“From the office we can keep an eye on the back door and the hall we’re in now. Our chances are better if we can see her coming. Right?” She looked the question at her manager. If she was trying regain his trust by appealing to him, it wasn’t working. Instead, he felt manipulated and more unsettled knowing she was the one holding their only gun. Manipulative or not, however, she was right.
“You bet,” he answered. Waiting out the siege in the hallway was like standing in the kill box hoping that the butcher had left to go to his retirement party.
“Help her,” she said, gesturing at Carol with her empty hand. Beau got up and gently pulled the weeping woman to her feet. Daniel and Raylynne helped Neil. Luis tried to stare Lyn down. She wasn’t having it. “You can wait here if you want,” she said. “I can see you well enough with the mirror.”
“Puta.”
“Come on, Luis. Quit goading her.” Beau tried to put a friendly hand on the kid’s shoulder, but the brat batted it away the way he had Lyn’s.
“¡Vete y chinga a tu madre! It’s your fault she’s got my fucking gun.”
“When you had the gun you tried to kill me and my father! If she gave it to me I’d shoot you right in the face!” Lyn hugged Hunter. Luis jerked forward, but froze when she held up the gun.
“On second thought, you’re definitely staying in the hall,” she said. “Consider yourself our canary in the coal mine. If Joanie comes through that door you can let us know by calling her a bunch of nasty shit in Spanish.” She narrowed her eyes again and Beau felt that place in his guts go cold again. “I know what you’re thinking,” she continued. “Go to your office and get your rifle. I won’t stop you.”
“And if I come back for you with it?”
“Then I can tell the cops it was self defense.” She aimed the pistol between his eyes and slipped her finger inside the guard.
“What if I try to leave?”
“Be my guest. There are three exits. I’d just as soon you use the one in front.”
#
1612 hrs
If he was correct in assuming that a position beneath the deck of Joanie’s house gave her a better angle of attack, Bryce figured he could get out from under the truck and maybe halfway to the corner of the building without being seen from her vantage point across the highway. From there, he was exposed for ten or fifteen feet before he disappeared from view again. He holstered his pistol and began to pull himself forward. His left arm had gone pretty numb, except when he tried to move it––then it screamed pain. He did his best to let it drag beside him. For the first few feet he spent more time pulling gravel toward him than he did moving forward. He rolled onto his side and undid his utility belt. Rolling onto his stomach, he slipped the rest out from under him and draped it over his shoulders. He started forward again with slightly better result without his buckle digging into the dirt. Still, lacking the use of one arm meant he was inch-worming along more than crawling.
When he got to the wall he didn’t wait to see if Joanie was going to take the shot, or even if he could get a glimpse of where she might be. He kept going, repeating his reasons for taking the risk: his wife and kids. For Cherie. For Logan. For Annie. For Cherie. For Logan. For Annie. Eventually, he reached the rear corner of the restaurant and let himself feel a tiny measure of relief as he rounded the corner.
He breathed deeply for the first time since pulling into Joanie’s driveway. Although he prayed every week in church, he usually stuck to Our Fathers and Hail Marys. This time, he went off script.
“Dear Lord, thank you for looking after me in this moment of need. I’m not asking you to get me through this because I deserve to live, but because my family deserves to have the choice whether or not they want me around. Please, all I’m asking is for you to allow them that much.” Mustering up the last of his energy, he got to his feet and shambled the rest of the way around back.
Leaning against the brick wall beside it, he banged on the door with the butt of his ruined radio. From inside he heard a startled yelp and a gunshot. A bullet hole opened in the door at chest level. “Cease fire! Sheriff’s Department! Cease fire!” A moment later the door opened a crack and a blood-stained girl in a pink waitress uniform poked her head outside.
“Did I get you?” she asked.
#
14 August 2009 –– 1445 hrs – Iraq
Joanie lifted a box of medical supplies from the transport and carried it into the makeshift village hospital. The civilian contractor in the DeepWater tac gear leaned against a wall leering at her, not offering to help. She tried to put him out of her mind as she did her job. Technically, due to Pentagon rules, she was not allowed into a combat zone, but this area had been pacified and they were short hands for the mission. She’d volunteered to help deliver medicine for two reasons, the first being that helping people made her feel better about being so far from home, and second, it got her off base for a few hours. Anything that could break up the monotony of a typical day was welcome.
She walked past the merc, trying to avoid making eye contact without looking down. It was difficult. Her father had spent a lot of time encouraging her to look a man in the face. If you want to be treated with respect, you got to demand it. Nobody is going to see you as an equal if you’re always lookin’ at your shoes. This guy definitely did not see her as an equal, despite the Master Sergeant chevron sewn on her shoulder. The contractor exhaled between his teeth as she walked by, sounding like a leak in a gas line or a burning fuse. She thought he might’ve meant it to be a compliment. It didn’t feel complimentary. “Why don’t you make yourself useful,” she said over her shoulder.
