I followed Welsted off, sand stinging my face and collecting in the corners of my eyes. As the soldiers loaded onto a convoy truck and departed, Blanton waved us over to an idling Humvee with two grit-coated marines, one at the wheel, the other riding shotgun.
“World’s biggest freakin’ sandbox.” Blanton pulled a wry smile.
Welsted breezed past us into the vehicle. Blanton and I joined her in the backseat.
The Humvee rumbled down an unpaved road that lay bleached and bone-white from the passage of military convoys. Nothing much to see. Sand molded by the wind into spiny formations. Stunted trees bearing withered fruit. The charred remains of a car half buried on the shoulder.
Our driver was young, Katy’s age. No, younger. His cheeks were furred with peach fuzz. Shotgun wasn’t much older.
I wondered what the parents thought of their sons being out here. A trapdoor sprung inside my head and suddenly I was seeing the hit-and-run vic back in Charlotte. The one with the pink barrette and kitty purse. The one in a body bag.
I glanced right and caught Blanton looking at me, eyes narrow, maybe even unfriendly. Calculating? If so, calculating what? What angle was there to play? Why would Blanton’s goal, or that of NCIS, be any different from mine? From Welsted’s?
Probably nothing. Blanton had made it clear he didn’t like moving outside the wire. Maybe he was spooked. God knows I felt removed from my element. Everyone was keyed up. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of his cold, appraising eyes.
The Humvee hit a VCP, a vehicle checkpoint that was nothing more than a cement pillbox. A pair of soldiers sat on folding chairs, sweating though the sun was barely up. One rose and trotted over, aviator shades hooding his eyes.
Welsted presented some documents. The soldier scanned them, then bent for a better view of the Humvee’s interior.
“NCIS?”
Welsted tipped her head toward Blanton.
“Anthropologist?”
This time I got the nod.
The tinted shades swiveled my way. Lingered several beats. More hostility? Impossible to tell, since I couldn’t see the guy’s eyes. Did they figure I was there to buttress the prosecution of Second Lieutenant Gross? Paint him as a murderer? Stir up the locals once again and make everyone’s job harder and more dangerous?
The soldier waved us through.
“We’re nearly there.” Welsted spoke without turning her head. “The village isn’t much to look at. Typical of the sort you’ll see in this province. Herding, some small-scale farming. Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t find any open resentment.”
“We aren’t going in under normal circumstances.”
“No, Mr. Blanton, we are not.”
Blanton’s jaw went rigid. Was the friction due to the same jurisdictional jockeying I was used to seeing in Charlotte and Montreal? Army versus Navy? Military versus civilian? I found the thought strangely calming.
No one spoke for a bumpy five or six minutes. Then, “I won’t call these people ignorant, because that’s wrong, not to mention potentially dangerous.” Welsted squinted at the heat-shimmer rising at the horizon.
“But the life they lead is simple. We make a point of respecting their customs, insofar as they don’t interfere with our own objectives.”
“Which are?” I asked.
“Objective one is to protect the free world. Objective two, our specific goal in this operation, is to make sure that United States personnel acted properly in the pursuit of objective one.”
After several more miles of nonconversational hitching and swaying, Sheyn Bagh took shape in the distance, a compound of squat stone structures enclosed within a low stone wall on three sides, backed up to a very steep hill on the fourth.
Welsted was right. The place wasn’t much to look at. Unless your taste in architecture swung toward stark minimalism. But the setting was otherworldly.
Sheyn Bagh lay at the foot of a prominence, the south side of which rose sharply, maybe two hundred feet, to a mesa studded with oddly shaped boulders. The slope, more cliff than hill, was composed of peculiar, peaked formations that resembled upright ladyfinger cookies of differing heights. In the hazy morning light I could make out tiny holes in the rocks, like honeycomb. As we drew nearer those holes became doorways, windows, and staircases.
I was about to pose a question when Welsted explained.
