The Valley Read Online Free PDF Page B

Arcturus. There were no other posts on the map. Vega was the limit of the American advance.
    The Valley kept winding its way onward and upward, terminating—just as lore had told it—in a narrow pass several miles beyond the outpost. That would be the Pakistani border, roughly. The precise location of the frontier was a little hazy in the Nuristan mountains. No one who lived there, it seemed, had ever really needed to know with precision.
    He put the map aside, out of his sight in the shadowed part of his desk, and switched on his computer. While it warmed up he considered the unlikelihood of him being selected for this particular job. About Gayley’s admonitions.
    His civilian e-mail account came up. He opened a blank message and sat a moment, thinking, before typing in a subject line:
    The Final Insult
    The recipient was a trusted friend whom Black had known since they were both civilians fighting for slots at the Army’s Officer Candidate School. They’d gone through training together, but they never saw each other anymore. He was the one who’d sent the lamp when Black had come to FOB Omaha. It arrived without a return address, as befit a package from someone who was increasingly disappearing into the world of classified military operations.
    The friend was a highly intelligent wiseass who liked to be entertained and preferred witty banter to plain speech. This could be wearying, but having few American friends on the FOB, Black was usually happy to oblige. Chances were slim he would get the message in time, but if he did, the guy might have some useful advice.
    As you are a connoisseur of bureaucratic inanity you will appreciate this. As a perfect cap-off to a stellar military career, your intrepid correspondent will be leaving Forward Operating Base PastGlory to venture alone into the broad sunlit uplands of neighboring Berzerkistan, where he will be welcomed warmly by the hale lads of the 44th Foot and regaled thereby with tales of ales (drank back home) and males (military-aged) over which and whom they have prevailed; and where he will also put the Fifteen on the Six, having been selected as fit for this singular duty by the great churning motherwheel of Army bullshit human resources efficiency.
    If I put in words the triviality of the subject matter, you would cry.
    Wherever you are on the Earth’s many lands, may you be drunk and insufferable. Or killing bad guys.
    Care of
    He pulled the map of the Valley over and extracted a grid coordinate.
    Oscar Zulu 36119 81534. God save your spleen.
    Yours from the Land of Mediocrity,
    â€”Lord of the Files
    Good enough. If his friend got it, he might actually be amused enough to reply.
    He had just sent it when his desk phone jangled. He picked it up.
    Gayley. Calling with word on the transportation situation.
    â€œSir?”
    â€œGround convoy. They don’t like flying helicopters into that place unless someone’s dying, and not even always then.”
    â€œOkay, sir. When do I go?”
    â€œTomorrow night.”
    He’d wanted more time. But Black knew better than to say nothing, or splutter
sir?
or otherwise register his dismay.
    â€œRoger that, sir.”
    â€œI know,” Gayley said, reading his thoughts. “Their resupply convoy only makes runs up there once a week on Sundays.”
    It was Saturday night.
    â€œThey leave from Three-Four-Four’s headquarters at seventeen hundred. Take tomorrow off and get your gear ready. Be there with your stuff no later than sixteen thirty.”
    â€œRoger, sir,” Black replied. “Sir, does that mean—”
    â€œYeah, it does. You’re gonna stay out there a week.”
    This time Black lapsed into silence in spite of himself. Gayley did too. Black wondered if he was reconsidering the decision to send him out there.
    It was the colonel who finally cleared his throat and spoke.
    â€œUse this opportunity, Lieutenant. Do this thing right. It may not