“Get the fuckers!” Bear screamed. He was already in his turret, firing the 40 mm Mk 19 chain-link grenade launcher into the breach point. He must have moved while I was staring at the suicide boy. I guess he’d seen it before, but that was my first time, and you never forget your first time for something like that.
I flipped my SCAR’s safety to auto and unloaded half a magazine at the nearest technical, blowing out its tires. It slammed sideways into the container wall, and I switched to semi.
Pop, pop, pop. Three head shots.
“Yaaaaaaaah!!” Wildman yelled, firing his fifty-cal as their Humvee zoomed past me, destroying a technical in the breach, effectively plugging it.
“Fox Two One, Fox Two One, over,” I shouted into my radio, calling for my driver. No answer.
An explosion, behind me, from the central building.
“RPG, ten o’clock,” someone shouted. “Behind the bladders.”
Bear’s mercs laid down suppressive fire, riddling the two-thousand-liter bladders that had held their water supply. Water gushing out, turning sand to mud. Someone tossed a grenade onto the ISIS position. The RPG team tried to run, but slipped in the sludge. The grenade detonated, splashing water and ISIS in a fifteen-meter radius.
It was clear the surprise attack wasn’t going to succeed. The mercs were putting up a ferocious fight, cornered but more skilled than their attackers. The wreckage of two burning technicals blocked the breach point, making it difficult for more vehicles to enter the base. But there was a hell of a lot of ISIS firepower already inside the wire, and I didn’t want this battle of attrition.
Bear must have been thinking the same thing, because I heard him yelling, “Forward. Snuff the fuckers! Push them out,” as I turned toward the warehouse where Kylah, Farhan, and Marhaz had taken cover from the morning heat.
It was on fire. Smoke obscured the rear quarter of the building. Marhaz, I thought, surprising myself.
I sprinted across the dirt track into the burning building. I could feel the bullets around me. Three ISIS followed me inside.
“Down!” I heard, and dove. Three shots zinged overhead and three bodies dropped behind me. I looked up to see Farhan lowering his Kalashnikov.
“Are you all right?” he asked. I got to my feet and followed him down the hall.
“Kylah!” I shouted. “Marhaz!”
“Here,” Kylah yelled. “We’re here.”
I ran down the hall and turned into the last room. Marhaz was huddled on the floor while Kylah stood against the wall beside a window, AK-47 in her hands. She gestured outside; a stopped ISIS technical.
Kylah nodded to me. “On three,” she said.
I took up a firing stance and flipped my safety to semiautomatic. “One, two—”
Kylah smashed the window with her rifle butt and emptied her magazine on full auto, peppering the truck. I took my time. Pop, pop, pop, a round for the gunner, two for the driver. The man in the passenger seat slid out and went behind some crates.
Kylah showed me a grenade.
“Was that in your med kit?” I asked.
She gave a shrewd look and pulled the pin. “Cover!”
Farhan dropped to cover Marhaz with his body. The technical exploded, and the shock wave blew out the remains of the window. The opening was drawing smoke into the room around us, so I turned and gave my do-rag to Marhaz.
“We’re going,” I said, as Kylah climbed out first, then Farhan, who helped his pregnant wife over the sill while Kylah covered them.
“Boon, this is Locke. Still there?” I said over the radio.
“Roger, buddy.”
Thank God, I thought.
“I need a pickup ASAP. Four pax, east side of main building.”
“I got you,” he said, as I slid out the window before the smoke choked me. Bullets hit the window frame, too close.
“Where’s it coming from?” Kylah asked, her body shielding Marhaz.
I saw him twenty meters away, behind more crates in a supply area, and I knew I wasn’t going to get around on him fast enough, but the crates blew apart as Boon’s Humvee passed the corner of the building, Wildman standing through the roof, firing the fifty-cal.
Our second Humvee arrived two seconds later, one of the Kurds at the wheel.
“Inside,” I yelled at Marhaz and Farhan.
“Kylah,” Boon yelled, but she shook her head.
“I’m staying with the baby,” she said, as she tore open the passenger door and tried to physically push the pregnant woman inside.
Around the corner, I could hear a truck engine accelerating, and then an explosion.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” I yelled, picking Marhaz up.
“Farhan in the other vehicle!”
“No,” the prince yelled.
“There’s not enough room,” I said.
“Habibi!” Marhaz yelled, stuck in the door. She was covered in sweat. “Go. Do what he says.”
Instead, Farhan climbed into the front, taking my seat. Wildman opened up with his fifty-cal to cover us.
Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, came the reply, as bullets walked up the back of the Humvee.
“We’re going out,” I yelled to Boon, as I climbed over the prince and took up the turret.
My driver took off so fast I lost my footing, but I managed to fall inside. Rounds plunked off the sides of the vehicle. Part of the building collapsed, hit by automatic grenade launchers.
“Through the breach,” I yelled to Boon on the radio.
Bear’s mercs had pushed forward in my absence. There were still ISIS inside the compound, but the mercs had gotten to their Humvees and were rounding up for an advance. The first vehicle passed us, Bear grinning like a bastard, and we swept in behind him, second in line.
I knew we were going to hit resistance when we broke through the smoky container wall into the clear, and we did. The ISIS forces outside the wall opened up full auto and blocked our way. Bear’s vehicle swung hard right, driving along the container wall. We followed.
And then Bear’s vehicle exploded, as a massive vehicle rammed it into the container wall, nearly toppling the top container.
“Holy shit,” I yelled, as my driver skidded past the wreckage and spun halfway back toward where we had come from.
ISIS had captured a U.S. Army cargo “Hemmet,” a cross between a Humvee and an 18-wheeler, and converted it into a mobile gun fortress: six fifty-cals, two 40 mm grenade launchers, and a squad of RPGs, surrounded by steel plates welded to its sides. The vehicle rolled on eight wheels, each the size of a man, and had a dozer blade affixed to its front. As it backed away from Bear’s crushed Humvee—no survivors, I thought sadly, no way—I could see twin black ISIS flags flying just behind the cab, and Koranic verse scrawled in Arabic along the sides. When it turned toward us, I saw English words written across the bulletproof windshield: Martyr Maker.
One of its fifty-cals turned toward us, as the Martyr Maker started to plow forward. Then all six of its fifties and automatic grenade launchers swung in our direction.
“Get us out of here,” I yelled to my driver. “Go, go, go, go, go.”