Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

“I will shoot evil men, though,” Giti said, threading on the lug nuts so that Jack could spin them tight.

“Good Book says, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” Gunny Valentine said, twisting the nuts tight with the wrench.

“Do not murder is what it truly says,” Giti retorted. “Shooting evil men who murder innocent people is righteous with the Lord.”

“My colonel says the same thing.” Jack smiled, dusting his hands, and noticing a plume rising in the southwest, a truck coming toward them fast.

He reached in the cab, took out his Marine M40A3 sniper rifle, and pulled the bolt back. He loaded the magazine full and shoved one in the chamber. Then he grabbed the Vigilance and told the girls, “Speaking of evil men who murder the innocent, looks like some are headed our way.”

“Where do we go?” Giti asked.

“Grab your guns and drop into the gully,” Jack said, looking down the rift and seeing a nice slope with good footing about four feet below the sheer side.

“That could likely be Yasir and Sabeen,” Giti reminded the Marine as they climbed over the edge, holding the AK rifles and wresting the oversized ammunition vests that hung down to their mid thighs.

“What do you suggest?” Jack said as he looked through his rifle scope across the hood of the truck.

“If it is evil men, then you shoot them,” Giti said. “If it is Yasir and Sabeen, then do not shoot them. That is quite simple.”

“And what if Yasir decides to shoot us?” Jack asked, now seeing the old goatherd holding on to the Russian PK machine gun, aiming it over the cab.

“He will not shoot us,” Giti said, certain of herself and her faith in the man who had changed his mind about raping them and instead felt the need to wash himself and atone for his sins.

Jack moved the scope reticle from Yasir to the truck’s windshield, expecting to see Sabeen in the driver’s seat. Instead, he saw Haazim there, a scowl on his face.

“You didn’t kill all four of the guards. One of them’s driving the truck. Yasir’s up on the machine gun,” Jack said. “You still sure the old man won’t shoot?”

“Oh no,” Giti said. “What about Sabeen?”

Jack moved his reticle to the passenger side and there sat the husky teen, her chubby face looking perplexed and afraid at the same time. She was yelling and crying.

“She’s not real happy right now,” Jack said.

“You must kill the evil man, but do not shoot Sabeen or Yasir,” Giti said.

“I splash him now, they’ll roll and probably kill everybody, as fast as they’re coming,” Jack said, working on his shot at Haazim.

“Let them stop, then fire,” Giti said, nodding at the Marine Scout-Sniper.

“That puts them fifty feet from us,” Jack said. “You want to take that chance with Yasir? He’s got a machine gun, and I bet he knows how to use it.”

“I promise,” Giti said. “Yasir will not shoot. He told me he has never fired a gun at another human being. He only hunts animals for meat.”

“He’s a jihadi and has never shot at a person?” Jack said, now holding the reticle on Haazim and waiting for the truck to slow to a stop. The instant it did, he’d fire.

“He is a good man,” Giti said. “To shoot him, unless you had to defend your life, would be murder. Do not murder! God says so.”

As the truck closed, Haazim yelled from the cab, “Shoot the machine gun, Yasir! I can see their heads, watching us! The American, he’s standing behind the truck with the one girl. Shoot them!”

Haazim’s face filled all of Jack’s telescopic sight; the center of the reticle covered Haazim’s nose. The angry jihadi had just hit the brakes, and was still yelling at Yasir to shoot when Jack sent the .338 Lapua Magnum bullet into his right nostril. The gunman’s exploding head sprayed blood and bone and flesh throughout the cab of the truck and showered Sabeen with the gore.

“You’re next, Yasir!” Jack yelled, and the old man didn’t understand, but could not pull the machine gun’s trigger either, seeing Giti, and seeing Miriam and Amira climbing out of the ravine and now running to the truck.

“Yasir,” Giti called to him in Arabic. “You are a good man! He will not shoot you. Come down from there.”

“I am a failure,” the goatherd said, and broke into tears.

Jack watched and was glad he had listened to Giti and had not shot Yasir first. He had the shot.

Sabeen ran to her three adopted sisters when she saw them, and they embraced, all of them weeping. The girls wiped the blood from the Syrian girl’s face and hair, using their dresses. Yasir squatted in front of the truck.

“What do we do now?” Jack asked. “We take them with us, too? How far are we from Haditha Dam?”

Yasir stared at Jack, not a clue of what he said.

Jack kicked a rock. “Fucking useless!”

Sabeen yelled Arabic at Yasir, and she climbed in the back of the truck, took the machine gun off its mount and threw it out, along with all the boxes of belted ammunition.

Yasir looked at the gun, then at Sabeen. “It stopped working the second time I shot it. Maybe something in it broke.”

Giti ran to the old man, knelt where he squatted, and put her arms around his neck. She kissed both his tear-wet cheeks and smiled at him.

“God loves you, Yasir,” she said, and the old man smiled at her.

“I am a failure,” he replied, and stood. Then he looked across the wadi. His heart nearly stopped, and he pointed.

“Do you see?” he cried.

Giti turned and looked. Miriam and Amira and Sabeen stopped hugging and looked, too. Then Jack turned and saw what had them dumbstruck.

“What are they? Antelopes?” Jack asked, seeing the Arabian oryx buck and his three oryx doe.

The beautiful white animals stood broadside to them not two hundred yards away. The doe had spear-like, straight, black horns two feet long. The buck had graceful arcing ebony horns that flashed in the sunlight, curving three feet over his back like two Arabian scimitars as he raised his head.

The oryxes had lain in the shade of a thicket of Alhagi, where they had browsed succulent leaves and took their midday naps. The buck heard Jack’s shot, and roused to his feet, ready to move out. But something held him back.

Yasir fell to his knees. He began bowing and praying.

“It is an omen!” he cried. “Praise you, Allah! You are great! You are merciful!”

Jack, the girls, and Yasir watched the beautiful creatures casually walk over the top of the dune where they had napped. The buck stopped on top, gave the people one last look, put his nose in the air, then disappeared with his harem of doe.

Yasir looked at Jack, then at the three Christian girls. He walked to Giti and put his hand on her belly. “You carry a child, just as the one doe with the buck carries his offspring. God has spoken to us. We must obey His word.

“Go with this man, you three girls. He is the white oryx and you are the doe. Allah did not want me to shoot the oryx and his brides, just as Allah does not want me to shoot you and the American. Go in peace,” he said, and bowed low to Jack, giving him the Bedouin salute with his palm-up fingertips touching his forehead.

Giti smiled. “We go in peace. It is God’s will.”

“He sees those oryxes, and God spoke to him?” Jack said.

“God showed him those animals weeks ago,” Giti said. “No one else has seen them except Yasir, until today. God showed them today to you, to me and my sisters and Yasir.

“This poor man has suffered great humiliation because God only showed the white oryx and his three doe to him alone. It was for a reason. A message from God.”

Jack looked toward the dunes where the four antelopes had disappeared, and looked back at Yasir, who stood there still bowing to him.