Read The Survivor for Free Online Page A

this seems not to bother anyone except Nate, who sees his own daughter in her deep brown eyes. The soldiers show the photo of the man they’re after, but no one knows anything; the entire assemblage has gone as deaf, blind, and dumb as the proverbial three monkeys.
    Charles comes in from the back with a skinny little man who has plastic zip ties around his hands. Shaggy hair frames the guy’s drawn face, and he wears a white man-dress and black flip-flops.
    “Found him hiding behind the generator,” Charles says.
    They get Abibas over to the man, who denies being whoever he is supposed to be. The dispute continues in translation, Abibas jotting down parts of the exchange in his notebook, and finally the sergeant lowers his radio and says, “They want him in now. I’m calling up a helo. You six get him to the meet point. Overbay, you’re in charge.”
    The little girl trails the half squad out and follows at a distance, her face betraying no emotion or interest, the paddleball never ceasing its elastic dance. Whack whack whack.
    They trudge under the heat, the houses turning to shacks, the shacks eventually giving way to sand dunes. The captive makes not a noise. Abibas is perspiring through his clothes, and McGuire makes a crack that maybe the sweat stain’ll fix the spelling of his damn shirt. The little girl with Cielle’s eyes crests the rise with them— whack whack whack —and there below, the Black Hawk waits. They pile in, Charles waving good-bye at the girl who stands silhouetted against the sun, her paddle in perpetual motion. The helo vibrates and shudders, revving to life.
    Abibas shouts at Nate, “Damn eet to shit. I forget my notebook. Sarge tell me must always have notebook. At house. I go back.”
    He looks ill with concern, so Nate waves him off duty, figuring where they’re heading there’ll be professional interpreters, and the kid scrambles down and starts to jog away. The Black Hawk begins to lift.
    “Hey!” Charles shouts after him, pointing at the threadbare rucksack wedged between the seat and the cabin floor. “You forgot my mom’s cookies!”
    Abibas stops and looks back at them.
    Then he turns and runs.
    The seconds slow to a molasses crawl. The Black Hawk hovers four feet above the sand. All six soldiers have gone as stiff as statues in a half rise above their seats, oriented toward the rucksack. Nate is nearest. It is right there across from him. Above the panicked roar inside his head, Nate hears the pledge he made last night to Cielle. Promise? Promise you’ll come home? And he cannot unlock his muscles.
    From the seat beside him, Charles leaps. He lands atop the rucksack, smothering it, and a brilliant white light frames his body as the bomb detonates. The Black Hawk pitches to the right, the pilot overcorrects, and they lurch into a nose-down spin. Nate sees the fan of the beating rotors kiss the sand, and then there is a great violence of physics and an eardrum-rending screech. Images and sensations strobe, rapid-fire: The slid-back door. Weightlessness. Nate’s open mouth pressed to the sand.
    He rises, uneven on his feet. An explosion surges behind him, a wave of heat propelling him to his knees. Atop the dune the girl bears silent witness, the whack whack whack lost beneath the roar of flame. There are parts everywhere, parts of flesh and metal. Half faceless, McGuire is screaming and holding his severed leg, and then he stops screaming. It is suddenly silent. Sand swirls, settling like rain. Though a whoosh of white noise streams in Nate’s ears, he hears a ragged breathing coming from somewhere, and he spins in the cloud of grit and yells, “Charles! Where are you? Where the fuck are you?” and realizes he is stepping on his friend’s hand. Charles is alive, his gut a muddle of tattered fabric and dark, dark blood. His hands press into his stomach farther than they should, and his eyes are wild and rolling.
    Everyone else is dead. Nate’s radio shattered. Supplies