His eyes like telescopes, he began scanning the Cornfield for an enemy. Finally he approached the APC, his finger tensing against the trigger of the assault rifle. He moved the barrel back and forth across it, as if expecting another flower to burst from the metal and reveal a gunner taking aim at him.
A ruined tank sat beyond the APC, maybe thirty yards further from the road on his right. He began sidestepping toward it, moving the rifle back and forth as if he’d been taking fire from both sides. Then he turned and ran as fast as he could toward the tank, the last dregs of his adrenaline flooding into his legs and head. AK-47 ready, he sidestepped around the blackened frame, approaching the front of the turret as if its long-barrel gun had not been shattered in two.
When he was positive there was no one hiding behind or inside the tank, he stepped up onto the back of the vehicle to inspect it. A small bomb or missile had landed near the center of the chassis, ripping a mushroom of metal from the tank’s innards. Dixon carefully leaned in, worried that he might cut himself on the shards. Plastic soot covered the interior, a gritty mud that had coagulated and cooled after the initial explosion and fire. A hand, its fingers extended but its thumb missing, lay against a thick lump of metal at the front. The rest of the body was gone.
Dixon stepped back, sliding down to one knee behind the turret as he surveyed the battlefield from the Iraqis’ vantage point. Greatly outnumbered, the American fire team had briefly held a small hill fifty feet high to his right, but had fought most of the battle in and around a series of ditches directly in front of the tank. Only the arrival of the helicopters had saved the day.
Dixon jumped off the tank and made his way to the hill; it would give him a good view of the rest of the area. As he climbed it, he realized he hadn’t seen any dead bodies yet.
There were no bodies here either, nor could he see any from the top. The only sign of the battle on the hill was a crater on the southeastern corner of the summit. The dirt in the center was tinged red, as if the earth had bled.
As he stood at the edge of the crater, Dixon’s feet began to slip. He managed to throw his weight backwards just enough so that he fell down as if plopping into a seat.
He stayed in the hole for a minute, eyes staring into the sky. Faint contrails teased him; twenty or thirty thousand feet above him allied planes were carrying on the war, oblivious to his existence or plight.
Hunger pushed Dixon back to his feet. The lieutenant resumed his search, methodically inspecting the rest of the burned-out vehicles. The fact that no bodies remained meant the Iraqis must have come through already; it was unlikely he would find anything useful. Still, he kept looking. A Ural 6x6 sat almost unscathed nearly a quarter of a mile from the rest of the vehicles. He found a small metal canteen near it. He jiggled it in his hand and, though he didn’t hear anything, unscrewed it and held it upside down over his mouth anyway.
A trickle of water surprised his tongue. The liquid felt like hot pebbles, burning holes in his mouth, and then it was gone. He gulped air, and his thirst became a fire, ravaging his body. Canteen in one hand and rifle in the other, Dixon ran to a streambed a hundred yards south of the battlefield. But he found only dust.
He’d been here before, on this spot, last night. He’d kicked ice. Where was it?
He walked along the dead streambed. The day had warmed to near fifty, perhaps more. Ice would have melted, but there must be water. It couldn’t have evaporated; he hadn’t imagined it.
Dixon must have spent nearly a half-hour searching without finding anything. Finally, he whipped the metal bottle down against the rocks. He kicked at the ground and took the rifle and rammed it against the dirt, screaming and cursing.
A voice at the back of his head told him it was a foolish thing to do.
It was his father’s voice, rising from his institutionalized sickbed. A voice he hadn’t heard in many months. A voice that hadn’t been coherent for a much longer time, and could never have offered advice— his father had been in a mental institution since Dixon was ten or eleven.
But the voice was right. Whether it was a temporary hallucination, or a memory. or just Dixon’s own conscience disguising itself, it helped him catch hold of himself. He sat down, pulling his shirt out from his pants to rub the barrel of the gun clean. Then he retrieved the canteen. Examining it, he found a fresh dent but no real damage. He stuffed it in his pocket.
As he did he saw a small brown box on the side of the wadi, next to a twisted brown bush. Dixon approached it warily; carefully he scanned the area, made sure he was alone. Then he knelt and looked it over for booby traps. When he didn’t see any, he reached to his belt and unsheathed his combat knife. He punched it into the earth near the box, then began moving it around the ground, hoping that if there was a booby trap he’d somehow manage to find it before setting it off. When he didn’t find anything, he stood back, and used the AK-47 to poke the box. Nothing happened, and he finally picked it up.
It was an ammo box. Inside were several banana clips of 7.62 mm ammo for the assault gun.
He would have much preferred water or food.
Dixon tucked the box under his arm and began walking along the wadi slowly. The streambed intersected an irrigation ditch a few yards ahead. He turned and walked down the ditch, realizing it was deeper than the wadi. A hundred yards down, past two or three other ditches in the network, he finally saw a pool of water.
Fear welled up from his stomach with every step, clamping itself down like a force trying to keep him from moving. He slid to his knees and unscrewed the top of the canteen, lowering it to the surface of the water. There was at least six inches; he filled the canteen only halfway before rising. He intended on pouring the water over his fingers, to see if it was clean, but as he tilted the metal bottle his thirst jerked his hand up and he poured it nearly straight down into his mouth, every part of him trembling. He did it two more times, silt and grit rubbing against his teeth, choking in his throat.
Nothing liquid had ever tasted as good. He leaned back, balancing on his haunches; finally he put the rifle down next to the ammo box and removed the campaign hat from his head, soaking it and then wringing it over his face.
As he straightened, he heard trucks on the road a half-mile away. He pulled the hat down, took the gun and the ammo box, and crawled up to watch them pass.
Except that they didn’t pass. They slowed and then stopped along the highway. He raised his head as high as he dared and saw someone running toward the Ural truck he had inspected before. The man shouted something and two or three others got out of a white pickup and came over.
Dixon couldn’t see what they were doing. The pickup truck was part of a convoy of four or five vehicles, one of which was an APC.
At the tail end were two tractor-trailers with long tarps covering their loads.
He’d stared at them for nearly five minutes before he realized he was looking at a pair of Scud missiles.
By then, the Iraqis had concluded they couldn’t do anything with the 6x6 and had returned to their vehicles. Dixon rose; he watched the pickup jerk ahead, then the APC. Black smoke puffed from the exhausts of the lead Scud carrier as the motor revved.
Belatedly, he pulled the assault rifle to his shoulder and aimed at the truck. He had it in his sights, but he was so far away that even if he managed to hit it the bullet would barely graze the canvas.
Better to follow, get close, find a way to destroy it.
Madness.
But what else was there left for him to do? Stay here and die of starvation?
Die for a purpose, at least. Better to go out in a blaze of glory than starve. Or worse, be found alive but passed out. The Iraqis would use him. That would be worse than torture, worse than death.