Terminal Impact

by Charles Henderson

  Sabeen sat on the passenger side of the pickup, gripping white knuckles on the handhold screwed to the doorjamb. She looked hard and saw no sign of the people.

  Haazim squinted his eyes, too, and saw nothing. “It is like the white oryx, that old fool. He imagines what he sees, and nothing is there, except sometimes a wild goat.”

  “He has seen the oryx, I know it,” Sabeen argued, defending her Bedouin warrior who found her desirable. “If Yasir says that he sees the infidels, then he sees them.”

  “Okay, old man!” Haazim shouted out his driver-side window. “Point the way!”

  Yasir shot the machine gun toward his old truck, a good three miles away, leaving a line of dust pops pointing the direction.

  “You see, Haazim?” he yelled.

  “I see where the bullets hit,” the mastermind driving the truck yelled back. “But I see nothing of your truck.”

  “It is there, I see it!” Yasir said.

  “I hope you do,” Haazim shouted.

  “He sees them!” Sabeen said. “Don’t doubt his word.”

  Haazim shook his head. “What do we have to lose?”

  “Correct!” Sabeen said.

  Yasir turned loose another blast from the PK, arcing these shots high and splashing them a mile ahead.

  —

  Jack stopped the jalopy and let its tired old engine idle. He put his head out the window.

  “What is it?” Giti asked, putting her head out, too.

  “I thought I heard gunfire,” Jack said.

  “I hear nothing,” Giti said.

  “Desert madness,” Valentine said, and hit the gas, the old pickup sputtering along the edge of the rift.

  —

  Abu Omar slid his truck sideways in the dooryard at his headquarters. He left the motor running and ran to the house, tripping over one dead man. He walked to the kitchen and saw the other two guards lying lifeless on the floor.

  “No!” he bellowed. His machine gunners and the men in the other truck who had just parked heard him and stopped outside, worried. They walked to the house, guns ready.

  The old graybeard ran down the steps into the basement and saw the cell door open. He rushed inside and picked up the empty chains.

  “No!” he roared, as loud as his lungs could project.

  His men from the other gun wagon, who had managed to escape the Marines with him, stood in the house, taking in the sight of their dead brethren. They waited anxiously with their guns ready, knowing their leader’s wild temper. If Abu Omar opened fire on them in his fit of rage, they might have to kill the boss and just call it a day.

  Omar came back up the stone stairway, dragging Jack’s chains. He dropped them in the doorway that led to the kitchen.

  “He escaped!” Omar said, bewildered. “How could he escape? I left six of my best here.”

  “It is God’s will,” one Haji offered.

  Omar stared at him, studied his face. Then he drew out his pistol, pointed it at the fool, and shot him.

  “It was not God’s will!” Omar screamed, and the other five men backed up, ready to fight, but lifted their fingers off their triggers, glad to be alive, as the graybeard holstered his pistol.

  He walked back in the kitchen, looking around, and stepped on the empty Visine bottle. Omar picked it up, then tossed it at his men. “They even poured out my eye wash.”

  A third gun crew rolled up. They began yelling to Omar and his other two crews, “The Marines, they come this way!”

  “Abu Omar,” one of the men asked. “Should we stand and fight here, or should we retreat? If we choose to fight another day, we should depart immediately.”

  The old graybeard glared at the man, put his hand on his gun, but the soldier raised his rifle and locked eyes with the boss, cold steel. Omar moved his hand away from the Makarov and stared at the empty chains on the floor.

  “We retreat, of course,” Abu Omar said. “But we will go after the American and those whores and other traitors who fled with him. You can have the women. Shoot the two men. But I will cut off the American’s head.”

  —

  Elmore Snow intentionally allowed the third truck to escape down the wadi where Omar’s pickup and the other one behind it had fled.

  “We’ll follow that guy to their hideout,” he told Alvin Barkley, who wheeled the Hummer close enough to keep the fleeing vehicle in sight but far enough behind to encourage him to keep running home.

  Colonel Snow had rallied his fourteen MARSOC Marines to follow him and the first shirt. Sergeant Jorge Padilla sat in the backseat with Rattler, and Cochise Quinlan manned the Maw-Duce in the truck’s turret.

