Thunder Run (17 page)

As the column moved east on the highway, Middleton spotted a series of bunkers on both sides of the highway. Up ahead, he could see gunmen leaping from technicals and running into the tree line. And now, speeding toward the column in the westbound lanes were two cars—an orange-and-white taxi and a small dark blue sedan. Middleton ordered his gunner to fire a warning burst of coax at the taxi. Then he got on the radio to his wingman in the tank behind him, Staff Sergeant Shawn Gibson, and told Gibson to take care of the other car. The coax from Middleton's tank had no effect on the taxi, which actually seemed to speed up. The next burst tore into the passenger compartment. The taxi careened off the highway and crashed into the guardrail about a hundred meters away. Before Gibson's tank could fire on the second car, the vehicle skidded to a stop. The crews didn't have time to stop and determine whether either car contained soldiers or just wayward civilians. They plowed on, toward the palace.

Two tanks behind Middleton, Sergeant First Class Jonathan Lustig was surprised to see a Chevrolet Caprice suddenly appear on the roadway. He hadn't seen it coming. It just materialized out of the haze, speeding the wrong way, racing toward Lieutenant Middleton's lead tank. An Iraqi flag was flapping out one of the windows. Lustig couldn't do much about it; his turret was broken and he couldn't traverse. He saw Middleton's gunner fire a burst of coax into the Caprice. The car spun out of control. It flew off the left side of the highway and sailed into a tree. The impact launched the driver through the windshield like a man shot out of a cannon. It was a remarkable sight, Lustig thought—like watching one of those slow-motion car crashes on TV cop shows.

To the left of the roadway, Staff Sergeant Gibson saw something move in a grove of date palms. He looked closer and saw a turret turning. It was a BMP, a Russian-made armored personnel carrier, camouflaged by a layer of palm fronds. It was only about 150 meters away. The Iraqi gunner was trying to traverse the turret to fire on Middleton's tank at the head of the column. Gibson yelled at his gunner to fire a main gun round. The gunner got a laser reading through his sights, then said, “Bad lase!” The laser reading was flashing all zeros, meaning the target was too close to get a reading.

“Just squeeze the fucking trigger!” Gibson screamed.

The gunner lined up the targeting reticle on the BMP and fired a round that tore into the vehicle, setting it ablaze and triggering a series of secondary explosions as the BMP's ammunition cooked off. From the tank commander's cupola, Gibson saw a second BMP, also covered by palm fronds. His loader slammed a fresh round into the breech. Gibson didn't bother with a laser reading. He looked through the sights, put the reticle on the BMP's center mass, and squeezed the trigger on the power control handles. The vehicle exploded, sending shards of metal and exploding ammunition across the highway. “Button up!” Gibson yelled. He had heard stories about guys getting whacked by secondary explosions.

The ammunition was still cooking off as the roadway turned straight and flat, and the column picked up speed. Middleton was looking for the Fourteenth of July traffic circle, a roundabout that connected the Fourteenth of July Bridge over the Tigris to the stone archway leading into the Republican Palace complex, which stretched for more than a mile along the river. The column was now taking more and more gunfire from bunkers and from two- and three-story buildings lining the highway. The incoming rounds whipped past the tank as Middleton swung into a traffic circle anchored by a bronze monument honoring Iraqi war dead.

Middleton stopped and checked his map. He was certain he had found the Fourteenth of July circle, but he couldn't find the roadway into the Republican Palace complex. He thought it was the road that jutted off to the east. He radioed Lustig and asked, “Is this the road we're supposed to go on?”

Lustig checked his map. He wasn't sure, either. “It looks like it,” he said.

Middleton headed down the roadway. Iraqi soldiers were popping up out of bunkers around the circle. Middleton radioed back to alert the rest of the column, then spotted a stone archway that led directly into the palace grounds. As the archway came into view through the haze, Middleton saw that it was flanked by a pair of recoilless rifles mounted on green Land Rovers—apparently the last line of defense for the entire palace complex. Quickly, Middleton ordered his gunner to lock on to one Land Rover and then told Gibson to take care of the other. The recoilless rifle crews were abandoning the guns just as the breech and barrels were ripped apart, the HEAT rounds exploding on impact.

Smoke from the burning guns obscured the road, but Middleton could still make out some sort of obstacle blocking access to the archway. He rolled closer and saw that heavy concrete planters filled with dirt had been lined up across the roadway. A tall metal gate attached to the archway was sealed by a heavy chain and padlock. As Middleton paused to consider his options, Lustig radioed and said, “Just drive through that shit!”

