Time Flying (34 page)

We figured if we stayed quiet in our little, out of the way ring of rocks part-way up a small hillside, maybe they would pass by, and be long gone by the time our rescuers came, and no one would get killed.

Nice thought, but not the way it played out.

One voice grew a bit louder, as Pat and I pressed further in to the rocks at our backs, our 9 mm Berettas out, with rounds chambered. Fortunately, it was Pat's right shoulder that was dislocated, since he was left-handed. I had needed to help him pull the slide back a few hours ago, chambering a round in the pistol, but he needed no help to fire with his left hand. We both had two Berettas, each of us having supplemented our US Navy-supplied armory with personally purchased weapons. My second 9 mm stayed snug in a shoulder holster tucked under my right arm, so I could draw from either side. Pat had his second gun under his right arm as well, so if he emptied the magazine in the Beretta he held, he would drop it, and draw the other one. Pray God it doesn't come to that, though, I thought.

The loudest voice laughed as he came into our little circle of rocks and set his AK-47 on the ground, leaning the gun against a large, smooth boulder, and reaching down to unzip his pants. He had a freshly lit cigarette in his mouth, which explained why he didn't see us as soon as he entered the space we hid in. He didn’t expect anyone to be in here, and the flare of the match he'd lit the cigarette with had ruined his night vision for several minutes. Probably not Republican Guard after all, I reasoned.

I couldn't imagine him just taking a leak against the rocks well away from his AK, picking the rifle back up and leaving without seeing us, but I didn't know what to do. I knew what I SHOULD do, quietly take my survival knife out of the sheath strapped against my right leg, sneak up behind him and covering his mouth, drive the knife into his neck, and I'd been trained to do it, but to be honest, wet-work killing wasn’t an option, and a flash of embarrassment shot through me. The men coming here, risking their lives to save me, who would do that without hesitation. My job was killing from a distance. Sure, I braved anti-aircraft fire, SAM batteries and high-speed collision with the earth and sea, not to mention riding 30 tons of A6 Intruder as it crashed onto the deck of the carrier at night in the rain, but the bravery needed to be close enough to look into a man's eyes while I ended his life with a knife just didn't live in me.

The Iraqi soldier's reaction when he finished peeing, and turned toward us, made all of that moot, anyway. At first, our being here didn’t seem to register in his brain at all, and he stared at us as if he didn't really believe what he saw. His eyes went wide, and he shouted something in his language, and while lunging for his rifle, I learned I had no trouble killing at a distance of 8 feet, nor did Pat. Both of our Berettas barked at the same time, Pat's twice, and mine three times. Even though Pat held his in one hand, I believe Pat’s 9 mm scored both significant hits, hitting the Iraqi in the chest, and just below his nose. The exchange happened in a micro-instant, but time slowed down so much when I remember it, I truly believe I can watch the 9 mm slug hit the Iraqi, square in the middle of his mustache. I think I hit him once in the left arm, before my following shots hit the rocks above and to his left.

The noise had been deafening, and created a chaotic jumble of scrabbling boots on rocks, yelling in Aramaic and even a couple fired rounds from the Iraqi patrol a few yards away, nothing more than the  startled jerking of an inexperienced trigger finger, I’m sure. The last words I heard Pat say was “It’s on, buddy…” as we separated to opposite sides of our little sheltered circle, and I, in a moment of clarity that writing this today, I have a hard time believing I experienced, holstered the Beretta under my left arm and slipped over toward the still-twitching Iraqi soldier, grabbing his dropped AK47 as I regarded his ruined face, eyes open in an expression of surprise, but not a lot recognizable beneath them. I pulled the charging handle back to make sure a round was chambered in the AK, and thumbed the safety off.

There were a few seconds of silence, as the squad of Iraqis obviously tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Even the most inexperienced combat personnel would have recognized the sound of more than one firearm discharging, and I wondered just how long they might linger outside our small shelter, and whether the cavalry would show up in the form of a couple of Apache gunships, and maybe some SEALS, before they decided what to do. We weren't so lucky.

