Read Online Green on Blue by Elliot Ackerman - Free Book Online Page A

would not leave his two soldiers in the road to die and he would not ask others to do what he would not do himself. He ran into Hafez’s guns to save them.
    Yar shook his head and tucked his chin back into his jacket. His next words came as a mumble: He never made it to the truck.
    And the two soldiers? I asked.
    He looked at me. His words were clear: We watched them burn.
    I leaned my chest into my knees. The wind kept coming.
    Commander James’s family was left very poor, he said. Soon Commander Sabir joined us as a regular soldier to support them. For a time,Issaq, Batoor, and even some of the team leaders led the Special Lashkar. There was great uncertainty in our ranks and much infighting. No one was an adequate replacement. But Commander Sabir began to prove himself. Many said he possessed the same ferocity as his brother. He was promoted to team leader under Batoor, but just as the fighting season was ending, he disappeared for a month. Some said he’d lost his nerve and deserted. They said, perhaps there is less of Commander James in him than we thought. But one morning at the end of that month, he arrived at the firebase’s front gate. I saw him as he returned. The guards didn’t recognize him, for his face was unrecognizable. The wound on his lip was still fresh. It wasn’t the torn lip alone that made him look different. His eyes seemed darker. Not as if their color had changed, but as if they’d looked at some black and faraway thing, absorbing it. Soon the news spread among every soldier that Commander Sabir had taken his badal. He’d tracked down Hafez and killed him in the mountains. How, I still don’t know, but after that he commanded.
    The wind stopped. The sky was quiet. We sat on a ridgeline that ran to the south, to where Commander James had died with his nang and to the unknown place where Commander Sabir had killed Hafez.
    Yar stood. With his good hand, he brushed the dirt from the seat of his pants. He looked at our convoy that sat cold and sleeping below. He breathed deeply and said: We’ll reach our destination tomorrow.
    –
    Gomal sat naked and ugly in the dust. The moon was up. It was late on the second night and we’d arrived on schedule. Our column rushed forward and split in half. The Comanches surrounded the hilltops. The rest of us accelerated sharp and straight into the village. We sifted through its dusty streets and a maze of compounds rose around us, filling the narrow valley. The high mud walls of the houses, each its ownfortress, trapped us, threatening violence from their unseen courtyards. We parked in a square bazaar lined with shuttered storefronts and bare stalls. Our squad’s two HiLuxes flanked Commander Sabir’s, which idled in the bazaar’s center.
    From the driver’s seat Yar stepped out, rifle in hand. I’m going to see about the plan, he said. Wait here. And he walked toward the other trucks. I stood, stretching my back and legs. Around us, the villagers shuffled behind compound walls. Dogs howled from the roofs of the mud houses. Woodsmoke streamed dark and green through my night-vision goggles, rising lazily in the sky as one by one breakfast fires, theirs and ours, were lit.
    Tawas and Mortaza left the cab and gathered around the hood of our HiLux. Aziz, what’s the matter? asked Mortaza. You look cold.
    Bacha bazi , I cursed.
    He laughed and said: You know, the heater inside was so strong during the drive I thought of taking your place, just to cool off.
    I spat at Mortaza’s feet. Again he laughed.
    Tawas asked if I wanted some milk tea. Crouching by our HiLux’s front tire, he raised a small blue flame from our propane stove. He smacked bubblegum as he brewed the leaves in a pot. I leaned over my machine gun, staring down at him.
    Where did you get that? I asked, pointing to his mouth.
    He smiled back at me. His lips and teeth were blue, as if he’d sipped from an inkwell. Naseeb sold me two large boxes’ worth, he answered. Steam rose from the