Under the two rifles and crowded on the seat between Al and him rested their vests. Attached to each were pouches containing a radio, ammo, a small med kit, a flashlight, and other items they wanted on their bodies. A blanket rested on the seat back, ready to throw over the vests and rifles if needed.
Mike pulled the hand-mic from his vest and lifted it to his ear. With the MI-17’s long gone, it was quiet, nothing around to make noise, people or animals, just two pickup trucks.
“Truck Two, Truck One, radio check, over.”
“Truck One, roger, read you lima charlie, over.”
It was Bruce’s voice on the other end of the radio. “Roger, we should be at the first rally point in about two hours.”
“Good copy, Two out.”
A map and GPS were spread out on Al’s lap. He lifted a thumbs up while he scanned the map. The sun crested the mountains to show the reality of the road and terrain to the left and right. The ground was far more rugged than the map had indicated. Fields of rocks and boulders poked out of the ground to either side of the road. Some were only the size of a football most were footlocker sized or bigger. The map also didn’t illustrate the poor condition of the rocky dirt road or how it undulated and weaved through the high and low ground. Their speed never got above 25 MPH as the truck bucked up from hitting a rock or suddenly dipped down into a hole, all while avoiding jagged rocks to either side of the road.
Julia leaned forward over the seat between them. “What’s that you were saying to Truck Two?”
Mike looked over. “I said…”
“Hold on.” She reached under the material covering her head and pulled the yellow foam out of her ears. “Okay, now what happened?”
“I was telling them it would be about two hours till we got to the first rally point.” The burka was pulled up on her head. “Chances are pretty good we won’t run into anyone, but as the sun comes up, you’re going to have to pull that over your face. Just in case.”
She dropped her shoulders. “Got it.”
Al looked back, smiled, and returned to looking at the map and the terrain.
“Wait a minute.” Julia put both hands on the top of their seat and pulled herself forward. “Truck One, Truck Two? I thought I’d be hearing some much more imaginative names than that. I assumed you Special Forces guys would have some awe-inspiring, fearsome names.”
Mike looked back at her grinning face.
“You know, like,” her voice deepened. “Viper Breath One Nine, this is Snapping Turtle Five One, what’s your status, over?” She changed her voice and responded. “Snapping Turtle Five One, this Viper Breath One Nine, rolling, moving to your location, roger, roger, out.”
Al chuckled and glanced back at her. “Viper Breath One Nine?”
“What?” Julia said in mock indignation. “That’s a cool name.”
“It is a cool name,” Mike said in a humorous voice. “And if we were still in the Army calling another unit, we would use our designated call signs. But here, for simplicity and ease, we’re using Truck One and Truck Two.”
Julia rolled her eyes at them. “That’s disappointing."
“Tell you what, next time we all go on a mission together, you can pick all the call signs you want.”
She tapped him on the shoulder. “Now you’re talking." She smiled. "Just a little levity at the start. We may not get the chance later.”
Mike glanced at her in the mirror, a grin on his face. “Well, you’re in it now. What do you think?”
“I’ve never been in a helicopter whizzing all over the sky. It looked like we were getting up close and personal with all the fields, rivers, and everything else. That was pretty exciting.”
With one eye on the road, he turned. Julia had closed her eyes. She looked like she was reliving the flight.
“This place is kind of beautiful in its way.” She put her forearms on the back of their seat. “It has kind of a charm when you think about its history, the high mountains, the quaint little towns we flew over. It’s kinda cool.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Al snorted. Mike lifted his shoulders. Neither man chose to respond verbally. They knew that looks could be deceiving.
They rode in silence.
Mike relaxed but kept his eyes on the road, watching for headlights from ahead or behind. No one would be coming through the densely packed boulders that extended from the roadside to the mountains beyond.
Al glanced at the map and GPS every now and again but mostly scanned front and to his right. They’d made plenty of other road trips through this country. This was just another. Relaxed but vigilant.
The right front tire hit a buried rock, and the rifles shifted. Two hands reached out and placed the butt ends where each man felt comfortable their M-4 was in easy reach.
Julia watched the two men shift their weapons while their heads moved as if they were on a swivel. She looked left, right, and behind but didn’t see anything.
“This is all new to me, and you guys looking around like that are making me nervous? Do you mind if I talk? ”
“Sure, talk away,” Mike said. “Nobody’s around to hear us, or I’m pretty certain to see us. The looking around, it doesn’t hurt to maintain some security posture.”
“Oh, okay.” She looked left and right. The moon created some interesting shadows off the boulders, but that’s all they appeared to be.
