“What?”
“The Fijian. We’re not leaving him!”
A shoulder-fired rocket whistles overhead and blows the hell out of a house across Espresso Street. What little hearing I have left is now gone.
“We’re not leaving without him.”
It’s my secret me who’s talking. He has made the decision.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” This is Chutes, my tightest mate and most trusted brother. He sticks his jaw six inches from mine.
“We’re going back,” I tell him.
Junk curses. “He’s not our guy, chief! We don’t even know who the fuck he is!”
“He’s dead!” says Chutes. “There’s two more 177s in there, waiting to blow!”
Other faces stare at me.
“Leave the body,” cries the Fijian team leader. “The man would say so himself if he could!”
I tell the Fijians he’s not theirs, he’s ours.
Chris Candelaria’s two Kodiaks are hauling ass now; they know they’re targets. Iranian rocket gunners are trying to blow down the building that protects our flank. As their rounds scream in, blocks of concrete the size of bowling balls sail a hundred feet into the air and fall back, crashing all around us. We scramble into the slit trench of sewage. Guys are trying to crawl up inside their helmets. I’m peering around the corner, back into the compound.
Chutes clutches my sleeve. “Bro, listen to me. We got the engineers, we got the report … that’s what we came here for.” He points past the gate to the compound, to the fresh enemy streaming in along the rooflines. “We go back in there, somebody’s gonna die.”
There’s no fear in Chutes’s voice. He’s just stating the truth.
I meet his eyes.
“Fuck you,” he says, jamming fresh magazines into his belly rig. “You hear me, bro? Fuck you!”
Back we go. Chris Candelaria comes with us. We can hear the enemy hooting with anticipation. In the interval they have brought up a Russian PKM, which fires Eastern Bloc 7.62 rounds with a nutsack-shriveling rat-a-tat sound, and these are tearing the hell out of the open space we have to cross. The foe has got his second wind now. He is going after our Lada Nevas and the 7-ton truck, which have stayed behind to cover us. Rockets are zinging across the compound like Roman candles.
We grab the dead Fijian and haul him facedown from the dirt behind the blown-down cookhouse. The IEDs never blow. Chutes curses me all the way back to the gate, curses me when I bag the security man’s effects and lash them around my waist with 550 cord. And he curses me all the way out of town.
Two hours later, our team has reached safety in Husseinabad, in the fortified compound of an Iranian police chief whose real name is Gholamhossein Mattaki, but whom everyone calls Col. Achmed. Col. Achmed has his own doctor, his cousin Rajeef. Rajeef has a pharmacy and a little surgical suite in a side building of Col. Achmed’s compound. Rajeef is our team doctor. He supplies all our pills and powders. We call him “Medicare.”
I have driven flat out to Col. Achmed’s, to get Junk (and two engineers whom we discover have been wounded in the dash across the compound) under serious medical care. Our medic Tony is a superb under-fire practitioner, and the DSF tech is good too. But neither one is a surgeon—and neither one has Dr. R’s goody-box of Vicodin and Percoset, Ultram, Fentanyl, OxyContin, and plain old central Asian smack. I also want to bury our Fijian in a site that won’t be desecrated. While our guys rehydrate and wolf down a meal of lamb and lentils, I grab Chutes and Chris Candelaria and organize a powwow with Col. Achmed. We still don’t know who’s invading whom, how dangerous the situation is, or what the hell is happening east in Isfahan and Tehran.
Achmed is not just a police chief and commander in the paramilitary Masij. He is a hereditary tribal leader and a grandson and great-grandson of Harul and Arishi sheikhs; he is responsible for the safety and welfare of several thousand men, women, and children of allied families, clans, and subtribes. He’s a serious man.
“Get out now,” he tells us, in the tone that your favorite uncle would take if he were looking out for you. We are in the third of his four storage buildings. The place looks like Costco. On racks and pallets sit unopened packing boxes of air conditioners and computer printers; cartons of Pennzoil, Pampers, and paper towels. Achmed has cases of Evian water, V8, Gatorade; crates of Nike running shoes, T-shirts, and tracksuits. The IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, smuggles in half the goods sold in Iran; the stuff comes in, billions of dollars’ worth, by launch and lighter from Kish and Qeshm, “free trade” islands across the gulf, via the port of Bandar Ganayeh—not to mention whatever the colonel’s minions have looted from ExxonMobil and BP. Guns and ammo are everywhere, in and out of crates—M4-40s, mortars, boxes of 5.56 and 7.62 NATO cartridges. Col. Achmed’s family, he tells us, is packing up. The women and children will flee to southern Iraq and then to Syria. Achmed’s sons and goons fill the room, armed to the teeth. “Don’t wait even for morning,” the colonel tells me, Chutes, and Chris. “If you do, you and your men will be massacred.”
