The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  “Okay, boss, but you realize if we jump in the HUMVEE and go tooling off across the grass, we’re going to give whoever is waiting in the village an awfully long time to know that we’re coming. If they haven’t seen us already—and they might have, it’s amazing how good these natives’ night vision can be—they’ll hear us at least five or seven minutes out. That’s an awful long time to announce we’re coming if there are hostiles hiding there. Lots of time to hide or plan an ambush. Lots of time to lock us in their sights.”

  “Yeah,” Bono muttered. “And you know what really ticks me off. There’s no one hiding in the village. I’m sure there’s nothing there. I mean, look at it. If you were an Iraqi soldier and wanted to pop off a couple missiles at passing U.S. aircraft, can you think of a worse place to do it! No cover. No escape routes. No place to hide. You telling me those starving fishermen are going to offer you any help? What have they got to offer! A couple dry fish? I don’t know what our Apache driver saw, but if it was a missile it didn’t come from this place.”

  Sam nodded. He agreed. “But you know what will happen if we don’t check it out,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’ve been around long enough that I figure I do. If we don’t check out the village, if we don’t turn every stone and look behind every door, those aviation grunts will never relax. Every time they fly over this area, they’ll be on edge. They’ll zoom down and fly low, harassing these poor guys every chance that they get. One of their fly boys saw a missile and it was launched from here, so the first time they see smoke from the village fire or a flash of reflected light in the sun, bang! they’ll come in, their guns blazing to take care of this place.”

  Sam nodded sadly. It was true. As a grunt he had learned the value of a pause, the value of evaluating a situation completely before he lifted his gun. But the aviation guys weren’t so careful. They just didn’t have the time. And because of that, they were much more likely to pull their triggers on their missiles and guns. More, they were so much more vulnerable, sitting like metal ducks in the air. And they never saw the results of their bullets. Sam suspected it was impossible to fully appreciate the ugliness of death when one imposed it from the air.

  He stared at the village in the distance as he thought. “What do you propose?” he finally asked.

  Bono started unstrapping his web belt. He laid it on the bumper of the HUMVEE, then stripped down to his fatigue pants and boots. “I’m going to float down the river,” he explained as he walked to the rear of the HUMVEE where the tool kit was stowed. Pulling out a black garbage sack, he wrapped his BAR-15 assault rifle, then secured it with tape. “If I can get into the current, it will carry me across the channel and down to the village . . . ”

  “Unless you miss it, and then some oil tanker will find you somewhere off the coast of Kuwait,” Sam replied. He knew the river was fast and deep in the middle.

  “Yeah. Unless that happens. But assuming it doesn’t, then this is my plan. Give me ten minutes in the water, then fire up Bertha and head out across the road. Make lots of noise, gun the engine, whatever it takes to let them know you’re here. I’ll set myself up on the northwest shore, opposite of your approach. I don’t know for certain what kind of cover I’ll have, but I’m assuming there will be marsh and weeds, about like what we have here. I’ll keep in the cover, but get as close to the village as I can. You guys come screaming in. If any bad guys are there, I can cover you from their rear. If they try to retreat, we’ll have them surrounded . . . ”

  “Surrounded! With four men! And from only two positions?”

  “Whatever.”

  Sam looked at Bono, his dark face camouflaged to match the night. “You should take someone with you,” he said.

  “No. I won’t need it. I’m only acting as a safety value, you know, just in case it turns out I’m wrong. But I’m sure there’s no hostiles in this village. This will be nothing but a cakewalk, a chance for a nice moonlight swim.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “You know, sir, treading water for fifteen minutes in a snake-infested lagoon while holding a rifle and radio above the waterline to keep them from getting wet is hardly my idea of a good time. But hey, that’s just me. If this is the way you want to do it, then I’m with you, man.”

  Bono was slipping toward the water. “It’s cold,” he said.

  “Do you want me to—” Sam started to question, but it was already too late. The lieutenant had slipped through the marshes and already disappeared.

