Terminal Impact Read online

  “We got four dead motherfucking IED motherfuckers back up the road,” Quinlan said on the intercom. “Fuck the prospects. I say we had a very productive night.”

  _ 9 _

  First crack after morning Colors, Liberty Cruz ditty bopped up the company street of MARSOC Detachment, Iraq. She had on her nice-fitting desert-tan 5.11-brand combat pants and a matching cargo blouse that she wore like a jacket, unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up Marine style. Beneath it, she wore a black Under Armour Tech Tank undershirt, and a set of dog tags on a ball chain dangling from her neck, bouncing over her ample breasts. Laced on her feet, Marine Corps Desert RAT boots, the ones that Jack had bought her.

  In a long-drop holster suspended from her black-nylon-web operator’s belt and Velcro strapped to the middle of her thigh, gunslinger style, right where her hand naturally fell, the FBI agent carried a flat black Lippard 1911A2 Combat NCO .45 caliber pistol. Another gift from Jack, and she liked it better than if he had spent the $3,500 it cost on jewelry. The .45 was, after all, the best handgun ever made, at any price. It carried an unconditional lifetime guarantee, even against willful abuse. With it, she could hold a six-foot cone of suppression fire on the enemy at six hundred yards and lay down accurate kill shots with it, open sights, at four hundred yards. A set of diamond earrings, for her, had nowhere near the dazzle of her Lippard, nor the firepower. She wore it religiously, and used it well.

  White buds hung in both of Liberty’s ears, connected to an iPod tucked in a handy pocket on her sports bra. As she walked down the street, she bounced off her toes with each step, keeping time with the music playing in her head from the just-released album Best of Chris Isaak and the song “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing.”

  The rockabilly blues grind had the long cool woman from the FBI cruising low and happy, going to see her man, and absentmindedly singing with her jams as Smedley Butler came out the headquarters office door, headed to pick up mail. The look of such a fine piece of ass high stepping down his boulevard stopped the boy dead in his tracks.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” Corporal Butler called out.

  Liberty never heard a thing and kept on walking.

  Smedley ran to her, stopped in front, and took off his Marine-Pattern flop hat. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  Agent Cruz smiled large at the lad, pulled the buds from her ears, and chirped, “Hi there!” She looked at the rank on his desert MARPAT uniform collars, then the name over his right slanted breast pocket. “Corporal Butler.”

  She smiled more and Ralph Mouth blushed bright red.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He gulped, blinking, stunned from this tall, golden-skinned, black-haired beauty that looked like she had just stepped off a cloud straight out of Heaven.

  “Can you tell me where I can find Gunnery Sergeant John Arthur Valentine’s office?” Liberty said, and put her hand on the young corporal’s right biceps as she asked, and gave it a nice squeeze.

  Reflexively, Ralph Butler tensed his whole body.

  “My! You’re like a rock!” Liberty flirted.

  “Uh, Gunny Valentine’s office is just down there,” Smedley stammered, pointing to the operations hooch, feeling like he might pass out at any second. “He’s got the big-boss desk right under the massive skull on the black wall. You can’t miss it.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Thank you so much, Corporal Butler,” Liberty said. “By the way, I’m FBI Special Agent Melita Cruz, should you need to put that in your duty log.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” Butler said, and immediately put on his hat and snapped a salute. The old adage, when in doubt, salute, kicking in.

  “I am so flattered, Corporal Butler,” Liberty said, “but I don’t rate a salute. I’m like a police officer.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Smedley said, now rubbing his hand on his trousers leg as if it would clear the mistake.

  “Thanks, Corporal Butler. Have yourself a glorious day!” Liberty said, and stepped away, heading to the operations hooch. As she left, she put the buds back in her ears, again bouncing to the rockabilly.

  “Ma’am . . .” Smedley called out, the afterthought hitting him. “Gunny’s not here! He’s out in the Anbar with the rest of the detachment!”

  She never heard a word, but kept bopping to Chris Isaak. “Two Hearts” came on the iPod, and it put her in the right mood as she came near the operations-hooch front door. She looked down at the HOG WALLOW–FORWARD sign and smiled. It had all the earmarks of Jack’s artistic craftsmanship.

