“This is Actual. Execute twenty-five-meter sweep, over.”
I watched the passenger door of Gomez’s Humvee pop open, fifty meters down the road. Gomez leaped out as though she’d been held inside by a spring, and after checking the safety, draped her rifle across her back by passing the sling under her arm and over her helmet. Fighting six hundred pounds of rough steel, she pressed her shoulder into the Humvee door. Sand boiled over the toes of her boots. The door bounced back twice. She took a breath, pushed again, and almost slipped to her knees before the latch finally caught.
Then she stood up straight and wrestled her flak jacket back into place. The weight of her ill-fitting body armor sat so far forward that she had to force herself not to slouch. The ballistic plates, six full magazines, and her radio all pulled straight down. She rolled her shoulders, came off her feet and set her heels, coaxed the tan monster into place, and took a long step onto the road. Marines swarmed around her, doing their twenty-fives.
I glanced over my shoulder to check on Doc Pleasant and Dodge, and caught Doc Pleasant watching Gomez, too.
He looked away and seemed to take a moment to try to conjure a valid reason for staring. “We jump out, too, sir?”
“No. Same rules. Corpsmen don’t dismount until it’s clear.”
I looked over at Dodge, fidgeting with the straps on his helmet. “You, too, Dodge. Stay in the vehicle. And when we get out, stay close to me.”
“I understand you, man.” He nodded. “I will stay close.”
Doc Pleasant elaborated helpfully, “See, we can’t replace you. Me neither. I’m the only medic and you’re the only terp. So, we wait. Okay?”
“Yes. Understood.”
“No. Look at me. Repeat what I said.”
“I speak English, man.” Dodge’s voice got testy. “And I heard you.”
I jumped in to defend Doc and insisted, “Say it back to him, Dodge. It’s how we do things.”
“Fine. I stay in the vehicle. And when I get out, I stay next to the
mulasim
.”
“Mulasim?”
I asked. “Is that how you say
lieutenant
in Arabic?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it mean exactly? Like, what’s it translate to?”
“It means ‘not necessary.’”
Zahn stifled a laugh. “For real?”
Marceau didn’t even try. He let out a howl of laughter. “You got an extra set of bars down there, sir? Guess you should promote me on the spot!”
Dodge seemed puzzled by our reactions. “It means the same thing in English, does it not? Like the actual French word. Instead of the real guy, it means like a place-keeper. Yes?”
“Sure,” I said. “Just not accustomed to, uh, hearing it put so plain.”
Up ahead, Gomez reached for her radio. I heard her in my ear a moment later. “Copy, Actual. Twenty-fives complete. I’m en route.”
“Copy all. Set security.” I took my thumb off the transmit button and turned to Zahn. “Roll up. Get Marceau a good line of sight behind the water truck and I’ll catch up.”
I jumped out as the Humvee rolled forward slowly, stood still, and let Gomez come to me. She marched through the cordon judging the merits of our perimeter, our movable fortress. Like Napoleon, I thought, and in the same dimensions.
Our trucks and Humvees parked at angles sharp to the side of the road to give the turret gunners good, overlapping fields of fire. An ambush could come from anywhere. From the road behind us, and the Iraqi cars stranded at the intersection. From the long, sloping desert with its rocks and shrubs on either side. From snipers hiding in the twisted remains of abandoned cars and burned-out tanks, waiting for a shot at someone’s face. From triggermen waiting in the little town on the horizon, talking about us in square houses painted two-tone brown and screwing up their courage for a coordinated attack. From the innocent-looking kids slipping in and out of the alleys, stepping through the shimmer, ducking behind cars and through metal gates into courtyards, always watching.
Civilian traffic was the primary concern. Because of our cordon, a gaggle of beat-up cargo trucks had stacked up behind us, while a line of cars, a half mile long and growing, idled in front of us. The Iraqis in the cars nearest us kept their hands where the Marines could see and spared only the occasional sideways glance through their windshields.
Marines stepped from the staged security vehicles and shouted at each other.
“Set up on the right! Off to the right!”
“Hey! Turret! That’s your sector. Down the road. Farmhouse on the left. Flat roof, blue stripe.”
“Where? The fuck you say?”
“Yeah. Off the road a little more. Leave room for the compressor. Mixer after that. Water bull after that.”
Always, they made sure to clear a lane for Gomez, stepping aside when they heard the rifle bouncing against her armor plate. It had a cadence all its own, with steps too long for a body so small.
I saw Marceau headed for the front of the column. He’d passed off his turret to a junior Marine to help heft the heavy asphalt saw up front. He was stooped over as he passed by Gomez, sucking wind.
She stopped short and squared her shoulders on him, staring him down like a third-grade teacher. She looked through his sweat, ignored his dark eyes, and let him know that she expected more.
Marceau passed her, said something to the Marine next to him, and they both stood up straight.
Gomez kept walking. “Yeah,” she yelled over her shoulder. “You fucking know it, too. On the clock.”
Then she stood in front of me, unwittingly doing exactly the same thing. “Look good, sir?”
“No complaints.”
“Then let’s knock this fucker out.” She pointed. “Too much traffic here. Too many buildings over there.”
We walked together, weaving through the cordon to the edge of the standoff zone where the trucks idled with the repair equipment and waited for the bomb techs to declare the crater safe.
Gomez and I took a knee behind the rear fender of the lead seven-ton, and I saw the crater for the first time. It was a hundred meters away and difficult to assess with any detail through the flickering heat, but I found myself searching for some clue, some reason to hope that this pothole might be the first one without a buried artillery shell rigged to explode.
The two bomb techs, combat replacements fresh into country, had no illusions. They started prepping a reducing charge in the cargo compartment of their Humvee, without waiting for word.
