I own nothing but the words below, I borrow everything else. There are no special instructions today, only suggestions:read, review, and stretch before engaging in physical activity.
Lt. Hunter was now alone inside the hotel. He burped loudly. Some of the pain in his chest eased but he tasted powdered eggs in the back of his throat and the humiliating memory of shitting his pants earlier as he vomited in the latrine made him feel faint. He sat on the shot up desk with his head between his legs and waited there for half an hour before he felt strong enough to go back outside.
He saw Pvt. Torres from fourth squad sitting in the driver's seat of the second Humvee, his seat, talking to Del Rio and Chang. His tourniquet was gone and his arm was prettily bandaged in white gauze that went around his head twice to hold the wound higher than his heart. He'd be at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany in less than a day where a real doctor had to dig lead shot from his forearm before he could be sent home to recuperate. The medic was now busy with Silas, threading a needle to sew up the irrigated nearly two inch cut in his right thigh.
"Nothing serious right Sergeant?" Hunter asked.
"Nope."
"Let me call this in. We'll get going."
"You do that," Silas said to Hunter's retreating back as Spc. Fallis knotted the last stitch in his leg. He tilted his head to hear Murphy and Hunter's conversation a couple of feet away, glad to leave the babysitting up to someone else.
"Lieutenant," Murphy said as Hunter reached inside the Humvee for the radio.
"Yes Sergeant?"
"Don't you think we should comb this place again before we go, Sir?"
"Not before an EOD tech sweeps through this shithole first Sergeant. Maybe you wanna go around poking into IEDs in this rubble but it ain't gonna be under my command,"
"Sir the Explosives Ordnance Disposal team is tied up with those weapons caches in Nineveh. They probably won't get here another day and then it'll be too late."
"Too late for what Sergeant? Prom? We killed everyone if you didn't notice." Murphy took a deep breath before he answered.
"That's exactly what's bothering me Sir. That woman," he said pointing at the second floor "was speaking in Farsi not Arabic. Even here, nine armed men is overkill to protect ten goats. Don't you think we should at least find out what else they were up to?" The firing neurons in Hunter's brain were almost visible through the thick bones of his skull. He clenched his butt cheeks.
"Suit yourself Sergeant but make it quick."
Lt. Hunter ground his big toe into the sole of his boot trying to focus on something other than his stomachache. He watched in agony as Murphy gathered the men closest to him for a scavenger hunt at the mosque and almost lost it when they gathered around SSgt. Silas and waited for the medic to finish before finally going away. With legs trembling, Hunter waited for Spc. Fallis to get distracted in the cleanup before he ducked back into the hotel and let the stench of the bathroom lead the way.
He pushed the door a third of the way, as far as it would go, slid inside and cringed. Light filtered in through the bullet holes in the wall high above his head and about waist level. The only white spot on the entire toilet was an asymmetric chip in the porcelain water tank where a bullet had taken off a chunk of the brownish crud covering every square inch from the bottom of the bowl on up. He fought his belt with nervous fingers and did his best to keep his pants from touching the filthy floor as he tried to aim his bare ass in the general direction of the toilet. He pulled the collar of his uniform tee-shirt over his nose and mouth and resumed breathing.
"Aww fuck," he muttered as his right boot skidded on something he'd rather not think about. Hunter held on to his pants with both hands, the abrupt movement throwing him off balance. He fell on the sticky toilet seat and in the same breath, simply let go letting relief, however foul its smell as it drained from his body, wash over him.
In the opposite end of town if it could be called that, Sgt. Murphy looked at Silas as he looked at the empty mosque from the door, still unsure of whether or not to take the latter's assurance that he was okay at face value. Silas began unlacing his boots.
"Sergeant?" O'Hare asked cramming everything from what are you doing to what the hell into one single word.
"I'm showing some damn respect for a house of worship," Silas answered lining up his boots against the wall. Dumphy quickly followed suit pleased that such cultural sensibility was not lost on his leader. Nassiri trailed him also unshod. Murphy urged his men to do the same and took off his shoes last though he would have preferred a protective layer of anything between his socks and the goat poop on the carpets.
"Check this out Sergeant," Dumphy said looking at the floor "they brought carts inside the mosque."
"Where do they speak Farsi Nassiri?"
"Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia."
"Iran huh? That's next door." Murphy slowed down to look for more depressions on the carpet.
"Elemental dear Watson," Dumphy said caressing an invisible mustache. "It's weapons of mass destruction. They sneak them past the border police inside the goats." Tariq chuckled and Murphy did too. SSgt. Silas relented last with a close lipped smile appreciating the crack more than the punch line.
"Heroin," he said seriously again. "What's wrong with that carpet?" He asked Murphy.
"It's facing the wrong way," Murphy answered after looking at it. Privates Dumphy and O'Hare walked around the carpet in question looking for obvious booby traps instinctively. They lifted one end slowly and rolled the rug away when neither man blew up. Six heads stared down at a trap door no more than four feet long and two feet wide. Dumphy tugged the piece of rope on the handle and lifted the door off the floor half a foot. Nassiri looked into the darkness and again they pressed on, the fact that they were still in one piece, the biggest indicator of the lack of IEDs.
