certainly been at the very least in a dark gray area. If the house that Nolan and his Gurkhas had trashed had in fact been identified as a legitimate military target, shouldn't it have been a military unit that took care of it? Though it was possible that the house full of AK-47s and other ordnance could have been an insurgent stronghold, Evan couldn't shake the thought that the attack might have been more in the line of a personal reprisal-payback to one of Ahmad's (or Kuvan's) enemies, or even to a business competitor.
Now, stuck in traffic in the passenger seat on a sweltering morning in Masbah, and still hung over from the previous night's beers, Evan tried to get his thoughts in order. He had to figure out a way to get his troops out of this assignment; he had to stop drinking every night with Nolan; he had to accept that it was over with Tara; he had to get a plan for his life when he got out of here.
He closed his eyes against the constant dull awful throbbing. In the driver's seat, Tony Onofrio must have caught his moment of weakness, because he turned the music way up to a painful decibel level-Toby Keith's new hit 'Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American).' This was Tony's not-so-subtle punishment for the fact that Evan hadn't succeeded in getting them transferred yet. The other beautiful aspect of the earsplitting volume was that Evan couldn't acknowledge that it bothered him-to do so would be admitting to his hangover. Tony, of course, knew he had the hangover. The message was clear enough-if Evan could jeopardize all of their safety putting more priority on drinking than on getting them out of here, then Tony could play his goddamned music as loud as he fucking wanted.
But suddenly, all the cogitations became moot. They were moving along at about ten miles per hour and they had just passed a side street when Nolan slapped three times rapidly onto the hood of their vehicle. 'Heads up,' he yelled down with real urgency, 'bogey at ten o'clock. Ten o'clock.'
Instantly jarred alert-this was a situation Evan had been trained for-Evan hit his radio and passed the word up to the rest of his squadron. 'Pisoni! Gene, any way to speed up?' Then he yelled at Nolan. 'Hand-signals first, Ron. Back ' em off. Back 'em off!'
From the radio, he heard, 'Negative, sir. We're stuck up here.'
Nolan shouted, 'Comin' on.'
'Don't fire! Repeat, do not fire.'
He knew that he had to see how serious the threat was before he could formulate his response. If nothing else, he needed to make sure that this encounter went by the rules of engagement, the escalated warning process. But on the other hand if it was a suicide bomber who had targeted them, it would happen quickly and he couldn't be afraid to pull the trigger. He drew his own sidearm, the 9mm Baretta M9, and, turning half-around in his seat, stuck his head out the window. Behind them, just out of the alley and pulling out ahead of the backed-up traffic in the space behind them, was a beat-up white sedan with no license plates. The rear car in all of the convoys already sported relatively large signs, written in English and Arabic, warning following vehicles to leave at least one hundred feet of space, and experienced drivers in Baghdad tended to err on the side of caution. And yet this car had entered the roadway at about seventy-five feet and was advancing.
Looking up, Evan saw that Nolan had drawn himself up to full height and was standing with both arms extended, palms out-the classic 'stay-back' signal in any language. Trying to get a better glimpse of the car behind them, Evan stuck his body out even farther. With the sun beating down on the windshield, the view inside the vehicle was generally obscured, but Evan was fairly certain that he could make out two people in the front seats. The back window on his side was down as well, and he caught a glimpse of forearm for a moment, instantly retracted.
'There's three of 'em in there at least,' he called up to Nolan. Then, into the radio again, 'Gene, can you get to the side and go around? The sidewalk, even?'
'Clogged up, sir. Negative. In fact, slowing.'
'Shit.' Evan knew that they had a megawatt flashlight in the backseat for just this situation. He pulled himself back in and told Greg Fields, behind the driver's seat-who should have been up where Nolan was-to find it and shine it at the approaching driver's face. It was supposed to be for nighttime use, but it might do some good during the day as well.
Digging in his duty bag on the floor at his feet, Evan pulled out the airhorn klaxon they carried for just such a moment. Amazingly enough, it seemed that even this many months into the occupation, some people-even whole families-would simply take to the streets in their cars to go shopping or run an errand. They'd get to talking or arguing and never see the warning hand signals until it was too late.
Coming out the window again, airhorn in his hand, Evan looked quickly to the roof. Nolan had gotten down out of his extended position and now his palms were gripped around the handles of the machine gun. 'Hold off, Nolan! Hold off! Wait for my order!'
The car had closed to under forty feet in ten seconds, and seemed to be accelerating. Like everywhere else in the civilized world, Iraq seemed to raise drivers who abhorred a vacuum between vehicles. Even in the bright sunshine, even with the glare off the windshield, Evan could see that Fields had trained his blinding light on the driver. From his own side, he held out the airhorn and let out a blast.
The radio squawked out. 'Deadlock up here, sir. Slowing down.'
Evan checked the position of the approaching car-was it, too, slowing down at last? Good, it had stopped in time, thank God. This crisis would pass. He reckoned that he had time for a quick look ahead of them. Turning, he was about to order Pisoni onto the sidewalk-the pedestrians would have to scatter and that was just too damn bad. Onofrio hit the brakes and they came to a complete stop.
All was still. Evan breathed a sigh of great relief.
And then, with a maniacal war whoop, right above him, Ron Nolan opened fire.
The car did not explode.
That alone was enough to cause Evan grave concern. That and the fact that in the seconds before Nolan had started shooting, the car had finally gotten the frantic message from the lights and airhorns and without a doubt had come to a complete halt. Only after the first hail of bullets had slammed into it had it started moving again-the dead driver's foot letting up its pressure on the brakes?-coming on, actually faster now, with Nolan continually pouring rounds into it, until it rammed into the back of Evan's car and shuddered to a stop.
'Don't leave the cars unattended!' Evan tried to keep his rising panic out of his voice. 'Stay at the wheel! Man your guns! Who's riding shotgun in your car, Gene? Well, get Reese back here with us. Fields,' he yelled at his assistant driver, 'out with me!'
The street had first seemed to go eerily silent, but already now as he all but fell out of the car, Evan became aware of the upswell of volume that was growing around them. Back behind them, on the sidewalk, a man was screaming, keening, and there appeared to be a form down on the sidewalk next to him-one or more of Nolan's bullets had apparently hit a bystander as he or she was walking down the street. This was perhaps unavoidable once the shooting started, but it aggravated the situation terribly.
A man on the curb was yelling at him in English. 'He was stopping! He was stopping!' Back at the shot-up sedan, Fields and Reese on the other side, Evan approached with great caution. Although the windshield was blown out and red streaks tinted the inside of the other windows, someone might still be armed and alive inside, or there might still be an unexploded bomb.
Evan came up to the passenger door, gingerly pulled it open, then spoke into the radio to Pisoni. 'Gene. Get through to somebody somewhere and tell them about this. Give 'em our location and tell 'em we need support yesterday. Anything they can get to us.'
Behind him, he became aware of more shouts, randomly laced with fury. He turned his attention to the body-a woman, judging by the bloodied shreds of the
A minute later, the first of the rocks hit his Humvee.
For perhaps ten minutes, though it seemed more like an hour, Evan tried to direct events, even through the bombardment of projectiles that the entire convoy was beginning to endure. He gave his machine gunners, including
