WESTERN IRAQ
TWENTY YEARS AGO
1430 HOURS
Given Ali's fluency in Arabic and Farsi (Ali herself preferred the older term "Persian"), Jack arranged to have her attached to the unit as a guide and interpreter (she was issued the radio call sign "Angel One").
Jack, his ptoon, and Ali were on patrol in the desert. Jack and his unit wore their desert camo uniforms. Ali wore a cream-colored hijab trimmed in cobalt blue silk.
All at once, shots rang out. "GET DOWN! GET DOWN!" Jack shouted as he, Ali, and his ptoon y sprawled on the ground.
"Watts, see anything?" Jack asked.
"Negative, Sarge," Corporal Watts replied.
"Battaglia, call an air strike," Jack commanded.
"Yes, Sarge," Lance Corporal Battaglia replied.
For the better part of a half hour, Jack's ptoon and the hidden enemy exchanged machine gun fire.
"Tim, how we doing on that air strike?" Jack asked Battaglia.
"Can't get anyone before tomorrow morning," Battaglia replied.
"What the hell are we supposed to do BEFORE then?" Jack ejacuted.
"I don't know, Sarge," Battaglia replied.
Jack muttered, "What I wouldn't do for a Copperhead right about now ..."
"How will a snake help us?" Ali asked innocently as she y sprawled on the ground next to Jack.
"Not a snake ... Mobile artillery," Jack expined to Ali. "Warthog, bunker buster ..."
" 'Bunker buster?' " Ali asked as enemy machine fire whizzed by overhead.
"A bomb ... A BIG bomb," Jack replied. "Something designed to take out a bunker."
"I know bombs," said Ali.
"Huh?" Jack excimed.
A deafening BOOM suddenly filled the air. The ground shook as the pressure wave rolled underneath.
"Sarge, LOOK!" Watts shouted.
"Waddya mean 'Look'? What do you want me to look at?" Jack shouted at Watts.
"Up ahead ... Massive fme," Watts shouted.
Jack scrambled to get his binocurs out of his case. A massive billowing plume of orange and red fme stretching hundreds of feet into the air rose up from the dunes ahead. Thick bck smoke rose up from the fme.
"Holy shit," Jack excimed as he looked at the fmes through his binocurs. "We didn't just hit a firebase."
"We didn't?" Ali asked.
Jack shook his head as looked at the fmes through his binocurs. "A regur firebase couldn't produce that kind of fme," he expined. "We hit something BIG.
"Ammo dump ... Fuel depot ... We hit something EXPLOSIVE."
"What now, Sarge?" Private Simmons asked. "You want us to move in?"
"Negative," Jack replied. "Battaglia, call Ordnance Disposal. Tell them to get a team out here. Pce could be mined.
"There could be mines, booby traps, IEDs ..."
"On it, Sarge," Battaglia replied.
Bomb out of nowhere ... Right after I mentioned it, Jack thought. No air strike until tomorrow morning.
This is ALI'S doing.
