The well-rehearsed masking procedure was second-nature to Dixon. He removed his helmet and placed it between his knees. Though there was no fear of contaminants on the ground, force of habit kept him from putting his helmet down. He held his breath. With his left hand he pulled open the cover to the mask's carrying case while reaching around for the mask itself with his right hand. Grabbing the elasticized harness of the mask in both hands, Dixon brought the mask up to and over his chin. Once his chin was seated in the mask, he pulled the harness over and down the back of his head. The rubbery hood of the mask, meant to cover the head, was folded forward and obscured Dixon's vision. When he had the harness set, Dixon took both hands and reached up inside the hood. Cupping his hands over the air vents, Dixon exhaled, blowing out all the air between his face and his mask. If there were a contaminant in the air, the blowing would clear it from his mask. Next he tried to inhale. When he had sucked what little air remained trapped between his face and the mask into his lungs, and he couldn't draw any more, that meant his mask was sealed properly and there were no leaks. Satisfied, he removed his hands from the air vents and pulled the hood over and into place while he began to breathe again. Though he didn't hurry, total masking time took less than twelve seconds — only three more than the Army standard for masking allowed for. With the mask on and hood secured, Dixon put his helmet back on and checked all the zippers, snaps, and flaps on his own chemical-protective suit before pulling on his rubber gloves.
Masterson and the Egyptian major were both ready by the time Dixon finished. At the direction of the Egyptian lieutenant, the three visitors climbed into the BRDM for the ride to the site where the Libyan unit had been overrun. It did not take long. And no one had to tell Dixon that they were approaching the site, either. Despite the protective mask and the smell of the BRDM, the oily stench of burning rubber and the pungent smell of charred flesh, all too familiar to Dixon, announced their arrival at their destination.
The opening of the door of the BRDM revealed a desert transformed into a graveyard. Dixon didn't wait for the others. He climbed out, adjusted his gear, then surveyed the scene before him. In the gathering darkness, Scott Dixon looked at the wreckage of a unit. Rocket transporters and trucks, trailers and jeeps were scattered about at random. Some were burned, others simply stationary with no apparent damage to them. Dispersed amongst the trucks and rocket transporters were the bodies.
Despite the cold, the corpses of the dead Libyan soldiers left where they had fallen were already bloated and showing signs of decomposing. The odor, peculiar to a modern battlefield, brought back images of other battlefields and other times. As he had in Iran, Dixon fought back his revulsion and the urge to vomit. He forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand, counting transporters, examining rockets and recording markings on the side of the rockets' warheads. He ignored the bodies. They were not his concern. They were not his doing. In his short career as a commander of combat troops in battle, he had buried enough of his own. Thank God, he thought to himself, these corpses belong to someone else's mistakes. Satisfied that he was mentally ready, Dixon began to move to the nearest rocket transporter.
From behind, Masterson came up to Dixon's side. Any joy Masterson felt about going forward with Dixon vanished as soon as he saw the bodies and inhaled their odor. Though he tried to hide it, the sight of the bodies was a shock to the lieutenant. His efforts to ignore them, like Dixon's, failed. A morbid fascination of the horror overcame him. He could not ignore the stench. Within seconds he broke out in a cold sweat as his stomach muscles began to twitch, pumping vile acid up his throat.
Trying to choke down his own fear and the feeling of sickness welling up inside, Masterson glued his eyes onto Dixon's back and moved forward behind him, blocking out the horrors about them as best he could. Before he walked five paces, however, he stepped into a gooey substance that caused him to slip and stumble. Fearing that he had accidentally stepped into a pool of chemical agents, Masterson looked down at his feet.
Through the plastic eyepieces of his protective mask, Masterson saw that he was standing in what had once been a man's intestines. Across the ground, a long line of bowels and intestines trailed away from where he stood to the lower half of the dead man, cut in half by an explosion. Masterson lost all control. In one violent contraction, his stomach forced its contents up and out of Masterson's mouth, filling his protective mask with vomit.
With nowhere to go, the vomit in Masterson's mask floated about his mouth, nose, face, and eyes, ready to rush back in as soon as he gasped for breath. Whatever control Masterson had left was lost as soon as he began to gag on his own vomit. Dropping to his knees and overcome by the sensation of choking to death, Masterson tore his protective mask off, spit the vomit from his mouth, and drew in a deep breath. As soon as he had done so, he knew that he had made a mistake.
The screaming of the Egyptian major, though muted by his protective mask, alerted Dixon that something was wrong. Turning around, he saw Masterson on the ground, bent over and on his knees. Masterson had his mask off, held little more than a foot from his face by two wobbly arms. His face was white, covered with vomit and contorted in a mask of agony. Even before Dixon could turn and begin to run back to him, Masterson dropped his mask, toppled over, rolled onto his back, and began wild and spasmodic convulsions. He was dying. Dixon had no doubt that his lieutenant had inhaled a fatal dose of nerve agent. Unless he received an immediate injection of antidote, mere seconds separated Masterson from death.
Covering the distance between himself and Masterson in three quick bounds, Dixon dropped to his knees, grabbed the lieutenant's mask, shook out whatever vomit remained in it, and began to put it back on him. This was no easy feat. Masterson's violent twisting and convulsions and Dixon's own clumsy rubber gloves made the task difficult. Only after the Egyptian major grabbed and steadied Masterson's head was Dixon able to slide Masterson's mask back on.
That accomplished, Dixon reached into his mask carrier and fumbled about, searching for one of his nerve-agent antidote injectors. Again, the thick and unfeeling rubber gloves handicapped his efforts. Frustrated, Dixon stopped the fumbling, unsnapped the carrier, and turned it upside down.
From inside the carrier two injectors, little bigger than marking pens, fell onto the ground, along with a booklet of chemical detector paper and two small Army manuals. Throwing the carrier aside, Dixon grabbed one of the injectors and flicked the safety cap off. With the injector in his right hand, Dixon grabbed a handful of Masterson's chemical-protective suit and rolled him over onto his side in order to expose a thigh. With a short but quick jab he rammed the injector into Masterson's thigh. The impact activated the spring-loaded injector needle, which shot into Masterson and released the antidote.
Satisfied that the injector had emptied itself, Dixon withdrew it, released his grasp on Masterson's protective suit, then straightened up to watch. For the first time Dixon realized that he really didn't know what he should be looking for. He hoped that Masterson's convulsions would stop and that they could transport him to a hospital. But he wasn't sure. It was like many other things in the Army, Dixon thought: the first time you face a situation or are expected to do what you're trained for is when you do it for real.
Dixon and the Egyptian major watched. Ten seconds and Masterson still convulsed. Twenty seconds and the convulsions began to subside. Forty seconds and Masterson stopped moving altogether. For a moment Dixon's heart sank: Masterson had died. But then Dixon saw Masterson's chest rise, ever so slightly. He was alive.