Middleton thought he might be able to crush the planters and roll right over the top. The Rogue tanks had managed to crash through concrete highway dividers near the airport two days earlier. Middleton had his driver rev the engine, and the tank plowed into the planters. It rode halfway up, but then hung awkwardly at a forty-five-degree angle. The tank's belly was exposed. Gibson's tank was mounted on the front with a heavy plow. Gibson radioed and said, “Come back off and I'll hit it with the plow.”

Middleton managed to back up and free his tank from the planters. Behind him, Gibson realized that he needed to hit the obstacle at a higher speed than Middleton had attempted. Because he was farther back, he was able to get a good running start. He intended to maintain his momentum past the planters and smash through the metal gate and chain beneath the arch. His driver had the tank moving at least thirty miles an hour, its plow in the raised position, as the seventy-ton vehicle surged forward and barreled into the planters. The collision crushed the planters and sent them skidding across the pavement. Gibson's tank went airborne for an instant, then slammed back down. Middleton was amazed; he had never seen a tank do that.

Gibson didn't slow down. Middleton watched Gibson's tank lumber straight ahead, its seven-ton plow aimed at the metal gates and chain. The Abrams smashed through, crushing the gate and popping the chain. Gibson's main gun barrel smacked against the stone arch and spun to the rear, but the sergeant was now the first American soldier inside Saddam's Republican Palace complex. It was just past 8 a.m. In slightly more than two hours, Assassin Company had breached the palace gates.

EIGHT

SUICIDE AT THE GATES OF BAGHDAD

O
n the way up Highway 8 that morning, Captain Jason Conroy ordered his tank crews to conserve main gun rounds. Each tank carried only forty of the big shells—plus one in the tube—and Conroy didn't know how many Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers the column might have to confront. In fact, Conroy knew very little about the enemy. The brigade's S-2 shop, the intelligence officers, had provided only vague guidance. They had warned the company commanders to expect several thousand Special Republican Guards, plus Fedayeen militiamen and Arab mercenaries. They had spoken of bunkers and snipers and suicide vehicles—the same sort of resistance Conroy and the Rogue battalion had already encountered on the first thunder run two days earlier.

It seemed to him presumptuous to invade a hostile metropolis of 5 million people—a capital whose city center had never been penetrated by American troops, not even during the first Gulf War—without a detailed breakdown of enemy forces and defenses. In fact, when Conroy had relayed the orders to his lieutenants at Charlie Company the night before, they were so shocked that they dropped their briefing books. Even so, the first thunder run had given Conroy and his men a certain level of confidence, and they believed their tanks and Bradleys could blow through the city center the same way they had blown past the Iraqi defenses along Highway 8 and the airport highway. Whether they would be able to hold their ground and survive through the night was another matter. There wasn't much Conroy could tell his men about that prospect. All he said was, “Guys, plan on spending the night.”

Now, after a brief but intense firefight at the nursery, Conroy and the rest of the Rogue battalion had made the turn at the spaghetti junction and were heading east into the governmental complex. The battalion had been firing mostly coax and .50-caliber, hitting only the most obvious targets and passing off the rest to the Tusker crews behind them before the Rogue column split off onto the Qadisiya Highway. The resistance was similar to Saturday's thunder run—sustained small-arms and RPG fire, some recoilless rifle, occasional artillery and mortars. Conroy thought it was slightly less intense this time around. His crews had destroyed two suicide trucks, but the main threats were from bunkers and snipers. Because his company had fired only a few main tank rounds, he felt comfortable about his ammunition reserves. He thought he had enough to last until nightfall.

Conroy was still uncertain what to expect inside the city, though he was not particularly surprised when he spotted two Iraqi armored personnel carriers just beyond an overpass. They were backing up and turning around, trying to get in position to fire on the approaching convoy. The carriers—they were Russian-made BMPs—were outfitted with 105mm short-barrel guns, which fired skinny little rounds that were not capable of penetrating an Abrams's armor but could disable a tank if they struck in the rear engine compartment. Conroy ordered his gunner to hit one of the BMPs with a main gun round. Then he radioed back and told a tank commander from his third platoon to take care of the other one. The gunners squeezed the triggers before the BMPs could turn around. The vehicles burst into flames. Their ammunition racks ignited and their turrets popped off—a spectacular show of exploding metal that brought a round of cheers from the crews.

It was less than four kilometers from the spaghetti junction to Conroy's assigned target, Saddam Hussein's parade ground and VIP reviewing stand next to Zawra Park. The parade ground was flanked on either end by a pair of stainless steel crossed sabers, built at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in 1985 and named the Victory Arches, despite the inconclusive outcome of the conflict. Conroy was surprised by how quickly the Rogue column covered the ground, even with a constant barrage of RPGs and automatic rifle fire.

