Chapter 1
Landon
It was another day in paradise, and I was joking around with Truck Commander Briggs about one of the guys in our platoon. Stearman had gotten wasted during his last leave and had a jellyfish tattooed on the back of his calf. As if a grown-ass man with a jellyfish tattoo wasn’t bad enough, the artwork looked suspiciously like a giant dick, providing the entire platoon with a much-needed shot of comic relief.
“You know how Stearman gets when he’s drinking,” Briggs said. “I bet he marched into that tattoo parlor like he was tough shit. Was probably bragging about how much he can bench or makin’ noise about something, and his artist decided to have a little fun.”
I nodded. “Sounds about right. I still can’t believe he didn’t realize what it looks like.”
“Some people just can’t see the dick in things,” Briggs deadpanned. His humor was so dry people often missed it. But not me. I appreciated the hell out of every effort the good men and women of the 101st Airborne Division made at humor. After all, not much was funny in Afghanistan.
Our current mission had us traveling southwest of Bagram Airfield, checking into reports of insurgent activity. Briggs and I were sitting in the back seat of the Buffalo, a fifty-thousand-pound vehicle with a telescoping arm for digging up bombs. We were the second vehicle in the convoy, and we often passed our time with jokes as we rolled over the dirt supply route, watching for plastic containers, pipes, debris, animal carcasses, disturbed dirt, or any number of indicators of a possible roadside bomb. The assholes who kept attacking this supply route wanted Americans dead, and they weren’t picky about how they killed us.
“What do you think Stearman will cover the jelly-dick up with?” I asked, imagining a slew of new joke fodder.
Before Briggs could answer, a blast from behind shook the Buffalo.
Steadying myself in my seat, I searched for the source. A cloud of smoke engulfed the command vehicle behind us.
“Stop, stop, stop!” Briggs shouted into his headset, his gaze also fixed on the blast cloud. “Lieutenant Rodriguez’s vehicle just took a hit! Two-six, this is Buffalo, come in!”
Two-six, our command vehicle, didn’t answer.
We rolled to a stop and the air grew thick with anticipation as we waited for a response while scanning the area for an attack. Since two vehicles had rolled over the bomb before it exploded, chances were that it had been remotely detonated. About a half-mile away, four onlookers watched us from the top of a sandy hill. Keeping one eye on them, and one eye on the vehicle in trouble, I gripped my rifle and waited as the attack was called in to the command post.
“Two-six, this is Buffalo, come in,” Briggs repeated.
“Buffalo, this is Two-six, yeah, everyone’s fine. Everyone’s good.”
The Buffalo’s occupants released a collective breath. Our driver let out a cheer.
“Holy shit, we got lucky. Small blast,” Specialist Jeffries, also known as Smiley, said in my ear piece. He was the driver of the vehicle that had been hit.
“Buffalo, this is Two-Six, can you see how my tire’s looking from there?” Rodriguez asked in my ear.
Briggs craned his neck around for a better view. “Two-Six this is Buffalo, your front right tire looks shredded. We’re gonna have to hook you up to the Wrecker.” The Wrecker was a hundred-thousand pound eight-wheeled armored tow truck, currently stopped toward the back of the convoy.
“Copy. I’m gonna try to make my way to it.”
Despite the shredded tire, this was the right course of action. The blast had been small, and insurgents were known to set off smaller IEDs to disable vehicles so they’d be forced to call for help. Then the insurgents would trigger a second, bigger blast.
Willing the command vehicle to move, we all watched. The engine roared as Smiley gave it gas, but nothing happened.
“This is Two-Six. We’re dead in the water. I’m gonna check and see what the problem is.”
The command vehicle door swung open and Rodriguez’s helmeted head popped out, looking from side to side before the rest of his body emerged.
That’s when the second blast hit.
Rodriguez was thrown as the vehicle exploded. The entire area was engulfed in a giant blast cloud. Judging by the size of the cloud alone, the bomb had to be about a forty-pounder.
Briggs called the command post and requested a medical evac as the rest of us kept scanning the area. Two more onlookers joined the four on the hill, and I was chomping at the bit to get to our wounded and see who we could save. As the convoy’s combat medic, it was my duty to drag soldiers out of the fight so I could treat them, but first we had to make sure we weren’t under attack. IEDs were often followed up with some other assault, and I wouldn’t do anybody any good if I was caught between the vehicles when some asshole started firing rocket propelled grenades at us.
Besides, since the command vehicle had been occupied by four men, I was going to need help.
The blast cloud started to dissipate, and I could make out Rodriguez’s motionless, prone form lying about twenty feet from the vehicle.
More of the vehicle came into view, and parts of it were on fire. If we had any hope of saving anyone, we needed to move now. Briggs must have been thinking the same thing, because he spoke into his mic, communicating with the rest of the convoy. “Doc’s gonna need help. Let’s get him some cover and get those fires out.”
