PointOfHonor

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  Today was not the day to die!

  * * * *

  Stillwell asked himself again, what he was doing in this forgotten desert. A friend once described the desert surrounding Interstate 80 as it comes out of Utah and cuts through Wyoming as moonscape. This place certainly could compete. It was hot, dry, and dusty. His lips were cracked from one day in the heat, and his face smeared with caked on mud as the dust was turned to a gritty slime by his sweat.

  According to his watch, in thirty seconds he was supposed to roll over the top of this ridge, make some noise, and try not to get shot. Getting shot was hardly what he had planned for his weekend. Weekends seemed like such a ridiculous concept in this place. It was so far removed from the suburban lifestyle he maintained outside the district. He was an analyst for Uncle Sam, not a shooter trying to play soldier with a bunch Marines.

  The images of blood and gore would never leave his mind: The dead men they had dropped in the firefight on the lower level; the sound of spinning copper-jacketed rounds impacting soft flesh and the sudden intake of breath; the coldly calculated manner Harper approached the technicians and blew their kneecaps apart; the shrunken state of death as a once breathing person takes on an unnatural stillness. He felt the cold horror as it rippled through him again, and the bile of his disgust rise up in his throat.

  Death was a casual thing when examined through computer systems, statistics and drab intelligence reports. No one talked about the terror in everyone’s minds, or the automatic response to keep shooting when under fire. The fine ethical discussions no longer matter when a weapon’s bore is pointed towards you, and death comes with each bark and muzzle flash. The kill-or-be-killed response is to ensure they all die before something sharp, hot, and deadly plucks the breath from your own body.

  Twenty seconds.

  Did any of them understand what they were doing when they sent men into harm’s way? Even now, after a night and a day of prowling through the dark, planting death and visiting destruction on others, Stillwell was not sure whether he understood what was happening around him—and more importantly,tohim.

  One thing he did understand: he did not like killing people. He had been the hunter and the hunted in the same time it takes to play eighteen holes of golf. Now, he tensed for another act. He was the dancing bait for a pack of hungry jackals. The task he was assigned required him to draw even more men to their doom.

  Harper was the enigma he could not puzzle out. He did not seem to fit the mold for DELTA, the SEALS, or Force Recon. Was there some other service no one knew about? An agency unit used for particular nasty operations? He held the rank of major, but it was never attributed to a service. He used his own weapons and developed his own tactics. The briefing officer had introduced Harper as: “May I present Major James Harper. United States Special Forces Retired.” Retired from where?

  Ten seconds.

  There was the other thing about the orders concerning himself. Harper had pointed a weapon at his own man. There was no compromise in his voice. The Glock 21 hung with the steadiness of a yardarm. Reflecting on the moment when Harper stood over Hayes and demanded he adhere to his oath as a soldier, he had no doubt Harper would have pulled the trigger. In this insane place, Harper demanded honor. No one discussed honor anymore. It was an anachronism from some other era, and here, less than twenty minutes ago, a man’s life hung on his adherence to honor.

  No quake, no self doubt accompanied Harper’s words: “Nobody sends a shooter on my team for someone else on my team—nobody!” The anger in his eyes and the passion in his words—who was this Harper they were following today? The entire horror adverted because Harper accepted Hayes’s word of honor. Could it be that those who spent so much time on the edge still believed in honor?

  Honor—there was so little of it left in the world he inhabited. Honor and integrity had been replaced with spin and poll numbers. It had been so long since he had met someone who truly believed in right and wrong, perhaps even heaven and hell. Could Harper truly believe such things?

  The battle yell in his helmet phones shocked Stillwell back to reality. Harper and Hayes were expecting him to crest the ridge ahead and become the bait for the Iraqis. Harper’s voice filled his helmet: “Come and get me!” Stillwell recognized the drumming noise as that of a helicopter.