  Sergeant Rasputin Romyantsev drove the Hummer behind the colonel, finally getting his feet wet in real combat. Cotton Martin sat in the right seat. Bronco and Jaws sat in back and ran the guns.

  Sammy LaSage rode shotgun in the next truck with Ironhead Heyward at the wheel. Jewfro Clingman and Hub Biggs manned their turret guns.

  Hot Sauce McIllhenny drove the next war wagon, with Bobby the Snake Durant in the right seat. Staff Sergeant Dennis Drzewiecki, the senior armorer, took charge of the M-2 .50 in the turret. Short one man, he had assured the boss it was no problem. No one knew grandma better than the man from Whiskey Run, Pennsylvania, nor could anyone run it with his skill.

  Mob Squad brought up the rear: Momo driving, Iceman in the right seat, Pizza Man and Nick the Nose on top guns.

  With Captain Crenshaw and the bulk of Company D, Fifth Marines closing ranks around the majority of Abu Omar’s lost legion, the remaining thirty-six Marines whom First Sergeant Barkley had taken with him and the MARSOC crew, merged back with the company. Closing the jaws of their pincer movement, they commenced the annihilation of Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah.

  —

  Jack had driven two miles along the rift when he finally reached the place they could cross. That’s when the right-front tire blew.

  As the tread and sidewalls fell to pieces and the rim chewed into rock, the force of it pulled the steering wheel. It took all of Gunny Valentine’s strength to hold the wheels straight and get stopped without dropping off the cliff.

  He managed to chug the jalopy twenty feet away from the drop, amidst the screams and wails of the three girls.

  “What do we do now?” Miriam asked, and huddled tight to the Marine, now imprinted on him like a puppy on a kid.

  “I don’t know! Pray for Jesus to materialize a new tire on the truck?” Jack said, out of sorts.

  “We could also get out, jack up the truck, and put on the spare tire,” Giti said, not liking Jack’s mocking of their faith and their prayers. “Yasir has tools behind the seat and a good spare under the bed.”

  “Well then, I guess we get out and change the bloody tire,” Jack said, popping open the door.

  Giti and Amira had already crawled under the back of the truck and spun off the big wing nut that held on the good tire and rim. They had it rolled next to the right front and leaning on the bumper before the gunny had gotten out the spinner wrench and the screw jack stored behind the seat.

  “I’m amazed he has a spare and tools,” Jack said.

  “Don’t be amazed,” Giti said, helping Jack. “As I have said, Yasir is a good man.”

  “Would you shoot him if you had to?” Jack asked, cracking off the wheel nuts with the spinner wrench.

  “No, I would not,” Giti said. “He would not shoot me, and I will not shoot him. He is not a bad man.”

  “Just a good man in a bad spot,” Jack said, tossing the old rim into the rift and pushing the spare tire in place.

  “I will shoot evil men, though,” Giti said, threading on the lug nuts so that Jack could spin them tight.

  “Good Book says, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” Gunny Valentine said, twisting the nuts tight with the wrench.


  “Do not murder is what it truly says,” Giti retorted. “Shooting evil men who murder innocent people is righteous with the Lord.”

  “My colonel says the same thing.” Jack smiled, dusting his hands, and noticing a plume rising in the southwest, a truck coming toward them fast.

  He reached in the cab, took out his Marine M40A3 sniper rifle, and pulled the bolt back. He loaded the magazine full and shoved one in the chamber. Then he grabbed the Vigilance and told the girls, “Speaking of evil men who murder the innocent, looks like some are headed our way.”

  “Where do we go?” Giti asked.

  “Grab your guns and drop into the gully,” Jack said, looking down the rift and seeing a nice slope with good footing about four feet below the sheer side.

  “That could likely be Yasir and Sabeen,” Giti reminded the Marine as they climbed over the edge, holding the AK rifles and wresting the oversized ammunition vests that hung down to their mid thighs.

  “What do you suggest?” Jack said as he looked through his rifle scope across the hood of the truck.

