“Look for a deep wadi,” I ordered, as the second Reaper banked toward us on an attack run. The desert around us was rocky and flat, like Mars, but there had to be a wadi somewhere. If only we had those Apollo three-dimensional topo maps now.
Muzzle flashes as the ISIS technicals hit the Humvee, but nothing exploded.
“Contact! Six o’clock,” I said, walking the fifty-cal’s tracers into the lead technical. The shooting stopped and the gunner’s body fell overboard. The man in the navigator’s seat skillfully slid out the door window and took up the gunner’s position. Firing resumed. Bullets zinged around my head.
My fifty-cal jammed.
Shit. I worked the bolt lever to recycle the round. “Can’t we go any faster?”
“Wadi, eleven o’clock, half a klick,” Boon said.
“Get us there. Warp speed.”
The Reaper was closing, about to fire.
We swerved left, but I couldn’t see a wadi, just desert. The zinging was increasing. Four jet trails from the Reaper, heading right for us.
“Reaper firing!”
“Buckle up!” Boon yelled.
Then we were airborne, a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. Humvees should never be airborne. We hit like a ton of concrete, ten feet below the ground, earth on both sides of us, as the Hellfires swished overhead and exploded with a vicious roar. I heard Marhaz scream from the impact, both hands on her pregnant belly, but we were in a tight wadi, traveling fifty mph, and there was no time to check on her as our left-side mirror was sheared off. We were scraping the wall at speed.
Two ISIS vehicles also made the leap into the wadi, closing fast. The tiny ravine offered us some protection from the Reaper, but not completely. It circled above us, stalking its prey.
I glanced around the Humvee cabin. Marhaz was staring at the ceiling and clutching her seat and belly.
“Take this,” Farhan said, handing me four blocks of C-4 and a C-4 squirrel taped together with a short fuze.
A satchel charge.
I grabbed the explosive and popped up the turret. The nose of the lead Toyota was less than ten meters behind us, snaking around the turns. He fired on me, and I ducked.
“Fire in the hole!” I shouted, pulling the fuze and holding the satchel charge. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, I counted as the Humvee cut left and right, following the contours of the dry river bed.
Four thousand, five thousand. If I threw it too soon, the ISIS vehicles would drive right over the charge before it blew. If I held it too long . . .
“Now!” Farhan yelled.
Six thousand. “Fire in the hole!” I shouted, starting to toss the satchel charge, but the Hummer hit a rut and the charge bounced out of my hand.
Seven thousand. Oh shit. Eight thousand. The satchel charge was stuck in the camo net strapped to our tailgate.
Nine thousand. I lunged forward to push the satchel charge off with the tip of my SCAR rifle, swaying with the vehicle as it swerved around the oxbows. I heard the bullets impact around me, puncturing the spare tire strapped to our rear.
Ten thousand. It was gonna blow.
Buddha calm, Tom, I thought, closing my eyes and nudging the C-4 with my rifle barrel. We hit another bump hard, sending the charge and me flying. Time slowed as I grabbed a cargo strap and saw the satchel tumble to the wadi floor.
Thank you, Ogun, I thought.
I felt the explosion before I heard it. The concussive wave lifted the technical off its wheels with a deafening boom. It lifted me, too, and I slammed into our fifty-caliber’s deflective guard, the only thing that saved me from being catapulted a hundred meters into the desert.
Pain in my head. Ears. Side. The vehicle moved beneath me and I slunk down the turret hatch, falling headfirst into the cabin. Warm blood streamed over my face, in my eyes, through my hair. A hand was shaking my shoulder. The ringing in my ears drowned out all noise.
“Are you all right? Are you all right?”
We were slowing down now, but I wasn’t all right. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to vomit. Battle focus.
“Enemy down,” I heard Boon say over the radio. He seemed a million miles away, but I knew that was the ringing in my head. My driver smiled. The blast must have wiped out the ISIS lead vehicle and buried the other one in the wadi’s walls like that World War I trench in Verdun, France. An artillery shell hit near the trench, and the concussion buried the men alive. All that remained were the top inches of their rifles, in a line, a fitting fuck-you to a terrible war.
“Sitrep?” I gasped over the radio.
“We are free and clear,” Boon said.
“Charlie Mike,” I said. Continue mission.
“Wildman?” I said. “You still there?”
“Roger dodger!” He was now singing some Beatles song. “I am the Walrus.”
“We lost our gunner. Boon, anyone injured?”
“Negative, lead vehicle,” Boon said.
Marhaz was grimacing, one hand on her belly and the other on the Humvee’s roof as the vehicle lurched side to side with the riverbed. Farhan reached behind and put a hand on her thigh, trying to reassure her.
“Boon, slow down,” I said. “And get us out of this wadi.”
I had a phone call to make. Probably the most important call of my life.