Chapter 3

Oscar had hidden the Hummer that morning about three hundred meters into a ravine and went to scout the area around it. When he had come around a boulder, he had spotted a guard on the mountain across from him. Squatting on a boulder the guard watched the pass below and, fortunately, had not seen him.

It had taken him the entire day to scout the area without the guard spotting him. With a smile, he knew that he had found the camp that represented his final destination. It was a small camp and appeared like it would be relatively easy to take out. Appearances could be deceiving. The men in the camp had that hard look that suggested they were battle hardened and wouldn’t panic.

It was approaching sunset and he was sitting twenty meters away from the guard. He had stayed still and close to the ground, looking like a boulder amongst the rough terrain, for the past several hours. His ability to hide himself in the open was confirmed when the previous guard had walked within five feet of him when he had been relieved. Over the past three weeks, he had gained a lot of patience and could wait for hours without moving. Now, he waited for the sky to darken even more.

The sky slowly darkened, but the moon rose a quarter full. It was brighter than he wanted for tonight’s operation, so he waited for the time to come when it would start to set before creeping up on the guard. He took him out with his usual efficiency before he moved to the location of the second guard. The muscles in his legs threatened to cramp from the long period of inactivity. It took him an hour to get close enough to take the second guard out.

He moved into camp with his normal stealth. The tents from which snoring sounds were emitted were not of interest while tents that showed activity were too dangerous to explore. He went into a quiet tent and was surprised to find two men sleeping on cots. He quietly slipped out and went on his way. He finally found a supply tent, only to discover that it was very poorly stocked. He realized that meant these terrorists had seen action lately and would have to re-supply from one of the weapons caches soon. Perhaps they had already tried and died in the process.

There were no explosives here for him to use and he was at a loss for a moment at what he should do. Making a quick decision, he picked up four RPG launchers and carried them to one of the guard positions. He returned for two boxes grenades and took a moment to fill his pockets with several clips of ammunition. Returning to the guard position, he set his rifle on the ground next to him and prepared the four RPG launchers with grenades.

He waited for dawn so that he would be able to see his targets. It wasn’t easy to remain alert because of the number of hours that he had been awake. This was a very dangerous time. If a relief guard discovered the other body, then he would have to act immediately. When there was finally enough light to see, he aimed an RPG at the command tent. He fired and dropped the launcher only to pick up another RPG and fire at the supply tent. He watched as the grenade hit it and shook his head, as the explosion was disappointingly small. He fired another RPG at one of the tents where he was sure that men were sleeping and none had emerged.

He picked up the rifle and began shooting everything that moved. He would fire three shots and then switch to another target. He kept it up until there was no more movement in the camp below. He stopped and changed his position moving carefully so that he could not be seen from the camp below. He found a position that had good cover and watched the camp. One of the terrorists crawled out of a tent. Oscar fired three shots at the man, stopping him with his body half out of the tent.

He waited several hours more, watching for movement. He ate one of the Russian rations while waiting, amazed that he was able to swallow the horrible food. The camp below was still and lifeless while above, the vultures circled ever lower. He froze when he heard sounds approaching the camp. For a minute, he wondered if he had attacked a secondary camp rather than the main camp. He readied his gun for action. He still had one RPG left and could use that if necessary.

Ever since his encounter with the God, he had heard nothing except Arabic. The men coming were whispering commands in English and this presented him with an interesting dilemma that he had not considered. He wondered how he could establish his identity to soldiers walking nervously into the site of a destroyed terrorist camp without getting shot. They approached the camp, moving carefully, while he waited. He removed the cloak making his American uniform, such as it was, visible.

Thirty men slowly crept into the camp observing the damage wrought by Oscar’s attack. The man in charge had the men spread out to look for the possible causes. Quiet, Oscar watched as a man headed in his direction and was disappointed when he didn’t recognize him. He set his gun down quietly and then called out, “Private First Class Oscar Meyers reporting for duty.”

Every man in the camp turned in his direction with rifles pointed at him. He slowly stood up without his rifle. One of the men in camp shouted, “Oscar Meyers, what do we call you?”

Believing that he recognized the voice, Oscar frowned as he called back, “Foo!”

The man in the camp shouted up, “Get down here, Private Foo!”

Oscar climbed down from his position. He walked through the camp looking at the damage he had caused, he glanced at the man that had shouted. There was no doubt, he had been correct in identifying whom it had been. He walked up to the Sergeant and saluted. “Reporting for duty Sir.”

