Burial Ground

IX

10:45 p.m.

Merritt stood at the edge of the placid lake, basking in its serenity. The moon was nearly full now, and reflected from the surface of the water amid a smattering of white stars. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves on the trees and stirred the whining cloud of mosquitoes. All of the others were asleep in their tents, minus Morton and Sorenson, who patrolled the perimeter of camp. The men were definitely more alert than they had been during the previous night, and reacted to the slightest sound or any shift in the shadows. He couldn't fault them for it, not after seeing the alpaca remains in that clearing. Had they not already burned through the last of the daylight and their waning energy, they would have pressed on, if only to distance themselves from the carnage. The decision had been made to rest while they could with their guards standing at heightened awareness, and get the hell out of there at the first hint of the rising sun.

As far as Merritt was concerned, dawn couldn't come soon enough. Not because he was terrified that whatever had slaughtered the alpacas would steal into their camp while they were dozing, but because even though he was physically exhausted, he couldn't force his brain to shut down long enough to fall asleep. This was now his second night without his medication, and already the dreams had returned with a vengeance. They were right there waiting for him every time he so much as blinked. The combination of the drugs and the excision of caffeine from his diet had held them at bay for so long now that he couldn't remember how he had ever dealt with them on his own. So many years had passed that he would have expected the nightmares to have lost some of their power over him. Instead, the years of suppressing them only seemed to have magnified their urgency and intensity. He had only been able to lie on his back under the mosquito netting, which positively crawled with little black bodies of all ilk, for so long before he had needed to escape the humming and buzzing, and the images that assaulted him.

He turned away from the lake and returned to the bonfire in the center of the circle of tents. With a scorched stick, he stoked the blaze until it was several feet tall, then threw on more logs from the pile. Rich ebon smoke plumed from the wood until it was dry enough to burn.

Morton appeared twenty yards away through the gap between the tents, his silhouette limned in orange from the flickering firelight. A second later he was gone. Merritt heard the slurping sound of boots passing through the soft mud behind him as Sorenson walked the shoreline. With a crackle of dead leaves, he too disappeared into the forest, leaving Merritt alone with the roaring fire and the memories that refused to allow him a moment's peace.

The dry heat of the bonfire metamorphosed into the roasting sensation of the wicked sun above and the eternal sand below. After crossing the Dasht-i-Margi Desert, the Desert of Death, from their staging grounds in Kandahar by chopper, armed to the teeth with a fresh batch of intelligence and enough firepower to lay siege to a small country, they wait in their hiding places in the rock formations surrounding the mouth of the cave until one hour before sunrise. Upon his commanding officer's signal, they launch grenades from the MK19 through the stone maw. Muffled thumps follow, a prelude to the blinding wall of fire that blasts from the opening. The ground trembles beneath him where he kneels behind a boulder, assault rifle to his shoulder, rebreathing mask making a sound like blowing into a coffee tin. Rocks break free from the mountainside and tumble down toward them. The dust to merges with the smoke to create an impermeable haze.

And then he hears the screams, the horrible cries of pain and terror. The sobbing. The mewling of children.

The voices of his brothers whisper epithets through the earpiece in his tactical communications headset.

That's for the World Trade Towers, you sons of bitches.

I hope you all burn in hell.

Where's your Allah now, bastards?

They cover the only egress from the warren of caves until the sun rises. Several men and women, charred and burning, try to make a run for it, only to be mowed down in the crossfire, while the screams continue to drift out on the smoke, diminished in number, but amplified by pain.

Under the blood-red dawn, his commanding officer gives the order, and they hurl flashbangs into the smoke and storm through the rock orifice two-by-two. Pebbles shiver loose from the ceiling. The walls are painted black by the firestorm and the floor carpeted with charred corpses. Only those still burning cast a dim glare into the churning smoke. The rata-tat of gunfire echoes from ahead as he follows the barrel of his rifle deeper into the twisting stone maze until he enters a domed cavern. Muzzle flare draws his attention to the left, where a supine form dances beneath its glare. The cries of the injured subside under the barrage of bullets. He watches men whom he trusts with his life taking the lives of the wounded. One after another. Men and women alike, put down like curs. Through the chaos he sees crates burning against the rear wall, their contents spilled out onto the rock floor. They hadn't been filled with munitions or biological agents as they'd been led to believe, but rather with food, clothing, and containers of potable water.