  He scrambled to the top of the ridge and poked his head up. Half a klick distant, Harper stood defiantly waving his hands before the steadily rising chopper—one man versus a chopper and machine gun. Stillwell recognized the act not as foolishness, but rather as profound bravery. He was drawing the helicopter away from Stillwell and Hayes and onto himself. He was giving them a chance to live.

  If Harper could scream, then so could he. He tried to ignore the weariness dragging at his limbs. When he pushed himself over the ridge holding his M-16 and half running and half falling down the ridge towards the gravel pit and the Data Center’s entrance, a spurt of energy seemed to freshen his step. He pulled the trigger on the M-16 spraying a magazine of bullets randomly in the direction of the remaining Iraqi soldiers.

  He stumbled towards the end of his slide down the slope. The gun flew from his grip as he made an effort to avoid smashing his face on the sharper rocks. His helmet popped off his head and spun away from his grasp. Something very hard smashed into his rib cage driving the air from his lungs and causing the world to swim.

  He pushed himself up. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his breath came raggedly. He shook his head again trying to remember what he was doing. The whine of a bullet spinning passed his head cleared some confusion. He straightened himself and turned to stare dumbly at several men running towards him.

  The flashes from their barrels as they fired on the run saved his life. Had they stopped to take careful aim, Stillwell would be dead. He forgot about the rifle and helmet. His bowels released as he turned and ran away from his attackers. He cared not for direction or reason; he simply wanted to get away from these people. The gunshots sounded like popcorn in a microwave. He thought they should be louder.

  He jerked his eyes around wildly looking for somewhere to hide. He screamed and ran. He was alone acting like bait, and he suddenly believed he was going to be gobbled up like bait as well. A hand waved at the corner of his ever-narrowing vision. He cocked his head towards the hand and saw Hayes.

  Hayes was important for some reason. Whatever the reason, he did not remember. He looked the other way and found only a steep embankment. He veered towards the bank then bounced away from it. The bullets were getting closer. He could hear their shouts and smell their sweaty bodies. He imagined their hot breath.

  Television images of American soldiers being drug through the dusty streets of a forgotten Somali town made him run harder. He did not want to be drug like a fattened deer carcass across this desert. He was no great warrior; he was a guy who lived with computer models, pushed keyboards, and clicked mouse buttons. This was not his world! It could only be hell!

  He turned towards Hayes and ran. His legs felt like great lead weights. His arms no longer pumped at his sides like a seasoned runner. Instead, they flailed like tilting windmills. His vision swam from color to gray and back. He was running on his gut now. His body was giving out. The adrenaline surge was giving out and his system started to shut down.

  Stillwell tripped, tumbled, and skidded into a crumpled shape. He pulled his head towards his chest and wondered if it would hurt to die. The ambush was set up in an open box configuration. Four M-181A Claymore mines were set on both sides of the gap in off-setting blast arcs, providing maximum coverage. Stillwell ran towards the Claymores and Hayes and wondered if honor really mattered anymore. He ran into the teeth of two more mines aimed at where he had come from. The open box became a three-sided shooting gallery.

  Each mine was designed to spray its lethal ball bearings in a sixty-degree fan shape out to a distance of fifty yards. Slightly more than a pound of C4 plastic explosive lay in a lightweight three-by-nine inch plastic case. Seven
hundred ball bearings capable of punching a 9mm hole were packed in front of the explosive, and embossed on the outer casing were the words FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY—in case there was any doubt.

  The gap Stillwell ran towards was less than thirty yards wide. Kincaid had arranged the Claymores with overlapping kill zones. Hayes had scribed an “X” in the dirt that Stillwell was running towards. The circuit tester still indicated a solid connection as Stillwell bobbed and weaved through the gap. Hayes was waving at him with one hand and held the PRC 25 battery detonator, or clacker, as it was called, in his other hand.

  Stillwell lunged like a battered running back over the goal line. He tripped and tumbled away from the Iraqi soldiers and towards Hayes. The world behind him erupted with a terrible scream and the air became a blue gray steel blizzard. Nine hundred 12-gauge shotguns firing 00 buckshot would have put the same number of pellets into the air. Hayes accomplished the same by simply squeezing the clacker.

