The Empty Quarter Read online

  Also by David L. Robbins:

  Souls to Keep

  War of the Rats

  The End of War

  Scorched Earth

  Last Citadel

  Liberation Road

  The Assassins Gallery

  The Betrayal Game

  Broken Jewel

  The Devil’s Waters

  For the stage:

  Scorched Earth (an adaptation)

  The End of War (an adaptation)

  Sam & Carol

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 David L. Robbins

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477824023

  ISBN-10: 1477824022

  Cover design by Chris McGrath

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014902144

  To Bruce Miller, Phil Whiteway, and the Virginia Repertory Theatre family; Adam Lebovitz of Unique Features; and Ron Keller of VCU, for believing in my other voices.

  And to Neil and Sara Belle November, and Jane and Edgar Wallin, for believing in me.

  Contents

  Map 1

  Map 2

  “Expel the infidel . . .

  Two Years Ago

  Today

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  They recite the . . .

  Interlude

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “Expel the infidel from the Arabian Peninsula.”

  a hadith (tradition) of Islam, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad

  “When disaster threatens, seek refuge in Yemen.”

  The Prophet Muhammad, to his small band of followers after being chased out of Mecca

  “Charlie Mike.”

  US military phonetic alphabet for “Continue mission.”

  Two Years Ago

  Lashkar Gah district

  Helmand River Valley

  Afghanistan

  There’d been no time on the ground to scrub Pedro 2 of blood. The pair of marines two hours ago in Lashkar Gah district, both hit in the chest, and before them the Ranger this morning who’d taken a round in the gut in Musa Qala—all had left stains on the chopper’s metal deck. The PJs never delegated this task to Camp Bastion’s ground crews but cleaned the blood themselves, a way to keep faith with their soldiers. LB and Doc did this now, under way on their third mission of the day, with towels and hydrogen peroxide.

  As they tossed the towels into a corner, Juggler hailed over the team freq from Pedro 1, the other tandem-flying Pave Hawk. Juggler was Capt. Wally Bloom, the team’s lead combat rescue officer. Wally got his call sign last year from surviving a helo crash and five somersaults in the Hindu Kush. He didn’t lose his sunglasses or drop his coffee mug.

  All five squad members in both choppers transmitted, “Lima Charlie.” Loud and clear.

  On the floor of Pedro 2, the primary medical bird, LB and Doc settled shoulder to shoulder, so tired, supporting each other without thinking. Exhausted, the team had left Bastion ten minutes ago not even knowing where they were headed, or why; they’d just shuffled behind Wally back to the choppers, spun up, and lifted off again.

  From Pedro 1, Juggler crackled in their headsets.

  “There’s a twelve-man LRP1 from the 42nd Royal Marines taking fire in Nad Ali.

  Call sign is Bengal. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. We got the job instead of the Brits because the landing zone is hot. Repeat, LZ is hot. Mission intel is scarce, but there are three wounded. I’ve got no tango status,2 but all three are isolated and in contact with the enemy. Terrain is open and rocky, within a kilometer of a village, a road, and a field. I want the whole team on the ground. Choppers will drop and circle. Team leader.”

  LB got on the freq to remind the PJs of their protocols. Stay together. Cover fire. Move to the closest wounded first. Assess, treat as needed, exfil to the casualty collection point. Move to the next.

  One by one, the PJs responded. “Roger that.”

  Wally transmitted a heads-up from the pilot of Pedro 1 to the team.

  “Ten minutes.”

  LB’s lower back ached from the rigid, jumpy helo decks he’d ridden on all day and from running bent and burdened under seventy pounds of rifle, body armor, and med ruck. His feet were hot, swollen in his sandy boots, his emotions drained. The rise and fall of adrenaline many times in one day took a toll in LB’s own blood. He wanted a swallow from his canteen but left it for the battlefield. Low on stamina, he figured to keep himself fueled on aggravation. He changed out the magazine in his M4. Beside him, Doc, a marathon runner and a former marine, catnapped. He and LB were the only PJs on the team in their forties, Doc the only one gone bald. Back home in Vegas, he had four daughters and an ER nurse for a wife. Nothing outside his own house upset Doc.

  At Wally’s radio call of “One minute out,” the two lowered their goggles and rose to their kneepads. Pedro 2’s gunner dropped his visor, spread his legs behind the starboard minigun, and latched onto the grips. At a hundred feet altitude, the chopper leaned back on its cushion of air. LB and Doc unclipped their cow’s-tails, poised for a fast drop in the middle of a firefight.

  Doc shoved open the door just before the chopper set wheels down tiptoe, light and quick. He leaped first into spirals of dust and stinging gravel. LB got close on his butt. The big HH-60 bounced back into the air. The second bird raced in behind her.

