by Young, Tom
The three minutes passed quickly. When the aircraft touched down, the crew chief yelled, “Go, go, go!” Blount unbuckled his seat belt. Loudon jumped out of the helicopter, followed by a radio operator, the forward observer with the laser designator, and a fire team of four Marines. Blount got out last, and the helicopter lifted off to place other fire teams who had remained in the aircraft.
As expected, Blount found himself on top of a rocky rise that overlooked a vale of sand. Through his goggles he saw the helicopters depositing men into positions surrounding the vale. At the center of the sand bowl, four tents—about the size of American twenty-five-man tents—stood pegged beside five mud-brick structures. The buildings looked like they might have served as some sort of base camp for nomads at one time.
A higher ridgeline rose to the east. Beyond it, as viewed through NVGs, skyglow beamed as if an electrified city of crystal lay just out of view: the first hint of sunrise, and the end of usefulness for night vision goggles.
“Time to go MOPP Four, gentlemen,” Loudon said.
Blount switched off his NVGs, removed his helmet. Pulled his gas mask out of its carrier and donned the mask, checked its seals. Placed his helmet back on over the mask and pulled on his butyl gloves. The other men suited up the same way.
He inhaled long and slow through the gas mask filter.
Now he wanted to kill.
The scent of the mask’s rubber sparked anger within Blount quick as steel and flint might ignite a load in that old pistol. He knew smells could trigger memories with a power denied all the other senses, and this particular odor wiped away his battle Zen. The last time he’d suited up like this, he’d lost friends, found himself delivered into the hands of people who wanted to saw his head off. Kassam was still out there, probably in that compound below. The rational part of Blount’s mind registered surprise that rage had flared in him so hotly. His grandfather had warned about vengeance burning you up, but he hadn’t expected it to feel like actual flames.
With all the fire teams in place, the four helicopters clattered away to the north. Blount wanted to check his watch again to note the B-2’s time over target, but now the watch lay buried under his glove and MOPP suit sleeve, and he could not expose any skin. As far as he was concerned, the bomber couldn’t get here soon enough. Every second gave those terrorists another moment of life they did not deserve.
He did not have to wait long. As the terrain below filled with the milky light of dawn, Blount thought he heard the whisper of jet engines way up high. He could not be sure; it might have been only the breeze or perhaps the sound of men breathing through gas masks. Behind the cover of a boulder, Loudon kept his eyes on the target. The forward observer manned the laser designator, which looked vaguely like a spotting scope on a tripod. The observer aimed his infrared beam, invisible to the naked eye, at the target.
Loudon conferred with the observer and one of the radio operators. Spoke into the handset of a PRC-119, holding it close to the voicemitter of his gas mask.
“Spirit Five-Four, this is Thor Six,” he said. “You are cleared hot.”
“Thor Six,” came the answer, “Spirit Five-Four copies we are cleared hot.”
A light came on in one of the tents down below. Faint voices shouted in Arabic. Perhaps the enemy had heard something. For a moment, nothing else happened. Seconds ticked into minutes. Blount wondered if the bomber had aborted. He looked up. If the B-2 was there, it flew so high Blount could not see it.
Then a staccato fluttering filled the air. The noise reminded Blount of the wing beats of a field lark startled from a pasture, amplified by a factor of hundreds. At first the sound made no sense. But then he realized what he heard: heavy metal ripping through the atmosphere at terminal velocity.
Blount had seen plenty of ordnance blasts, but nothing like this hail of anvils. When the weapons struck, the ground leaped and rolled. The tents flattened. A geyser of debris and dust lifted into the air as the buildings began to disintegrate. Even at a distance of hundreds of meters, Blount felt the impacts resonate inside his chest cavity. Solid projectiles jackhammered the desert floor. The noise made Blount think of standing under a trestle while a train crossed it just as clouds thundered. He had never witnessed an earthquake, but he imagined the rending of tectonic plates might sound something like this.