He pauses in the middle of the chamber and surveys the massacre around him. The world begins to spin around him and the walls close in. There are filthy mattresses in every corner, linens burning. Bedrolls, books, clothing, a transistor radio blaring static. They hadn't wiped out an al-Qaida stronghold. They had murdered a band of refugees that must have fled from Kandahar when the American armed forces had descended upon them with weapons blazing.

To his right, he sees a young woman, her face pale, hair singed to the scalp. Her face is so badly burned that the flesh has split. Amber sludge oozes from an ulcer beneath her left eye, an intoxicating shade of blue that betrays her Northern Afghani heritage. She couldn't be more than eighteen years-old, a slip of a girl whose thin limbs resemble burnt twigs. The bleating sounds she makes...the sheer amount of pain...fear...the panic on her face when the soldier stands over her and points a rifle down at her forehead...

After that, Merritt's memory becomes as cloudy as the smoke-filled cave. Something snapps inside of him, and he only clearly recalls snippets of the following weeks. The look of surprise on his platoon-mate's face when he had turns his weapon on him. Stumbling through the tunnels with the wailing woman in his arms. Calling for help, only to watch her slowly die while even their medic refuses to administer a single ampule of anesthetic to ease her suffering. Reliving her death in an almost catatonic state as the chopper thunders back across the desert. Blaming himself for failing her and swearing it will never happen again. Slipping away from the barracks in the middle of night, knowing they will come after him, but he can't allow them to catch him. He can never live that life again, not now that he understands the consequences. From there, he remembers running, and then nothing but infinite sand and sun, stumbling through villages that revile him for the dirty fatigues he wears, then finally the Pakistani port town of Gwādar on the Gulf of Oman, where he trades his few remaining supplies and his rifle for passage on the first available freighter, not caring its destination.

Merritt realized he was on the verge of hyperventilation and focused on slowing his breathing using the thud of his pulse inside his head as a guide. Tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away and tried to think of something else, anything else. He envisioned the look of pride on his father's face when he had shipped off to Basic, and the undiluted love in his mother's eyes that was always present, but that only led to the remembrance of their cold gray features inside their caskets the day he had buried them.

He needed to get out of here, get out of his own head. This was a bad idea. He never should have come. The feeling of claustrophobia, the sensation of being smothered alive, overwhelmed him. He needed to leave this godforsaken jungle, to climb up into the sky where there were no stone walls or interminable fields of snarled trees. Only then would he be able to breathe, where the air was crisp and thin and not sweaty with humidity. His vision constricted from the periphery and he felt the panic attack swelling within him.

A cool hand settled on his shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Are you all right?" Sam asked. She knelt in front of him so she could clearly see his face. "I could hear you panting from all the way over there in my tent."

He nodded, but only succeeded in shaking the beading perspiration from his forehead.

"Just try to relax," she whispered. She gently stroked his cheek. Her soft blue eyes sought his gaze and held it, binding him to the moment. He placed his hand over hers and leaned slightly into it. "Everything's going to be okay."

There was genuine compassion in her eyes. No fear. No judgment.

His breathing slowed as he memorized every detail: the flecks of gold in her irises; the wily strand of bangs that curled around her eyebrow and cupped her right cheek; her slightly parted lips; the nearly unnoticeable crook right at the bridge of her nose.

She slowly removed her hand from his cheek and sat down on the mossy stump beside him.

He chuckled nervously.

"You must think I'm a complete psyche-case."

"We all have our quirks. That's what makes us human."

Her words were sensitive, her thigh against his comforting. She could easily have taken this opportunity to repay him for her earlier frustrations, but instead, she sat quietly beside him, waiting for him to speak if that was what he needed, lending quiet support.

The silence was so comfortable that he hated to break it, but some things needed to be said.

"Thank you," he whispered.

She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. He held it a beat too long before releasing it.

"I should be the one thanking you," she said. "For what you did back there."

"For throwing you down in the bushes?"

She smiled and nudged his leg.

"For taking care of me."

"You don't need to thank me. Any guy would give his left arm for the chance to duck into the shrubs with you. Besides, it's obvious you don't need anyone taking care of you. The way you stepped into the line of fire in the village? That was downright fearless."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, a comfortable silence between them.

"Why are you still awake?" he finally asked.

"Couldn't sleep," she said, but he knew by the undertone in her voice that it was because she couldn't stop thinking about what she'd seen in the forest.

He let it drop, and together they sat by the fire under the edge of the canopy while the jungle around them slept.

The bonfire snapped and popped. The dim purple glow of lightning flared on the far horizon.

And from somewhere in the distance came the haunting skree of a hawk.