by Mel Odom
… and then he was out, racing into the night in front of the house. Overcome by smoke and exhaustion, he dropped to his knees and tried to breathe. His lungs remained frozen for a moment, then kick-started to life. Without warning, he threw up and felt a little better. His lungs opened up.
“Sarge!” someone yelled. “You’re on fire!”
Looking down at his pant legs, Goose saw flames clinging to the material. He raked up a handful of dirt and smothered the flames. Then he stood on shaking legs. His left knee, damaged so long ago and never quite right since, ached and felt infirm. He looked around at the villagers and the Rangers gathered there in the firelight. When he spotted the two girls he’d gone in to rescue, he felt better.
“Thought we’d lost you, Sarge,” Private First Class Billy Hendricks said. He was in his early twenties, new to the army and to the area.
“Not yet,” Goose said. “We’re going to be all right.”
“I knew that when I saw you come out of that burning house.”
Goose spotted Corporal Jamal Donner, his second on the transport assignment. Donner was an African-American in his early thirties, only a couple of years younger than Goose. He kept his head shaved clean, even managing to do so in the confusion of these past few weeks.
“Where do we stand?” Goose asked.
“We’re all present and accounted for,” Donner said. His voice was soft and smooth with the Southern accent he’d acquired while growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. “We got lucky.”
Goose looked at the handful of bodies lying on the ground. Some of the other villagers sat beside the corpses and wept without restraint.
Thank God there are no children, Goose thought. They would have been among the casualties for certain. Then he realized that God was exactly the reason why no children were there. That only brought up thoughts of Chris again, and he tried not to go there.
“Not everybody got lucky,” Donner said.
“Does anyone know what happened?”
“Got a man over here who says he saw the whole thing. Ain’t had time to talk to him.”
Local Time 2112 Hours
The man’s name was Achmed. Sixtyish and frail, he spoke English well.
“They came out of nowhere,” Achmed told Goose. The village continued to burn. There was nothing anyone could do to save it.
“Who?” Goose asked.
“Niyazi.”
Goose reached into his BDU pouch and took out his PalmPilot.
He brought up the file they’d assembled on the local warlords and showed the image they had of Niyazi to Achmed. “This man?” Goose asked.
Achmed nodded. “This man. Very bad man. He likes to kill.”
The files Goose had read on Niyazi agreed with that. Although the Turkish military hadn’t liked sharing all their information with the United States Army, they’d done so once it became apparent that sharing was necessary.
“Why did he attack the village?” Goose asked as he put the PalmPilot away.
Achmed shook his head. “I don’t know. Normally he is not in this place.”
“Not in what place? Here?”
“Not here,” Achmed agreed. “Niyazi stays to the north. Many kilometers away.”
“Something brought him down here,” Donner said.
“I don’t know what that might be,” Achmed replied. “We are a very poor village. It is known. Everyone knows how poor we are.”
Goose looked around the village and silently agreed. Except for a few goats and little patches of vegetable gardens, there wasn’t much to the village. Over the past weeks, he’d traveled with a convoy by the village at least a dozen times. They’d never bothered to stop.
“You ask me,” Donner said, “and I don’t mean to be rude about it, but this place ain’t worth the powder it would take to blow it up.”
A bad feeling twisted through Goose’s gut. He turned to Donner. “Gather the men. We need to get rolling. If Niyazi didn’t hit this village out of spite or to get something, he was just using it as a diversion.”
Understanding filled Donner’s liquid eyes. “The convoy.”
“Yeah,” Goose agreed. “And we ran off and left it unguarded.” He turned toward the nearest Hummer, ignoring his aches, bruises, and burns.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 2114 Hours
“Captain Remington.”
Tired and frustrated, Cal Remington looked up from the computer screen he’d been studying. The army captain was six feet four inches tall with broad shoulders and short-clipped dark hair.
“What is it, Private?” Remington snapped.
“Got a problem with the convoy, sir.” The private was young and baby-faced, one of the geek army that had moved up quickly as the military had become increasingly reliant on technology.
“Which convoy?” There were currently three out. Remington checked the time on the bottom of the computer screen. Two, he amended. One of them should have reached its destination by now.
“Harran, sir.”
Goose’s convoy. The thought that something had gone wrong there irritated Remington. Then again, he didn’t know if it was the thought that something had gone wrong or the thought of Goose that irritated him most.
“What’s wrong with the convoy?” Remington asked.
“It’s under attack, sir.”
“By whom?” Remington stood and walked out of his office. The private led the way through the computer workstations that had been set up and now ran off noisy generators.
“We don’t know, sir.” The private gestured to one of the large LCD computer monitors.
Remington studied the screen and saw satellite imagery of the convoy racing across the rugged terrain toward Harran. Only the four supply trucks and two support Hummers remained together. Six units were MIA.
“Where is the rest of my convoy?” Remington demanded.
“Sergeant Gander pulled most of the support vehicles off the convoy, sir,” the private said.
“Why?”
“There was a village on fire, sir. Sergeant Gander wanted to see if they could help.” The private gestured to another monitor.
