Sand and Fire (9780698137844) Read online

  By now it was late in the afternoon. All the offices would close soon, and Blount would have plenty of time to outprocess tomorrow. So instead of going to personnel, he checked in at the Lejeune Inn, the base’s temporary lodging facility. In the lobby he saw Corporal Fender, the Marine who’d been with him the night of the sarin attack at Sig.

  “Gunny,” Fender said. “Didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you were getting out.” The corporal, off duty now, wore faded jeans and a Carolina Panthers hoodie. Worn-out tennis shoes. His clothing might have marked him as a young delinquent if not for his buzz cut and straight posture.

  “I am,” Blount said. “Just running some last errands. What about you? I thought you were staying at Sig in case something kicked off.”

  “They sent me back here for some more chem warfare training. And now the MEU is setting sail.”

  “The Twenty-second?” Blount asked. “Everybody?”

  “Yes, Gunny.”

  That meant Blount’s battalion was heading out, along with a helicopter squadron and all the support sections needed to sustain an air–ground task force. In the Mediterranean, the 22nd MEU would join the Marines of the 24th, the men Blount had seen during his layover at Rota. He remembered well these pulse-quickening preparations for battle, the anticipation and the anxiety. The uncertainties of a new mission, along with the solid certainty that the Marines around him would have his back.

  “Sorry you’re not going with us, Gunny,” Fender said. “Always felt safer knowing you were there.”

  The corporal meant that as a compliment, but the words knifed right into Blount’s heart. Leaving the Corps came hard enough without knowing the people closest to you might soon go into harm’s way. He hid his emotions as best he could, but he wanted to know more about this deployment.

  “What else have they told you?” Blount asked.

  “They briefed us yesterday about some new terrorist dude named Sadiq Kassam. Weird-looking motherfucker who says he wants to bring back the days of the Barbary pirates.”

  Blount frowned. Bring back the Barbary pirates? Every Marine knew what happened when Thomas Jefferson got fed up with the first terrorist threat against the U.S. The Barbary states had captured American vessels and enslaved the crews to extract ransom. Jefferson decided to give them another kind of payback, and the Marines still sang about the shores of Tripoli.

  “Somebody needs to ask Kassam how well that worked out last time,” Blount said.

  “I was just thinking that. But last time, they didn’t have nerve gas.”

  Fender had a point. Anybody with chemical weapons posed a dangerous threat. And as outlandish as talk of the Barbary pirates might seem, Blount knew terrorists dreamed of stranger things. Osama bin Laden had spoken of creating a worldwide caliphate.

  Blount chatted with Fender for a few more minutes, wished him a safe deployment. With nothing to do until morning, Blount decided to drive off base for an early supper. On his way to the main gate, he met a column of military vehicles. The Humvees and Cougars bristled with weapons; some carried the .50 caliber M2, others the Mark 19 grenade launcher. Marines on their way in from some training—or maybe on their way out for a night exercise. The sight made Blount feel he was leaving a job unfinished. A big part of him wanted to climb aboard one of the vehicles, check in on the radio, offer encouragement, bark an order.

  He found a barbecue joint in Jacksonville. When he ordered his pork barbecue, slaw, and hush puppies, the waitress gave him a military discount without asking for his ID. Somehow she knew, even though Blount was not in uniform.

  Am I that obvious? he wondered. The Corps had become such a part of him that he exuded it. What would life become for him on the outside? Part of him felt ready to leave. Bernadette and the girls wanted him home, and he certainly needed no more nights like the one at an Afghanistan cave. At the same time, he knew he could never find this kind of camaraderie anywhere else. He knew of Marines who’d leaped onto grenades to protect their buddies. But on the outside, at least for some chumps, it was all about Number One. 1-800-EAT SHIT.

  The next morning, Blount went to the battalion S-1 office to get his outprocessing checklist. The checklist would direct him to various places on base to turn in equipment, settle any debts on his government travel card, deactivate his government e-mail. But he found no one in the office to help him.

  “I’m sorry, Gunnery Sergeant,” a young private said. “Everybody’s working on mobility processing right now.”

