Page 11 of Point of Contact

A mortar landed not far away, and Jesse dove for cover behind some HESCOs—wall-sized sandbags lined with moleskin and filled with dirt and rock. He sprawled there in relative safety, clutching his weapon, watching as the Chinook lifted off into the sky and flew away, headed back to Jalalabad.

The beat of the rotor blades faded away, and the mortaring stopped, leaving behind an almost eerie silence before a strange chattering started up from the thick pine trees surrounding the outpost. Jesse half-rose, wondering if the base was now being attacked by enemy fighters, a laconic chuckle sounding in his ear.

“Monkeys.”

Jesse swung around, ready to answer to the insult, then realizing the speaker literally meant monkeys. Monkeys in the trees outside the wire, screaming at the Americans to go away. At least that’s what it sounded like.

“How’d you like that Taliban welcome?”

Jesse rose to his feet, along with the rest of the guys in his platoon, and faced the small group of men who had come out of what appeared to be a mechanics’ bay to greet them.

“New units always get mortared. It’s their way of saying ‘hey, how’s it goin’?”

Jesse didn’t know what to say to that, tilting his head back to stare at the cliffs, wondering if more shells would rain down on them. He felt horribly exposed, and vulnerable. The man who had first spoken to them stuck out his hand.

“John Vance.”

“Jesse Byrne.”

They shook hands before Vance went down the line, introducing himself to everyone in Jesse’s platoon.

“Head up there, and grab a rack,” Vance said, pointing up a steep hill to a ragtag collection of tents sheltering behind some more HESCOs. “Chow’s at 1800. We get one hot meal a day, and this is it.”

Jesse and the rest of the guys shouldered their eighty-plus pounds of gear and trudged up the hill, all of them arriving breathless and sweaty, not used to the heat or the altitude. Jesse claimed one of the lower bunks and dropped his rucksack down on it, lacing his fingers behind his head and trying to get his breathing under control.

“Fucking climb smoked me,” Riley muttered. “And I’ve been hiking mountains my whole life. What the fuck is this place?”

No one answered him, and soon Enriquez and Smitty wandered outside to smoke.

Jesse looked around, taking in the Spartan conditions, the ammo belts hanging from nails pounded into the cheap plywood tent supports, the bikini-clad pinup girls haphazardly tacked up next to them, socks drying on makeshift clotheslines strung throughout.

“Makes our barracks room look like the fucking Hilton, huh, Jess?”

Jesse looked at Riley, answering his rueful grin with one of his own. “Yeah.”

“Hey, Estes! Extra bunk over here, man.”

Riley glanced over his shoulder and back at Jesse before calling out, “Nah, I already got one.” He walked over and tossed his ruck onto the bunk above the one Jesse had taken.

“Roomies again, Riles?” Jesse asked quietly. “You know I’ve missed your dumb ass.”

Riley shrugged. “Eh. You don’t fart in your sleep, so at least I don’t have to worry about you fuming me out from below, right?”

He reached out a fist, and Jesse bumped it lightly with his own, in vast relief.

Truce.

Chapter Four

“No! You are not allowed to fuckin’ fall out here! Keep moving, or we’re gonna get lit the fuck up!”

Jesus Christ, I’m not gonna make it.

Jesse, dripping with sweat, dehydrated and exhausted, wearing full combat gear, struggled up what had to be the incline from hell. The late-summer heat beat down on him, making his one hundred pounds of weapons and ammo feel like a thousand.

“Get your fuckin’ fat ass up, you worthless piece of shit!”

Jesse clutched his weapon and scanned the nearby forests and cliffs, wincing at the noise they were making. If they hadn’t before, the enemy most certainly knew they were there now. He glanced toward Watkins, a guy in their unit who’d collapsed to his knees, whining and complaining about not being able to go on. Soldiers from both theirs and the outgoing units surrounded him, kicking him and screaming at him to get up.