"Monday Night Jihad" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elam Jason, Yohn Steve)Prologue1991 Adhamiya Baghdad, Iraq Hakeem Qasim picked up the small, sharp rock from the dirt. Tossing it up and down a couple of times, he felt its weight as he gauged his target. He glanced at Ziad, his cousin and closest friend. They both knew the significance of what he was about to do. Wiping the sweat off his forehead and then onto his frayed cotton pants, he cocked his arm back, took aim, and let fly. The rock sailed from his hand, across fifteen meters of open space, in through the driver’s-side window of the burned-out Toyota, and out the other side-no metal, no glass, nothing but air. “Yes!” the two ten-year-old boys shouted in unison as they clumsily danced together in triumph. They had spent the better part of six days clearing this dirt patch, as attested by their cracked, blistered fingers and by the jagged gray piles in and around the old Corona. Hakeem took pride in the knowledge that his rocks were mostly of the “in” category, while Ziad’s were mostly of the “around.” But to have the final rock of the hundreds, if not thousands, that they had cleared from their newly created soccer field pass all the way through the car could mean only one thing-good luck. Hakeem was the older of the two by seventeen days. Although he was small for his age, his wiry frame attested to his strength and speed. His uncle Shakir had told him, “You are like the cheetah, the pursuer.” He wasn’t exactly sure what his uncle meant by that, but he loved the picture it put in his mind. Often, when he closed his eyes at night, he dreamed of stalking prey out on the open plains. Hakeem the Cheetah- Ziad was the opposite of his cousin in build. Tall, square shoulders, large head-his father used to call him As the boys scanned the dusty lot, Hakeem felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment, remembering what the field had looked like just a week ago. He glanced to his left, where he had tripped over a rock and badly cut his elbow-the impetus for their renovation. He unconsciously picked the edges of the scab; that rock had been the first to go. A waft of lamb with garlic and cumin caught Hakeem’s attention, awakening another of his senses. Well, his hunger would be taken care of soon enough. It was Friday, and every Friday (except for the day after the bombs had begun to fall last week) Uncle Ali came over for dinner. It was always a special event, because Ali Qasim was an important man. All the neighbors would bow their heads in respect as he drove by. Father would bow too, in spite of the fact that Ali was the youngest of the three brothers and Hakeem’s father was the eldest. Even now, Hakeem could see Uncle Ali’s black Land Rover parked next to his house across the field. Beside it was the matching Land Rover that carried the men Ali called his “friends,” although he never talked to them and all they ever seemed to do was stand outside the house looking around. There was a lot of mystery surrounding Uncle Ali. Last month, in a day that Hakeem would not soon forget, Uncle Ali had invited the boy to take a ride with him. “Let’s see how good my friends are,” Ali cried as he hit the gas, burying the other Land Rover in a cloud of dust. They bounced down the dirt roads, laughing and yelling for people to get out of the way. When they made it out to the main road, Ali had suddenly gotten serious. He reached into his “Hakeem, this is a 7.62 mm round that I pulled out of an unexpended AK-47 clip that Saddam Hussein himself was firing outside of his palace.” Hakeem was still too afraid to ask what-or whom-President Hussein had been firing at. “Feel the weight of it, Nephew. Imagine what this could do to a person’s body. For centuries, the West and the Jews have tried to keep our people from worshiping Allah, the true God. You’ve learned about the Crusades in school, haven’t you?” Hakeem quickly nodded as he slipped the chain over his head. The cartridge was still warm from being kept against his uncle’s chest. “You know I’m not a very religious man, Hakeem, but I can read the times. Soon, because of their hatred of Allah, the Great Satan will come to try to destroy our country. But we don’t fear, because Saddam will defend us. The mighty Republican Guard will defend us. Allah will defend us. And someday, our great leader may call on you to pick up a gun for him and fight against the West and defend his honor. Could you do it? Will you be ready, little Hakeem?” Even now, as he fingered the long, narrow brass bullet hanging around his