  “If it is evil men, then you shoot them,” Giti said. “If it is Yasir and Sabeen, then do not shoot them. That is quite simple.”

  “And what if Yasir decides to shoot us?” Jack asked, now seeing the old goatherd holding on to the Russian PK machine gun, aiming it over the cab.

  “He will not shoot us,” Giti said, certain of herself and her faith in the man who had changed his mind about raping them and instead felt the need to wash himself and atone for his sins.

  Jack moved the scope reticle from Yasir to the truck’s windshield, expecting to see Sabeen in the driver’s seat. Instead, he saw Haazim there, a scowl on his face.

  “You didn’t kill all four of the guards. One of them’s driving the truck. Yasir’s up on the machine gun,” Jack said. “You still sure the old man won’t shoot?”

  “Oh no,” Giti said. “What about Sabeen?”

  Jack moved his reticle to the passenger side and there sat the husky teen, her chubby face looking perplexed and afraid at the same time. She was yelling and crying.

  “She’s not real happy right now,” Jack said.

  “You must kill the evil man, but do not shoot Sabeen or Yasir,” Giti said.

  “I splash him now, they’ll roll and probably kill everybody, as fast as they’re coming,” Jack said, working on his shot at Haazim.

  “Let them stop, then fire,” Giti said, nodding at the Marine Scout-Sniper.

  “That puts them fifty feet from us,” Jack said. “You want to take that chance with Yasir? He’s got a machine gun, and I bet he knows how to use it.”

  “I promise,” Giti said. “Yasir will not shoot. He told me he has never fired a gun at another human being. He only hunts animals for meat.”

  “He’s a jihadi and has never shot at a person?” Jack said, now holding the reticle on Haazim and waiting for the truck to slow to a stop. The instant it did, he’d fire.

  “He is a good man,” Giti said. “To shoot him, unless you had to defend your life, would be murder. Do not murder! God says so.”

  As the truck closed, Haazim yelled from the cab, “Shoot the machine gun, Yasir! I can see their heads, watching us! The American, he’s standing behind the truck with the one girl. Shoot them!”

  Haazim’s face filled all of Jack’s telescopic sight; the center of the reticle covered Haazim’s nose. The angry jihadi had just hit the brakes, and was still yelling at Yasir to shoot when Jack sent the .338 Lapua Magnum bullet into his right nostril. The gunman’s exploding head sprayed blood and bone and flesh throughout the cab of the truck and showered Sabeen with the gore.

  “You’re next, Yasir!” Jack yelled, and the old man didn’t understand, but could not pull the machine gun’s trigger either, seeing Giti, and seeing Miriam and Amira climbing out of the ravine and now running to the truck.

  “Yasir,” Giti called to him in Arabic. “You are a good man! He will not shoot you. Come down from there.”

  “I am a failure,” the goatherd said, and broke into tears.

  Jack watched and was glad he had listened to Giti and had not shot Yasir first. He had the shot.

  Sabeen ran to her three adopted sisters when she saw them, and they embraced, all of them weeping. The girls wiped the blood from the Syrian girl’s face and hair, using their dresses. Yasir squatted in front of the truck.

  “What do we do now?” Jack asked. “We take them with us, too? How far are we from Haditha Dam?”

  Yasir stared at Jack, not a clue of what he said.

  Jack kicked a rock. “Fucking useless!”

  Sabeen yelled Arabic at Yasir, and she climbed in the back of the truck, took the machine gun off its mount and threw it out, along with all the boxes of belted ammunition.

  Yasir looked at the gun, then at Sabeen. “It stopped working the second time I shot it. Maybe something in it broke.”

  Giti ran to the old man, knelt where he squatted, and put her arms around his neck. She kissed both his tear-wet cheeks and smiled at him.

  “God loves you, Yasir,” she said, and the old man smiled at her.

  “I am a failure,” he replied, and stood. Then he looked across the wadi. His heart nearly stopped, and he pointed.

  “Do you see?” he cried.

  Giti turned and looked. Miriam and Amira and Sabeen stopped hugging and looked, too. Then Jack turned and saw what had them dumbstruck.

  “What are they? Antelopes?” Jack asked, seeing the Arabian oryx buck and his three oryx doe.

