“Medic! Medic!”
Doc Bryan Brown, the platoon’s African-American medic and, at twenty, one of the youngest soldiers in the platoon, appeared magically at Mayhem’s side. Cool and composed as he was, no one would ever have suspected he was under fire for the first time. Together, the two soldiers dragged the wounded SAW gunner to the cover of the nearest hummer. Blood dribbled from his nose and ears and his vest and trousers were ripped, exposing more injuries. Flying shrapnel had caught him in full flight and did a job on him. He was still alive and conscious.
“Mayhem . . . Mayhem . . . ?”
“Hang in there, dude. You’re going to be all right.”
“Am I going to die, Doc? Am I dying?”
“Easy there, Pitcher,” Doc Brown cooed, ripping open field dressings while still lying on his belly. “Your plates took most of it. You won’t die, do you hear me, man? I won’t let you die.”
It ended almost as quickly and unexpectedly as it began. Smoke hung heavy in the air among the trucks, swirling. The air tasted bitter from burnt cordite. Men called out to each other. Questions, reassurances.
A 60mm mortar was a relatively short-range weapon, which meant the fire had to originate from somewhere nearby, either from in the woods along the river, probably on the far side, or from among the scattering of huts down the road. Whichever, the perpetrators were already gone, fading away into the countryside like barracuda into the sea. No one had gotten so much as a shot at them. And, of course, it wouldn’t do any good to call in artillery or mortars; there were no firm targets, and Americans never indiscriminately dropped hell into built-up areas.
Abu Ahmed discovered his fallen son. His wailing penetrated the ringing in Mayhem’s ears. It was enough to make angels cringe.
Neither Pitcher nor Ahmed’s boy were mortally injured, although both would be in recovery for quite some time. A QRF (quick reaction force) from Battalion rushed in and evacuated them to the Green Zone in Baghdad. Fourth Platoon never saw Pitcher again. He had a million-dollar wound. But for his armor, he would probably have gone home in a box.
The smoke laid, the sun shone bright again, and Iraqis down the road came out of their houses to stare. Mayhem stood in the road, blinking and filled with helpless rage. Delta Company had suffered its first casualty on Malibu Road. Insurgents had drawn first blood—and there wasn’t a damned thing the platoon could do about it. The fuckers down there standing in the road must have known what was coming down, who the attackers were—but they were too frightened to say anything. None of them trusted the Americans to stay and protect them.
“That,” Lieutenant Tomasello commented drily, referring to the mortars, “was the official welcoming committee. Does it make everyone feel at home?”
ELEVEN
Although the ordinary Iraqi did not support insurgency or al-Qaeda terrorists, he had lived under an oppressive government for so many years that he found it safer to stand back, keep his mouth shut, and wait for the Americans to leave—which they would do sooner rather than later. People were being forced to choose among three conflicting sides, either of which left them in the middle. They could side with the occupying infidels and their promise of freedom and democracy; they could revert back to the Sunni-dominated terror and tyranny of the old regime; or they could submit to Islamic fundamentalists and their petty, cutthroat society.
The minority Sunnis, who composed less than forty percent of Iraq’s population and now most of its insurgents, had been Saddam’s favorites. They had the most to lose by the coming of the Americans and Saddam’s overthrow. Sunni tribes outnumbered Shiites in The Triangle of Death, one of the only regions in the country where that was true. Their hatred of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad motivated them to allow insurgent groups of all stripes, most recently al-Qaeda affiliates, to roam freely through the area.
A couple of factors acerbated the situation, the first being a seemingly endless supply of weapons looted from Saddam’s old ammunition depots, the other the collapse of the economy after the Coalition invasion.
While only a relatively small hard-core cadre of Sunni fundamentalists and foreign bomb makers and sympathizers plotting and operating in a particular area had little chance of winning militarily, their aim was not to win in that manner. Instead, their intent was to destabilize the society by creating an atmosphere of generalized fear and chaos. They were nihilists who held nothing sacred, least of all the lives of those who got in their way. Feared by most Iraqis, they were nonetheless not especially respected, liked, or trusted.
