Easy Day for the Dead Read online

  “I can do this,” Pancho said.

  John said nothing, just stared out into the desert.

  “I’m coming with you,” Alex said, fighting back the images of the day that had changed his life forever.

  Alex thought back to when he was a high school senior listening to classical music, Grieg’s “The Death of Ase,” while sitting in his red Mercedes, an older model handed down to him from his parents. His car idled in the post office’s west parking lot while he waited for his grandfather and Sarah to drop off a package. Then the explosion sounded. He couldn’t understand what had happened until he saw the smoke. Suddenly it struck him—an explosion. Alex threw open his car door and raced to what was left of the post office building. The smoke was thick. It made his throat gag and his eyes burn. The whole face of the post office had blown out across the north parking lot, past the road, and into an empty lot. Bricks and debris blanketed the ground. Alex saw a severed arm but no body nearby. He forgot about Grandpa. All he could think about was finding Sarah. He searched the bodies—pregnant woman, baby, and others: bruised, broken, and bloodied. Somebody cried for help, but it wasn’t Sarah. A female postal worker with blackened face and torn, blackened clothes limped out from what was left of the building. A man beside Alex was helping survivors. Alex found Sarah lying on rubble with her arm pinned under a section of the fallen roof. Alex tried to pull the roof off, but it was too heavy. He tried to pull her out from under it but couldn’t. “Sarah, I’m going to get you out of here. Just hang on, okay?” But Sarah didn’t respond. “Sarah, can you hear me? You’re going to be okay.” No answer. He pulled at the ceiling again, but it didn’t budge. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. Where are the firefighters? Where are the police? “Somebody help me!” he called.

  Since that time, Alex had cried out the sadness. In the empty space that remained came rage, something he didn’t share with the world—he reserved that for the terrorists. Alex couldn’t do anything about the domestic terrorist who’d killed Sarah before committing suicide, but Alex could do something about other terrorists—killing them before they shed innocent blood. The hunt had consumed his life.

  “She isn’t here,” Pancho said.

  “Where is she?” John asked. He’d followed them to the car.

  “Damn good question,” Alex said.

  9

  * * *

  Alex searched the surrounding area, but there was no sign of her. “Leila,” he called, but no answer came. He wasn’t being stealthy, and he didn’t care. Part of him hoped the Revolutionary Guard would come, so he could unleash his rage. “Leila!” he shouted.

  “Alex?”

  He looked in the direction of the voice.

  From beneath a pile of sand on the side of a dune Leila scrambled to her feet. The dirt poured off her, and she stumbled toward them.

  “Are you okay?” John asked.

  “I am fine,” Leila said.

  “What made you hide in the dunes?”

  “I heard engines and voices, and I saw how well your bags were hidden. Then I looked at how poorly I was hidden.”

  “What did the Guards do when they found your vehicle empty?”

  “They threw some firebombs on it before they even checked if anyone was inside.”

  “Thank you for not leaving us.”

  “Thank you for not leaving me.”

  The SEALs retrieved their backpacks buried in the side of the dune. Nothing in Leila’s vehicle seemed salvageable. Alex hated losing their backup supply of water. If their truck broke down, they could all dehydrate.

  They piled into the truck, its engine still running.

  As Pancho drove them south, a small Revolutionary Guard jeep came around the dunes and headed straight at them, flashing its lights and honking.

  “What does he want?” Alex asked.

  “Probably selling something,” Pancho replied.

  “Not interested,” John said.

  Pancho picked up speed, heading straight for the jeep.

  “What is this called?” Leila asked excitedly. “In English what do you call it? Chicken. Yes, this is a game of chicken.”

  “This is a different game,” Pancho said. “It’s called Rules of the Road. The biggest truck rules the road.”

  John laughed, sucking air through his nose.

  Pancho’s joke wasn’t funny, but John’s laugh was. “Buckle up,” Alex warned Leila as he fastened his seat belt.

  She did.

  Pancho plowed head-on into the jeep. The jeep’s passenger, who looked like a high-ranking officer, flipped out of his seat and landed on the jeep’s hood, and the driver’s head smacked the steering wheel, knocking him out. The front of the jeep folded like an accordion.