I had dropped back from the opening in the rocks and crouched, the AK sighted toward the place from where the Iraqis would come. We didn't have long to wait, and in a few seconds, two gun barrels inched around the corner in the rock. I waited another couple breaths, and pulled the trigger on the AK to send a 3 round burst toward them, but held on a little too long, and the harsh, metallic rattle of the rifle ripped the silence of the night, the recoil pulling the end of the barrel up higher than I'd expected, and 5 rounds chewed up the rocks near where the Iraqis were starting to enter, sparks flashing, the bullets ricocheting off the hard stone. I didn't hit anyone, but the violence of the rounds impacting on the rock face must have been intimidating, because the Iraqis didn't seem to be all that eager to inch in further to blind-sight their rifles, an action which would have been devastating to Pat and I. If enough rounds had been poured into this small space, a number of them would have most certainly hit us both. They quickly realized they had us cornered, with nowhere to go. At the same time, they must have understood a cornered animal often proved to be the most dangerous, especially since we'd already killed one of their number, and had his weapon in addition to whatever hardware we had brought to the fight.

Our rescuers were going to be here soon, so I tried to appeal to the survival instinct of these guys, and shouted to them, hoping to cut through the ringing they probably had in their ears, like us, “Any of you guys speak English?”

Aramaic discussion erupted for a few seconds, soon quieted by an angry voice clearly belonging to the guy in charge. “Yes, I speak English, American. You are our Prisoner. Come out and you will not be harmed.” A softer, but insistent voice added something to him. “Drop your weapons first.” Ah, it wasn't the leader, but his interpreter. The speaker had little accent, so I figured he was probably educated in the US. It might help, I hoped, glancing over at Pat, who had his Beretta angled down at the ground, but when our eyes met, raised his gun back level again.

I still had the feeling these guys weren't first line troops, and on instinct, pulled my com-gear earpiece from my ear and reached into the pouch on my belt with my left hand and turned the volume up. I wanted these guys to when I got the next call from the cavalry.

“Well, we're not going to do that. My friends and I think it is best if you guys move away from this position.” I used the word “friends” in the hopes they might start to wonder how many of us were in here, armed to the teeth. At the perfect moment, a com chirp sounded.

The all-business voice of an inbound pilot came next, the unmistakable sound of turbine rotors in the background. “Spicoli two-two, Damone here, inbound to your position. Say status.”

“Damone, Spicoli Two-Two…In contact, but secure right now,” I said, amazed  my voice remained somewhat solid, with my mouth dry as the dust around us. Plus, I think I'd pissed myself. “Wait one.”

I looked again at Pat, slowly shaking his head, but saying nothing. I paused and addressed the Iraqis a few feet away from us, separated by the rocks both protecting and trapping us here. “Iraqi soldiers...We have a number of Apache gunships coming in to get us,” the turbines sounding like the whine of an Apache to me over the radio, anyway. “They will kill everyone but us. This does not have to go any further. You do NOT need to die here.”

I paused to let my words of warning sink in, and tightened up my grip on the AK. My earpiece chirped again.

“Spicoli Two Two, Damone. Pop red smoke. Repeat. Pop red smoke. Repeat. Pop red smoke.” We carried two colors of smoke canisters for rescue ops, red and green. The rescue leader had ordered me three times to set off the red smoke, which meant I was to use the green. If red smoke appeared, it meant the enemy controlled the smoke canisters, and us.

“Damone, Spicoli Two Two. Wait one.” I replied.

“So, what's it going to be?” I called to the Iraqis. The answer came almost immediately, in the form of a metallic clatter, I identified a second later as a hand grenade. I dove to the ground, not sure where the grenade landed, dropping the AK-47 as a wave of something I suspected was sound, but had so much more mass to it, seemed to flatten me, pushing my face into the dirt.

The only sound in my world was something halfway between buzzing and ringing, over a constant roar I understood later to be the blood rushing through my head. Where was I? What is this gritty, coppery, horrible tasting sludge in my mouth? The answer, turned out to be mud. Well, dirt, mingled with what little saliva I had left, and blood from the impact of my face against the ground. 