“Gunfire is like a symphony orchestra to us,” declared a Jihad fighter captured by Bravo Company, 4th Battalion. “We cannot live without war and Jihad. Allahu Akbar! You Americans love Coca-Cola; we love killing and dying.”
Lt. Colonel Infanti and his XO, Major Mark Manns, had held a long conversation about the reluctance of people in The Triangle to cooperate with American forces.
“How can we make them more afraid of us than the insurgency?” the commander asked rhetorically. “They all lie to us.”
“They’re scared to death.”
Infanti nodded. “That’s because they know we’re not the ones going to take them out in the alley and put a bullet through the backs of their heads. They know we’re temporary and that if we leave before the job is done, they’ll still be here on their own with the bad guys, who will take them out in the alley.”
Insurgency cadres amplified their power through coercion or by offering bounties on American soldiers and opponents among the Shiites. Attacking Americans had turned into a cash crop, often carried out by penniless young Iraqi men who formed loose-knit gangs to kill and to plant IEDs. There was little difference between them and U.S. inner-city gangs like the Crips or the Bloods.
It was relatively easy money. A bold or foolish youth could earn as much as $200 for shooting an RPG at Americans, double that amount for sniping with a rifle, half for planting an IED—with bounties doubled or even tripled if an assault resulted in the deaths of Americans that made headline news. Where did the money come from? Intelligence sources said it came from Iran and Syria and from terrorists groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda.
While Iraqi streets might bustle with commerce during the day, at night the people all hurried home and locked their doors. It was better for them to hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil against the insurgents. Monsters came out in the dark to kill Americans. Thugs, criminals, and foreign fanatics turned the country into a free-fire zone.
During the final two months of 2006, Lt. Colonel Infanti’s 4th Battalion established twenty-three FOBs and patrol bases in The Triangle. Of these, three belonged to Delta Company, all erected on that four-mile stretch of narrow, brittle blacktop known as Malibu Road. After Fourth Platoon took over and occupied Abu Ahmed’s house and designated it Patrol Base 151, other Delta platoons occupied 152 down the road less than a mile away and then 153 on further north and west. Captain Don Jamoles selected 153 as headquarters for Delta Company and designated it as FOB Inchon.
Patrol bases 151 and 152 were single story, flat-roofed houses typical of Iraqi dwellings in the region. Inchon was a massive concrete and mortar structure, two floors tall, imposing and even luxurious. The owner, a Sunni, must have once held high favor in Saddam’s regime to have been so well rewarded.
Four bedrooms upstairs and four downstairs were turned into soldier bunkrooms. Grounds outside proved sufficient to erect commo tents, build makeshift latrines, and park a fleet of humvees. Three reinforced guard towers were built on Inchon’s roof, one each on the northeast and southeast corners and one on the south overlooking an expanse of date palms leading to the banks of the river. As at 151 and 152, blast walls four feet thick and ten feet high topped in razor wire soon surrounded the base, lending it more than ever the appearance of a cavalry fort on the American frontier in the early 1800s. Windows were sandbagged against mortar and rocket attacks so that life for soldiers inside was almost like being in caves.
The mortaring of Delta’s Fourth Platoon initiated the battle for Route Malibu. Delta Company occupied the forts and began patrolling, making its presence known and felt on what was readily acknowledged as a lawless frontier and the most active area in The Triangle. During the weeks ahead, the troops would conduct hundreds of routine patrols, raids, and traffic stops. At the same time, Civil Affairs officers held weekly meetings with sheikhs and other community leaders to discuss improving schools, roads, irrigation canals, community centers, and other infrastructure. It was a mammoth project, but Colonel Infanti kept stressing that the only way to win was with boots on the ground seen out among the people. America would lose if he allowed his soldiers to hide behind their thick walls and razor wire.