  They ran crouching to a squad of Royal Marines waving from behind the low cover of a stacked stone wall. LB and Doc joined eight commandos with rifles on top of the wall. LB didn’t know where to aim.

  The Brit leader was a slight but leathery lieutenant, gray-eyed above a blond mustache the same sandy color as his commandos’ camouflage. He seemed in control, and the marines flanking him looked rugg
ed. The fingers of the commando beside LB were flaky with dried blood.

  LB nudged him.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, no worries. Go get my mates.”

  This was the battle LB and his team leaped into with every combat rescue. They brought calm to the frantic, order to the chaotic. They stood their training and their own courage beside the wounded and frightened, the isolated and the dying, and together they fought their way back to safety and life.

  LB had never been to this spot in Nad Ali district, but he knew well the Afghan landscape, a drab vista broken by gullies and ancient stone walls. Half a kilometer north, a mud-hut village squatted on the cusp of a wheat field. Goats and camels stood tied to posts. Mulberry trees lined a skinny paved road running east-west over weedy ground. All of it baked in the afternoon heat. Distant orange mountains hemmed in the village under a sky so clear that an early moon peered down.

  Why did this Brit patrol draw gunfire? More than likely, some bad guys were operating out of the nearby village. They’d appealed to the local tribal chief’s duty under Islam to protect them, and bribed him for good measure. The tribesmen were just earning their pay, calling it religion.

  The lieutenant nodded to LB and Doc. “Sergeants, thank you.”

  They waited seconds for Wally, Quincy, and Jamie to reach them at a dead run. Thirty meters off, Pedro 1 lowered her brow to zoom away. Quincy and Jamie exchanged hurried nods with the English commandos, then added their carbines over the wall. Wally arrived, skidding beside the Brit team commander.

  Wally pulled down his sunglasses, showing the crow’s feet of fifteen years in harsh climates. Green-eyed and steely, he let the lieutenant see the measure of confidence his commandos should have in the American Guardian Angels.

  “What’ve you got?”

  “Right, Captain. An hour ago we came up on that village. When we got near the road, my point man tripped an IED3. The blast took him out and one other. The rest of us drew small arms fire. Not sure from whom—villagers, Taliban, they’ve bloody all got guns. I called to regroup, nine of my twelve came back. I’ve got one man seventy meters there, west. I saw him go down. The other two are north, toward the road. I can’t say exactly where, can’t see them from here. My men don’t have radios. We can hear them shouting to each other.” The lieutenant bit his lip. “We’ve tried. We can’t get to them.” That was rough for him to say.

  Before the big chopper could gain altitude, she took small arms fire. Bangs snapped out of the field across the road. Kalashnikov rounds whisked above the wall, driving down the heads of the commandos and PJs. The HH-60 banked sharply away, blowing dust over the men hugging the wall. Grit clung to the sweat on LB’s neck.

  Returning his weapon over the wall, he stared down his M4, swinging left and right. Nothing presented itself for a target but a dry landscape dotted by tufts of wild grass and the debris of old farm machines. With the beat of Pedro 1 fading, a thin cry rose from the flats to the west.

  “Over here.”

  Wally slid his shades back in place. He touched a finger to the young lieutenant’s camouflaged chest.

  “Stay on freq 252.9. Got it?”

  “Roger.”

  Wally pushed the finger again into the lieutenant’s chest, as if hitting “Record.”

  “You provide cover fire on my orders.”

  “Roger.”

  “I want 360 security for a casualty collection point. Right here.”

  “Will do, Captain.”

  Wally pulled his finger off the commando to point at Jamie. The young PJ hardened his grip on his weapon.

  “Jamie takes point. Then Quincy, me, Doc, LB.” Wally gestured west to the shouting, downed marine. “Him first.”

  The bloody-handed marine beside LB rapped him on the shoulder. LB winked, then dropped off the wall to huddle beside Wally.

  “You’re going?”

  “I can direct close air support better if I’m with the team. And we’ll need all five of us to bring back three. Problem?”

  The CRO considered LB through his mirrored sunglasses. Wally hardly ever took them off, which meant his eyes rarely betrayed what he was thinking. LB preferred, when looking a man in the face, not to see his own reflection. This was why Wally insisted on wearing them.

  Jamie, the team’s youngest member, was also their best rifleman, fearless in the field and affable off it. He already had his back turned, primed to dash out to the first wounded marine. Doc and Quincy had no opinion, and they showed it by lining up.

  LB was of a mind to question Wally’s decision, but the wounded marine’s urgent voice left no time.

  “Fine.”

  Wally pivoted to the commando lieutenant. He patted Bengal on the arm.

  “Cover fire now.”

  The Brit slung his SA80 into his hands. He straightened his legs to sling the rifle into play over the stones. His eight commandos followed suit.

