Free The Shadow Patrol by Alex Berenson Page A

base, that was for sure. And where did he get the money for it? Fowler didn’t know what a kilo of heroin cost, but even here at the source it had to be a couple thousand bucks.
    Next question: Did everybody know what was going on? Was Fowler the only sucker in the squad? Young hadn’t seemed surprised. Although Young always acted so cool. No, if everybody knew, Rodriguez wouldn’t have bothered to hide the deal. So Fowler had a choice: keep his mouth shut, ride out the last couple months. Or go to the CID—the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division—which had offices at the big base at Kandahar. But if the CID officers came poking around, Rodriguez would probably guess that Fowler had snitched.
    Maybe Young would have the answer. Fowler was almost embarrassed to be leaning so hard on Young, who was barely two years older than him. But Young got along with everybody. He had that black-guy way of being cool without working atit.
    The squad was stretched out, moving slowly, half-assed. Fowler slowed down to let them catch up. Rodriguez was directly behind him, Roman on the other side of the canal. Fowler was glad that Young was watching.
    When they got about three hundred meters outside Hamza Ali, Fowler saw clumps of men and boys walking toward him. The show at the school must have ended. Fowler had forgotten all about the Stupid Afghan Tricks. The kids made a game of jumping across the canal, their gowns ballooning around their legs. A boy kicked one of the soccer balls that the platoon had handed out, his steps as precise as Fowler’s mom dicing an onion, back home in the kitchen. Fowler wished he could be therenow.
    The boy popped the ball into the air and headed it to himself. Kids were kids everywhere. Fowler smiled. “Hey,” he yelled. Fowler pointed at himself. “Kick it here. Me.” The kid hesitated and then kicked a perfect curling strike that soared out of the canal towardhim—
    * * *
    AND EXPLODED.
    Fowler heard the shots
after
he saw the ball disintegrate. They came from the right side of the canal, away from the village, an AK magazine fired on full auto.
    Fowler jumped into the canal for cover and spun to find the shooter. To his right, the rest of the squad followed. They were stretched in a line, rifles at the ready. The fields in front of them looked empty. Then Fowler saw the shooter. It was the Afghan with the scar, the one who’d sold the drugs to Rodriguez. He was a long way off, at least four hundred meters, and sneaking along a low wall perpendicular to the canal. He was doubled over like he had a bad case of the runs.
    For once, Fowler wasn’t afraid. His training took over. He grabbed the rough stone at the edge of the canal and pulled himself up to get a clean shot. He didn’t squeeze too tight and he led the target. He thought he had theguy.
    But he missed. The dude was just too far off and too low and too many walls were in the way. Fowler aimed again, tightened his finger on the trigger—
    He never heard the shot that cut his spinal cord in half. Didn’t feel it either. The pain faded as quickly as it bloomed. The earth rushed up to him and caught his chin. He didn’t understand what had happened to him, couldn’t frame this new place he’d gone. This lost country.
    Pure confusion. He stood up, but he didn’t. His legs didn’t work, or his arms. The dark trickled into his eyes and his brain got thirsty and he needed air. So he took a breath but nothing happened. He had to breathe. Breathing was easy. Everyone could breathe. But not Fowler. Then the fear, panic, a pure white panic that flared against the black, but the black came on, stronger and stronger, and the white shrank to a pinprick and then nothing at alland—
    He died.
    * * *
    YOUNG WAS CLOSEST toFowler and the first to realize what had happened, that he’d been shot from behind, from somewhere in the fields between the canal and Hamza Ali. Young ran to Fowler. The others followed. They pulled his body into the