Tomcat

by David E. Meadows

  “We’ve been traveling with our lights out. It is possible they didn’t know we were out here. This explosion tells them something different, and most likely, someone is either watching us now or on their way to find out what their mine got. The sooner we get out of here, the better.

  Don’t forget your pieces … guns, sir.”

  Charlie Grant pulled his hat down. The temperature drops rapidly in the desert after dark. He tugged his sleeves down and buttoned them, sliding his Rolex watch up the right wrist and beneath the sleeve. Charlie was thirty-two years old last month and had been working with Loffland Brothers for the past ten. Before coming lo Algeria six months ago, he had been rig boss in the middle of the Persian Gulf off Abu Dhabi. A lifelong bachelor.

  Charlie spent his money on a beach house in Virginia Beach, a nephew and niece who worshipped their wild uncle, and once a year for two weeks of debauchery in Thailand.

  “Darren, you and Boot get inside and start handing out the guns, water, food, and anything else we can carry.

  Anything left will disappear,” Charlie said, referring to the Taureg natives.

  “Sure thing. Boss. Come on, me little darling,” Darren said to a shorter and older man of about fifty who stood beside him.

  The darkness hid the leathery wrinkles of the man’s face caused by years of smoking and working in the sun.

  His face was what gave the American-Greek from New York, Buford Panalopelous, the nickname Boot.

  “I ain’t yore darling,” Boot said, jerking his shoulder away from the laughing Irishman’s grasp.

  Stapler watched as Darren wrenched open one of the doors and the two of them started to empty the insides.

  Garfield and Jones ran up to him. “Gunny, we’re ready.

  I put Raoul out about twenty feet to the rear.”

  Raoul Gonzales was the third Marine Stapler brought with him. “Good thinking, Garfield. Now, listen to me.

  We are going to have to walk the last mile and a half. That means keeping your eyes and ears open. You two keep quiet, and no bullshitting as you go. Do not, I repeat, do not walk in the middle of the road. Keep to the sides, but keep your eyes open. I don’t think they have enough mines to heavily mine the road. If they had, we would have been blown up long ago. What I want you to do is to make sure we don’t stumble into an ambush. That means you need to hear or see them before they hear or see you.

  I don’t know how you’re going to do that while walking down the road, but the supervisor here, Mr. Grant, tells me this gully only runs for another few hundred yards. That’s less than a quarter of a mile. Once out and on open ground, we should be able to see the compound. Any questions?”

  “What do you want us to do if we come under fire, Gunny?” Private Jones asked.

  Stapler looked at the tall black man from Baltimore.

  Jones had been given a choice, so rumor had it, to either join the military or face assault charges. Stapler was outraged when he first heard this, until he discovered what the assault charges were. Jones had nearly killed a drug dealer who dealt a bad dose of crack to his younger sister.

  Stapler admired the man for not killing the dealer: he would have.

  “Jones, I would recommend returning fire. I think that will tell me what has happened, don’t you?” Stapler asked. He reached up gingerly and rubbed his side. Right there, he said to himself, as his fingers caressed a small bump on the side. Right there is where the rib is cracked.

  “Ah. all right. Gunny.”

  “Come on. Jonesy,” Garfield said. “Can’t you tell the Gunny’s hurt?”

  “Gunny Sergeants don’t get hurt, Garfield.” Stapler said.

  “Sorry. Gunny. I forgot. You did, all right.”

  “And, don’t forget it.”

  “We’re off. Gunny.”

  “Okay, we’re behind you in five minutes.” He looked at his watch, “It’s five minutes past midnight. At thirty minutes after, you wait for us to catch up. Good luck, men.” “You. too. Gunny,” said Jones.

  He watched the two walk off into the dark. A minute later, they disappeared around a bend in the road, Garfield on the left side of the narrow track while Jones took the right. Stapler didn’t know too much about Garfield other than the boy had beer, some sort of high school football star in some small city in Indiana or Ohio. He could not remember which. He just recalled overhearing him talking one night aboard the USS Kearsarge about playing quarterback.

  Stapler’s luck with football had been limited to the odd win on the bets he always placed on the Washing Ion Redskins or anyone else playing Dallas.

  “We’re ready,” Charlie Grant said.

  “Have you got everyone?”

  “All ten of us, including those on the flatbed.”