The buzzing/ringing got a little louder, and I became able to start to pick out the different elements contained in the noise. Voices. Foreign language, angry and frightened became clearer. Another sound, more familiar, yet not a human voice fought for my attention, but I didn't recognize it. Finally connected to my body again, I rolled over to the right, but stopped when I started to gag on the dirt and mud in my mouth. I spent the next several seconds trying to spit it all out, not getting nearly enough, when a shadow to my left attracted my attention. The shadow had a voice, and the figure resolved into a soldier who was yelling something at me, jabbing an AK-47 in my direction. In that moment, I have to admit, I was still too confused and disconnected from myself to be afraid, even though the man holding the rifle, pointing and thrusting the weapon toward me was clearly terrified. In my mind, I can still see the whites of his wide-open eyes as the strange yellow/white flashes popped from the end of his AK.

I have no idea how the Beretta got into my right hand, but it did, and somehow, in one fluid motion, I pointed it at the screaming Iraqi soldier who stood less than five feet from me, and pulled the trigger. For as long as I live, I will never forget the sight of his head snapping back, a huge volume of dark matter painting part of the rocks behind him an obscene black. His body responded to the violence not with theatrical twisting, turning or flying backwards like in the movies. He became a puppet, strings cut, animation gone, as if the puppeteer decided, in the middle of a performance, to go to lunch.

One of the colorful explosions from his rifle seemed somehow different though, and I was falling backwards to the ground. The sound had left me in peace, and it felt good just to close my eyes, so I did.

Waking up, clearing the new quantity of sludge from my mouth, becoming human again, and finding my bullet damaged flight helmet might have taken thirty-seconds, or thirty minutes. I don’t know. Where the dead Iraqi’s friends were, I had no idea.

I looked the sky, now a surprising bright blue. When did that happen, I wondered as my ears were assaulted by a tsunami of sound that washed over my little cul-de-sac of rocks in the Iraqi desert. A black helicopter flew directly over me, 20 millimeter cannon ripping the air, and Hellfire missiles hissing malevolently off their tracks, let loose against those who a mere two minutes before, held an overwhelming advantage against Pat and me.

Time to go.

I have no idea how I found the strength to heave Pat's body onto my shoulders, but I wasn’t about to leave him in this tiny, horrific slaughterhouse. Mercifully, his helmet had twisted around on his head enough to hide my friend's face, so I wouldn't have to deal with that particular reality for a short time. Pat was dead, of that I was sure. He had been way too close to the exploding grenade to survive the concussion. Patrick Maney had been a tough little bastard, but an Iraqi fragmentary grenade had been too much for him.

Fuckers.

I'd like to write that I ran out of the circle of rocks with Pat on one shoulder, one-armed firing an AK-47 and mowing down Republican Guard troops Rambo-style, but I had dropped the AK in the grenade's explosion, and I have no more idea what happened to the Beretta I had killed the Iraqi soldier with, than how it had gotten into my hand in the first place.

I did run, though, staggering out from the shelter of the rocks, confronted with the sight of an Apache hovering two hundred yards away, pointed toward a building another hundred yards or so further, and behind me. We had sheltered so close to the building, but hadn’t seen it in the dark of night. The Apache seemed to be waiting, and seeing me, launched a Hellfire that leaped off the rail and streaked toward the building, as if to say watch what I do to the bastards who killed your friend. The missile obliterated the low adobe-like building in a tremendous blast of sound, fire and heat consuming the structure and anyone unlucky enough to be inside, in less than a second. I looked around. The concussion of the grenade attack had killed my comm unit, so I had no idea what the play was, and even though I had assumed, because of the presence of the Apaches, that rescue had arrived, I now was uncertain. The attack choppers only had two seats, so I knew they weren’t my lift out of here.

Pat still draped over my right shoulder, I turned around, and witnessed the most beautiful sight I could imagine. A Blackhawk helicopter settled into the dust 100 yards away, and I realized what, in addition to Pat and me, the Apaches protected. Head down, I started toward the Blackhawk. I'd gotten maybe ten steps toward the bird, when to my horror, the door gunner opened up with his Browning .50 caliber machine gun. In an instant, a flash of fear, confusion and anger cycled through my mind. Didn’t they recognize my flight suit? What the hell? But those thoughts disappeared almost as soon as they arrived, as understanding swept them away. I could hear the whine of the .50 caliber rounds whipping by me, rather than at me. The machine gunner shot past me, firing on Iraqis who were trying their best to kill me.