neck, thinking about how Uncle Ali’s prophecy about the Great Satan coming to their land had been fulfilled only two weeks later, his own answer repeated itself in his mind. I will be ready, Uncle Ali. I will fight for our leader. I will fight for our honor. I will fight the Great Satan! Allahu akbar! Suddenly, an ancient, peeling soccer ball bounced off the side of his head. “Nice reflexes, Cheetah,” Ziad laughed. “What are you daydreaming about?” “I was just thinking about Uncle Ali.” “I don’t like to think about him. He scares me. People say he’s friends with Uday. Could that be?” “I don’t know, Ziad. I think it’s best not to ask too many questions.” “Yeah… I hope he leaves my mom alone tonight. I don’t like the things he says to her or the way he looks at her.” Ziad was the son of Uncle Shakir, the second of the three brothers. When Shakir was killed three years ago while fighting in Iran, Hakeem’s father had brought his brother’s family-Aunt Shatha, Ziad, and Ziad’s four-year-old sister, Zenab-into his own house. The voice of Ziad’s mother rang out from across the dirt field, interrupting their thoughts. It was almost time for “You realize that this will be the site of your great humiliation,” Ziad taunted in the pompous language they used when teasing each other. “Tomorrow, Ziad, your pride will be shown to be as empty as your mother’s purse!” That struck a little too close to home for Ziad, and he pounced upon Hakeem, quickly taking him to the ground. The boys laughed and wrestled, until the voice of Aunt Shatha came a second time-this time with a little more force and the addition of the word “We better get going. The field will still be here tomorrow,” Ziad said. “I’ll race you. Last one home’s a goat kisser!” “You got it! Ready… set…” Ziad’s forearm swung up, catching Hakeem right under the chin. I fall for that every time, Hakeem thought as he dropped to the ground. “Go!” Ziad yelled, bolting off to take full advantage of the lead he had just given himself. Hakeem sat in the dirt for a few seconds, counting his teeth with his tongue. He was in no rush. He knew that no matter how large a lead Ziad created for himself, his cousin had no chance of winning. Hakeem would run him down, and then tomorrow he would make him pay on the soccer field for the cheap shot. As he got up, he spotted his nemesis. Ziad was about halfway home, puffing with all his might. Beyond his cousin, Hakeem could see his mother and Aunt Shatha laughing and cheering Ziad on. Reclining on the roof were his father and Uncle Ali, shaking their heads and grinning. Here’s my chance to show Uncle Ali what his “little” Hakeem is made of. Hakeem jumped up and began running at full speed. Suddenly, the world became a ball of fire. The concussive wave knocked Hakeem off his feet. He lay flat on his back. Flames singed his entire body. The first thing that entered his mind as he glanced around was Look at all these rocks we’ll have to clear off the field tomorrow. The high-pitched ringing in his head was making it hard to think. As he slowly got up, a pungent smell hit his nose-a mixture of smoke, dust, and… what was that last smell?… Burnt hair? What happened? Where is everybody? Ziad was running home… Mother and Aunt Shatha were at the door… and Father and Uncle Ali were on the roof. Hakeem looked around, trying to make sense of things and attempting to get a bearing on which way was home, but the dirt and grit in his eyes were making them water. Everything was a blur. When he finally figured out which direction was home, he saw no roof, no door, no house, no Father, no Mother, no Uncle Ali, no Aunt Shatha, no Ziad. He saw smoke and dirt, fire and rubble. Hakeem stumbled toward where his home had been. He could only think of one thing: Panic began to well up inside of him. The ringing in his head began to subside, only to be replaced by a more terrifying sound-screams. Screams coming from all around him. Screams coming from within him. People were running on his left and on his right-some carrying buckets, some covering wounds. Hakeem stumbled past a smoldering heap of rags that deep inside he knew was his cousin, but he couldn’t stop-couldn’t deal with that now. He had to find his mother. As he crossed his father’s property line, he fell into a deep, wide hole. An exposed piece of rebar cut a long gash into his leg. Blood poured out, soaking his torn pants, but still he forced himself up. Mama, I’ll find you! Oh, Allah, help me! Allahu akbar, you are great! Show me where she is! Don’t worry, Mama, I’ll save you! He grasped for handholds to pull himself out of the