Marine Lieutenant Colonel Check was with them this morning. Check was combat-experienced with three Purple Hearts. He was part of an elite team of Marines known as Force Recon, based on the USS Nassau. As such, Check was privileged to move among the battalion as he saw fit, to gather intelligence and an overall sense of the area. If word came from Lt. Col. Check, it was law, and a compliment from him could elevate a Marine to a highly respected position among his peers.
“Kid’s impressive,” Briggs overheard Check remark to the squad leader, Shannon Corr, who nodded as he stamped out a cigarette under his boot.
Corr squinted, exhaling smoke between his teeth. “Yes, sir.”
Check’s words stayed with Briggs as they patrolled the streets, looking left, looking right, zigzagging back and forth, trading off positions. The Marines noticed a slight change in the atmosphere, in the activity on the streets. The children who would usually come out to run alongside them until they showered them with handfuls of candy had mysteriously disappeared. Also gone were the kids who would occasionally kick a soccer ball in their direction, anxiously hoping for a return volley. As the temperature started to change, windows that should have been open to allow in the cooler breeze were now barely cracked or shut altogether. The squad watched as shop doors banged shut followed by the scrape of the locks and bolts.
The hair on Briggs’s neck started to twitch and itch. The men instinctively moved closer to the buildings in order to avoid dangers that might come from above. Briggs noticed a shadow dart across the edge of the street.
Then he felt the blast over his left shoulder—a grenade or land mine. There was cover to his right, but another Marine was well on his way to claiming the small space between two brick embankments. He quickly surveyed his other options and found a doorway just two long strides away. Of course, two strides in a hot firefight was the equivalent of a million miles. Still, he did not falter. The sounds of rifle rounds and explosions all around him were confusing, deafening, and exhilarating all bundled into one overwhelmingly powerful emotion. Nothing in his training could be compared to this very moment when it all got real. One second he could hear everything and then intertwined with the pressure and blinding glow of an explosion, pure silence hung in the air surrounded by smoke and the smell of gunpowder. Go.
Another explosion ignited to his left, like a thunderclap at his heels, delivering a hot flash to his cheek an instant after he felt the pressure from the blast. He was only a motion into his first stride to reach the doorway when an intense pain hastened him along, burning its way through his left side.
I’m hit!
The words echoed through his mind, but there was no emotion attached to that reality. He simply reacted to the situation. His sole focus was on the mission—to survive, fight, and protect.
Small arms fire from AK-47s riddled the buildings and street. The rounds ricocheted off the walls and sidewalks, buzzing as they whizzed around his head. The noise seemed to come from everywhere—high, low, sideways. It scared the living hell out of Briggs.
An immense CRACK! was the next sound he heard. He stumbled and hit the pavement, and pain shot up his left leg. Something had bounced off of the concrete and crashed into his thigh. He quickly regained his balance. He put his head down and bolted in the direction of the doorway at full speed violently swinging his arms and weapon. Just one more step and he would be at the doorway. It was all happening so fast.
One more step and I’ll be safe. I’ll return fire. Provide cover. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Just one more step.
He took one more step.
A loud thud brought water to his eyes. His helmet slid down over his nose.
“Damn it!” Briggs yelled at the top of his lungs, landing on his right foot just in front of the doorway.
Then he heard another noise—a familiar noise, but one he couldn’t immediately place. With it came intense, ripping pain as a bullet entered his left forearm and his rifle slipped from his grip. He held back the urge to vomit. No time, he thought as he focused his attention on retrieving his weapon that had fallen on the concrete beside him. Just behind him, there was another explosion, impossibly bigger than the one that had started all this.
He was now inside the building, blinded by the sudden lack of harsh desert sunlight, but he sensed . . . something.
“What the hell?” he said, startled by a heavy weight hitting his helmet—a falling timber board?—and knocking his helmet to skitter on the ground. Something else punched him in the middle of his chest. “Shit!” He reached out into the darkness to balance himself on whatever he could get his hands on.
Unfortunately, it was the hot barrel of an AK-47, the enemy still on the other end.
