Jericho 3

by Paul McKellips

“Dr. Ja’far…do you have any more questions?” Kazi asked as Ja’far walked away.

  Kazi nodded to one of the captors.

  “Right now, Dr. Banks.”

  Banks sensed the motion and felt the cold steel as a single AK-47 gunshot broke the village calm and jarred the burka-clad woman momentarily from her ether sleep and recovery.

  Paktya Regional Hospital

  FOB Thunder

  Afghanistan

  The PA speakers above Thunder and Lightning crackled to life simultaneously, Pashtu on the Afghan base and English on the American base.

  “.”

  “Drill, drill, drill.”

  Camp was sitting with Billy Finn, Captain Henry and Captain Sylvia Dawkins in the middle dining room of the DFAC when the PA announcement came in.

  “Are you kidding me? My omelet is still hot. I thought this thing was gonna happen at 0930,” Camp jawed as he pushed back from the table and stood.

  “It’s the first time in history the Afghans have done anything early,” Henry quipped.

  Dawkins grabbed her US Air Force-issued Nikon D3S and stood as Finn kept eating.

  “I’ll take care of your trays while you three go play disaster triage with your Afghan buddies,” Finn said as he reached over and forked a bite of Camp’s fresh cheese and mushroom omelet.

  Miriam was waiting at the gate outside of Terp Village as Camp, Henry and Sylvia Dawkins ran up. Ten medics from Captain Henry’s team rushed through the turnstile one at a time, running down the gravel path between T-walls, past two Nepali Gurkha guards and across the street to the Paktya Regional Hospital.

  Barracks building 59 on Thunder opened up as a steady stream of bearded Afghan men in military uniforms ran down the hill between enlisted barracks, and through the open field and over to the hospital. Unlike their American counterparts, the Afghans did not carry weapons.

  Miriam was bundled up in a winter parka and stayed her typical 10-foot distance behind Camp and Henry as they jogged over to the front entry doors of the hospital.

  Two Ford Ranger ambulances were staged in the parking lot and another five Ford Ranger army trucks were loaded with Afghan men pretending to have various forms of injuries and wounds.

  The main lobby of the hospital was quickly converted to a disaster triage center. More seriously wounded “patients” were wheeled down the long fluorescent-lit corridor to the ER or alternatively, over to the sparsely-equipped and seldom sterile operating room. Minor injury patients were treated in the lobby.

  American military medics mentored their Afghan counterparts as each team’s Terp translated between Pashtu and English. The scene was chaotic. Aside from occasional laughter from some of the Afghan soldiers who were medics by assignment, rather than by interest or training, the drill unfolded flawlessly.

  Miriam retreated to her cubicle behind the lobby wall and desk but close enough and within earshot of Camp if he needed translation services. Unlike Captain Henry, Camp was largely unengaged and somewhat disinterested in the whole training exercise. It came with the new turf, but his main job was to find Major Banks.

  Miriam removed her winter parka and placed it on the back of her desk chair. She had modified her sweater vest earlier in the morning. She had configured a solitary green fabric strap that lifted up from the left side of her vest, wrapped around and behind her neck, then connected back down to the front right side of her sweater vest like a halter. The straps were sown into the vest where three empty water bottles sat snugly in three neatly sewn pockets.

  Miriam reached over and pulled the vase on her desk closer and removed the artificial flowers. Camp looked over briefly and smiled as Miriam admired her flowers.

  The lobby was overflowing with emergency orders and instructions yelled out in two different languages. No one heard Miriam pour the glass beads into the three empty water bottles – a bead that had been deposited into the vase each day for almost four years – and born from a single bead necklace worn one day and replenished the next.

  Out of the top center drawer, Miriam removed two packages of cotton shoe laces she had purchased from one of the Haji stores in Terp Village. She had spent several long nights in her Terp Village hooch corning the black powder she had scoured for on Thunder. Using water as a binder, she had dried the black powder into cakes, crushed them again and again, and screened them into smaller sizes. The fine-grained, dried slurry of black powder covered the cotton shoelaces along with a light coating of glue from the hospital’s supply cabinet, and together created an archaic black match fuse with an ignition burn rate of nearly 20-feet per second.

