Princes of War (17 page)

He shouted “Halliburton!” again, expelling his voice somewhere within him that he did not recognize. Confusion gripped him like a vise.

The other kids scattered, screaming. Some ran into the school. Others took off towards the village, fleeing out the open side of the compound.

Suddenly D22 opened up with a .50 cal. Ulricht, up in the turret, shot at something beyond the open side of the compound. The slamming thump-thump-thump of the gun, like a knocking on the walls of hell, jarred Kale awake. He swung his turret around too, furiously, without thinking, hoping to see where Ulricht’s rounds were hitting. He saw nothing. The chaos had affected his vision. His eyes felt hard and burning, like smoldering steel spheres. He turned to look back at Halliburton and the boys, his mind screaming for answers.
What the fuck? What the fuck?
One boy hadn’t moved. The other now sat on the ground upright, crying. His chest looked as if someone had cut meat on it.

“Talk to me. Talk to me!!” Cooke shouted on the radio.

Kale saw Halliburton again. He appeared unhurt, and leaned over the motionless boy, who was largely hidden by the front of the truck

Wynn and the other dismounted soldiers ran back to their vehicles, leaving the schoolmaster and the contractor in the school.

“What happened?” yelled Wynn on his handheld radio.

Cruz leaped from his Humvee and went to the left front of Kale’s truck, beside the Iraqi boys.

Sniper
, Kale thought. Must have been a sniper.

Ulricht came on the radio, responding to Cooke.

“Think I saw the bastards! Three o’clock. On a roof! In town!”

Wynn came up on the radio again, asking for details.

“We got kids shot!” Turnbeck shouted on the radio, “right next to 23.”

“Mount up!” shouted Wynn.

“What did you see?” Cooke asked Ulricht.

Short, enraged comments flooded the radio net.

A lit fuse sputtered in Wynn’s mind. Only immediate pursuit stood a chance of catching the shooter. But they had injured Iraqis at the scene that he couldn’t just leave. He made a split decision.

“23 and 24, stay here,” Wynn ordered. “Take care of the injured. 22, follow me towards that village. Let me know when you’re up!”

The shooter had to be in the neighborhood beyond the school compound entrance. Only from that direction could anyone see inside. Walls on the other three sides restricted visibility. And Ulricht claimed to have seen something.

“We’ve got a kid shot here,” crackled the radio. Cooke had been reporting to higher.

“How bad?”

“Bad.”

“D24, see anything?” Wynn asked Cooke. Confusion flowed like lava from an erupting volcano.

“No. D22 shot at something.”

“Roger. What?”

Too many men talked on the radio at once.

“Clear the net! Clear the net!” Cooke shouted.

“Let D23 backup and use the truck for cover as Lee checks those kids,” Cooke ordered. “They’ll be ass to front and he can get to them behind them.” This would bring the two trucks closer together and better shield the kids and anyone providing medical care from more gunfire.

“D24,” Wynn asked again, “see anything else?” He leaned over the vehicle radio, straining to see where D22 had fired.

“Give me an up, 22,” Wynn commanded, “when you’re ready to move.”

“Up,” replied 22, almost instantly.

“Sir, need to check those kids!” Turnbeck shouted.

“Roger. 23 and 24 are on that.”

Wynn came back on the radio again, speaking faster. “22, take up a position a hundred meters over toward the road. Move ASAP. Get somewhere you can see that house better. Stop anything trying to leave from the north. Break—I’m going to move over onto the road down to the left.” Wynn planned to position his truck on the road coming from Bawa Sah, to be in a position to observe any traffic leaving the village from the south.

“23 and 24, work on those kids. Stay alert,” Wynn ordered.

Lee had dismounted to help Cruz. Cruz grabbed the red-shirted boy’s arm and pulled him out from under the Humvee. What he’d seen was horrible. A bullet had gone straight through the boy’s chest and out his back. Lee went to the other boy. He found no wounds. The blood on his chest must have come from the boy in the red shirt. Lee went back to the boy who’d been shot.

The Humvees blocked the medical scene for most of the Wolfhounds. The gunners stayed low in their truck turrets, watching the town where the shots must have come from. Tense and alert, everyone thought about what had happened, aware that something new and urgent might happen at any moment. Hands gripped weapons. Guts knotted with anxiety, fear, and insecurity. Feet were firm as welds on truck floorboards, fixed by the heavy trauma. Most men strained to look out truck windows, searching for anything that might be important, any new danger.

