Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Sammy LaSage and Jaws ran out, under the suppression fire and grabbed Randy Powell, and dragged him to the far side, where Cotton ran the SAW.

“I’m going back for Petey and the boys, and we’ll beat feet,” Jaws said.

“Do it!” Cotton Martin said, dropping a spent can from the light machine gun and locking in a full one.

Cotton then switched guns with Sage, patted him on the helmet, and headed for the gully, with Corporal Powell running at his side, his arm on Martin’s shoulder. Ahead of them, Bronco and Jaws carried Petey the same way. However, Cochise Quinlan kept firing above Jack.

“Move out, Marine!” Jack yelled.

“I can’t leave, Gunny!” Sergeant Quinlan cried out. Tears streamed from his eyes. “I can’t see you die!”

“Those Marines need you, Sergeant!” Jack snarled. “Do your fucking job!”

The words stung, but the stocky, stubborn sergeant knew the gunny was right. Two more shots, one more dead Haji, and Cochise dropped to his knees. He pushed the big rock right by Jack’s face and checked the rest of his concealment.

“It’s a good hide, Gunny,” Cochise said. “Is it okay for a guy to love a guy?”

“Sure it is, Cochise,” Jack answered, shooting the machine gun. “Just don’t fuck me.”

Cochise laughed. “I love you, Gunny Valentine. More than just a brother. All of us, we’re like all part of each other. Does that make sense?”

“Absolutely,” Jack said, and put his hand on the sergeant’s boot toe and gave it a pat.

Cochise looked at the gunny. “Don’t fucking die!”

“I’m not!” Jack said, and changed cans while Cochise opened again with his Vigilance rifle. That’s when he saw Petey’s M40A3 sniper rifle lying on the embankment.

“I’m leaving this Vigilance for you, Gunny,” Cochise said, and quickly buried his rifle and Petey Preston’s satchel full of ammunition, which he had pulled from the Marine’s discarded backpack. “Rifle and ammo at arm’s reach, to your right. It’s buried good.”

“Get the fuck out of here!” Jack yelled, and Sergeant Quinlan got to his feet. Heavy fire returning from the three machine guns and a dozen rifles chewed up the dirt above and around both Marines.

“Don’t fucking die!” Cochise yelled as he stood to run.

“I won’t,” Jack shouted back, bullets flying.

“Promise?” Cochise strained, his voice breaking up.

“I promise!” Jack said, working the machine gun.

With that, Sergeant Clarence Quinlan disappeared.

Jack Valentine shot out the six cans of SAW ammo that he had. When he popped the last bullet downrange, he slid deep in his hole, tossed the machine gun aside, and pulled the rock in front of his face. He prayed that he hadn’t knocked away any camouflage. With that last round spent, Jack felt more alone now than he had ever known in his life.

Jack waited and prayed. He knew that if Jamal, the al-Sunnah captain, had known to call him Ghost One, he no doubt had monitored the command and control encrypted radio channels. To do that, the enemy had to have the working crypto receivers and call frequencies.

However, he didn’t think that the Hajis had ears on the MARSOC team’s discrete intercom band or frequencies since they had never acted on any information that they should have obtained if they could monitor them. Such as the fact that Randy Powell had played dead and gotten away with it. Had they known he was alive in the open, they would have finished him with their machine guns.

For this, the gunny was thankful for Elmore Snow’s insistence that his teams not carry one radio with all channels, but two different devices with different radio bandwidths. One for the command communications and the other for internal voice chatter. Both connected with their helmet headsets, as if one radio, but command could not hear the cross talk among the team. The colonel had told his Marines that once small unit leaders began giving that kind of access and direct control to higher headquarters staff, soon bean counters and even the president would be sitting in lounge chairs, sipping cocktails and quarterbacking special operations missions. Something that must never happen. “Micromanagement kills Marines,” Elmore had said.

Carefully, Jack reached inside his vest and felt his command radio. He wanted to turn it off and save the battery. When he gripped hold of it, however, he felt it sizzle and smelled faint electrical smoke. He checked his GPS position locator transmitter receiver; it too had died.

He had heard nothing of his Marines over the intercom since they left. With the two other radios gone, that worried him. Of course, on the move, dodging an aggressive enemy, they would spare words.

“Cotton, you copy?” Jack whispered over the hands-free, looking up the dry riverbed from a small hole by the rock. He hugged his M40A3 sniper rifle that he had in his hide with him, along with his pack full of .338 Lapua Magnum ammunition and four canteens of water that his team had left in addition to his own four bottles, plus two bags of dehydrated food. They had packed food and water for a couple of days, so Jack knew he would have to make every drop of water count and stretch every crumb of food.

While Cochise Quinlan had buried Petey Preston’s Vigilance semiautomatic support rifle and his satchel full of .338 magnum ammunition, he had tossed aside Corporal Preston’s backpack and what was left in it. Simply too much nonessential crap to carry in addition to his own pack. Plus it offered a distraction to the enemy. However, the emotional sergeant had unintentionally left behind his entrenching tool, stuck in the sand by an empty hole. It reminded Jack of a grave marker. All it needed was an empty helmet hung on top of it and empty boots at its base.

To help disguise the gunny’s hide, the team had dug several other shallow fighting holes and made sure they all had ample spent brass in and around them. They also left plenty of tracks running every direction, on their way out, to draw the enemy away from Jack.

“Cotton,” Gunny Valentine called again. No answer.

For a minute or two, which seemed like an eternity, the world fell silent. Jack felt his heart pound in his ears, and he held his breath.

Then all hell broke loose.

Machine gun fire swept up and down the dry riverbed, sending bullets into every aspect and angle.

“Here’s where I die,” Jack told himself, anticipating a burst hitting him where he lay. The dirt and rocks on top of him would do little to repel .30 caliber hot lead.

Somehow, God must have heard his prayers. Bullets landed around him but not in him. Then, moments later, a dozen-plus Hajis came charging into Jack’s position, shooting up the world even more. A gang of them walked directly on top of him several times. One gunman even stood in the middle of Valentine’s back, searching for clues.

One man picked up Corporal Preston’s backpack and dumped out all the contents. Socks, two douche-bag dinners, water bottles, some empty spare ammunition magazines for the Vigilance, a pair of binoculars, a bottle of Cholula chili sauce. But no ammunition or much else of real value.

The Haji threw the pack in the dirt and kicked one of the MRE bags like a soccer ball off the side of his foot at another gunman who kicked it back. Then the two men began playing football with the brown-plastic pack of dehydrated food. Jack smiled.

“This just might work,” he told himself.

Another enemy gunman took Cochise’s forgotten entrenching tool, gave it a good look, started to keep it but decided it would be in his way. So, he stabbed it in the ground next to the rock hiding Gunny Valentine’s face. The little shovel blade just missed his head.

A voice in the wadi, far behind the gunny, yelled something in Arabic, and other voices approaching in the wadi from the west answered. Then everyone took off running and jabbering to each other.