They looked down at neat brick shaped packages with rounded edges about a foot long each stacked neatly in rows of three each.
"Shit Sergeant, you were right." Dumphy skimmed a brick off the top. "It's a kilo right Tariq?" he added guesstimating.
Tariq took the parcel from Dumphy thumbing the thick brown paper the bricks were wrapped with. He handed it to SSgt. Silas. Knife in hand, Silas cut an L shape in the wrapping piercing the two layers of packaging. He peeled back the cover to expose the compacted white powder inside, scraped a pinch with the knife and licked the tip. He tasted the bitterness in his whole mouth and let enough saliva gather under his tongue to take all the powder with it when he spit.
"It's pure too," he said taking out his radio. "Mitchell, Fallis, come in," he added into it. It crackled to life.
"This is Pvt. Mitchell Sergeant,"
"Get me Underpants Mrs. B," Silas ordered foregoing formalities.
"I can't Sergeant, he's taking a dump right now," Brenda replied.
"You in there with him private?"
"No sir, I can smell it out here." Silas laughed.
"As you were private."
Lt. Hunter was still a no show half an hour later when Sgt. Murphy and SSgt. Silas approached the convoy. They'd left Pfc. Nassiri in charge of the men in the mosque and over seventy bricks of heroin counted out on the floor. SSgt. Silas climbed in the passenger side of the Humvee with Brenda in it. He took the radio between them.
"This is Rawhide one to base, over." He looked out the dirty windshield for the dead minute before the radio crackled.
"Come in Rawhide one, this is base, over."
"Base this is SSgt. Silas; I need Capt. Baron, over."
"Stand by Rawhide one, over." Silas counted the dead bugs this time.
"SSgt. Silas this is Capt. Baron, over," the radio sputtered.
"Captain this is Rawhide one in Qadiya. We got a prisoner, nine dead insurgents, and a cache of at least seventy kilos of heroin, over." He waited for it, the incredulous 'what.'
"What?" It came as he had expected with Capt. Baron no doubt leaning close enough to the radio for a harassment suit. Pvt. Mitchell beside him had an equally astonished look on her face.
"We found a cache of seventy kilos of heroin and counting, sir. We have nine dead insurgents at least one of which was Iranian or Afghani, sir. We are awaiting orders, over."
"Where's Lt. Hunter Sergeant?" Baron asked.
"He's availing himself of the restroom facilities, sir." Silas answered biting his inner cheek to keep a straight face.
"Stand by SSgt. Silas. I need to get battalion on the horn, over and out!"
"Are you serious SSgt. Silas?"
"No Pvt. Mitchell, I'm just calling my commander for shits and giggles," Silas answered gruffly, jumping out of the Humvee as Lt. Hunter walked out of the hotel smiling.
"Found anything Sergeant?" Hunter asked smugly; pretty sure he'd done a good job of cleaning himself up with only an undershirt to use as toilet paper.
"Yes sir."
"What was that Sergeant?"
"At least seventy kilos of heroin. I just called it in to base, sir," he said taking a step back from Hunter, anticipating spittle.
"What?" Hunter asked reddening. "How dare you go over my head with something like this?"
"You weren't available, sir." Silas finally said deciding on that answer over a more biting 'That's not your decision to make bonehead.'
"What did Capt. Hunter say?"
"We are to stand by until he gets battalion on the horn, sir."
"You told him I ordered the search right?" Hunter asked preoccupied although voicing the actual question had probably been accidental. Silas ignored the inquiry and doubled back to the Humvee as Pvt. Mitchell waved. Hunter beat him to there.
"It's not base," Brenda whispered when Hunter yanked the radio from her hand.
"Come in base, this is Lt. Hunter, over," he said into the earphone. He listened intently and handed the radio to Silas. "It's for you," he seethed.
"This is SSgt. Silas."
"Sergeant, this is General Downer. How much heroin did you find, over?" Silas gave the earpiece to Brenda.
"Hold that," he said to her already getting Nassiri on the other radio. "Tariq come in," he added.
"This is Tariq Sergeant, over."
"Done counting yet Nassiri?"
"Yes. 108 kilos total Sergeant."
"Give me your exact coordinates Pfc. Nassiri," he ordered motioning Brenda for a pencil. She gave him a black Sharpie. Silas looked at the marker with no paper in sight and grabbed Brenda's hand. He exposed her slender wrist and jotted down the numbers Tariq gave him on her skin, calling General Downer at the same time.
"Come in General, over."
"Downer," the stern voice responded.
"108 kilos total, General, over."
"Give me coordinates Sergeant." Silas read off the numbers in he'd scribbled on Pvt. Mitchell. The radio crackled. "Your new orders Sergeant," Downer said at last. "You are bringing in your live prisoner only. You are leaving the bodies with the drugs. I repeat you are leaving the bodies with the drugs, over."
"Sir?"
"You got forty minutes before I send in an Eagle to level Qadiya Sergeant, get your men together and hustle out of there."
"Roger that sir, over."
"Good job Sergeant, over and out."
Okay then, that's Chapter #3 As usual I've put the cart before the horse and I have an ending before I have any idea how to get there. Oy vey.
