Terminal Impact Page 6

  “That ain’t happening,” Hacksaw said, shaking his head.

  “It will happen!” Alosi screamed, his voice cracking from rage that sent the veins bulging in his face.

  “What the fuck you want us to do, kill him?” Walter asked, sarcastic.

  “Yes!” Alosi said. “Unless he signs off on this claim, kill his ass. Then start taking down his men until someone signs off. Get their attention.”

  “Jack’s an old friend, boss. Out-fucking-standing Marine. One hell of an operator,” Hacksaw said. “I’m not doing anything that hurts him or his men.”

  “I’ll can your sorry ass, you don’t do as I order,” Alosi said.

  “Go ahead, asshole,” Hacksaw came back. “I’ll cash out the remaining full year of my brand-new chief-supervisor contract. Go home happy. Rich. And sing like a bird. Nondisclosure agreements don’t cover crimes. I can overlook a few things I’ve seen done here, but not this.”

  Cesare took a breath and knew Hacksaw had him. However, he had others in the company that would be all too happy to work some dirt for him.

  “That was my temper speaking. Blowing steam. I don’t mean anything. Fuck it, I’m just pissed off,” Alosi now said, showing his calm, professional side. “I apologize, Top Gillespie. Forget I ever said such nonsense.”

  “We all get pissed off, sir,” Hacksaw said, and shook hands with his boss.

  “Forgiven?” Alosi asked, smiling as he shook hands.

  “You got it, sir,” Gillespie agreed.

  He went to the wall where the report and denied claim lay on the floor, and picked it up. Several pages had come unstapled on impact, and the retired Marine special operator master sergeant gathered them, too.

  “I’ll go over to Camp Victory and have a talk with Jack,” Hacksaw said. “I’ve been meaning to visit him. Let him know I’m here. Can’t hurt to ask if he’ll reconsider and let this thing slide. At the end of the day, sometimes we have to get into the gray just a little bit, between the black and white, the good and bad of things. When it serves a greater good, Jack can be reasonable. Like keeping harmony among us and MARSOC.”

  “Good way to look at it, Top.” Alosi smiled.

  Gillespie spread a big one back, showing off the gold-rimmed pearly-enamel front grill he’d had installed in Miami’s rapper central with part of his high pay from the last pump with Malone-Leyva. The new implanted teeth replaced the chewing-tobacco-ravaged originals he had lost.

  As the mature but still athletic and sturdy retired Marine opened the office door, Alosi called to him.

  “Say, Top,” Cesare said, “put a call out to Ray-Dean Blevins and have him report to me ASAP.”

  “You got it, boss,” Hacksaw said, and left.

  _ 4 _

  “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” chanted the Iraqi jihadist who had parked a stolen taxi at the corner of a busy intersection on Baghdad’s south side. He sat in the rear seat, looking out the back window, and spoke as he watched through the viewfinder of his digital camera, recording his voice under video as two US Army Humvees approached on the boulevard that entered the opposite side of the intersection.

  He chanted more rapidly now, as several rocks and some cans came tumbling off the roof of a building overhead onto the American vehicles, occupied by soldiers not normally engaged in direct combat. This early morning, they had ventured out to take care of some administrative errands on this normally quiet side of the city.

  A can hit the windshield of the lead Hummer, and the driver slammed on the brakes. He jumped out of the truck, angered, and pointed his rifle at the roof of the building above him. He shouted something that the taxi’s driver running the camera did not understand.

  “Allahu Akbar!” another Iraqi insurgent chanted under his breath. He hid in a hot, tight space, padded with a blanket, inside the rear fender of the taxi, and put the crosshairs of his makeshift sniper rifle’s telescopic sight on the angry American who stood in the street with his M4 raised, ready to shoot, searching the rooftops.

  The sniper and his partner who drove the taxi and shot video of their jihad, which others would post on the Internet, had taken a Russian-made AK-47 and wired tight on top of it an old three-power hunting-rifle scope. They had also welded a homemade sound suppressor on the muzzle of the rifle, to silence their shots. It fit perfectly inside the taillight hole on the rear fender of the taxicab. The missing taillight and lens gave the sniper a clear shooting port and reasonably good field of view.