  They have their priorities straight, Blount thought. Better to spend time on Marines going to war than on one Marine calling it quits. They got more important things to do than bother with me.

  The personnel people, along with folks from the clinic, the Judge Advocate General, supply, and the Navy chaplain’s office, were making sure the platoons were ready to deploy.

  Checking shot records, dog tags, passports, wills, and powers of attorney. Handing out refrigerator magnets from Family Readiness with numbers for spouses to call in emergencies. For Marines who wanted them, free pocket-sized Bibles with camo covers. Qurans, too. Blount had gone through that drill many times.

  With his plans for the day shot down, he walked outside. An Osprey tilt-rotor from the nearby New River air station flew overhead, making its distinctive buzz and pulse that sounded like no other aircraft. At the same time, a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter pounded above the tree line. The Stallion did not look like something meant to fly. The chopper hung in the air as deadweight, held aloft by brute force of engines and rotors. As the aircraft flew nearer, Blount recognized an M777 howitzer slung underneath the Stallion. Preparations for a fight. Probably taking the gun to New River to prep it for airlift to North Africa. Automatic-weapons fire chattered in the distance. More training going on.

  To step aboard that helicopter, to catch a Humvee over to one of the ranges and supervise a combat exercise, seemed the most natural thing in the world. Blount had never felt so torn in his life. What did he owe to his family? To himself? But then, what did he owe to his country and to the Corps that had made him?

  This very moment felt wrong: to find himself aboard a Marine Corps installation, in uniform, still drawing government pay, but with no task at hand. No orders to carry out, no purpose. Unsure what to do with himself, Blount stopped in to see his most recent boss, his company commander.

  Captain Adam Privett rose from his desk to greet Blount, silver bars gleaming on the collar of his digital camo. Blond hair cut to stubble on the sides of his head, just enough hair on top for a comb. Papers and folders littered the desk of the thirty-year-old officer. Privett offered a firm handshake, Naval Academy ring on his right hand.

  “You look busy, sir,” Blount said. “I won’t take up much of your time. Just wanted to say hello while I’m still here.”

  “Yeah, you know how it is right before a deployment. Always somebody who needs an anthrax shot or can’t find his passport.”

  Blount’s first instinct was to go find the offender. After Blount got done with him, any young eight-ball Marine would rather stand a post in hell itself than let the sun go down without his deployment requirements squared away. Instead, Blount could only ask, “When do you ship out, sir?”

  “We board the Tarawa in three weeks. Brand-new ship. I’ll miss you, Guns. Never had a worry with you beside me.”

  I keep hearing that, Blount thought. Hurts worse every time.

  “Once you get to the Med, do you expect to get sent ashore?”

  “If they can nail down a location for a terrorist base, probably. If these chemical attacks keep happening, definitely.”

  Blount imagined the amphibious assault ships would lurk off the coast of Libya or Algeria, maybe steam into the Gulf of Sidra. Commanders would wait for intel on the whereabouts of this Sadiq Kassam and his posse. The Marines would continue to hone their skills as well as they could aboard
ship, straining at the leash like Dobermans until loosed on a target. Then they’d carry out their core mission: Locate, close with, and destroy the enemy. Blount could almost smell the sea breezes, the helicopter exhaust, the rifle smoke. Hard to believe this operation would launch without him.

  “Godspeed, sir,” Blount said as he rose to leave. He shook the captain’s hand again.

  “Go home and take care of your family,” Privett said. “You’ve earned it.”

  A nice thing to say, but it didn’t ease the turmoil in Blount’s warrior heart. Outside Fox Company’s offices he felt at sea, and not in a good way. Drifting between opposing tides with no clear, proper course. He passed by the break area, noted the ever-present smell of burned coffee, the cardboard sign over the coffeemaker: THIS COFFEE MESS APPROVED BY THE CAMP LEJEUNE FIRE DEPARTMENT. The desks and halls and lockers here felt as familiar as his own home, maybe more so. One of those lockers contained his helmet, body armor, and other gear. He needed to clean out that locker, but he just didn’t feel like doing it now.