  Sam glanced at his watch. He fingered his radio nervously, then paced back and forth. He waited eight minutes before climbing into the HUMVEE. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “The boss said to give him ten minutes,” the other NCO answered.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sam shrugged. He hated the lieutenant being out there alone. He hated waiting. He hated being so far away from the boss. He counted to sixty. “Let’s go,” he said.

  They fired up the HUMVEE and headed out across the deeply rutted road. One man rode shotgun, standing at the open hatch at the roof. All of the men were wearing night vision goggles, and they kept their headlights off as they drove. No sense illuminating themselves like a target in case there were bad guys in the village. “Ranger One, what you got?” Sam questioned over his radio, but Bono didn’t answer, and Sam’s chest tightened up. It took longer than they had hoped to forge their way across the swampland, pushing dead tree trunks and palm leaves like a dozer before them, but they finally pulled into the village, their engine racing like a drag machine.

  They found the lieutenant waiting, sitting on a log next to the fire. The village leader was next to him, and the two men were talking like they were old friends. Bono motioned to his comrades as they came racing in. He pointed to the fire, where some fishes were frying on sticks that had been laid across the fire.

  The other Deltas got out and walked toward him.

  “So . . . I’m assuming there aren’t any bad guys?” Sam started to question.

  “Not so much as a pea shooter,” Bono answered him. “And Sayid ell-Marhsif here has assured me that he loves the Americans and would never aid the terrorists. He had four sons; they are all gone, taken by Saddam’s army. He has nothing but his fishing now. No grandchildren. No wife.”

  Sam bowed to the old man, who grinned toothlessly back at him.

  “And ell-Marhsif has been kind enough to offer us dinner,” Bono said.

  Sam looked down at the fish. “They look like carp.”

  “Yeah, but if you cook them long enough, they taste like chicken,” Bono said.

  * * *

  Standing in the Operations Center, Sam smiled as he remembered that first night on patrol. Yes, Bono had proven thorough, ingenious, and ready to think outside the box. He would do anything to get the job done. Put him in a firefight and he wouldn’t hesitate. But he cared about the Iraqi people almost as much as he cared about his own, and he had the reasoning ability to think about the larger picture at hand. If there was one thing Sam had learned, it was to respect and appreciate the opportunity to work with men such as that.

  Sam took a deep breath, then walked toward his friend. “What’s up?” he asked as he sat on a metal chair next to him.

  The lieutenant looked up. “Three hundred and eleven,” he replied.

  Sam stared straight ahead. “Fifty-four days to go.”

  “Unless I get extended.”

  Sam took out a handful of bubble gum, offered one to the lieutenant, then shoved a couple of pieces in his mouth. Double Bubble. Delicious. He’d been an avid chewer since his days in Little League. “Not going to happen,” he answered after softening the gum in his mouth. “You’re on your way home, my friend. They’re not extending soldiers any longer. They won’t keep you here more than your year.”

  The Mule smiled. “Boy, I hope so. Not that I don’t love you, you know that . . . ” he reached over and slapped a desert cockroach off his knee, “but baby, unless you’re willing to dye your hair blonde and start wearing a dress, then I
’m outta here.”

  Sam chewed, blew a little bubble, and nodded his head.

  The two men were quiet a minute, both of them lost in thought. Talk of home had a way of doing that.

  “Three hundred and eleven,” the lieutenant repeated after a while.

  “Fifty-four and counting,” Sam answered again.

  The unit radio crackled with static behind them and Bono looked at it, expecting something, but no voices came through.

  “You’ve got TOC duty all day?” Sam asked him.

  “Until noon, is all.”

  Sam motioned toward the nearly empty Operations Center. Two young specialists were working at computers, and there were some voices from behind the commander’s closed door, but other than that, they were the only ones there. “Not a bad day to have desk duty,” he offered. “You’re not missing any action. Nice and quiet. If you’ve got to sit at a desk, you got a pretty good day.”

  Bono nodded slowly.

