Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

“No shit,” Jack whispered on his intercom to Cotton Martin. “A storm culvert’s a good place to pack full of high explosives. In two shakes, they’ll be in here with me.”

“Sit tight and cover up,” Cotton came back. “We’re set up. You just say when.”

“Roger that,” Jack whispered.

Locked in place with his back to the roadway, crouched just inside the culvert, but hearing these four turds shooting the breeze with such nonchalance, laughing and talking as they worked, the gunny leaned his head back and tilted his eyes upward to try to catch a glimpse of the men and get an idea of what they were doing.

Just as he looked upward, one of the Haji bombers stepped to the edge of the road, straddling the storm culvert, and began pissing, directly above Gunny Valentine.

“Is he taking a leak on the gunny?” Bronco whispered on the intercom, and muffled his laugh in his sleeve.

“Better be pissed off than pissed on, and right now, I think Gunny’s both.” Cotton Martin laughed and moved his night-vision spotting scope to an al-Qaeda insurgent carrying a large satchel that the staff sergeant guessed was odds-on stuffed tight with explosive detonators and probably C4 bricks to set off the main charges in the fifty-five-gallon steel drums.

“Jaws, you got the guy with the big sack?” the staff sergeant asked on the covered net intercom.

“Roger,” Jaws said. “Crosshairs on him. Say when.”

“Fire,” Cotton replied.

With urine and mud splattering in his face, Jack Valentine squeezed off his first shot straight up, sending his high-velocity .45 caliber round directly into the pissing man’s crotch. With the shot, a second Qaeda leaped into the ditch, and before he could blink, the gunny blew him off his feet.

As he killed the second man, Gunny Valentine rolled into the culvert for cover.

At the sound of the two rapid shots, Jaws squeezed the trigger of the Barrett and sent 660 grains of screaming death straight into the explosive-stuffed bag and the man who had his arms wrapped around it, trying to run.

As the .50 caliber round from Alex Gomez’s rifle blew apart the man with the satchel, it set off a chain reaction of deafening explosions.

Orange flames boiled into black clouds of smoke as the gasoline in the two vans ignited and lighted the darkness for a hundred yards surrounding the wreckage. The echoing thunder from the explosions and the fire that now leaped fifty feet into the night sky drew attention from every farmhouse window within miles on both sides of the river.

With metal debris and vehicle parts tumbling from above and bouncing across the ground, Gunny Valentine held tight inside the shelter of the culvert. Then, with the last loud clank of truck parts hitting the ground, Jack grabbed his rifle and dashed straight down the shallow wash where his men had crawled, and nearly fell over Cochise Quinlan as he ran past him.

Seeing his shooting partner hotfooting it away from the remnants of the two burning vans, Sergeant Quinlan shouldered his pack, snatched his camouflage net in one hand and his rifle in the other, and followed the gunny.

“What now, boss?” Cotton said with a smile, as the gunny flopped on the ground next to him and looked back at the gasoline-fed flames that boiled high in the night sky.

“Score four.” Jack grinned, blowing out a deep breath. “That son of a bitch pissed right over my head! You see that shit?”

“Looked like you put a hardball straight up his tailpipe for it.” Bronco laughed.

“First time I ever seen a guy get his head blown off shot up the ass,” Jaws said as he tied his Barrett back on his pack. “Might be a good idea if we put a move on this motherfucker, though. That weenie roast on the road will draw a crowd sure as shit.”

“Hopefully, it will take them a while to figure out what happened, and we can be long gone,” the gunny answered, then looked into the darkness where they needed to travel. “Maybe by then we can get regrouped on up north. Maybe find us a prisoner to snatch. Totally fucked up this area.”

“Strange way to start a hunt,” Cotton said, “but on the plus side, we did light up four.”

“I ain’t complaining. We ain’t the ones lying scattered up there like roadkill,” Sergeant Quinlan said as he departed into the night, leading the way.

After Liberty Cruz had checked into her Green Zone contractor and press corps hotel efficiency apartment, one of four similar rooms assigned to her and her team by the State Department facilities officer, she headed downstairs to meet her crew in the all-ranks service club for a late dinner and a few rounds of whatever flavor beer they served. For the simple advantage of having freedom of movement and less close scrutiny, and against the wishes of the embassy security officer, she and the team had turned down the white trailers with blast-proof roofs and reinforced walls, located within the compound gates, an old Saddam Hussein palace converted to the US embassy, Baghdad.

Construction on a new embassy facility had recently begun on the more than one hundred acres of the US compound grounds, overlooking the banks of the Tigris River. At the end of the day, the new embassy would cost taxpayers more than $600 million atop the $150 million already spent establishing the current US embassy, Baghdad. With cranes raised high in the air, the construction site made the growing structures a noticeable part of the city skyline and a hard-to-miss target. Liberty didn’t want to be sleeping close to that bomb magnet, either.

Even dressed in military-style tan 5.11 cargo pants and matching blouse, sleeves rolled up and buttons open over a black T-shirt, and a black baseball cap with no markings, her long black hair tied in a bun and tucked under the cap, Liberty Cruz still stopped traffic. When she stepped through the zigzag entrance of the service club, hoping to not draw attention, all dozen or so late-night patrons, an all-male crowd, locked eyes on her.

Pointless now to try keeping a low profile, the long cool woman from the FBI took off her baseball cap, shook loose her hair, so that it fell around her shoulders, and beamed a big smile at the gawking crowd of horny men.

“Hello, boys,” she called out in her best Mae West imitation. “I’m so glad you could see me.”

Everyone hooted and laughed, including the FBI tactical team waiting for her.

Amidst the cheers, she sashayed across the room to where her three-man crew sat, grinning ear to ear.

The whole place sent up more cheers and whistles as she sat down.

Before she or her men could say another word, a pitcher of Amstel beer slid across the table in front of her, along with five clean glasses. A good-looking blond-haired man with a well-trimmed moustache had brought them.

“Aren’t you the bold one?” she said to the stranger.

“I never got anywhere just watching,” he said, and extended his hand to all four at the table. “Chris Gray, CIA Operations. I believe you’re the FBI team from DC I heard landed this evening?”

“No kept secrets in Baghdad, I see,” Liberty said, shaking Gray’s hand. “Should we make introductions, or do you already know our names?”

“I have them.” Gray smiled, finishing the round of handshakes. “Jason Kendrick and I go back a ways. He gave me a heads-up. Asked me to assist on the down low, anywhere you needed. Keep a back door open and all.”

Liberty smiled. “And where do you and Jason go back?”

Gray put his forearm on the table so that they could see his Marine Corps tattoo.

“It’s like a Mafia family.” Gray smiled back.

“Oh, don’t I know. Once a Marine, always a Marine,” Liberty said, and nodded at her team, the three of them Marines, too.