Black Knights, Dark Days

by Fisk, J. Matthew;



  Both ends of the alley were blocked effectively and were quiet for the moment. Justin Bellamy pulled off the line briefly to say goodbye to his friend and former roommate.

  He walked into the CCP and saw Chen’s lifeless body lying on the concrete floor. It was him. It was not him. He couldn’t have thought of a better way to express it than that. His life force, that insubstantial quality that made Eddie who he was, was missing. Bellamy didn’t need to check for a pulse—he could tell. His armor suddenly felt too heavy, too hot. A wave of nausea swept over him. He stumbled out of the doorway and threw up. He began to weep uncontrollably. His vision blurred as he stumbled back into the room that held all that was left of his old friend.

  One of their Iraqi family hosts stirred in the corner. Bellamy whirled toward the movement and pointed at them, tears streaming down his face. His outstretched hand balled up into a fist as Bellamy tried to convey in universal sign language the extent to which he held them responsible for the death of his friend. The message was clearly received—the man and woman moved their hands back and forth in front of their face even as they said over and over again shouting, “La. La. La.” No. No. No.

  Bellamy felt detached from himself, a disembodied spirit, and wondered what his body was going to do next. They knew, he thought. They knew what was going on just like everybody else in the damn city and did nothing to stop it. They’re just as guilty for Chen’s death as the guy that pulled the trigger. He felt as if he were teetering on the brink between madness and sanity. Grace and murderous restitution. Good and evil. His hands shook with desire to extract payment from their Arabic hides. The power of life and death was his to command. Tense seconds passed as he weighed their fate. Life. Tick. Death. Tock.

  An eternity later he decided. No. He wasn’t going to waste his soul on them.

  He stood glowering at the family a moment longer, letting the anger and sick hatred wash over him. It filled him like infernal fuel, driving out sadness and fear. Someone was going to pay. At length he spun on his heels and stormed out. Bellamy had mastered his emotions and decided instead to redirect them before he did something that would land him in front of a war crimes tribunal. Someone would pay, though.

  Looking left as he returned to the alley, he saw that Fisk and Sala’am were engaging a single target. Let them have it. He looked right and could see that the hunting was much better. Insurgents dressed in black as well as older men in white dresses darted from place to place. Much better. Riddell was on the left and the L-T on the right side of the vehicle. Bellamy took up a spot beside the Lieutenant and began to exact payment.

  Bellamy was lethally accurate. One target after another fell, and he began to count each one out loud as they fell. “Eleven. Twelve.” The shakes were gone. The fear was gone. He felt cocky beyond measure. Immortal. He felt totally comfortable now in the skin of a legalized killer.

  “Worry about the kill count later,” growled Lieutenant Aguero. “Just keep killing them.”

  

  The L-T realized that he needed a cigarette. He decided that a smoke could wait at least until he killed the guy across the street who began firing wildly at them. That target fell to his M4, but another scampered into view, trying to pick up the rifle his comrade had dropped. Geez, were these guys ever going to let him light one up?

  Bourquin’s young face appeared in the doorway to the stairs. “Sir, they’re massing on the rooftops to the south, east and west.” Above them, the machine guns erupted with the fury of guardian angels to underscore Bourquin’s message.

  “Continue to engage. Don’t let them get close.” Aguero turned away as movement caught his eye across the street in front of Coleman’s position. A piece of sheet metal appeared from the right as an insurgent seemed to be preparing cover for a fighting position. The L-T couldn’t tell if he was trying to be sneaky, but he could see the man’s shadow as he continued to throw out random pieces of steel.

  I see you, dumbass, Aguero thought and grinned. The man had finished with his fighting position and was surreptitiously peeking around the corner as he prepared to run for cover. The L-T’s finger tightened on the trigger as he put his sights on where he expected the target to appear. He prepared to squeeze off a round.

  A little girl appeared in the round glass of his target reticle and stood facing him motionlessly. What the--? Aguero eased the pressure from the trigger and angrily motioned her away, unsure whether she could see him or not. “Stupid little girl. Go away.” He felt sick thinking about how close he had come to killing her. Her attention was diverted by something to her left, presumably the man who was casting the shadow. Son of a bitch. He had told her to step out into the street to see if he would be able to make it. Aguero vowed that this low-life would die today.