hole and felt something solid. He grabbed it and began climbing up the side of the crater. As he reached the top, he finally saw what he was holding on to. It was an arm-visible to halfway up the bicep before it disappeared underneath a massive block of cement and metal. Hakeem instantly let go, falling back to the bottom. He twisted and landed on his hands and knees and began to vomit. As he hovered over the newly formed puddle, he could hear the screams all around him. He dropped to his side and rolled onto his back, closing his eyes tightly, trying to will himself not to look at the arm. As long as he didn’t look up, didn’t see the very familiar ring around the third finger of the hand, then maybe it wouldn’t be true. Maybe he could just stay down here, and eventually his mother would find him. She would help him out of the pit, put ointment on his face, bandage his leg, hold him tight, and tell him everything was going to be okay. But Hakeem knew that would never happen. He knew Mama would never hold him again. The distinctive ring he had glimpsed was one he had examined often as he listened to stories while lying in bed. It was a ring he had spun around his mother’s finger as he sat with the women and children in the mosque, listening to the mullah condemn America and the Jews. This has to be a dream, he thought. Please, Allah, let me wake up! Tears began and quickly turned into torrents. I don’t like this anymore; please let me wake up! His heart felt like it would explode. He didn’t know what to do. Now his screams began again, and they continued on and on until finally Hakeem’s world faded into an unsettled blackness. 2003 Operation Enduring Freedom Bagram Valley Helmand Province, Afghanistan His count was off. Second Lieutenant Riley Covington of the United States Air Force Special Operations Command was on watch at a perimeter security post. He had been lying at the top of a low rise, watching his sector, for four hours, and each time he had counted the boulders on the hill across the small valley, he had come up with thirty-six. This time, however, the count reached thirty-seven. Keep it together, buddy, Riley thought as he rubbed his eyes. He shifted slightly to try to allow the point of a rock that had been boring into his left leg to begin a new hole. I have no doubt these guys scattered these rocks out here ’cause they knew we were coming. “You seeing anything, Taps?” Riley whispered into his comm. At the other security post, located on the opposite side of the harbor site, Airman First Class Armando Tapia was stretched out behind a small, hastily constructed rock wall. “Everything’s good to go,” came the reply. On this sixth night of their mission, Riley had chosen a less-than-ideal position to set up their camp. He didn’t feel too bad, however; there were probably fewer than a half dozen ideal sites in this whole desolate valley. He was positioned on a low hill to the east of his Operational Detachment Alpha, and Tapia was planted to the north of the team. Rising on the south and west of the ODA camp were steep cliffs. If anyone wanted to approach their bivouac, they would have to come through one of the two security posts. Typically, AFSOC missions were carried out singly or in pairs. The special-ops personnel were dropped in from high altitude to take meteorologic and geographic measurements, then silently evacuated. Very clean, very quiet. But Riley’s team had lost three members in this area during the last two weeks. So it was on to plan B-take in a group and protect everyone’s backside. The moon exposed the barren landscape, eliminating the need for vision enhancement. Riley shifted again and flexed his fingers to keep the cool night air from cramping them. A scorpion skittered up to check out the rustle. Riley’s number-two man, Staff Sergeant Scott Ross, said these creatures were called orthochirus afghanus Kovarik; Riley preferred to call them the “nasty little black ones.” A well-placed flick sent the arachnid careering down the front side of the hill. Time to start counting boulders again. Riley Covington knew that if he could survive this tour in Afghanistan, chances were good that by this time next year, the scenery around him would look a whole lot better. He was two years out of the Air Force Academy, where he had been a three-time WAC/MWC Defensive Player of the Year and, as a senior, had won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker. He was six-two, rock hard, and lightning fast. His nickname at the Academy had been Apache-later shortened to “Pach”-after the AH-64 attack helicopter. Hit ’em low, hit ’em hard, hit ’em fast! Riley had sent more opposing players staggering to the sidelines than he could count. Once, a writer for the Rocky Mountain News had compared his hitting ability to Mike Singletary’s, the infamous linebacker who had broken sixteen helmets during his college days at Baylor. He still felt proud when he thought about that comparison. Two years earlier, Riley had been selected by the Colorado Mustangs in the third round of the Pro Football League draft, and commentators believed Riley had the possibility of a promising PFL career ahead of him. However, his post-Academy commitment meant putting that opportunity off for a couple of years. In the meantime, he had spent his last two thirty-day leaves in Mustangs training camps before rushing back out to wherever AFSOC wanted him next. Riley’s insides tensed as he came to the end of his count. Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six… thirty-seven… thirty-eight! Something is definitely happening here, he thought. WHOOMPF! The unmistakable sound of a mortar tube echoed through the valley below. “Incoming!” Riley yelled as he opened fire with his M4 carbine at “boulders” thirty-seven and thirty-eight, causing one to stumble back down the hill and the other to remain permanently where it was. A flare lit up the night sky as heavy machine-gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms rounds targeted Riley’s ODA. Riley looked to his left and saw an anticoalition militia approaching from the north, right over Tapia’s position. Riley, seeing the size of the enemy force, let off a few more three-shot bursts, then bolted back down to the harbor site. He took cover in a low ditch and scanned the camp. What he saw was not encouraging. Four of his ODA members were down-two with what looked like some pretty major shrapnel wounds. There was no sign of Tapia anywhere. The rest of his squad was scattered around the camp, pinned under the heavy barrage. One of their patrol Humvees had been hit with an RPG, and the large quantity of ammunition inside was cooking off. This situation was spiraling downward fast. Movement caught his eye. It was Scott Ross, lying flat behind some empty petrol cans and waving to catch Riley’s attention. Using hand signals, Ross indicated that his com was down and pointed back toward the second patrol vehicle. Riley looked in the direction Ross was pointing and saw their salvation. Off to his left, about fifteen meters away, an MK19 automatic grenade launcher was mounted on its low tripod. Riley quickly signaled back to Ross to provide full-automatic cover fire, then rocketed out from safety and across the dirt. He almost made it. Something hit him in the hip, spinning him counterclockwise in midair. He landed hard, gasping for air. As he tried to get up, a mixture of stinging and deep, throbbing pain dropped him down flat. He knew his men desperately needed him, but he couldn’t move. Helplessness quickly overwhelmed him. Lord, I can’t stay down, but I don’t know if I can get up! Give me what I need! Please, give me what I need! Ross was shouting at him, but the surrounding noise made it impossible for Riley to make out the words. Without the Mark 19, their chances were bleak. Mustering all the strength he had left, Riley began pulling himself the rest of the way to the weapon. Bullets danced all around him, kicking up puffs of dirt into his face and clanging against the nearby Humvee. With each grab of the rocky ground, his adrenaline increased. Finally, the endorphins began to get the best of the pain, and Riley was able to get his feet under him. He stumbled forward, launched himself behind the Mark 19, and let loose. It took him just under a minute and a half to empty the ammunition can of sixty grenades. The sound was deafening, and the explosions from the shells hitting the enemy positions lit up the night. Riley knew from experience that there was nothing to do but fall back in the face of that kind of fire, which was exactly what the enemy militia did. But RPGs and mortar rounds kept dropping into the camp. Riley signaled for Ross to come and load another can of ammo on the Mark 19. Then he half ran, half staggered over to what remained of his ODA. The rest of his team huddled around him and he took a quick head count. Besides Ross, there were Dawkins, Logan, Murphy, Posada, and Li. “Posada, contact the command-and-control nodes in the rear and request immediate close air support and a medical-evacuation flight.” “Yes, sir!” Riley drew his team close. “Okay, men, we have two options. We dig in here and try to