The entire APC bucked into the air and crashed back down to a hard landing as pieces flew off of it. The tower of the missile was disjointed from the launcher and fell over on its side. The warhead spun away like a toy top.
Kyle watched it with satisfaction, still holding his side. The bleeding was not slowing but he would not give in to the pull of pain. There’s my answer, Juba. Long-range precision fire, just like you wanted.
“Good job,” he told Mishaal. “The rest of the fight is yours. Juba only has a few men racked up in those shells and huts. It’s open season out there now, so use everything you’ve got to pound the hell out of them. And really hammer that little hut next to the command track. That’s where I think Juba is hiding.”
“Why there?”
“The first shot he fired did not come through a silenced rifle. Remember how loud it sounded? Still, there was a muffled echo, which indicated that it came from an enclosed space. Not much around here fits that description. Then the same thing happened on the second shot that took down your radio guy. Finally, there was the shot that just missed me. All of the angles are good from there. The darkness inside that single window prevents us from seeing inside. He’s in there in a static position, perhaps in a dug-in and protected position with overhead shelter. He can’t move to a new hide with all of your troops around. My advice is to just run right over him.”
WITH A FEW INSTRUCTIONS to his staff, Mishaal quickly got the attack rolling. And for ten minutes, heavy gunfire shook the field. Violent explosions of big shells blew apart junk cars, ferocious machine-gun fire chewed into everything standing, and grenades added to the chaos. When the ground fire paused, two helicopter gunships lanced in on runs with rockets and machine guns. Only after the barrage was done did the Saudi government ground troops move in to clear the few buildings.
There was some feeble resistance, then things went quiet and Mishaal ordered a cease fire.
The radio buzzed. A squad had entered the heavily damaged hut believed to be Juba’s hideaway and called Mishaal to report a badly wounded white man was found beneath the floorboards.
“Got him,” the prince told Kyle.
Swanson responded, “Good. Glad that’s done.” He took a deep breath and slumped into a sitting position. “Major, Juba was the brain behind the uprising and he’s through. All five missiles are now accounted for. I’ll stay here and get patched up while you two go over and confirm the warhead is no longer a threat. Then the major can pass the word to his people.”
Major Tsang and Prince Mishaal boarded an APC and it trundled away toward the ruined missile launcher. As soon as it left, Kyle was on his feet again, biting his lip in pain but trotting to the hut.
Juba lay in the shadows, absolutely mauled and bleeding profusely. Two Saudi soldiers and a medic had already strung up an IV tube. Kyle was startled by the man’s condition, not only the bleeding, fresh wounds but by the hideous old scars and twisted features. Juba stared up with his only good eye. “Swanson,” he croaked.
“Hello, you son of a bitch,” Kyle growled. “You’re hard to kill.” He wasted no time on sympathy. “No painkiller!” he snapped at the medic. “Not yet.”
Kyle ordered the soldiers out of the hut. They hesitated for a moment, then backed away to rejoin their unit because they did not worry about the care of a foreign prisoner. There was a lot of junk yet to search for terrorist hiding places.
Kyle knelt beside Juba and yanked an IV tube out of the man’s arm. “Your death is overdue, Jeremy. You are not getting another chance.”
As he bent over, Swanson felt a stab of pain from his wound, more potent than before. He had to hurry while he still had strength. He grabbed the moaning Juba by both arms and dragged him out of the hut and into the sunshine. The man weighed almost nothing and blood gurgled from a half-dozen new, gaping wounds.
A rusting old Mercedes sedan rested on its wheel rims nearby, with its big trunk yawning open like an empty mouth. Summoning his strength, Swanson picked Juba up and stuffed him into the car. He slammed the trunk lid down hard and the lock snapped shut.
As he turned away, he could hear Juba screaming, somehow finding enough strength to scream and claw and kick in the hot and suffocating darkness. It sounded like he was saying, “Don’t leave me!”
To his right, Kyle could make out the figures of Mishaal and Major Tsang over at the destroyed launch vehicle. They were shaking hands beside the immobile warhead. Almost over.
The M60A3 tank was still beside the command team when Kyle limped up beside it. He shouted in Arabic to the commander who was in the turret. “See that old yellow Mercedes sedan over by that hut? Put a high-explosive round right in the rear of the car, in the trunk. Just one shot.” The Saudis may have seen what he had done, but Kyle didn’t care.
He moved away while the tank gunner bore-sighted his big weapon and the red laser painted the target.
Kyle slumped into a sitting position on the ground nearby, his eyes locked on the Mercedes. The pain was surging deep into him. Something’s wrong down there. Hold on for just another minute. Even as he covered his ears, Kyle Swanson could still hear faint screams coming from the man trapped in the dark, tight trunk of the old car.
“No loose ends,” he whispered, and the big 105 mm cannon thundered.
EPILOGUE
P LINK! THE YOUNG SURGEON working with long forceps picked another sliver of steel, a small fragment no bigger than a pencil point, from the left thigh of Kyle Swanson and dropped it into an aluminum pan. With a local anesthetic deadening the area, Swanson felt only a slight pull. “That’s seven,” the doctor said. “The X-rays show three more small pieces lodged down a little deeper but they will be harder to reach. Since they are not bothering anything right now, we’ll leave them alone and just watch them closely.” After patching the leg wounds with a fresh sterile bandage, the doctor rolled Kyle over, tugged down the hospital gown, and removed the gauze on the abdomen.
“That smarts,” Swanson growled. Sometimes it hurt just to breathe.
“Two broken ribs will do that,” the doctor replied. “Not much we can do but let them heal for a couple of months. The wound itself is coming along well. You have an almost perfectly shaped “C” carved in your abs, Gunny, from whatever punched you there. It hit hard, then bounced off the ribcage as if it hit a helmet, so it didn’t get into your vital plumbing. My stitching is perfect and the infection is almost gone.” He smeared some new ointment onto the dark incision and covered it up. Purple and yellow and blue bruises.
Kyle blinked when the doctor shone the light into his eyes. The headache was still there, a persistent dull throb that was better today than yesterday, aggravated by intermittent nausea. “The concussion will cause no permanent damage. It was a good knock on the head and should have put you out cold on the spot.”
“I still can’t remember everything that happened after the explosion,” Swanson responded in a soft, weak voice. “Just bits and pieces, like pages of photographs.”
“You sustained a mild traumatic brain injury, Gunny. Not fatal and not permanent, but a hell of a shock to your system. With enough time and some therapy, it will all come back to you eventually. You walked through a tornado and got little hurts in lots of places, but nothing permanent. Lucky guy. Take the pills and rest. I’ll see you at dinner.”