  He’d accomplished not one thing today. And over the weekend he could do little but take up space in temp lodging. Blount decided to drive home, spend the weekend with his family, re-attack on Monday. A waste of gas, for sure. But maybe the open road, the night air would settle his mind. He checked out of the Lejeune Inn, filled his tank at the Marine Corps Exchange gas station, and bought a cup of black coffee.

  By the time Blount drove out of Jacksonville, night had fallen. With his window down, he heard frogs singing in the sloughs just off the rural roads. He’d loved that peaceful sound since childhood. Soon cool weather would silence them for the winter. When he could hear the frogs no more, he raised his window, reached down to his cup holder, and took a sip of the bitter coffee. On 95 South he put the Ram on cruise control and turned on the radio.

  The country station he’d listened to earlier began to crackle and break up, so he pressed the scan button. Pressed it again to stop the scan when he heard the buzz-saw chords of Guns N’ Roses. He didn’t much care for that kind of music, but this particular song brought back memories. Not necessarily good ones. Right before his Marines launched into Fallujah, somebody blasted “Welcome to the Jungle” to get their blood up. The song on the radio ended, and as if conjured by lyrics of chaos, an announcer broke in:

  “This is an AP Network News live special report. The British Prime Minister’s office says at least forty-eight people have died in an apparent chemical attack on the British territory of Gibraltar. Witnesses say victims fell violently ill this afternoon after an explosion rocked a densely packed street at the foot of the famed rock fortress. The Royal Air Force is flying in disaster preparedness specialists and medical teams. Hundreds of sickened residents and tourists have overwhelmed area hospitals. Authorities have not identified those responsible, but the attack looks similar to recent incidents in Sicily and Libya. In a video statement just this week, Algerian terrorist Sadiq Kassam claimed credit for those attacks and even vowed to strike on American soil.”

  Blount felt dread close on him like a fist. The headlights of oncoming traffic appeared as malevolent eyes. He had recently taken his family to Gibraltar; if not for timing and the Good Lord’s grace the dead might have included his wife and daughters. Less than a year ago they’d hopped a space-available ride on a C-17, flown to Rota, and driven a rental car down to the rock. The girls had laughed at the Barbary apes lounging on precipices above five-hundred-foot drops. It had been a clear day; the kids had pointed at mountains across the blue strait, and Blount had told them that was Morocco.

  The thought of them suffering like that Italian girl at Sig, dying like Kelley . . . Blount shuddered, blinked his eyes. No doubt that had just happened to somebody’s kids. Somewhere some parents—French or Spanish or American tourists—were going through the worst thing Blount could imagine.

  As he drove into the night, trying to get his mind around the horror, he thought of something he’d memorized in boot camp: the Marine Corps Rifleman’s Creed. He’d vowed to master his rifle as he must master his life. To fire true, shoot straight. Until there is no enemy.

  CHAPTER 7

  At the breakfast table, Blount poured a cup of coffee and tried to force himself to wakefulness. He’d not slept well after getting home last night from Camp Lejeune. Bernadette wouldn’t like his decision to withdraw his retirement, not one little bit, and he’d tossed and turned beside her, trying to think of a good way to tell her. At one point he’d rolled onto his side and pressed his face into her hair. The lavender scent of her shampoo had only heightened his guilt.

  No good way to tell her existed. She’d feel betrayed and jerked around, after all she’d already gone through as a military wife. And, oh yeah, she’d also have to worry about him going on another combat deployment. The spouses had the toughest job in the Corps, and they didn’t even get paid.

  Bernadette came into the kitchen, dressed for Saturday volunteer work at the county library. Burgundy skirt and vest, heels clicking on the hardwood floor. White blouse, and over the blouse a gold necklace Blount had bought for her at a souk in Kuwait. She sat at the table, picked up a butter knife, and spread strawberry preserves on a triangle of toast.

  “You get all outprocessed, baby?” she asked. “Is that a civilian sitting across from me now?” Bernadette took a bite of her toast and winked at him.