  One second there were soldiers running towards the prize—the next, a mass of bone and blood and mist. Their flesh ripped away from their bones. The terrible thunder heard so many times on battlefields descended in this place on these men. Death came instantaneously. What remained was not even recognizable as human. It was battlefield litter. The kind no one ever glorifies or talks about. The gore and stench of death visited by modern weapons.

  Stillwell huddled and waited. He shouted wildly when Hayes touched his shoulder and said gently, “It’s over, Lieutenant.” The black Marine cradled the babbling man, rocked him gently and whispering, “It’s over. It’s all right. It’s over.”

  * * * *

  Duri looked at the dead Motorola Talkabout. The last helicopter lifted away from the ground, leaving Duri behind. Duri squeezed his eyes shut against the sand kicked up by the helicopter’s downdraft. The American was playing mind games. What could they do? He had the advantage in numbers. He controlled the air. Reinforcements were driving towards the Data Center. It would be over within a couple of hours.

  He walked towards the dead American soldiers lying on the hot sand. Dead Americans might be enough to soothe his great leader. He spat on the dirt next to Kincaid and Burns. It was so easy to kill these men. They had been sent to the desert and then abandoned. There were no helicopters coming to rescue them. There was no help arriving. It was over.

  Harper was somewhere to the east of his position. A simple matter to deal with. The helicopter would handle a single man. They had no Stinger missiles. At best, they had some rifles, but against an airborne machine gun, Harper’s life could be measured in seconds.

  They would find the backup tapes and repair the Data Center. He needed Stillwell alive. Such a man could accelerate many of their weapons programs. Of course, Stillwell needed the proper motivation applied in order to soothe an angry Saddam over the temporary loss of his computer systems. These Americans were so sentimental about their children. Stillwell’s child would need to come to Iraq—a simple trade—Stillwell’s cooperation for his child’s life.

  Harper’s family could be dealt with on the same trip. These barbarians needed to understand death could visit their fine homes across the ocean. They relied on their distant land to keep them safe. They bombed others without fear of similar bombs landing on their homes. The war would be carried across the ocean. It would come to their homes, their neighborhoods, their churches. They must come to think of this as something more than video games on their televisions. They must learn fear.

  TheSea King lifted away from the desert. It spun dirt and pebbles in its wake. Duri felt satisfied the farce would end now. He never saw the flash of the Barrett, and by the time he heard the rifle’s report, the soldier manning the machine gun on theSea King was little more than bloody pulp. The next shot from the Barrett shattered the Plexiglas windscreen.

  Thepop-a-pop-pop from behind Duri drew his attention and his troop’s attention to an American sliding off a ridge. The fool looked like he had slipped. Duri pulled his Makarov from his holster and waved it angrily. “Get him!”

  Six soldiers started in a dead run firing their weapons. He looked down at the dead Americans saying, “You’ll have company soon.”

  His certainty turned to horror as the hillsides burst with awesome pyrotechnics. His soldiers blazed red and orange before vanishing in the steel storm unleashed on their bodies. He turned towards his aid whose head exploded like a ripe melon hitting the pavement. Blood splattered on Duri’s face and tunic.

  Duri jerked away from death to see the helicopter spinning away from the sniper fire and towards Harper’s springing figure—a demon racing over the sand towards the open side door. Harper flung his last grenade into the open helicopter and dove away from the Jolly Green Giant. TheSea King tore itself apart from the inside as the tail rotor moved away from the fuselage.

  A scream pierced his concentration as he turned to see Harper flying over the ridge and into his face boot first. A flying sidekick delivered from height on an unprepared target is a devastating blow. Duri raised his hands to protect himself from the two-hundred-five-pound human projectile. His wrist snapped, catching the blow.

