A new chapter! Wee! My cat has been very affectionate this week so her rubbing her whiskers against my fingers as I am trying to type has certainly delayed things, not that my lack of technical knowledge has helped matters either.
All the characters I didn't invent belong to FX but you know that because you are smart.
The highway to Mosül had split into smaller halves a couple of miles back when Captain Jerusalem Harms noticed the needle on the temperature gauge in the dash climbing into the red a second time. They were passing larger and larger pockets of built up areas on both sides of the road as the outskirts of Mosül gave way to the city ahead but there was still a long way to go. The convoy had stopped several miles earlier to wait for over an hour while the M998's engine cooled off. She smashed her open hand into the steering wheel and cursed out loud. Her two way radio crackled.
"Glass says to tell you you are leaking, over," Jericho's familiar baritone said from the back of the ambulance a few feet in front of her.
"How's the cargo?" She asked regarding Hunter.
"Peachy." Harms couldn't see it but her usually unflappable brother had scowled. She handed her radio to 2nd Lt. Berro.
"Let them know we'll need a tow," she ordered with her eyes on the dash.
Jerusalem slowed to the truck a crawl. She felt its load lighten when King and Nassiri jumped out of the back to scan the side of the road before the convoy could come to a full stop. The biggest threat was the presence of cholera in the stagnant sewer water pooled in every available pothole so Pfc. Nassiri gave the go-ahead. She passed the ambulance and parallel-parked behind the M1026 Humvee. Pvt. Williams' scanned the surrounding area from the gunner's turret, pointing the M60 machine gun as he turned while Pfc. Nassiri ran to meet up with Dumphy, already in front prepping the winch. She stepped out glad to be able to stretch her legs. SSgt. Silas met her across the stretched tow line.
"Do you want to stop for lunch now Sergeant? Fifteen miles per hour to Marez is going to be a while."
"Whenever you are ready ma'am."
"Don't wait for me Sergeant; I'm not spoiling my greasy cheeseburger for this shit." She patted the MRE in one of her cargo pockets for emphasis and saw Lt. Glass jump out of the driver's seat out of the corner of her eye. Her radio came alive.
"He's going into shock!" The Lieutenant yelled.
"Sepsis. Shit." Harms looked up guessing the distance between the buildings on both sides of the street. She took a folded map out of the thousandth pocket. "He'll need a Medevac. Give them the school Sergeant, it's been condemned since occupation. They can't land here," she added tossing her map on the hood of the overheated Humvee. SSgt. Silas hopped in the passenger's seat and pushed his radio headset out of the way. He located the landing zone coordinates on the Captain's doodled map and depressed the push to talk button massaging his right temple in the hopes it would make his headache go away.
Female Harms climbed to the back of the ambulance and looked at Hunter unconscious and clammy wilted on his litter, his undershirt cut down the middle. Her brother was pushing down on Hunter's chest with the heel of his hands while Lt. Glass worked around him trying to hook electrocardiogram pads to the inert chest. He moved away to make room for Jerusalem.
"Goddamn it he's in V-fib," Jericho muttered looking at the wild ups and downs of Hunter's irregular heartbeat reproduced on the liquid crystal display of the portable defibrillator hooked to his chest. He flipped the switch that made the defibrillator change from a simple monitoring device to something of a miniature crash cart and Hunter's pulse did the equivalent of cartwheels for two more seconds while Jerusalem peeled the larger resuscitation chest pads from their crinkly protective packaging.
The vocal cues on the machine rushed to match the speed with which she affixed the pads and she watched exasperated as the machine charged. Jericho pushed the shock button. Hunter's torso came off the litter and settled back down. He measured Hunter's pulse manually and removed the pads from his chest taking hair and scabs with them. Lt. Alexander Hunter was now unceremoniously over the hump. Glass unwrapped an Ambu bag, affixed the mouthpiece over Hunter nose and mouth then started pumping when it was clear the man's own intermittent attempts couldn't cut it alone. Harms stepped out of the ambulance sweating despite the air conditioning, as her brother reattached the ECG electrodes to Hunter's chest. SSgt. Silas was waiting outside.
"Nine minutes ma'am," he said answering the unasked question in the line between her eyebrows. Jerusalem nodded. "Landing zone's two blocks out ma'am."
"Lead the way Sergeant." Harms said tying back hair that had loosened working over Hunter a minute earlier. She climbed behind the steering wheel in the ambulance and inched forward behind the cargo carrier.
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Ali Sayid was supposed to be keeping watch while Mullah Mohammed led the rest of his group in prayer inside the abandoned three-story school they were currently squatting but he was busy chain smoking instead. Earlier, by unanimous, democratic vote he'd been designated the sole scapegoat responsible for the loss of the over ten million dollars in heroin destroyed two weeks earlier at nearby Qadiya.
There were a lot of car bombs in ten million dollars so Ali Sayid was okay with taking some of the blame. He had been in charge of navigation. He had been reading the maps incorrectly. He had delayed the eight men with him for four days. He could admit those three things to himself. It was a whole other camel to meet Mullah Mohammed's boss and admit in front of an indeterminate number of armed, pissed off men expecting a tenfold return on their investment that he was the one they should hold responsible for the mess.
No one cared about mitigating factors in a holy war even if reading a map was very hard on a man who only knew 17 of the 28 character in the Arabic alphabet. He was sure that the American convoy he'd seen rolling into the school grounds from his lookout would be more understanding of such a conundrum which was why having to kill them didn't sit well with him as he put out his last cigarette. Ali flipped his rifle onto his back and crawled on all fours towards trap door on the roof to inform Mullah Mohammed that maybe, they'd have a little more than pure ineptitude to offer the higher-ups when they got into Mosül later that day. He had the trap all but shut over his head when he heard the now familiar swoosh of helicopter rotors cutting through the air. Ali smiled. Allah was definitely smiling down on him that day.
Did you know a giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue?
Thy Author.