“As I was saying before about this country, I know I’m romanticizing it. We’re not on vacation I realize the reason we're here is deadly serious. But, in my job, I’ve done as much research as any university professor on this country, or more, I'd guess. It has a rich history, as far back as Alexander’s armies invading and him marrying Roxanne.”
“Well.” Mike turned a lopsided grin on his face. “If there is one thing this country is famous for it’s getting invaded.”
“There is that.” Julia conceded.
“There’s another thing,” Mike said, eyes shifting from the rearview mirror to the road. “I learned it my first deployment over here. No matter how much we try to change things here, improve the economy, improve lives, it won’t matter. And as soon as we left, it went back to how it was before we got here.”
Julia tilted her head. “Even though there’ve been problems, I thought we were doing good. Al?”
Al glanced around at her. “He nailed it. You don’t turn off greed, religious intolerance, ignorance, and institutional illiteracy even in the twenty years we were here. Soon enough, everyone here will slide back into the old way of doing things.”
“That’s kind of depressing.” She stared over the truck hood onto the road. “Mind if I change the subject?”
Mike shrugged. Al didn’t react one way or the other.
“Like I said,” she started. “I know a lot about this country, way more than what’s likely to help us.”
“Fantastic,” Al said.
Mike glanced over at Al and grinned. “Let’s hear some fun facts that I don’t know. It’s going to be a while before we stop.”
Julia leaned onto the top of the front bench seat. “Did you know that opium production has grown well over three hundred percent since we first invaded?”
“I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Al said.
“Me either. I didn’t know it was that much, but we’ve seen plenty of fields while out on patrol. It’s one of the crops they rotate throughout the year. In fact, we've done foot patrols through marijuana and opium fields.”
“Okayyy. How about this one.” Julia moved closer to the back of their seat. “Did you know that in a single year, while US forces were here, two point four million Pop-Tarts were airdropped in Afghanistan?
“Did you know?” Mike smiled. “That I have been on the receiving end of many of those drops, and I can’t remember a time that they weren’t all cinnamon flavored. I hate cinnamon Pop Tarts.”
Al chuckled. “I like Cinnamon flavored Pop Tarts. Only not when the resupply bundle’s parachute doesn’t open." He looked back. "It crashes to the earth, spreading smashed up Pop Tarts and everything else, all over the drop zone.”
“All right, how about this one,” Julia said, smiling. “Did you know that a majority of Afghanis, when we invaded, had never even heard of 9/11?”
Mike grunted. “Yeah.”
Al looked back and nodded. “We’ve met plenty of these people for sure. They don’t exactly keep up with world events. They’re too busy living in a mud hut with their animals trying to eke out a living farming.”
“Here I was thinking I was going to stump you.” She glanced at both men and grinned. “Here's one. Did you know about six months prior to all UN forces leaving Afghanistan, an Army Colonel on loan to the CDC was in Kabul with his Afghani girlfriend? They were visiting her relatives. Within hours, they were kidnapped by assailants unknown. There were no ransom demands. They just disappeared.”
Both men chuckled. Al turned back and stared at Julia for a brief moment.
“Dumbass,” Mike grinned.
Julia frowned. “Looks like I won one, but that isn’t the reaction I was expecting.”
Mike looked back. “Enlisted guys always love to hear about some high ranking officer who gets in trouble for doing some stupid shit.”
“How do you know it was something stupid?”
Mike pursed his lips, eyes looking down at her. “Come on. He was in the city with only his Afghani girlfriend, right? I'm sure he wasn’t even armed.”
Al chuckled again. “Tell us more. Any embarrassing side stories?”
Julia grinned back at them. Their amusement was infectious. “Like I said, he’s Army but on loan to the CDC. He’s head of the Epidemic Investigative Service, their investigative arm. His specialty is palaeoepidemiology." She spread her hands out. "As you can tell from the name, it is a syncing of epidemiology and archeological sciences.”
“Obviously,” Mike and Al said together.
“Jinx.” Julia crossed her arms over the back of their seat. “His girlfriend was at the University of South Carolina getting a PhD in epidemiology. He gave a seminar there a couple of times. It was love at first sight.”
“So she’s an American?” Mike said.
“No. But she lived more than half her life there.”
“Okay, we got a little background, now get to the good stuff.”
“The good stuff? Oh, did I mention he’s married and not to the girl he traveled with? He’s not assigned to any command in Afghanistan and wasn’t authorized to be here. He just up and took leave and came here with his girlfriend. Nobody knew where he went or that he was gone till he never came back from leave. His wife had no idea. She thought he was on a deployment to India.”
The front seat erupted in laughter.
Al slapped his knee. “Oh man, I hate officers.”
They laughed again.