The Sandbox (14 page)

39

The scorpion is
content to curl up beneath Lopez’s pillow and rest. Rankin and I waste no time hanging around: thirty seconds and we’re out. There’s no doubt in my mind that this will make matters far worse, but I must admit it’s extremely satisfying.

40

The new MI
captain steps around our tent, sunglasses riding low on his nose. Both of us jump up and fire off salutes. We’ve been sitting in PX lawn chairs out in front of our tent, cleaning our gear and waiting to hear Lopez scream. How long has this asshole been here listening to us? I do a quick run-through of our conversation. Rankin asked me how I got kicked out of the Language Institute. I’d never told him, because it embarrassed me. But the reason was simple enough. After Clarissa phoned to tell me she was pregnant, I went AWOL so I could go see her. Rankin didn’t have to tell me it was a chump move. If it hadn’t been for that, I’d probably still be back in Virginia, translating intercepted cell-phone conversations. So, nothing incriminating for the captain’s spy file. Nothing he couldn’t find out from looking in the official one in the lieutenant’s cabinet. The captain cracks a smile.

“Sir,” we say.

He returns the salute in a lazy sort of way and sits down on my lawn chair. Rankin and I continue to stand at attention while he glances around at the stacks of stuff I’ve pulled out to clean. He looks over the contents of our tent as though they’re his. I try to catch Rankin’s eye.

“H’mm.” The captain picks up the book I’m reading, the Harry Crews novel Clarissa gave me just before I left. We try not to stare at him, but Rankin’s eyes keep flicking his way. It’s then that I notice something funny about this new MI captain, something I haven’t ever seen before. In the place where everyone else has a name tape stuck above the front pocket of their shirt, his doesn’t have anything. No name, no nothing. The only markings on his uniform are captain’s bars. My mouth feels dry.

“Specialist Rankin,” he says, after a long examination of our various piles of sandy gear, “if you’ll excuse us a moment, I need to speak with your pal here.” He draws the word pal out as though it’s exotic or funny.

Rankin and I exchange a glance. I know exactly what he’s thinking. How in the hell did you manage to get this guy on your case so fast?

“Yes, sir,” he says, stepping into his plastic shower shoes and moving off in the direction of the mess tent.

My palms begin to sweat. I wipe them on my pants.

“Think of anything yet, Durrant?”

“About the lieutenant, sir?”

He gives me a pitying look, as though I might be afflicted with some sort of mental disorder. “Yes, about the lieutenant.”

“No, sir,” I say.

The captain flutters through the pages of my book until a photo of Clarissa drops onto the cot. He examines it. Grunts. Puts it back.

“Mother of your child?”

“Yes, sir.” The only one I’ve told about this is Rankin, and I know he’s kept it to himself. The captain must have been listening to our conversation for some time.

“You know, Durrant, you’ve got a serious enemy on the base. Somebody’s trying to nail your balls to the wall. And from what I can tell, he’s doing a fine job of it so far. A man who has the lieutenant’s ear.”

Fucking Lopez.

He gives me a moment to respond to this, but when I don’t, he goes on. “This man, he seems to think you sympathize with the enemy. A pretty serious charge.”

“Sir, that’s a lie, sir, I—”

The captain holds up a hand and presents me with an officer’s smile. The one that says,
I own you.
Although evening has drained the day’s color, leaving only oranges and browns, his eyes, which watch me over the tops of his sunglasses, look like the desert sky at noon. Bright blue and boiling. He takes out his cigarettes, shakes one up and throws me the pack. Without thinking, I stick a cig in my mouth.

“Keep the rest. In times of combat, smoking helps. Much more satisfying than prayer,” he says, leaning over with his silver Zippo. “Quit if and when you get home.”

I take a long drag. I’m surprised by how much I relish it. The last time I slipped up and smoked, the cigarette tasted awful. It made it much easier to stay quit. I have no doubt in my mind that this is the first of many cigarettes in my future. The chemicals seem to click into my brain like tumblers in a combination lock.

“Sir, may I—”

“I didn’t say I believed any of this nonsense. I’m only telling you so you can see where you stand. On very shaky ground, I don’t mind telling you.” He lights his own cigarette and blows the smoke at my chest. “I think I can help you, but you’ll need to do me a bit of a favor first.”

When I swallow, my throat clicks so loudly I’m sure he must hear it. My heart, unfaithful companion that it is, begins to wallop my ribs like a drunken bar fighter. Fast, hard, and irregular. Now I’m really in the shit. The captain has made my life a foreign country.

“Lieutenant Blankenship.” The captain compresses his lips with disgust. “He has a lockbox in his trailer where he keeps certain papers: letters, certificates, photographs, and the like. The contents have nothing to do with you. They’re nothing special, really.”

I want to yell, “Bullshit.”