  Pancho stomped the accelerator. The truck pushed the little jeep forward. The officer fell off the crumpled hood before the jeep veered backward out of Pancho’s way. Then Pancho zigzagged through the desert to throw off anyone who might try to follow their tracks later. They had cleared the danger zone of the nuke, but they still had to travel several more klicks before they were safe from radiation.

  As Pancho drove through the darkness, Alex undid his seat belt so he could turn around more easily and watch their rear. The desert air was cold. Leila took off her seat belt, then moved closer to John. Alex did his best not to smile. Good for them. She put her head on John’s shoulder. Maybe she’s tired. Maybe she’s lonely. She was attractive, and John was a good man. Alex thought about pulling John aside when he had a chance to remind him they still had a mission to accomplish, but he doubted John had forgotten.

  After about ten klicks, the truck stopped. The rear wheels spun in the soft sand, but the truck went nowhere. “I liked Leila’s driving better,” John said.

  Alex couldn’t see Pancho’s face, but he imagined he was giving John a dirty look.

  Leila woke. “What is wrong?”

  “We’re stuck.”

  She crawled into the back and rummaged around until she found a shovel. Then she got out and dug sand out from in front of a rear wheel. The SEALs got out. Pancho grabbed the shovel and took over the digging.

  “Could someone get the sand mats?” she asked.

  Alex went into the truck and looked in the back, where he found two wide strips of metal with holes in them. He brought them out and laid them next to the vehicle.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I need two ropes.”

  John went into the truck and came back with twenty-five feet of rope. “If this is long enough, I can cut it in two,” he said.

  “Yes, two of those would be perfect,” she said.

  John cut the rope in two.

  Pancho had finished digging the sand out from in front of both rear wheels.

  Leila laid one of the sand mats down in front of one rear wheel, and Alex laid the other sand mat down in front of the other wheel. Then she tied one end of a rope through one of the holes in a sand mat and the other end of the rope to the truck’s rear bumper. Next, John did the same to the other mat. “Okay, we are ready to go,” she said.

  Pancho put away the shovel and the four of them returned to their seats in the truck. Pancho drove over the sand mats and beyond. Behind the bumper trailed the two sand mats tied to the bumper, skiing over the dirt. “When you a hit hard stretch of land, you stop, and I will get the sand mats and rope,” Leila said.

  The truck stopped. “This sand is too soft,” Leila said.

  “I didn’t mean to stop,” Pancho said.

  “You have to pick up speed to third gear, but not too fast.”

  “I was trying.”

  John laughed, sucking air through his nose.

  Leila started to get out of the vehicle, but Alex told her, “I got this.” He grabbed the shovel, dug out the rear wheels, then put the sand mats in front of the rear wheels. Alex returned inside the truck and gave his best Donald Trump impersonation: “Pancho, you’re fired.” He turned to Leila. “Leila, drive us out of here.”

  John
laughed again.

  “Shut up,” Pancho said.

  John laughed more.

  Leila drove until she hit a hard stretch of land and stopped. Alex pulled in the sand mats and Leila resumed the drive to Abadi Abad.

  They had traveled sixty klicks from the lab when the black sky became dark gray and the air felt slightly warmer. The truck stopped. “What’re we stopping for?” Alex asked.

  “We are out of gas,” Leila said. “This truck must have a leak.”

  “I was looking forward to a hundred-forty-klick walk through the hottest desert on earth,” Pancho said.

  “I wasn’t,” John said.

  Pancho smiled.

  “Can you fix the leak, Pancho?” Alex asked.

  “Probably,” Pancho said. “Then what? You hiding a spare tank of gas up your ass?”

  Although the hike sounded impossible, Alex was happy to be out of the danger zone of the nuke.

  Boom! The earth shook. Alex thought it was an earthquake, but he looked at his watch: 0503 hours. “Whoa,” he said.

  The four hurried out of the truck and looked toward the sound of the explosion. A mushroom cloud rose in the air above the biological weapons lab. It was a beautiful and terrible sight.

