They raced past checkpoints, blast barriers and concertina wire.
Baghdad up ahead.
Ministry buildings split open by Tomahawks. Homeless families bivouacked in burned-out offices. Campfires flickered in upper floors throughout the night.
The ‘Mother of All Battles’ mosque. Each minaret shaped like a SCUD.
The skyline veiled in rain.
A tight side street. Slum housing. Crumbling concrete apartment blocks flanked a dirt road with a sewer trench either side. Lean dogs pawed garbage. A few locals in dishdashas sheltered in doorways.
Lucy pulled a map from the sun-visor pocket.
‘What’s he doing? Your CO. Why the detour?’
‘JTAC says a truck flipped outside the old college. It’s going to take them an hour to clear the road.’
‘Not many people around,’ said Toon. ‘I don’t like the atmospherics.’
Lucy slapped the driver on the shoulder.
‘Tell your boss right in two hundred metres. We have to get out of these side roads.’
Burned-out cars. A rat-run alley blocked by oil drums full of rubble.
‘They pay for a kill,’ said Amanda. ‘You know that, right? Sunni militia. Plant a bomb, kill a white skin. There’s a bounty.’
‘How much are we worth?’
‘About three hundred dollars. Lot of money round here.’
‘It’s the rain,’ said the driver. ‘Everyone is hiding from the rain.’
‘Your command vehicle. It’s got electronic countermeasures, right? For roadside?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t like it.’ Toon craned to look up. Balconies and snarled phone cable. ‘Classic choke point. Sitting ducks.’ He turned in his seat and addressed the marine beside him.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Rubin.’
‘Tell your boss to speed up.’
The young marine hesitated, then spoke into his radio.
‘India One, this is India Two. Come in, over.’
‘Go ahead India Two.’
‘Contract suggests we move a little faster, over.’
‘India Two, maintain radio silence, over.’
‘Roger that.’
‘Tell him to keep out of the road ruts,’ said Lucy. ‘Perfect place for a pressure plate. Seriously. Tell him.’
‘India One, this is India Two, over.’
‘Maintain silence, India Two.’
‘Contract suggests we keep out of ruts in the road.’
‘Tell her to fuck herself, over.’
‘Roger that.’
‘Your CO is a fucking idiot,’ said Toon.
‘That’s Lance-Corporal Cortez. You call him Sir.’
The lead Humvee stopped.
‘What’s the deal?’ demanded Lucy. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
Cortez kicked open the side door of the Humvee and got out.
‘Fuck,’ muttered Lucy. She extended the butt-stock of her assault rifle. She flicked the safety to Off, selector to Burst. She popped the door of the Suburban, ran across the street and threw herself against a cinder-block wall. Rifle to her shoulder. She scanned windows, parapets and balconies. No movement.
Voss in her earpiece:
‘Fuck is going on, boss? Fucking dead meat out here.’
‘Hold on.’
She wiped rain from her eyes and looked down the street. A Fiat Tempra station wagon parked by the roadside fifty yards ahead. The vehicle was empty. It sat low on the rear axle. Might be stacked with artillery shells. Might be a bunch of twenty-litre palm oil drums filed with a bath-tub brew of ammonium nitrate and aluminium filings.
Cortez slowly walked towards the Fiat. He stopped seventy-five yards out. He checked for disturbed earth. He scanned the ground for secondaries or a command wire. He checked balconies and windows, tried to gauge probable line-of-sight for a trigger man crouched with a cellphone detonator and a video camera.
‘Hey. Cortez,’ shouted Lucy. ‘Let’s back up, all right? We’ll turn round. Get out of here.’
The corporal peered through the Fiat window. An empty back seat. An empty trunk. He relaxed. He jogged back towards the Humvee.
‘Okay,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s go.’
Slow motion:
Guy steps out of a doorway and shoulders an RPG. Flash. Billowing back-blast. Streaking projectile. Lucy screaming ‘Get Down!’ Cortez looking at her like ‘What the fuck?’ The grenade hits him between the shoulder blades and suddenly there is nothing left of the CO but pink mist.
It rained meat.
RPG guy stepped from the doorway again. He hurriedly clipped a fresh sabot into the smoking barrel and shouldered the weapon. A young, bearded guy in baggy trousers and white shirt. Lucy shot him through the left eye and blew out the back of his skull. He was thrown clean out of his flip-flops.
A compadre ducked out of the doorway and snatched up the RPG.
The driver got out of the Humvee and looked at scraps of wet muscle draped over the hood and windshield. Shock. Paralysis.
Lucy ran across the street. She grabbed him by the collar of his tac vest. His name patch said DANVER.
‘Specialist. Did you radio it in?’
‘No. Yes.’
‘You have to get it together. Every mobbed-up Sunni in this quarter of the city will be heading this way.’
‘We can’t leave the Corp.’
Lucy glanced around. Scorched flak jacket and ribs beneath the Humvee. Arms and legs in the street. The corporal’s head lay in the sewer trench, still wearing a K-pot helmet. Pooled blood and rainwater.
‘We do not have the time to police this shit up.’
Crack of AK fire. Muzzle flash from a high window. Dirt kicked up around their feet. They took shelter behind the Humvee.
‘Contact,’ screamed Danver. ‘Fire for effect.’
A marine squirmed through the roof hatch of the Humvee, racked the .50 cal and swept walls and windows with heavy fire. The vehicle rocked on its suspension. Jackhammer roar. The weapon ejected a stream of smoking brass. He pulverised balconies and blew craters in cinder block.
Toon and Amanda joined Lucy behind the Humvee and fired full auto up the street. Four-second burst. Reload. Rally shout:
‘Like it?’
‘Love it.’
A kid ducked out of a doorway and spray-fired his AK, so green he closed his eyes and looked away as the weapon bucked in his hands. Amanda dropped him double-tap: efficient centre-of-mass kill shots that shook him like hammer blows.
Another kid jumped from an alleyway. Distant shout:
‘Allahu Akbar…’
Toon stepped out from behind the Humvee. Bullets spitting dirt at his feet. He selected full auto and ripped the kid’s chest open. The kid fell dead. Toon dropped the spent mag and wedged a fresh clip in the receiver. Full auto. He made the dead kid dance.
Lucy dragged Toon to cover.
‘You fucking idiot. Trying to get killed?’
Huang and Voss took flanking positions in doorways and guarded the rear.
‘How many we got?’ shouted Toon. ‘How many shooters?’
‘Two. Three. End of the street.’
Two shooters at a window seventy yards down the street. Amateurs. Spray-fire. She waited for a reload lull. Lucy popped single shots, blowing chunks out of the windowsill. Suppressive fire. She felt calm. A flow state. This was where she belonged.
The last two rounds in each mag were red-tip tracer to alert she was running low. She ejected the clip, pulled a fresh thirty-round STANAG mag from a vest pouch and slapped it into the receiver.
Danver dragged a backpack from the cab. He crouched behind the Humvee and worked the radio.
‘Tell them we are by the old telephone exchange,’ shouted Lucy.
‘All call signs, this is India One, heavy contact, taking RPG and sustained fire. Grid: niner, six, two, five…’