Remington made out the burning houses and the six Hummers parked in front of them. His irritation with Goose turned into fullfledged anger.
“Who authorized this?” Remington demanded.
“No one, sir. Sergeant Gander radioed us, said he’d take a quick look-see and be back to the convoy.”
“Did those people ask for help?”
“Not that I know of, sir.”
“How did Sergeant Gander know they needed help?”
“Sergeant Gander saw the burning buildings from the route they were traveling.”
Remington cursed. “And he didn’t think that maybe they were being set up?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Are we in radio communication with Sergeant Gander?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Hand me that headset.”
The private passed the headset over, and Remington put it on and pulled the chin mic into place. “What’s his call sign?”
“Drifter Leader.”
Remington pushed a button on the mic and opened the radio channel. “Drifter Leader, this is Base. Do you copy?”
“Sir,” the computer tech next to him said, “I’ve got bogeys vectoring in on the supply convoy.”
Remington flicked his gaze back to the computer screen and watched as seven… eight… nine speeding vehicles closed in on the convoy. He cursed and queued the mic again. “Drifter Leader, this is Base. Do you copy?”
3
United States Rangers Convoy
Three Klicks North-Northeast of Harran
Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
Local Time 2116 Hours
Private First Class Jimmy Robinson sat in the back of the cargo truck and sipped metallic-tasting water from his canteen. He rode on an ammo box and swaye
d with the motion of the truck lumbering across the uneven terrain. Through the parted canvas partially covering the rear of the truck, he constantly watched the terrain.
“Man,” Butch Strahan complained from the other side of the truck. “You couldn’t ask for a bumpier ride.”
“You could,” Robinson said, “but I’d shoot you on account of you being too sadistic to live.”
Strahan laughed. “I’m just glad it isn’t so bumpy that some of this ammo goes off.”
“Wouldn’t do that. This stuff’s packed all right. I helped get it done.”
“I guess if you’re wrong, we’ll never live to know about it.” Strahan shifted, obviously trying to find a more comfortable position. “I heard you got to talk to your girl.”
Robinson nodded and tried to keep the smile from his face. The other men teased about such things. “Got Pablo’s Xbox 360 up and running. Hooked it into the Internet coming out of command. Captain Remington finally okayed that.”
“Good thing you guys didn’t get caught using it before he allowed it.”
“Tell me about it. But that Xbox just sips bandwidth. Even when you’re talking back and forth over the gamer network.”
“So what did your girl say?”
Robinson’s happy thoughts fled. “Her parents are missing.”
Strahan looked suddenly solemn. “Well, if Joe Baker was right in what he was saying, that God came and took all the Christians home to begin the Tribulation, that’s a good thing.”
“Maybe. But right now Nikki’s alone.” Robinson hesitated, wondering if he should say anything about what was really on his mind. “And she’s still here.”
“Oh,” Strahan said, suddenly understanding.
“I’ve known her since I was fourteen,” Robinson said. “Used to sit behind her in algebra. Her parents were always involved with the church. So was she.”
“You’re wondering why she’s still here while her parents are gone?”
“She says it was because she didn’t believe as much as her parents did. She thinks she was just going through the moves.”
“I think a lot of us were like that,” Strahan said. “I have to admit, I ain’t always played things on the straight and narrow, and maybe I’ve been too interested in other things than God’s Word, but I didn’t think I’d be left behind like this.”
“I never gave it any thought,” Robinson admitted. “I treated everybody fairly, tried to get along, but I didn’t make much time in my day for thinking about where I might end up when it was all over.”
“That’s because it’s not normal to sit around thinking about everything being all over.”
“Nikki’s parents did. Every Sunday and Wednesday at church. And I’m sure they didn’t forget about it during the rest of the week either.”
“But it’s not over. Not if what Joe Baker was saying was right. About how we can redeem ourselves in God’s eyes now.”
“I know. I’m hoping.”
Strahan shook his head. “You gotta do more than hope. You gotta believe.” He paused. “I don’t know about you, but before I hit my rack every night, I hit my knees and give thanks for getting through one more day.”
“I know. Me too. Nikki and me, we even prayed together on that Xbox hookup the other night. I mean, she doesn’t even have an Xbox. She was over at a friend’s house. They were logging on and staying on whenever they could because Nikki knows I like to play. She said that she knew if I was still alive, sooner or later I’d log on.”
“Then that conversation you two had was meant to be.”
“God wanted us to talk.” Robinson sipped his water again. “Nikki and I both believe that.”
Strahan abruptly sat up a little straighter and peered out the back of the truck. “Did you see that?”
Robinson put his canteen away and picked up his M-4A1. “See what?”
“Thought I saw movement out there in the brush.” Strahan pushed the canvas aside and swiveled his head. Then he jerked back.
Robinson stared at the other man, wondering what had happened, when the sound of the gunshots caught up with the cargo truck. He ducked immediately and scrambled over to Strahan as the truck’s driver floored the accelerator and started evasive maneuvers.