  Sweat poured off the Iraqi gunman’s face as he lay inside the car’s fender, and he followed his crosshairs on the American soldier as he walked into the middle of the street. “Allahu Akbar,” the sniper said as he put pressure on the trigger.

  He tried to remember everything that his Islamic brother from the east of Europe had taught him about relaxing, breathing, focusing on the crosshairs, then holding his breath without strain while gently adding pressure to the trigger until the shot broke.

  “Ahmed, let the shot always fire with surprise. This way you know that you did not force the trigger, and the bullet will always strike exactly where you had your sights aimed,” the Chechen jihadist they called Juba had told him. Ahmed was not this gunman’s name but his Muslim brother who had once held acclaim as a precision marksman in the former Soviet Army called everyone he trained in Iraq, Ahmed.

  Someone opened the door of the second Hummer and yelled at the soldier standing in the street, craning his neck, turning his head in every direction, looking for the kids who must have thrown the rocks and cans at them.

  “Let’s go!” the soldier in the second Hummer shouted.

  “Allahu Akbar,” the Iraqi running the digital camera chanted again and again, and captured on his video the sudden impact of the silenced .30 caliber projectile as it struck the American soldier loitering in the street. The bullet exploded through his neck, sending a spray of red just above his body armor. The shot’s force threw the man to the pavement.

  Blood gushed from the downed American’s neck as he writhed on the street. He tried to cry out for help but could make no sounds from his shredded larynx except that of air escaping his lungs from his final gurgling breaths.

  Iraqi shopkeepers and early-morning customers casually moving along the sidewalks now ran in every direction, hiding inside every available door. In a heartbeat, the normally bustling quad of streets and shops sat empty. The people disappeared from sight like cockroaches leaving the kitchen when lights come on.

  Three soldiers jumped out of the two sand-tan vehicles, rifles out, ready to shoot in any direction. Another soldier, without a rifle but shouldering a green satchel that had a red cross painted inside a white circle on its side ran to the wounded man and tried to save his life.

  It is a woman, the sniper realized as he put his crosshairs on her. She had taken off her helmet, and he could see her long, black hair rolled in a bun on her head.

  “Allahu Akbar,” the sniper said as he shot her in that rolled knot of hair, killing her instantly. All of it captured on video to be seen later on multiple al-Qaeda fan-base Web sites, worldwide.

  Just after the sniper had killed the woman soldier, and she crumpled, dead, the jihadi driver jumped over the seat and got behind the steering wheel. As he started the taxi, he sent a cell-phone text cue to several trucks and cars that now converged on the intersection.

  As the traffic surge came through, the driver hit the gas and sped away in the mix of delivery trucks and cars.

  None of the soldiers, nor any other witnesses, ever realized where the shots came from. One Iraqi shopkeeper said he might have noticed a taxi sitting at the corner, but he wasn’t sure. Taxis frequently sat there, waiting for fares in that busy part of town.

  —

  “Gangway!” Jack Valentine yelled as he used the edge of his boot sole to pull open the door to the MARSOC, Iraq detachment operations offices. They
sat inside a white hard-walled, white-roofed block-type one-story structure that looked like a giant refrigerator turned on its side. Similar to the quarters in which Jack and his tribe lived, it had tiny high windows and air conditioners sticking out all four corners of the supposedly somewhat-bullet-repellant walls.

  A new crimson sign posted on white pipe stanchions out front proclaimed with bright gold lettering who lived in this house, United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, Iraq. The newly coined MARSOC emblem, an eagle, globe, and anchor inset within a large black spade-like spearhead, dominated the sign’s center. Beneath it read a slogan in gold script, ALWAYS FAITHFUL—ALWAYS FORWARD.

  On the lower corner of the big sign, a smaller red one with yellow lettering read, LIEUTENANT COLONEL H. E. SNOW, COMMANDING. Opposite it, a similarly small strip read, GUNNERY SERGEANT J. A. VALENTINE, STAFF NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICER IN CHARGE. On the hooch door, yet another sign, a varnished cedar plank with bold black lettering burned into the wood, read, HOG WALLOW (FORWARD).