“It’s below my pay grade, baby.” He nodded his head at the M-24 rifle slung over her shoulder. “What are you supposed to be anyway?” She gritted her teeth and moved toward the hospital. Inside, the other members of the volunteer team were helping unpack boxes. There was a line of Arabic men in black robes eying the medics suspiciously. Some creep in Baghdad had started the rumor that American vaccination programs were actually a plot to infect and kill healthy Islamic men as a part of a religious crusade. Given how the men were looking at Airmen Morris and Jones, she guessed that the story had made it at least as far as this village. That was until she entered the house. Then their disapproving looks focused on her. Despite wearing her ABU utility cap, she figured her attire wasn’t “modest” enough for them. She wondered if these were the kind of men who’d stone a girl to death for falling in love with a boy from the “wrong” tribe.
Don’t judge, Jo. You’re here to help.
Errol Normandy, her spotter partner, tapped her on the shoulder. “Don’t let them get under your skin. They’ll be happy as kids on Christmas as soon as they find out we’ve got penicillin to treat the clap.” He winked. Although he normally knew exactly how to lighten her mood, today she wasn’t feeling the esprit de corps. “What is it, Jo? You’re never going to see these guys again. Let it go.”
“It’s not them. It’s the DeepWater guys outside.”
“Those dicks? Are they giving you a hard time?”
“No. Not really. They’ve just got creep turned up to eleven. I’m being over-sensitive.”
“Come on. I’ll help you with the last of the boxes and then we’ll go home and get a beer. What do you say?”
“Al Asad isn’t home.”
“It is until we’re redeployed to Afghanistan.”
“That’s definitely not home!” Although she enjoyed the time away from base, she was glad this mission was nearly over. They’d delivered medicine and supplies to towns between Baghdad, Tikrit, and now Mosul. It would be nice to sleep in her own rack after the long drive back. She and Errol walked out to the transport and each grabbed a box. Her spotter turned around to give the contractor a hard stare when the first mortar hit.
Joanie dropped her box and took cover behind a low stone wall as another mortar exploded six or seven meters away. “They’re getting a bead on the trucks,” she shouted. Errol fum
bled for his scope while the rest of the unit emerged from the hospital, found cover and returned fire, attempting to engage an invisible enemy bombarding them from somewhere in the nearby hills. She did her best to spot the mortar position through the scope of her rifle, but she couldn’t get a fix on their position. The insurgents, on the other hand, were zeroing in on them.
Another shell exploded. More dust and debris floated in the hot air obscuring her vision. She saw the DeepWater guys running for cover while her team engaged. Fuckin’ figures! As a counter-sniper, she was inclined to find a hide from which to locate the enemy team. Given what they were firing, however, she was already in as good a spot as any.
Someone beside her was shouting, “We’re taking indirect!” as if no one else had noticed. While her fellow airmen were firing blindly at the side of the hill nearest them, Joanie and Errol were scanning for a target. Patient, but anxious to do their job. Over the chaos behind her she heard the unfamiliar patois of whatever tribal language they spoke in the mountains. Some panicked airman shouted, “Jo! Behind you!” Joanie swung around in time to see a man racing out of the half destroyed house. Ahead of him ran a young girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old. Black hair spilled from her brightly colored headscarf. She was screaming and running right for Joanie’s position. She reached out and gave the girl the hand sign she’d been taught meant ‘stop’ to these people. The girl ignored her.
Another mortar shell hit the wall behind the girl, blasting it to pieces and throwing the kid to the ground. Her shrieking stopped. The man pursuing her hit the dirt and covered his face as rocks and debris rained down on them. Joanie was half way to the girl before she even realized she’d left her position and her cover. Errol shouted after her, but she couldn’t hear. She took a knee beside the girl and rolled her onto her back. Half of her face was caved in. She was choking and sputtering muddied blood into Joanie’s face as she stared helplessly into the girl’s panicked eye.
The squad leader grabbed Joanie under her arms and pulled her away from the girl, shouting, “Leave her! Back to your position. Find that fuckin’ mortar team and reduce the target!” The girl lay motionless in the dirt. The old man was scrambling into the house and the squad leader was on to someone else shouting something she couldn’t make out. Joanie scrambled to her position beside Errol. “Got ‘em,” was all her friend said by way of greeting as she rested the barrel of her rifle on his shoulder. With Errol’s directions, Joanie found the men bombarding them crouched halfway up the facing hill. They were loading another round. She focused in on the man about to drop a shell into the mortar tube. Correcting for drop using the mill dot relation etched into her scope lens, she confirmed her figures with her partner. Errol replied “Send it.” She fired. Through the scope she watched the man’s chin tuck in like he’d been punched in the face.
“Right in the peach,” she said, meaning she’d hit him right in the peach-sized medulla oblongata at the base of his brain. Perfect hit. Lights out. The fighter dropped the mortar shell on the ground instead of in the tube. While their spotter dropped his binoculars and fumbled around for the loose round, Joanie put another bullet in the brain of the insurgent aiming the mortar. He fell, knocking over the weapon. The fumbling man abandoned the round and ran behind the nearby rocks for cover.
The assault stopped; their squad leader ordered a cease-fire. Joanie waited patiently for the third man to poke his head up. Errol sat next to her quietly watching the scene.