Despite the absence of high explosives, sparks and fire leaped amid the raging of a miniature sandstorm. Blount figured the source of ignition could have come from anything—perhaps the fuses of chemical weapons or even flame spewed from an oil lamp as the lamp got crushed. No telling what weird effects might result from that much steel hitting with that much force. He wanted it to go on forever.
“Beautiful,” Loudon said.
Blount simply nodded and kept his eyes on the target area.
The desert grew still again, save for a drifting cloud of dust and smoke. Blount wondered what poisons that smoke might contain. The sun crested a notch in the eastern ridgeline, and light spilled into the sand bowl as if a levee had broken. Blount felt almost . . . disappointed. Was it over so soon? Loudon spoke into his radio, this time on a ground channel.
“Hold your positions,” he said.
As the smoke cleared and the sun rose, the effect of the CBU-107 Passive Attack Weapons became more apparent. The tents had disappeared altogether. Whatever they had covered lay in sand-covered ruin, lumps of rubble no more than three feet high. The PAWs had also flattened most of the mud-brick structures, though part of one of them remained standing. That structure appeared to have been made up of three rooms. Two of the rooms remained nearly whole, shattered walls leaning inward.
“Nothing passive about that, was there?” Loudon said.
Blount shook his head.
Though Blount found the air strike impressive, it left him feeling hollow. He’d wanted to kill Kassam with his own hands, see the dirtbag’s eyes fill with fear, hear the rasp of his last breath.
More jet noise came from above, this time low, and loud enough to be unmistakable. Blount tilted his head—he had to crane his neck farther than usual because of the gas mask—and he saw two Mirage fighters streak by in close formation. The aircraft grew smaller with distance, banked into a turn.
Nothing moved in the target area, though Blount spotted two vehicles he’d not seen earlier: an SUV and a pickup truck like the one that had carried him to the hell house. They had been parked on the other side of the compound, screened by structures that no longer stood. The vehicles looked dirty but otherwise untouched. The CBU-107s had struck with such accuracy that they’d hammered the target and nothing else—not even trucks only yards away.
Loudon went over to the radio operator, lifted the handset of the PRC-119.
“All stations, Thor Six,” he called. “BDA team move into place. Exercise extreme caution.”
Loudon, Blount, and about twenty other Marines from various positions around the target area began to head downhill. The bomb damage assessment team would take photographs and try to determine exactly what the bombs had destroyed.
Blount glanced over his shoulder, back up the hill. The sniper with the .50-cal watched and waited, his spotter beside him with an observation scope. The BDA team continued moving toward the devastated compound. Blount wished fervently that he’d find Kassam’s body, to provide proof positive of the dirtbag’s death. But at this distance he saw no bodies at all—only shattered bricks, crumbling walls, and two intact vehicles.
Loudon continued leading the descent down the outcropping into the sand bowl. The lieutenant colonel nearly lost his footing in a slippery chute of loose stones, and he stumbled ahead of his radio operator. To maintain balance he took a long stride downhill and let the momentum carry him. Nearly at a run, he reached the edge of the sand bowl. Pebbles bounced and rolled across the ground behind him, and he came to a stop about fifty yards in front of the other men.
&n
bsp; At that instant, movement caught Blount’s eye, something within the few walls still standing. Could anyone have survived that air strike?
Before Blount could call out a warning, three men ran from within the bombed-out structure. One wore a dark tracksuit. The other two wore green field jackets, and all were bearded. They moved too quickly for Blount to determine if Kassam was among them. One dived into the pickup, and the other two jumped into the SUV.
“Fire,” Loudon shouted.
From behind and above him, Blount heard the deep slam of the .50 cal M107. A Raufoss round tore a flaming hole in the pickup’s engine compartment just as the vehicle started to move. The pickup ground to a halt, smoke seeping from under the hood. The driver jumped out. The M107 boomed again. This time the Raufoss slammed through the driver’s torso. The body collapsed in a smoking heap.
Marines opened up on the escaping SUV, but the bullets seemed to have no effect. Maybe the vehicle was armed, or maybe the range had become too great for the M16s.
