Weapons of Mass Destruction

by Margaret Vandenburg

  Sinclair’s main objective was backing up Percy’s SMAW. Without artillery support, it was their only ticket out of there. Necessity had honed his peripheral vision, allowing him to keep an eye on the garden, just in case. He saw a lizard flicking its tongue on the wall, but the man had disappeared. Burning bushes were scattered helter-skelter, their charred roots exposed. A limp tomato plant dangled from electrical wires overhead. Still no sign of the lone man. Clouds of dust and debris continued to settle in the wake of Percy’s bull’s-eye. The sun broke through, dappling the ruined garden. Suddenly the man jumped back into view. He looked heavenward. Blinding light illuminated his face.

  He started sprinting in slow motion toward Sinclair’s stronghold. He wasn’t bulky after all, and he hadn’t been wearing a jacket. Dozens of pounds of explosives were strapped to his torso. Everything else moved at the speed of lethal lightning—bullets ricocheting everywhere, pocking walls and coughing concrete clouds into smoky rooms shuddering from the impact of grenades pelting the roof like hail in a maelstrom—but this one man emerged unhurried and unscathed as though walking on water, the vortex swirling beneath him, above him, around him, but nowhere near him. Sinclair was pinned against the window frame, unable to retaliate without exposing himself to cross fire. The rest of the squad must have been equally besieged, allowing the man to keep floating toward him, so close now the beatific expression on his face came into focus, a serene ecstasy radiating from eyes that seemed to actually see Sinclair shrinking in terror more from the act of suicide than the fact of the bombs on his body. The expression was unfathomable. He had expected mania, not tranquility, fanatical compulsion rather than self-possession.

  The specter that had haunted Sinclair since Pete’s suicide confronted him not with nihilistic despair but with the pure clarity of conviction he himself so fervently desired. If anything, excess of faith motivated this headlong dive into death. Sinclair locked eyes with the bomber. It was more like looking into a mirror than into a void. The same expression of pure conviction must have shone in the jihadists’ eyes as they slammed into the Twin Towers. Horror eclipsed Sinclair’s fleeting identification with the enemy. He needed to believe that there was a difference between their ethic and his. Between their God and his. The sound of his buddies fighting for their lives roused him. They were soldiers, not martyrs. They had come face to face not with fellow Crusaders but with the nemesis of everything America stood for. Fanatics, not freedom fighters. Enemies of life and liberty.

  Sinclair dodged into the window, leaving himself fully exposed to take his best shot. Firing multiple rounds into the torso of the bomber would have raised the odds in his favor. But he couldn’t risk detonating the explosives strapped to the man’s body. He aimed squarely at his mouth, precisely where Pete aimed the barrel of his shotgun to ensure the most lethal discharge. But it was too late. A split second before he pulled the trigger, the man managed to slip around the corner of the compound. Everything depended on anticipating his next move. Sinclair turned and raised his rifle just in time to blow the man’s head off as he ran through the door.

  “Fucking A,” Percy yelled across the room. “I never even saw him coming.”

  Percy admired Sinclair’s handiwork without breaking stride. The SMAW was reloaded and ready to fire within seconds of the attack. Sinclair was back at the window, covering him. They couldn’t afford to suspend their assault. But leaving a body strapped with explosives on the threshold posed almost as great a threat as the enemy gunners next door. A stray bullet could hit his trigger switch, sending them all sky high to meet their respective makers. Sinclair shouted over and over into his headset, trying to reach Wolf. He feared the worst until a deadpan voice finally crackled back at him. When things really heated up, Wolf’s sangfroid helped cool the squad down.

  “Wolf’s busy. Can I take a message?”

  “Cut the crap. We’ve got a dead bomber down here, ready to blow.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Wolf and McCarthy sidled down the stairs. They crab-walked across the room and flattened themselves against either side of the door. Wolf signaled McCarthy to stay put. He squatted and grabbed a splayed leg, testing the corpse’s weight. Too heavy to heave. Wolf caught Percy’s eye and pointed at the roof of the enemy compound. Percy nodded. He repositioned his weapon, angling it higher than usual. There was no way to actually pick off the RPG launchers on the roof. But targeting the parapet would temporarily stop them from dropping grenades as the team ventured into the garden.

