Creeper extended a hand to Commander Washington, digging his feet into the ground and pulling mightily to drag the muscle-bound man onto the ledge. Mamba collapsed when safely over the precipice, exhausted from the incredible climb. Creeper looked back towards the compound, now still in the morning sun.
Loosening the cap of his canteen, Matea passed it to the Commander. Washington took a giant swig before pouring the remaining cold water over his face, rolling onto his back as he gasped for air in the sweltering heat.
"Did you see him?" He asked, sweat leaking from every pore of his thick-framed body. Beads of liquid moving across the baldness of his head cast prisms over the desert. "Did you see the Lord?"
"I -- I" Matea stuttered. "I don't know what I saw."
"He saved me!" Washington insisted. "They were about to chop off my head like -- like they did to Shank."
"Shank's dead?"
"They're all dead, Tony... all except for me." Washington's elation seemed to crash down like an anvil upon his chest as he processed all that he had left behind in the sand. "They killed them all. Dallas, Big Bird, Gator, Dice and Shank... they're all gone."
"What the hell happened down there, Rob? How did it go so wrong?"
"I don't know, Tony." Washington was growing agitated.
"Why didn't you scrub the mission? If you thought they saw us coming, why didn't you--"
"We had to go, Captain!" Mamba shouted back. "We had to carry out our orders!"
"You said you knew something was wrong before you jumped! You could've stopped the whole thing, Robert! You could've saved them all!"
"No!" The shouting mixed with crying. "I don't know what I knew! We heard you call for help... you said you were under fire!"
"I never said that, Robert! I never said anything at all! You were just suddenly there -- suddenly coming in below the clouds."
"But I heard it! We all heard you in trouble. I wasn't gonna leave you down here by yourself if those people were coming for you!"
"Nobody was coming for me, damn it!" Matea cried as well, hurling tears and sweat from his face with his tattooed olive hand. He called upon his training to maintain composure, taking deep breaths before he continued. "Even if they were, Robert, you know better than to put the team in danger just for the sake of me!"
"That's easy for you to say, Captain - you didn't see the things we saw! There was a fire in the sky --" Washington paused in recollection of it all. "I don't know what it was, but -- it called to me. All for one, Tony, that's what it said! All for one!"
"Jesus, Robert - you killed them all! You killed our friends!"
"Goddamn it, Captain!" Washington barked now like a hardened drill sergeant. "You are still an officer, you will behave as one! You will address me as Commander or Sir, and you WILL NOT question my command!"
"That's bullshit, Robert." Matea answered calmly. "That's all bullshit, now. All of that is over -- all of that is changed."
Washington calmed slowly, fighting his way to a seated position. He cleared the dripping fluids from his eyes and stared intently at the man he knew and loved.
"You did see it, then?" He asked softly. "You did see Him?"
"I told you, Robert." Matea stood and paced a bit, walking in a circle. "I don't know what I saw."
He ran his hands over his face, rubbing clean the last flakes of combat paint that remained below his eyes. Running them through his soaking hair, he locked his fingers behind his head and turned back to face his superior.
"It doesn't make sense, Commander!" He shouted. "It must've been a dream! This heat - it plays games with your mind."
"It wasn't a dream, Creeper." Washington assured him. "It was Jesus Christ, our Lord."
Matea yanked his arms apart, throwing them out to his sides in frustration. "What interest would Christ take in a man like Ali Sabra?" He asked. "The man was a murderer! Cold and evil -- the Devil incarnate! Why would Jesus take the hand of a piece of shit like that?"
"He went to Ali Sabra? What happened, Tony?"
"He didn't just go to him, Robert, he took the man away!"
"Maybe he killed him? Maybe he judged him where he stood?"
"Shit," Creeper laughed. "He didn't judge him; he smiled at him, took his hand and led him away!"
"Which way did they go?"
Matea shook his head now, as though trying to wring out something that didn't compute... a splinter of thought that made no sense at all.
"They went up." He explained.
"Up?"