The M107 fired once more. An orange flash and a wisp of smoke showed the Raufoss had found its mark, but the vehicle kept accelerating. The sniper sent another round, and the SUV only moved faster.
“Don’t let that thing go,” Loudon shouted. “Call the Daggers.”
Blount stood closer to the radio operator than Loudon, and every second counted. The radio operator swung the PRC-119 from his shoulder and made a quick adjustment to the channel selector. As Blount reached him, the man held out the handset and said, “You’re on Dagger’s frequency, Gunny.”
Blount grabbed the handset, lifted it to his gas mask’s voicemitter.
“Dagger flight, Thor Six Bravo with a fire mission,” he called. As he spoke, he watched the SUV growing smaller. A trail of dust rose behind it. Maybe Kassam himself was in that vehicle. If so, he was getting away. Please answer me, Blount thought. Please, please, please come up on freq.
“Thor Six Bravo, Dagger One-One, say your fire mission,” a voice responded. Very familiar. Yeah, that French pilot, Chartier. With the backseater they called Sniper.
Perfect, Blount thought. Time to talk a round onto a target.
“Sir,” Blount transmitted, “my position is objective area as briefed. Target is a vehicle heading south, away from objective area. Will not be marked.”
Blount released his talk switch, waited for a response.
“Dagger One-One copies target is a moving vehicle south of objective.”
Vengeance is mine, Blount thought. Maybe that went against the Good Book, but he couldn’t help it. He had to summon all his self-discipline just to use proper radio procedure.
“Yes, sir,” Blount said. “Thor Six Bravo requests bombing or strafing attack. Run-in heading roughly one-niner-zero, pull out at your discretion. I can observe and will not control. Over.”
“One-niner-zero, pull out our discretion,” Chartier said.
Go get ’em, Blount thought. Hope your boy Sniper’s as good as you say. Reckon this makes me Sniper’s spotter.
Jet noise rose from a distant whisper to pealing thunder. Blount gazed at the sky above him. At first he saw no aircraft. He’d lost track of their position, but he knew they’d attack from the north. He followed the sound as best he could.
There.
Blount spotted two dark specks moving in unison above the northwest horizon. When they turned, their wing flash clearly identified them as a pair of fighters. The Mirages rolled onto a southerly heading. One of them began to descend.
“Thor Six Bravo,” Chartier called, “Dagger One-One has target in sight.”
“Dagger One-One cleared hot,” Blount answered.
On the ground, the vehicle appeared only as a distant feather of dust. Out of range now for infantry weapons. But not for infantry talking to air.
The descending Mirage began to level off several hundred feet above the desert floor. Its roar seemed to fill the entire Sahara. When the jet streaked overhead, Blount noticed the clusters of fins and oblong shapes underneath the wings: an aircraft laden with death, but to Blount, laden with justice.
After the Mirage rocketed past the compound, one of the weapons fell from the jet. The bomb made a slight change in direction as it dropped, perhaps riding a laser beam from the Mirage. As if drawn by a magnet, the weapon steered directly to the moving SUV.
Flame erupted, blotted out the vehicle. An instant later the sound reached Blount’s ears. More crack than boom, sharp and hard. Black smoke belched from the point of impact. Burning masses hurled themselves skyward—chunks of the SUV, accompanied by dozens of smaller embers. From the central swirl of flames, blackened debris flew in arcs, streamed smoke and fire, and bounced onto the desert floor.
The Mirage pulled up, banked into a climbing turn.
Blount raised both arms. In his right hand he brandished his rifle; his left hand he clenched into a fist. From within the gas mask, he let out a long monosyllabic growl, a victory cry. Sweat poured into his eyes and he didn’t care.
“Precision-guided whoop-ass,” Loudon shouted.
Several Marines began to yell.
“Oo-raaah!”
“Gotcha, baby.”
Blount keyed his mike again.
“Good hit, Dagger,” he called. “Nice shot.”
The radio hissed for a moment before Chartier called back.
“Copy that, Thor. Merci. Do you require another pass?”
Blount scanned the target area. No movement. No gunfire.
“Negative, sir.”