hold off another attack, or we surprise them while they’re regrouping.” “Tell ya what, Pach,” said Kim “Tommy” Li, a man with an itchy trigger finger and way too many tattoos, “if there’s gonna be target practice going on here, I’d rather be the shooter than the bull’s-eye.” Riley laid out his plan. “Okay, then, here’s how it’s going to work: I’m guessing they’ll feint another attack from the north, but their main force will come from the east, because that’s where the Mark 19 is. They know that if they don’t take the Mark out, they’re toast. So, Murphy and Li, I want you to belly out to those boulders twenty meters north to meet their feint. Logan, you and Ross remount the Mark on the Humvee and get her ready to go head-to-head with their onrush. Dawkins, you and I’ll hit the east security post. When you all hear us start firing, circle the Humvee around east; then everyone open up with everything and blow the snot out of these desert rats. Got it?” An excited mixture of “Yes, sir” and “Yeah, boy” was heard from the men. “Excellent! Posada, sweeten up our coordinates with command.” “You got it, Pach,” Posada said as he pounded away on his Toughbook-a nearly indestructible laptop computer perfect for use in combat. “We’ve got five of our guys down, with at least one probably out-that’s unacceptable. Let’s make ’ em pay.” Riley locked eyes with each member of his team and tried to draw from them the same courage he was attempting to instill. “Dawkins, don’t wait for me to hit that security post with you! Ready… go, go, go!!” Skeeter Dawkins was a good old boy from Mississippi. Fiercely loyal to Riley, there were several times when he had to be pulled off of fellow team members who he thought had disrespected their lieutenant. He was big, strong, fast, and knew only two words when under fire: Dawkins ran out ahead and was already in position by the time Riley got there and dropped next to him with a grunt of pain. Sixty meters out, Riley could see between forty and fifty well-armed enemy militia members prepping for another attack. “I’m guessing they’re not done with us yet, Skeet.” “Yes, sir.” It sounded more like “Looks like they’ll be feinting inside while rolling a flank around left. Must be boring being so predictable.” “Yes, sir.” The two men lay silently for a minute, watching the preparations of their enemies. Riley turned to look at the empty sky behind them. “Sure would like to see that air support come in right about now.” “Mmm.” “Skeet, anyone ever tell you that you ain’t much of a conversationalist?” It was hard not to slip into a Mississippi drawl when talking with Skeeter. Skeeter grinned. “Yes, sir.” The random actions of the enemy force suddenly coalesced into an organized forward movement. “Looks like the Afghani welcome wagon’s rolling again.” “Yes, sir.” “Skeeter Dawkins, you gonna let any of those boys through here?” Skeeter turned to Riley. He looked genuinely hurt at his lieutenant’s attempt to force an expansion of his vocabulary. Riley laughed. Nothing like feigned confidence to hide what you’re really feeling. “Don’t you worry, airman. Just make sure you give them a gen-u-ine Mississippi welcome.” Skeeter smiled. “Yes, sir!” Riley could hear the muffled sound of the Humvee starting up as he and Skeeter readied their M4s. Red dots from each of their M68 Close Combat Optics landed nose level on the first two attackers. Their fingers hugged the triggers. The sudden whine of two Apache helicopters halted Riley’s counterattack. The 30 mm cannons mounted on either side of the choppers strafed the enemy force. The ensuing carnage was hard to watch. One life after another was snuffed out in rapid succession. When the last bad guy stopped moving, the Apaches turned and headed back to where they’d come from. Skeeter pulled Riley to his feet and helped him down the hill. Pain crashed through Riley’s hip, and his left leg buckled. Kim Li rushed over and slipped himself under Riley’s other arm. “Well, Pach, it was a good plan,” Li laughed. “Guess I’ll have to take my target practice elsewhere.” Riley knew it was just Li’s adrenaline talking, but he still had a hard time not laying into him. Too much blood had been spilled and too many screams filled the night air to be joking about killing just now. Back at the harbor site, an MH-53 Pave Low was just dropping in to evacuate the team. Riley was eased onto a stretcher and carried the rest of the way. As he was lifted onto the helicopter with the two dead and five injured, football was the furthest thing from his mind. |
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