Black Hawk Down (33 page)

Beside Stebbins, a burst of rounds hit Heard's M-60, disabling it permanently. Heard drew
his 9-mm handgun and fired it. Squinting down the alley west into the setting sun,
Stebbins could see the white shirts of Somali fighters. There were dozens of them. Groups
would come running out and fire volleys up the alley, and then duck back behind cover.
Over his right shoulder, across Marehan Road and down the alley, he could hear the rescue
guys hammering at the wreck, still trying to free Wolcott's body. The sky overheard was
getting darker, and there was still no sign of the ground convoy. They had actually seen
the vehicles drive past just a few blocks west about an hour earlier. Where were they?

Everyone dreaded the approaching darkness. One distinct advantage U.S. soldiers had
wherever they fought was their night-vision technology, their NOD. (Night Observation
Devices), but they had left them back at the hangar. The NODS were worn draped around the
neck when not in use, and weighed probably less than a pound, but they were clumsy,
annoying, and very fragile. It was an easy choice to leave them behind on a daylight
mission. Now the force faced the night thirsty, tired, bleeding, running low on ammo, and
without one of their biggest technological advantages. Stebbins, the company clerk, gazed
out at the giant orange ball easing behind buildings to the west and had visions of a pot
of fresh-brewed coffee out there somewhere waiting for him.

The Little Birds had the lay of the land well enough now to be making regular gun runs,
and were doing a lot to keep at bay the Somalis crowded around the neighborhood. The tiny
helicopters came swooping in at almost ground level, flying between buildings with their
miniguns ablaze. It was an amazing sight. The rockets make a ripping sound and then shook
the ground with their blasts. Twombly was admiring one such run when Sergeant Barton told
him the pilots wore still calling for more markers on the road to better outline the
American positions.

“You're going to take this thing,” said Barton, holding up a fluorescent orange plastic
triangle, “and drop it right out there,” pointing to the middle of the road.

Twombly didn't want to go. There was so much lead flying through that road that it felt
like suicide to venture from cover, much less run out to the middle. It crossed his mind
to refuse Barton's order, but just as quickly he rejected that. If he didn't do it,
somebody else would have to. That wouldn't be fair. He had volunteered to be a Ranger, he
couldn't back out now just because things had gotten rough. He grabbed the orange triangle
angrily, ran out a few steps, and flung it toward the center of the road. He dove back to
cover.

“That won't do it,” Barton shouted at him, He explained that the rotor wash from the birds
on their gun runs would blow the marker away.

“You have to secure it, put a rock on it.”

Furious now, and terribly frightened, Twombly put his head down and ran out into the road
again.

Nelson remembers feeling moved by his friend's courage. The second Twombly took off again
there was shooting on the street and so much dust kicked up Nelson couldn't see him.
That's the last time I'll ever see Twombly. But moments later the big man from New
Hampshire came clomping back in, swearing fluently, unscathed.

An old man stumbled out from behind a wall wildly firing an AK. Rangers from all three
corners were pointing guns at this man, who looked frail and had a shock of white hair and
a long bushy white beard that was stained greenish on both sides of his mouth, presumably
from khat. He was evidently drunk or stoned or so high that he didn't know what was
happening. His rounds were so off target the Rangers watching him at first were just
stunned, and then laughed. The old man made a stumbling turn and fired a round into the
wall, far from any targets. Twombly flattened him with a burst from his SAW.

They saw strange sights as the fight wore on. In the midst of cascading gunfire, Private
David Floyd watched a gray dove land in the middle of Marehan Road. The bird scratched at
the dirt nonchalantly and strutted a few feet up the road seemingly oblivious to the fury
around it. Then it flew away. Floyd wistfully watched it go. A donkey pulling a wagon
wandered across the intersection up the hill, through one of the heaviest fields of fire
(near where Fillmore had been killed), and crossed the road unscathed, then came trotting
back out again minutes later, clearly confused and disoriented. It was comical. Nobody
could believe the donkey hadn't been hit. Ed Yurek watched with pity, and amazement. God
loves that donkey. Closer to the wrecked helicopter, a woman kept running out into the
alley, screaming and pointing toward the house at the southeast corner of the intersection
where many of the wounded had been moved. No one shot at her. She was unarmed. But every
time she stepped back behind cover a wicked torrent of fire would be unleashed where she
pointed. After she'd done this twice, one of the D-boys behind the tail of Super Six One
said, “If that bitch comes back, I'm going to shoot her.”

Captain Coultrop nodded his approval. She did, and the D-boy shot her down on the street.

Then there was the woman in a blue turban, a powerful woman with thick arms and legs who
came sprinting across the road carrying a heavy basket in both arms. She was wearing a
bright blue-and-white dress that billowed behind her as she ran. Every Ranger at the
intersection blasted her. Twombly, Nelson, Yurek, and Stebbins all opened up.