  Wolf gave the signal and Sinclair let loose with his automatic. Percy used the cover to lean out farther than usual, delivering a clean shot to the roof. The blast blotted out the sun. McCarthy and Wolf threw a couple of grenades into the garden. The space between the two compounds was choked with smoke, obscuring their movements. They grabbed the bomber’s legs and dragged him back across the garden, all the way to the wall, then sprinted back and dove through the door. Everybody hit the deck, waiting for an enemy RPG to detonate the bomber’s body. Shrapnel flew through the windows, scarring the walls. A chunk of metal seared into Percy’s thigh. They all stared at it, not sure what to do, until Trapp appeared out of nowhere. He never failed to show up when someone was wounded. He clenched the pair of pliers he always carried in his medic bag.

  “Hold him down!” Trapp shouted.

  McCarthy and Wolf held his arms and braced themselves. Percy tried not to scream as Trapp pulled the smoldering metal from his leg. Luckily his charred flesh stanched the bleeding. Trapp started dressing the wound, but Percy waved him off. He was already shouldering his SMAW, oblivious to his injury. With death so close at hand, being wounded was a luxury. Pain was weakness leaving the body.

  McCarthy and Trapp prepared to return upstairs, where Logan was trying to simulate the firepower of an entire squad. Their only hope was to fend off the attack long enough for Percy’s SMAW to prevail. His persistence was paying off. One corner of the enemy compound was completely blown away. Water gushed from a floor suspended over what was left of the foundation. The building was on the verge of collapsing, crushing everyone inside. The enemy was apparently prepared to go down with their ship. They were either courageous or stupid. The distinction between the two often melted in the heat of battle.

  “Stay put!” Wolf ordered.

  “Logan needs backup,” Trapp hollered.

  “Logan needs to get his ass down here,” Wolf said into his headset. “On the double.”

  “Yessir,” Logan confirmed.

  The logic of Wolf’s strategy escaped them. There wasn’t even enough room for all their weapons at the living room windows. Only Percy, who was also trained in demolition, understood that the architectural integrity of the neighboring compound had finally been sufficiently compromised to collapse. Wolf wanted them all together, poised and ready to evacuate. Radetzky’s squad was just two blocks west, occupying a far more defensible building. If Wolf could get his men there in one piece, they’d have a better shot at surviving the cease-fire. Given Fallujah’s chronic volatility, he found it hard to believe Operation Vigilant Resolve would be permanently suspended, political posturing notwithstanding. Surely the Pentagon wouldn’t roll over and let them all get fucked by executive privilege. Somebody somewhere needed to make up his mind. They were either at war, or they weren’t.

  Logan came clambering down the stairs, his automatic strapped to his back. Sinclair and Wolf continued to provide cover for Percy. Trapp, McCarthy, and Logan queued up at the door, ready to roll. Timing was crucial. If they evacuated too soon, they’d be sitting ducks. Insurgents were still battering their building with machine guns and grenades. Waiting too long could prove equally deadly. The instant the enemy compound gave way, they’d have to be in transit to elude falling debris. Wolf raised his arm. Percy’s SMAW hit home. Wolf’s arm dropped and they all rushed out the door.

  Sinclair followed Trapp. At first he thought they had jumped the gun. The air wasn’t yet choked with death and destruct
ion. But Wolf had timed everything perfectly. Glancing over his shoulder, Sinclair caught his last glimpse of the compound, wavering like a mirage in an impossibly blue sky. Suspended in time and space, it seemed to hold its breath not so much in terror as in disbelief. In war zones, buildings exploded. They burned to the ground. They didn’t disintegrate into shimmering dust, falling almost delicately the way confetti descends from the heavens in ticker-tape parades. Déjà vu. Sinclair had an uncanny feeling that he had already witnessed just such a building collapse on just such a sublime morning. There had never been a more beautiful day. Both buildings hovered on the brink of improbability before plummeting into the inferno. Twin Towers.

