Fireplay by Steve P. Vincent (books you need to read .TXT) 📕

The departure from Navitas hadn’t gone as Jack had expected. Major Brinson hadn’t even been there when, early in the morning, Jack had climbed into the Humvee with Ortiz and the other marines and set off for Camp Leatherneck. He’d expected bluster from Brinson – threats about his story and chastisement for wandering from his room. Instead, he’d been given a sandwich.

“So did you get anything worthwhile?” Ortiz shook his head as they raced along the road. “Those were some cranky motherfuckers.”

Jack looked up from his laptop. Tellingly, the other two marines in the vehicle were nodding at Ortiz’s words. They knew something was up. “Well, I…”

Ortiz interrupted and pointed to the driver and front seat passenger. “If you’re worried about these two, don’t be. They’ve been through hell with me.”

Jack still hesitated. The story he was writing to go with the pictures he’d taken would rock America and the Marine Corps. Though allegations of torture had surrounded the CIA for years following September 11, the military had mostly kept its hands clean with the exception of Abu Ghraib. From what Jack had seen, this was as bad – systematic and at scale. It angered him.

He knew that the minute he spoke about the story it would take on a life of its own. Though he’d spent the last few months embedded with Ortiz and his troops, and he was confident that most men and women in uniform would be as appalled as he was by the torture, there was no guarantee. Jack closed his eyes, reached up, and scratched his forehead. He opened his eyes and Ortiz was staring at him.

“Look, Jack.” Ortiz’s gaze didn’t waver. “Whatever happened at that camp contributed to the death of four of my men. Shit happens in war, but if someone screwed up I want to know before you put it on the front page of the Standard.”

“Okay.” Jack sighed. Suddenly, he felt bad for questioning these men. They’d welcomed him, protected him, and shown him around the country for months. He handed the laptop to Ortiz. “Check it out.”

Jack watched as Ortiz took the computer and worked his way through the story. The marine’s facial expression shifted from curious to concerned to angry. By the time he reached the end of the story he’d seen Jack’s claims and the photos that backed them up – the beatings, the burnings, the electrocution, the rectal abuse. The detainees hadn’t held back and neither had Jack.

“Fuck.” Ortiz handed the laptop to the marine in the front seat. “I thought we’d learned from Iraq.”

“It’s an important story.” Jack shrugged. “But it’s going to cause a firestorm. I’ll keep your names out of it.”

Ortiz grunted. He seemed satisfied by Jack’s concession, given nobody in the Humvee was guilty of anything. It was only by sheer chance that they’d been the patrol to trigger Ghilzai’s bomb and then been able to question the man enough to get a lead before he’d been shot. What shocked Jack most of all was the scale of the abuse at Navitas – at least thirty detainees and a dozen marines were involved.

The driver interrupted Jack’s thoughts. “Hey, LT? We’ve got company. A couple of ANA hummers and a truck.”

Jack was confused about why an Afghan National Army convoy would be tailing them. Ortiz and the driver shared a look in the rear vision mirror, after which the Humvee started to speed up. Clearly the marines were nervous too. Whatever beef the Afghans had could be sorted once they reached Leatherneck and were safely under the watchful eye of a few hundred US guns.

Ortiz picked up the radio receiver. “Lizard Four calling Leatherneck Actual.”

As he listened in and waited for a reply, Jack turned around in his seat and peered out the back window. Their pursuers were definitely gunning their engines to catch up, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. He turned back around in his seat. The other marines were tense, readying their rifles as they waited for the response over the radio.

The radio crackled. “Lizard Four, this is Leatherneck Actual, report.”

“We’re en route from Camp Navitas to Camp Leatherneck and we’ve got ANA vehicles riding our six pretty hard.” Ortiz paused. “Was it scheduled?”

“Standby, Lizard Four.”

Jack grabbed his laptop from the marine in the front seat. He had a feeling that things were about to go south as he plugged in the satellite internet dongle. As he waited for it to connect, he looked behind them again. The convoy was closing even though the driver of the Humvee had stepped on the gas. He turned to the front and saw a speck in the distance.

“What’s that?” Jack pointed. It looked like a tank.

Ortiz looked up from his weapon. His eyes widened. “It’s an old T-62.”

The driver laughed. “It’s a museum piece, LT.”

Ortiz wasn’t amused. “It’s still got enough to split us open like a melon.”

Jack inched forward in his seat. “They want us to stop. They want my photographs.”

The radio crackled again. “Lizard Four, ANA liaison reports no vehicle convoys within fifty miles of you at this time. Act at your discretion. Over.”

Ortiz’s eyes narrowed and he cussed. It was the first time Jack had felt scared in his marrow since being in Afghanistan. Through all the firefights, incidents and even the explosion of the IED he’d been in friendly hands. Being surrounded by a whole lot of marines was like a condom for an embedded reporter. It felt good to know you’re covered. This situation felt a bit more precarious though.

“They’re getting closer!” The driver looked back in the mirror. “What do you want to do, LT?”

“Pull us over. Whatever is about to happen, I’d rather do it away from that tank.” Ortiz turned to Jack. “Whatever you’re doing, you’ve got thirty seconds.”

Jack nodded and looked back at his machine. He tried not to think about the approaching convoy and focused on uploading some of the more significant photos to his Dropbox account. He also uploaded the story he’d been writing. As the Humvee slowed and then stopped and the convoy pulled to a stop behind them, the upload finished.

“Done!” Jack cleared his browser cache, deleted the photos and documents from his hard drive and then yanked out the satellite dongle. He threw the camera SD card and the dongle underneath the seat. “What now?”

Ortiz climbed out under the watchful guns of the ANA troops who’d surrounded the vehicle. Jack couldn’t hear what was being said, but there was lots of pointing and gesturing. The leader of the Afghan group also seemed fond of waving a piece of paper in Ortiz’s face. The whole situation was an open powder keg with a match held over it.

Eventually, Ortiz opened the door with a look of fury etched onto his face. “These gentlemen are taking you into custody. They also need your computer.”

Jack nodded and unbuckled his seatbelt. “What’s the charge?”

“All sorts of stuff. It’s just to scare you.” Ortiz smiled. “We’re going to tail the convoy and we’ll be with you all the way to Lashkar Gah. You’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Jack opened the door and climbed out of the vehicle. He let himself be handcuffed. He was scared, but had no choice. “Lead the way, fellas.”