I ask him who will come after us.
“Me,” he says with a smile. “Everyone.”
Col. Achmed explains.
“They will not be able to help themselves. First they will come for your weapons and everything of yours that they can steal, then for honor, to avenge the humiliation you and your countrymen have inflicted upon our national manhood simply by your presence and your blue eyes. Next they will come to get you before others do, for the greatest honor goes to him who strikes first, while those who hesitate will be accounted cowards.”
I ask him what will happen in the next week or ten days. He gives it to me in Revolutionspeak, but the gist is this: Shiite Iran—meaning those Revolutionary Guardsmen, army colonels, patriots, tribesmen, and true believers who have been biding their time throughout this long, phony war will unite now with their Iraqi Shiite coreligionists and, casting off the yoke of the West and its hirelings, strike east along the arc of the Shiite Crescent that runs from the Dasht-i-Margo—the Afghan Desert of Death—across Iran to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (not coincidentally the swath of real estate that contains the richest petroleum reserves on earth) and purge this land of those who do not belong or believe.
“Do my men and I have time,” I ask, “to finish dinner?”
Achmed’s tribal code mandates hospitality. He helps us bury our Fijian, though he insists, first, on declaring the man a convert to Islam (which Col. Achmed can do, being a mullah as well as a tribal chief, and to which none of our Fijian’s mates objects under the circumstances), then tops off our fuel tanks and loads us up with Neda spring water and sixteen-ounce cans of Beefaroni. One of Achmed’s sons brings a tray of delicious homemade sohan—pistachio candy.
Col. Achmed maps out the safest route to the frontier (the one he’ll be chasing us on) and helps key into our GPSes the sequence of junctures—all unmarked desert and mountain tracks that we could never find without his help. Dr. Rajeef rigs mobile hospital beds for Junk and our two wounded engineers; he stocks us up with two dozen vials of morphine, plus sample packs of Demerol and Dilau-did with sterile syringes and a hundred ampules of methylephidrine, which we all need in our exhausted, postadrenalinized state.
We take our leave over cups of black Persian coffee. It’s midnight. Our engines idle beyond the walls in the night. Achmed and his men leave us alone, for our final prep and words for each other.
“Chief.” It’s Chutes, stepping forward before the others. “I’m sorry for what I said back there in Nazirabad …”
“Forget it.”
He apologizes for refusing, at first, to go back after the Fijian, whose name, we have learned, is Manasa Singh. Chris Candelaria seconds this. I thank them both. It takes guts to speak up in front of the others. The act is not without cost to proud men. I appreciate it and I tell them.
The men surround me in the headlight-lit court. Safety lies two hundred miles east, in the dark,
across country none of us knows—back valleys and passes peopled by warriors who will know where we are, how many we are, and where we are heading. Every one of us knows this, and every one feels the fear in his bones.
“Because we went back when we didn’t have to,” I say, “we know something about ourselves that we didn’t know before. You know now, Chris, that if you fall, I won’t abandon you. I’ll come back, if it costs me my life—and so will Q and so will Junk and so will Chutes. And we know the same about you.”
A bottle makes the rounds.
“The contract we signed says nothing about honor. The company doesn’t give a shit. But I do. I fight for money, yeah—but that’s not why I’m here, and it’s not why any of you are here either.”
From inside the compound, Col. Achmed and his sons listen. Two hours from now they’ll be hunting us as if we were animals. But for this moment they know us as men, and we know them.
“What we did today in Nazirabad,” I tell my brothers, “would earn decorations for valor in any army in the world. You know what I’ll give you for it?”
I grab my crotch.
Chris Candelaria laughs.
Chutes follows. The whole crew shakes their heads and rocks back and forth.
You have to lead men sometimes. As unit commander, you have to put words to the bonds of love they feel but may be too embarrassed to speak of—and to the secret aspirations of their hearts, which are invariably selfless and noble. More important, you have to take those actions yourself, first and alone, that they themselves know they should take, but they just haven’t figured it out yet.
About the Author
STEVEN PRESSFIELD is the author of the novels The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, and Tides of War. He lives in Los Angeles. Visit his website at www.stevenpressfield.com.
ALSO BY STEVEN PRESSFIELD
THE WAR OF ART
TIDES OF WAR
GATES OF FIRE
THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE
High praise for the novels of Steven Pressfield
LAST OF THE AMAZONS
“A SPLENDID TALE OF VALOR, HONOR, AND COMRADESHIP.”
—Library Journal
“MAKES THE DISTANT PAST SEEM REAL AND IMMEDIATE. THIS IS HISTORICAL FICTION ELEVATED TO THE STATUS OF MYTH.”
