Thanks to everyone who took the time to review and to those I couldn't respond to…
Rawson.M – thanks – good to know you're enjoying it so far. I love the Welsh accent too and find no trouble differentiating between that and the Irish one. That particular part came up because I watched episodes of CMSB on YouTube and some of the comments were about 'the Irish Guy' which amused me, and one being about how Matt Ryan had the worst Irish accent ever heard, which cracked me up.
Seth 8627 – thanks - hope this chapter does not disappoint!
Narwhayley – thanks! Glad to hear you're enjoying the military side of the fic – was a little worried about it being too much.
A huge thanks once again to my wonderful Beta, PaulaP2013, for taking the time to check everything over for me – there would likely be too many semicolons and homeless sentences without you!
On with the story and we see things from Sam's POV.
It had been eight weeks since the Abu Maktara mission went off without a hitch; both Sam and Hassan had been working relentlessly trying to get something from the man.
Sometimes in interrogations the process was quick and easy; valuable information was often unintentionally revealed in between the boastful rants and the hateful diatribe that tended to spew from their overused mouths.
Other times they didn't even get a name, as a prisoner would spend their time sitting and staring at the walls, never uttering a word; the only sign of life was the occasional sneer and sporadic looks of utter contempt directed towards their captors.
Maktara didn't fit into either of those categories.
He was happy to sit in silence or he was happy to share his opinions, but he would not be tricked or goaded into revealing anything he didn't want to reveal; he was an intelligent man but was not in any way boastful about it. He had told his interrogators that he knew he had been lucky enough to receive a good education, and that because of that privilege it had been his duty to help his brothers in any way he saw fit.
Sam and Hassan would ask a question about his operation and Maktara would retaliate with a philosophical quandary and a lengthy verbal essay on the problems brought forth by the West and its need to interfere with the rest of the world - it had been a long eight weeks.
It had been five days since an ambush devastated a Joint Forces patrol, resulting in eight dead and three declared MIA with several men injured.
Once the lead vehicle in the convoy was taken out by a roadside bomb, RPGs took out the one at the rear; the dispersion recommended between the vehicles drummed into every driver's training since Basic had been a small mercy, ensuring no other vehicles were caught up in those initial two explosions.
In the end, it had little mattered.
The ambush had been well set up, and with the rest of the convoy locked between the two burning vehicles on a narrow road through a small town, tall apartment buildings on both sides with a natural choke point either end, the rest of the men had been vulnerable to the sharpshooting and small arms fire coming from the enemy who were hiding in an elevated position.
Five of the dead were inside the exploded vehicles, four of whom died on impact. Sam had heard the fifth man being carried into the medical tent back at base, screaming and struggling to escape the fierce pain as firm hands pressed on burnt skin that had bubbled up and peeled away, leaving dirty, oozing wounds. The smell of burnt flesh and the sounds of utter agony coming from the medical tent were still common themes in Sam's nightmares.
The sixth man's death had been quick; he'd caught a bullet in the head from a high velocity rifle, while the seventh had struggled on all the way to Baghdad, making it through eight hours of surgery before his body finally gave in.
The injuries varied from burns to gunshot wounds to internal injuries from the concussive blast. Two men had been taken by CASEVAC to a hospital in Baghdad before being transferred to a medical base in Germany for specialist treatment in burns and amputations.
Since the attack, patrols had been increased and the men and women around base were more alert than ever, almost bordering on paranoia, with morale at an all-time low.
Like many armed personnel, they had allowed themselves to be comforted by the presence of a semi-permanent FOB. The illusion of security offered by a wire fence and frequent patrols and a constant manning of the several watchtowers that guarded the perimeter led to a more relaxed approach to their immediate surroundings.
However, despite their recent losses and the reassertion of the perilous nature of their job, most soldiers' thoughts were not dwelling on their own situation, but rather with the three missing men.
Sam had been saddened to hear that Mick Rawson was one of those men.
Iraq had a long and brutal past, as any nation must with such a colourful history. While Iraq itself was a relatively young nation, the lands it was standing on were anything but with Mesopotamia's rich and diverse history as its backdrop. The land between the Tigris and the Euphrates had been home to some of the most important civilisations of their times, including the Babylonians, the Sumerians and the Assyrians. These were civilisations famed for their advances in the written word, in mathematics and in various branches of scientific knowledge.
