The Valley (15 page)

“You want to look at me while I'm talking to you?”

“Not really.”

Black sighed inwardly, then took one quick step forward across the tiny room and in a sweeping motion smacked the controller as hard as he could out of Shannon's hands. It ricocheted off the big kid's forehead, which Black hadn't meant to happen, and put a nice divot in the smooth belly of the reclining pickup truck girl on the wall.

Shannon leaped up, hands flailing reflexively about his bruised forehead. Black sat down on the stool.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?”

His yelling voice was a big one.

“Sorry,” said Black, not sounding sorry at all.

“You fucking hit a soldier!” the kid shouted, thunderstruck.

Black crossed an ankle over a knee.

“What, you're gonna go tattle?” he said mockingly. “I hadn't figured you for such a wuss.”

The kid gawked at him, dumbfounded and spluttering.

“Go ahead,” Black said calmly. “Go tattle. Or you can just hit me back and we can both go tattle, and we'll see who gets it worse.”

He would not have been surprised at that moment to be seized in Shannon's beefy hands and tossed against the wall. From the look on the big kid's beet-red face, Black could tell he was considering it. But some part of his brain that was not burning all cylinders on pure rage-ahol registered the fact that while the lieutenant would get a stern talking-to for accidentally knocking a game controller into his forehead, he himself would probably get a dishonorable discharge for striking an officer, or at a minimum a trip down to buck private with several months of docked pay and scrubbing toilets in the evenings once he got back to the States.

Instead, Shannon turned angrily and squeezed his frame beneath the side shelves, coming up with the game controller. Its housing had split open. Black wondered whether it was Shannon's head or the wall that did it.

“You fucking cracked it!”

“Sorry,” Black said again, still not sounding sorry. “Can we start now?”

He found his notebook on the floor and picked it up.

“Why don't we start with the basics,” he said.

The kid loomed over him, brandishing the broken controller.

“You're gonna wanna get the fuck out of here,
sir.
”

“Current rank, corporal. Current job, infantry.”

He glanced at a page of his notebook.

“Former job . . . forward observer?”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Black answered, sounding bored. “Do you know what a fifteen-six investigation is?”

“Yeah, and I don't care. Go fuck your questions.”

“Then you understand you're obligated to talk to me?”

Shannon, still standing, leaned in toward Black.

“I. Don't. Give. A.
FUCK
what I'm ‘obligated' to do,” he said very loudly, sending spittle onto Black's face.

He tossed the controller aside.

“I already told Sergeant Merrick I'm not talking to you, anyway.”

“Why aren't you talking to me?”

A momentary look crossed the soldier's face. Confusion?

“I ain't talking to you 'cause I ain't talking to you.”

Black sighed audibly.

“That's not actually an answer.”

Shannon sat, dwarfing his bunk, and looked Black in the eye. Heavy brows roiled against one another.

“Okay,” he said. “I ain't talking to you because you look like a pussy and I don't wanna answer pussy bullshit questions about me doing my job from a FOBbit that doesn't live in my world and wouldn't know which end of the goddamn rifle shoots the bullet.”

He paused for effect.

“Sir.”

An orator, then.

“How do you know they are bullshit questions when you don't even know what they're about?”

“Don't have to,” Shannon said tersely. “You're bullshit, so they're bullshit.”

“Look, Corporal,” Black said tiredly, ignoring the fact that the soldier had already said about a half-dozen things that would get him severely punished if he were anyplace but deep in a godforsaken and deadly valley. “You realize you're not in trouble, right? You realize no one's out to get you, and I just have to ask my questions, then I can go away, right? But if you don't answer any questions, then you
are
going to be in trouble.”

Shannon sat back against the wall and crossed his arms, angling himself away from Black.

“Hooray.”

“So you're invoking your right to counsel?”

It was the only other angle he could think of.

“My what?”

“To a lawyer,” Black answered. “If you're refusing to answer my questions, then you're saying that you're claiming your right not to incriminate yourself, and you want a lawyer to defend you. But like I keep saying, there's nothing to defend yourself against. Unless there
is
and you just don't want to tell me.”

“What is this, a fucking cop show? I don't need a goddamn lawyer.”

“Okay,” said Black patiently. “So you don't want a lawyer, and you won't talk to me. So now you're just refusing to cooperate with a fifteen-six investigation, which is a chargeable offense. So now I have to go back to the FOB and tell my commander you wouldn't cooperate, and some major or a colonel is going to come up here and you'll have to deal with him.”

“Bullshit,” spat Shannon. “Nice try, sir. Ain't no major or colonel ever set foot in this joint since I've been here. I ain't even seen the captain in command of my own goddamn company.”

“They won't have a choice,” Black countered. “You refuse to answer a few simple questions and then this piddly little fifteen-six gets blown up into a big deal and they have to send it up to Brigade headquarters marked OBSTRUCTED, and then Brigade
has
to send someone
real
to investigate for
real,
instead of sending a flunky lieutenant like myself.”

Shannon regarded him with squinted eyes, smiling a carnivorous smile.

“You trying to scare me, L.T.?”

Black held his hands up innocently.

“Nope.”

“Yeah, you are. You're trying to scare me.”

“I'm just trying to help you get me and every other officer in the Army off your back.”

“Bullshit,” Shannon said, pleased with himself for figuring out what was going on. “You're gonna come at me with majors and colonels and think I'm gonna get scared and talk to you.”

“Not my intention.”

“Yeah, it is. I ain't scared of you or your lawyer bullshit.”

Black tossed the notebook aside.

“Well,
someone's
scaring you, because you won't talk to me.”

Shannon looked at him like he was straight crazy.

“You fucking . . .”

He trailed off, flabbergasted.