  The insurgent, not content with the results of his human experiment, stuck his weapon around the corner and sprayed a full magazine at nothing in particular, which is exactly what he hit. The L-T’s discipline and training kept him from foolishly returning fire. He was trying the old Mohammed Ali rope-a-dope technique. Let the man feel more comfortable, let him feel a bit more at home with the idea of coming out into the open. Aguero sighted his weapon in again.

  The coward peeked around the corner and ducked back. He repeated this three more times, psyching himself up for the lunge. It was enough for Aguero to sense the man’s rhythm. The man stuck his head out one final time just as he squeezed the trigger. The insurgent’s head exploded in a red mist and his body collapsed forward into the street.

  That is the coolest thing I have ever seen, Aguero thought. He stood at the driver’s side door laughing and celebrating the greatest shot of his short career when a giant snuck up behind him and hit him over the head with an enormous mallet. Something struck his helmet so hard that his legs buckled and consciousness waivered.

  “Oh, my head,” he started screaming.

  Coleman laughed, “What are you doing? Sir, are you OK?”

  The L-T kept screaming, “My head.” He managed to crawl partially inside the Humvee. Without removing his helmet he cradled his head in his hands and rocked silently back and forth, trying to collect his senses.

  Something about the situation struck Swope and Corporal Coleman as funny, not the least of which being that the platoon leader was still alive. “Look at this guy,” Coleman jived like a goombah mobster, “he’s got a headache.” They roared with laughter.

  Eventually the L-T was able to collect himself and stand up again. The laughter at his expense was completely lost on him. “I’m all right. What the hell hit my head?” It would not be clear to him until later at the aid station that he had been shot.

  

  SO note by Rodgers, Renee @ 06 May 2014

  Chief complaint is: periods of anxiety. Anger.

  Behavior demonstrated no abnormalities; Attitude abnormal. SM asked this session and last if this Provider felt uncomfortable with him. Dysthymic anger is prevalent. Focus of session today is initially regarding how he is adjusting to antidepressant. He is noticing feeling “zombified” on the medication as he adjusts. Cognitively impacted. SM is not using alcohol and notes no other changes. SM returns to issues related to the therapy relationship and discusses his experience of provider being “uncomfortable”. SM discusses his anger; he notes that it rises after session and that he has the expectation he’ll progress in treatment but is frustrated by the process. Progress will mean “I won’t feel like a powder keg that’s about to go off.”

  Assessment: 1. Anxiety Disorder 2. Panic Disorder

  

  Wild, drawn to the sound of battle, appeared next to Denney and climbed on top of a crate for a better view. Denney, glad for the respite, took a knee and leaned against the wall.

  “Oh, hell yeah,” Wild exclaimed as he observed the advancing enemy. Heart pounding with dark excitement he began to engage. Although he was thrilled to have such a wealth of targets to choose from, he was s
till aware of the need to use target discrimination in accordance with their Rules of Engagement. Running to and fro didn’t necessarily signal bad intent. Wild did, however, send his warmest regards in the form of 5.56mm slugs to anyone with a weapon in their hand.

  Wild observed a small man looking back at him from a rooftop almost 150 meters to the Southwest. He could hear the roar of an angry crowd in that vicinity, a bubbling cauldron of outrage in the street that intersected the alley they defended. Wild couldn’t see a weapon in his hand, but the man was pointing right at him and shouting at the crowd below. The man walked to one corner of his roof and craned his neck, then walked back and pointed at Wild again, chattering at people below that Wild couldn’t see. Then the man’s left hand came up for a brief second and Wild saw that he gripped a rifle by the barrel.

  Close enough. Wild felt threatened. He saw the man point at him again through the lens of his M68 sight as he put the red dot on the man’s head and pulled the trigger. The shot was perfect and clean. A red mist appeared as the man’s head whipped back and he fell over. It was the coolest thing that the young warrior had ever seen, if not the coldest. He felt no remorse over taking the man’s life, just a sense of professional accomplishment like a corporate salesman who just closed a huge account or a firefighter who just saved a life.

