Chapter 10
Camp Leatherneck/Bastion
Helmand Province, Afghanistan
August 2013
Crash pushed through the door of his CLU mid morning to find Zippy on the computer for his usual lunchtime break.
Guiltily, Crash glanced at the screen to see if Zippy was online with his sister. Crash and Trish had exchanged a few casual emails over the past few weeks. Him thanking her. Her responding and asking how he was. Him replying.
Nothing serious, nothing much, but enough contact to keep her uppermost in his mind. Enough to make the off chance he’d get to see her on video on Zippy’s computer screen enticing.
No such luck today. Trish’s pretty smile wasn’t on the computer. Instead, some ugly dead guy stumbled his decaying corpse across the screen. Zippy was watching that television show he liked so much. Something about zombies. The man had gone insane when he realized the Wi-Fi in the cans wasn’t strong enough to stream video. Thank God the tech guy here had managed to get this season saved on an external hard drive. It might have been the only thing that prevented Crash from strangling Zippy to stop his incessant ranting about missing the new episodes.
Zippy hit pause and glanced over his shoulder as Crash walked across the CLU toward his rack. "Did you see the email that came through this morning?"
"The one from the Maintenance Chief about keeping our weapons close? Yeah. That’s why I’m carrying that thing again." Crash tipped his head toward the M4 he’d leaned against the wall just inside the door when he’d walked in.
General orders specified that they carry a weapon at all times on Leatherneck/Bastion, but the week they’d gotten there his OIC, Captain Lee, had told Crash just carrying his pistol was enough and he could lock up the semi-automatic rifle. Today, after receiving that ominous email that troops were to not only carry their weapons but also make sure to keep them close, Crash had gotten the M4 back out. Why the change, he wasn’t sure.
"What do you think is up?" Crash asked.
"Who the hell knows? There must have been some sort of a threat. I swear, the way the press is nowadays, Trish gets more information at home than we get from the command, and we’re the ones freaking here." Zippy frowned at Crash. "What are you doing?"
"My mom emailed. It’s my aunt’s birthday next week and I forgot. I gotta send her a card."
"Next week?" Zippy cocked a brow. "It’s not gonna make it in time."
"Nope. Probably not, but at least I can say I tried." He was in friggin’ Afghanistan. His aunt would just have to understand.
Crash pulled his address book out from the drawer of the rolling plastic storage unit the last inhabitant of this CLU had left for them when he’d shipped out. It was one of the better things they’d discovered upon moving in.
They’d also inherited a bunch of cans of protein powder from the last occupant, but a few doses of that had taught them that all it did was give them gas. Two guys in a tiny confined space, both farting up a storm thanks to some body building powder, was not worth whatever muscles it was supposed to give them. He’d dumped the rest of the cans on the shelves at work for the other guys to take if they wanted.
Having gotten what he’d come for, the book containing his aunt’s address, Crash grabbed his weapon and glanced at Zippy. "You going back soon?"
"In a bit. I just want to finish this episode."
"A’ight." Crash shook his head at Zippy’s taste in television and headed back out into the glaring sunlight, across the annoying rocks and into the steel headquarters building where he worked twelve, sometimes thirteen hours a day.
The Master Sergeant glanced up as Crash walked in. "We just got word from the Maintenance Chief."
"Yeah, I saw the email."
"No, not that one. A runner came by to pass new word. Apparently the Chief just had a meeting."
That news piqued Crash’s interest. Here might be an explanation about the reason for the heightened security. "Yeah?"
"He reemphasized about the weapons. To not just have them with us, but to keep them at arm’s length at all times."
Arm’s length at all times. That meant Crash would have to sleep with the M4 next to his rack rather than by the door, and he’d need to figure out how to take his pistol into the shower with him. Lovely. "That all?"
"Nope. There’s more good news." The sarcasm was clear in the Master Sergeant’s tone. "We’re all going to have to take roving duty after work. The shift runs from eighteen hundred to twenty-one hundred hours. I worked it out. There are enough of us we’ll only have to do it twice a month to cover all the slots."
Jesus, now they had senior staff pulling guard duty? What the hell was going on? "Any hint as to why?"
"No, but maybe we’ll hear that in the meeting."
"What meeting?" Crash had left for less than an hour to eat lunch in the chow hall and run by his can, and it seemed he’d missed all sorts of shit.
"Check your email."
Sighing, Crash sat and logged into his computer. Sure enough, there was an email in his inbox. They’d called a senior staff NCO meeting starting in—he glanced at the time in the corner of the screen—half an hour. At least maybe they’d finally hear what was up.
~
"No eating in the chow hall. You get your food and leave. No gathering in large groups of any kind." The Senior Enlisted Advisor, Master Gunnery Sergeant Devon, passed on that order to the stunned Marines in the room. "Direct order from the CO, Lieutenant Colonel Hinman."
Crash and close to two dozen senior staff NCOs, including Zippy, sat around the long table in the large conference room located across the hall from where Crash worked in Production Control. There were two large TVs and a big-eye for doing computer generated power point presentations, but it seemed they wouldn’t be needing any of that for this meeting.
No more chow hall. Senior enlisted on roving guard duty. Weapons at arm’s length, even in quarters. "What the hell is going on?"
Crash had whispered the question more to himself than to anyone else, but the guy next to him leaned close. "Ramadan’s ending. They’re afraid that’s when the shit’s gonna hit the fan."
Shit was a good word right about now.