I'd asked what was going on and since then just nodded. Calmly. He was pumped up. Turned out they hadn't practiced the jump at all. First time out of a bird. Flying on that adrenaline high. I'll give him credit for brass ones.
I grabbed him by the front of his fucking safari jacket, down to the water, into the canal and then pressed his face under the water. Looking up. I wanted to watch.
I kept him there, despite his struggles, until I could tell he was about to pass out. Then, against my better judgement, I let the fucking idiot have air.
What? What? What's all this, then?
"Listen, you little pissant," I said, slamming him up against the wall of the concrete building. I don't even recall carrying him up the pretty steep and slippery slope. And he was not a small guy. Didn't matter. "Let me tell you what you and your fucking boss have done. You have just probably killed us. All of us. Including you. I figured we had about a one in seventy shot of making it to the fucking Dardanelles. We're looking at having to take on three to ten times our numbers in firepower to have any shot. You've just added six fucking useless mouths to my force. Six seats I have to find room for. Six slots to load gear into. And you're going to want to give fucking 'regular reports' since you're in the news business and every last fucking RIF with a damned satellite dish and power is going to know we're coming and more or less where and when. Last but most assuredly not least, you just did a fucking drop in full view of Baghdad which I was sincerely hoping to slip by unnoticed. My first thought is to just kill all of you. Nobody would ever know. Overrun by RIFs before we got to them. Poor brave reporter bastards. Never stood a chance. Are you listening? Do you clearly understand my dilemma? That dilemma being whether to push in with my forearm and crack your hyoid to leave you to choke in your own blood, walk around the corner and say 'Kill them. Kill them all.'? Because my boys won't bat an eye and they will never, ever talk."
He'd gone white. Whiter. He'd gone white when he realized I was drowning him and not just kidding around.
"We hadn't realized it was that bad . . . I'm sorry. Sorry."
He wasn't pleading to live. He clearly understood what I'd said and realized how badly he had screwed us.
I doubt I could have killed him if that hadn't been his reaction. But I was sorely sorely tempted.
"You're working for me, now. Not Murdoch. You will send what I say and when I say. You will explain to your crew, who I hope all include smart people, just what a fucked up situation they have dropped into."
"You've got it."
"It's going to be censorship."
"If it keeps us, all of us, your Yanks, the Nepos, my crew, alive, I can work with that."
"You fell in the stream. We laughed about it."
"Got it."
The fucked up thing was that I knew what I was going to do before I'd ever pushed him underwater. I knew in a moment while he was talking. Oh, not the details but the outline and it never was much more than an outline.
I hadn't pushed him under because I was negotiating. I really had had as my first plan killing them. Nobody would ever know.
But I went with Plan B.
Rupert Murdoch wanted news to prop up his flagging networks?
We'd give him the same kind of news the MSM had been sending for years: We'd be sending entertainment.
The only thing was, I was hoping to send much much more.
Get news back to what it was supposed to be.
If we survived.
We rolled out. Fast.
Didn't matter. We got hit, anyway.
I had the Scouts echelon to the west towards Baghdad. I figured if there was going to be a threat, it would be from that direction.
Sure enough, they spotted a line of trucks, couple of military grade and more pickups, some of them "technicals" rolling down the highway to cut us off.
When the trucks, in turn, spotted the Strykers some of them pulled off the road. Guys started bailing out. The technicals opened up and started weaving across the field.
Our guys started backing up. There were two Strykers moving by fire and maneuver. One would fire up the convoy moving slow while the other backed up fast, also firing but not as accurately. There was a line of trees they were headed for to get behind.
A bunch of the RIFs had dived into an irrigation ditch. Some of the technicals were smoked.
One of the Scout Strykers blew up. Just blew the fuck up. No clue why.
The other one backed up faster and started maneuvering. They didn't see anybody bail out of the other, which was billowing smoke.
I could see the smoke from the commo van. It had external viewers even if they were lousy for spotting planes. I told Fillup to maneuver his unit and find out what had killed them. There was a marker for the enemy unit where the scouts said it was. Pretty much a klick from where they first engaged, klick and a half to where the Stryker was hit.
Second Stryker maneuvered into the trees. One of them blew up but the Stryker lived.
They had Javelins.
Only two, thank God, but that's what we found when we rolled over their position. One sight and two expended launchers. For one of our vehicles.
DOD, on orders from the Secretary of Defense under consultation with State, gave the whole damned LOG base in Iraq to the fucking Sunnis. Including the Javelins.
We checked out the Stryker. It was toast. They don't have much in the way of internal blast control. The Javelin had hit just behind the commander's cupola and just blew the Stryker up like a child's toy. You could see the little-ass hole where it hit. Little hole, big boom.
We pulled every last body out and into body bags. They went on the supply truck.
I thought about Javelins as we rolled. That and the reporters. At one of the "rest" stops I tossed everybody but Graham out of the commo van and we "talked."
I said "rest" stops because we never really rested through those few days. It went like this. The Strykers had to fuel. Drivers got tired and logy and that led to accidents. Etc.
The guys could sort of rest riding in the Strykers. Not well, but it was "military rest." Like "military law" and "military music." You could close your eyes. If you were very experienced you could sleep the sleep of the just. Generally you sort of floated in a white daze that sort of helped.
Most of the infantry could come out of it fighting as fast as if they'd been awake.
But the drivers had to work, constantly. You had to rotate them. The AFV and the truck and the rest.
We'd gotten it down to an art. I'd order a rest stop at a certain point followed by "Logging." That's what it's called. As in "Logistics resupply."
We'd stop. Drivers would switch. New driver would hop in the seat, old driver would grab a spot and we'd roll on. Took about ten seconds. Think "Chinese Fire Drill."
Then we'd roll slowly. We had four trucks lined up. Food truck, ammo truck, fuel truck, supply (trash) truck.
Stryker would come up on either side of the food Hemmitt. Track commander would hold up fingers if he wanted cases of MREs. Number would be tossed. Speed up a bit to the ammo truck. Shout what they needed. Cases of ammo would be tossed. Speed up to the fuel truck. Grinning Nepo would toss a fuel line. Guys would drag it to the fuel point and fuel as the truck and the Stryker drove alongside. Fueled up, fuel line goes back, roll up to the (supply/trash) truck. Any critical supply needs? No. Toss me your trash. Bag of trash (mostly MRE bags, empty) would go over. Stryker would speed up and get into security position.