Immediately, Briggs understood the events of the last fifteen seconds.
He had been shot several times. The first round hit his helmet, dropping it down over his eyes so he couldn’t see the muzzle flash of the AK. The second went clean through his left forearm, causing him to drop his rifle. The familiar sound had been his skin and shirt sleeve stretching to the point where it snapped like the sound of a round passing through a target when pulling butts on the rifle range. The third round struck him directly in the hard plate of his flak jacket, as did the fourth.
Target practice.
Shit on that.
With this brief assessment of the chain of events, Briggs’s instincts ignored the fear and pain and brought him back to strategy for survival. Using his forward momentum from his staggering run and the blast, he bear-hugged the enemy using the strength of his upper arms to compensate for his injured left forearm. The man lost his weapon at the impact, the AK-47 flying to the side.
The force of the next blast outside sent the two of them, still entwined in a life-or-death grip, tumbling down a set of stairs, sending shards of pain through his injured arm. Ignoring the pain, Briggs knew this was a rare stroke of luck for his survival—as long as there were no other weapons on the man. He would have to release one of his hands in order to pull his Ka-Bar from the strap on his suspenders. He prayed the combat knife was still there and that his retrieval of the weapon would be smooth.
His wounds were bleeding and the loss of blood would make him weak. The man he was fighting in the pitch dark of the basement seemed uninjured and big, wearing only a cartridge belt and chest strap, which scratched unmercifully at Briggs’s chin.
Luckily for Briggs he was on top during the fall. The man’s back slammed into the floor and Briggs felt the air blast out of his mouth as he collided with the concrete. This was his chance to retrieve his knife.
Briggs released his right-hand grip on the enemy.
As soon as he did, the man squirmed and rolled over onto his belly and tried to scramble away. In a single motion, Briggs flipped the safety on his knife holster and drew. He held on to the man’s cartridge belt with his injured left hand, which burned like hellfire.
One chance, he thought. It won’t be clean, but it’s all I got.
He flipped his grip on the butt of the knife, and with a violent downward thrust, he struck. The Ka-Bar pierced the man’s cartridge belt and through the man’s body, halting at the concrete floor. Using the knife as leverage, Briggs pulled himself up. As he was regaining his balance, the knife slipped and then came to an abrupt stop at the man’s hip bone, slicing open the man’s back just below his ribs. The man’s screams echoed against the concrete walls, the first time Briggs had heard him make a sound. The man reached around with his right hand to where the knife had slashed open his back.
The battle outside raged on.
Briggs could hear numerous explosions and small arms fire, but they were not as loud as they should have been—more like thuds and thumps vibrating the walls and shaking the dirt from the rafters.
Should be louder. And why is it so dark?
Briggs’s moment of reflection cost him. The man managed to roll over onto his back and grip Briggs’s throat in two meaty hands. Pushing his thumbs deep
into Briggs’s Adam’s apple, he screamed in Arabic as he shook him back and forth. His murderous cries, along with his spit and the smell of his breath, assaulted Briggs’s eyes, mouth, and nose.
Briggs still had the Ka-Bar firmly clenched in his bloody right hand. Forcing his hand between them, he drew it across the man’s abdomen, high enough to miss the web belt and breach the tender belly. He sliced with little effort, unimpeded by the soft flesh. Briggs pushed the man backward, trying to break the stranglehold, all the while firmly gripping the Ka-Bar. His arm slipped completely through the enemy’s torso, feeling the heat of the man’s innards. The man went into an uncontrollable convulsion, finally loosening his grip on Briggs’s neck.
Briggs gasped in a breath through his bruised throat, losing the Ka-Bar to the gore of the man’s ribcage as the now mortally wounded man squirmed onto his belly and once again started to crawl away. This time, however, he had little strength left, and his screams dwindled to sobs.
The sense of urgency passed.
Unable to retrieve the Ka-Bar to finish the job, Briggs took a deep breath and crawled onto the man’s back. Slipping his aching left arm under the man’s left armpit and his right arm around the man’s neck, he clamped down with all his remaining strength.
This is the end.