  “Orgasmic,” Pancho said. He high-fived Alex, then high-fived John.

  Alex smiled at John, who smiled back. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex noticed Leila standing there, staring at the mushroom cloud. She wasn’t smiling. “Was that a bomb?” she asked.

  Alex thought before answering. “Yes.”

  “Is the lab destroyed?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the people?”

  “The people, too. There’s nothing left.”

  She seemed to be pondering what she’d just participated in. She’d probably never given anyone a death sentence before, and now she’d helped wipe out a whole biological weapons compound and all its personnel.

  “Will there be survivors? I mean, will anyone suffer?”

  Alex didn’t see the point in sugarcoating it. “No survivors, no suffering.”

  “No one should have to suffer like I suffered. Not even my enemies,” Leila said.

  “Well, now we don’t have to worry about them coming to look for us,” Pancho said.

  “I’m thinking we should rest today and do our traveling at night,” Alex said.

  John nodded.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Pancho said.

  Alex looked around. They were in a sea of sand with occasional dips and swells that the wind had blown ripples into like waves—their vessel dead in the water. “This truck sticks out.”

  “Like a turd in a bowl of cereal,” Pancho said.

  “Don’t see much in the way of shelter from the heat,” John said. “The truck sticks out, but right now I’m more concerned about the heat than the Revolutionary Guard.”

  “I agree,” Alex said. “We’ll lose water trying to stay hydrated if we lose the shade of the truck.”

  The SEALs took turns standing watch and sleeping. It was common for them to sleep during the day and work at night. They were living the vampire lifestyle long before vampires became popular.

  The sun crawled up the desert sky, raising the temperature. Sweat covered Alex. He couldn’t survive long without water. Before becoming thirsty, he drank. If he waited until he was thirsty, his body would already be dehydrating. Thirst was a late warning signal. The heat continued to increase.

  Alex imagined he was in a sauna at a country club—he was actually enjoying it. Ironically, Leila seemed to have the most trouble with the heat, but she didn’t complain. From her backpack, she pulled out a civilized breakfast of nan with jam. In contrast, Alex sucked energy gel from a tube.

  The Lut Desert was too hot for plants or other living organisms. In the summer, scientists had left uncovered sterilized milk out and it stayed sterile—the desert was too hot even for bacteria.

  The sun shone directly above them, taking away the shade from the side of the truck and threatening to kill the four of them. Alex dug out a trench under the truck. He lay down in the trench—it was cool. Soon the others dug trenches and joined him.

  Later, as the sun set and air cooled, Alex and his team prepped themselves for the first leg of their 140-kilometer trek. The easy thing about leading SEALs was that a leader didn’t have to tell them everything to do. The difficult thing about leading SEALs was that they ate weak leaders for breakfast.

  “We good to go?” Alex asked.

  They nodded.

  “John, you okay to watch out for Leila?” Alex asked. “Leila, you follow Pancho, and I’ll be right behind you.” With those words, Pancho and John understood that if she did something to betray them, John would be the one to put a bullet through her skull. Leila wouldn’t know unless she betrayed them, and then it would be too late.

  “She’s fine,” John said. He didn’t sound happy.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for her,” Alex said.

  “I am fully capable of taking care of myself,” Leila said.

  John sighed. “We know, but I’ll keep an eye on you all the same.”

  “Let’s go,” Alex said. They moved out in patrol formation with John bringing up the rear.

  The air became cool—then cold. Alex started to shiver. Pancho picked up the pace, and he warmed up. They continued a couple of hours until Leila slowed down significantly. She was their slowest member and the SEALs could move only as fast as she could. Although Alex didn’t want to, he stopped for Leila to take a break, drink some water, and make sure her feet were okay. Not only did they lose time and momentum, but Alex started shivering again. John and Leila shivered, too, but Pancho seemed fine. Leila repeatedly apologized for slowing them down, but the SEALs were patient with her—anything else but patience would wear her down and slow them even more. They could leave her in the desert, but that would be inhumane.