  Liberty wanted Jack’s surprise of her arrival in Baghdad to be perfect. Seductive and unforgettable. So she stopped outside the door, took off her blouse and her black ball cap, and let her long black hair unfurl over her bare shoulders. Holding her cap and blouse in her left hand, she looked around for anything that might show a reflection, so she could double-check her look, but found nothing. With no glass anywhere, she gave herself a quick up and down, straightened her sports bra and silky black tank top, took hold of the door, and stepped inside.

  Cruz looked around and saw only one person in the operations hooch, him seated with his back to her at the big desk under the giant Punisher skull and Templar cross looming on the black wall above him. A flop hat covering his head, he sat humped over, his face about a foot from his computer screen. So Liberty loosened up and began a sexy swagger to him.

  Billy Claybaugh rocked back and forth at Valentine’s desk with Jack’s personal laptop open, showing full screen a photograph that the gunny took on Onslow Beach of Liberty Cruz holding a volleyball. In it she wore a snug little black bikini with gold rings pressed against her bare hips, holding together the tiny patch of cloth in front to the one in back. Similar gold rings held together the small triangular patches of thin, silky black swimsuit material covering what it could of her breasts. That day, a cool breeze had come off the water, raising goose bumps on Liberty’s skin and hardening her nipples. The water beads and sand on her flesh, glistening with her smile had Billy-C living in another land, far, far away.

  The unsuspecting visitor eased up a few steps behind the staff sergeant she mistook for her lover, and in her sexiest buttery voice, Liberty breathed out, “Instead of staring at the menu, why don’t you just dive into the main course, Marine?”

  Staff Sergeant Claybaugh let out a squeal and spun in Jack’s swivel chair, his trousers unbuckled and his hand still inside. In that same second, he jumped to his feet and turned his back to Liberty, buckling up.

  “Oh fuck,” he let out as he turned back around to see the woman in the picture, who had dominated his sex fantasy, now standing three feet from him. Then he glanced back at the desk and slammed the lid of Jack’s laptop shut.

  For the next several seconds Liberty and Billy-C simply stood eye-locked at each other, awkward and completely speechless. Finally, Liberty cleared her throat and grew more and more angry as she thought more and more about what she had just encountered.

  “Where’s Jack?” she snapped, at the same time putting on her blouse, buttoning it up, and twisting her hair back into a bun and pinning it.

  Billy hung his head, gasping hard. “He deployed evening before last, Liberty. Out in the Anbar. Western part of AO Denver. Won’t be back for two weeks.”

  “Does he know you look at his personal pictures on his computer?” Liberty asked.

  “Yes, but he doesn’t like it,” Billy offered.

  “What kind of answer is that? Yes, but he doesn’t like it?” Liberty said.

  “In case something happens, I got his passwords, lock combinations, all that,” Billy explained. “In case something happens to me, Jack’s got my passwords and same. Cotton Martin’s got both mine and Jack’s, and we both have his.”

  Liberty didn’t like hearing anything that suggested that Jack could get killed, and this made her wince.

  “Why?” she asked but pretty much knew all the reasons.

&nbs
p; “All of us do it, Miz Cruz,” Billy said. “Makes sure the family can get into whatever they need to. Don’t get locked out. You know. Helps them.”

  “And lets you little twirps clean up his bullshit so the bereaved family doesn’t see all the perverted crap,” Liberty let go.

  “Well, yeah. That, too,” Billy admitted. “But Jack don’t have perverted crap on his computer. Maybe some sick shit, like we all do. Combat video, but nothing perverted.”

  “Oh, people getting blown to shit isn’t perverted?” Liberty said, then wished she hadn’t.

  Billy just looked at her, a bit hurt.

  “I get why you have Jack’s password,” Liberty went on, anger softening. “But he knows you look at his pictures?”

  “He don’t want me and Cotton looking at them, but we do,” Billy said. “Now, we don’t read his email or anything like that. We only look at the pictures of you. That’s all. And it pisses Jack the fuck off!”

  “It pisses me the fuck off, Billy,” she added. “I had a better opinion of you than some pervy little nutsack pocket squirrel doing whatever it was you were doing while leering at a picture of me. You were doing what I think you were doing, weren’t you Staff Sergeant Claybaugh?”