Vital seconds passed. Neither Cruz nor Lee moved much from their places beside the shot boys.

“Let’s go or we’ll lose them!” Wynn, pressing, called to D22. D21 started to move toward the exit.

Kale, his eyes scanning the roof lines of the buildings again, traversed his M240B sideways, and mumbled to himself, “mother fucker, mother fucker…”

Cooke talked to his crew.

“Who the fuck they shooting at? Did we have somebody on the ground by the kids?”

“Two shots, Sarge!”

“Any of our guys around there?” Cooke asked again.

Kale figured Cooke was probably wondering whether whoever had shot had been aiming at one of the Wolfhounds.

“Fuck those bastards. You try to help them and they shoot the kids,” Moose said.

Radio chatter cluttered the net again. “I don’t see anything.”

“Come on, come on.”

“Come out, you sonofabitch. Come out, you sonofabitch.”

“Did you hit anything?”

Ulricht hadn’t said anything else.

“How bad are they?”

“Hit anything?”

“We just going to sit here?”

The men focused their anger on Bawa Sah, eyes burning with accusations.

Kale watched Cruz and Lee, who still leaned over the boys. Though only seconds had passed, it felt like forever. Cruz’s hands were bloody. Lee shouted something and Mongrel jumped out of his truck. Carrying another CLS bag, he ran toward the boys, stumbled, fell, scrambling the rest of the way on his hands and knees.

The poor kids’ parents, Kale thought. The most horrible day imaginable for them. They better not come here now. He looked towards town to see if anyone was coming this way.

Driving toward the houses, time was of the essence. If they didn’t immediately seal and search the suspected sniper position, it would be nearly impossible to find the shooter. A hundred thoughts raced through Wynn’s mind, registering in pulses, like phones ringing.

Was it a group or an individual? If it was a sniper—snipers usually didn’t operate alone. His eyes combed the distant houses. Where were they hiding? Would they keep fighting or had they already run? Where had they fired from? He needed more info from Ulricht. Maybe 500 to 700 people lived in this part of town. Finding the shooter or shooters quickly would be difficult, unless someone helped them. D22 had fired, but did he have a real target? Ulricht hadn’t answered. Wynn wasn’t sure. Whoever shot at them was no slack shooter.

Suddenly Wynn remembered MAJ Alberts. He’d left him behind with Cooke. What was Alberts thinking?

Wynn told Gung to stop D21 perpendicular to the road. The road was empty. Wynn pulled his binos out of a pocket on his vest, put them to his eyes, and searched rooflines on the housetops.

“D22…21, are you sure you saw someone on the house you fired at?” Wynn asked on the radio.

He saw D22 moving. Soldiers had been constantly warned to only engage legitimate targets. Battlefields here were full of non-combatants. Since the enemy dressed indistinguishably from the population, it was easy to make a mistake. And a weapon like the .50 cal punched right through most houses. Hopefully Ulricht had fired at a real target.

“I know I saw someone,” Ulricht shouted on the net finally. Wynn heard defensiveness in his voice.

“How many?”

“Ah, pretty sure one.”

Cooke had gotten out of the truck and now stood over the scene. Kale could see Cooke’s face. The black man stared fiercely, pupils on fire, clinching his teeth. Halliburton approached Cooke. Streaks of tears stained Halliburton’s face.

Cruz turned around and looked up at Kale with a look that said he needed assistance. Without thinking, Kale hopped up and climbed down off the Humvee.

“Take him away from here,” Cruz pleaded with Kale, referring to the boy who hadn’t been shot, who now lay flat on his back, his mouth wide open in a silent cry. Kale reached behind the boy and grabbed him under the shoulders. He hurriedly carried him to the school entrance. As Kale placed him inside the door, the boy gave him a look as if he was being left with lions. The schoolmaster hustled over and knelt down. Albadi’s face had the look of a man falling off a building. Kale, dashing back to the truck, saw blood on his hands and pants.

Wynn gave more orders on the radio. Neither 23 nor 24 answered. He tried again. He could only spend seconds thinking about the shooting—the urgency of the upcoming search rushed at him like a mountain torrent.

“D24, 21 over.” He tried again to reach Cooke.

No answer.

Billows of dust churned up behind 21 as Gung maneuvered the Humvee, crossing the dirt field separating the houses from the road and school.

