With a blown-out front tire, the Range Rover skidded to a stop in front of a wall of white smoke. One side-view mirror dangled and the other was missing. Most of the front windshield was blown out, and the vehicle looked as if a flock of giant steel-beaked woodpeckers had attacked it. Lieutenant Saeedi’s shirt was torn where a bullet had ripped it. Flying glass had cut into the side of Major Khan’s face, bloodying it. Pistachio had taken a round in the left shoulder, which he had already bandaged.
The three jumped out of their vehicle and Lieutenant Saeedi sprinted ahead into the smoke. Major Khan and Pistachio followed close behind. They lost sight of Lieutenant Saeedi, but they could hear him. Major Khan heard a dreaded sound: click. Lieutenant Saeedi had triggered a booby trap. As Major Khan’s adrenaline sped up, time seemed to slow down. This is the end. Instead of the boom of an explosion, there was a distinctive delay of a Bouncing Betty. I still have time. “Hit the dirt!” He dropped and heard a whoosh of air as the body of the mine hopped about three feet high into the air. The resulting explosion was deafening. With his face in the dirt, Major Khan couldn’t see the explosion, but he knew its shrapnel would shred everything in a thirty-meter radius from about the waist up. Consistent with its design, everything on the ground was safe.
Major Khan stood and carefully walked out of the smoke. Lieutenant Saeedi was in the water. “What happened to you?” Major Khan asked.
“I slipped and fell in the freezing water! What the hell does it look like?!”
Major Khan had been so focused on getting under the Bouncing Betty’s explosion, he hadn’t heard the splash. Major Khan gave Lieutenant Saeedi a hand out of the water. “Did you see Alex and his men?”
“No, they got away. That explosion wasn’t what I thought it was, was it?” Lieutenant Saeedi asked.
“You’re lucky you fell in the water.”
“Where’s Pistachio?”
They walked through the smoke toward their vehicle. When they exited the smoke, they spotted Pistachio on the ground. The explosion had left his legs intact, but his upper body from his groin to his face was a bloody, mangled mess. “I can’t move my body,” Pistachio said almost unintelligibly.
“Aww, shit,” Lieutenant Saeedi swore.
Part of Pistachio’s jaw seemed broken. “Hospital,” he pleaded.
“Hang on, Pistachio,” Lieutenant Saeedi said. “We’re going to fix you up and get the bastards who did this to you!”
“Hospital,” Pistachio said weakly.
Major Khan brought his rifle up to his shoulder.
“Aww, no,” Lieutenant Saeedi said. “We have to get him to a hospital.”
Pistachio groaned.
Major Khan pulled the trigger.
“No!” Lieutenant Saeedi cried. Tears ran down his face. “You killed Pistachio!”
“That’s what friends are for.” Major Khan walked to the Range Rover.
“You coldhearted bastard! You’re just going to walk away from Pistachio?!”
Major Khan stopped and turned around. “You think I’m happy about losing him?”
“Say his name: Pistachio.”
“Get in the car.”
“Say Pistachio!”
“Let it go.”
“You can’t say Pistachio’s name because you just killed him!”
“There’s nothing we can do about it here.”
“There’s something we can do about it!”
Major Khan stared hard through Lieutenant Saeedi, waiting for a suggestion.
“We can say something in honor of him,” Lieutenant Saeedi reasoned.
“You do that.” Major Khan returned to the truck, sat inside, and slammed the door.
Lieutenant Saeedi stood alone shivering, wet and bawling like a baby over Pistachio’s corpse.