I turned to Gomez. “Who’s next on the list?”
Gomez pulled out a list of names, laminated between two contact sheets to keep it from disintegrating in her sweat-soaked pocket. “Marceau,” she said, plucking an alcohol pen from a gear loop on her flak jacket and drawing a line through his name. “Help me up, sir?”
“Sure.”
I interlocked my fingers and Gomez stepped into my hands. I lifted her waist-level to the truck bed, where she put her forearms and palms on the steel decking and dragged up a knee. I let go as I felt the Marines in the truck take her weight.
She started her interrogation of the two privates in the truck bed before she was even upright. “You have it ready?” she barked.
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Yeah? The fuck you waiting for, then?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Aye, Sergeant.”
She sat near the tailgate and took off her helmet. The sweatband on her radio headset kept her jet-black hair tight against her scalp, dripping with sweat. She peeled off the headset and let it hang from her flak for a moment, ran her fingers through her hair in a vain attempt to push out all the sweat.
When she took a rubber band from her wrist to tie the hair back into a tight bun at the top of her neck, the sleeves of her flight suit slid down to reveal her tattoos. A snake wound down her right forearm until a forked tongue sniffed at her wrist. On her left forearm, a flight of songbirds fled.
A voice called from above me, Doc Pleasant’s. Dodge was standing next to him. I’d forgotten. “Corporal Zahn said we should come up here,” Doc said almost bashfully. “Should we have waited in the vehicle?”
“No. No, you’re fine. My fault. Sorry about that. Got caught up. Here—get down next to me.”
They each took a knee.
“You calibrate it?” I heard Gomez ask from the bed of the truck.
The junior Marines answered quickly.
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Aye, Sergeant.”
“Well,” she mused. “We’ll see. Switch that fucker on.”
I turned to Dodge, drops of sweat cutting rivers across his face. “Getting the feel for this, yet?”
Dodge looked at me. “Of course. Fine.”
“Hold up your rifle,” Gomez called out, extending a pole toward the junior Marines with a metal disk on the end. She passed the disk in front of the rifle, up close, then a few feet back. The pair of headphones sitting on her lap sang, an urgent bleat to a low hum. She reeled it in. “Looks good to go.”
I turned to Doc Pleasant. “You know what happens next? Where you’re supposed to be?”
Doc looked at me, mouth open, while Dodge hung on every word and sucked wind like he’d just run a mile. He wasn’t yet accustomed to the weight of his body armor, how it trapped heat against his chest and made every step strenuous.
“Immediate actions,” I said. “Look at your immediate actions, Doc.”
He reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out a laminated index card. He flipped it over twice, looking for the right set of procedures. Dodge watched over Doc’s shoulder and tried to read along.
“We’ve done our fives and twenty-fives, right?” I coaxed. “Set the cordon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Corporal Marceau is about to head up,” I hinted. “What’ll he need?”
“Cover, sir?”
“He’ll get that from the trucks and the dismounted Marines. What’ll he need from you?”
Doc swallowed. “He’ll need me to be ready, sir.”
“Right. So, get ready.”
Gomez jumped off the tailgate with the battery bag on her shoulder and the metal detector in her right hand. “Yo, Marceau!” she called out. “Corporal Marceau!”
Marceau approached with his rifle slung over his back. Someone had already told him.
Gomez hung the battery bag on his shoulder. “Here we go, meat-eater. You ready?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Okay, then. Let’s rig this shit.” She tried to sound excited and smiled for him, too. That was a rarity.
Marceau took off his helmet. Gomez clapped the headphones over his ears while he slipped his hand through the metal detector’s arm brace and wrapped his fingers around the handle.
“Traffic sees the cordon and doesn’t stop,” she said. “Accelerates at you. What do you do?”
“I drop and prepare for overhead fire from the fifty.”
“You get to the hole, and it’s clear?”
“One hand up in a fist. I wait. The repair team rolls to me.”
“And what if there’s something in the hole. What then?”
“I turn around. I come back. Right arm out, parallel to the deck. Open palm.”
“Do you run?”
Marceau was distracted, looking down the highway at the pothole.
She slapped him on the helmet. “Hey. Do you
run
?”
“No, Sergeant.”
“All right then. Get it done.”
And then Marceau started walking.
Gomez keyed her radio. “Scout’s out.”
The net went quiet. Gomez followed close behind Marceau until he passed the front fender, then took a knee when he stepped into the standoff zone. After he’d walked about ten meters, she cursed under her breath and reached for her radio. Stopping herself, she looked over her shoulder at me, waved, and whispered, “Sir. Sir. Doc.” She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head at Marceau, fifty meters out and walking briskly with the metal detector out in front.
“Doc, get up there with Sergeant Gomez,” I said.
He scrambled to his feet, dragging his medical bag and backboard behind him.
“I shouldn’t have to call you up here, Doc,” Gomez lectured him. “Shouldn’t have to bother the sir, neither.”
Then it was just me and Dodge. He dropped flat onto his ass and sat with his legs straight out, leaning back against the fender.
“Dodge. Not a good idea,” I said. “Stay on one knee. Easier to get up and move.”
“All right, man,” he groaned as he picked himself up.
“Has anyone bothered explaining this to you yet? How this works?”
He shook his head and pushed the brand-new sunglasses back onto his face, the palms of his awkward, gloved hands maneuvering under the rim of his helmet.
“Okay—well, see, Marceau’s up there to check if there’s a bomb in the pothole. Right? Which there probably is. When we know for sure, we send up the robot with the clearing charge and . . . blow it up.”
“And then?”
“Then we cut away the jagged edges, fill the hole with gravel, and patch over the top with concrete.”