  The cotton shoelace had 10 inches of common single stem on top. Three extending stems were sewn together into the common stem, and all were covered and prepped with the dried slurry. Miriam staged each of the coupled stems down through the narrow slits she had cut into the blue plastic water bottle caps and then into the glass bead-filled water bottles already sitting in their customized pockets in her colorful wool vest.

  She removed the iced tea bottle from her lower desk drawer, unscrewed the cap and emptied a new flask of oriental spice perfume into the bottle. She poured the mixture into the water bottles where it blended with the beads and the dried slurry laces. Miriam gently screwed the blue plastic caps back onto the water bottles.

  She waited for several minutes until she saw him coming.

  Dr. Mahmoud walked quietly down the long corridor and into the front lobby so he could inspect the triage drill. She bowed her head, said a quick prayer, then reached back to grab her parka. She put both arms in and zipped the parka up a few inches.

  Camp looked over at Miriam and smiled again.

  “What’s the Pashtu word for cold?” he shouted to Miriam over the mayhem and din in the lobby.

  “Same as in English…brrrrr,” Miriam laughed without the slightest hint of betrayal in her voice.

  Miriam got up and walked around the six-foot wall separating her cubicle from the front desk. She moved past triage cots where more than 40 Americans, Afghan soldiers and local Paktya role-players were conducting the emergency drill. She stepped to the center of the room.

  She stopped.

  Without speaking a word she reached into the pocket of her parka and pulled out a cigarette lighter she had found discarded on the picnic table between Terp Village and the checkpoint.

  “What’s up with Miriam?” Camp whispered to Sylvia Dawkins who was sitting next to him as she snapped photos for her Armed Forces Network story.

  Camp’s legs froze in situational awareness cement as Miriam lit the dried slurry cotton shoe lace that peeked out from the parka zipper. The flame raced up her coat and disappeared.

  The initial “explosion” sounded more like a muffled backfire from an old pick-up truck.

  The parka expanded with a violent heave of gas vapor then flames shot up through the collar, out the sleeves and through the zipper as Miriam screamed in pain.

  Camp found his legs and after two steps was airborne through the front lobby until his body came crashing down on Miriam. The lobby erupted in panic as 40 people jumped for cover and 10 medics reached for M9s and M4s.

  Sylvia Dawkins kept shooting photos.

  Camp smothered Miriam with as much force as possible. In a split second, he wondered if he would actually hear the final detonation or feel his body disintegrating into a thousand tiny little pieces.

  Flames poured through the open spaces between Camp’s arms and chest as an Army medic standing nearby grabbed a blanket and jumped onto the burning contortion of US Navy Captain “Camp” Campbell and Miriam the interpreter who was buried and hidden on the cement floor in a melting parka.

  The flames were extinguished. The room was eerily silent. Everyone waited for the final blast that never came.

  Camp rolled off of Miriam. His hands were burned and his uniform was smoldering and frayed.

  Miriam moaned in pain. She was alive but semi-conscious.

  The medics rushed over. Two medics tri
ed to attend to Camp before he brushed them aside. Four others went to Miriam. They gently cut off the remains of her parka and rolled her over. The three water bottles had melted to her chest. The glass beads were still perfectly lodged against her chest as they carefully removed the improvised explosive device from around her neck.

  “SECURE THIS BUILDING. No one leaves. No cell phones. No comms. No one moves,” Camp yelled as he got to his feet. “Everybody go to red.” The words echoed in the cinder-block hospital as medics took their weapons off of safety.

  “She’s alive, Captain,” one of the medics yelled.

  “Get her down to the ER,” Camp said as he ran next to the cot she was being carried on.

  Miriam was delusional, moaning, and trying to speak. She was saying something in Pashtu.

  “English, Miriam,” Camp prodded as they hurried down the single fluorescent lined corridor.

  “My husband,” she uttered through her brown crusted face which had already started to swell.

