“Whoever made this map had some idea on how to set up an ambush.” Al held the paper up and compared it to the terrain of the original ambush site situated on the diagram.
Mike looked north into the distance. “There’s no place to park their trucks within an easy walk of here. Luckily, whoever gave them the sketch couldn’t account for the ambush team’s laziness. They wanted their trucks nearby, and now they’re dead.” Mike turned south. “Otherwise, flat tire or not, we’d have been screwed.”
The two trucks remained parked behind. They didn’t need them, and the walk to the intended ambush site was short. The road went north for about seven hundred meters until it twisted west. After that, it meandered to the north again. The diagram hadn’t been wrong. It was perfect. The road narrowed along this stretch. To the east, rocky high ground ran against the side of the road and followed it north. On the west side, the rock field edged up to the dirt road. There was no maneuvering room for the trucks. If the Afghanis bailed and ran up into the high ground, they would have had no cover and run into weapons fire. The rock field was a broken ankle as soon as they tried to enter. Most of the rocks were no more than two feet high.
“This is going to be pretty standard stuff.” Mike looked at his watch. “We got a good four hours before the sun goes down. I’m going to send you two,” he pointed to Tom and Al, “with the RPG’s up into the high ground.” He pointed to the series of hilltops to the left. While you’re up there, look for a good covered and concealed spot we can RON tonight. If this doesn’t go off by sundown, we’ll bug out, hit the RON, and figure out what we will do from there.”
Both men tilted their heads in acknowledgment.
“We’ll work through the best case L ambush first, then work up a few contingencies…”
Julia raised her hand.
The three men faced her.
Their questioning look made her hesitate as if she should know what they were talking about.
“RON?”
Mike frowned. “Rest Over Night.”
“Ah.” She cleared her throat. “Gentlemen,” she interlaced her fingers and brought her hands to her chin. “Let’s suppose…” she separated her hands' palms. "I’ve worked in an office my entire adult life. And aside from the only ambush I almost died in, I have no idea about anything. All this, L ambushes, your contingencies, a RON, or whatever you're talking about. They didn't teach that in the university I attended.”
Tom and Al chuckled. Mike looked chagrined.
“A fair point.” Mike lowered his head to her, his hand out, palm up. “I’ll go over everything in detail once you and I are in position. We don’t want to stand out on this road all day.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Alright,” All traces of humor were absent from his voice. “Julia and I will initiate the ambush with the machine gun. We’ve only got about fifty rounds left. I’ll take out the first vehicle. Once I do, you two hit the second with an RPG. If there is a third truck, shoot it with an RPG as well. You can decide to use the last two RPG rounds depending on resistance after we start. After, we should be able to mop up whoever might still be alive. If there are more than three trucks, we’ll initiate the same as before. After you’ve knocked out the second and third trucks, it will be your call to continue to engage. Otherwise, head back to the trucks.” Mike shifted his head toward Julia, “We’ll cover you, then meet you back at the trucks, and we’ll get the hell out of Dodge.”
After a quick question and answer session to make sure everyone was on the same page, Tom and Al took their AKs and RPGs and made their way around to the backside of the high ground. Mike figured they would be ready in about half an hour. This would leave him and Julia responsible for watching the road; he wasn’t too worried they would see trucks and their dust clouds coming a long way off. Julia would be ready by then. And if Tom and Al aren’t quite set up and the ambush went down, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time a plan went to hell because the enemy didn’t cooperate.
Settled between large rocks on the side of the road, Mike looked back. Around the bend, he could just make out the ambusher’s trucks. It was a good spot. Their position gave them good cover and an unhindered view up the road.
Julia leaned close against the small boulder to her side, trying to hide in the shadow it produced. She wasn’t entirely shielded from the sun, but it worked well enough not to have to readjust. “That wasn’t nearly as detailed a plan as I thought you might have come up with.”
Mike formed a makeshift tent over his torso, head, and part of the machine gun from some sticks he’d found in one of the trucks and Al’s man dress. The sun was relentless, and putting the shirt up was well worth it. His legs grew hot and uncomfortable. There wasn’t much he could do about that except suck it up. On his stomach, Mike watched the sweat fall from his chin and nose onto the wooden butt stock of the machine gun. The black barrel of the gun pointed straight down the road.
“The three of us have done this type of thing before, a lot. As I said, it’s pretty standard.” He smiled, looking for a response from her. She rolled her eyes. “We all know the opportunities and the limitations in front of us. We said what we had to say, and that was it.”
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“What were the limitations?”
“We don’t have the ammo for any kind of sustained fight. The gun,” he patted it, “and the RPGs will be out after the first minute. Two, no matter how many trucks they send, we will be severely outmanned.”
“In that case, why bother? Why not just load up and drive away?”
“If we could, we would, but we're not going back south. There’s nothing there for us, so we go north and run into them along the road. They will have the advantage on us there for the reasons I mentioned, but we won't have the element of surprise.”
“What if they don’t come?”
“The phone hasn’t rung since the fourth attempt.” He looked down the road. “They’re coming.”
They lapsed into silence.
Julia rolled over to look around the rock she was behind. Fully exposed to the sun, she rolled back into the shade. She tried to make her own tent, but her attempts failed to turn out in the fashion she wanted, and she gave up. Next, she pulled the Afghan clothing up, holding it above her body using her rifle as a tent pole.