Just as the dull shine of the towering sabers came into view through the haze, a white pickup truck emerged from the westbound lanes. It was bearing down on Conroy's tank. Conroy tried to get his gunner to traverse the main gun, but there wasn't time. The gunner managed to hit the truck with a burst of coax, but it kept coming. Conroy felt it plow into the side of his tank, then careen off into a guardrail. He swung his .50-caliber machine gun around and fired directly into the passenger compartment. The truck exploded. Conroy couldn't see who had been inside, but the intensity of the explosion made him think the truck had been packed with ammunition. He was alarmed at how quickly the pickup had closed in on him, and he began to worry that his luck was running out. His tank had already been rammed on the first thunder run, and now this. He rolled on—and suddenly he realized that he had gone past the parade field. He had to stop and make a U-turn, the whole company following him. They crushed a series of guardrails, crossed an open field, found the access road, and there, shrouded in gray smoke, were the crossed sabers.

Most of the tankers had seen news clips of Hussein standing at attention on the reviewing stand, gazing out past the crossed sabers at passing formations of Iraqi troops and tanks. They had seen him in a military uniform dripping with medals, and in a dark suit and black homburg, his arm upraised and half-cocked in that peculiar cross between a wave and a salute. A few had seen the video of Hussein on the reviewing stand, squeezing off a shotgun blast, one-handed. Now their tanks and Bradleys were rolling toward that very spot—and there was no one there to stop them. The whole vast sweep of the parade grounds, which stretched for more than a kilometer, seemed to be lightly defended. Three Iraqi soldiers bolted from the reviewing stand and ran toward an office complex attached to the stand. One of them was killed by coax; the others escaped. A few hundred meters to the north, Conroy's men destroyed several RPG teams that had been firing from behind a row of electric transformers near the zoo. The fighting had ignited several fuel containers, which sent plumes of black smoke curling into the morning sky.

It was difficult for Conroy to absorb it all. He had expected the Iraqis to mount heavier resistance for such a significant stretch of terrain in the middle of the governmental complex. He found it hard to believe that he—twenty-nine-year-old Jason Conroy from upstate New York—now owned Saddam Hussein's parade grounds and VIP reviewing stand. He looked around. Directly across from the reviewing stand, he saw an impressive statue—a huge bronze depiction of Saddam riding a horse. He felt a strong urge to put a tank round straight through Saddam's chest.

The company set up in defensive positions, with a 360-degree perimeter that provided clear fields of fire in all directions. Other units pushed west, beyond the sabers, where they came under sporadic artillery fire and were fired on by gunmen in speeding cars. Still others moved farther north, through Zawra Park, where Iraqi soldiers were firing RPGs from rooftops and thick stands of palm groves lining a series of small lakes. More Rogue units secured the tomb of the unknown soldier, a circular concrete structure with long sloping sides and a cavern in the center.

From time to time, mortars crashed down on either side of the monument. Even though he had secured the reviewing stand, Conroy knew that Iraqi troops and militiamen were still dug in throughout the park and beyond the tree lines. A few were still on rooftops, manning antiaircraft guns that were firing straight down at the tanks. And from somewhere beyond the park, Iraqi mortar crews were launching rounds that seemed to be inching closer to the reviewing stand. Conroy braced himself for a long day of fighting.

As Conroy's company was securing the parade ground, Lightning 28, a mixed Bradley crew of marines and Third Infantry soldiers, was traveling in the middle of the Tusker column and well behind the lead Rogue tanks. The Bradley was part of Cyclone Company, from the Tusker battalion. The marines inside were from ANGLICO, for Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, a Marine Corps unit that had been attached to the Third Infantry Division. The ANGLICO men were experts on calling in close air support. The seven-man Bradley crew was a hybrid of soldiers and marines, part forward air control team and part combat gun vehicle.

For more than an hour, the men inside Lihghtning 28's rear hull had been listening to thumps and explosions along Highway 8 and struggling to catch glimpses of the battle through the Bradley's vision blocks—three-inch-high rectangular windows made of bulletproof glass. The crewmen could see black smoke spewing from bunkers and bright orange flames spitting from burning vehicles, and they could hear the steady beat of small-arms fire.

Up in the commander's hatch, Marine Major Mark Jewell was working the 25mm main gun, each high-explosive round rattling the steel hull. In the gunner's seat, Sergeant Walter Daniel was squeezing off periodic bursts of coax. From time to time, the men in the back could hear bullets punch the outside of the hull, making a hollow clanging sound. They could have been fired on from anywhere—from bunkers, from rooftops, from alleyways. There was no way to know. The hull was sealed off.

