Previously — In episode 12, Vandyck reveals her misgivings about Area J operator procedures — specifically the over reliance on aperture screen technology. She mockingly compares this to Santiago’s no-frills demonstration from earlier, when he took control of a recorded session to directly address a room full of operators from his stone dungeon in Puerto Rico. Privately, she admires the old man, and wonders if she might be able to duplicate his results — essentially creating a bridge between her world and his.
Back at the Grass Cutting Area, there’s a catastrophic descent into chaos shortly after machine gun fire erupts. Communications have been cut off. JTF Alpha is inside the wire. In the confusion, the men of building two rush to the armory to gear up for a fire fight. Meanwhile, Captain Sepulveda takes a two-man detail to collect Santiago from his detainment cell, but when they hear the explosions and gunfire above, they realize building two is lost. The captain leads the group to cell number 3, locks the door, and orders his men to leave through the secret evacuation hatch built into the floor. When they’re safely gone, he draws and uncocks his sidearm, prepared to join his men upstairs. Santiago prevents him from leaving, tell him he’ll die if he walks out that door. They argue a while, but when Dawkins shows up, wiping his bloodied hands along the walls of the hallway outside and loudly boasting of his kills, Sepulveda realizes everyone he cares about is dead. Moments later, just as Dawkins kicks the door in, the air of the room folds over on itself. And Sepulveda and Santiago vanish in a pinwheel of blue sparks.
“Somewhere inside, we hear a voice. It leads us in the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether to follow.”
—Pat Tillman
Part 1: El Pequeño Viento en la Luz Azul
A wind whipped around the flagpole of the Grass Cutting Area and from high up toward the truck, came the rhythmic soft beating of nylon and metal clinking of halyards against aluminum. These were the only noises that interrupted the woodpeckers and parakeets and warblers that flew around the treetops on the other side of the perimeter fencing. In front of building one, the captain’s jeep stood parked in its usual spot on the gravel. A few hundred meters away by the helipad, the air shimmered and deformed above the painted concrete square as it baked in the morning sun. And aside from a few out-of-place sandbags by the machine gun nest, everything looked as it would have on any other day — all except for the inside of building two.
And those Air Force SP’s driving along the dirt road earlier in the morning — had they reached the Grass Cutting Area, they would have stopped at the front gate and looked in from their jeep, not bothering to cut the engine or get out. They’d have judged from the absence of activity, that today was just like any other day. They were four in total: an officer, a staff sergeant, and two airmen. And after a cigarette or two, one would pipe up, “Maybe we should just leave the Porto Ricans to their own devices.” This would have been instantly understood by everyone, an example of shorthand imported by men from places like Fort Lee, Fort Polk, and Fort Bragg, who enjoyed starting their sentences with… lemme’ explain somethin’ to you ‘ole boy. The two airmen in the back of the jeep were just such men. And had they lived to suggest leaving the Porto Ricans to their own devices — their lieutenant, being a good officer, would’ve paused before speaking. He’d hear their words and let them pinball around the old meat computer awhile before voicing aloud some boilerplate musing appropriate for the moment, then order the driver to pop the jeep back into gear and return to base. On the way back though, he’d spend a minute or two ruminating on the question many of the young officers at Ramey wondered about privately. What exactly went on inside the Grass Cutting area?
But none of that happened. The Air Force men never got to the checkpoint.
By 10:10 AM, the ‘ole boys in the back were lying on the road like broken up dolls, brains spilling out of them, like those soft bits that clog up a sink basket strainer. What remained of the staff sergeant’s face was widened into a moist disk of hair and skin and teeth, flattened by the front tire of the jeep. And the lieutenant was still seated in the front, his head tucked down low into his chest, spine sheared completely between C2 and C3.
By 10:25 AM, Delaloza had taken cover outside the Grass Cutting Area, perched high in a tangle of magnolia branches. He chose a spot where he could easily observe the men in the machine gun nest, and listened to their conversation from two hundred meters away, stroking at his mustache and picking at his cuticles as he waited for Chaulette and Dawkins.
¿No lo ves — la luz azul, en los árboles? one of the men whispered.
Cállate idiota, the other replied.
They carried on like that for a few minutes and Delaloza heard everything. It didn’t matter that he didn’t speak a word of Spanish. He could smell the worry and fear coming out of that first man. They argued until the first one — who kept jabbering about la luz azul — scowled and spit on the ground and swiveled his M1919 around the ball of its pedestal mount, pointed the barrel up toward a spot in the trees, and waited. Delaloza was glad the arguing had stopped, even if just for a minute, and went right back to picking his cuticles.
Sometimes, men in the Army do strange things, and there are no explanations. Like that man in the machine gun nest who saw la luz azul. At 10:35 AM, this man decided to squeeze the trigger. A half second pull that sent a hail of bullets into the trees at two thousand miles an hour.
One of those bullets hit their intended target in the hip, another in the cheek. They didn’t do any damage of course, but still, Delaloza shook his head in disbelief. Much later, he’d learn from Spillers how that man had detected his presence. But at the moment, he recalled the section of the op order detailing the desired end state for this exact complication.
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