  “Denney, I just got a head shot.”

  If Denney heard him he didn’t say a word. Wild looked down at his friend and saw that the young man’s face was pale white and he was shaking. He told Denney to go downstairs and take a break.

  

  Jon Denney was indeed deeply shaken. He had been convinced several times over that their lives were forfeit. First, they had sped through the ambush, bullets striking their vehicle with the frequency of popping kettle corn. Then their vehicle had died. Then the recovery vehicle went down. He had ridden in the Lieutenant’s Humvee as they retreated into the alley and was face to face with Chen. That’s when the reality of death struck him with the full force of inevitability. He was very intelligent and had instantly understood what was happening even as they had tried to bust through the hastily emplaced obstacles. The thousands of people they had seen at yesterday’s rally were now trying to kill them. Thousands. If help didn’t come soon, they would run out of ammo and then be overrun. He was becoming more and more convinced that he would never see his wife and child again.

  

  I was aware of very little happening in the alley except for when the L-T was shot in the head. I heard his shouts and turned momentarily to see what was wrong. Seeing him collapsed halfway in the Humvee worried me. “Are you OK, Sir?” I yelled. I saw him stand up and wave me off.

  Soldiers, insubstantial as ghosts, brought me news from the other fronts like fully armed war correspondents. Riddell was with me briefly. Wild continually appeared and vanished like a death-dealing genie. He stood briefly at my left-hand side as we watched for a target, then he casually told me, “I got a head shot.” He delivered that tidbit with the same sort of inflection one might use when soliciting someone to see their new tattoo. The totally dead way in which he made the statement froze my blood. I looked over at him and noted that he was completely relaxed, much unlike myself.

  “Cool,” I said. This was a line of conversation that I had never pursued and was unsure what the proper protocol might be.

  “Want a cigarette?” Wild was pulling out a cig from a pack of cheap, Iraqi-made smokes that could be had for a dollar per pack.

  “Naw, I don’t smoke. That stuff will kill ya.” We looked at each other and laughed. Something about making that simple, corny joke in the middle of the worst day of my life turned a corner for me. I relaxed a little. Death suddenly didn’t seem so scary.

  One small head, then another, comically stacked on top of each other, peeped out from the south end of the intersection. I tensed and prepared to fire. Sure enough, both of the kids put their rifles around the corner and fired. They had learned better than to jump out like mini-commandos. Their small heads didn’t present much of a target, and they were as quick as snakes. I tried to anticipate when they would pop out. They alternated the timing of their attack, and even switched up the tactic of peeking around to fire with just poking the rifle out blind.

  Then there was a pause that was a little longer than the rest. What were they cooking up now? I tried to think like a homicidal child; tried to anticipate their next move. I kept my sight trained on the spot where their heads had been emerging, eyes unblinking, finger tight on the trigger. A silhouette emerged from hiding and, I held my fire at the last instant.

  A woman, ancient in years, shuffled from the very spot where the two youngsters were hiding. She was carrying a paper sack full of groceries, apparently taking advantage of the fire fight to get in that last-minute shopping. I let out a ragged breath. I had almost greased someone’s grandmother. What was she thinking walking out into my line of fire like that? Her progress was agonizingly slow, one plodding footstep after another.

  Those kids are going to use her for cover, I thought. I aimed at the south intersection expecting the little creeps to pop out at any second. The old lady, either blissfully ignorant of her imminent doom or completely blasé about it, continued trudging across, a journey of ten seconds drawn out to an eternity.

  C’mon, move, move, move!

  During her entire epic travel across the 17-foot wide alley, she never once looked my way, and, thankfully, the kids waited for her to get across.

  But the moment that granny reached the other side, my old friends were back at their usual antics. They picked up the tempo as they alternated turns to hit the infidel and win a prize. I began to curse each time they popped out and I missed them. At least I wasn’t squealing with fright again each time someone squeezed a trigger.