  “I’d rather not say,” Billy said as his eyes dropped straight at his toes.

  Liberty let out a long breath. “I guess I ought to be flattered that you boys find me attractive. But I’m not!”

  “Miz Cruz. Liberty. I’m sorry,” Billy offered, and added with a wince. “Do we need to tell Jack about this?”

  “Fuck no!” Liberty shot back. Then she sat down on the chair by Jack’s desk, and Billy sat down, too. After thinking for a minute, she said, “When Jack checks in, tell him that I dropped by the office and wanted to surprise him. I’ll be here in Iraq for a couple of months, working out of the embassy. We’ll get together when he gets back.”

  “Is there anything else? Anything you need?” Billy asked, hoping to make up for lost ground.

  “I guess not,” Liberty said. She tapped her fingers on the top of Jack’s desk and looked around the office. “This Gunny Valentine’s idea of office decor?”

  “Totally.” Billy smiled, like it was a compliment of Jack’s good taste. “We got ball caps and vest patches, too. I helped a little designing them.”

  “This is right up there with that Nazi-looking SS crap you boys had going on at Lejeune,” she said.

  “Our Scout-Sniper rune?” Billy said, defending it. “We got an arrow pointing north right through the middle of it. Nazis didn’t have that. Besides, our SS looks different.”

  “I gotta go,” Liberty said, getting to her feet and snugging on her baseball cap. As she started to leave, she looked back at Claybaugh. “You guys don’t have any interactions with these security contractors, do you?”

  “No more than we have to,” Billy said. “Had a few run-ins. Nothing to write home about. Watched three drugged-out fools burn up an armored Cadillac Escalade a while back. That was entertaining. They’re mostly scumbags living too close to the edge. You know, sex, drugs, rock and roll.”

  “You don’t know anything about this hangout of theirs, Baghdad Country Club?” she added.

  “Bloody bucket rod-and-gun club, what I hear. Off-limits. But that don’t mean some military dudes don’t show up there now and then. Mostly TOC-Roaches and Fobbits. You know the dudes that don’t venture past the wire at the Tactical Operations Centers and Forward Operating Bases but want to look like they play rough?” Billy said. Then added, “Of course, that’s all based from what I hear. I have no firsthand knowledge.”

  “Of course not. Thanks for the intel, Billy,” Liberty said, and headed for the door.

  When she got outside, she took out her mobile phone and punched in Chris Gray’s number.

  He answered, and she started talking.

  “Chris,” Liberty said. “Take me on a date tonight.”

  “I had planned to chop out to Hit this afternoon,” the CIA operator began. He paused a few seconds, thinking, then added, “Since Speedy’s already there, and we got the three contractors out there with him, I suppose I could put it off another day, for a good reason.”

  “I want you to take me dancing,” Liberty said.

  “Really? In war-torn Iraq? Let me guess where,” Gray said, a sarcastic tone in his voice. “Baghdad Country Club.”

  “You’re so intuitive!” Liberty said with equal sarcasm.

  “It’s a really bad idea,” the CIA operator added.

  “My tactical team will chaperone,” she said.

  “Oh, I see. Just like in ninth grade,” Gray said.

  “Eighth grade.” She laughed.

  “We will take separate cars, though, and your three lads will sit at a different table,” Gray added. “I at least want it to feel like a date. Plus our cover’s better if it looks like it’s just us two.”

  “Of course,” Liberty said. “And we’ll have fun.”

  “By all means. Loads and loads.” Gray laughed.

  —

  Jack Valentine squatted on his haunches in the dirt like an out-of-work tradesman outside a factory fence during the Great Depression. Six of his team squatted in a circle with him at Al Asad Air Base, finishing up paper plates of hot chow and red Kool-Aid “bug juice” they had gotten at the Air Force dining facility. Cotton Martin had hit the can with a copy of Sports Illustrated that he had borrowed from the battalion S-3 chief right after Lieutenant Colonel Black Bart Roberts’s operational briefing and official launch of Quick Strike Vengeance.

  Roberts and his planners had named the operation after Operation Quick Strike the prior year, in honor of the twenty-one Marines, including seven Marine Scout-Snipers and their Navy corpsman, killed outside Haditha.

  Jack had mixed feelings about the name. Way too close to home, and perhaps signaling a bad omen.

