Page 80 of Cross Down
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Again, Deacon says,“Good God,” as the two of us look at a field of rubble.
I’ve seen damaged and ruined villages before, both here and in Iraq, but nothing like this.
Nothing.
Deacon says, “Can you believe this?”
There’s a slight depression before us filled with broken bricks and stone, no piece larger than a coffee table. Burned and charred timbers and more broken stone as far as the eye can see.
“No,” I say.
The only color comes from green and black banners, some with writing on them, posted on poles shoved into the tortured ground.
Funeral flags, marking the final resting places of the deceased.
I say, “This wasn’t just an attack. It was a slaughter. It looks like the village was bombed, then bombed again, and then bombed one more time to flatten everything. The air force has a joke about using so much ordnance on a target that in the end, the only thing pilots can do is make the rubble bounce. Two years ago, Elizabeth, the rubble here must have been dancing.”
“I want to take a closer look,” she says.
“Not too close,” I say. “There might be unexploded munitions still among the rubble.”
She nods and I take lead again, stepping carefully. The wind rises, and I hear the flapping of the funeral flags in the distance. I look down and see scraps of cloth, bits of metal and bones.
Lots of bones.
Deacon swears and says, “Who did this, John?”
“Like that French doctor I ran into at the aid station said two years back—we did.”
“What, a rogue military mission?”
I say, “You heard Gul. This is part of something that’s going to happen back in the States. A coup. A goddamn coup. Maybe rogue, maybe planned, who the hell knows.”
On the ground is something that looks like a dark brown brick wrapped in clear plastic, about the size of one of our MREs. I crush it with my boot.
Deacon says, “What is it?”
“Brick of opium,” I say. “Worth about a hundred bucks here, maybe ten thousand over in the States.”
Deacon is quiet as I take my time destroying the opium brick completely with my boot, and it strikes me: Was it opium from here that was converted to the heroin that poisoned my parents? Was this the place where it all started? This barren place—is this where it began for my long-dead father and long-absent mother back in the States? And what weird or strange quirk of fate or kismet brought me here?
“Well? What next?” Deacon asks.
“Let’s wait another five or ten minutes, then head out.”
She says nothing, but I can sense her disappointment. Still, what did she hope to find here? A sole survivor living in the rubble, ready to reveal all and solve our crisis thousands of miles away?
We both walk carefully through the rubble, and I see more scraps of cloth, a leather sandal, and broken pottery.
What was it like here that night when the bombs and rockets fell over and over again? I imagine the explosions, the screams, the roar of buildings collapsing, and then the brief moment when the explosions stopped and the few survivors tried to race to the safety of the nearby hills, only to be cut down by the harsh chatter of machine-gun fire.
And for what?
Something catches my eye—a piece of green plastic.
I am about to say something but keep my mouth shut. I take a knee, pretend to retie my left boot, and gingerly pick up the piece of plastic. It’s a bit of a circuit board, about the size of a playing card, lots of circuitry and—