  Leila stood up, ready to move again. The four continued through the evening, hours of walking, with short breaks in between. When they walked, Alex was happy; when they took breaks, Alex exercised patience. In the morning, Alex checked his GPS. They’d covered forty kilometers and had one hundred more to go. It was discouraging to think they hadn’t even covered one-third of the distance, so Alex stopped thinking about it.

  Pancho gave Leila a pep talk. Meanwhile, Alex and John talked alone.

  “What do you think the odds are that we’ll make it out of this?” John asked.

  “What do you think the odds are?”

  “Not good. What do you think the odds are that Leila will make it?”

  Alex shook his head.

  10

  * * *

  On the third day, the silhouettes of soldiers faced Alex and his crew. The SEALs readied their weapons, but as they neared the soldiers, they realized it was just a sandy rock formation. The SEALs and Leila were dirty, ragged, and broken down. They dug their trenches in the shadows of the sand soldiers. As the four lay in their trenches, sweat permeated their skin, soaking their clothes. Wind blew across their bodies and evaporated their sweat. More sweat leaked through their pores to cool their dry, burning skin. Then the wind removed the sweat again. Alex’s team drank more water to stay hydrated. The vicious cycle continued, robbing them of precious fluids.

  In the afternoon, Alex’s head hurt. It was a burden to stand up and walk away from the group to take a piss, but he did. His piss had decreased in volume and was dark. He was dehydrating. Alex drank the last of his water before returning to his trench to rest.

  Leila was quiet but seemed okay.

  “Pancho, if you hadn’t rammed that jeep head-on, we’d be in Abadi Abad by now,” John complained.

  Pancho laughed. “You seemed to think it was a good idea at the time.”

  “Now do you think it was a good idea?”

  “Are you upset?”

  “Of course I’m upset,” John said. “We’re walking across a desert.”

  “I thought Jesus did that,�
� Pancho said.

  “You’re thinking of Moses,” John said, “and that’s only because he was leading the Jews out of Egypt. If he’d had a perfectly good truck he wouldn’t have rammed into one of the pharaoh’s chariots.”

  Pancho laughed.

  Alex didn’t have the energy to break them up, but for now their bickering wasn’t straying into anything that would lead to a brawl. The more they dealt with dehydration, however, the more that could change.

  In the evening, Alex’s shivering came more quickly and violently, and he was having difficulty thinking. John shivered the most violently. It was a burden to talk, so Alex just stared at Pancho. Pancho got the message and they moved out. All four of them moved in slow motion, but the cold was killing John, who had the least body fat. When John stumbled the first time, Alex stopped the patrol and took a look at him. John’s face had become pale and his lips were blue.

  Pancho tried to offer John his jacket, but John refused.

  “Don’t stop,” John pleaded. His teeth chattered. “Gotta stay warm.”

  “We won’t stop,” Alex promised. True to his promise, Alex continued without stopping. Leila would just have to suck it up—and she did. Alex had to be careful to look back at John and slow down for him occasionally so they didn’t leave him bumbling around in the desert night alone. In spite of traveling nonstop, their pace had slowed, and they traveled only thirty kilometers—thirty more to go.

  On the fourth day, at noon, Alex knew he should leave his trench to take a leak, but no piss was left in him. Just the small walk to relieve his bladder would wind him, so he was happy not to have to move. Alex felt his heart race. His mouth was dry and his tongue had swollen. He wanted to puke, but he couldn’t afford to lose the body liquids. Alex also wanted a drink, but he had no more water, and he didn’t want to take valuable water from the others—who were probably worse off than he was. He had known the desert was more deadly than the Revolutionary Guard, but it occurred to him now that the desert might succeed in killing him.

  Out of the corner of Alex’s eye, he noticed Pancho stand up, then fall down. Pancho stood up again. Alex caught a glimpse of Pancho’s eyes, which seemed far away. Pancho stumbled away from the group like he was going to take a leak. Then Pancho yelled. Alex first thought that a snake had bitten him, but nothing lived in the desert. Leila stood and walked over to Pancho. Before she reached him, he fell. “Pancho, are you okay?” she asked.