much. “Lots to do,” Ridge said simply. “Gonna be a different place from the one I left.”
“You OK?” Nick asked, turning on his side. “I mean, after that... news from home, and all?” he asked sensitively.
Ridge gave his friend an appreciative nod. Three weeks had passed, and the shock and sadness of Kristine’s letter had barely eased, but he knew that life had to go on. Every soldier had his list of gripes, but Ridge’s really had become intolerably lengthy.
“It’s her call, man. Ain’t nothing I could have done about it, you know? She’s a tough one, knows her own mind. And out here, I can do... well, less than nothing.”
Kristine had left Ridge in the middle of his tour, at perhaps the worst possible time. The bad weather had dampened his spirits, and the lack of action made him reconsider both his role in this strange, drawn-out conflict and his career in the military, especially after being unexpectedly passed over for promotion.
Either Kristine hadn’t understood his state of mind or she hadn’t cared, but three weeks later he’d received a ‘Dear John’ letter announcing in broken prose that she was leaving the home they shared and moving in with ‘a friend’ in Dallas.
“If she didn’t know what she had,” Nick offered, “she didn’t deserve to have it.” The Senior Chief’s advice and steadying wisdom — gained in part through his own horribly messy divorce a year earlier — had been priceless. “It’s ingratitude, I tell ya.”
“What, you think she should have been grateful we’re out here, climbing hills and scanning for goats all night long?”
“Yes,” he spat. “Yes, I damned welldo. She lives in the greatest and freest country there ever has been, and you’reright here, on the ten-yard line,protectingit.” Nick was never more animated than when encouraging others to see the big picture. His friends wanted him to enter politics once his time in the Navy came to an end, although some feared that his brand of tough-guy vernacular might not sit well with the voters.
“Senior, I couldn’tguesswhat’s going on in that head of hers.” At least there had been no children, sparing him the sorrow of Nick’s fractious, divided home life. It was a meager comfort amid the unrelenting pain of a broken heart.