“Me what?”

Shannon shook his head as though to clear it. Finally he uncrossed his arms and put his hands on his knees, leaning forward again to look at Black closely.

“All right,
sir,
” he said disdainfully. “You want it?”

“Want what?”

“You want what I have to say?”

“Please.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

“Okay, good,” Shannon said.

He took his time sitting back on the bunk. He crossed his arms again. He eyeballed Black for a good moment before he spoke. When he did, it was in tones of pure contempt.

“First off,” he said. “
Fuck
you, Lieutenant. Fuck you because you're still a pussy and you don't know shit.”

“Okay.”

“And you go tell my commander that I cursed at you, if you can find him back at the FOB. I don't give a fuck.”

“I got the message that you don't like me,” Black replied without emotion.

Shannon's brow curled and flexed.

“See that . . . ?” he spluttered, pointing at Black.

He shook his head again, disgusted.

“‘
I got the message that you don't like me,
'” he said in a nasal singsong. “Look at you, sitting there like you know something. Talking about what scares me.”

He loudly snorted phlegm from the back of his throat, and for a moment Black thought he was actually going to spit it on him. He must have swallowed it instead.

“You don't know shit,” Shannon said. “You don't know my world.”

“Then tell me.”

“I
am
telling you, you jackass. You want to know what fucking scares me?”

“I do.”

“Good, because I'm going to tell you, since you know so much about what's fucking scary in this place.”

“Okay.”

Shannon pointed a thick finger at the hallway.

“I heard you talking to Sergeant Merrick this morning in the chow hall. I heard him tell you about the last K.I.A. we had.”

“I remember.”

“That was Parsons,” Shannon said. “He was only here six weeks.”

“Okay.”

“Sergeant Merrick didn't tell you how he died.”

“How?”

“He fell back on a patrol.”

“Okay.”

“No, you don't understand,” Shannon pressed. “I don't mean he got lost, or wandered off or fell back a half mile. You know how far he fell back?”

“How far?”

“Ten meters,” Shannon said flatly.

He looked at Black a long moment.

“He was the last guy and he fell back ten fucking meters from where he shoulda been in the patrol, and it was dark and a little bit foggy. That's it. Didn't even hear him get grabbed.”

“Okay.”

“Know what the Taliban does when they capture a soldier?”

“What?”

“They put his ass on a video and they hold him for ransom until we trade some of their own assholes for him. Which we
do,
even though the commander in chief doesn't admit it when he's on TV talking about how great shit's going over here.”

“All right.”

“That's the Taliban,” Shannon said flatly. “Taliban are pussies.”

His eyes bore into Black.

“You know what these Valley fuckers did?”

“What?”

“They left him for us.”

Black had a sinking feeling.

“What do you mean?”

“They left him on a tree.”

“Oh.”

“A hundred meters from our wall, across open ground. First tree we would get to if we walked out.”

“Okay.”

“Tied to the tree, no fucking balls on him, intestines hanging out.”

Black didn't say anything.

“Alive.”

He watched Black for his reaction before going on.

“Didn't even call out to us for help,” Shannon said, a note of reverence entering his voice. “Didn't want us to go get him and get shot. We didn't see him till it got light the next morning. Still alive.”

He seemed to forget Black was there.

“God damn kid, eighteen years old, hooah-hooah airborne trooper, one year ago kissing girls on the Ferris wheel back home, ends up tied to a goddamn tree in this goddamn place looking at his buddies looking back at him from the wall. And we can't go get him because every Valley sniper is up that fucking hillside just waiting for his chance.”

Black could only think of one thing to say.

“How long?”

“All day, into the night. You know who finally went out to take care of him?”

“Who?”

“Sergeant Merrick.”

“Okay.”

“Alone. Wouldn't let any of us come with him. Told us he'd fucking shoot us if we tried to follow.”

Black considered this.

“That's a great man,” Shannon said defiantly, looking past Black. “And he ain't gonna get no goddamn medal for what he did.”

“Couldn't save him?” Black asked.

Shannon ignored the question. Instead he leaned forward again and put his hands on his knees, his own eyes turning back to Black's.

“So there is only one thing in this godforsaken place that scares me, Lieutenant,” he said, anger rising again. “And it ain't dying. I ain't scared of that, and I definitely ain't scared of your lawyer bullshit.”

“Okay.”

“I'm scared that when they get me and I get strung up to a tree with my balls off and my guts out I'm not gonna be strong like little Parsons was strong. I'm scared I'm gonna be weak and I'm gonna call out for my buddies to help me, instead of just dying like a fucking pal. And my weakness is gonna make Sergeant Merrick or one of the other great men who serve here come out and get themselves killed trying to help me.”

His speech hung in the air.

“That,” Shannon said, “is
my
world, and that's why I don't give a fuck.”

“Understood.”

“Bullshit,” Shannon said, sounding weary. “You don't understand shit.”

He sat back against the wall, regarding Black. He spoke in a low voice.

“You don't know what this place is.”

“What's that mean?”

“It means the Devil is in this valley, sir. And he will get his.”

He gestured with his chin toward Black's notebook.

“So you write what you wanna write in your little book, and go back to the FOB and come back with your majors and colonels. They know where to find me if they wanna come here and get me.”

He picked up his video game controller.

“I'll be dead anyway, so it won't matter for shit.”

Black gathered up his notebook and stood. There wasn't anything else to say.

Shannon started messing with the broken game controller. Black pushed open the door and left, wondering just how much of a needless pain it was going to be to get a couple simple statements and make his paperwork and go home.

He went to the end of the makeshift corridor and hung a right, as Merrick had instructed him. He took several brisk strides to the last door and kicked it open with his boot.