Blood welled from an ugly wound in the side of Strahan’s neck. For a moment Robinson thought the man was dead. Then Strahan reached up and caught his arm.
“Help… me,” Strahan wheezed. “Please. Help… me.”
Praying out loud, Robinson grabbed for a field dressing from his kit and slapped it against Strahan’s neck to stop the bleeding. From the amount of blood, he knew he had only minutes to stop the flow before his friend bled out.
More bullets ripped through the canvas over the truck’s cargo deck. Robinson wanted to scream at the men doing the shooting and ask them if they knew the trucks were loaded with munitions. Instead, he kept his head low and kept pressure on the field dressing.
Local Time 2118 Hours
“Drifter Leader, this is Base. Do you copy?”
Goose heard Remington’s voice in his ear over the headset’s crackling connection. Even though they had access to geosynchronous communications satellites, the connections weren’t always solid.
“Drifter Leader,” Remington said again, “this is Base. I repeat, do you copy?”
Goose didn’t want to take the call; he knew how it was going to go, but he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t blame Remington. He sat in the passenger seat of the Hummer and held his assault rifle canted forward. The seat-belt harness cut into his hips and chest, but it was the only thing keeping him from flying out of the seat. At times in its mad dash across the uneven terrain, the Hummer was airborne.
“Base, this is Drifter Leader.”
“Goose, that convoy is under attack. Where are you?”
The news hit Goose like a sledgehammer. He’d guessed that the convoy might get attacked, but he’d hoped the radio silence had been because everything was okay. They’d tried to reach the convoy, but the hills had interfered with the signal.
“On our way back now,” Goose said.
“You shouldn’t have left them.”
“No, sir,” Goose agreed. “I shouldn’t have.”
“What were you thinking when you-”
“Begging pardon, Base, but unless you have pertinent information I need right now, I suggest we shelve that particular topic.”
“That’s fine,” Remington said. “We’ll make time for it when you get back.”
“Yes, sir. Can you tell me how many hostiles we’re looking at?”
“We read nine vehicles.” Remington’s voice calmed as he focused on the mission.
“Manpower?”
“That’s unknown at this point. The nine vehicles are all light and fast. No heavy rolling stock.”
“Copy that.” Tanks wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the convoy, but Niyazi and his people could have been waiting in ambush with heavy weaponry. Goose glanced at his watch automatically. Running gun battles generally didn’t last more than a few minutes.
And they were behind.
When he glanced over his shoulder, Goose saw the jeep carrying Danielle Vinchenzo trailing by only a few feet. The reporter’s face was a pallid oval in the passenger seat as she clung to the seat belt and roll bar.
“Harlan,” Goose called over the headset.
“Yeah, Sarge.”
“You were a state police officer in Tennessee, weren’t you?”
“You bet. Got called up in the reserves for the Iraq situation and decided I’d stay on.”
“Do you know how to get that vehicle out of our hair without hurting anyone?”
“Yeah.” The grin was apparent in Harlan’s voice. “It’s called a PIT. Pursuit Immobilization Technique.”
“I’d rather the civilians didn’t arrive with us. I want them out of harm’s way.”
In the jeep, Danielle turned around in her seat and pointed at one of the Hummers coming up
on the left. She shouted at the driver. Her actions let Goose know she was monitoring his ops frequencies.
Harlan was a better driver than the man handling Danielle’s vehicle. He crept up on the left side and gently nudged the left rear quarter panel with the right front bumper of his Hummer. Danielle’s vehicle launched into a spinout and came to a dead stop in a whirl of dust.
“Man,” Cody Brenner said behind the steering wheel of the Hummer Goose occupied, “Harlan makes that look easy.”
“My daddy taught me how to do that when I was twelve,” Harlan replied. “Before I took up with the state police, I ran stock cars on circuit racing.”
With Danielle out of the way-at least temporarily-Goose turned his attention to the coming battle. The Hummer roared over the next hill, went airborne for just a moment, then crashed back to the ground in a skidding, sliding advance.
At the bottom of the hill, the convoy was hurtling cross-country, the Rangers inside fighting for their lives. Muzzle flashes sparked white-hot holes in the night.
“Come up on the left side of the attack vehicles,” Goose directed. “If we can take out the drivers, we take out the attack teams.”
Local Time 2120 Hours
“I can’t believe Gander ordered them to do that.” The driver keyed the ignition and tried to get the jeep started. The ignition engaged and the engine turned over, but the motor didn’t start.
Danielle growled in rage as she watched the line of Ranger vehicles disappear over the ridge. “This is exactly something Goose would do.”
“I thought he was your friend.”
“He is. That’s why he did it.”
The driver tried the engine again. “We could have gotten killed.”
“No, man,” Gary the cameraman said from the back. “That was a classic move. And I know Harlan. Man’s a master of anything with four wheels. He put us right where he intended to.”
“Is this thing going to start?” Danielle asked. “There’s a story breaking right over that hill, and I’m missing it.”
“The way things are going,” the driver said in disgust, “if you miss this one, there’ll be another one tomorrow.”
Danielle barely checked an angry reply in time. The driver was new to her.