This approach to war meant GIs patrolling their sectors may as well have worn targets on their front and back sides. They were fairly well on their own in squads and platoons, with very little air or artillery support. Even though Battalion commanded four 81mm mortar and 105mm howitzer batteries strategically placed throughout the AO, and Brigade had helicopter gunships and fast movers, they were seldom used because of the potential for “collateral damage” to Iraqi citizens.
Patrols were virtually assured of getting hit every time they left the walls of their fortresses. Attacks occurred almost daily somewhere within the AO, if not on Malibu Road itself. IED booby traps blew up passing vehicles. Snipers, mortars, and insurgent fighters began taking a toll. For the Americans on Malibu, each day and night was something to be dreaded and feared, a condition that exacted a heavy psychological penalty from soldiers tasked to drive out insurgents and bring peace and stability to The Triangle of Death.
TWELVE
First Platoon’s convoy of four trucks was headed east toward Mahmudiyah on a long-route recon of Sportster Road when it came upon four IA soldiers smoking and joking in the middle of the road. Lieutenant Allen Vargo called a halt at a safe distance. Iraqi soldiers and interpreters assigned to work with Delta Company had proved trustworthy so far, but no one knew these guys. Every now and again, a suicide bomber dressed in IA or police uniform wormed his way into a chow hall or something, touched himself off like a rocket, and wasted a whole shitpot full of friendlies. You could never afford to get complacent or careless in a guerrilla war.
“Jimenez, go up there and see what those assholes are doing,” Vargo instructed. Jimenez’ command of the Arab tongue had proved valuable. Terps were often in short supply or busy elsewhere.
Specialist Alex Jimenez clambered out of the hummer and approached the uniformed Iraqis with a grin. The guy never seemed to have a bad day. He returned to report that the IAs had located a buried IED and were there to keep watch over it until somebody came up to dismantle it. Except it was getting near nightfall and the IAs were going to leave. You weren’t going to catch them out in the dark.
Lieutenant Vargo radioed Company HQ for guidance.
“Delta One-Six,” HQ responded, “remain at the site and secure it until EOD arrives.”
The IA took off, leaving First Platoon at the scene as the shadows lengthened and the sun turned a sick red preparatory to dropping out of sight.
“Delta X-Ray, is EOD still enroute?” Vargo requested of HQ.
“Negative, One-Six. They got tied up. You’ll have to RON [remain overnight].”
Apparently, you weren’t going to catch EOD out in the dark either.
“Tied up, my ass!” Sergeant Anthony Schober exploded. “Them fuckers are afraid of the night.”
“And you’re not?” Jimenez chided him.
The prospect of playing sitting ducks overnight had about as much appeal as undergoing a root canal without Novocain. Lieutenant Vargo circled the wagons into a defensive posture and placed everyone on fifty-fifty alert. There were a few little brown houses further down, open fields on one side of the road with a few hairy goats bleating around, and an orchard on the opposite side with an irrigation ditch full of water between the hummer and the groves.
“Rhodes, don’t go near the water,” Platoon Sergeant Charles Burke teased. Rhodes had become the butt of good-natured kidding since the night he almost drowned.
“Sar-jent, basically the only way I’m going to take so much as a bath in this shitbag country is in my canteen cup.”
The orchard provided the most likely avenue of enemy approach. Having been neglected, it was grown up with chest-high weeds and undergrowth. Vargo and Platoon Sergeant Burke discussed putting out OP/LPs (observation, listening posts) but decided that would be suicide. The insurgents knew the terrain better and had already proved their ability to sneak around like jungle cats. Better to hole up inside armor and wait for daybreak. Isolated in Indian Country made for some long nights.
Twelve hours later, the sun was coming up again after a surprisingly uneventful night, the muezzin in distant villages were go-carting, and HQ advised that Second Platoon was enroute with water and chow. First Platoon had gone through most of its supplies the day before and during the night. As for EOD, there were so many IEDs all over the AO that these guys were stretched thin and worn ragged.
Just when Lieutenant Vargo had about given up on Second Platoon, it rolled in with Platoon Sergeant Ronnie Montgomery’s vehicle looking as though it had gone through the ashes of a forest fire. One front tire was wobbling and the windshield was coated with soot, except for a wiped-clean area that allowed the driver, Specialist Alfredo “Chiva” Lares, to see out.