“We had you listed as MIA,” barked the Sergeant. He looked over Oscar, taking note of the short pants, ripped shirt, and dirty appearance. He asked, “Do you know what happened here?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” replied Oscar. He relaxed a little as he looked around taking in the damage that he had caused. He said, “I took out the camp.”

“Single-handedly?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Oscar, in a flash of insight, realized that he was no longer scared of the Sergeant. He relaxed and said, “I took four RPG launchers and some ammo. I sat up there and shot the command tent and the supply tent. I must say that I was rather disappointed at the results of hitting the supply tent. Usually, there is a much bigger explosion than that.”

The Sergeant stared fixedly at Oscar for a minute. He barked, “Everyone, form up and let’s get back to camp.”

Oscar asked, “Do you mind if I get my Hummer?”

The Sergeant ordered, “Come with me and we’ll pick it up later.”

Oscar nodded and headed up the hill to where he had been. The Sergeant shouted, “Get back here, Foo.”

Oscar ignored him as he went to where he had dropped his cloak. Bending down and picking up his cloak, he put it on before heading down the hill. He reached the Sergeant and said, “That’s Private Oscar Meyers, Sergeant.”

The Sergeant stared at Oscar and shook his head. He could see that the man had changed in some significant way. It was hard to believe that Oscar had gone up the hill and back without tripping. There had been none of his normal accidents, he spoke with assurance, and looked him in the eye. He ordered, “Come with us, Private.”

Oscar shrugged and replied, “Yes, Sergeant. I might add that I have video tapes of the people killed in about six terrorist camps and the laptop computers from those same camps. The only one that I didn’t get any data on was the site where some poison gas was stored.”

The Sergeant froze in mid-step at the news that Oscar was claiming that he had destroyed the camp where the WMD had been stored. He turned in slow motion and asked, “You were the one that blew up the WMD site in Iran?”

“I have no idea where it was located. There weren’t any national boundaries on my map. I just followed the directions there and took it out.”

The Sergeant called to one of the other men in the squad, “Peterson, take the squad back to camp.”

Peterson replied, “yes, Sergeant.”

“Take me to your Hummer.”

The Sergeant followed Oscar as he moved across the rugged terrain. Much to his surprise, he was having a hard time keeping up with the sure-footed private. Oscar had to stop several times to wait for him to catch up. They had just reached a spot overlooking the Hummer when Oscar said, “Hold on. We need to get down.”

The Sergeant lowered himself to the ground. The rocks pressed unpleasantly against his buttocks. He looked around and didn’t see anything. He looked over at Oscar who was staring at the horizon. Even as close as they were, he realized that Oscar was almost invisible among the rocks. Oscar said, “There are three trucks over there coming from a terrorist camp that’s located about twenty klicks to the east. They are either heading here, in which case we need to get ready for a fight or they are heading to a weapons cache.”

As the Sergeant reached for his radio he said, “I’ll call in supporting aircraft.”

Oscar, holding up a hand, interrupted, “We only need to do that if they head this way.”

“Why?” asked the Sergeant. He was finding the new Oscar rather difficult. The man was on top of the situation like a real veteran. It appeared to him that Oscar knew more about desert warfare than any of the other men in the unit knew. He observed things and acted immediately on those observations. The dust plumes were still very small specks on the horizon. He found himself talking to Oscar like a peer rather than as a Sergeant to a Private.

“They’ll all die if they go to the weapons cache.” Oscar watched the dust plumes with total focus. He smiled when he realized that they were heading to the weapons cache. He sat back and said, “Watch what happens now.”

The Sergeant looked at Oscar in disbelief. He turned to watch the dust plumes. They slowly dissipated. About a minute later, a huge plume of dust rose in the air. He could hear the distant explosion as a very small pop. Oscar turned to him and said, “Very nice. I booby trapped it two days ago. Looks like I did a good job.”

The Sergeant nodded as he watched the dust rise higher in the air. It had been a major explosion and he was impressed as he said, “Yes, it does.”

Oscar stood and headed to the Hummer. When he reached it, he opened the passenger side door to remove the stuff on the seat and put it in the back seat. The Sergeant watched as Oscar pulled out an RPG launcher with a grenade and another rifle. When the Sergeant came over, Oscar explained, “Sorry, I didn’t expect to have any passengers.”

The Sergeant examined the back of the Hummer and whistled. He said, “You’ve got an arsenal in there.”

Oscar shrugged and replied, “I’ve been borrowing weapons from the enemy. Can’t ever have too much except when it is more than you can carry. Funny how excited they get when I return them.”

