Read Warriors (9781101621189) for Free Online Page B

job.”
    â€œSometimes,” Webster said, “but at other times it’s boring as hell. At least the Guard lets me get out from behind that desk and do something different.”
    â€œLike trying to keep Michael Parson out of trouble?”
    â€œExactly,” Webster laughed.
    â€œGood luck,” Gold said.
    Parson smiled thinly and took a pull from his beer. He started to say something—probably to give her a good-natured retort—but jet noise drowned him out. The streak-scream of a jet fighter taking off rumbled in waves across the base, followed by the identical sound of a second aircraft. Lead and wingman, Gold supposed, heading out to hit a target in Afghanistan. Nice to be out of there for a little while, she had to admit.
    â€œSo what about you, Sophia?” Parson asked. “I thought you’d be working on a doctorate in philosophy or religion by now. Just can’t stay away from the garden spots?”
    â€œSomething like that,” Gold said. She took a sip of wine while she thought about the rest of her answer. “It’s hard to let go when there’s so much need.”
    â€œYou’ve earned a break. I thought you wanted to go back to school.”
    â€œMore than you know. And I did get accepted at Duke and Maryland.”
    â€œCongrats. Use that new GI Bill. Nobody deserves it more than you.”
    â€œSomeday,” Gold said. Someday.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    IN THE TWO DAYS that went by while she waited for the cockpit recording, Gold had no official duties. Parson got away from his own duties as often as he could to spend time with her. They began both days with a run around the base, Parson wearing his blue-and-silver Air Force PT uniform, and Gold still using her old workout clothes with ARMY embroidered on the gray jacket. For most of her life, she’d nearly always led the pack on platoon runs. However, the insurgent’s bullet had cost her some lung capacity, and Parson ran ahead. But in their five-mile runs, neither of them ever slowed to a walk. They shared every meal together in the dining hall, each going through the ritual of signing the roster and rubbing a dollop of hand sanitizer across their fingers. Gold had spent so much time in deployed locations that she associated the antiseptic smell of hand sanitizer with food.
    Between meals, Gold passed the hours in the Green Beans coffee shop, delving into the wisdom of John Locke’s
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
. She was sipping an espresso, enjoying the company of the cat lounging on her table, when Parson came in and told her he had the CVR file.
    â€œLet’s listen to it in the intel vault,” he said.
    The intel vault amounted to a room in the command building with some extra soundproofing. In her career, Gold had seen intel facilities ranging from a tent with an armed guard to a high-tech SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility, with alarms and coded locks.
    Following the usual protocol, Gold left her cell phone outside the room in a designated wooden box. Parson steered her to a computer reserved for her. She slid her ID card into the reader and signed on. An intel officer showed her how to pull up the audio file. Before she played it, she also opened a word processing program and donned a set of earphones.
    â€œAre you ready for this?” Parson asked.
    Gold thought for a moment, then nodded. But no, she wasn’t ready for this, nor would she ever be. How did one prepare to listen to people die? Still, she appreciated Parson’s question. He had the decency to realize how jarring it was to pull her away from a moment of leisure and sit her down to something like this. She took a deep breath and clicked PLAY .
    In the first several seconds, she heard only noise: the hum of electronics, the rush of the slipstream over the hull of the aircraft. Parson had explained how she’d be listening to various inputs,