  The gunny blindly hefted two large boxes, one stacked atop the other, reaching from his knees to over his head and as wide as his arms could hug.

  “That sniper they call Juba killed two more Americans,” Staff Sergeant Billy Claybaugh yelled to Jack when he saw the boxes and the gunny’s feet peddling under them. “Both Army. Office types making some kind of off-the-wall admin run to south Baghdad. Whatever the fuck that’s about. Like letting children wander off a playground if you ask me.”

  Jack grunted and huffed as he came inside the office. “Yeah, I heard about it at the post office. A little help might go a long way.”

  Billy-C grabbed the box off the top. “One was a female lieutenant and the other a sergeant. Dirty shame. Gunny, why didn’t you get one of the boys to go with you for these?”

  “Didn’t know they’d arrived,” Jack said. “I just happened by the headquarters mail drop and those Air Force jamokes working in there was kicking our boxes around and tripping all over them. Given a little time, they would have rat-fucked the whole load. So I grabbed shit and fled. I left the rest of the MARSOC mail out in the seat of the truck. Elmore got another letter from his wife.”

  “Good. He can pick it up on his way out,” Billy-C said. “You buy that Juba stuff, the Phantom of Baghdad?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, feeling in his pocket for his Cold Steel lock-blade knife. “Intel guys at the two-shop say al-Qaeda made up this Juba character, and it’s really a bunch of different gunmen, mostly lucky shooting Hajis making kills at short range. Nothing impressive, like now they got their version of Carlos Hathcock.”

  “Both these was head shots,” Billy said. “Well, actually, one a neck shot and the other a clean head shot.”

  “We need to get after ’em, brother,” Jack said, pushing his knife into the tape of the first big box. “Entirely too many Americans getting hit by snipers these days. We need to engage some countersniper action to put a stop to it.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Billy said as he headed for the truck to grab the mail off the seat for everyone in the detachment.

  Just as Staff Sergeant Claybaugh shoved open the HOG Wallow door, it hit Lieutenant Colonel Elmore Snow slam in the kisser. Wham!

  “Oh shit, sir!” Billy-C cried out. “You okay?”

  Elmore shook his head like rattling rocks in a box. “No worse for wear. Carry on, Marine.”

  “I guess you heard about those two soldiers got killed by Juba the Phantom of Baghdad, first thing this morning?” Claybaugh said to the colonel.

  “Bloody shame, that,” Snow said. “We stress sniper vigilance, but I guess some people forget where they are.”

  “Yes, sir,” Billy said, and dashed outside to the truck.

  The colonel eyed Jack, who had his knife out, cutting open the tape to the top of one of the big boxes. On the side of the pasteboard, dark blue print read, JACKSONVILLE CUSTOM IMAGES COMPANY.

  “What’s in the boxes?” Snow asked, walking over and trying to peek inside the one Jack had just opened.

  “Oh, just a few Tinkertoys I had made up for the kids,” Valentine said, and grabbed a handful of black-and-red-embroidered patches from a plastic bag and handed them to his boss.

  Snow looked at the four-inch-by-three-inch red-trimmed diamonds with a black ace of spades on a gray field that had an overbearing, evil-eyed white skull trimmed in red and black in its center. Below the black spade and white skull, was a set of white dice with black dots showing snake eyes.

  “You drew this?” Snow asked, admiring the artwork.

  “Yes, sir.” Jack smiled.

  “Nice,” Snow said, and tried to hand them back.

  “No,” the gunny said. “Those are yours. I got three hundred of them made for our team. Plenty to go around.”

  “These are not kosher on Marine Corps uniforms, you know,” Snow said, stuffing the patches in his utility-trousers pocket.

  “Oh, goes without saying,” Valentine said. “We’ll sew them on our kit bags and maybe on the pocket of our vests. A little team identity.”

  “Sounds good,” Elmore said, and took a second glance at the very large boxes. “But it looks like more than patches here.”

  “Oh, just a little decor for the hooch, sir,” Jack blew off. “Nothing really.”

  “Hey, Jack,” Snow said casually. “I thought I’d mention that a couple of CIA operators, boy named Chris Gray and his partner, Speedy Espinoza, may come knocking on your hatch in the next few days. Help them out all you can. They’re tasked with finding Zarqawi. And we want to kill him.”