  Everyone among the MARSOC detachment had made the command briefing. Mob Squad had grabbed quick chow and caught a northbound Osprey headed back to Haditha Dam. Sergeant Bobby “Snake” Durant had caught a truck caravan headed north, up ASR Phoenix on the east side of the Euphrates River. He and Ironhead Heyward along with Hot Sauce McIllhenny, Jewfro Clingman, and Hub Biggs would carry out fringe operations, augmenting the Fifth Marines sniper platoon headed by Jack’s old friend Gunny Tim Sutherby.

  Staff Sergeant Drzewiecki and Sergeant Romyantsev had made themselves at home in the headquarters company with the battalion armorers. They went to work helping the Fifth Marines crew get caught up on broke-gun repairs, a point that Colonel Roberts had brought up in the command briefing, and he had graciously thanked Gunny Valentine and the MARSOC crew for pitching in.

  Although he did not bring in prisoners, the colonel had made note of the IED team that Jack’s crew took out and the big hole left in the highway up the east side of the river. That came right after thanking Jack for his help, and concluded with, “Better to be pissed off than pissed on.”

  Gunny Valentine grew tired of hearing it but politely laughed and took a bow for the colonel, nonetheless. The politic thing to do, rather than flipping him the finger.

  “You boys look like a sorry lot,” First Sergeant Alvin Barkley said as he ambled up to the circle of snipers. He adjusted his big knife as he squatted by Jack.

  “Still carrying that pig sticker,” Jack said, shaking hands with him. “How’s life been since I last saw you, Al?”

  “Good all around,” Barkley said. “Had I known you headed up the MARSOC detachment, I would have given you a nod hello when I dropped off the op plan the other day.”

  “No sweat, GI,” Jack said. “How’s Iceman and the Mob Squad working out for you?”

  “It’s just business.” The first sergeant laughed.

  Jack laughed, hearing the line. “Oh yeah. I’ve heard that a time or two from them. What’d they do?” />
  “Took out a baker’s dozen Hajis laying in an ambush ahead of one of my rifle squads,” Barkley said. “First throw out of the hat, Pizza Man and another fella. Nose?”

  “Yeah.” Jack chuckled. “Nick the Nose Falzone. That’s Corporal Principato’s shooting partner.”

  “So Sal the Pizza Man and Nick the Nose set up a high hide and see these Haji yo-yos setting up the ambush,” the first sergeant continued. “They call my squad leader and have him alter his movement and run a flank attack on the insurgent position. As the enemy fighters try to maneuver on the attack, Sal and Nick take out a Haji every time one of them tries to run for it. Those two young corporals killed all fourteen.”

  “And when you go to compliment them, you get the standard Mob Squad line?” Jack grinned.

  “It’s just business. Nothing personal,” they both said together.

  Jack looked a few yards behind First Sergeant Barkley, where a Marine tossed an odd-shaped rubber toy and a dark brindle Belgian Malinois working dog chased after it. The Marine would give the dog commands, and when he executed, he tossed the toy as a reward.

  “That yours?” Valentine said, nodding at them.

  “Sergeant Padilla and Rattler, doing the Kong,” Barkley said. “Yeah, I commandeered them from the MP company down at Camp Ramadi. Wasting away down there. That dog’s real handy on a roadblock, or clearing houses. Notice the titanium teeth?”

  “Yeah!” Jack said. “I did notice a sparkle in that dog’s smile. That’s quite the look.”

  “He shreds tin cans,” Alvin said. “You should see it.”

  “Wouldn’t want that big brute after me,” Jack said.

  “I almost feel sorry for the Hajis when Padilla sics old Rattler on them.” Barkley chuckled. “Don’t say ‘Hot Sauce’ around him. That’s his attack cue.”

  “I’ve got a sniper named Hot Sauce,” Jack said.

  “Disaster waiting to happen,” Barkley said, and thought a moment.

  “Fallujah One,” he went on. “I guess that’s the last time we sat on our heels together and shot the shit in the dirt. Nasty-ass place. Your boy, Corporal Place, hiding a week in that trash pile, cutting off a section of the city from enemy movement. He stacked bodies like cordwood in the streets. Took ammo off machine gun belts to keep working.”