The
Outside, it was a warm, dry, clear evening. Knots of men stood in groups here and there, smoking and drinking small cups of thick coffee. Women and older girls in colorful dresses and scarves carried trays of food to them, helped by sons or younger brothers carrying flashlights.
After serving the men outside the wedding reception, a woman carried a tray down the road beyond the lights, her ten-year-old son leading the way, to two Toyota pickup trucks semihidden in the trees, one on each side of the road leading to the farm. The boy shined the flashlight at the pickup truck to his left, right into the eyes of his older brother. “
“I was not!” the brother retorted, much louder than he intended.
“Hani, don’t do that. Now your brother will not be able to see in the darkness for some time,” the boy’s mother scolded him. “Go give your brother some treats and tell him you’re sorry. Come, Mazen,” she said to her husband, “I have more coffee for you.”
The husband set his AK-47 aside on the truck’s front bumper and gratefully accepted the treats. He was dressed for the celebration, not for guard duty. “You’re a good woman, Zilar,” the man said. “But next time, send your lazy brother out here to do the work for you. It was his idea to place guards outside the reception.” He could sense her pained expression. “I see. He is busy recruiting again, no? His own daughter’s wedding and he can’t stop?”
“He feels very strongly—”
“I know, I know,” the husband interrupted, gently placing a hand on his wife’s cheek to reassure her. “He is a patriotic and committed Kurdish nationalist. Good for him. But he knows the militias, police, and military monitor such events, take photographs from unmanned aircraft, use sensitive microphones, and tap telephones. Why does he continue? He risks too much.”
“Nevertheless, I thank you again for agreeing to take a shift out here for security,” the wife said, taking his hand from her face and kissing it. “It makes him feel better.”
“I haven’t picked up a rifle in years since I left the
“Oh, do you, my husband?” The woman stepped toward the AK-47 leaning against the bumper and examined it with her fingers.
“Ah, la, tell me I didn’t…”
“You did.” She flicked the safety lever back up to “safe.”
“I’m glad your brothers aren’t around to see you do that,” her husband said. “Perhaps I need more lessons from a former High Commune of Women commander.”
“I have a family to raise and a house to take care of—I put in my time in the Kurdistan independence movement. Let the younger women do some fighting for a change.”
“You can put any younger woman to shame—on the rifle range, and in bed.”
“Oh, and how would you know about the skills of younger women?” she asked playfully. She placed the weapon back down and approached her husband, swaying her hips seductively. “I have many more lessons I’d prefer to give you, husband.” He gave her a kiss. “Now, how much longer are you going to keep my oldest son out here?”
“Not long. Maybe another hour.” He nodded toward his son, who was busy fending off his younger brother from the few remaining baklava on the tray. “It’s nice to be out here with Neaz. He takes this task very seriously. He—” The man stopped because he thought he heard an approaching bicycle or small scooter, a sort of quiet hushing sound that indicated speed but not power. There were no lights on the road or highway beyond. He frowned, then placed his coffee cup in his wife’s hand. “Take Hani back to the community center.”
“What is it?”
“Probably nothing.” He looked down the dirt road again and saw no sign of any movement—no birds, no rustling trees. “Tell your brother I’m going to roam around a bit. I’ll tell the others.” He kissed his wife on the cheek, then went to retrieve his AK-47. “I’ll be ready to come in after I get…”
Out of the corner of an eye, high above to the west, he spotted it: a brief spurt of yellow light, not solid like a searchlight but flickering like a torch. Why he did it, he wasn’t sure, but he pushed his wife aside, into the trees beside the gate. “
Suddenly the ground vibrated as if a thousand horses were stampeding right beside them. The husband’s face, eyes, and throat were choked by clouds of dust and dirt that appeared from nowhere, and rocks were thrown in every direction. The wife screamed as she saw her husband literally disintegrate into chunks of human flesh. The pickup truck was similarly chewed apart before the gas tank ruptured, sending a massive fireball into the sky.
Then she heard it—a horrible sound, impossibly loud, lasting only a fraction of a second. It was like a giant growling animal standing over her, like a house-size chain saw. The sound was followed moments later by the loud
In the space of just a few heartbeats, her husband and two sons were dead before her eyes. Somehow the woman got to her feet and ran back toward the wedding reception, thinking of nothing else but warning the other members of her family to flee for their lives.
“Lead is clear,” the lead pilot of the three-ship A-10 Thunderbolt II bomber radioed. He pulled up sharply to make sure he was well clear of the other aircraft and the terrain. “Two, cleared in hot.”
“Good pass, lead,” the pilot of the second A-10 Thunderbolt radioed. “Two’s in hot.” He checked the AGM- 65G Maverick missile’s forward-looking infrared video display, which clearly showed the two pickup trucks at the end of the road, one burning and the other still intact, and lined up on the second pickup with a gentle touch of his control stick. His A-10 was not modified with a dedicated infrared sensor pod, but the “poor man’s FLIR” video from the Maverick missile did the job nicely.
Nighttime cannon runs were not normally advisable, especially in such hilly terrain, but what pilot would not take the risk for a chance to fire the incredible GAU-8A Avenger cannon, a thirty-millimeter Gatling gun that fired huge depleted uranium shells at almost four thousand rounds per minute? Besides, with the first target burning nicely, it was easy to see the next target now.
When the Maverick aiming reticle showed thirty degrees depression, the pilot dropped his plane’s nose, made a final adjustment, announced “Guns, guns, guns!” on the radio, and pulled the trigger. The roar of that big cannon firing between his legs was the most incredible feeling. In a single three-second spurt, almost two hundred huge shells flew to their target. The pilot centered the first second’s worth on the pickup, covering it with fifty shells and causing yet another spectacular explosion, and then raised the A-10’s nose to let the remaining hundred and thirty shells stitch up along the road toward a fleeing terrorist target.
Careful not to get target fixated, and very aware of the surrounding terrain, he pulled up sharply and vectored right to climb to his assigned altitude. The maneuverability of the American-made A-10 was amazing—it did not deserve its unofficial nickname of “Warthog.” “Two’s clear. Three, cleared in hot.”
“Three’s in hot,” the pilot of the third A-10 in the formation responded. He was the least experienced pilot in the four-ship formation, so he was not going to do a cannon pass…but it was going to be just as exciting.
He centered the target—a large garage beside a house—in his Maverick missile aiming screen, pressed the “lock” button on his throttle quadrant, said “Rifle one” on the radio, turned his head right to avoid the glare of the missile’s motor, and pressed the “launch” button on his control stick. An AGM-65G Maverick missile flew off the launch rail on the left wing and quickly disappeared from view. He selected a second missile, moved the aiming reticle to the second target—the house itself—and fired a Maverick from the right wing. He was rewarded seconds later with two bright explosions.
“Lead has a visual, looks like two direct hits.”
“Three’s clear,” he radioed as he climbed and turned toward his planned rendezvous anchor. “Four, cleared in hot.”
“Four copies, going in hot,” the fourth A-10 pilot acknowledged. His was possibly the least exciting attack profile and one that normally was not even performed by the A-10, but the A-10s were the new members of the
