The first vehicle in a four-vehicle U.S. Marine convoy had almost reached the west end of the bridge when the IEDs detonated. The four vehicles—
three Humvees trailed by an M113 armored personnel carrier—were crossing the Fateh Kadal, one of nine two-lane bridges that crossed the Jhelum River in downtown Srinagar. It was 2:15 p.m., fifty degrees but sunny, the pavement still wet from the spring squall that had moved through a half hour before.
Private First Class Peter Gruen was driving the third vehicle in the convoy. He was squinting into the sun through the Humvee’s narrow windshield when the vehicle in front of him suddenly catapulted into the air on a fountain of flame and broken cement. The shockwave was like a punch to the face. Gruen stomped on the brakes and twisted the wheel. His Humvee hit the cement wall and stopped dead, throwing him into the steering column. The hummer he’d been following came down on its side to Gruen’s left, wheels burning. The circular hatch at the top of the vehicle bounced free, slammed into Gruen’s door, and rolled to the other side of the roadway. Chunks of cement thundered down onto the hood and roof.
A ragged hole almost as big as his Humvee had been opened in the roadway between Gruen and the two lead vehicles. Twisted steel rods jutted up from the edge of the hole. Below was the black water of the Jhelum. Sergeant Stevens, in the seat beside him, shouted into the radio, “Out!
Out! Covering fire!”
Gruen felt like his lungs had flattened against the steering wheel. He wheezed, trying to suck air. Covering fire. His sidearm was on his hip, but his M-16 was stowed next to his seat, wedged between ammo boxes on the high hump that covered the drive shaft. The two marines in the back, Koslow and Mack, were carrying their assault rifles across their laps. Mack moved first. He kicked open his door and pulled himself out. A sound like a shriek and a whistle. Gruen turned his face away, and the rocket-propelled grenade hit with a tremendous bang that rocked the Humvee up on its driver-side wheels. Gruen smashed into the door. The vehicle teetered for a moment, then fell back onto its wheels with a jolt. Koslow yelled something Gruen couldn’t make out. He could hear nothing but an intense ringing. Blood covered the backseat, the front of Koslow’s uniform. In the front seat, the sergeant slumped against the dash, almost on the floor, dead or unconscious. Where was Mack?
Gruen yanked on his door, and it opened with a squeal. He grabbed the sergeant under the arms and heaved backward, dragging the man into his lap. Through the ringing, he heard a distant percussive stutter. The .50-cal on top of the APC behind them had opened up.
Gruen dragged the sergeant out of the car and onto the pavement. He laid the man down on his back, his helmet propping up his head. They were out of the crossfire for the moment: the wall of the bridge against their backs, the overturned and burning Humvee blocking fire from the west, Gruen’s Humvee blocking fire from the east. His vehicle was tilted oddly, the back right tire folded under it like an animal with a broken leg. The sergeant’s hand was bloody, the sleeve soaked. Gruen lifted the arm from Stevens’ chest, and the man groaned. The hand felt pulpy, boneless. Gruen laid the arm on the ground, and ripped the sleeve open.
“Koslow! Grab the medic kit!”
Koslow was still in the back of the Humvee. The man didn’t seem to
hear him for a moment, but then he ducked down to where the kit was bolted to the floor and came up with the metal box. He opened the door and stepped out. Bullets pinged the metal next to his head, and he squatted next to Gruen and the sergeant.
“Mack’s dead,” Koslow said loudly. He popped open the kit, and Gruen grabbed a roll of bandages and a roll of white medical tape. “Is the sarge hurt bad?”
“He’ll be fine,” Gruen said, but it was for the sarge’s benefit; Gruen had no idea how bad he was hurt. He’d gotten first aid training like everybody else, but he was no medic. He put a pad of bandages into the man’s palm, eliciting another grunt from him, and started wrapping the hand and wrist. The sergeant mumbled something, looking dazed. He was going into shock.
“You’re going to be all right, sir,” Gruen said. Then to Koslow, “Where are they at?”
Koslow was peeking through the windows in the cab of the Humvee.
“Both ends of the bridge, I think. Jesus, probably under us, too—I thought I saw water taxis down there before we crossed.”
“Nazis,” the sergeant said in a low voice.
“Uh, I don’t think so, sir,” Gruen said. That’s all he needed, Sarge freaking out on him. Though really there was no telling who was shooting at them: Al-Fatah Force, PFL, LeT, any number of Pak-supported ultras. It could even be India-backed counterinsurgents. Everybody in the city—
everybody in the entire J&K—wanted the marines out of there. He yanked off a length of tape, pressed one end to the bandage, and wrapped it three times around the sergeant’s wrist like a cowboy roping a calf.
“We’ve got to get Mack and Sarge into the APC,” Gruen said to Koslow.
“Then go forward and find out who’s alive ahead of us. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Gruen, they’re building barricades.”
Gruen stared at him. What the fuck?
He got into a crouch, then raised his head over the hood of the Humvee. The rear APC was still upright. It was a boxy, slab-sided thing on tracks, more heavily armored than the Humvees. More important, there were only four men in it, and room for eight more.
One of the APC’s occupants was on the roof-mounted .50-caliber gun, firing back the way they’d come. Two other marines were on their bellies by the tires, firing as well. The fourth man was probably behind the wheel. A hundred feet away at the end of the bridge, a jumble of car tires maybe three feet high had appeared like a magic trick, spanning the width of the bridge. More tires were being thrown onto the pile every second, even though the marines were filling the air with bullets. Locals swarmed out of the nearby buildings—five-story wooden shacks leaning into the river—and ran down the sloping streets toward the bridge, carrying tires, furniture, sheet metal. Like the entire city had been saving up junk in their backyards, waiting for this opportunity to personally fuck Private Gruen.
“The shooters are lining up back there,” Koslow said. “Plenty of AK-47s, sounds like. They have us pinned down, at least until air support arrives. If we can get a gunship to clear—”
Gruen looked at the man with disgust. “Air support? We don’t have time to camp here, Koslow. Forget the rifles—they’ve got RPGs. We’ve got to move
“Nazis!” the sergeant said. He was staring at the bridge wall behind Gruen. Gruen followed his stare. On the cement wall, a spray-painted red swastika. But that was like a holy symbol here, wasn’t it? A Hindu thing or something.
“Go up front,” Gruen said to Koslow. “See if you can get around the hole and find out what happened with the lead vehicle. We’re going home in the APC.” The M113 was Vietnam-era technology, slow and cranky, but it was armored to hell. “Get back here quick, okay?”
“Shit,” Koslow said. He rose into a crouch, then moved into the smoke to the west.
Gruen turned back, and Sergeant Stevens was up, squatting on his haunches, the helmet off and on the pavement. Stevens tore a strip from the roll of medical tape and pressed it to the front of the helmet. Gruen wouldn’t have thought that right hand was functional.
“What are you doing, Sarge? You need to get your helmet back on.”
The sergeant ignored him. He pressed a second piece of tape onto the helmet, making an upside down V, and tore another strip from the roll.
“Sergeant, please . . .”
Stevens thumbed the third strip into place and suddenly jumped to his
feet, all trace of shock gone. Spine straight, shoulders back, he looked half a foot taller. Bullets ripped through the air around his head, but he ignored them. He gazed down at Gruen with a confident smile. Gruen had never noticed how blue the man’s eyes were.