She exhaled loudly. “Forty-five minutes, we’ve been here forty-five minutes. This sucks. Is it always like this? The waiting?”
Mike chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much. The waiting is hard, but at least we can talk and try to keep each other awake. I’m not too worried about anyone hearing us. We’ll see them coming; if someone comes up from the south, we’ll hear them.”
“Do people fall asleep doing this?”
He turned his body to face her. “You’re not supposed to, of course. I never have. But when you sit in the same position, not moving or talking, and,” he pointed up, “the sun beating down on you, it’s tough. I knew a guy once who would put his knife butt on the ground point up he'd rest the tip under his chin. If he started to nod off, the knife gave him a little jolt.”
Julia scrunched her face. “That’s crazy.”
“You do what you have to do because everyone is relying on you to do your part. If you don’t, the whole thing could fail, and instead of you killing the enemy, you get killed and all your buddies with you.”
“Hmm, I guess that makes sense, but…”
“Shh.” Mike twisted and looked south.
Julia looked at him and turned her head.
A distant mechanical noise approached.
“What do…”
“Hold on.” He continued to listen intently. “There." He pointed south down the road.
Julia followed his finger and saw them. Two helicopters were flying north using the road as a guide. “What kind are they?”
“MI-17”s.”
“MI-17’s?”
He glanced at her.
She shrugged.
“Russian. The Afghanis use them as transport helos, but if you look next to the fuel pods, they have rockets and guns attached.”
Their eyes followed the helicopter’s flight north.
“What do you think they’re doing?”
“Routine patrol? I don’t know.”
“What should we do?”
“Stay hidden. They’re unlikely to see us if we don’t move.”
The MI-17’s slowed. One broke west over the wadi while the other circled the wreckage of their two burnt trucks. The first one flew a twisting route down the wadi, flying a hundred meters off the deck. The other MI-17 flew up, providing cover.
“What’re they doing?”
Mike grunted, shaking his head.
The first MI-17 flew out of the Wadi system and took a high, wide turn, hovering over the burnt out trucks. The second helicopter followed the Wadi system to the end.
“I’m guessing they found the bodies and are following the river bed looking for anyone else. Funny,” he said, “it’s almost as if they knew to look.”
She looked at him as he pressed his lips together, tilting his head.
“You think they might be looking for us?”
“Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.” Mike pulled the machine gun under his body, getting closer to the side of a boulder. Stay hidden.”
“What about Tom and Al?”
“They’re watching, they’ll know the deal.”
The two helicopters met and flew a slow circle around the wreckage as if deciding what to do. They flew to the south and then banked around north. One followed the other as they flew up the road.
“Stay still as they pa…” Mike didn’t get to finish.
The first MI-17 opened up with his gun on the two pickup trucks the ambushers had left parked, ready to drive away. The 20mm Gatling gun sounded like a long, loud burp. The next sound was the intense noise of the impact on the soft-skinned trucks. Several rounds hit rocks, ricocheting off. Most found their mark destroying the two vehicles.
The first MI-17 continued and flew over their heads north. The second MI-17 gunship zeroed in on his target and fired. Not because he had to, or even for good measure, but because he wanted to shoot one of his eight-inch rockets into the mess.
The trucks exploded, sending fire, smoke, and shrapnel everywhere. He continued north after his wingman.
Mike watched the two helicopters fly off. Once they were out of sight, he stood up. He leaned over and helped Julia to stand.
“Why’d they blow up the trucks?”
“More to the point,” Mike said. “Why were they here in the first place?”
“You did say they could be on routine patrol.”
He sighed, picked up the gun, and rested it on a rock. “The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense.”
“How so?” She slung her AK over her shoulder.
One of the reasons we picked this road to land on was it’s in the middle of nowhere. There are no people, it’s a freaking wasteland.”
“I get that someone sent the trucks and men, that’s one thing, but Afghani Air Force helicopters? I don’t know?”
Mike sat down on a flat-ish rock. “Does it make sense that they would waste time and fuel flying here on some random patrol? No, they were looking for us.”
The sound of a small landslide of rocks and dirt made him turn his head. Tom and Al had just reached the road and walked over. They were covered in sweat and dirt.
“You get the impression,” Al said, joining them, “those birds were checking up on the dead guys and looking for us?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking."
“Great.” Tom sat on another rock, a long whoosh exiting his nose. “Now what? It’s a long walk to wherever we’re going.”
Al sat, too. “Wherever we decide to go, we’re going to run out of light in a couple of hours. Food and water are going to be an issue sooner than later.”
Julia remained standing, looking down at the men. “You guys aren’t painting the rosiest of pictures.”
Mike snorted weakly. “She’s right about that. Let’s get back to it. First thing, we’ll check on that truck Tom pushed into the wadi. We'll see if we can get it working and drive it out and back to the road.”
Julia cocked her head at Tom. “Why did you push it in there in the first place?”
In an accusatory voice and sly grin, he pointed at Mike. “He told me too.”
Mike shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“After that?” Al said.
“After that, tonight we drive, or if we have to, we walk to Cpt. Amadulah’s compound.” Mike lifted off the rock. “If we have to walk, it’s going to suck.”
Al stood. “You got that right.”
Tom pushed off his rock. “I hate this fucking country.”