Prologue

Around 2300 hours, the night of 17 Nov 08, Achmed Tergazzi, a twelve-year-old boy, located and removed a thin sheet of scrap sheet metal that was covering a hole about a foot and a half deep and perhaps a foot in diameter. He then turned to the piece of plywood he had dragged to the site with a rope and rolled the old artillery shell off of it, levering it into the hole, point up. He performed the other operations the men had taught him how to do, put the metal sheet back in place, covered it with the dry dirt that had been on top of it, and retraced his steps, brushing the marks he'd made out of the dirt.

At 2317 hours, 17 Nov 08, Achmed pushed open the sagging door of an abandoned house and called out softly. He was answered and a candle was lit.

"I did as you told me to," he said to a shadowy adult form. "Where is my sister? I must take her home now."

"Tell me exactly what you did," said the man.

Achmed described his actions. The man pulled out a cell phone and pushed buttons. He grunted.

"You did well. All appears to be working."

"My sister," said Achmed, his voice shaking. "You promised I could take her home if I did what you said."

"Yes," said the man.

He pulled a pistol from the shadows and shot Achmed three times in the chest.

At 0830 hours, 18 Nov 08, Irwanna Husseini left her house hoping to get to the market safely, buy some food, and return to her home. She saw the two bodies before she had gone a block. One was of a boy, perhaps twelve, and the other a girl, a little older. Both were obviously dead, so she passed around them. If there was a policeman at the market she would tell him of the bodies. She could not know they were Achmed and his sister, or that the young woman had been repeatedly raped before she was strangled. No one would ever know, except the men who did it. There would be no autopsy. The parents of the children would never know what had happened to them, because the people who eventually came and took the bodies away didn't try to identify them. They were just added to the group of unidentified victims of the American war and would, within seventy-two hours, be buried in a common grave with all the others.

At precisely 1303 hours, 18 Nov 08, the man who had shot Achmed watched, his finger poised above the cell phone in his hand, as the convoy approached the place where the IED was buried. None of the true believers had been risked to place this one. The helicopters, with their night vision devices and spitting chin cannon, made that too dangerous. But the kidnapping of the girl, and the false promises to the boy had gotten the IED in place, and that was all that mattered. Now the glory of Allah would be served as the infidels were punished for soiling Iraq with their foreign presence.

He let two vehicles pass by before he punched the last button in the number that would set the artillery shell off.

The Stryker next to the IED, when it went off, weighed 36,240 pounds, fully loaded with three crew and nine troops aboard, plus all the associated gear and ammunition. It was armored and could withstand the vast majority of munitions that could be expected to be flung against it.

But not an artillery shell only six feet away.

Still, the crew compartment remained intact as it was blown free of the shredded vehicle, landing some fourteen feet from where it had been only seconds before. The smoke, dust and debris from the explosion blanketed an area twenty-five feet further out than that, but one piece of red hot metal ejected from the cloud was all the bomber needed to see to know that Allah had punished the invaders. He turned and left quickly, knowing that the retribution of the Great Satan could be swift and thorough.

The attempt to recover survivors and bodies was hampered by .50 Cal M2 and Mark 19 40mm grenade ammunition cooking off in the fire that was attempting to consume everything it could reach. A second Stryker bulldozed the crew compartment out of the fire and then went on, to make sure it wasn't exposed to the heat too long itself. Helicopters appeared overhead, circling like eagles, looking for prey. An armored HMMWV ambulance screamed up to the smoking crew compartment as soldiers attempted to pry the access ports open.

Once access was gained, bodies were lifted out. Some went on the ground, abandoned almost immediately. Others went on the side of the ambulance away from the smoking crater, where medics hovered, trying to save lives. Eventually eight bodies were stacked into two ambulances, which left at high speed, on rocking springs. Four bodies, now contained in black body bags, left the scene for another destination.

The remainder of the convoy formed up, drove around the debris, and continued on the mission.

Chapter 1 »