The crewmen went about their work with a furious intensity. The radioman, Marine Sergeant Dennis Parks, was monitoring five separate radio nets after cleaning his radio headset nodes with a pencil eraser. He was feeding information to Major Jewell through the Bradley's intercom and shouting grid coordinates to Marine Captain David Cooper, who was seated next to him. Parks looked more like a tanker than a marine. He was short and muscular, and he moved quickly and nimbly inside the tight confines of the hull. He was only twenty-one, but he had an officer's sense of command. He was quick-witted and decisive—what people in the military call squared away.

Captain Cooper was seven years older and taller and rangier than Parks, but he exuded the same calm efficiency. Leaning back, with his long legs crossed, Cooper had the furrowed, intense look of a man reading a newspaper on a lurching subway car. He was clutching a map in his left hand. With his right hand, he was scribbling map coordinates into a notebook, converting the army's GPS grids to longitude and latitude for the air force pilots. “Just give me a grid and I'll get you aircraft,” he said over the radio. Cooper was an air liaison officer, an easygoing officer with a wife and a house full of pets back home in North Carolina. He was relaying potential target coordinates for warplanes attacking in support of the armored column. His long face was flushed and sweaty under his communications helmet, but he seemed strangely content and absorbed in his work.

Matthew Hanks, an army lieutenant, was more animated. He scrambled back and forth between the hull and the upper deck, talking to the gunner and trying to hear the orders shouted down by Major Jewell up in the hatch. Hanks was twenty-three, a tall, brown-haired Virginian who spoke in quick, excited bursts and seemed unable to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. Parks barked at him a few times, trying to get Hanks to stay put. Hanks kept up a steady chatter.

Across from Parks was Trevor Havens, a twenty-three-year-old marine corporal who was stretching his neck to peer through the rear vision blocks. He was watching the Bradley's “six,” its rear six-o'clock position. The Bradley's heavy rear hatch was outfitted with a tiny gun port, and from time to time Havens poked his M-16 through the opening, searching for something to hit. When Havens's gun barrel wasn't jutting through the port, Parks used it as an ashtray, flicking ashes from his cigarettes through the tiny opening.

Havens bounced his knee nervously as he squinted through the vision blocks. He felt an urgent need to urinate. “I gotta piss bad!” he announced. Parks gave him a disgusted look and reached down for an empty water bottle amid the crumpled MRE pouches littering the steel deck. All the crews carried emergency piss bottles.

“Here,” Parks said. “Don't miss.”

Havens braced himself against the hull, half-standing, half-squatting, and tried to fill the bottle. It was hopeless. The Bradley was lurching and bouncing. Havens lost his balance and a few drops on the floor. Everyone groaned and cursed. The air inside the Bradley was already hot and stale, saturated with sweat and oil and cordite. Now there was the acidic scent of fresh urine.

As the Bradley drew closer to its destination, the Fourteenth of July traffic circle, the gunfire outside intensified. The crewmen could hear some of the tanks open up with their main gun rounds, and the Bradley shuddered from the concussions. An explosion rocked the vehicle, slamming everyone against the hull. “What the hell was that?” somebody asked. Cooper responded casually, “Secondary explosion.” A suicide vehicle had just been incinerated by a tank round, and whatever was inside was cooking off. Voices on the radio net were reporting more technicals and suicide cars nearby.

The Bradley rumbled into the Fourteenth of July circle under fire. Jewell ordered everyone to button up—to stay inside and keep the hatches locked. Jewell had sealed the commander's hatch and ducked down inside. The main gun had jammed, and he didn't have the wrench required to manually crank the ammunition feed system and get the gun working again. With only the coax to defend the Bradley, Jewell had the driver park the Bradley behind a wall of tanks from Cyclone Company that had taken up positions at the foot of the bridge. From the rear vision blocks, the crewmen could see the tan backs of the tanks and a pall of gray smoke obscuring the bridge and the river. It was a startling sight: an American tank company was in the heart of Baghdad.

The Cyclone commander was Captain Stephen Barry, a tall, husky former high school athlete with a shaved head. Barry was a popular commander who was so big and imposing that he was hard to miss. Flip deCamp sometimes referred to him as Big Sexy—a nickname bestowed by another officer's wife. Barry was twenty-eight, a West Point man who had graduated as the top history major in his class. He was determined to shut down the bridge, which provided access to the entire government complex across the Tigris River from the south. He had discussed the importance of the bridge with Phil Wolford of Assassin Company the night before. They were worried about a narrow seam between the sectors assigned to Rogue and to Tusker. Barry wanted to make sure he covered Wolford's rear at the entrance to the palace complex, where a road jutting east from the Fourteenth of July circle led through the archway that had been rammed by Assassin's tanks. About eight hundred meters to his northwest, a road from the circle connected to the Qadisiya Highway near the tomb of the unknown soldier. That was Barry's boundary with Captain Jason Conroy's sector, though there was an unsecured gap between the two units.