  “Your husband? Did he make you do this?” Camp yelled through her moans as she started to go into shock.

  Inside the ER, Camp grabbed an intubation tube as Miriam was moved to a gurney. She writhed violently as Camp jammed the tube up her nose to make sure her airway stayed open before for massive swelling set in.

  The medics moved in to cut away the clothing that hadn’t already melted to her skin.

  Camp checked her vitals on both wrists and ankles.

  “Check out her right arm, sergeant, she’s going to need an escharotomy, or we’ll lose that pulse,” Camp barked to the lead medic.

  “I don’t think I can do that, captain.”

  “Better learn quickly.”

  Captain Henry ran in from the drill location in the operating room down the other corridor and just in time to see the carnage in the ER.

  “Get me a scalpel and some large dressings, sergeant,” Henry barked. “Someone take a look at the captain’s hands.”

  Camp was already on the cell phone he was issued at Bagram.

  “Finn! Get over to the hospital now! We’ve had an attempted homicide bombing.”

  “What the hell?” Finn said as he got up from his table in the DFAC and sprinted out the back door with his phone glued to his ear.

  “Finn, find some C4 and bring it.”

  “Where the hell am I supposed to - .”

  Camp hung up as Finn changed directions and ran toward the EOD B-hut.

  “Captain Dawkins!” he screamed down the corridor. Sylvia Dawkins came running carrying her Nikon with M9 pistol still in her thigh holster, while six other American medics stood guard in the lobby with weapons pointed at Afghan army soldiers, hospital workers and the local citizens who were participating in the drill.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to need a story and some photos ASAP. This is going to be released to the Afghans only. Do NOT send it up the chain for approval. This is not for Coalition Forces. Afghan eyes only!” Camp yelled.

  “Sir?”

  “That’s a direct order, captain.”

  “Roger, sir, I have some great photos. Do you want me to run back to the PAO shop now?”

  “Negative. Write your story here from the ER computer. But there’ll be a few more photos to take.”

  Billy Finn came running down the corridor with two Explosive Ordnance Disposal soldiers from the 753rd National Guard unit out of West Virginia.

  “Holy shit!” Finn said as he rounded the corner into the ER where Miriam was being treated and Camp managed the disaster wearing a burned uniform.

  “Dawkins come here,” Camp said as he pulled Finn, the two EOD soldiers and the Public Affairs Officer against the wall opposite of where Miriam was being treated. “I need an explosion outside the front door of the hospital. Big, but not ridiculous.”

  “Sir, is this authorized?” asked one of the EOD technicians.

  “I’m your authorization, sergeant. Dawkins, I need you to get a photograph of the blast.”

  “Photograph, my ass, all of Thunder and Lightning will go ape-shit, Camp. What the hell are you thinking?” Finn asked.

  “Miriam was sent to blow this place up. For all they know she will, and she’ll be dead. Give them what they want. If we can keep Miriam alive, we might be able to find Banks.”

  “Sir, what about damage to the building?” the EOD sergeant asked.

  “Put the brick far enough out that it soils the wall and blows out a few windows. Finn, move everyone into the operating room and away from the front and the glass.”

  “Camp, what about the Afghan soldiers and locals out there?”

  “Don’t worry about them, Finn, they still think this is all a drill.”

  “What about the story, captain?” Dawkins asked as she prepared her story.

  “Suicide bomber detonates at the Paktya Regional Hospital today, killing an undisclosed number of Afghan soldiers, locals from Gardez and some American military personnel. Tell them no one has claimed responsibility for the bombing. Tell me about the local media here, Dawkins.”

  “Well, sir, Radio Television Afghanistan has terrestrial TV and a long-reach radio signal. Al Aribya is here as is Al Jezeera. Not much in the way of print.”

  “Good. Get the story over to the Afghan PAO and have him distribute with photos immediately. I want this on their TV news and radio within an hour. Don’t let anyone else beat you with the story, Dawkins. Finn, I need 10 minutes before detonation.”

  Finn and Dawkins ran down the corridor as the EODs followed behind. Finn cleared out the front lobby and moved everyone over to the operating room.