“Anyone left, Sergeant Myer?”
Errol said, “Four meters right. Mooj behind the bush.”
Joanie spotted the man trying to creep away on his belly. She adjusted her aim and squeezed the trigger. Her shot echoed in the fresh silence. “No one, sir.”
Standing up, she waited to be reprimanded for breaking rank. Instead, Lieutenant Wilcox praised her and Errol for taking out the nest. Joanie looked over his shoulder at the girl lying in the dirt. The medic treating her got up and walked away to tend to other people who’d been hit by flying debris, leaving her body for her family to take away.
“You all right, Jo?” Errol asked.
Her attention was drawn from the girl to three of the black-clad DeepWater contractors emerging from a house far up the lane. “Sure. Let’s finish up and get out of here.”
#
1820 hrs
“Those guys really got under your skin, didn’t they?” Errol shouted over the rumble of the HMMVW troop carrier. Unlike in its civilian counterpart, noise dampening was not a feature that AM General added to the military line.
Joanie shook off her daze and focused on her partner. “What? Them? No. That’s the job, right? Three shots, three hajjis down.” Now that they were headed to Al Asad she had time to replay the firefight in her head. She had time to think about what it really meant to put three men’s lights out.
“I don’t mean the insurgents on the hill. I mean the fakes.” Errol had heard an Australian soldier refer to armed civilian contractors as “fakes” and took to it like a heavy raindrop to gravity. She couldn’t tell who he held in greater contempt, insurgents or mercenaries. He was convinced that the presence of DeepWater Private Security Details anywhere in country doubled the risk that servicemen and women faced. The locals were becoming increasingly upset with the cowboy antics of mercenaries with loose supervision and little to no accountability. That frustration and distrust didn’t help the rank and file accomplish the tasks they’d been sent to do.
“There was one who kept giving me the skunk-eye, you know?”
“Forget about it. We’ll never see them again. And if we do, they’ll never see us.” He patted his spotter’s scope and winked again. “From a place you will not see…”
“Comes a sound PSD will not hear.” She tightened her grip on her rifle and winked back.
The explosion outside rocked the vehicle. Joanie’s head banged against the interior wall making her vision blur. The improvised “hajji armor” welded to the side of their Humvee held fast protecting the occupants from the IED blast that crippled their vehicle, stopping them dead still. Errol was up and gripping her shoulders. “Jo? Jo! You with me?” The next hit sent him crashing to the floor of the truck. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was the cab of the Humvee exploding in a ball of fire.
#
1940 hrs
Standing in the smoking aftermath, DeepWater PSD officer Jason Hess surveyed the damage. “Anyone alive up there?”
“No sir. Raghead RPGs got ‘em all. How ‘bout you? Find anybody?”
Hess bent down and felt Errol’s throat for a pulse. It was faint, but there. “Yep! You guys better get over here.” He leaned over and felt Joanie’s throat next. Her pulse was stronger, but she was out as deeply as her spotter.
“Hey, lookit. It’s that hot-shit sniper cooze,” Podowski said, as he came around the truck.
“Yep,” Hess said.
“Want I should call it in?”
Hess stood there for a long moment weighing their options. He was sure that these troops had been able to radio their position before getting the shit blown out of them. If they hadn’t, someone else was likely to come across them eventually and spread the word. In the meantime, he saw something he wanted. “When was the last time you saw a blond?”
“Shit, Hess. I dunno. Last time I was in the green zone, I guess.”
“I mean one that couldn’t say ‘no.’”
“What are you thinking?”
“Get her in the truck.”
“What about him?”
“He’s on his own,” Hess said.
#
Time unknown
Joanie swam in and out of consciousness. Awake one moment long enough to realize she hadn’t been evaced to a hospital. At another, just long enough to catch a glint of gold dangling in front of her face.
And for one excruciatingly long time, she regretted not having been killed along with her best friend, Errol.
#
Time unk
nown
Laughter. “The carpet matches the drapes.”
#
Time unknown
The pain came and went.
#
Time unknown
“Not so stuck-up now, you bitch. You cunt.”
#
Time unknown
“Come on, man, you got firsties last time.”
#
Time unknown
The humiliation was constant. Her hate grew until it filled all the tiny places inside her. It pumped with her blood while she slept.
#
Date and time unknown
Feeling groggy and disoriented, she lifted her head off of the stinking mattress. Her neck ached from craning it away from the nightmare of faces that leaned over her, panting their stinking breath at her. Her whole body ached in a way that made her wistful for the tortures of basic training. Whoever had used her last had left the LED lantern on. She got her first look at the room where she’d been held for the last… two days? Three? A week? She lay on a molding mattress on the floor inside of a narrow, corrugated commercial shipping can. The military used wider cans called “containerized housing units” instead of tents back on base, but this wasn’t one of those. It was one used for shipping cargo. A few wooden pallets had been stacked in the corner to serve as a table. The lantern stood there along with a dirty plastic lunch tray––have they been feeding me?––and a taser. Except for the rust and dried up rat droppings, the rest of the can was empty.
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