  Sinclair watched 9/11 on TV from what had once been the safety of his fraternity’s living room. A stray plane hit the north tower. A terrible accident. The second plane slammed into the south tower. The apparent accident was actually premeditated mass murder. Living rooms would never be safe again, let alone skyscrapers. Americans couldn’t tear themselves away from the spectacle, broadcast on screens from coast to coast. Even New Yorkers tuned in, if they were lucky, to verify what they couldn’t believe they were seeing with their own eyes. The same footage aired over and over, one tower and then the other literally melting into thin air, without warning, just smoke leaking from a few isolated floors more like a campfire than a conflagration. The sky above remained preternaturally blue until the buildings dropped like bombs on Ground Zero, exploding through streets too narrow to contain the sheer volume of wreckage. Darting through the debris with his squad, Sinclair bore witness not to the destruction of a Fallujan family’s home but to the carnage of 9/11. The sight of the one conjured up the other, steeling his purpose.

  “It’s payback time!”

  They scrambled over rubble, expecting to take fire from the west. Lookouts had spotted enemy gunners in at least one of the two compounds en route to Radetzky’s stronghold. Both would have to be cleared in transit. Dust clouds still compromised visibility, but the enemy knew their destination as well as they did. The Iraqi resistance had come a long way over the past year. Ragtag bands of disgruntled Ba’athists and foreign fanatics coordinated their efforts, united against the United States. A steady barrage of bullets guarded access to the next target compound. What looked like the squad’s only strategic option had been cut off.

  “Fatal funnel!”

  “Shit!”

  “Shadow me—”

  The squad followed Wolf’s lead, diving over a low wall to avoid the ambush. They all tried to roll back onto their feet, as he did, in one fluid motion. McCarthy was the least athletic. He crashed and burned and swore a blue streak before regaining his equilibrium. Percy was encumbered by his SMAW. Sinclair paused to help hoist him over and then ducked instinctively before diving over himself. Their cover was dissipating rapidly as the dust settled. Zigzagging in single file to reduce the threat of exposure, they ran for their lives. Their destination, the lip of a balcony, provided a modicum of cover. Plastered against the north wall of the compound, gasping for air, the squad prepared to outfox the next death threat.

  They resumed stack formation, Wolf bringing up the rear. McCarthy, who was a connoisseur of doors, always led the way. Some were flimsy and could be opened with a swift kick. Others, especially in upscale neighborhoods, had to be blown open. On routine patrols they had the luxury of stowing chain saws in their Bradleys. In full combat mode, they carried the tools of the trade on their backs. McCarthy was prepared to jerry-rig a fuse, but he had the wherewithal to try the knob first. The door was unlocked. Somebody wanted them to waltz right in.

  “Frag the fuckers,” Wolf ordered.

  McCarthy and Trapp grabbed grenades and lobbed them through the door, dodging the initial burst of shrapnel before storming inside. The room was ablaze far in excess of the combustive power of the grenades. The squad managed to skirt the flames, advancing to a far wall with a clear view of an open door leading to the kitchen. Sinclair put out Logan’s sleeve, which had caught fire. Smack in the middle of the living room, a gas canister still burned uncontrollably. A housewarming gift.

  “Storm the kitchen!”

  Wolf’s genius was his preemptive imagination. He was always five steps ahead of the enemy as well as his men. The hotter the spot, the more outrageous his orders, which were obeyed without hesitation. Anyone in their right mind would have waited until the canister fire died down, a dangerously predictable stratagem. As far as Wolf was concerned, sanity was overrated. Whoever left the flambé in the middle of the living room was cooking up something even worse in the kitchen. The squad needed to beat them to the draw, effectively ambushing the ambush. Wolf signaled Sinclair and Logan to watch their backs as they disappeared into the smoke.

  Left alone in the living room, Sinclair and Logan scrambled over to the only door in sight, staying low to minimize smoke inhalation. Logan covered the stairwell while Sinclair kicked in the door. The adjoining room was empty. With the exception of the kitchen, the main floor was clear. They proceeded up the stairs, cautiously at first. Then they switched tactics and rushed the rest of the way, firing rounds into an empty hallway flanked by four rooms. They pantomimed a plan and nodded in agreement. Logan would take the two rooms on the left, Sinclair the two on the right. The sooner they cleared the upstairs the sooner they could rejoin the shoot-out below. Judging from the volume of cross fire, Wolf’s team was outnumbered.