—Daniel Silva, author of The English Assassin
“To combine erudition, fluency, and storytelling is an impossible hat trick. . . . Mr. Pressfield gives us Thermopylae, Alcibiades, and now, the Amazons as compellingly as Patrick O’Brian gave us the Royal Navy. THE HIGH MERIT OF HIS SCHOLARSHIP IS ECLIPSED, INDEED, OBLITERATED, BY THE MERIT OF HIS ACTS OF IMAGINATION.”—David Mamet
“FASCINATING . . . THE BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER.”
—The Houston Chronicle
“Beyond the best battle scenes I’ve ever read—brutal, bloody, and thoroughly gripping—Pressfield has an amazing grasp of the savage mind, and the precarious nature of civilization.”—Diana Gabaldon, author of The Fiery Cross
“A MASTER STORYTELLER . . . [A] GRIPPING TALE OF EPIC BATTLE.”
—Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
“A novel of adventure, romance . . . [and] vivid imagination. . . . PRESSFIELD’S NOVELS BRIDGE PAST AND PRESENT.”—Albuquerque Journal
“PRESSFIELD’S SPLENDID TALE OF VALOR, HONOR, AND COMRADESHIP MEMORIALIZES THOSE WOMEN WHOSE LIVES AND DEEDS HAVE FADED INTO THE MISTS OF LEGEND.”—Library Journal
“Solid entertainment . . . Like James Clavell before him, PRESSFIELD CAN TAKE SMALL, INTIMATE DAILY DETAILS . . . AND BLEND THEM INTO HIS STORY.”—Fort Worth Morning Star Telegram
“Pressfield’s javelin is his pen and he wields it well.”—Publishers Weekly
“A JOY TO READ . . . Pressfield writes with a quality and style akin to classical legend . . . A POWERFUL ELEGY TO THE WORLD THAT WASN’T TO BE, as well as a profound dialogue between civilization and ‘savagery.’”—SFX Magazine
TIDES OF WAR
“Pressfield serves up not just hair-raising battle scenes . . . but many moments of valor and cowardice, lust and bawdy humor. . . . Even more impressively, he delivers a nuanced portrait of ancient Athens.”—Esquire
“Unabashedly brilliant, epic, intelligent, and moving.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Pressfield’s attention to historic detail is exquisite. . . . This novel will remain with the reader long after the final chapter is finished.”—Library Journal
“Astounding, historically accurate tale . . . Pressfield is a master storyteller, especially adept in his graphic and embracing descriptions of the land and naval battles, political intrigues and colorful personalities, which come together in an intense and credible portrait of war-torn Greece.”—Publishers Weekly
“On every page are color, splendor, sorrow, the unforgiving details of battle, daily life, and of the fighter’s lot. . . . Pressfield produces an even greater spectacle—and, in its honest, incremental way, an even greater heart-tugger, than in his acclaimed tale of the battle of Thermopylae, Gates of Fire.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[Pressfield] continues to excel in depth of research, humanization of antiquity, and power of description.”—Los Angeles Times
“While Pressfield excels at portraying battles and naval contests, the whole pivotal era leaps to life under his skilled and exciting pen.”—Booknews
“It’s a painful tale to read, but the very pain is testimony to Pressfield’s ability to make us feel and believe in his re-creation of the Greek world. Like all great historical fiction, he does not alter the facts, but merely illuminates them with enlightened speculation. Pressfield ends his story with a reminder that his story is fiction, not history. It’s a necessary reminder. After living in his world for 400 pages, it’s difficult to believe it’s not the real thing.”—The Herald-Sun (North Carolina)
GATES OF FIRE
“Vivid and exciting . . . Pressfield gives the reader a perspective no ancient historian offers, a soldier’s-eye view . . . remarkable.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Impressive . . . vivid.”—USA Today
“Majestic . . . monumental . . . epic.”—Daily News, New York
“Gates of Fire lives up to its billing as an epic novel. . . . His Greeks and Persians come across as the real thing.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Steven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life, and he does for that war what Charles Frazier did for the Civil War in Cold Mountain.”
—Pat Conroy
“An incredibly gripping, moving, and literate work of art. Rarely does an author manage to re-create a moment in history with such mastery, authority, and psychological insights.”—Nelson DeMille
“A novel that is intricate and arresting and, once begun, almost impossible to put down.”—Daily News, New York
“A timeless epic of man and war . . . Pressfield has created a new classic deserving of a place beside the very best of the old.”—Stephen Coonts
For Lesley
LAST OF THE AMAZONS
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Doubleday hardcover edition published June 2002
Bantam trade paperback edition / July 2003
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2002 by Steven Pressfield
Excerpt from The Profession copyright © 2011 by Steven Pressfield.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001047672
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit our website at www.bantamdell.com
; Published simultaneously in Canada
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Profession by Steven Pressfield. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eISBN: 978-0-553-89771-5
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