“Half the village is built into the hillside. The rock is sturdy enough to provide a solid foundation, but porous enough to tunnel into.”
“Maybe that’s how Osama went to ground.”
“These towns are like icebergs.” As usual, Welsted ignored Blanton’s comment. “Only a small percentage visible.”
We drove through a gap in the wall and stopped in what probably served as the village green. At an opening between two low buildings, a goat raised its head, bleated, and clop-clopped slowly toward the Humvee.
Shotgun’s fingers tightened on his rifle. Bringing the barrel into view in the window, he shouted in what I assumed was Pashto. A kid, maybe ten or eleven, ran forward and dragged the goat back toward the alley from which it had emerged.
“Bastards shove explosives up the asses of their barnyard pals.” Blanton’s voice sounded taut.
Shotgun shouldered open his door and got out. Welsted followed.
A trio of men approached wearing clothes the color of the desert itself. Striped kaffiyeh wrapped their heads. Sandals covered their dusty feet.
One man was taller than the others. One had a mole above his beard shaped like a daisy. All three were lean, their faces pitted and scarred. I couldn’t guess their ages. Each had the look of living stone.
“I’ll do the talking.” Welsted circled the Humvee and advanced a short distance.
The men paused six feet from her. Solemn greetings were exchanged. No smiles.
Watching, I couldn’t help but wonder. Was I looking into the face of the loathsome Taliban? Were these men who would beat women, cut off their ears and noses as they begged for mercy? Shoot them in their school buses for expressing their thoughts? Maim and shun them for being victims of rape? Men who would destroy schools lest little girls learn to read? Kill volunteer workers lest they supply vaccinations against polio?
Or were they simple farmers just trying to get on with life? With the struggle of herding goats, growing crops, and raising kids?
As Welsted conferred with our welcoming committee, I looked around.
Windows stared back at me, silent and empty. Or were they? Were hidden eyes tracking our every move?
An AK-47 propped open a door. Old, but undoubtedly functional. A lethal doorstop.
Here and there men in twos and threes watched with suspicion. Boys stood frozen, play forgotten. There wasn’t a female in sight.
After a brief exchange, the trio withdrew, talked briefly, then returned to Welsted. The tallest of the three spoke. Welsted replied. The tall man hesitated, then nodded assent.
Welsted returned to the Humvee.
“They say there’s been tension between U.S. troops and some of the locals. In light of the incident. He says the exhumation must be performed with caution and—”
“Dignity,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Please tell them I’ll treat the bodies with reverence.”
Welsted translated. Again the men conversed. Again the tall one nodded.
“Let’s get this freakin’ show on the road.” Blanton’s eyes were bouncing from building to building, alley to alley, curious face to curious face. Veins were pumping in both his temples.
Two kids were summoned. Teenagers with long ropy limbs and wispy beards. Each carried a shovel on one bony shoulder.
The boys looked wary but excited. Digging in a graveyard. Forbidden, blasphemous, on this day condoned.
Eyes on the tall man, Blanton spoke to Welsted.
“Be sure this muj understands I’ll be filming everything. I don’t want any flak about pissing off ancestors or hijacking soul
s.”
Welsted explained about the photography. The man responded.
“Don’t film any women,” Welsted relayed.
“There goes my fashion spread in Cosmo.” Blanton spat in the dust. “Tell them to get their asses in gear.”
“Lose the attitude, Mr. Blanton.” Welsted’s tone was toxic.
Blanton and I gathered our cameras, shovels, and other equipment. Welsted got the screen. The tall man gestured toward goat alley. Our driver moved to the front of the line, Shotgun to the rear. Both looked anxious, like deer in an open field.
As we moved in single file toward the western edge of the village, I felt unseen eyes on my back. Heard only our own boot falls and a wind chime somewhere out of sight.
The cemetery lay a few hundred feet outside the wall. The rocky outcrop loomed above, overshadowing the site like a mini-Masada.
