Goose pulled out a smoke grenade and threw it in front of the tree. The grenade went off with a loud explosion and filled the immediate vicinity with red smoke.
“He’s trying to escape in the smoke!” someone yelled. “Watch for him!”
Instead, Goose remained seated only a few feet from the dead man.
“Did you see him?” The voice was on the move, coming up on the right.
“No.”
“He can’t have gotten away.”
“He didn’t. He’s somewhere close by.”
For a moment, fear touched Goose. He thought about Megan and Joey and about how he was only one bullet away from not ever going home.
Don’t do that, he told himself. That’s the weakest thing you can do as a soldier. You’ve got to think about living.
But he kept thinking about Chris too. About how Chris was gone and he was never going to see his son again.
Is that how it’s really going to be? Am I never going to see him again?
Goose’s eyes burned as he listened for men moving in the brush. They were good. They hadn’t broken cover or backed away in fear. They’d settled into their positions as well.
The talks Goose had shared with Joseph Baker before the corporal was killed trickled through his mind. Baker had promised a better end to everything than Goose could imagine. Baker’s faith in God had filled the corporal’s life after all those people disappeared. Goose still didn’t know how that had happened, but Baker’s experience had reminded Goose of Bill Townsend. Bill was among those who’d disappeared, and he’d always said he felt close to God.
How about it, God? Goose couldn’t help wondering. Am I closest to You? Or am I closest to death? Are those even separate things?
The rain fell in sheets now, whipping through the forest. Goose thought about what it would mean for the Syrian assault. Hopefully the heavy vehicles would be mired in mud and never reach Sanliurfa. At the very least he hoped the mud had slowed the enemy advance.
Remembering all his days in Sunday school, Goose thought about how often rain and water had played a part in the Bible stories. The parting of the Red Sea. The Flood. Baptism.
Does baptism count when you don’t really believe? Can you be baptized without really knowing God? Is that what I did? Sometimes in church he’d seen people get rebaptized as a testimony of renewed or restored faith. Others hadn’t been certain they’d really known how to accept salvation at the time they had.
Goose held on to his rifle and listened to the world around him. There was no noise other than the rain.
God, I don’t want to die out here. Not so far from my family. Not so far from my men. This can’t be what You have in mind for me. I know it’s not what I have in mind for me.
Goose couldn’t believe his thoughts. He’d prayed before, reflexive efforts that he’d learned as a child, but he’d never really tried to talk to God. Mostly because he’d figured if there was a God, He was probably pretty busy. And he doubted that God would concern Himself with one small sergeant in a world of trouble.
A branch, still too dry, cracked behind the tree less than ten feet away. The smoke had dissipated. Goose breathed more shallowly and waited. The next events were going to happen very fast.
A minute later, while rain dripped from the brim of his helmet, Goose saw the man ease forward in a duckwalk. He carried a rifle in both hands as he stepped toward the dead man lying only a short distance from Goose.
Goose moved his rifle into position. The small flicker of movement alerted the man. He threw himself backward and tried to bring up his weapon. Knowing his life was on the line and that it was better to be outnumbered two to one than three to one, Goose fired into the center of the man’s chest.
As Goose had expected, Kevlar armor blocked the bullet, but the impact drove the man backward. His boots churned at the loose mud created by the torrential rain and he couldn’t find traction.
Goose rose, knowing the hiding spot no longer concealed him. He took aim and put three rounds into the man’s face and neck. Coordination left the man, and he sprawled onto the ground. Blood mixed with the running water and mud.
Throwing himself from the tree, Goose ran straight ahead. He kept the tree between himself and the place where he thought the remaining two men were. A bullet smacked into the middle of his shoulder blades and probably would have killed him if he hadn’t been wearing his vest. He stumbled and nearly fell. His injured knee almost gave out on him, and pain scraped raw nerves. Agony racked the inside of his skull.
But he ran.
The large black man stepped out in front of Goose and pointed his rifle at him. In that instant, Goose realized they’d almost flanked him.
Knowing he hung suspended between life and death, Goose went down in a baseball slide only a few feet from the man. Goose’s knee screeched in protest as he folded it into the familiar figure 4 beneath him.
A line of bullets sprayed over Goose’s head. One of them ricocheted from his helmet. Then he slammed into the big man and took him to the ground. They rolled in a tangle of arms and legs. The man lost his weapon, and Goose struggled to bring his rifle to bear.
Shouting in a language that Goose didn’t understand, the big man pulled a machete from his hip and swung at Goose’s head while they were still both on the ground. Reacting instantly, Goose released the M-4A1 and grabbed the man’s wrist. It took everything he had to slow the man’s attack, but he couldn’t stop it. The keen edge came down toward his face.
“Now you will die!” the man said.
Goose focused on keeping the knife from his head. His arm quavered from the strain of holding the man’s arm back. Desperate, he bunched his fist and drove it into the man’s face again and again.
The man shouted and snorted in pain and rage. His eyes reddened as capillaries swelled and broke. His nose bled profusely.
Getting his leg up between them, Goose levered the man onto his side and crawled on top. In that position, with gravity helping, it was easier to hold back the man’s machete. Goose again hammered his fist into the man’s face, hoping his opponent would lose consciousness soon.
With a surge, the big man backhanded Goose in the mouth. The ache in Goose’s forehead from the collision with the tree reignited and pounded at his temples. Blood filled his mouth. The big man hit him again and succeeded in knocking him off.
Goose lost his grip on the man’s wrist and rolled as quickly as he could. The machete missed his legs by inches. Ignoring the pain in his knee, Goose got to his feet as the big man bared his teeth in a confident, angry grin and rushed at him.
Unable to move quickly without his knee giving out on him, Goose pulled his M9 from his hip, shoved the pistol forward, and fired. The first two rounds were wide of the target, and the next one thumped into the big man’s Kevlared chest. By then he was almost on top of Goose, already swinging the machete.
Goose fired four more times, and all of the rounds hit the man’s unprotected head and destroyed his features. The massive arm came down anyway. Stepping forward, feeling his leg go out from under him, Goose moved inside the swinging arm, felt it bang against his side so the blade missed him. He lowered his arm immediately and trapped his opponent’s limb. Then he twisted and fell, dragging the man down. On the ground now, Goose shoved the pistol into the man’s neck and pulled the trigger two more times.
The man shivered and went slack as life left him.
Running footsteps splashed across the muddy ground.
Goose heaved himself from the dead man toward the M-4A1. His hands found the grips even in the mud and the rain, with pain filling his head. For seventeen years, he’d carried a weapon like this rifle. It had been his constant companion. He was more familiar with it than anything else in his life.
The last of the mercenaries ran at him and opened fire. Unable to get to his feet because his knee wouldn’t hold him, Goose rolled onto his stomach with the rifle propped on his elbows before him. It was the basic position the army had taught him in boot, and it was the first position his daddy had taught him when he’d taken him deer hunting.
The man’s bullets dug holes in the mud beside Goose’s face. One clipped his helmet, and two others
