Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

“Drive faster!” Yasir called from above the cab, slapping his hand on the roof. “I see them! Far ahead! They reached the wadi and now search for a place to cross. We have them, Haazim!”

Sabeen sat on the passenger side of the pickup, gripping white knuckles on the handhold screwed to the doorjamb. She looked hard and saw no sign of the people.

Haazim squinted his eyes, too, and saw nothing. “It is like the white oryx, that old fool. He imagines what he sees, and nothing is there, except sometimes a wild goat.”

“He has seen the oryx, I know it,” Sabeen argued, defending her Bedouin warrior who found her desirable. “If Yasir says that he sees the infidels, then he sees them.”

“Okay, old man!” Haazim shouted out his driver-side window. “Point the way!”

Yasir shot the machine gun toward his old truck, a good three miles away, leaving a line of dust pops pointing the direction.

“You see, Haazim?” he yelled.

“I see where the bullets hit,” the mastermind driving the truck yelled back. “But I see nothing of your truck.”

“It is there, I see it!” Yasir said.

“I hope you do,” Haazim shouted.

“He sees them!” Sabeen said. “Don’t doubt his word.”

Haazim shook his head. “What do we have to lose?”

“Correct!” Sabeen said.

Yasir turned loose another blast from the PK, arcing these shots high and splashing them a mile ahead.

Jack stopped the jalopy and let its tired old engine idle. He put his head out the window.

“What is it?” Giti asked, putting her head out, too.

“I thought I heard gunfire,” Jack said.

“I hear nothing,” Giti said.

“Desert madness,” Valentine said, and hit the gas, the old pickup sputtering along the edge of the rift.

Abu Omar slid his truck sideways in the dooryard at his headquarters. He left the motor running and ran to the house, tripping over one dead man. He walked to the kitchen and saw the other two guards lying lifeless on the floor.

“No!” he bellowed. His machine gunners and the men in the other truck who had just parked heard him and stopped outside, worried. They walked to the house, guns ready.

The old graybeard ran down the steps into the basement and saw the cell door open. He rushed inside and picked up the empty chains.

“No!” he roared, as loud as his lungs could project.

His men from the other gun wagon, who had managed to escape the Marines with him, stood in the house, taking in the sight of their dead brethren. They waited anxiously with their guns ready, knowing their leader’s wild temper. If Abu Omar opened fire on them in his fit of rage, they might have to kill the boss and just call it a day.

Omar came back up the stone stairway, dragging Jack’s chains. He dropped them in the doorway that led to the kitchen.

“He escaped!” Omar said, bewildered. “How could he escape? I left six of my best here.”

“It is God’s will,” one Haji offered.

Omar stared at him, studied his face. Then he drew out his pistol, pointed it at the fool, and shot him.

“It was not God’s will!” Omar screamed, and the other five men backed up, ready to fight, but lifted their fingers off their triggers, glad to be alive, as the graybeard holstered his pistol.

He walked back in the kitchen, looking around, and stepped on the empty Visine bottle. Omar picked it up, then tossed it at his men. “They even poured out my eye wash.”

A third gun crew rolled up. They began yelling to Omar and his other two crews, “The Marines, they come this way!”

“Abu Omar,” one of the men asked. “Should we stand and fight here, or should we retreat? If we choose to fight another day, we should depart immediately.”

The old graybeard glared at the man, put his hand on his gun, but the soldier raised his rifle and locked eyes with the boss, cold steel. Omar moved his hand away from the Makarov and stared at the empty chains on the floor.

“We retreat, of course,” Abu Omar said. “But we will go after the American and those whores and other traitors who fled with him. You can have the women. Shoot the two men. But I will cut off the American’s head.”

Elmore Snow intentionally allowed the third truck to escape down the wadi where Omar’s pickup and the other one behind it had fled.

“We’ll follow that guy to their hideout,” he told Alvin Barkley, who wheeled the Hummer close enough to keep the fleeing vehicle in sight but far enough behind to encourage him to keep running home.

Colonel Snow had rallied his fourteen MARSOC Marines to follow him and the first shirt. Sergeant Jorge Padilla sat in the backseat with Rattler, and Cochise Quinlan manned the Maw-Duce in the truck’s turret.

Sergeant Rasputin Romyantsev drove the Hummer behind the colonel, finally getting his feet wet in real combat. Cotton Martin sat in the right seat. Bronco and Jaws sat in back and ran the guns.

Sammy LaSage rode shotgun in the next truck with Ironhead Heyward at the wheel. Jewfro Clingman and Hub Biggs manned their turret guns.

Hot Sauce McIllhenny drove the next war wagon, with Bobby the Snake Durant in the right seat. Staff Sergeant Dennis Drzewiecki, the senior armorer, took charge of the M-2 .50 in the turret. Short one man, he had assured the boss it was no problem. No one knew grandma better than the man from Whiskey Run, Pennsylvania, nor could anyone run it with his skill.

Mob Squad brought up the rear: Momo driving, Iceman in the right seat, Pizza Man and Nick the Nose on top guns.

With Captain Crenshaw and the bulk of Company D, Fifth Marines closing ranks around the majority of Abu Omar’s lost legion, the remaining thirty-six Marines whom First Sergeant Barkley had taken with him and the MARSOC crew, merged back with the company. Closing the jaws of their pincer movement, they commenced the annihilation of Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah.

Jack had driven two miles along the rift when he finally reached the place they could cross. That’s when the right-front tire blew.

As the tread and sidewalls fell to pieces and the rim chewed into rock, the force of it pulled the steering wheel. It took all of Gunny Valentine’s strength to hold the wheels straight and get stopped without dropping off the cliff.

He managed to chug the jalopy twenty feet away from the drop, amidst the screams and wails of the three girls.

“What do we do now?” Miriam asked, and huddled tight to the Marine, now imprinted on him like a puppy on a kid.

“I don’t know! Pray for Jesus to materialize a new tire on the truck?” Jack said, out of sorts.

“We could also get out, jack up the truck, and put on the spare tire,” Giti said, not liking Jack’s mocking of their faith and their prayers. “Yasir has tools behind the seat and a good spare under the bed.”

“Well then, I guess we get out and change the bloody tire,” Jack said, popping open the door.

Giti and Amira had already crawled under the back of the truck and spun off the big wing nut that held on the good tire and rim. They had it rolled next to the right front and leaning on the bumper before the gunny had gotten out the spinner wrench and the screw jack stored behind the seat.

“I’m amazed he has a spare and tools,” Jack said.

“Don’t be amazed,” Giti said, helping Jack. “As I have said, Yasir is a good man.”

“Would you shoot him if you had to?” Jack asked, cracking off the wheel nuts with the spinner wrench.

“No, I would not,” Giti said. “He would not shoot me, and I will not shoot him. He is not a bad man.”

“Just a good man in a bad spot,” Jack said, tossing the old rim into the rift and pushing the spare tire in place.