|
Title: "The Eyes Of Innocence"
This is a companion to the events in "The Doll", fanfic100 piece #025. (qv - Read Here) Now, it's done!
"The Eyes Of Innocence"
Najaf Operations Sector
The car bomb had exploded prematurely, hitting a civilian cargo truck several vehicles ahead of the approaching Army patrol, which was running later than usual and stuck in thickening morning traffic, which was unusual for the town of Najaf, and especially so on the route the patrol normally followed.
As in numerous prior occasions, the patrol members bailed out of their deuce-and-a-halfs, snugged their weapons tightly into the pits of their arms, and stagger-stepped forward, fanning out to form a perimeter. The civilians wisely backed off, aside from a number of nosy old women, clucking at the carnage, and some interested little boys and girls who stopped to watch on their way to the new school the Army Engineers had built on the far side of town.
The soldiers established the perimeter by the numbers, while members of the patrol's HMMWV crew swarmed over the truck with their portable fire extinguishers, trying their best to save the driver who was trapped inside. Sirens sounded in the distance, as the Najaf fire brigade mounted up to lend assistance to the patrol.
Crouching near the lead vehicle of the convoy, under the cover of the lead HMMWV and its watchful machine gunner, Scream and Angel watched the crowd carefully, scanning for suspicious hand movements or signs of weapons.
"Think that was meant for us?"
Scream was focusing on the people - watching their hands, which was what the soldiers who were also veteran cops always said to do when they trained the patrol soldiers in immediate action drills. "What, Angel?" he asked.
"Think that car bomb was meant for us?"
"Probably. It musta been timed to go off when the local insurgents thought our patrol would be stoppin' by. The real nasty ones are command detonated though. Some guy watching his booby prize from a second story window or rooftop sees our patrol rolling by and simply telephones the bomb with a cellular. The bomb is rigged to receive the call with another cheap cell phone, and Ka-Boom! Mud-muncher Frickasee!"
"Better stop scaring me, Sarge. I might never want to go on patrol with you again."
"It don't matter if you want to go, Angel," Scream said, glancing at his squadmate. "When I tell you to go, your ass had better be on the truck."
Angel snickered while training his rifle barrel in a right to left pattern across the crowd. "Yeah. But I would throw you in front of the explosion if we were ever in front of one of these Roman candles."
"What shit are you smokin', Angel? I would be long gone and poppin' caps. I plan on gettin' the feeling long before I get tagged with my dick swinging in the wind. I listen to my instincts, unlike you snot-nosed privates who need to learn."
The soldiers manning the perimeter could feel the heat of the truck fire as the HMMWV crews' foam cans ran out before they made a significant impact on the flames. Some of the crowds began to retreat at the urging of the Arabic-speaking soldiers in the convoy, and two red vehicles of the Najaf fire brigade came into view, tearing around a corner some distance away with lights and sirens going.
Scream heard Lieutenant Underpants over his platoon radio, ordering the perimeter to move twenty meters from the fire and push back the crowd for their safety. The vehicles of the convoy were also to back away from the detonation site to avoid damage. And that was when the shit really hit the fan.
Scream and Angel were on their feet, with Dim and Smoke a few meters away, walking on the flanks of the convoy's lead HMMWV as it slowly reversed with the rest of the column of vehicles. Tariq and a company medic nicknamed "Doc" were close to the fire and yelling for the civilians to stay away.
Angel's sharp eyes caught a flash of movement on a rooftop up and to his right. "Sarge! We got rooftop movement at two o'clock!" The marksman instinctively took a knee and uncapped the scope on his M-4 carbine.
Everyone down and freeze!" Scream shouted for Smoke and Dim's benefit. The drivers kept moving as soldiers at the very rear of the column shouted for the civilian drivers to stay back or turn away from the fire. The sergeant looked to his two o'clock, scanning the windows of the buildings and looking for anything suspicious. "Which roof, Angel?"
"White building with the red awnings, Sarge. The one with the grocery on the street level."
Scream and Angel scrutinized the building as quickly as they dared, considering that the rooftop visitor was also in motion from one building to the next and looking for a good spot to fire from. The fire brigade trucks rolled past the convoy and Scream's position, and just as the trailing fire engine moved by the convoy, Angel's quick glances picked up another clue.
The Iraqi insurgent, his head completely shrouded in a multi-colored kefiyeh that also wrapped around his facial features, threw his torso over the rooftop's overhang and shouldered a Russian-made RPG-7, a very common weapon in the insurgency's arsenal.
Angel spotted and identified the weapon while Scream made hand motions for the crowd to disperse indoors. "It's an RPG, Sarge! We're about to get hit..."
The rocket propelled shaped charge slammed into the left side of the second Najaf fire truck with an explosive blast, and bystanders close to the explosion screamed in fright as they scurried to avoid any flying shards of metal debris.
Angel capped the RPG shooter with a head shot, sending the insurgent tumbling over the rooftop's edge and down into the street, a pool of his own blood splashing on the pavement as the corpse landed hard with a gut-wrenching crunch of bones. No one else began to take pot shots at the street, but the single shooter had accomplished his mission to sow some fear in Najaf.
Scream scanned the street level as the Najaf firemen poured out of their stricken vehicle, some of them bleeding from cuts and injuries. The paramedics among them immediately set to treating the wounded while their comrades took over fighting the truck fires, and the remaining soldiers pulled back to their patrol vehicles to observe. Scream noticed a little girl crying over a female figure that was lying on the sidewalk, so he called his squad together to investigate.
"What's wrong, little one?" Tariq asked softly, pulling the girl aside while Doc looked over the prone woman.
"She is my aunt," the child sobbed. "We were just walking to school."
Doc smiled after taking a few quick vitals. "She's got a piece of shrapnel that did a nasty cut or two, but we can patch her up. Let's get her on a stretcher and onto the trucks."
Dim and Angel manhandled the injured woman with Doc's help, and Smoke covered the team as they collected the injured woman and moved her to one of the patrol trucks which was bound for the closest aid station. Tariq was trying to soothe the woman's niece, who was still crying uncontrollably.
Scream looked at the poor child, who probably thought that one of the few things left in her life was being taken away, and remembered the letter that Katie, a little girl from New Jersey, wrote him. Sure enough, the small pink doll was in his equipment pouch, tucked in with his first aid kit, and it was high time to fulfill little Katie's favor.
"What's your name?" Scream asked, as Tariq translated for him.
"Mattia," the girl said between sobs.
"This doll came from America," Scream said. "A little girl, probably your age, named Katie wanted me to give this doll to a very brave and special Iraqi girl. Because she wanted it to make someone else feel good, just like it did for her once. Would you like to have it?"
Tariq translated, and Scream showed Mattia the doll in his gloved hand. Mattia tentatively reached out her tiny hand and accepted the doll, her face breaking into a huge smile as she hugged the simple, soft toy. "Thank you," she whispered.
Scream extended his open hand for Mattia to take hold of. "Come on. They're going to fix your auntie. I think it's a good reason to miss school to be with her, don't you?"
The End
|