Meat set down the Glock and unsnapped a K-bar knife from a sheath clipped to his belt. Then he stuck his arm out the window and made a summoning gesture.
The Arab scowled, didn’t budge. He looked back into the house, as if someone was beckoning him.
‘
Finally the man broke away from the house and made his way to the truck with hands spread in confusion.
‘Put him down nice and quiet,’ Jason instructed.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be tender.’
As the Arab drew close, Meat turned from view, pretending to get something from behind the seat.
The Arab cornered the truck’s front bumper and came to Meat’s window, saying in an agitated tone, ‘
The Arab made eye contact with Jason and his haggard face blanched.
Meat wheeled, grabbed a fistful of the man’s tunic and tugged him close. In the next instant, he plunged the blade through the man’s Adam’s apple. He felt the tip of the knife clip bone. The Arab’s attempted scream was instantly reduced to a gurgling yelp. Blood spewed over Meat’s hand as he turned the blade like a doorknob, then sliced upward to the jaw and into the brain. The Arab’s eyes rolled back into his skull and Meat made sure to let the body drop to the ground out of view from anyone who might be watching from inside the house.
‘Let’s go,’ Jason said, calmly opening his door and stepping out from the truck. He directed his face away from the house and clutched his AK-47 low behind the opened door.
Meat got out and stripped the AK-47 from the dead man. The safety was off and he checked the clip. Full. Gripping the weapon, he hurried around the truck, headed straight for the door. His face was knotted with determination and adrenaline.
‘So much for being subtle,’ Jason mumbled and fell in behind him.
At the door, Meat intercepted a second unlucky Arab who’d been calling out for the dead guy. Without hesitation, Meat levelled the AK-47 at his chest and squeezed off a quick burst that opened his torso like overripe fruit. Then he charged inside.
Jason stepped over the body and shadowed Meat with his weapon drawn. Peering in at the house’s tight rooms, he was glad to have an AK-47 since the weapon’s short muzzle and rapid-fire action were just what the doctor ordered for a raid in a place like this. He turned right and swept the first room. Nothing but a wooden table and two metal folding chairs.
Like a raging bull Meat stormed to a second door that led into a narrow hallway. He held his AK-47 with a straight arm, turned flat. What he liked to call ‘gangsta style’.
Jason heard frenzied voices overhead. Three distinct tones. He immediately moved back against the wall just as the plaster ceiling tore apart in a hail of bullets. He dropped to one knee, raised his AK-47, and strafed the ceiling in a wide ‘G’, followed by a tight ‘X’. In one corner, a heavy
Meat also heard the runner and bolted to the base of the house’s central staircase. He immediately spotted his target and opened fire. An agonizing scream rang out just before a rifle came cartwheeling down the stairs.
By the time Jason made it to the hall door, Meat had ducked into the next room and reappeared, shaking his head to indicate that it was empty. Jason signalled for him to remain still.
A perfect silence settled over the house.
Then Jason heard a small voice coming from a room at the top of the stairs. He listened intently. Someone was chanting a prayer.
‘Fuck this,’ Meat grumbled. ‘Cover me.’
Before Jason could stop him, Meat charged up the stairs.
Jason raised his AK-47 to cover the landing, fully expecting Meat to get hit with a faceful of lead. But there was no resistance from above. At the top of the stairs, Meat popped in and out of the room to the right, then disappeared through the left door.
Three seconds later, he yelled down, ‘Google, get up here!’
62
Crawford shone the floodlight up at the gaping hole the marines had opened on top of the rubble that dammed the tunnel passage.
Emerging from the other side, a grimy face capped by a sand-coloured helmet appeared in the light. The marine reported, ‘It won’t be easy, but we can get through.’
‘Fine, Corporal,’ Crawford said. ‘We’ll make it work.’
‘Colonel, there’s a lot of blood on this side,’ Corporal William Shuster reported matter-of-factly. ‘Some fingers and tissue too. Not pretty. I’m sure there’s plenty of meat buried under these rocks. I don’t see how anyone could’ve survived the explosion.’
Crawford remained stonefaced. ‘Al-Zahrani managed to walk out of here. Let’s make sure no one else does.’
Shuster scuttled down the rocks, holding a flashlight in his right hand, an M-16 slung over his shoulder. His left hand was balled up in a fist and he opened it to reveal a palm full of gum-ball-sized metal ball bearings covered in a tacky film - trademark shrapnel used in padding suicide vests. ‘Found these on the ground,’ he said. ‘They’re covered in C-4 residue. Not sure why one of them would have detonated himself in there. You’d think he’d have waited for a few of us before pushing the button … take a few infidels with him on his way to paradise.’
‘Mystery solved,’ Crawford grunted for show. None of this news surprised Crawford. It wasn’t just the lingering smell of motor oil that clued him in on the source of the blast. Stokes had been quick to inform him about the clumsy gunman who’d let loose some rounds into the man who’d been strapped with plastic explosive. With the cameras knocked off line, however, even Stokes had seriously underestimated the extent of the collapse. More troubling was the quiet calm on the other side of the blockage. Crawford anticipated activity. Lots of activity. And not from the holed-up Arabs. ‘Now I need you to take a couple men in there with you. See how deep that tunnel runs. Make sure it’s empty.’
‘We could use the PackBot,’ Shuster suggested.
Crawford wasn’t hearing it. ‘No time for robots, Corporal. Don’t think. Just do.’
Shuster was amazed by Crawford’s stubborn fixation with this tunnel, particularly in light of the devastating ambush that the platoon had marginally endured (thanks to Crawford’s refusal to radio for backup). With the medic having been killed by Al-Zahrani’s abductors, the wounded were left to tend to one another. Every remaining able- bodied marine had been ordered back to the tunnel to finish the debris removal. No one could yet confirm if Crawford had radioed for reinforcements. That had the platoon grumbling about the colonel’s motive. With Staff Sergeant Richards unaccounted for, discontent was fast brewing throughout the ranks.
Crawford turned to the six men tightly congregated in the passage behind him. ‘Ramirez … Holt. You two get in there with Corporal Shuster and see what we’ve got.’ The marines looked at one another in a way that clearly suggested latent dissension. More reason for swift action. ‘This isn’t a democracy, gentlemen. Get your lights and your weapons and get in there! And your radios won’t be any good under this mountain, so leave them behind.’
The reluctant designatees took up their M-16s and light gear packs, filed past Crawford and clambered up the rocks.
‘And where’s that damn Kurd?’ Crawford blasted.
‘Here, sir,’ a quiet voice called from the rear.
The four marines made room for Hazo to shuffle through.
Crawford squared up with the interpreter. He had to make a conscious effort not to react to the Kurd’s appearance. The man looked haggard and feverish, his eyes bloodshot. The striking similarity to Al-Zahrani’s early