The burials were modest, no ornate tombstones or carved statuary as in old-style American graveyards. A few had crude markers of the same rock used to construct the wall. Most were simply outlined with stones arranged in rough ovals.
Some burials were still mounded, but most slumped. The newly dead, the long departed. All were aligned in rows, as in a farmer’s field. But bones, not seeds, lay beneath the ground.
Wordlessly, we wound our way to each of the graves. Aqsaee was buried just inside the cemetery entrance. Rasekh lay so far back his oval of stones sloped up the base of the hill.
Welsted looked at me. I told her we’d begin with Rasekh. No reason. We were gathered there.
Bodies coiled, eyes jumpy, the marines took up positions by the cemetery entrance. I wasn’t sure if their tense vigilance heightened or lowered my sense of security.
As Blanton shot video and stills, and the boys removed the perimeter stones, I used a long metal probe to check for differences in subsurface density to determine the configuration of Rasekh’s grave.
Then, after brief instruction from Welsted, the boys sank their shovels into the dry desert soil. As they worked, feet spread, arms pumping, I squatted by the deepening trench, alert to color changes in the soil that would indicate decomposition.
For thirty minutes the air rang with the sound of blades gouging the earth. Of displaced earth shishing onto a growing heap.
Men gathered at the village wall to watch in grim silence. Now and then I’d raise my eyes to glance at them. Though too far away to read their expressions, I knew they were scrutinizing us closely.
An hour passed. Ninety minutes. The sun rose, and with it the temperature.
After finishing a third series of photos, Blanton moved off to the edge of the group and lit up a smoke. An old man approached him, hand out. Blanton shook free a cigarette and placed it in his palm.
Finally I saw the telltale shift.
“Hold up,” I said.
The boys stopped shoveling. Straightening, they looked at each other, then at me.
“Ask them to step away, please,” I told Welsted.
The boys obeyed.
The hole was roughly three feet deep. At the bottom, a dark oval was emerging from the yellow-brown soil. Poking from it, I could see what looked like fabric.
I heard boots, then a shadow fell across the grave.
“Found one of our boys?”
Ignoring Blanton’s question, I dropped to my belly, closed my eyes, and inhaled deeply through my nose.
The odor of decomposing flesh is unmistakable. Sweet and fetid, like residue spoiling in a trashcan.
I smelled only soil and a hint of something organic. Either the bodies had mummified or they had skeletonized completely.
Another shadow joined Blanton’s.
“Need a hand?”
“Get the trowel and brush from my pack, please.”
Welsted was back in less than a minute. “What do you have?”
“Probably the edge of a shroud.”
“Time for a body bag?”
“Yes.”
Using the trowel, I scraped dirt from around and below the fabric, slowly revealing the lumpy contours of what lay inside. When enough was exposed, I gently lifted one fragile edge.
The shroud contained exactly what I’d hoped. I recognized a clavicle, a scapula, some dark and leathery ligamentous tissue.
I gestured that the boys should now proceed with trowels, and gave a brief demonstration on how to do so.
An hour later, Rasekh’s shrouded bones lay aboveground. I was on my knees, zipping the body bag, when, far off, I heard a noise. A low buzz, like a honeybee sluggish with sun.
I glanced up. Scanned the sky. Saw nothing.
The buzzing grew louder. Was joined by the sound of pounding feet.
I looked around.
Across the cemetery, Blanton’s eyes were huge in a very white face. The villagers were gone from the wall. Back by the Humvee, Welsted was gazing skyward. So were the marines. My digging team was nowhere in sight.
The human brain is a switching station that operates on two levels. As my cortex processed these facts, my hypothalamus was already ordering adrenaline full throttle.
The buzz became a whine. Closer. Louder. The delicate hairs inside my ears vibrated uncomfortably.
“Get down!” Shotgun screamed. “Now!”
I curled and threw my hands over my head.
The world exploded.
I OPENED MY eyes.
Darkness.
I listened.
Absolute quiet.