  “Okay, let me grab my man from the rear, and we’ll head out. Mr. Grant, make sure your people know to walk along the sides of the road. This mine was in a rut made by wheels of the vehicles. Hopefully, if there are any other mines, that is where they will be planted.”

  Gunfire erupted from the rear, sending the men diving for cover. Stapler, at a crouch, ran toward the sound, slipping off his safety. The gunfire was where Private Raoul Gonzales had taken position. Stapler recognized the semiautomatic fire of a M-16: three shots max, then followed by three more. Marines never wasted ammunition. You never knew when the Navy would deem it feasible and safe enough to resupply you. Gonzales was still alive.

  “Mr. Grant, get your people moving! Now!” Stapler shouted. He moved hurriedly in a crouch by the end of the flatbed. “Keep an eye to the rear, and don’t shoot the first two people you see coming after you. Hopefully, that will be me and Private Gonzales!”

  “Okay, color us gone. Come on, guys, let’s get the hell out of here. And stay to the sides of the road.”

  Stapler scrambled around the rear of the Volvo truck, keeping as close as possible to the right bank. He glanced behind him and saw the riggers disappear around the bend where Garfield and Jones had departed five minutes ago.

  He inched forward. A renewed round of fire caused him to crouch. He heard the three-shot volley from the M-16 reply, drawing his attention to the outline of Gonzales, pressed against the left bank of the road. Gonzales was about fifty feet ahead.

  “Gonzales! It’s me, don’t shoot!”

  “I see you, Gunny!”

  Several shots hit the bank over Stapler’s head, sending dirt and sand cascading down onto him. Just what he needed. More sand inside his clothes. He ducked instinctively and whipped off a semiautomatic three-shot burst in the direction he thought the rounds originated.

  “Gonzales, move back toward me. I’ll provide covering fire. Stay to the side and away from the center of the road. Whatever you do, don’t step in the ruts.”

  “Gunny, are you crazy? 1 ain’t got no intention of getting in the center of that road, and if 1 hug this bank any closer I’m going to be inside it.” “Now!” Stapler shouted.

  The Marine jumped up and dashed to the rear, weaving in his run to throw off the aim. Stapler opened fire along the ridge overhead, hoping the gunfire would keep the attackers’ heads down to give Gonzales time to reach the front of the flatbed.

  About twelve inches above the running Marine’s head, a tattoo of bullets laced the bank, missing the Marine but urging Gonzales on to greater speed. Stapler did just what he had told the others not to do. He stepped into the middle of the road and trimmed the top of the bank on his side with bullets. The firing stopped. Stapler ran to the other side, arriving about the same time as Gonzales.

  He slapped the Marine on the shoulder. “Let’s get the Hell out of here, Gonzales.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice. Gunny.” He took off at a sprint down the left side of the Volvo. There, he turned and put up covering fire along the ridges as Stapler ran past him.

  Every breath Stapler took sent a wave of pain through him as his cracked rib expanded and contracted. This was not making the trip any easier. It was not a serious fracture,
he knew from previous experience, but it is was enough to remind him it was there. Gonzales dashed past him, turned abruptly, and dropped to his haunches.

  Stapler caught up and squatted beside Gonzales, drawing an involuntary grunt as his rib rubbed. He touched the man. “The rest have gone ahead. Jones and Garfield are on point, and the riggers are between them and us. You go first. When you get to the bend up ahead, stop and provide covering fire. I’ll be coming.”

  “Okay, Gunny. You all right?

  “Christ! Are all you chick? I am all right. I will worry about me. You worry about you and the others.”

  “Sorry, Gunny.”

  “Okay. Now take off.”

  “Got it, Gunny.” Gonzales eased around Stapler, touching the gunny on the shoulder as he took off running. An explosion, where they had been a minute earlier, told Stapler that whoever was out there had grenades. It would only be a moment before those grenades got the two stranded vehicles. Gonzales opened up with his M-16. Good Marine, Stapler thought, listening to the three-shot bursts.

  Without looking to see if Gonzales had made it to the bend, Stapler jumped up and, at a zigzag run, avoided the center of the road as he headed for the bend. He heard the fire coming from above them and saw Gonzales returning it. Come on, Gonzales, Stapler thought, you can use more than three-shot bursts right now! Ahead, Gonzales kneeled and fired at the top of the ridges. Return fire had stopped.

