Sweat dripped off Mike’s face onto the sand covered hole in the ground. Salty drops slid into his mouth with each gulp of air. Wet sand covered his hands like new gloves and tried to permeate the knees of his pants. No wiping or brushing could get the wet sand off his hands and knees. Tom was no better off. Sandy, dirty, wet, white salt stains on their clothes, they were miserable, but they were alive and with more guns than they knew what to do with. Better to have the extra guns buried in the ground than used against them later.
Almost ready to go, the machine gun, RPGs, and six AK-47s lay in the shallow grave. It was a better funeral than what the two men would have received. No words were spoken. Tom’s thoughts were the same as his. A shallow grave would have been the least of their problems if they’d been captured.
They didn’t need the guns, and there wasn’t enough ammo to make carrying them worthwhile. Marked by random appearing stones, the cache allowed them to return and recover the weapons. The reality was he wasn’t fooling anyone. They were too small a group to fight anyone with these weapons or any others. They’d got lucky, lucky in the ambush and lucky in the wadi. Sometimes, all it took was luck. They say you make your luck through rigorous training and execution. Either way, he’d take all the luck he could get.
The Afghanis lay where they fell. It wasn’t a hard choice. They deserved nothing better.
The cache behind them, their boots, added two more sets of tracks in the sand. Instead of confident step by step, their boots dragged plowing sand to either side of their tired feet. Mike felt a little better with half the ammo split between them and carrying an extra AK each. His only hope was Al and Julia would be waiting for them next to a couple of trucks.
Dog-tired Mike glanced over at Tom. The big man’s eyes tracked the ground a few feet before him as if looking for a sign. There wasn’t anything to see down there. Now that the intensity had dropped, so had their energy level. The curve in his hunched-over back from the weight of their new weapons threatened to make him trip with one misstep. If they were fresh, the AKs slung on their shoulders would have been nothing, but now it felt like they carried the world’s weight.
Too tired to speak, several things ran through Mike’s mind as they walked, the foremost being, who was behind that ambush? The actual shooters were easy to figure out, hired thugs out to make some spare money by killing. Business as usual. But the who and the why were a mystery. In weary silence, he felt sure Tom was having the same thoughts.
The boulder he’d stood on what felt like a week ago appeared as if out of nowhere. It made for a good exit out of the wadi.
“Stay low. We’ll stay near the edge and take a look in case we have to jump back in.”
Tom nodded.
Mike slowly lifted his head above the wadi and looked over the road. The two burnt out trucks smoldered on the road. Nothing else stood out from the sand, dirt, rocks, and distant mountains.
“Alright.” Mike lifted into a cautious crouch and moved toward the two wrecks. Tom gained the road and ran behind him.
In the back of the first truck, it was a burnt-out mess. All their supplies were destroyed. Nothing was salvageable.
“Over there.” Tom pointed.
The sun reflected off of something. It gave away the ambusher’s location, and if their trucks had arrived now, they would have seen the reflection a mile out.
Without looking back, Mike took the lead. He crouched and crept forward. They cautiously approached the berm where the ambushers had been hiding. At the top, they exchanged a quick look, and both smiled through dirty and chapped lips.
Their legs moved with renewed energy and enthusiasm, their steps almost airy. It was easy to smile at the sight before them. Things had gone their way.
“Not too bad. Three dusty, used, beautiful pickup trucks parked in a row and no bad guys anywhere.”
“Yeah,” Mike grunted. “Except for all the other shit that happened today.”
“I see this as a sign.”
“A sign?” Mike climbed the hood of the center truck, grunting as he stood on the cab’s roof. The metal compressed into a large dent.
“Exactly.” Tom leaned against the truck Mike stood on. “We’ve both got multiple deployments here to include this little soiree. Afghanistan doesn’t want to kill us. It’s making us stronger, testing our fortitude.”
Mike looked down. He couldn’t help himself. He chuckled. “Come again.”
Tom looked up. “We’ve been through some serious stuff here, shit that would have killed normal men, but we survived. Add that to all the other times we shouldn’t have made it, and I’m guessing we’re being tested, hardened for what’s coming next.”
Mike looked down and rolled his eyes at Tom. “Tell that stuff to some newbie privates back at Fort Bragg.”
“Scoff if you want, but a rock caused your front tire to blow out, which caused the ambush to kick off early.”
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Hands over his eyes, Mike slowly rotated around on the roof. The road north and south, the wadi, and the rock field on the other side all were empty of life, any life. Pedestrians on this hot, lonely stretch of road would have been unheard of. He kept his eyes open for two specific ones.
“That’s quite a theory.” Mike rotated again.
“I’m quite a man.”
They both laughed.
“See anything?” Tom searched the truck Mike stood on, then moved on to the other two.
“Nothing, yet.” Mike looked over at Tom’s truck. The only thing left of it was a blackened frame. There was no sign of Greg or Ahmad’s bodies. “I never saw Ahmad.”
“He was in the back crashed out.”
"We're going to have to look for Greg's body."
Tom shook his head up and down. “Yeah, I know."
Mike nodded, his hands moving with his head. “Killed a man by choking the life out of him and another by stabbing him to death. One thing I learned.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a lot easier just to shoot them.”
Tom gave a half snort. “No doubt.”
Heat waves rose from the rock field to the north and south. There was nothing else moving out there that Mike could see.
