The village was quiet except for stray gunshots and the whoosh of the helicopters. As Camille and her team left a building, she noticed the streets had suddenly cleared of children and locals. Her team leapfrogged across an intersection to the next block. When GENGHIS was halfway across, an AK began popping nonstop and his right leg collapsed under him.
Rubicon.
GENGHIS tumbled in a roll, stopping behind a rusted-out truck and returning fire. Camille had a clear shot at a Rubicon soldier. Whether she liked GENGHIS or not didn’t matter. He was part of her team and if a teammate was hurt, so was she. Without a thought to the larger political consequences, she squeezed off, but not for Black Management. Those shots were for GENGHIS.
The Rubicon pilots were fucking crazy, even by Beach Dog’s admittedly low standards. Everywhere he tried to move his Little Bird, one of the Rubicon Mi-8s blocked him. Twice they’d come within two rotors’ distance. He could feel their breath, pushing hard against his helo.
“I say we take them out before those dickheads accidentally get us all killed,” Beach Dog said as he hung nose to nose with a Rubicon bird.
“Maintain position,” Iggy said as he watched the movement on the ground.
Beach Dog flipped them off. They returned the salute.
“Feel better now?” Iggy said.
“Not yet, sir.”
Camille keyed her mike and contacted Iggy. “TIN MAN this is LIGHTNING SIX. We’re taking fire. Request some heat.”
“I’m having trouble keeping an eye on you and don’t want to risk friendly fire. Rubicon’s birds are playing chicken with Beach Dog,” Iggy said.
“Understood. Do what you can.”
Camille instructed her team to lay down suppressive fire and work their way one by one across the intersection to join GENGHIS. Just as she started across, movement from a rooftop caught her eye. An arm holding an AK dropped over the side and blindly pelted the road. Camille ran ahead anyway and slid onto the ground beside GENGHIS. “You okay?”
“Nothing like a little fresh lead in the morning to kick-start the day.” GENGHIS ignored the wound, fired, and a tango collapsed. Without missing a beat, he retargeted and shot another one.
Weapons fire erupted from the rooftops. Iraqis with assault rifles jumped outside of doorways, fired, then sprang back inside.
“Fucking Jack-in-the-box muj,” GENGHIS said. A spot was growing on his 5.11s as if he had sat down in blood. The unit’s medic ran over to him and started cutting away the seat of his pants.
Camille leaned around the old truck and fired at a Rubicon soldier. The sound of AKs got louder by the second as word of the action spread from one Iraqna cell phone to another and more and more insurgents joined in.
The ants had discovered the picnic.
Beach Dog maneuvered the Little Bird toward the highway that bordered the village. It was the main road linking Fallujah and Ramadi-the tango turn-pike. They swooped down low enough to get a good view of a parking lot that was filling with mopeds and old trucks that looked like they wouldn’t move even on a downhill slope. Over one hundred men stood around, each of them carrying an AK. All of them wore the green headbands of the Mahdi’s Army and several carried green flags.
Iggy keyed his radio. “CHALK ONE this is TIN MAN. We’re monitoring hostile traffic coming into town. I’m moving you to join up with CHALK TWO. Head back west, two blocks, then take a right and stand by.”
“LIGHTNING SIX here. Situation deteriorating. Taking it from all sides-Rubicon and tangos-pinned down. You’re authorized to use necessary force.”
Iggy studied the crowd through a pair of binoculars. Beach Dog was amazed at Iggy’s use of the prosthetic hand. The digits didn’t seem to move all that well, but the guy sure knew how to get everything he could out of them. Another truckload of tangos arrived.
“I’m telling you, man,” Beach Dog said. “They’re not here for a church picnic. Those dudes are looking to pick up chicks-as in seventy-two virgins.”
“I don’t like turkey shoots if there’s a chance civilians are mixed in.”
“There’s going to be a turkey shoot, but our guys are going to be the turkeys,” Beach Dog said.
Beach Dog thought he saw a muj carrying a long tube. Something flashed and a smoke trail streaked toward them.
“RPG!”
Beach Dog slammed the controls and the Little Bird went sideways up into the air, leapfrogging over a Rubicon Mi-8. Before he could take a breath, a fireball engulfed the Rubicon helo. Like a cartoon character who had run off a cliff, the helicopter spun around once in place in the air, then plummeted straight down to earth. A main rotor hit a house, then the others snapped off one by one. Beach Dog pushed the Little Bird into a steep climb and looked away. Witnessing a bird’s death throe was too painful.
Camille saw a flash of flames in the sky. She and GENGHIS made eye contact. She was thinking it, but GENGHIS said it. “Mog.” Mogadishu. The Somalian capital was the site of the battle that every operator had on his mind as soon as things started going to hell.
“I’m telling you, man, we’re looking at Mogadishu-Black Hawk down. I know what I’m saying. I flew strafing runs nonstop thirteen hours straight,” Beach Dog said, shaking his head as he remembered the afternoon mission in 1993 that was supposed to be a thirty-minute cakewalk, but instead had dragged into a long, bloody night of urban warfare that left eighteen dead and every one of the one hundred sixty warriors wounded-one way or another. Beach Dog stared at the downed helicopter and could remember the thick black smoke from the two downed Black Hawks curling into the dark blue African sky that day. What he was staring at didn’t look so different. He could feel his frustration from trying to direct lost Delta Force and Rangers through Mogadishu’s windings streets and his helplessness as he had watched thousands of militia crawl all over them. He took a deep breath and felt his stomach muscles clench as he watched more tangos arrive in the parking lot below. “I’m telling you, we’ve got to take them out now.”
“I know,” Iggy said as he watched more packed trucks pull up. “We’re not going to have a repeat on my watch. Waste the motherfuckers before they scatter. I don’t want a single muj to walk out of that parking lot”
“You got it. I’ll work the gun unless you have a real hankering for it.”
“Do it.”
The comm was jammed with everyone talking at once. Iggy raised his voice to shut them up, then gave instructions to the two Black Management Hawks which were flying under the call signs PANTHER ONE and TWO. “PANTHER ONE, TIN MAN. Your sector of fire is the northwest side of town. Engage tangos turning off the highway. Do not engage Rubicon vehicles at this time. PANTHER TWO maintain your overwatch position in the center of town and engage rooftop targets at your discretion.”
Beach Dog calculated his approach and egress options with a single glance. The Little Bird would come in steep and fast from the southwest side of the village, hit the target and cease fire right before the highway. He would throw the helo into evasive turns as he climbed out over the gravel piles of a crude cement factory on the other side.