  Sam looked down in the lieutenant’s lap and saw the tiny set of scriptures there—the serviceman’s edition of the New Testament and Book of Mormon. Bono was one of a dozen LDS soldiers at Camp Freedom, along with a couple of other officers and enlisted men. There were a few women, some with children, but most were young, single men. “What you got planned for our services this morning, Brother Bono?” he asked.

  Bono shook his head. “Some fascinating stuff,” he said.

  “Hey, maybe I’ll come, then, depending on what you’re serving after the service for treats.”

  The lieutenant laughed, but didn’t push it. The truth was, he’d seen Sam slip into the back of the tent that served as a chapel the last three weeks or so. He had seen him hide in the back (as if he could hide in a group of fifteen men), then slip out before anyone could talk to him. Sam always took the sacrament, and always bowed his head to pray, but seemed unwilling to socialize with the others. The lieutenant knew it wasn’t because he was embarrassed to be associated with the LDS group. Quite the opposite, it seemed Sam made a point of telling anyone who asked that he was a Mormon. And if anyone dared to speak impolitely of the Church, he let them know immediately they’d have to deal with him.

  So the Mule couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in his head. Sam was clearly uncomfortable around them, as if he were embarrassed for himself. And though he didn’t hide the fact that he was LDS, he clearly didn’t feel part of their group.

  The tactical radios crackled again as one of the teams called in their position report. The lieutenant keyed the microphone and acknowledged with a sharp “roger,” then noted the time on his log.

  “Who’s out there?” Sam wondered, hunching his shoulders toward the radio.

  “That was the Snowmen. They and the Tiger team are on security patrol around Al-Attina and Tirkish. We heard last night that—”

  The radio crackled again. “Breadman, Tiger Two . . . ” a soldier cut in.

  Bono picked up the small FM microphone and answered, “Go, Tiger.”

  “Breadman, we’ve got something here.” There was an unmistakable hesitation in the radio operator’s voice. “We’ve got a small car,” he went on, “license plate reads Juliet, Romeo, niner, niner, four, Romeo. Take a look at it, will you? Something’s not right.”

  The lieutenant sat up instantly. If there was one thing the U.S. soldiers had learned, it was that danger could be found anywhere. He motioned to one of the young specialists sitting at the computer four empty seats away. She had already copied the license plate information and was entering the query into the INMEDS computer, the multi-unit, multi-service database of automobiles, names, addresses, phone numbers, locations, aliases, Iraqi driver’s license numbers, anything that could be used to track an individual or group of people in Iraq.

  While the specialist tapped at her computer, the lieutenant spoke again into his microphone. “What’s the situation there, Tiger Two?” he asked. “Do you need some support?”

  There was a moment of silence until the soldier came back. “Negative, Breadman. It’s probably nothing. We’ve got a small sedan parked in a private driveway on the south end of the block . . . ” While he spoke, Sam reached over and pulled out a large urban map showing the narrow alleys and crooked roads that made up the small town of Al-Attina, an old industrial town seven kilometers south of the international airport. He slid the map across the desk to the lieutenant, who turned it 180 degrees so it faced him, then tapped his pencil on a narrow alley off one of the main thoroughfares.

  “Tiger,” he interrupted, “confirm your location is Twenty-one and Lashihhia?”

  “Roger,” the soldier came back. “And, like I was saying, we’ve got an abandoned vehicle on the street. It’s got a small child locked inside. Looks like he’s no more than two, maybe two and a half years old. The windows are rolled up, and he’s dying in there. We’ve tried to open the doors, but they’re locked. I’ve got some of my guys going house to house along the street here, but so far either no one is home or they claim they don’t know who he is . . . ”

  The lieutenant straightened up, his face turning tense. He looked at the specialists, who shot a quick look back at him. “Anything in the INMEDS?” he demanded.

  “Nothing so far, sir. The license plate isn’t in the database. The vehicle, or at least that license plate number, isn’t associated with any terrorists or insurgents that we know.”

  Bono dropped his head as he thought.