  The beautiful white animals stood broadside to them not two hundred yards away. The doe had spear-like, straight, black horns two feet long. The buck had graceful arcing ebony horns that flashed in the sunlight, curving three feet over his back like two Arabian scimitars as he raised his head.

  The oryxes had lain in the shade of a thicket of Alhagi, where they had browsed succulent leaves and took their midday naps. The buck heard Jack’s shot, and roused to his feet, ready to move out. But something held him back.

  Yasir fell to his knees. He began bowing and praying.

  “It is an omen!” he cried. “Praise you, Allah! You are great! You are merciful!”

  Jack, the girls, and Yasir watched the beautiful creatures casually walk over the top of the dune where they had napped. The buck stopped on top, gave the people one last look, put his nose in the air, then disappeared with his harem of doe.

  Yasir looked at Jack, then at the three Christian girls. He walked to Giti and put his hand on her belly. “You carry a child, just as the one doe with the buck carries his offspring. God has spoken to us. We must obey His word.

  “Go with this man, you three girls. He is the white oryx and you are the doe. Allah did not want me to shoot the oryx and his brides, just as Allah does not want me to shoot you and the American. Go in peace,” he said, and bowed low to Jack, giving him the Bedouin salute with his palm-up fingertips touching his forehead.

  Giti smiled. “We go in peace. It is God’s will.”

  “He sees those oryxes, and God spoke to him?” Jack said.

  “God showed him those animals weeks ago,” Giti said. “No one else has seen them except Yasir, until today. God showed them today to you, to me and my sisters and Yasir.

  “This poor man has suffered great humiliation because God only showed the white oryx and his three doe to him alone. It was for a reason. A message from God.”

  Jack looked toward the dunes where the four antelopes had disappeared, and looked back at Yasir, who stood there still bowing to him.

  “Works for me.” He smiled. “What about them?”

  “Yasir will go to Jordan with me,” Sabeen said. “I have family there. Wealthy people! We will live with them!”

  “You and that old goat?” Jack said, pointing his thumb at the humble old Bedouin.

 
“He is a good man,” Sabeen said, then she turned to him. “Yasir, take Haazim from the truck, my sisters and I will clean the seat. Then we go to my family in Jordan.”

  The old man smiled at her and went to the truck, dragged the dead Haji to one side and dropped his body.

  The girls piled sand in the seats and scrubbed them out with it. Soon they had the pickup fit to drive.

  “I don’t recommend driving that Haji gun wagon to Jordan,” Jack told Sabeen. “Trade it to somebody with a car and get to a city. If your family has money, they’ll get you out of Iraq.”

  “I will call my grandfather when we get to Hit,” Sabeen said. “I know they have searched far and wide for me. They will be so pleased to meet Yasir!”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to death, Sabeen,” Jack said, and a big grin spread on his face. He told himself, “Love to be a fly on that wall.”

  Yasir got in the driver’s seat and put his finger in the spiderweb of broken windshield surrounding the big bullet hole. He closed one eye and looked through it, and smiled at Jack, saying something in Arabic.

  “We love you!” Giti and Amira and Miriam all shouted, waving at their sister as the Bedouin goatherd drove along the rift to the south, where he would pick up a back road that would lead him to Hit.

  _ 18 _

  “Good-bye, Sabeen!” Giti cried, and waved farewell to her sister. Miriam and Amira stood by her, crying and waving, too.

  Sabeen put her head out the window and waved back at them. “I love you!”

  “We love you, too!” the three girls shouted to her.

  “We gotta roll,” Jack said, gathering their gear and returning it to the back of the truck.

  He started the engine. It sputtered and began knocking, worse and worse.

  “Get in!” he yelled, and rolled up the window to cut off the fumes that came in the truck.

  The words had no more than cleared his lips when from the front of the pickup came a loud, “Bang!”

  Jack dropped to the seat, ducking for cover, and the girls all hit the deck outside.

  “Someone is shooting!” Amira cried.

  Gunny V put his head up, and peeked around. All quiet. The engine had died with the bang, and he tried to restart it. Nothing but a groan.