Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Now, Ray-Dean looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, flashed his teeth, and checked his breath. Still a little vodkaish. So he took another slug of minty-fresh mouthwash, gargled and swished it good, then he swallowed the whole glob. Why waste good alcohol?

He kept a room in the same hotel where most of the American press corps resided, along with a good number of mercenary soldiers like himself, working for the several security contractors. Hacksaw Gillespie, Habu Webster, and Kermit The Frog Alexander kept rooms here, too. They had clued him in about nightlife with the American and European reporters. Great food, great drinks at the frequent going-and-coming luaus they threw. More female correspondents in Baghdad these days, all ready to face the war-beast in the daylight, and screw their drunken brains out at night.

When he got to the elevator, a French freelancer working for an American news agency based in London stood in the car headed to the lobby. Her first name was Francoise, and Ray-Dean could not recall her last. Some mouthful of frog soup that he couldn’t pronounce right anyway.

She wore a leopard-print silk top with no bra, or if she had one on, it was far too thin to do much good. Her ample breasts jiggled and bounced every time she moved. Black synthetic something covered her lower half, pegging her muscled legs down to her ankles. The clinging thin spandex gripped tight around an inviting plump camel toe, the crotch seam pulled deep down the center of her roomy snatch.

Francoise smelled of strong, day-old perfume and well-used pussy. Her scent made Cooder’s dick hard. He didn’t try to hide the growing bulge in his 5.11s, either, but gave her a nasty smile.

“How about an afternoon cocktail?” she asked him in her sultry French slur of tipsy words as the elevator eased toward the lobby.

“Love to, sweetness, but I’ve got business. Maybe later if you’re still around,” Ray-Dean told the woman whose face could make a freight train take a dirt road, but whose love monkey he had slam-danced many a worthless night.

When the lift hit the lobby stop, Francoise gave Cooder-with-a-D Blevins a wet red-lips smack on his cheek, then she click-clacked off toward the hotel bar.

Ray-Dean thought about following her and maybe getting a quick blowjob, but he checked his watch. No time for folderol. He didn’t want to risk running into any old acquaintances, especially Gunny Valentine, returning from a totally fucked-up patrol when he visited the MARSOC compound at Camp Victory.

Just a friendly drop-in and howdy-do with brother Marines, he rationalized as a cover for his dark mission. A few light and hearty laughs with the usually talkative storekeepers and gunsmiths, get a little updated dope on what’s happening, then he’d duck out.

As he slid into his new Escalade, which replaced the one he had burned, he reached in the console glove compartment and took out a bottle of Givenchy men’s cologne. He pulled off the lid and gave himself a nice spritz. Then Ray-Dean pulled the shifter to drive and headed across town toward the airport.

Hot, bright sun glared off the hood of the Hummer, and Rowdy Yates blinked through his sunglasses. He took them off and pushed back his helmet, wiping sweat off his face with the back of his hand.

“Wish we could go faster. Get a little breeze blowing through this truck,” he said, putting the sunglasses back on and adjusting his helmet.

“Just think cool,” Billy said, and gave the boy a pat on the shoulder.

“We’re like three pigs in a blanket back here, boss man,” Corporal Randy Powell said, extra ammo boxes pressing him against the door.

Petey Preston sat on the other side of Powell, equally jammed. “Chico’s right, Staff Sergeant. All this extra guns and ammo is overkill. I’m sorry but shit, dude.”

Cochise Quinlan gave Petey a kick in the shoulder with the side of his boot, enjoying better air manning the Maw Duce in the open turret. “We get in the shit, and you’ll be kissing Billy’s ass.”

“Yeah, Cochise, you got the breeze up there on the duce, and we’re down here smelling each other’s farts,” Petey came back, and gave Quinlan a hard elbow in the thigh.

“Put a sock in it and keep your eyes open,” Billy-C said from up front. Bad vibes rode up his spine as the convoy rolled through the tight spot. His stomach twisted into a knot, just as it always did before a fight. Jack called it built-in radar, and paid attention when Billy Claybaugh’s jaws tightened.

“You feeling the Lump?” Rowdy asked, knowing that look on Billy-C’s face. They’d all heard Gunny V talking about Claybaugh’s inbuilt early-warning system. Some people have the hair stand up on the backs of their necks, but for Billy, his gut wrenched. He got it just before an ambush, when all the warning signs made his nerves edgy and his stomach tied itself up. He also got it when competing in gold-medal matches on the Marine Corps Shooting Team. That’s when his coach named it the Lump.

Billy looked around. Mud houses, high mud walls. Two-story block houses with flat roofs. Open windows. Junk cars. Trash piles. Lots of places to set up guns for an ambush. The Lump made his ears turn red and his jaws clench hard. He had it bad this time.

“Keep your intervals wide!” Billy yelled on the command radio, seeing the two KBR semis ahead of him rolling way too close and the lead vehicle running way too slow. “Lieutenant Phipps, can we pick up the pace, sir? Let’s open some space between these trucks.”

The six-wheel-drive Army Cougar blew out black smoke as the driver pushed down the throttle and opened the gap between him and the first tractor-trailer. Rowdy tapped his brakes, slowing way down, and the trucks behind him nearly stopped from the accordion effect of all the vehicles trying to increase distances between bumpers.

Just then a command-detonated mine buried deep under the road blew a back wheel off the MRAP. A heartbeat behind it, a second mine, even larger, took out the entire tractor of the lead semi and destroyed half its trailer. They’d be lucky to find body parts of the driver.

The man running the KBR truck behind him jumped out of the cab, taking a panic-stricken run for it. A sniper’s bullet cut him down, dead, as his feet hit the ground.

“Ambush!” Claybaugh let go on command radio and intercom, a surge of adrenaline taking hold of him.

Rowdy Yates had his left hand resting on the top of the steering wheel and had his window down. He was about to say something to Billy Claybaugh when a 180-grain .30 caliber bullet fired by a 7.62-by-54-millimeter rimmed Dragunov sniper rifle struck him just under the left armpit. The al-Qaeda Iraq sniper had placed his shot in the arm opening of the young Marine’s body armor. The heavy Russian bullet took out the lance corporal’s heart and lungs while he blinked, surprised, looking at Billy-C. Rowdy wanted to say something but died before he could make a sound.

“Sniper!” Billy Claybaugh yelled on his microphone as Rowdy Yates fell into the staff sergeant’s arms.

Cochise Quinlan did not wait for orders. He opened fire with the duce at the ambush’s left flank as soon as he saw the truck driver fall dead on the road. Then he trained his stream of .50 caliber monolithic brass projectiles at a second-story window that looked a likely hide for the sniper who had just killed his young brother.

“Get that 240 up and running, and cover the right! Light those motherfuckers up!” Billy yelled as he pushed Lance Corporal Yates off him and leaned down as several AK bullets splattered the glass on his door window and the windshield.

“Cotton,” Claybaugh shouted, as Petey Preston went to work feeding ammo to Cochise and handing belts up to Randy Powell, who opened fire with the .30 caliber machine gun. “We’re in a cross fire from both sides of the road. At least a dozen sources. Beaucoup bad guys high and low.”