"Yes, Robert, UP! It was like they were climbing stairs -- a small step at a time! They walked away together, until they disappeared into the clouds!"
"Why did he leave us here?" Washington wondered, staring blankly into space. "Why would he take Ali Sabra up and into Heaven but leave the two of us stranded in the desert?"
"Beats the shit out of me!" Creeper chuckled nervously. "You seem so sure about what's happening, don't you have all the answers Commander?"
"I don't understand."
"Yeah, me neither! And while we're solving mysteries, where the fuck is the Forty-Second Recon with those Black Hawks that were supposed to be coming through?"
"Something must've happened to them, too." Washington suggested.
"Something like what?"
"Anything, Creeper! All this madness that we've encountered - it only seems reasonable that the shit's really hit the fan. For all we know the whole world could've ended out there. We could be all that's left."
"Or maybe we're the dead ones." Matea speculated. "Maybe I was attacked... maybe that plane we saw them shoot down was the real Stork."
"My God, Tony... you think we didn't survive?"
"It's as logical an explanation as anything else! Maybe we've moved on..."
"And this place, then?"
"Is Hell."
Washington stood now, surveying the world around him. It was desolate and infinite; sand as far as his eye could see. The fiery sun beat down viciously upon them, looking angry in its gaze. It was quiet, too. Not even a breeze to disturb the silence.
"Do you think that's possible?" Washington asked, uncertain what to think.
"We've killed a lot of people, Robert." Creeper said as though Washington needed to be reminded. "I lost count how many. Hundreds, at least... maybe a thousand."
"We did as we were ordered!" The Commander returned passionately. "We never killed anyone that didn't deserve to die!"
"Really?" Matea questioned. "Have you really been so indoctrinated, Robert?"
"What are you saying?"
"They were still people, Commander! Whatever their intentions, their opinions, their political alignments -- they were still people, Robert! I've killed people at their dinner tables, in the shower, taking their fucking dogs for walks! I zeroed in my scope, took a deep breath and pulled my trigger! Not one of them had any idea what was coming. Through the eye of death I watched them - some not killed immediately with my first shot. They teach us one shot, one kill like it's something to be proud of, but it doesn't always work that way! I've sent lead through people's skulls and seen them survive. I've seen their terror, Robert, through this scope! I've seen them cry out to God or their wives or children! I've watched them fight for breath, and what did I do in response? I shot them again! And again and again, if necessary! I was following orders, but it was clear to me each time... I'm a killer, Commander, and so are you!"
"It's different, when --"
"It's NEVER different! There is no explanation that can satisfy God when we murder someone, Robert!"
"How can you do it, then?" Washington was finally able to get out. "If you feel this way -- how have you been able to do it?"
"What choice was there?" Matea responded. "My whole life I've been conditioned to do this... to kill from the shadows with the squeeze of a finger. I can't do anything else... but it doesn't mean I've grown cold to it. I can't believe that yo
u would suggest that you have!"
"And what if I haven't?" Washington barked back again. "What if I don't like it any more than you do? What difference does that make to anything?"
"Not much, I guess. Not now." Creeper conceded, shielding his eyes from the ball of fire in the sky. "But now it's time we pay our penance. We're dead, Robert, and now we're in Hell... our own personal and private Hell. We're here to atone for our sins."
There was a long pause, each of them absorbing the events of the night before and contemplating their predicament privately.
"So," Washington eventually asked. "What do we do now?"
"I don't know." He answered after an equally long delay. "We can't stay in this sun for long, though... that much I know for sure."
"Was that the last of your water?"
"Yep. Not a drop left."
"I guess that's where we start, then... we find shelter, we find water." The Commander approached his partner in crime, perhaps now in death, and opened his arms to invite an embrace. "Hooah?"
Matea hesitated, but only for a moment.
"Hooah."
There, in the mountains of the Earth, the hard bodies of two sharpened warriors came together fondly as they shared a comforting hug. Brothers in arms united, in the face of the rising wind.
Chapter 11