The fertile lands in these parts were rare in the harsh surrounding landscapes and because of that, there had been a constant struggle throughout the ages to maintain a grip on the irrigated farm lands that would allow their civilisations to grow.
Wars amongst themselves were soon replaced by other civilisations that had turned their greedy eyes to the productive land. First the Persians under Cyrus the Great, before Alexander the Great decided to move further East and started a chain of invasions from every empire with grand designs, from the Parthians to the Romans.
Even in more recent history Iraq had seen a lot of conflict; from the Ottomans to the global devastation of World War One. Even earning its independence in 1932 didn't see an end to the constant upheaval.
Internal unrest continued until Saddam Hussein's iron fist caused the population to fall into line behind him, until his invasion of Iran saw yet another bloody chapter in the land's history; some were brave enough to rebel but the consequences were fatal. The eight year-long Iran-Iraq war saw over half a million dead and left behind fierce resentment, huge debt and a terrible legacy of chemical warfare.
It was a legacy that was continued merely two years later when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
The invasion of Kuwait saw Hussein's former allies from the Iran-Iraq War turn against the Republic; a US-led coalition force invaded, intent on securing Kuwait's sovereignty. The Gulf War lasted about seven months and estimates on the number of deaths related to the war run as high as 100,000.
The latest Gulf War's death count was always increasing, with a disturbing amount of them civilians. Many of the civilians were caught up in the suicide bombings and the frequent IED explosions, but it was the deaths from those caught in fire-fights and airstrikes that were having the greatest impact.
Resentment towards the Allied troops was steadily building, even among the communities that had previously supported the invasion. Locals were becoming less and less inclined to help the Western soldiers, the fear of reprisals and the burgeoning anger over avoidable casualties causing too many problems to overcome. The growing animosity from the civilian populace along with the experienced warriors borne of a nation well acquainted with conflict and adversity meant that any soldier unlucky enough to fall into enemy hands was in for a hellish time from all sides.
The ambush had been well set up. The original path had damaged civilian vehicles that had been caught out by an IED blocking the way and the convoy, with no room to backtrack and desperate to avoid sitting out in the open with so many tall buildings surrounding them, had turned down a narrow street between two apartment blocks.
Sam had seen pictures of the burnt out vehicles and could only imagine the atmosphere in the alley once the bullets started raining down from above onto the soldiers below who were trapped between fire and concrete.
The brave actions of Rawson, Wallcroft, Anderson and Samson on the rooftops had ensured the other soldiers' safe retreat to the awaiting Chinooks and Sam imagined it was their determination to see a successful exfiltration of the wounded that had helped lead to their capture.
Well, capture for some of them at any rate.
Joseph "Joey" Samson had been the eighth man to lose his life. He was a quiet but much beloved member of his team and it had been a terrible blow to his many friends who found what remained of his body on the roof. The man had met a grisly end, in close proximity to a fragmentation grenade that had torn through flesh and bone leaving a barely recognisable body to identify.
They had found Mick's sniper rifle caught on a balcony below and while on the roof above they had found more blood that suggested Rawson, and probably his spotter, were injured, there was not enough blood to make any of them think their bodies would be found in one of the ditches lining the many roads out of town.
In the eight weeks that followed the Maktara incident, before the ambush, Sam had gotten to know Mick and some of his fellow soldiers a little better. Through many a shared meal in the mess tent, or a shared silence under the stars, even a quick chat in the queue to the latrine Sam had enjoyed the mischievous and sometimes acerbic manner possessed by the younger man.
Mick kept a closed mouth about his personal life and Sam couldn't ignore the profiler in him that picked up on every nuance of behaviour and every word that was left unspoken that suggested the sniper had lived through a rough start. He had never once pried, not because he hadn't been curious, but because he had picked up on Mick's tense and defensive posture when an innocent question into his past was deemed too intrusive.
Sam did learn that Mick had left school at sixteen and joined the Army as soon as he could. Despite missing out on an extra two years of school as well as a university education, Mick was easily one of the brightest men he had ever come across. There were a few gaps in what some might consider 'the essentials' (Mick didn't know the first thing about the plot of Macbeth and he couldn't care less about any of the world religions, or the benefits of sine, cosine and tangent) but that didn't make him unintelligent.
