(From Chapter Two)
Afghanistan
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Dan was helping a pair of very young and very female
Marine privates get the wounded off the toppled bus.
One of them was inside, pushing a frightened woman and her
wailing two-year-old out of the window and
into the other marine's arms.
That second private - blond and cute in a Heidi of
Wisconsin way -- handed the child to Dan, who was on
the ground. She then scrambled down herself to help with
the woman, who was no lightweight.
The civilian was bleeding from a gash on her forehead, but
she seemed more concerned with keeping her
headscarf on. Her little boy was terrified, though,
sobbing as he stood waiting for her, his arms outstretched.
"Your mommy's going to be all right," Dan told him, trying
various dialects, but the boy didn't stop crying
even when his mother clasped him tightly in her arms.
"You should see the medic about your head," the blond
marine tried to tell the woman, pointing over to
where Lopez had set up his triage, where the first
ambulance had finally arrived, bringing medical supplies.
But it was clear she didn't speak English. The marine -
the name S. Anderson was on her jacket -- looked
at Dan. "I'm sorry, sir, can you tell her--"
"I'm not an officer," Dan told her, then used his
rudimentary language skills to point to Lopez and say
doctor.
The woman nodded and thanked them both profusely, her
boy's head tucked beneath her chin.
"But you're a SEAL," S. Anderson said as she scrambled
back onto the bus. "There should be some form
of address for SEALs that trumps sir. Maybe Your Highness
or Oh, Great One?"
She was flirting with him, marine-style, which meant she
was already getting back to work.
And Dan wasn't quite sure what to say. I have a girlfriend
that I really love seemed weird and
presumptuous. After all, if S. Anderson had been a man, he
might've said the same thing, and Dan would've
laughed and replied, "Great One sounds about right."
Except S. Anderson's smile was loaded with more than
respect and admiration. There was a little Why
don't you find me later so you can do me mixed in there,
too. And Dan didn't think he was merely
imagining it.
The sure-thing factor was flattering, as it always was,
and the old pattern that he'd run for years kicked in,
and he found himself assessing her. Her uniform covered
her completely, but it didn't take much imagination
to see that although she was trim and not particularly
curvaceous, she was curvy enough. She was cute,
freckled and petite and - Jesus, what was he doing?
But then there was no time to bitch-slap or otherwise
chastise himself, because a gunman opened fire.
The first shot took down the Marine officer who was
running the rescue effort, and the cry rang out,
repeated by all of the military personnel in the area. Dan
shouted it, too: "Sniper!"
Jesus, the civilian woman and her child were in the middle
of the open marketplace, completely exposed.
S. Anderson saw them, too, and instead of diving for cover
inside of the bus, she jumped back down to
help him help them. Dan could hear her, just a few steps
behind him as he ran toward the woman, shouting,
"Run!"
But the woman had heard the shots, and she'd crouched down
to shield her child, uncertain of which way to
escape.
Because there was no cover anywhere near, and nowhere to
run except...
"Go!" Danny shouted, thrusting the child into S.
Anderson's arms, pointing to the blast crater. If they
could
get to the edge of that gaping hole in the road, and slide
down to the bottom and then hug the rubble and
earth...
The woman shrieked as her child was ripped from her, but
his plan was a good one, because she
immediately followed, no explanation needed.
He tried to shield her with his body, tried to get her to
run a zigzag path that was similar to the one
Anderson was taking with the little boy. But the woman's
mission to reach and protect her child was so
single-minded, it was like trying to push a freight train
from its tracks.
From the corner of his eye, as he ran at the woman's top
speed, Dan saw Lopez and Izzy pulling the fallen
officer to cover onto the patio of what, in happier times,
had once been a hotel.
But then Dan saw Izzy turn to look out at him in
disbelief. He heard the other SEAL shout his name, and
Dan realized that the slap he'd just felt in the back of
his thigh had been a bullet.
And Jesus Christ, that was his blood exploding out through
the front of his pants from the exit wound. And
sure enough, his leg crumpled beneath his weight with the
next stride he took. But they were close enough
to the crater for him to push the woman the last few feet,
down into Anderson's waiting arms.
But Dan was still six feet away, with a leg that not only
didn't work but, holy shit, was really starting to hurt.
He had to crawl, pulling himself forward, his hands raw on
the rough debris in the street, because he was
not going to do this to Jennilyn. He was not going to come
home in a coffin.
But he saw all the blood, and he knew he was dead. There
was no way he was going to survive, even if he
made it to cover. The motherfucker with the rifle had hit
an artery. Dan was going to bleed out before that
sniper was taken down, and there was nothing anyone could
do to save him.
