Richard Peters
Shock and Awe
Dedication
This technothriller goes out to all my brothers and sisters who answered the call to serve. Most especially to those that never made it back. They may be gone, but they are never forgotten!
Political Map
Just Another Day in Paradise
Private First Class Jacob Parrott hated manning the rear-facing machine gun on the last truck in the convoy. Especially when patrolling the streets of an insurgent stronghold after midnight. What a crap job. How was he ever supposed to see what was happening ahead? Of course, if something did go down behind them, then guess who would be facing that danger all alone? As the vehicle under him made another gut-wrenching turn, Parrott leaned against the g-forces. He locked his swiveling turret ring in place fast enough to keep his machine gun exactly at a 6 O’clock position.
His driver always took the turns either too sharp, too fast or drifted comically wide. The kid drove this 10-foot high armored vehicle like he raced his worn-out Mustang back home. The idiot was going to flip them all on their heads one of these days. Over the roaring from the unneeded sudden acceleration, Parrott heard his sergeant below holler, “Which damn Wal-Mart did you get your driver’s license from?”
The Georgian behind the wheel was unfazed. “Laugh all you want, but I’m crazy like a fox. If I don’t even know what I’m going to do next, do you reckon any insurgents watching the convoy could adapt fast enough?” He tapped his helmet with sage wisdom. “That space ain’t just for keeping my ears apart!”
Parrott clicked his internal radio mike on and laughed. “God himself doesn’t know what you’ll do ne—”
Kadush!
An explosion lifted the night’s skirt behind them and from the far side of the curve. Had they driven like normal people, they would have been dead center in that blast. As it was, Parrott only believed he slipped into the next world as a tsunami of smoke and dust engulfed him. Reality snatched him mercilessly back as the driver crushed the brakes and ground the truck to a squealing halt.
Parrott pinched his radio mike switch and pleaded with the driver below. “What the hell? You know the standard operating procedure (SOP): Get us out of the kill zone, man! I can’t see shit here!”
Through the swirling cloud of smoke and fear around him came a whooshhhhhh. An RPG warhead flashed through the night a few yards ahead of them… exactly where the truck should have been if they followed standard procedure and sped out of the kill zone. Parrott gave up questioning the oracle driving him around. Disciplined bursts from an enemy machine gun ahead began raking all three Joint Tactical Vehicles in his convoy.
“Contact, 11 O’clock! Dismount right!” screamed his NCO. It took all of Parrott’s willpower to avoid swinging around and covering his buddies as they surged on foot towards the enemy. The never-ending suppressive fire his section’s nine dismounted riflemen poured up-range made him grit his teeth. “Shit, I miss everything!”
Parrott was about two seconds away from breaking discipline and swiveling around to help when the storefront lights behind the convoy lit up. The street had been pitch black the whole time. The perfect environment for their night vision gear. With the sudden glare, all the expensive optics weren’t worth a damn. As Parrott fiddled with the contrast on his eyepiece, something briefly blocked one of the bright lights in the opposite direction his M240 machine gun pointed. He didn’t waste a second with positive identification. There was a curfew in place, after all. Civilians had no business wandering around a gun battle anyway.
Completely ignoring the strict rules of engagement saved his life. He reflexively fired three pairs at the mysterious silhouette with his M4 rifle. The dying shadow squirted off an RPG wildly. The rocket missed Parrott’s truck by a good ten yards before obliterating some parked civilian car nearby. Parrott didn’t have time to enjoy the fireworks display. Something cracked passed his ear way too close for comfort.
While hosing down the storefront to his 3 O’clock with his rifle, he emptied his machine gun’s belt at the muzzle flashes to his 10 O’clock with the other hand. From a distance, Parrott’s double-weapon firing put Rambo to shame. The very picture of American badassery. In reality, this 21-year-old kid literally pissed his pants as insurgent rounds dented the thin armor plating around his gun shield, just inches in front of his face. Every near miss drained his bladder even further. Terrified or not, he stood his ground and kept returning the favor in both directions.
The enemy’s fire never slackened… it just shut off. One minute the barely-seen insurgents rained lead on Parrott’s team and the next they were gone. Breaking contact as smoothly and efficiently as any professional soldier could. “Shift fire right! Three friendlies coming through!” The steady voice of his NCO reminded Parrott that he wasn’t completely alone. “Where did they go, Parrott?”
Despite the pee running down his leg, Parrott couldn’t help but gloat a little. Hard not to brag when you’ve stared death in the eye and kicked him in the balls. “There’s not many left to go anywhere, Sergeant. I tagged at least two. The rest must have retreated down the alley. Bastards didn’t know who they were fucking with!”
His sergeant simply nodded and snatched extra magazines from inside the truck. Parrott whistled. Had his boss really emptied six mags in that two-minute shootout up front? Parrott’s rising feeling of herodom vanished. Had he missed the real fight?
His sergeant slammed a 30-round magazine against his vest to seat the rounds and tactically reloaded. “All right, we don’t have the manpower to pursue the enemy. The rest of the section are securing the four hostiles we bagged up front. Tamajo, Jackson, on me! Let’s police up this mess back here. Grab the enemy bodies and gear and then we’ll get the hell out of here. Parrott, keep us covered.”
Parrott muttered “Roger” as the rest of his fire team ran down the block. He wished he had their driver back up the truck first. Always so close, yet still so far from the action. Up there in the turret, he was part of the team, but never actually with the team. Knowing the streets were clear, he tried to scan every window and rooftop in his line of fire. He slowly became conscious of the now-cold stain down the front of his pants. Maybe he could spill his water bottle to hide the embarrassment.
His sergeant yelled from down the road. “We got a live one here… FRAG OUT!”
The wounded insurgent must have cooked the grenade off before rolling it towards the American troops. There was no time for them to do anything. A small bang knocked all of Parrott’s teammates off their feet 30 meters away from him. Specialists Tamajo and Jackson jumped back up with only superficial shrapnel injuries, but their NCO couldn’t. Hard to stand when both feet were only bloody stumps.
“Medic!” Parrott’s stomach wrenched as he jumped from the truck and found the action he was always missing.
As far as headquarters was concerned, this patrol had been a spectacular success. Six enemy KIA for one friendly WIA. A clear victory. Oh, and what a victory it was. The US Army killed six insurgents. Which meant that eight-man terrorist cell later recruited two vengeful brothers, a bereaved father, a bitter wife, two devastated teenage sons and six angry friends and neighbors. 8–6 = 12 bad guys… welcome to Counterinsurgency Calculus 101.
Thankfully, for the munitions makers and mortuaries at least, it was a non-linear function. You could get ahead of the curve… if you did enough killing.