  Stapler passed the Marine and took position behind him. He put his hand on Gonzales’s shoulder. “Hold your fire. Let’s ease out of here and put some distance between us and the vehicles before they blow them.”

  “What was that explosion, Gunny?”

  “Grenade. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here before they decide lobbing a few at us is better than firing blindly.”

  They were one hundred feet down the ravine around the bend, running, when the sounds of two massive explosions reached them. Stapler didn’t even glance back; he knew the attackers had blown the two vehicles.

  The two Marines rounded a second bend. Gunfire erupted in front of them, tearing up the roadbed and sending both to ground.

  “Did you get them?” shouted someone.

  “I don’t know. I saw them go down!”

  “Quit shooting, assholes! It’s us!” shouted Stapler.

  “Hold your fire, men. It’s the Marine,” said a voice that Stapler recognized as Mr. Charlie Grant. “Sorry, Gunny Sergeant, we thought you were someone attacking us. We heard the gunfire, and look over there.” He pointed back the direction they had come. “Look at that.” An orange glow lit up the sky.

  Stapler and Gonzales pulled themselves up and walked hurriedly to where the oil riggers stood. “Mr. Grant, I thought I told you to keep walking, to follow my point men.”

  “You did, Gunny Sergeant, and we were, but then we heard you running behind us and thought we were fixing to be ambushed.”

  “Ah, we did, mates, and I says to Charlie, ”d better get them before they gets us.’ So, we turned and waited.

  Damn good thing we are such poor shots,” Darren said, laughing.

  “Sir, we need to keep moving,” Stapler said. “I don’t think we have much time before they follow. Gonzales and I are going to bring up the rear.” He looked at his watch. The glowing minute hand showed twenty minutes past midnight. “Ten minutes ahead, you are going to run into Privates Garfield and Jones. For heaven’s sake, don’t shoot them. When you do catch up, tell them to keep going until you reach the end of the ravine. Then wait for us to catch up. Give them a couple of minutes’ head start.

  Give us ten minutes, and if we aren’t there, you start to the compound without us.”

  “Some of us can always come back to look for you if you don’t make it, Gunny Sergeant.”

  “If I don’t make it, there won’t be anything for you to come back and get. Just do what I say. Gonzales and I can take care of ourselves,” Stapler said, but what he really wanted to say was, Damn straight, you get your asses back here and help us.

  “Okay, we’re gone again,” Charlie Grant said. “Come on, men, let’s go, and for heaven’s sake, don’t shoot the Marines in front of us.”

  “What Marines?”

  “You know what Marines, Boot.”

  “Keep the noise down. Keep quiet,” Stapler said.

  Gonzales moved quickly to the other side of the road, his head down, watching where he put his feet. He threw himself against the cliff wall, facing back the way they had come, waiting for someone, something, or anything to appear around that second bend. His finger twitched on the trigger.

  Stapler leaned against the bank, scanning the top of the ridges that ran about seventy feet overhead. How long did this ravine run? Grant had said only a few hundred yards.

  How many yards had they come? About two hundred, he guessed. Shouldn’t be much farther before they reached the end.

  “Let’s go,” Stapler said to Gonzales after what seemed ten minutes.

  The two Marines followed the riggers who, by now, should be a couple hundred yards ahead of them. Behind him, he heard voices and knew the attackers were following at a fast pace. In moments they would be coming down the road or racing along the top. The sooner they were out of this ravine, the better their chances of survival.

  Thirty minutes later, the two ran into the rear of the oil riggers. Stapler decided they were close enough to the exit for them to remain together. He was wrong. It took an hour before they passed through the end of the ravine and found themselves on a rocky plain leading down to the desert floor. In all that time, the voices remained the same distance away. Without doubt, those following knew where they were.

  “I thought you said it was only a few hundred yards?” Stapler asked softly.

  “Well, it seems shorter in the humvee,” Charlie Grant answered.

  In the distance, about three-quarters of a mile, the faint lights of the compound glowed.

  “There it is,” Charlie Grant said to Stapler, pointing to the compound.

  The two had been bringing up the rear. Stapler had been impressed with the younger supervisor. The man had kept pace with him and never complained — not that it would have done much good.

  “Yeah, we may make it after all,” Stapler added.