It was obvious that the man was bleeding out. Briggs kept his cheek pressed tightly against his neck in order to keep him under control. He could feel his heart beat fading, there was nothing left in this enemy now. He offered little resistance and barely tugged at Briggs’s right arm in a feeble attempt to free himself from the choking grip.
Briggs felt his strength fading. Blood saturated his clothes. It was quiet now, disturbingly quiet. No noise from the street could be heard in the darkness, but a sound broke through that rattled Briggs to his soul.
“Please,” the man whispered in perfect English. “Please.” He gently patted Briggs’s right arm. “Please let go.”
Eyes wide, Briggs loosened his grip, just enough to allow the man to breathe. He rolled off the man onto his side.
My God. I have killed one of our own. A Seal, Recon, who? Briggs’s head spun at what he had done.
“Who . . . are you?” Briggs asked, still on the floor.
“My name is Yusef Ahmed. I am Jordanian. Please do not kill me.”
Perfect English, but not one of ours, thought Briggs as he tried to grasp the situation. A rush of relief overwhelmed Briggs, knowing his battle had indeed been with one of the enemy.
The smell of the Jordanian’s open stomach assaulted Briggs’s nostrils, and again he choked back vomit.
“I’m sorry I . . . shot you,” the Jordanian said in a weak, broken voice. He began to mumble a prayer in Arabic as the life spilled from his body onto the floor. Briggs could feel the man’s artery pulsing in his neck. Bump, bump, bump. The heartbeats came slower and slower, and then one last soft bump.
Oh God. Briggs let go and pulled himself up to a sitting position, his back leaning against the cold wall. After a few deep breaths, he probed the Jordanian’s body, looking for weapons, information, anything. Moving his hands slowly around the dead man, he accidentally slid his hand into the gaping wound he had inflicted.
It was too much. Briggs lost control and vomited.
This is so fucked up. They taught me how to use a knife to kill a man in training, but they neglected to tell me the part about how long it takes for a man to bleed to death. And this sure as shit isn’t the way it looks in the movies. He slumped back against the wall and moments passed like hours—numb, sitting in the dark, waiting, contemplating what to do. Above, he could hear voices muffled by the rubble and debris from the roof of the building.
Should he cry out or keep quiet? It was hard to tell who had come out on top of the firefight. The automatic fire and RPGs seemed to come from everywhere. His fire team was small that morning, only fourteen men. It could be bad topside.
Briggs shut off his mind, stayed numb, poised, and silent. Better to wait it out than risk another face–to-face with Death. He’d already had enough in this short span to last a lifetime.
“Briggs!” Soft at first, almost out of range.
Then again. “Briggs!” He recognized American voices, English. His name.
“Down here!” he yelled as loudly as he could. The effort brought incredible pain. He clenched his teeth and cried out again, “Down here!”
Then he lost consciousness.
When Briggs woke up, he was in the back of a Humvee. The first face he saw was that of Lt. Col. Check, who had a neat trickle of blood running down the left side of his face from a cut above his eye.
“How ya feel, Briggs?” Check asked, leaning over him.
“I’m not sure . . . a little weird, sir.”
“That’s the morphine. He slapped Briggs lightly on the thigh. “You’re okay. Just a little shot up, but it’s nothing that won’t grow back. By the way, the corpsman checked you out. You still got your dick.”
Briggs started to laugh but winced in pain, bringing his right arm across his body to gently hold his injured left arm. “Oh, don’t make me laugh, sir.”
Check laughed, this time slapping his own thigh. “Okay, Briggs. You’re on your way to Balad Hospital, so just relax for now. You will be back in the fight in no time.”
“Back home? No . . . I mean, no sir. I’m good to go, sir. Don’t send me home. I’m okay, I swear.” Briggs was trying to sit up as he rambled on, the morphine doing most of the talking.
“Whoa there, Devil Dog,” Check said, gently pushing him back. “You’re not going home. I said you were going to Balad. Do you think I would send back a badass like you? Hell no! You’re going to have to get shot up a lot worse than this, big guy.” He glanced over at the corpsman holding up the IV, who nodded his head in agreement.
