Had it even been a gas stove? He couldn’t see it now — propane, gas? Or an old wood stove, the kind his mother used to talk about?
Why was he thinking about his mother?
The hill below him shook again. The Iraqis had some kind of armored vehicle or light tank, and were firing its gun into the remains of the building.
His mother ran from the smoldering ruins, waving her hands, trying to stop him.
He pushed his rifle over the tree, trying to clear his head.
Dixon realized as his hands touched the bark it wasn’t a tree at all. He was huddled against the burnt corpses of two dead Iraqi soldiers.
CHAPTER 35
The M203 attached to the M-16 did not have a hairpin trigger, and it took more than a heavy jostle to set it off. What it really took was a good pull on the trigger, but Wong couldn’t manage to slip his fingers in as he rolled. His hands flew around desperately, the ground shaking with a thud as a second shell hit the base of the hill in the distance. Finally the grenade flashed from the weapon; Wong rolled from his back as the 40 mm charge sailed square into the Iraqi commander’s face, knocking him off balance as he began firing his pistol.
The grenade ricocheted down the hill, exploding too far away to do any good— luckily for Wong, since any explosion this close would have killed him as well as the Iraqi. The Iraqi fell back, his gun flying with him.
Someone shouted. Wong spun around, his rifle now under control, and cut down a man near the Delta trooper who’d been captured with him. Then he slid around, unsure where the Iraqi commander he’d just shot had gone. He was confused by the gunfire at the base of the hill. As the Delta trooper grabbed a rifle off of the dead Iraqi, Wong ran to the top of the hill, spotting a knot of Iraqis. He flicked the rifle onto full automatic, peppering the three figures from the side. A shadow opposite the Iraqis jumped up; Wong realized it must be one of the missing members of his team. He could see something moving on the road directly below— three long tractor-trailers carrying tarp-covered cylindrical payloads.
Scuds.
A pickup followed behind, with three canvas-backed military vehicles.
A burst of submachine-gun fire to his right sent him to the ground. He scooted to the crest and peered down. Two figures were climbing the clear hill; he barely caught himself from sending a burst through Sergeant Golden’s chest, spotting the trooper’s chocolate chip fatigues at twenty yards.
The other side of the hill shook with a fresh round, something from a light tank.
The priority now was the Satcom— Wong turned to find it but instead felt the long, thin edge of a combat knife slide up against the side of his neck. The meaty curve rested atop the sternohyoid and sternothyroid muscles— not the placement he would have made, but nonetheless arresting.
“Rook takes knight,” hissed the Iraqi commander. “Checkmate.”
“I think if you examine your position carefully,” said Wong, shifting his weight shift to get a better balance on the slope, “you’ll find it’s a draw at best.”
The Iraqi jerked the knife. It was so sharp that Wong didn’t feel the cut, though he realized blood had begun to flow.
“I think, Captain, that you overrate your strategy,” said the Iraqi, twisting Wong around. “Stop!” he yelled to the others, “or your captain will die.”
The com specialist was stooped over the Satcom. The others on the hill were in the shadows and Wong couldn’t tell if they’d been seen or even precisely where they were. The Iraqi commander pushed him to move right; he did so.
“Now Captain,” the Iraqi told Wong, “we will be going down the hill.”
“As you wish,” said Wong.
The Iraqi pressed his left shoulder into Wong’s, forcing him forward, only to jerk the knife nervously against his neck. It would take considerable pressure to sever the artery or Wong’s windpipe. In Wong’s experience, the position was over-rated as a lethal hold; it was difficult to properly leverage the arm so close to the intended victim.
On the other hand, escaping it was not necessarily easy. Especially since he had to do so quickly— the Spec Ops troops could hardly be expected to value Wong’s life over their mission. Undoubtedly they were waiting for a good shot, even if it meant taking out Wong as well as the Iraqi.
“Excuse me,” said Wong, stopping momentarily. The Iraqi pushed hard against him and jerked the knife to the top of his chin.
Perfect.
“No tricks,” hissed the man.
“I was wondering if I might answer a call of nature,” Wong told him.
“No!” shouted the man. He pushed the knife hard against Wong’s throat, intending to intimidate him. But this was just what Wong wanted— the Iraqi’s legs were too close to his. As his weight shifted with the knife, Wong added to it, jerking his upper body into his captor’s and throwing both of them off-balance. They fell in a tumble. Wong pivoted and smashed his elbow into the man’s ribs as they swirled over. The knife jammed into Wong’s jaw. Wong could not turn himself into his opponent fast enough to escape a second stab, but he managed to duck enough that it fell on his shoulder. In the meantime, he pumped two quick jabs of his fist into the man’s face; the captain lost his grip on the knife and it clattered away as they fell into the dirt. The Iraqi managed a hard punch to Wong’s nose. He felt the snap and knew it had been broken.
That made him mad.
Wong reared back and slammed the top of his skull into the Iraqi’s forehead. The universe swirled. Wong thrashed his arms in every direction, raging as a thick flow of lava poured over him. He flailed and he writhed, and it seemed as if there was no longer one Iraqi but a dozen, all with knives and brass knuckles, pummeling him. He bulled his way through them, using elbows, knees, feet, fists, and head punching until finally he found his way to the surface of the inferno. With one last burst of energy he broke the molten iron bands holding his head back and staggered free, collapsing into the dirt.
He opened his eyes to see Golden’s worried face hanging over him.
“Shit, Wong— you OK?”
Wong pulled himself up as if doing a controlled sit-up. Without checking his other wounds, he reached to his pant leg and tore off a piece of material, then held it to the long cut at his jaw. Had he cared to, he could have felt bone inside.
“Wong? You in shock?”
“I am not in shock,” he told the sergeant calmly.
“You killed the fucker with your bare hands,” Golden told him. “You snapped his neck.”
“That is unfortunate,” said Wong. “He might have supplied us with considerable information. I apologize for losing my temper.”
Wong stood. His nose was bleeding as well as off-kilter. It stung, but was not a serious injury. There were various cuts and bruises on his body; the slash at his jaw was the worst injury. As long as he stopped the bleeding and did not get it infected, it would not be life-threatening.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Golden told him.
“A clumsy escape, granted,” said Wong. “But within acceptable margins.”
“Margins! Like hell,” said the sergeant. “Lou was going to plunk you in about two seconds.”
Golden nodded at one of his men a few feet away. Wong merely shrugged and walked toward the Satcom.
“We had best get the attack underway,” he said. “Captain Glenon will have returned by now, though he is undoubtedly too high for us to hear. He is notoriously impatient and ill-tempered.”
“Company!” yelped one of the team members from the direction where the heavy-caliber weapon had been shaking the hill. “We have an armored car and two tanks coming up behind it now. Shit. T-62 mothers, and I’m looking at a platoon of Iraqis running up behind them.”