  “Had your doubts, Gunny Sergeant?”

  “Had this tight feeling around the stomach,” he said, smiling.

  “You mean your ribs, don’t you?” Charlie asked, chuckling.

  “Ribs?”

  “Gunny, you think you fooling anyone? Too many of us have had cracked ribs not to recognize it when we see it in someone else.”

  The first few bullets tore up the ground around the bunched oil riggers, sending them scattering in different directions.

  “Take cover!” shouted Stapler. Where in the hell did they come from? Everyone dove for the rocks poking up through the ground and decorating the slight decline leading down to the desert floor.

  He heard the sound of a bullet hitting flesh and saw one of the dark shadows among the oil riggers fall. Two men nearby grabbed the fallen figure and pulled him behind some rocks with them.

  A group of figures bunched tightly together, robes fluttering behind them as they charged out of the ravine toward them. Stapler flipped his safety off and fired a semiautomatic burst at the group. They tumbled over, landing on top of each other. The screams from within the tangle of arms and limbs told him some were still alive.

  He thought a couple of those who went down probably tripped over those in front who were shot. In which case, he had a couple of healthy ones out there within grenade range. Unfortunately, within their grenade range because he didn’t have any.

  “Mr. Grant, take your people and start working your way back … on your belly. These rocks will give you a little cover. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Charlie didn’t have to be told twice. He started crawling backward down the hill. As he passed others, they joined him, and soon the hill was alive with oil riggers c
rawling downhill. Garfield smiled as the riggers moved past. They reminded him of hunting nightcrawlers in Indiana.

  Sniper shots from the top of the hill sent the oil riggers rushing onward with a new burst of speed. Garfield blasted the cliff overhead. The shooting stopped. Stapler glanced back but couldn’t tell if any of the riggers had been hit.

  He looked forward at the same time as a whoosh sound came from where the road exited the ravine. Stapler recognized it even as he knew the weapon was in flight— RPG — rocket-propelled grenade, the same thing that destroyed the two helicopters. He buried his head in the sand, wishing he was a mole right now, and pulled his arms in as close as he could. The grenade sailed over his head and exploded about fifty feet to the right, sending up clouds of sand and dust. Stapler looked to where the grenade had exploded. Empty desert. Damn good thing, too. If it had landed among them, it would have killed most. Gonzales leaped alongside Stapler.

  “Hello, Gunny. Thought you could use some help.”

  “Private Gonzales, you should be moving the other way.”

  “Nothing to kill that way, Gunny. You got all the targets up here.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here long. As bad a shot as that RPG gunner is, luck and proximity will grace his aim.”

  Out of the ravine, a fresh wave of dark-garbed figures, their capes waving in the air, ran toward Stapler and Gonzales, jumping over the dead and dying. Gunshots rang out as the charging figures fired at the Marines. To Stapler’s right, another group of enemy fighters rose from the rocks about fifty yards away and charged, waving long, curved knives and screaming something incomprehensible as they neared.

  Stapler calculated about thirty-five total. Well, there were three Marines — that should make it a fair fight. He let loose a tattoo of shots at the ones on their flank. They were being cut off and surrounded, as if the attackers had given up on the escaping oil riggers.

  Behind him, the M-16s of Garfield and Jones cut loose, firing over his head and wasting five or six enemy warriors who had emerged from the ravine. He hoped Garfield and Jones had enough sense to get the hell out of there.

  Gonzales’s weapon blazed away at those in front. Suddenly, a figure jumped up from only ten feet away and leaped toward the small Mexican-American. Stapler had his own problems with the approaching enemies from the right. He couldn’t get a shot off without shooting Gonzales. Gonzales reached to his boot and pulled out his survival knife. A quick movement of his wrist and, as the attacker drew back a long, curved scimitar to kill the Marine, Gonzales came upright with all his body weight behind the knife. The thick, sharp knife slid into the belly of the enemy. Gonzales pulled up and then jerked the knife to the right before pulling it out. A blood-curdling scream of pain filled the night as the man dropped his scimitar and grabbed his stomach, trying to shove his intestines back inside. Gonzales shoved the man away and watched him fall, the man’s hands still trying to push his intestines inside. Gonzales snatched the scimitar as his prize and grabbed his M-16. He fired twice, jerked the ammo clip out, and, patted his ammo pack twice.