But he didn't quit because he didn't know how to quit. And
then he didn't have to quit, because something
hit him hard in the side, and he realized with a burst of
pain that it was Izzy, singing at the top of his lungs,
"Oh, the weather outside is frightful..."
The freaking idiot had run all the way across that open
patch of gravel and debris. He'd dived, as if sliding
into home, right on top of Dan, and they'd tumbled
together down into the blast crater.
But it was too late.
And wasn't this just the way it would happen? The last
face Dan would see, the last person he would speak
to before leaving this earth...
Was Izzy fucking Zanella.
The SEAL had stopped singing -- thank you, God -- and his
face was grim as he rolled Dan onto his back;
he ripped another of his stupid bungee cords from his vest
pocket and used it as a tourniquet around Dan's
upper thigh -- as if that would help.
"What can I do?" Anderson asked as, in the background, the
little boy continued to wail.
Izzy glanced at her. "Apply pressure at his groin. Help me
slow the bleeding."
"Zanella..." Danny tried to get his attention, finally
grabbing the front of his vest. "Zanella--"
"Hang in there, buddy," Izzy said, using his knife to tear
Dan's pants to get a better look at his wound.
"You're going to be okay." But Anderson blanched, in
contrast to Izzy's reassurances. "We're going to get
you to the hospital--"
"No, you're not," Dan said. No one was going anywhere with
that shooter out there. Dan could hear the
report of his rifle, again and again. "Zanella, you gotta
tell Jenni for me--"
"No, no, no," Izzy said, interrupting him. "You're gonna
tell her whatever you want to tell her yourself, bro.
That sniper is toast. We've got the fucking United States
Marines on our side. Am I right or am I right,
Anderson?"
"Sir, yes, sir," she said.
"They're gonna take him out--"
"Not soon enough," Dan interrupted. He could feel himself
getting cold. Ah, God, Jenni... He reached to
grab Anderson's arm, because he had to make sure Jenni
knew, and Izzy wasn't listening. "She didn't
believe me," he told the woman. "Jenn didn't. And I need
her to know--"
"Gillman," Izzy said sharply. "Listen to me. You fucking
stop bleeding, do you hear me? You can do this.
Use your brain for something other than being an asshole.
Lower your heart rate and tell yourself to keep
your blood away from this leg."
"Zanella--"
"Do it, goddamn it." Izzy turned to Anderson. "Keep
applying pressure, Private. I'll be right back."
****
Izzy launched himself up and out of the blast crater,
keeping his head down in a crouch as he ran back
toward Lopez and the medical supplies.
He could hear the ping of the bullets, see the geysers of
dust they kicked up as the sniper tried for him and
missed.
And missed.
And missed again, suckwad motherfucker! Hah!
He slid into the cover provided by the ornate wooden deck
of what once had been a fancy hotel restaurant,
where patrons could dine on two levels. There'd probably
been a tent to protect the upper level from the
sun as the good folks of this town had had their business
lunches.
Back during the time when the people of Afghanistan had
both businesses and lunches.
But right now the wooden deck made it possible for wounded
to be cared for without risking death or
injury to their caregivers.
One of whom was Lopez, who helped him to his feet. "Holy
Jesus, Son of God," he said in Spanish as he
saw the blood on Izzy's uniform.
Lopez was covered with blood himself, from trying to save
the marine officer's life. Trying and failing, which
sucked royal ass.
"It's bad," Izzy confirmed, telling Lopez what he didn't
want to hear, yet already knew. "Dan needs surgery.
Now. Bullet nicked his femoral artery."
"Fuck." It was not a word that Lopez used often, in
English or in Spanish, but it fit the situation.
"I need a clamp," Izzy told him as he was already moving
toward the medical supplies, "and some morphine
and some bags of blood -- he's O -- and IV tubing. A
needle -- you know, all that shit."
Lopez was shaking his head, even as he rummaged through
his equipment. "We don't have blood yet," he
said as he gathered up everything else, scooping it into a
bag for easy transport. "Or even any plasma
extender. But if I can--"
"You're not going out there," Izzy told his friend.
"Yeah," Lopez said. "I am. I'll use the clamp--"
"Not good enough. I'll use the clamp." Izzy took the bag
from him. "Danny needs blood, Jay, and I'm O,
you're not. Give me the tubing -- and two needles."
Lopez silently -- but swiftly, bless him -- added what
Izzy needed to the bag.
And Izzy dashed back out into the sniper's kill zone.
Luckily for him, the dickweed was a relatively crappy
shot.
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