Wynn tried once more to reach Cooke on the radio. Gung drove without direction, seeming to sense where Wynn wanted to go. He was consumed managing the situation.

“D24, 21—what’s the situation?” Still nobody answered. Had something else happened? Maybe more men had dismounted. Still—somebody should be on the radio.

D22 caught up with 21 and crossed the road. Knowing he still had two vehicles back at the school tending to the wounded, his manpower was limited. Putting dismounts inside the houses with so few men would be dangerous and would handicap the ability of the men left in the trucks to react. Precious minutes passed. Chances were high that the shooter had already disappeared. The Wolfhounds hadn’t taken any fire since leaving the schoolyard. But
he had to at least do a good search, to try to find some evidence of where and who the shooter was, even if he was gone. If the insurgents had taken up a position in one of these houses, maybe they’d have weapons and bomb-making materials stored there. The residents might know something. A resident telling the Wolfhounds about the shooter would be the most likely way they’d find out. He had to get men from the other two trucks up to help. First, he needed to direct his own team. Decisions that needed making pelted him like hail.

“22, 21, over,” Wynn radioed Turnbeck.

“22, over.”

“Put a man on that balcony to your front, on the house closest to you, on the end. Have him get a visual on the parallel street behind the front row of houses, and provide overwatch. We’re going to put guys into these houses soon as we have more men.” By putting eyes on the back street, they might be able to see if someone ran.

“Wilco,” acknowledged Turnbeck.

D24 still hadn’t responded. What was wrong? Wynn turned around and tried to peer out of the back in the direction of the school. Maybe they were in a radio dead spot. “Why aren’t they talking?” he said out loud, frustrated. Only his crew heard him.

“Can you see them?” Wynn, unable to see rearward, asked Singleton. From the gunner’s position, Singleton could turn around and look back into the school compound.

Wynn noticed movement in his peripheral vision. He turned. D22 drove the remaining 50 meters to the balcony, dust billowing behind the truck like a mini cyclone. Reaching the house, Mongrel immediately got out, did a quick crotch scratch, and climbed on the top of the Humvee so he could get up on the lower roof of the house adjacent to the house with the balcony. He intended to jump over. Seconds later, Wynn watched him jump. Mongrel’s initiative pleased him.

“D21, this is D24, over.” Finally, Cooke was back on the radio.

“Go ahead, over,” replied Wynn.

“Fucked up situation here, sir. Nothing can be done. The one kid didn’t make it. The fucking bullet tore a walnut-sized hole out of his back. The other appears unhurt, just scared shitless. We carried him inside the school.”

Wynn said nothing, trying to absorb what had happened and determine next steps.

What should he do? Leave the kids? He could do nothing for them. One was dead, the other unhurt, though probably in shock. Wynn needed the rest of his men for the search.

“Want us to follow you?” Cooke asked, as if he’d been reading Wynn’s mind. Maybe he was.

“Yes,” Wynn said. He had to go with what was most urgent. “Come here—break—is the schoolmaster still there?”

“Ahh. Don’t think they ever came out.”

“Still inside?”

“Not sure. Haven’t seen them outside.”

“OK. Do a quick check. Make sure they know what happened.”

Wynn again remembered Alberts.

“Is Major Alberts OK?”

“Roger that,” Cooke answered.

Now—the next pressing question fell on Wynn—how to conduct the search? He’d seen no Iraqis outside. Mongrel was on the roof, but no longer visible. Wynn needed assets at the rear of these houses. If Mongrel saw someone leave the houses, Wynn needed a Humvee available to pursue. But the more men he had watching different possible escape routes, the fewer men he would have available to search houses.

He needed to send a report of what was happening to headquarters. In the middle of organizing the search, he didn’t have time. He told Cooke to report.

Wynn called D22 again. “You go down to the south end. Watch the street. Don’t let anyone leave. Put D22 on the other side of me. We’ll put our truck on the far north, across the road from you.”

How to best search the place? He needed to talk to Ulricht again, to confirm which building he had shot at. He wanted to search that building first, and then go left and right, if needed.

Wynn got on the radio and asked Turnbeck to confirm again which house Ulricht believed held the shooter. After about 30 seconds of silence, Turnbeck came back on the net and explained that Ulricht confirmed a building to the north. The house had a clothesline on the roof with laundry hanging on it.