Bones of the Lost

properly search and secure areas under his responsibility. Improper deployments of his fire team in action. Guy’s a fuckup waiting to happen.
    Yesterday Eggers proved me right. His failure to take decisive action could have cost me my ass. If those Muj had been packing, I’d be going home in a box.
    It’s not like I wanted to waste those guys. Jesus. I’m practically puking about it. But it was a righteous kill. They were a clear threat.
    Eggers doesn’t get it. Doesn’t think like a Marine. Or act like a Marine. CIVCAS from a mission sucks. But collateral damage is part of war.
    I don’t trust Eggers and he doesn’t like me.

THE MH-60 BLACKHAWK lifted off, then banked low between shale and limestone cliffs on the start of its three-hundred-mile run to Sheyn Bagh.
    That was my best guess of the distance. Welsted had tried to fill me in, but between the throb of the rotors and the wind whooshing against the airframe, conversation wasn’t happening. And lip-reading isn’t one of my skills.
    It was early, just past 0600, but after a bad night’s sleep I was ready to move. Wall-to-wall nightmares. Katy’s voice calling from darkness amid the thud of artillery shells. Birdie purring from the bottom of a deep well. Other scenarios, equally bizarre. The same images looping over and over.
    I’d dressed in the predawn darkness, then bolted for a quick breakfast. After donning my IBA, I’d rendez-voused with Blanton and Welsted at the flight line.
    The Blackhawk was a marvel of military engineering. Fourteen million dollars’ worth of bulletproof steel and Lexan glass, powered by a pair of massive turboshaft engines.
    We were sharing the bird with a half dozen soldiers. Stoic faces, intense eyes. Packed in like badass sardines in a tin. Welsted said they were going someplace north of Sheyn Bagh to quell a disturbance. She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t press.
    The Blackhawk elevated at dizzying speed and hurtled toward ourdestination. The sun rose along the curve of the earth, throwing up spikes of early-morning light. The land was beautiful, the way Artic tundra can be beautiful. A narrow river looked like a dark ribbon twisting across the arid emptiness.
    My gaze shifted to Welsted, then to Blanton. Something in their posture indicated a deep mutual dislike. When their eyes met they immediately jumped elsewhere, like magnets repulsing. The air between them crackled with pent-up tension.
    I’d sensed the friction yesterday but couldn’t pinpoint the source. Only an insistent tickle at the base of my brain stem telling me that something was off.
    Did they have opposing views on the exhumation? Were they unhappy about being ordered into danger in a village of potentially hostile Muslims? Or was it personal?
    Forget it. Focus on the task at hand
.
    I glanced out the Blackhawk’s side window. The bulletproof glass was scarred with milky slashes where antiaircraft rounds had hit and ricocheted off. I charted the terrain below, wondered if anyone had us in his sights.
    Concentrated on putting that out of my mind, too.
    Thanks to a strong tailwind, we arrived at Delaram early, just before 0800. The Blackhawk’s blades whipped up fans of yellow dust as we touched down. Blanton disembarked first, followed by the soldiers. All scuttled across the landing zone with heads lowered, shoulders hunched to the wind.
    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