  “I’ll roll out the green carpet,” Jack said, and puzzled a second. “Chris Gray? Sounds familiar. I knew a Chris Gray at Second Force Recon back in the Gulf War.”

  “One and the same,” the colonel said. “Espinoza’s Marine Corps, too. Flew the EA-6B Prowler for a while.”

  “Spy in the sky,” Jack said. “I’ll do all I can for them. Last time I saw Chris, we were lance corporals. Then you kidnapped me.”

  “I should have grabbed him, too,” Elmore said. “He’s a solid operator. So’s Speedy.”

  “Never fear, they’ll be at home here,” Jack assured his commander.

  “Meantime, I’ve got a flight out to Dover Air Force Base in about three hours,” the colonel said, glancing at his watch. “Then a puddle jumper down to Jacksonville. We have the MARSOC Colors unfurling and inaugural appointment-of-command ceremony on Friday afternoon.”

  “Real shame, sir,” Jack said.

  “What do you mean?” Elmore said.

  “Some one-star we don’t know will take command of this creation that you dreamed up back when we were killing cocaine cowboys around Medellín, many moons ago,” Jack said. “You’re the guy that sold this idea to the Marine Corps, convincing them we needed our own organization, like the SEALs and Delta Force.”

  “I’m not in this for credit or praise, Jack,” Elmore said. “What we’ve got exceeds even my most ambitious dreams. I couldn’t be happier.”

  “Well, sir,” Jack grumbled, “I don’t have to like it, and neither do the boys. Every one of us says they need to kick you up to full colonel or even go ahead and jump tracks to brigadier and put you in charge. It’s your show, and nobody in the American armed forces knows as much about special operations as you do.”

  “I’m flattered, Jack”—the colonel smiled—“but it’s a lot more complicated than just Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. We’re coordinated into the armed-forces-wide Special Operations Command. It’s a whole joint forces structure under Central Command, and it unites all special warfare forces of the United States.”

  Jack rattled off, “I know, sir. We got SOCOM opened shop in Florida, and JSOC under them in Afghanistan, and I guess we’ll have our own Joint Special Operations Command here in Iraq, too, giving you yet another star to salute. I’
ve heard all that alphabet soup. If you ask me, it’s just another excuse for career-serving officers to get stars put on their collars.”

  Elmore Snow smiled and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Oh, how right you are, young Spartan. The political opportunists will certainly seize the day. However, you and every Marine in our detachment here, and the command back at Lejeune, benefit. We’re quickly becoming our own Marine Corps occupational field.

  “Scout-Snipers will no longer fall under the 8500, marksmanship training field, but will more appropriately expand the Marine infantry 03 field. Your 8541 MOS will change to 0317. And who knows? The next step may well be a primary MOS that is Special Operations.”

  “Elmore, sir,” Jack said, and looked to see no one else lurked anywhere in the operations offices, “I would love to see you in command and wearing a star. Just saying. You’re the toughest, scariest Marine I ever knew. Soft-spoken but swinging a big stick. You’d make a great Commandant of the Marine Corps, sir.”

  Colonel Snow put his head back and laughed. “Jack. Son. You’re plying the lather just a little thick. I’ll be lucky to see full colonel. I’m a snake eater, not a politician. I was a sergeant who got lucky and made lieutenant, and got sent to Beirut. Then I got to teach young leaders at the Infantry Officers Course, and worked hand in glove with our incoming Marine Corps commandant, General Jim Conway. Remember how Colonel Conway gathered up our team in Iraq, back in the Gulf War? He doesn’t forget his friends. Believe me. Great things are coming for all of us.”

  “Yes, sir, and the Marine Corps has done itself proud naming General Conway our new commandant,” Jack said. “Pete Pace as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is good for all us Scout-Snipers, too. You know how he loved Gunny Hathcock. So why don’t those guys who truly know you put you in command of MARSOC for real?”

  “They know that I do best crawling in the weeds, shooting bad guys,” Elmore said. “You only see the commander side of me, and the friend that would give his life for any one of you Marines. But, up where the flags fly high, I struggle. I’m that guy with the grass stains on his pants.”