“Lieutenant Colonel’s right, Briggs. You’ll be back at it in no time.”
The conversation was wiggling its way through the morphine to some brief glint of understanding. Briggs looked up at Check, pointing curiously at the bleeding. “Damn, sir, you’re hurt.”
“Hurt? Hell no! I’m not hurt. This is just a nick from the front sight post of your platoon commander’s rifle. When the firefight started, he ran so damn fast for cover he swung his weapon into my face,” Check said, chuckling. “Hell, it was all I could do to keep the blood out of my eyes to see. Damndest thing is the entire squad is fine. You and I are the only ones hurt—well, you’re the only one hurt—and there are eleven dead bad guys stacked up in the back of a truck. Eleven! In fact, I’d bet if I’d been standing next to your bad ass when all hell broke loose, I wouldn’t have this shiner.
“Oh, by the way,” Check leaned over close to Briggs’s ear, “the corpsman who cut your camo bottoms off and checked you out . . . well, I think he’s a little sweet on you. He might be queer for your gear.” Check roared in another fit of laughter.
Briggs’s face turned red as he fought his own laughter and the pain that came from the effort. “Please . . . don’t . . . don’t make me laugh, sir. Man, that hurts.”
Check smiled. He then produced the Ka-Bar. “Here. The guy you left this with is finished with it.” He slid the twelve-inch knife back into the scabbard on Briggs’s cartridge belt that was on the deck beside him and clipped the safety strap. “That’s an old-school Ka-Bar from Vietnam. Where did you come by it?”
“It was my father’s. It really came in handy.”
“Yes it did, my friend. When this is all over, we’ll smoke one of my good cigars and share some killer scotch—pardon the pun.” Check winked and held his index finger to his lips. Briggs returned the wink and gave in to the euphoria of the morphine.
CHAPTER SIX
June 2005
His first encounter with the dark side of the memories of his first kill was at Balad Military Hospital, just outside of Bagdad, the same day as the firefight. Briggs woke near midnight. Gone now was the fog of painkillers. He was aware of where he was. His banda
ged wounds were a visible reminder. With an urgent need to empty his bladder, he swung his legs off the bed, barely feeling any pain. With no IV in his arm now, he moved freely around the room. There were four beds, but he was the only occupant.
It was extremely quiet in this area of the field hospital. The hatch leading to his room was open, and across the hallway, he noticed a bathroom sign on the bulkhead with an arrow pointing to the head. He stepped into the dimly lit passageway and found it. As he went to open the door, he looked down at the bandage on his right hand. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d injured his hand or how much damage had been done. It hurt—no doubt about that—but he could flex it and move all of his fingers. He squinted, trying to remember more, then shrugged, opened the door, and flipped on the light. Carefully, he unwrapped the long strip of gauze, knowing he would have to wrap it back so as not to piss off the corpsman. His eyes strained to focus on the red, puffy burn on the palm of his hand. Briggs moved back into the passageway and stood under the overhead light. The burn held the telling shape of an AK-47 flash suppressor, seared into his hand where he’d grabbed the hot barrel of the Jordanian’s rifle.
Suddenly, the flashback to the horrific struggle for his life drove him to his knees. Freefalling in time, he was back in that dark basement. Terror grabbed his soul, forcing him to relive the entire event right there in the passageway. He could smell his own vomit intermingled with the smell of the man’s entrails. It was too much. He wept.
Bang!
He was certain he’d just heard an enormous explosion.
Not again. He whimpered and shook his head to break the memory of the dying man’s cries.
In an attempt to escape the flashback, he stood up and ran, turning to his left, and then quickly to his right. He was disorientated. In his confusion, he bounced off the bulkhead, and then another and another. He had no idea where he was. One passageway and bulkhead after another, he crashed, bouncing left and right until he found himself outside the building. He couldn’t tell which was darker, the place in his head or the moonless desert. Briggs ran to a short fence a few yards away, his stomach churning, and finally retched until everything inside of him poured onto the sand and splashed onto his bare feet.
Shadows at War Page 4