  Harper swung the Mossberg’s pistol grip baseball style, smashing the left side of Duri’s face. He dropped the Mossberg and grabbed the Iraqi Colonel, smashing a forearm along the right side of Duri’s head. His knee came next, driving straight towards the groin, but Harper maintained a grip on his shoulder epaulets. Wrenching the beaten man up, he kicked his legs out from under him and slammed the secret policeman to the ground. He landed his knee hard on Duri’s chest and pulled his combat knife from his belt sheathe.

  Harper gripped Duri’s hair and pulled his head up, slamming the hilt of the knife into his nose. More blood spurted from Duri’s broken face. Harper reversed the grip on the knife and set the point on Duri’s throat. “No one threatens my family! No one!” he roared.

  Harper shook the Iraqi awake and hauled him to his feet. He spun Duri around and smashed him against the bank they were standing next to. Somewhere in his fury, he had lost his helmet. He replaced his knife and pulled the Glock from its holster. He looked at Burns and Kincaid stretched out on the ground and punched Duri in the kidney. Duri’s legs went spaghetti again, but Harper kept him standing.

  “Get a shovel.”

  Duri stared at him and smiled, “You’re still going to die, Harper.”

  Harper pistol-whipped Duri with the Glock. “I said, get a shovel!”

  Anderson appeared over a ridge holding the Barrett. Harper stared at him for a moment trying to remember who he was. The raged boiled across his features. “Captain, it’s good to see you again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about Stillwell and Hayes?”

  “Grand slam, Major.”

  “And the Iraqi wounded?”

  “Sergeant Hayes has them covered.”

  Harper nodded. “All right, why don’t you look for something with an engine around here that still works.”

  “Already got that covered, Major.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, sir. There’s a Jeep under camouflage netting a hundred meters past the ambush site.”

  “Go get it running. There’ll be five of us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He shoved Duri forward. He noticed for the first time the discoloration along Duri’s right wrist. It looked broken. He shoved the Iraqi again, keeping a wary eye for any countermove. Harper said quietly, “That’s far enough.”

  Duri paused and spread his hands wide. The right hand drooped sloppily. “Do you shoot me in the back, or do I get a blindfold and cigarette?”

  “That’s probably more than you’ve given others, and certainly more than you deserve,” replied Harper.

  Duri turned slowly to face the Glock’s jet-black muzzle. Neither of them looked very good. “You’ve killed many people today.”

  Harper waited, holding the gun steady. “I may kill again.”

  Duri thought about the dossier that
he had read last night. “You don’t like killing, Major Harper. I’m your prisoner now—name, rank, and serial number.”

  “You’re my enemy, I don’t mind killing you,” he lied.

  Duri examined the three wrecked helicopters. The still burning Data Center. He could only imagine the number of dead men inside, his wounded under the watchful gaze of the black Marine Sergeant. His remaining men were all dead. Harper had reduced his command to himself. It was better to be Harper’s prisoner than to return to Baghdad. “Perhaps we can make a deal.”

  “Your kneecaps for answers,” suggested Harper, redirecting the Glock to point somewhere between his legs.

  Duri continued to hold his hands wide. His wrist was beginning to hurt badly. He knew it was useless to try and attack Harper. The man was fourth degree black belt, an expert marksman, and obviously every bit the warrior his dossier described. He had underestimated the skill and determination of his opponent. Harper would fire the Glock. He would not hesitate. “I see. What sort of answers do you want?”

  “How do you know about me, my team, my family?”

  “I received an encrypted fax yesterday. It contained your mission, your team, and a complete dossier on each of you. I knew everything about you before you even left America. I’d say you have a spy in your midst.”

  Harper nodded calmly. The rage seemed to pull back from the brink. “Go on!”

  “Cigarette?”

  Harper jerked the Glock up. “No!”

  Duri nodded quietly. “We were told about Lieutenant Stillwell. Part of the mission was to hand Stillwell over to our people. You see, a weapon expert like Stillwell could advance our employment of unconventional systems beyond things we might have considered.”