  Her good mood made what he had to say even harder. On top of everything else, he would spoil that mood.

  “Uh, no,” Blount said. “Everybody in S-1 was working with people about to deploy.”

  “So you drove up there for nothing? That must have irritated you. Bet you’ll be glad to get all that kind of foolishness behind you.”

  “Ah, well. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I think I want to stay in a while.”

  Bernadette drew in a breath. Looked at him with a tightened face and eyes drained of all good humor.

  “What?”

  She dropped the butter knife. Loud clink as it hit the table.

  “Honey, I know this ain’t fair to you. But the sheriff ain’t hiring, and—”

  “So what? I got a job. We got savings. Did you get up to Lejeune and somebody say something to you? You don’t owe them nothing no more.”

  Oh, Lord, she was mad. Bernadette always spoke with the perfect diction and grammar of somebody college-educated like herself. Except when she got angry. Very angry. Then the low-country farm girl in her came out.

  “Bernadette, did you see the news last night? About that thing that happened at Gibraltar?”

  “What are you talking about?” She shook her head like she was talking to the world’s most annoying idiot—who’d just brought up something that had nothing to do with anything. “Yeah, I saw it. So what?”

  “Remember when we took Ruthie and Priscilla to Gibraltar? You hear about all them people throwing up and dying? It could have been our girls.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. Your daughters ain’t in no Gibraltar. They’re upstairs, getting ready to go with me to the library, thinking their daddy’s finally home to stay. And you drop this on me right when I gotta go out the door.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes. Blount got up and put his hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off. She scraped her chair back from the table and pointed her finger at him.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said. “And you’re gonna tell this to the girls. I ain’t telling them for you.”

  Bernadette took a tissue from her purse, blew her nose, and stomped out of the kitchen. Blount heard her calling up the stairs to the girls: “Ruthie, Priscilla. Time to go.”

  Two pairs of feet pattered down the stairs. Ruthie shouted, “Bye, Daddy!” The front door squeaked open, slammed shut.

  Lord have mercy.

  A minute later, the crunch of gravel announced his family’s departure for town and the library. Blount walked to th
e porch with his coffee cup in his hand. At one time he’d looked forward to sitting out here and watching Ruthie and Priscilla ride in the pasture. But now, who knew when that would happen? He sat in one of the rockers and looked out over the marsh. An osprey glided over the water, wings outstretched and motionless in tranquil flight. That is, until the cawing of crows echoed across the lagoon. Blount saw a pair of crows flap over his house and begin to harass the osprey. The crows took turns diving and wheeling, mobbing the raptor. Blount couldn’t tell if they got close enough to peck or claw, but at the very least they forced the osprey to dip and turn, to try to evade its tormentors. He knew crows nursed an ancient grudge against hawks; maybe hawks fed on their chicks. However, this osprey probably ate nothing but fish. Hadn’t done a thing to those crows.

  The aerial battle continued for a few minutes. Hawks didn’t usually fight back when mobbed by crows. But eventually this osprey did something Blount had never seen before. It flapped hard to get several feet above the crows. Then it did what came natural to an osprey: The bird folded its wings and dropped toward its target like a laser-guided bomb. Struck with extended talons.

  Black feathers flew. The wounded crow and its partner broke off the attack, flew away across the marsh. The osprey resumed its effortless glide, master of its own fate.

  Blount drank the last of his coffee, still wrestling with allegiances to family, Corps, and country. Competing loyalties could tear a man into shreds. He decided to look in on his grandfather. Maybe the old man would offer words of wisdom.

  Grandpa had finished his breakfast by the time Blount knocked on the door of the old man’s suite. The room still smelled of bacon. Blount’s grandfather turned down the volume on The History Channel, adjusted his oxygen hose, and said, “Come on in, boy. Always good to see you.”

  Blount took a seat in the recliner. He wondered why Grandpa even bothered to keep the recliner because he never used it himself. The old man stayed in his wheelchair so he could go back and forth more easily to the bookcase and magazine rack. The latest issue of The Economist rested in his lap.