  I emptied my magazine again and reloaded. After a few more shots I could now see a baseball-sized shot group on the wall beyond where my nemesis kept peeking out. My marksmanship was great, but my timing sucked. Having almost killed some centenarian for picking the wrong day to stock up on milk made me even more cautious about positively identifying my target.

  Sala’am tapped me on the leg to get my attention. “Mr. Mathias, can you show me how to make..." Under stress he struggled to recall his English vocabulary. He showed me my own weapon and pointed at the magazine. The kids down the hall unleashed another volley—one of the rounds struck the shield and made me jump.

  “You need to change mags? You’re out of ammo?”

  “Yes, that is it!”

  “Turn the weapon on its other side. See that round button? Push it. OK, just let the empty magazine hit the floor. Take this and slide it in. Tap it real good on the bottom. See that small lever? Push it.” The bolt slid forward and Sala’am thanked me. I wished that I had hundred more like him right then.

  Denney emerged from the courtyard and replaced Wild at my left side. I glanced over once and saw that he was shaking badly. “Matt,” he said, “I’m scared.”

  His vulnerability touched me deeply, but I didn’t know what to tell him other than the truth. “Yeah, me too, brother.” Then I added a lie, or at least an uncertainty that I didn’t believe. Our small force of 16 combat-effective soldiers and one untrained Iraqi were squaring off against what had to be the entire Shia Glee Club from yesterday’s parade, which had numbered in the thousands. Half our vehicles were destroyed, my heavy machine gun was a sexy paperweight and God alone knew when the cavalry would arrive. “We’re going to be fine,” I grinned. “Don’t you worry.”

  I spied Guzman looking out at us from the gate. “Hey, Doc. Come give Denney a break for a sec; he needs to take a knee.” Denney tensed up as if I were banishing him from the tribe rather than giving him a moment to gather himself. “Denney, go rest a second. We’ve got this. Come back out in a minute and we’ll swap.”

  Denney nodded his head and reluctantly stepped inside. Doc stepped up to take his place. He usually carried a 9mm pistol, s
o I was surprised to see him with a rifle. I gave him a brief rundown of the enemy and friendly situation. Two dirt bags 12 o’clock, 50 meters at the left side of the intersection and all that. Guzman nodded as he shuffled quickly from one foot to another, a sort of modified pee-dance. The latest craze, all the kids are doing it. I imagined that he felt like I would if I was suddenly ordered to stop an arterial bleed. He was staring through the optic sight just above the Humvee’s armored door, nervous but ready to engage the enemies of his country. I saw one thing wrong with that picture.

  “Doc.”

  He looked up at me, eyes glowing white in the fading light. “Yeah.”

  “Raise your barrel up a little or you’re going to kill both of us.” The tip of his barrel was pressing into the armored door.

  “Oh.” He giggled and I laughed along with him.

  Another salvo pinged off of my turret shield, but it didn’t faze me anymore. I got back behind Chen’s rifle, growing angrier by the minute. I still had not been able to coax the .50 cal back to life. Meanwhile, the neighbor kids and I continued to play catch with hot lead. I think I must have clipped one, or at least scared the Shi-ite out of them, because they resorted to a new tactic. They allowed only the tip of their barrel to protrude into the street and fired volley after volley into the opposite wall. I watched in awe as bullets struck the north wall then south about 10 meters closer, then back to the other wall, bouncing madly toward us like deadly billiard balls. The rounds struck the windshield and glanced off my turret. Damn it, that was annoying!

  Chen had been a solidly built guy, but I was a lot taller. He had made a platform out of extra ammo cans that I now found uncomfortable. I did not dare stand up to my full height to face down the enemy—those little brats would have already cut me to ribbons. In order to keep as low a profile as possible, my eyes just barely over the shield, I had to stand at a half squat. I had been in this position for so long that my legs were exhausted. The exertion combined with frustration about those darned kids pushed my temper into the red zone. Me! I have, or at least had, no temper to speak of. I never got mad at anyone, yet here I was, feeling an emotion with which I was wholly unfamiliar. Rage.