  “Captain Henry, we need to get Miriam loaded into an MRAP and over to the clinic on Lightning,” Camp yelled as chaos in the ER became more intense.

  “Roger that, we should be ready in 30 minutes,” Henry said as he applied loose bandages to the new incision on Miriam’s right arm.

  “We don’t have 30, gotta be now. No ambulance, sirens, or lights, and no urgency as we move through the checkpoint.”

  “Roger.”

  “They’re going to have plenty of fireworks to respond to in a few minutes.” Camp walked out the back door of the ER to look for a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle he could borrow for a quick ride.

  FOB Lightning – XO’s B-Hut

  Paktya Province, Afghanistan

  Colonel Kierkendahl paced back and forth in front of his desk as Camp, Finn and PAO Dawkins sat around his conference table.

  “You walk onto my base and start blowing up Afghan hospitals like you’re Dustin Hoffman or something. Who the hell do you think you are, Campbell?”

  “I wasn’t the would-be suicide bomber, colonel. That was the interpreter your boys cleared, vetted, housed and fed for the last four years,” Camp said with obvious contempt.

  “We’ve got all of the Afghans on Thunder in full code red, Lightning is on lockdown, and I’m stuck here with the mission creep producers of Wag the Afghan Dog. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “I’d wait it out, professor. Never know what snake might crawl out of the hole on his belly to claim responsibility,” Finn replied with a not-so-subtle jab at the Minnesota National Guardsman and his day job at Gustavus Adolphus College.

  Dawkins’ cell phone rang.

  “Got it. Thank you,” she said as she ended the call. “RTA just ran the story. Photos are up on TV, and Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera are running it shortly.”

  “Running what?” Kierkendahl demanded as he pounded his desk.

  “Suicide bomber detonates at the Paktya Regional Hospital, undisclosed number of Afghan soldiers, locals and American military killed,” Dawkins said as she recited some of her copy.

  “That’s it! I’ve had enough of this wild, wild west crap from you two. I want you off my FOB first light tomorrow.”

  Finn and Camp looked at each other and smiled.

  “Oh how we’d love that, colonel,” Finn said sarcastically, “but no can do.”

 
The colonel’s desk phone started to ring.

  “Colonel Kierkendahl…yes, yes good afternoon General Ferguson…yes, sir…they’re in my office right now…so you’ve been briefed?…yes sir, but do you realize what these two have…come again, sir?...Roger that, sir.”

  Kierkendahl hung up the phone and sat down in the chair behind his desk and swiveled around so that his back faced the others. He sat silently for several seconds then exhaled loudly.

  “Let me know what you need. My assets are at your disposal.”

  Dawkins looked over at Camp and Finn with astonishment as Camp stood.

  “What about Miriam the Terp?” Camp asked Colonel Kierkendahl.

  “You mean the one RTA is reporting as dead? You saved her life then killed her off for the entire world to see. Looks like she’s your problem now, Captain Campbell. Dismissed.”

  * * *

  9

  * * *

  National Interagency Biodefense Center

  BSL-4 Facility

  Fort Detrick, Maryland

  A crowd of 14 protesters with signs and posters were gathered outside the main gate to Fort Detrick as Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines pulled her Jeep Wrangler into the checkpoint queue. The Jeep window was already down so Raines could hand her credentials to security when a protester started shouting at her.

  “Rot in hell, lady, you animal killer!”

  Raines never looked at the young man who was hurling the venomous insults.

  “Here we go again,” she complained quietly as her nails tapped the steering wheel.

  Dr. Groenwald was doctoring up his grande mocha with a double shot of espresso at the atrium coffee bar in the Integrated Research Facility when Raines walked up.

  “Good morning, Colonel Raines. I would have gotten you a tall skinny if I knew you were here already.”

  “Who sent the greeting committee?” Raines asked as she got in line.

  “Pardon me?

  “The animal rights protesters at the gate…is today PETA day?”

  Groenwald put the plastic lid back on his cup after three more packets of raw brown sugar and stood in line next to Raines.