“Roger. We’ll remain on station until we reach bingo fuel.”
The sun now appeared as a bronze ball, fully risen above the horizon. The last whorls of red marbled into a sky growing bluer by the minute. Clear visibility stretched for miles; Blount noted with satisfaction that the helicopters would have no trouble coming back for him and his fellow Marines. The weather itself seemed to acknowledge Blount’s right to get home.
But before he went anywhere, he wanted to make sure Sadiq Kassam had made a permanent change of station—to hell. Blount couldn’t wait to find Kassam’s body in the rubble and wreckage. He wanted—needed—to look into Kassam’s dead eyes.
He joined the bomb damage assessment team searching the target area. Blount, Loudon, and ten other Marines began picking their way through the crumbled bricks and collapsed walls of the compound. The men snapped photographs, jotted notes, paced off distances.
One Marine stopped, and with a gloved finger pointed at something on the ground. He took a photo as other men came to look. Blount trotted over as fast as he could in heavy chem gear, hoping to see Kassam’s corpse.
But it was only a foot, still inside a Russian-style black leather boot. Elsewhere in the rubble the Marines found a hand, several fingers, even a jawbone with bloody teeth. Nothing identifiable except through dental records or DNA analysis. Blount stepped over to Loudon’s side.
“Sir,” he said, “do you think the CIA or somebody has a DNA sample from Kassam or one of his relatives?”
“I seriously doubt it,” Loudon said.
The only identifiable body was that of the man who’d tried to drive away in the pickup. The Raufoss round had all but blown him in half, but the face was still intact. A face Blount had never seen before. Younger than Kassam, with a much sparser beard.
So, where was Kassam? He’s gotta be here, Blount thought.
What Blount really wanted was to find the terrorist leader alive, to make sure Kassam knew who took him out. And then to choke the life out of him slowly, to make him suffer like he’d made that boy Farmer suffer. He kept imagining his hands around that dirtbag’s throat. Blount still remembered what his grandfather had said about vengeance. But by God, vengeance had its place.
Blount, Loudon, and a few of the other Marines hiked south to the SUV destroyed by the Mirage. The explosion had left a
shallow crater in the desert floor. The wreckage seemed . . . incomplete, not enough to have been a vehicle. Twisted, burned metal lay surrounded by blackened sand. With anticipation tingling down to his fingertips, Blount walked over to the largest chunk of seared steel. Kassam’s body had to be here.
Inside the twisted beams and sheet metal, Blount found human remains—but what remained came closer to fossil than corpse. His excitement over the Mirage strike corroded into simmering wrath. A skeletal black husk stared back at him, the flesh seared away to leave little but an openmouthed skull. A crisp film covered the ribcage; Blount couldn’t tell if it was shriveled skin or melted clothing. The arm bones ended in a general scattering of ash and debris, with no hands visible. Perhaps the intense heat had burned them away, bones and all.
The very face of death, the skull seemed to mock Blount. He looked into the eye sockets, and he wished he could grant this dirtbag three more seconds of life, just to ask, “Who were you?” But the burned bones looked like they could have been dead a thousand years. For the moment, at least, they were impossible to identify.
The last time Blount had felt so powerless came rushing back to him. In his mind he saw Sadiq Kassam spattered with Farmer’s blood, holding a dripping machete.
“Guess you got the last laugh on these bastards, Guns,” Loudon said.
Blount turned away from the wreckage, slung his rifle over his shoulder, peered out across the Sahara. He felt the flames inside him building, spreading like fire in a tobacco barn raging through dry, cured leaves. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. “Kassam could still be out there.”
Loudon placed his boot on the singed engine block. “We’ll find out soon enough,” he said.
Or not, Blount thought. And even if we do get Kassam, how long before a new chief dirtbag takes his place? And how long before another terrorist cell gets its hands on weapons of mass destruction? Blount saw his grandfather on Iwo Jima facing an enemy that could appear from nowhere and melt away just as quickly. You could throw fire and steel, kill in sickening numbers, and still never know when the enemy would pop up behind you.