The four-truck convoy had hit an IED on the way up Malibu from 152, likely command-detonated by some perp hiding in the bushes with a telephone wire and a battery. Nobody spotted the guy hauling ass in all the smoke and confusion. The bomb went off directly underneath Montgomery’s truck in a burst of dirt, gravel, smoke, and road asphalt that jolted the passengers like pebbles in a can and made their ears ring. Fortunately, it hadn’t been a big explosion and did little damage to the truck except knock the front tires out of balance and add a few more scars to its chassis.
Chiva Lares, the solidly built Latino from southern California who wanted to be a cop, had a sunny outlook on life that allowed him to laugh at life’s little travails. He showed First Platoon guys the new dents in his hummer and ad-libbed a comical demonstration of the look on the redheaded Jonathan Watts’ face when the IED went off. Everyone laughed with him, but nervously.
“I don’t know how, but I knew it was coming,” Lares said. “I swerved, but it was too late. It didn’t hurt anybody, but, man, it sure caused some terminal cases of diarrhea.”
Second Platoon moved on down the road toward a mission in Kharghouli—a hit on a suspected terrorist’s house in cooperation with a QRF from Battalion. Some kids came out and waved at the trucks. Children out on the roadway waving and chattering and people going about their normal activities generally meant any American patrol in the vicinity was safe. But if the kids started running away with their fingers in their ears when they saw trucks coming, chances were something was about to happen.
First Platoon continued to wait on EOD. Rhodes rotated off his turret’s .50-cal machine gun, relinquished it to Jimenez, and was relaxing in the back seat of his truck having a spaghetti-and-meat sauce MRE when he noticed somebody had tossed some litter in the road. Lieutenant Vargo had warned that if he saw one more soldier throwing trash out of vehicles, he would have the entire platoon policing up Malibu road with nails in sticks—although Rhodes couldn’t see what difference one more piece of rubbish made in a country that already looked like a garbage dump.
Muttering to himself, he got out and picked up the empty MRE packet. A used MRE was almost as nasty as a used condom. He found a trash bag in the truck’s back hatch and started to get back in the hummer when he noticed all the children who had been playing down the road were gone.
Just as he opened the door and bent to climb inside, he heard a loud crack from the overgrown orchard. Startled, he jumped back as a bullet struck the ballistic glass only inches away from his face, spider-webbing it but not pene
trating. But for the glass, there probably wouldn’t have been anything left of his head except a bloody pulp.
As he dived the rest of the way into the truck on top of Courneya and Gopaul, he heard the sharp spatter of automatic rifle fire coming from the orchard and the pinging of more bullets ricocheting off the truck’s steel hull.
Holy fuck! The hajjis were right on top of them.
THIRTEEN
A sizeable number of Baghdad hajjis were popping up out of the brush in the orchard and rushing the trucks, blazing away with AK-47s. Not enough to describe as a horde, but still too many to count under the stress of the circumstances. Many of them wore black hoods and masks like executioners in the film clips Al Jazeera TV was always showing of Jihadists cutting off the heads of their infidel prisoners. Shouts and huzzahs rang from their throats, almost drowning out the clatter of their weapons.
“Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” God is great!
“Allahu Akbar this, motherfuckers!” Alex Jimenez roared back as, swiveling his turret toward the threat, he unlimbered his big .50-caliber machine gun with its steady, throaty Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! The .50-cal was designed for use against vehicles, not personnel. One slug through the block of a car engine exploded it. One slug into flesh and bone left nothing but scraps and offal.
For most of the men in First Platoon, this was their first time under fire. They responded to training and crisis, aware that they were in a fight for their lives, and returned fire with everything they had. Those not in turrets popped out of their trucks to seek firing positions behind them. The savage exchange thundered and howled with machine guns and SAWs surging to carry the awful melody while M203 grenade launchers worked counterpoint, geysering mini-detonations throughout the orchard.
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