The Sergeant nodded at the black humor and then caught his first full whiff of Oscar. The man stunk to high heaven and he said, “You need to take a shower man.”

Oscar laughed and said, “I know. I smell like those guys laying on the ground back there. I need to change out of this uniform. I’ve been living it ever since I was separated from my unit. I also need to eat something. I’ve been living off of Russian rations, and they really suck.”

The Sergeant thought about what Oscar must have been through over the past month. “When we get back to camp, we can arrange all of that.”

Oscar replied, “Thank you, Sergeant.”

Oscar drove to camp following the directions provided by the Sergeant. It wasn’t that long of a trip since he was able to drive directly there. He did think that the Sergeant was about to get sick because of his odor. All of the windows that hadn’t been shot out were down to get fresh air into the truck.

He pulled into camp and exited from the Hummer, stretching as he looked around at all of the people in his unit. He looked at each person and realized that they didn’t intimidate him any more. The camp was huge with a mess tent and a supply tent. His eyes automatically searched out ways that the camp could be attacked.

The Sergeant looked around and pointed out a tent. He said, “There’s a spare bed in there.”

Oscar nodded and said, “I’m afraid that all of my gear was lost. It was blown up in my first engagement.”

The Sergeant said, “Get to supply tent and get what you need from the Sergeant there. Then get washed and fed. I’ll be in the Colonel’s office briefing him.”

Oscar opened a door of the Hummer and reached in. He pulled out a stack of laptops and the video camera. He handed them to the Sergeant and said, “Here’s the intelligence that I’ve gathered.”

Oscar headed off to the supply tent to get a fresh uniform and other supplies. He entered and strode up to the Supply Sergeant. The man took one whiff of him and handed him a clean uniform. He said, “Get clean, then come back here.”

Oscar turned and left the supply tent with a clean uniform. He walked around looking for the showers. He finally stopped someone and asked, “Where are the showers?”

The other private pointed to a tent and said, “On the other side of that tent.”

Oscar walked to the other side of the tent; smelling the water in the air he was able to go directly to the tent with the showers. Walking in, he smiled at the thought of being clean for the first time in a long time. He stripped and turned on the water making sure that it was hot. In minutes, the floor beneath him was running with mud. He looked down at the floor, surprised that all of that dirt had come off him. He also noticed his cock for the first time, staring at it for a second shocked by the size of it. He told the wall, “The women are going to love that.”

He lathered up and washed his hair. He had a thick growth of beard, but didn’t have a razor on hand. The fact that the water ran gray when he rinsed forced him to wash a second time checking to make sure the water ran clear when he was done. Finished with his shower, he took a few minutes to stand under the hot water enjoying the feeling of it running over his body. Finally, shutting the water off and stepping out of the stall, he dried himself with a towel and looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look any different other than the beard and unruly hair, but he felt different.

Dressing in the new uniform, he put on the cloak and picked up the old uniform. He went to the tent the Sergeant had pointed out and put the uniform at the foot of the bed. He’d find out what to do with it later. He searched the pockets of the old uniform and put the items in his new uniform. It was only when he pulled out the map that he realized he had forgotten to give it to the Sergeant.

It was lunchtime by the time he exited his tent. He went into the mess hall and joined the end of the line. Most people didn’t even take notice of him; he was just another private waiting for lunch. The line progressed fairly quickly and he eyed the food ravenously. Too long of a time spent living off Russian rations was about to end with a feast.

Oscar was still pretty far back in the line when two men in Special Forces uniforms came into the mess hall. They pushed their way into the middle of the line, intimidating the regular forces. Infuriated, Oscar stepped out of line and went to them. Despite the fact that they outranked him, he ordered, “Apologize to everyone here and then get in the back of the line.”

The two men looked down at him and laughed. One of them asked, “What are you going to do about it?”

Oscar looked up at the man and stared him straight in the eye. In an even tone of voice that showed no fear, he answered, “I’ll cut your balls off and fry them for my lunch.”

The other people in line started backing away. Both men towered over Oscar and tried to look intimidating, but with no luck. The one he had answered looked down at him with anger flashing in his eyes. He said, “I’d like to see you do that.”

Oscar turned and headed towards the door. A number of people breathed a sigh of relief until he called out, “Come on, mister tough guy. Let’s see if you can push me around.”

The two men followed him out of the mess tent. Oscar turned and faced them. He was calm and relaxed. One of the big guys said, “Come on. You don’t expect us to fight you. You’re a shrimp.”

Chapter 4 »