Somehow, the captain has already smoked his entire cigarette. It seems impossible, but I watched him do it. He takes out a new pack and lights another, slowly, carefully. He speaks in much the same way. His intonation is flattened, drained of emotional inflection of any kind but still intense. “At the present time, it would be improper for me to demand that he turn them over in an official context, but they would be extremely useful to me.”

“Sir? May I ask wh—”

“No,” he says.

“I was under the impression you were here to interrogate prisoners, sir.”

“I am, if the need arises. Unfortunately, we have received reports about this base that require me to undertake additional duties, however unpleasant. Believe me when I say that I take no pleasure in this. In order for me to carry out these duties, I must work in complete secrecy. I had no choice but to recruit a confederate, Private Durrant, and this means you are obligated to observe the same secrecy.”

“Sir, I—”

“You are not to speak about this to anyone under any circumstances without my express permission. Do you understand, Private? This includes your pal there—” He jerks his chin in the direction Rankin walked off.

“Specialist Rankin.”

“Right,” the captain says as though memorizing the name, “Rankin.”

“Yes, sir, I won’t, but—”

“Good.” He exhales through his nostrils. “Because if I were even to
suspect
that you had betrayed my confidence, merely
suspect
it—” He draws hard on his cigarette, pulling a quarter of its smoke into his lungs. “—then I would make certain that your enemy here on base succeeded in nailing your balls to the wall.” He hammers the air with his cigarette for each of my nailed balls. An ash falls.

I try my best to keep perfectly still.

“Only
suspect,
” he says again, sliding his sunglasses to the tip of his nose and glowering at me with his desert-sky eyes. He leans back and crosses one leg over the other, pushing up his sunglasses as he settles on my cot. “Let me explain how we will proceed.”

41

Lopez doesn’t discover
the scorpion until just before roll call. Rankin is polishing his boots with an old pair of boxers. I’m still drowsing on my cot. Lopez’s scream carries all the way across the base. I jerk up. Rankin winks. We both light up cigarettes from the captain’s pack.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold out,” Rankin says.

“This is war,” I say.

“Fucking A.”

42

By the time
we reach the burn field, the thermometer in the truck reads 106 degrees, and it’s only 0930. Even at this hour, the heat’s so intense I have to put on gloves before I touch any metal that’s been lying in the sun. I still have a scar on my arm from leaning against the grille of the water tanker one afternoon. The skin bubbled up immediately and Salis, who was standing next to me, laughed his ass off.

As the sun climbs, the horizon loses focus and begins to shimmer. It is far too hot to talk. Ahmed and I take turns dousing our heads with water. I’m careful to keep my CamelBak tucked up under the truck in the shade. The water still gets warm, but at least it’s drinkable.

Ahmed seems to sense my tension and keeps a little distance between us while we unload the barrels, sneaking the occasional glance, like I might lose it at any moment and attack him. And he’s right to worry: the thought does cross my mind. I came upon him and Lopez chattering away beside the shit truck just before we left to go on the run. I couldn’t imagine what they’d have to talk about. I’d never seen them exchange more than a greeting before this. Ahmed kept pointing his finger in the direction of the burn field and making a strange gesture. He wiggled his hand back and forth like a snake. Lopez smiled and said something that sounded like “sleep on it.” They stopped talking before I heard anything else, but there’s a certain look people get when you come up on them suddenly and they’ve been talking about you. A sort of unhappy recognition that causes a narrowing of the eyes. And these two had it in spades.

I watch Ahmed pretty carefully as we pour the diesel and start the burn. Something’s going on with him. The real question is whether or not Lopez knows about it, and if he does know, whether or not he’s in on it. I have a really hard time seeing Lopez as a hajji secret agent, but I suppose other men have turned traitor unexpectedly. Earlier in the morning, I decided to tell the captain I wouldn’t do his ugly little chore. I even concocted a self-righteous speech about loyalty. Now I’m not so sure.

The entire ride home, I relish the thought of seeing Herman again. Ahmed manages to ruin this as well. Just as we’re pulling up to his house, he gives me a quizzical look, furrows his brow. and purses his lips. It looks rehearsed.

“Where do you go when you drop me?”

“Back to the base.” My stomach clenches. “Why?”

“But I am seeing you driving that way.” He points in the direction of the toy factory. “Every day I am seeing you. Where are you going every day?”

“Sometimes I like to open the windows and blow some of the stink off before I go back. A little alone time.”

“Alone time?” That hackneyed expression of befuddlement appears again.

“Never mind, Ahmed. Good work today. See you later.” I force my lips into a grin and give him the thumbs-up, which means stick it up your ass when the hajjis do it. I can tell from his face that he knows I know. He scowls and returns the gesture, jabbing the air between us with violent, little thrusts of his thumb.

Goddammit, I think. One more simple pleasure ruined. I do not visit the factory today.

