“If writing that letter settles your mind,” Parson said, “then do what you have to do.” He paused, let Rashid run through his internal translation. “Because tomorrow night,” he continued, “you and I are going to kick some ass.”
Rashid dropped his cigarette. The glowing tip bounced onto the pavement, scattered sparks that burned out one by one. When only a single cinder remained, he crushed it out with the toe of his boot.
“I like,” Rashid said. Left it at that.
You like what? For a second, Parson wished for Sophia to interpret. But maybe this was better. Neither man was entirely sure about the other’s words. But Parson knew Rashid shared a goal with him. The rest would come as action, things to do. A language any guy could understand. Maybe what Rashid liked was the thought of kicking ass. Good on him.
Whatever Rashid was thinking, he channeled it into preparation.
“I wish to…” Rashid said, apparently struggling for the English. “I wish to…” He put his fists before his eyes and made twisting motions. “My night glasses.”
Clear enough for Parson. “You want to get your night vision goggles, get them adjusted?”
“Yes, yes.”
Hot damn, Parson thought. This guy’s in the groove. You could work with a man like that.
“Let’s get you fixed up, then.”
Rashid stood up, trotted over to his helicopter. Came back with his flight helmet. Rashid had limited experience on night vision goggles, Parson knew. Parson hoped that in time, flying on NVGs would become second nature for these Afghan aviators, but that would take hours and hours of practice. In the beginning, unfamiliar equipment could hinder more than help. But Rashid would need to use his NVGs tomorrow night, regardless. Maybe he’d had enough experience with them not to kill himself and his crew.
Parson led the way to the Aircrew Flight Equipment section. At Mazar it amounted only to another tent, along with a couple of conex boxes—metal shipping containers large enough to stand up in. He signed for two sets of night vision goggles.
“The Hoffman tester is inside that conex, sir,” the AFE tech said, pointing.
“Thanks,” Parson said. He worked the handle on the conex, swung open the steel door. Inside, the Hoffman tester—an electronic box the size of a small suitcase—rested on a table. In front of the table was a folding chair.
Rashid sat in the chair, pressed the red power switch on the tester. The viewing screen on the test box came alive with a faint hum, though with the naked eye Parson could see nothing on the screen. Rashid snapped his NVGs into the mount on his helmet, then donned the helmet. Lowered the NVGs into place and turned them on.
First, he turned a knob on his goggles to adjust interpupillary distance. Rashid’s eyes were set wide apart, and he had to open the gap between the two tubes of the NVGs nearly to the limit. Next, he moved another knob to adjust eye relief. Parson worried the language barrier might make it difficult to remind Rashid how to set the NVGs a comfortable distance from his eyes. But the Afghan needed no help. Parson took that as a sign of good mechanical comprehension.
He pulled the conex door shut behind him, which locked in full darkness except for the green backglow reflected around Rashid’s eyes. The Afghan peered into the viewing screen on the Hoffman tester. He rolled the diopter rings on his NVGs, fine-tuning them by degrees. People new to the technology always took forever to focus the goggles. Rashid was trying to bring into clarity a set of bars and lines, and he kept turning the diopters, searching for that perfect spot. You never really found precise focus; it was a limit of the equipment. Eventually Rashid satisfied himself and turned off the goggles.
“Now, don’t forget,” Parson said, “those things rob you of some of your depth perception. You gotta be careful about that.” He didn’t know if Rashid understood him, but he felt better having said it.
Rashid stood, bumped his way back from the chair. Parson turned on his own NVGs and used them, unfocused, to find the chair and sit down. Since he wasn’t occupying a crew position in the Mi-17, he didn’t have to use his NVGs on a helmet. In his flying as an adviser, he preferred to wear them around his neck on a lanyard, the way an elk hunter might wear binoculars. But that meant the lenses were not at a fixed distance from his eyes, so the adjustments were even less precise.
He turned on the goggles, held them in front of his eyes. Two quick turns of the diopters brought the bars into reasonable focus. Not the sweet spot, really. More like the good-enough spot.
Setting up equipment on the eve of battle put Parson in mind of some unknown ancestor sharpening a saber, running a ramrod down the bore of a musket. Procedure and ritual. You had to get your gear ready; if you failed to prepare, you prepared to fail. But the work carried with it a psychic purpose, too. Somehow, focusing the hardware focused the mind as well. Helped dial in the set of thoughts and attitudes you needed when you knew you might have to take a life or give your own. An indefinable mix of determination and acceptance.
Parson switched off the Hoffman tester, rose to his feet. Through the NVGs he found the door handle for the conex, and he pushed open the door. The lights illuminating the airfield ramp had a pink glow now, the result of his eyes’ exposure to unnatural night vision. In a few minutes the lights would return to their true white.
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be, buddy,” Parson said.
Rashid stepped out of the conex, helmet in hand. He did not smile or respond in any way to Parson’s comment. But he wore a placid expression, as if somewhere in his mind, amid all the anger and sadness and bad memories, he’d discovered a corner of tranquility.
Parson knew the place Rashid had found. The Afghan pilot was ready to look into darkness.
24
Gold managed to adjust her sleep schedule. It was already dark by the time she woke up, but still hours from launch time. At least she wouldn’t have to rush as she put together her rig.
The Air Force Special Tactics folks issued her an MC-4 ram air parachute. Four equipment rings carried her oxygen bottle, an MBITR radio, an attachment for her rifle, and the Icom radio for monitoring the enemy. The Special Tactics people also gave her a wrist altimeter, Nomex gloves, knee pads, and an aircrew-style helmet with brackets to accept the bayonet clips of her oxygen mask. They didn’t have a flight suit to fit her, so she’d have to jump in her ACUs. No problem there—she’d just fold the collar inside so it wouldn’t slap at her neck during free fall. A Parachutist Drop Bag would carry her body armor, Kevlar helmet, extra ammunition, NVGs, and water.
She stuffed her gear into the PDB, hoisted the parachute over her right shoulder. Outside, she found a cool evening, maybe ten degrees Celsius. No wind at the surface. No clouds above. She figured the current conditions boded well for good weather at the drop zone.
Gold placed her equipment beside the sandbag wall that protected the Air Operations Center. Sat cross-legged and leaned against the sandbags. Closed her eyes and tried to focus, to get herself into that zone where her mind could zero in on the task and let all else fall away. She started with a prayer—for skill and alertness, for competence and strength. Please let me get this right. Gold never prayed for safety; that wasn’t… seemly. Or even practical, given the circumstances. She asked only for help to perform well.
Parson would be asking for the same thing, she knew, in his own rough way. They had eaten breakfast together earlier in the day—right before she went to bed to rest up for the mission. He had changed the unauthorized pen sleeve patch on his flight suit. The new one read DFU. She asked him what it meant. The answer was vintage Parson: Don’t Fuck Up.