  Sam moved toward him, glancing down at the map.

  “Breadman,” the radio crackled again. “You know, we’ve got to do something. This kid’s dying in there. It’s over ninety on the street. It must be more than one-twenty inside the vehicle. He’s lethargic and sweating. Now he’s just lying on the seat. He’s flushed and dehydrated. We’ve got to get him out of there.”

  The lieutenant didn’t hesitate. “NO!” he replied. “DO NOT TOUCH THE CHILD! This is a family issue. You’ve got to find his parents. They have to be in one of the houses somewhere.”

  The soldier hesitated, then called back again. “Breadman, we’ve been up and down this block twice already. There’s almost no one home, but you know how it is, most of these guys are too scared of us. They won’t answer their doors, and we don’t want to bust them down. And yeah, I know we don’t want to get involved in some lousy child-abuse thing, but I’m telling you, this is a cute little boy and we’ve got to get him out of this car. Sergeant Brunner is standing here beside me. He’s going to bust the front window, then we’ll unlock the door. We’ll be careful not to hurt him, but we’ve got to get him out of there . . . ”

  “NO!” the Mule screamed.

  But it was already too late.

  Sam and Bono heard an incredible explosion before the radio went dead.

  * * *

  The car bomb had been planted inside the passenger’s side of the door. The terrorist had rigged the device to explode when the window was broken or the car door unlocked. Based on the power of the detonation, the explosives forensic specialist estimated that the bomb was between ten and twelve pounds of dynamite, enough to kill everyone within twenty meters of the car.

  Four U.S. troops, all members of Sergeant Brighton’s unit, had been killed trying to rescue the little boy from the car. Another seven were wounded, almost the entire Tiger

  team, some of them critically burned and scarred. The entire afternoon was spent evacuating them, with Dustoff medivac choppers deployed from as far away as Kirkuk. While the wounded were cared for and evacuated, two more Delta teams, Sam’s included, were deployed to the area, where they searched house to house, questioning everyone they could find within four blocks of the explosion. They learned the automobile had been parked and deserted late in the afternoon of the day before. Apparently, the little boy had spent part of a day, a night, and the morning alone in the abandoned car packed with dynamite, and all for the opportunity to blow a couple of U.S. soldiers to bits.

  The terrorists knew the soldiers would help the littl
e boy when they found him. No way they would leave him to die in the car.

  Though Sam and his team interrogated everyone in the neighborhood, they learned little else and took no one into custody. This was a battle-worn area, with an explosive mix of Sunnis and Shiites, and the locals had learned it was far better, and much safer, not to say anything.

  The most of the little boy they ever found was one of his shoes, which had been blown across the street and through a small apartment window, where it landed on the floor.

  * * *

  Late that night, Sam lay awake on his cot. His gut burned inside him, and his fists were clenched at his side.

  He pictured the scene again and again. His dead comrades blown to pieces. The shoe of the little boy. The fire and the smell.

  He cursed in frustration, a rage that boiled over inside. He cursed the whole war. It was pointless and worthless, a complete waste of time. What were they doing, losing good men like this, all in a fruitless attempt to save the population of this stinking country from themselves.

  These people simply weren’t worth it.

  They should pack up and leave them to rot in their hell, leave them to canker in this cancer they loved so well. They were cowards, afraid to fight for themselves. Leave them. Not look back. Write them off, every one.

  * * *

  As Sam cursed bitterly, the black angel hunched beside him, kneeling, his arms at his side, his mouth pulled into a tight and hideous frown. His teeth flashed, the only white on his face, for his eyes were as dark and lifeless as the black hole in his soul.

  “You hate them,” Balaam whispered in the soldier’s ear. “These people are all idiots. Savages. Animals. They aren’t capable of freedom. They’re too stupid, too weak. They aren’t like you, so clever, so capable, so strong. You are so much better than they are, so much smarter and good. Look at them all. Take a look at this place! Is there anything worth fighting for here? Is there any good in this land?”