One thing Sam noticed right from the start was that Mick was a natural born profiler, and not just because the man's long-distance assessment of Maktara had been spot-on. The younger man could be a regular Chatty Cathy when the mood struck him, talking and laughing and seemingly oblivious to all else around him, but Sam had quickly learnt otherwise.
They had been in the mess tent - Sam, Hassan, Mick, Danny Wallcroft and Gavin Eaden. Sam had first met Gavin, an exuberant soldier from Liverpool, after the briefing for the Maktara op and had quickly pegged the man as the class-clown, so to speak.
The conversation had become increasingly loud, bordering on crude once Gav joined them at the table and Mick had bantered back and forth trading insults as easily as breathing, never pausing and perfectly in sync. Eventually Gav had disappeared off and Mick had looked at Danny and asked him to keep a close eye on Gav as the guy was clearly very upset about something. Wallcroft had looked confused about the assertion but had never for one moment doubted Mick's assessment and promised to keep an eye on their fellow soldier.
Two nights later Mick and another soldier, Digger, had had to talk Gavin down from eating a bullet. In the process, they discovered a vicious Dear John letter from his long-time girlfriend and mother of his child. She was leaving him for another man and intended to take his child away from him; Gav still had another four months of his tour to serve before he could get home to address the problem and he had been terrified when, having phoned home two days before, no one seemed to know where his ex and their child had disappeared to, and despaired of ever seeing his little girl again.
Sam had seen soldiers crack under far less and knew that being thousands of miles from home when problems arose that they were helpless to address was a terrible situation for the typical assertive behaviour of the average soldier.
Mick had talked his friend down quickly and quietly, drawing no extra attention from anyone else around and before taking the matter further up the chain of command. He did this with a discreet professionalism and a fierce protectiveness for his fellow soldier that Sam was quite sure the Brass were not entirely appreciative of but that he certainly admired. Mick helped to ensure that Gav was given compassionate leave to sort out his domestic problems before subjecting himself to a barrage of psych tests to assess his continued suitability to military life in the field.
Mick seemed to be a natural at reading someone's intentions, seemingly with very little evidence and certainly without being obvious about it at all. Sam had often come across Mick calming down some of the more volatile situations that can arise between soldiers stationed out in the middle of a desert with little of interest to do between missions. He was always calm and efficient, and sometimes blunt as hell to the point of rudeness and beyond, but he'd always been successful. His success in those instances showed a man much older than his twenty short years.
Mick's general intelligence came through in many of their frequent conversations; topics varied from the current political climate of the world, to past historical events to a wide array of literary references. He could calculate trajectory and factor in the Coriolis Effect and understand the various mechanisms of the bombs and IEDs commonly encountered in his work all seemingly with very little effort.
He spoke several languages, some fluently, and was able to engage the locals in a way that few other soldiers ever managed, instinctively knowing what topics to aim for first in an effort to put them at ease. It didn't hurt that his appearance seemed to encourage several of the older widows in the local area to take it as their personal duty to fatten up the scrawny young man.
Some of his knowledge in a particular area was broad, based on the key factors and the most pertinent of information only, other areas were very specific and so well researched that Sam could always find something to talk to the younger man about, even it was something as simple as the latest crossword.
Sam had found an unlikely companion in Mick and knew that had they met under normal circumstances they may both have passed each other by without a second glance. However, the relative isolation of the FOB and the recent lull in Special Operations had meant that they had the time to get to know one another properly, finding kinship despite the very different upbringings, beliefs and choices in their lives.
The thought of Mick, a young man who had clearly already suffered through the hardships of life, in the hands of the enemy was a terrifying one and one Sam was helpless to do anything about. All he could do was help interrogate any prisoners who might be potential aids in locating the missing soldiers and there were no guarantees of success.
The clock was ticking and time was running out.
Constructive criticism welcomed and please let me know what you think.
In case you need it…
MIA – military term meaning 'Missing in Action'.
RPG – a popular weapon, the Rocket Propelled Grenade speaks for itself.
CASEVAC – medical short-hand for a Casualty Evacuation, usually by helicopter.
FOB – Forward Operating Base.
Next up, we see what's happening to Mick.