Six Seconds

21

The frontier beyond Tal Afar, Iraq. Near the Syrian border

This is not good…

His rig is slow-rolling through a busy market. They’d been cut off five miles back from the larger convoy and the main armored escort.

His radio crackles.

“Get your Kevlar on!”

Jake has a bad feeling about this. They are in a twenty-truck convoy hauling supplies to support a secret mission at the border. But they got cut off and now there are just six vehicles. A Humvee in lead, a Humvee in back. Jake’s Mercedes is the last rig. A guy from Spain, one from Amsterdam, and Mitchell, Jake’s pal from Texas whose wife just had a baby, are driving the other rigs.

Jake hates being cut off.

Being cut off is like being plucked from the herd. They are going too slow. Too damn slow. This is a hot insurgent zone.

A kill zone.

He just wants to get to the damn camp without getting shot. Without getting rocks hurled at his windshield. Just get to the camp. Shower. Eat. Sleep. Count one more day closer to home. Closer to Maggie and Logan.

Now they are crawling.

Damn. Please do not be a checkpoint. Please do not tell me this is an Iraqi police checkpoint. Please.

Insurgents wear fake police uniforms.

“Okay, we gotta stop,” the radio bleats. “It’s a checkpoint.”

Jake curses. All the saliva in his mouth evaporates.

The diesel rigs idle in the broiling sun.

Eyes locked open, heart thumping, mouth dry, do-or die, trickles of cold sweat down his back, listening to the chatter on the air, scanning the stalls, the beggars pushing carts, the old men hunching over the open fires heating teapots, kids chasing a dog, hitting it with a stick. Stay alert, stay alive, delivering democracy to your door.

Maggie and Logan smile at him from the photo taped to his dash.

Get me through another day. Get me home, is all I pray.

Come on. This is taking way too long.

Scanning the old men, the kids, the dog, the burnedout cars, the idling trucks growl as beggars pass by pushing carts.

Radio chatter. A blur in his periphery.

Pop-pop!

Gunfire. A muzzle flash in the market and Hayes in the lead Humvee is frantic over the radio to the crew in the rear.

Six Seconds 139

“T-Bone! Heads up! Behind you!”

Wham! The Hummer behind Jake is ablaze! A beggar’s cart tips.

“Ambush! Ambush!”

Hayes opens fire with his M2 lighting up the target behind Jake. People are scrambling, screaming.

Jake is trapped.

The air splits. The beggars fire an RPG!

Thump! The ground shakes. The rig in front explodes, burning fragments rain on Jake’s rig. A large chunk thuds on his hood.

A head.

Mouth agape, Mitchell stares wide-eyed at Jake.

Oh, Christ!

Mitch!

Oh, Jesus!

To his right, smoke puffs from the burned-out car. A grenade rips at the lead Humvee. Vibrations. Shadows in Jake’s mirrors; out of nowhere several men are splashing water on his rig. No. The smell. It’s gasoline!

They’re going to kill him.

The convoy is returning fire. The guys from the lead Humvee are on the road burning. A soldier shooting is on fire, shrieking.

“Grease the mothers!”

Ghost figures swarm all sides of Jake, climbing onto his rig.

They’re all over him.

Pop-pop!

The American soldier’s trying to pick them off. Rounds whiz-clang off his truck.

Jake reaches for his sidearm. The mob is pulling at his doors. Coming through his windows, smashing the windshield.

He’s going to die.

Someone slams the sidearm from his grip. He claws for his knife, grabbing it in time to slice across an attacker’s throat-his blood spraying. Jake meets his eyes, meets his hate, smells his breath.

Mitchell’s head watches from his hood.

Jake’s door rips open.

They have his arm, someone has his ankle. Jesus. He glimpses a smoke cloud, a grenade sizzling toward his cab.

No. No. No.

The searing inferno concussion ejects Jake, propel ling him skyward, arching clear as the ground rises, slam-pounding his breath from his chest.

In the brilliant sun the last thing he sees is Maggie smiling on the beach and Logan running to him with open arms.