43

After I give
Sergeant Oliphant the truck keys, he orders me to appear at the office trailer at 1800 hours, just after sentry duty. I don’t mention it to anyone, not even Rankin, but I turn it over in my head all day. And I know it can’t be good when I see Lopez loitering near the trailers. He grins as I climb the wooden steps to the door. I flip him off while scratching my neck.

The sergeant has me wait in the hall outside the lieutenant’s office for about ten minutes before they call me in. Doc Dyson steps out. He gives me a worried look that’s difficult to interpret.

The lieutenant doesn’t ask me to sit after I salute. Another bad sign. I try and calm myself by reading the lieutenant’s diploma from West Point. It hangs behind his desk where everyone can see it, right next to a framed photo of the president. He doesn’t bother with the pretense of flipping through a file today. Sergeant Oliphant closes the door behind us. For a moment, the only sound is the wheezing of the window AC unit. The lieutenant gives me a hard look.

“Explain your whereabouts in the hours preceding, during, and after the bombs went off in the Humvees yesterday. Beginning at 1400,” he says.

“As per Sergeant Guzman’s request, I redrafted the requisition forms for medical supplies. I was engaged in this until 1730. Afterward, I went back to my tent and—”

“Wait.” The lieutenant raises his hand. He looks behind me. “Are you getting this, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Oliphant says from his perch.

“And then?” the lieutenant says.

I give him a precise rundown of the day, making certain to mention every boring detail I can remember: the exact number of pages I read on my break after sentry duty, who I ate dinner with, the number of times I went to the latrine; I begin a joke I heard in the mess tent about a chicken and a nun, but Sergeant Oliphant stops me before I get to the funny part.

The lieutenant pulls at the hair behind his ear and memorizes the tiles on the ceiling. He tells me he’s heard a rumor about me putting bugs in Corporal Lopez’s cot and that I organized an insect fight in one of the common tents. I deny the first charge. He has no proof. The second isn’t exactly true, but there’s no point in getting Rankin in trouble too, so I admit it. I’m ordered to continue latrine burning for another month. And then we get to the real reason he’s called me here.

“It has also come to my attention,” he says, speaking very slowly, “that you were seen speaking to the new MI officer outside your tent. What was it exactly that you were discussing?”

“I am not at liberty to say, sir.” I am tempted to spill it, let him know what’s going on, but I don’t believe he’d be able to protect me, even if he had a mind to, something I’m beginning to doubt.

The lieutenant stands and shouts, “Not at liberty to say? I order you to tell me what went on, Private Durrant.” Although I’ve seen the lieutenant angry many times, I’ve never heard this tone of voice. He sounds desperate. “Now.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” I hang my head and give my boots the saddest look I can muster. “But the captain expressly told me not to repeat the discussion to anyone, no matter what.”

The lieutenant lets his arms drop but remains standing. I almost feel sorry for him. He doesn’t have a chance against the captain. He chews at his cheek and looks up at the ceiling again, as though the answer to his dilemma might be written on the acoustic tiles.

“Did the discussion involve me?” The lieutenant pinches the crease in his pants.

Sergeant Oliphant coughs significantly.

“Oh, well, I . . .” the lieutenant starts, but then sits down heavily on his chair. He looks defeated.

I feel sweat bead on my forehead and upper lip. I nod.

“Durrant? Do you mean—” The lieutenant leans forward and peers at me. Very slowly, so slowly it could be deniable, I move my head up and down once.

There goes the first nail in my balls. I can almost hear the savage thump of the hammer.

“May I ask a question, sir?”

The lieutenant stares at me.

“What is the captain’s name?”

“That’s . . . I . . .”

“Hasn’t he told anyone?”

“Sir,” Sergeant Oliphant barks.

“Sir,” I say.

The lieutenant scratches the bridge of his nose. Behind me, Sergeant Oliphant lets out a long breath. I wish I could see his face.

“The captain,” the lieutenant begins, sounding like the narrator of a nature documentary, dramatic and cheerful, “is here on a special mission that requires anonymity. As commanding officer of this base, HQ has made me aware of the details. That’s all you need to know about this subject.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A fuck-lot of silly pussyfooting around is what it is.” He flicks the pen set on his desk. Then, suddenly, his voice changes and becomes authoritative. “Do you know anything about the old man’s death? The older prisoner. Have you spoken to anyone about it? You don’t have to name names.”

“No,” I say, meeting his eyes and then looking away, “I haven’t talked about it in the way I think you mean, but I don’t believe it was a suicide, sir, if that’s what you’re asking.” No response, so I continue. “I can’t see how a little old man like him got out of his restraints or managed to get his pants over the beam in the ceiling. The poor guy only had three of his lower teeth. It seems improbable, sir. Someone must have helped him.”

“That someone wasn’t you, was it?”

“No, sir,” I say, barely able to modulate my voice. “Why would I want to do something like that?”

“Oh, I can think of a few reasons.” He looks over my shoulder at Sergeant Oliphant, then nods once and closes his eyes.

“Sir—”

“Dismissed.”