By instinct I’d cupped a palm around my mouth to create an air pocket. And my helmet had helped. But the small bubble of space wasn’t enough. My chest was compressed, my lungs squeezed too tightly to function. The heavy armor only made the pressure worse.
I tried to breathe. Couldn’t.
I tried again. Got no air.
Panic began to set in.
How long could a person go without oxygen? Three minutes? Five?
How long had I been trapped?
I had no clue.
Again I tried to inhale. Again I failed.
My heart was banging. Pumping blood that was fast losing what little oxygen it held.
I tried moving the hand away from my mouth. Hit resistance within millimeters.
My other arm was numb. I had no sense of its position. The position of my legs.
A wave of dizziness flooded my brain. I saw images of the mesa. Of the ladyfinger rocks.
Rocks that now imprisoned me like a coffin.
How many feet? How many tons?
The panic increased. Adrenaline shot through me.
Breathe!
I tensed my neck and shoulder muscles. Bent my head forward as far as I could, then thrust it back.
My skull cracked rock. Pain exploded through my brain.
But the move worked. I heard the hiss of falling sand, felt a little less pressure on my chest.
I breathed in slowly. The dusty air coated my tongue, my throat. My lungs exploded in a series of hacking coughs. I breathed again. Coughed again.
The dizziness passed. My thoughts began to organize into coherent patterns.
Shout? But in what direction? How was I lying?
Was anyone out there? Was anyone alive to free me? Had the others also been buried?
I blinked sand from my eyes. Saw only inky blackness. Heard only stillness. No voices. No shovels. No movement.
Again, the panic.
Think. Forget the rubble. The dust. The deafening quiet.
I tried rolling to my left. My right leg was pinned. I could feel a sharp edge pressing the flesh of my calf.
I tried flexing my knee. A hot spike ripped up from my ankle.
I tried rolling to my right. Got nowhere. My shoulder was jammed tight against rock. Rock that moments before had overhung the graveyard. Rock that now buried me like the dead we’d just raised.
Think.
I willed myself calm. Willed my breathing steady. Willed the bulky armor to rise and fall.
In. Out. In. Out.
I
tried yelling, but my mouth was too dry. I mustered what saliva I could and tried again.
My voice sounded dull, muffled. And which way was up? Down? Was I yelling into the sky or the earth?
My thoughts were again growing muddled. Oxygen deprivation? Or was it carbon dioxide overload? I knew the answer to that once. It was not coming to me now.
Questions winged.
An incoming mortar? A surface-to-surface missile? Launched by whom?
What did that matter?
Were Blanton and Welsted also buried? The two young diggers?
I closed my eyes. Heard only the soft hiss of sand worming through cracks.
Why was no one probing? Digging? Shouting? Had the villagers abandoned us? To let our people get us out or not?
Would I die? Of hypothermia? Asphyxia? How long would it take?
The thought of death filled me with a terrible sadness. In this place, so far from home, so far from the people I loved. Katy. Harry. Pete. Ryan. Yes, Ryan.
A tear traced a path sideways across my cheek and dropped to my hand.
My addled brain managed a deduction.
Dropped. Gravity. I was lying on my right side. The earth was somewhere below it. Dirt, rock, and sky were somewhere above my left shoulder.
I inhaled and began to test as far as my left hand could go.
My fingertips described a Lego jigsaw, gravity and pressure holding the pieces in place. Disturbing the balance might cause a shift, might bring more debris crashing down.
How much air did I have? The rocks were porous and most likely hadn’t compacted tightly enough to exclude oxygen. But how deeply was I interred? When would help arrive? To find a survivor or a body?
Then I knew nothing.
Then I awoke. Heard sounds. Watery, indistinct.
Voices?
I froze.
Yes. Human voices. High and agitated.
Desperate, euphoric, I maneuvered my left hand to grope the farthest recesses of the small vacuum in front of my face. My fingers closed on a stone the size of my fist. My heart raced as I moved it in the small arc the limited space would permit, trying to bang against the rock above my head.