  “Lads. Fire.”

  All nine guns opened on the wheat field, the wall became a firing line. LB wasn’t sure the marines had real targets in their sights, but that didn’t matter. The point was to keep the bad guys’ heads down. Above, Pedro 1 and 2 were on spin cycle over the village, weapons hot and waiting.

  Jamie lit out from behind cover, nimble across the uneven earth. Quincy lumbered behind him. Wally and Doc stayed close at his broad back. LB brought up the rear.

  Two hundred meters north, on the cusp of the field, puffs of dust and busted rock perked under the commandos’ bullets. Jamie led the team into the open, all scampering in a bent-over bunch. LB’s back smarted; he growled to keep himself going.

  After fifty grueling meters, a spray of bullets whistled above their heads. The team dove to the dirt as another volley missed, ripping by no closer than the first but near enough for Wally to yell for Jamie and Doc to find cover. The two pushed off the ground; Wally, Quincy, and LB stayed on their stomachs to fire at the rusted hulk of a tractor, where Quincy had spotted two figures duck out of sight.

  Doc called out.

  “Twenty more meters. Found a ditch.”

  Ahead, Doc and Jamie opened up to suppress the tractor. Wally leaped first to his boots.

  “Moving.”

  The three dashed headlong to tumble into a narrow culvert, an old irrigation ditch. LB hunkered low to rest his barking back. He went for his canteen. After he’d taken a swig, he joined the team with rifles up to secure their position.

  One of the HH-60s hammered past, then the other chopper, low and menacing. Under the din of rotors and the commandos’ guns, Wally hailed the Brits.

  “Bengal, Hallmark. Hold fire. Repeat, hold fire.”

  The Brits’ weapons went silent. Their reports soared off to the surrounding red mountains.

  In the trench, all five caught their breath. The wheat field, weeds, and wrecks lay dormant on their long shadows in the windless heat. The mulberry trees did not rustle. The enemy stayed hidden. A faraway goat grazed. The pair of helos circled, waiting for Wally’s beckon. LB raised his goggles to swipe a finger across his dust-caked forehead.

  Wally lifted a gloved hand for silence. In seconds, he got what he was listening for.

  “Over here.”

  The wounded commando sounded closer. His weakened voice gathered Jamie’s legs under him in the culvert. The young PJ coiled, a Labrador for rescues. Quincy held him back.

  Wally asked who had a smoke canister. LB groused while Doc, Jamie, and Quincy raised fingers. Wally held up two digits.

  Wally tapped Quincy, then got on the radio.

  “Pedro 1, Hallmark. Call for fire.”

  “Hallmark, send it.”

  “Pedro 1. My position marked by purple smoke.”

  Quincy tossed his canister to the team’s left, in the direction of the downed marine. After a five count, the grenade burst in
to a billowing, wine-dark cloud.

  “Target northwest my position, burnt out tractor, hadjis in the open.”

  “Copy, Juggler. Visual you. Tally target.”

  In the air a half-mile away, the trailing HH-60 sideslipped to rush its big guns to the target. Pedro 2 maintained distance.

  “Bengal, Hallmark.”

  “Hallmark, go.”

  “Direct fire on the tractor to my northwest. On my mark. Copy?”

  “Hallmark, I copy. On your mark.”

  Wally let Pedro 1 close in.

  “Mark.”

  The commandos’ rifles opened up on the wreckage, tattooing metal against metal. At the same time, the chopper’s big 7.62 targeted the wreck and the surrounding earth. West of the PJs, velvet purls of smoke fattened along the ground with little breeze to thin them.

  Quincy thumped Jamie on the shoulder. The young PJ tore out of the trench, into the haze. The rest followed, darting blind through the oily smoke.

  The instant the PJs burst into the clear, a blast of automatic fire stitched the earth ten meters shy of their boots. LB’s instinct was to throw himself to the ground, but Jamie, on the scent, did not slow. The team galloped on Jamie’s shadow another twenty meters. The young PJ ran behind his raised weapon, straight to the downed marine.

  The commando lay in a scoop in the earth. He greeted the diving PJs with a grunt, one hand clamped over his right hip, the other clutching his rifle. The instant the PJs spilled around him, the marine released his clench on himself, his head and gun wilted, relief plain in his collapse.

  Quickly, the team arrayed along the lip of the depression, weapons turned in four directions, while Jamie assessed the wound. The gouge in the Afghan earth where they crouched didn’t look natural: probably a Russian crater from a quarter century ago, the last time someone else tried to tame this country. LB eyed a rusted-out pickup truck eighty meters west, abandoned in a mulberry grove.

  While Jamie sliced away the marine’s camo pants to expose the wound, the Brit tugged at LB’s boot. He rasped.