  They moved down the hallway, perfectly in sync. They loved fighting side by side but seldom got the chance. Sinclair usually worked alone, watching his buddies duke it out from his rooftop perches. His role was important, too. Everybody contributed. But he relished the opportunity to really get his hands dirty, especially with Logan. Guys like McCarthy whipped themselves into a frenzy. The more pumped up they got, the better they fought. Sinclair and Logan shared a more meditative approach to combat, favoring stealth over bluster. When things really clicked, they reached an almost trancelike state. Their way wasn’t necessarily exemplary. It just felt more noble to Sinclair and more holy to Logan.

  Wolf purposely paired them up, hoping they’d feed off each other’s fervor or whatever the hell it was. He could see it in their eyes. Logan in particular looked like an angel of death, a latter-day Abraham sacrificing Isaac on the altar of righteousness. Sinclair’s expression was more ecstatic than religious. Killing was primitive and ritualistic, an exalted form of hunting. Truth be told, his stories about bathing faces in the blood of slaughtered animals creeped out Wolf. But every soldier had his way of getting into the zone. As long as Allah wasn’t involved, Wolf suspended judgment. The important thing was to get there.

  Rifle fire rang out. An enemy gunner had been biding his time in one of the rooms at the end of the hallway, yet another ambush. Logan ducked into an open door on the left and started returning fire. His automatic overpowered the rifle, giving Sinclair the momentary cover he needed to smash through the first door on the right. He whirled in a circle, shooting from the hip to defend against anyone standing or crouching or hiding in what looked like a master bedroom. He didn’t hear the shot over the racket of his own gun, but he felt a tremendous blow against his chest. It must have been a pistol. A bigger weapon in such close proximity would have penetrated his body armor. Either he was lucky or the enemy was ill-equipped. It was too soon to tell.

  He kept spinning and firing, realizing too late that his automatic was too unwieldy for such intimate combat. Somebody tackled him from behind. He shoved his gun backward against the ribs of his assailant. Almost simultaneously, he felt the butt of the pistol smash his skull. Sinclair reeled but managed to take advantage of the blow. For that split second, he knew just where to find the pistol. He grabbed the man’s wrist and slammed it against the wall, sending the pistol skittering across the floor. The man pulled a knife and lunged at Sinclair, who had already unsheathed his. It was just the two of them, unencumbered by firearms.

  The knife was a gift from Pete’s dad, Eugene. Everyone else b
ack home had given him a hard time about enlisting in the Marine Corps. Eugene gave him a going-away present, complete with a tutorial on how to use it. Sinclair knew exactly what Pete would have said, had he still been alive. Nothing like being taught how to knife fight by a drunken Indian, yet another example of his father’s embarrassingly stereotypical behavior. Sinclair begged to differ. Pete’s dad was the only one brave enough to let bygones be bygones, acting more like a father than his own goddamned father. Eugene’s gift had saved his life more than once in Iraq.

  Eugene taught him everything he needed to know one August afternoon. Sinclair was due at boot camp in a week, and time was short. His instruction was completely unorthodox. Everybody else in the world thought the trick was to keep your opponent off balance. Eugene said everybody else in the world was wrong. Knife fights weren’t like fencing where you got points for looking pretty. All you had to do was stick the guy and stick him good. You could be falling over backward and still slice and dice the best of them. They’d be all smug, balanced on the balls of their feet, with their guts hanging out. Touché.

  They fought for hours on end, secluded in an abandoned barn. Beds of hay cushioned their falls. Sinclair had carried a knife since he was old enough to clean fish. Now the blade needed to become part of his body, a new and more deadly appendage to fend off Eugene. At first, too much was happening too quickly. Eugene’s limbs seemed to fly in every direction at once in random patterns. His blade glinted with the predictable unpredictability of a firefly. The minute you saw it in one place, it was in another, untraceable.

  “Ignore everything but the knife. Keep it simple.”

  The less Sinclair tried to follow Eugene’s every move, the more he was able to anticipate the next thrust of his knife. Everything started slowing down. He managed to insert himself into the action, finding fleeting slivers of unguarded air. Once he mastered a few offensive moves, they started working on psychological defense. Knives were more temperamental than firearms. Whether an Iraqi or an American fired a gun, the bullet maintained a strictly mechanical trajectory. Knives had personalities, nationalities, even socioeconomic backgrounds. Eugene started roleplaying, fighting like lumberjacks and punks, soldiers and terrorists.