“Anything,” Tom said.
“No sign of vehicles or Al.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingers rubbing his face. Hands shading his forehead, Mike concentrated his search to the west and northwest, where he felt the two should be coming from.
“What do you want to do with those?” Tom jerked his thumb back at two wrecks.
Mike looked over at the two blackened frames. “Nothing.” Turning, he continued to search. “The third truck, we don’t need it. I’d like to burn it, but no sense in sending any more smoke signals.” He glanced down at Tom. “But, the asshole in me says I don’t want to give it back to whoever sent those guys. So, let’s give them a little of this.” He pointed his finger toward the wadi and twisted it. “Drive one of them into the wadi, try and flip it on its roof.”
Tom chuckled. “I like your style.”
Mike’s lips curved up. “Fuck those guys.” He thought about the men in the river bed bloating in the sun. The pools of blood already dried and clotted in the sand and dirt. It could have gone the wrong way easily. It probably should have. The dead men they had left behind had many advantages. What they didn’t have was years of training and experience. They’d probably executed a few ambushes against NATO troops. But, when it came to fire and maneuver, command and control, they were lacking. Whoever they worked for, Mike was sure combat wasn’t their actual job. They were hired to intimidate civilians, kidnap Western aid workers, and the occasional assassination. They didn't understand how to conduct combat operations against soldiers. Well, he grunted, ex-Special Forces soldiers.
Tom picked up one of the three sets of keys, drove the dirty red truck to the wadi, went to the back of the truck, and pushed. The truck started to move. He heaved into it, and it rolled and tumbled into the wadi, landing upside down.
Mike jumped into the truck bed and then to the ground, meeting Tom at the front.
“Nice work.”
Tom smiled. “I aim to please.”
“Let’s see what we got from those guys.”
On the hood of the green truck, they spread out the cell phones, I-Com SAT Phone, and folded up pieces of paper. The phones all had phone numbers in their memories. The I-Com had been shot through and through. It would never function again as anything but a paperweight. The slips of paper he unfolded revealed Arabic-looking writing, none of which meant a thing to him.
The last piece of paper appeared to be legal-sized folded with something inside. The paper had been yellow now, it was brown with dirt and a little blood. Mike gently unfolded it, trying not to rip it along the folds.
The paper opened, and a photo fluttered out. Tom grunted as he leaned down to pick it up. It was a 4x6 inch black and white picture.
Like a statue, Tom stood frozen, his eyes locked on the picture. The longer he looked at it, the more emotions crossed his face. Surprised shock led to dismay and finally to confused anger.
Tom looked Mike in the eyes and handed the picture over. “We’re in trouble, brother.”
Mike felt the hairs on his arms rise. Tom wasn’t a shrinking lily. He looked spooked. Mike took the picture and turned it over. The photo was taken from somewhere near the outside of the compound where they’d met Al. In profile, two men faced each other the third man, in the center, faced the camera’s direction. Tom was on one side, Al on the other, and he was between them smiling.
He blew a long breath through his nose, too tired to get mad.
“What have we gotten into?”
“Good question.” Mike put the photo under one of the phones to prevent it from blowing away. He flattened and laid the paper on the hood. On it was a crudely drawn map of the road. There were black marker squiggles to the left and right with words describing what was there. Mike looked up and followed the road from the north down to their position. The line on the map curved where the road curved through the rocks. He saw elevations drawn on the map where there were hills as part of the terrain. At the next curve up to the north on the map was a spot circled on the road.
Mike put his finger on the spot and looked up. “I’ll bet whoever drew this map wanted the ambush to be at that curve up there.” He pointed north. “But for whatever reason, the group leader placed the ambush here.”
“Eyes on the ground.” Tom looked to the north. “I sure didn’t see them laid in waiting for us.” He glanced back at the map, slowly shaking his head. “They knew we were coming, they knew to ambush us on this road, and they knew it was us, you, me, and Al.”
Mike shrugged. “Yep.”
“This is some fucked up shit.”
“It makes you think someone’s got it in for us.”
“It makes me think there is more going on here than we know.”
“You got that right.” Mike folded the picture into the paper and tossed it inside the truck. “So now…”
One of the phones started ringing. The ringtone was an obnoxious sounding Pakistani sounding song. The caller’s number blinked as the ringtone played until the caller hung up. In English, he read two missed calls.
“I wonder why it’s written in English?”
Mike put the phone down. “It’s not like they can read.”
A half grin formed on Tom’s face. “Can’t argue with that.”
“It would have been great to answer it. I would love to have told them all their guys were dead, but we’re better off them wondering what happened. Eventually, they’ll send someone to discover what happened to their boys.”
“And we’ll be waiting for them?”
“Exactly.” Mike took a deep breath. “I hate to say it, but let’s go back and get those RPGs and the machine gun.”
“And I hate to do it. I’m tired, hot, and pissed off, but it will make me feel good to be on the other side of an ambush.” He looked east. “What about Al?”
“We’ll leave a note telling them to remain out of sight until we return.” Mike looked up at the sun and then glanced at his watch. “We got plenty of daylight to get there and back and hopefully find Al and Julia. Let’s get to walking.”
“You’d think those guys would have planned better, like bringing water in their trucks. Some sun-baked hot water sure would have hit the spot right now.”
“Hm,” Tom said. “I’d rather have a cold beer.”