Howe fired on her from farther up the hill. First she stumbled, but kept on going. Then,
as more rounds hit her, she fell and RPGs spilled out of her basket onto the street. The
shooting stopped. She had been hit by many rounds and lay in a heap in the dirt for a long
moment, breathing heavily. Then the woman pulled herself up on all fours, grabbed an RPG
round, and crawled. This time the massive Ranger volley literally tore her apart. A fat
203 round blew off one of her legs. She fell in a bloody lump for a few moments, then
moved again. Another massive burst of rounds rained on her and her body came further
apart. It was appalling, yet some of the Rangers laughed. To Nelson the woman no longer
even looked like a human being; she'd been transformed into a monstrous bleeding hulk,
like something from a horror movie. Later, just before it got dark, he looked back over.
There was a large pool of blood on the street, blood and clothing and the basket, but the
RPG rounds and what remained of the woman were gone.

When the sun had slipped behind the buildings to the west, shadow fell over the alley and
it became easier for Stebbins and Heard to find the Sammies who were shooting at them from
windows and doorways. Their muzzle flashes gave their positions away clearly. Stebbins
squeezed off rounds carefully, trying to conserve ammo. Heard was shooting now with an
M-16. Nearly deaf, he tapped Stubbins on the shoulder and shouted, “Stub, I just want you
to know in case we don't get out of this, I think you're doing a great job.”

Then the ground around them shook. Stebbins heard a shattering Kabang! Kabang! Kabang!
The sound of big rounds smashing into the stone wall of the corner where they had taken
cover. He was engulfed in smoke. The wall that had been their shield for more than an hour
began to come apart. Somebody with a big gun down the alley had zeroed-in on them, and was
just taking down their position. After the first shattering volley, Stebbins stepped out
into the alley and returned fire at the window where he had seen the muzzle flash. Then he
ducked back behind his corner, took a knee, and kept placing rounds in the same place.

Kabang! Kabang! Kabang! Three more ear-shattering rounds hit the corner again and
Stebbins was knocked backward and flat on his ass. It was as though someone had pulled him
from behind with a rope. He felt no pain, just a shortness of breath. The explosions or
the way he had slammed into the ground had sucked the air right out of him. He was dazed
and covered once again with white powder from the pulverized mortar of the wall. He felt
angry. The son of a bitch almost killed me!

“You okay, Stebby? You okay?” asked Heard.

“I'm fine, Brian. Good to go.”

Stebbins stood up, infuriated, cursing at full throttle as he stepped back out into the
alley and resumed firing at the window.

Sergeant Howe, the Delta team leader, watched with amazement from farther up the street.
He couldn't believe the Ranger didn't have the good sense to find better cover.

To Nelson, it looked like somebody had flipped a switch inside Stebbins. For the second
time that hour he thought Stebbins had been killed. But the mild-mannered office clerk
bounced back up. He was a changed man, a wild animal; dancing around, shooting like a
madman. Nelson, Twombly, Barton, and Yurek were all shooting now at the same window, when
there came a whooosh and a cracking explosion and both Stebbins and Heard screamed and
disappeared in a ball of flame.

That's it for Brian and Stebby.

Stebbins woke up flat on his back again. He had the same feeling as before, like he'd
been punched in the solar plexus. He gasped for air and tasted dust and smoke. Up through
the swirl he saw darkening blue sky and two clouds. Then Heard's face came swimming into
view.

“Stebby, you okay? You okay, Stebby?”

“Yup, Brian. I'm okay,” he said. “Just let me lay here for a couple of seconds.”

“Okay.”

This time, as he gathered his thoughts, common sense intruded. They needed help at this
spot. More of the corner had been blown away. Stebbins figured he'd been hit in the chest
by stones flying off the wall, enough to knock him over and out, but not enough to
penetrate his body armor and seriously hurt him. The Sammies had set up some kind of
crew-served weapon and it was going to take more than an M-16 to silence it. As he got
back up, he heard Barton across the alley radioing for help. Then a voice came from ear
level, right behind Stebbins. One of the D-boys was in the window of the corner building,
the same window Nelson had fired at earlier. The voice sounded cool, like a surfer's.

“Where's this guy shooting from, dude?”

Stebbins pointed out the window.

“All right, we've got it covered. Keep your heads down.”

From inside the building, the Delta marksman fired three 203 rounds, dropping them right
into the targeted window. There was an enormous blast inside the building. Stebbins
figured the round had detonated some kind of ammo cache, because there was a flash
throughout the first floor of the building too bright and loud for a 203 round. After that
it went dark. Black smoke poured from the window.

It got quiet. Stebbins and Heard and the guys across the alley shouted their
congratulations to the D-boy for the impressive shot. Back on one knee a little farther
behind the chewed-up wall, Stebbins watched some lights flick on in the distance and was
reminded that they were in the middle of a big city, and that in some parts of the city
life was proceeding normally. There were fires burning somewhere back toward the Olympic
Hotel, where they had roped in. It seemed like ages ago. He thought now that it was dark,
maybe the Sammies would all put down their weapons and go home, and he and his buddies
could walk back to the hangar and call it a night. Wouldn't that be nice?

A voice shouted across the intersection that everyone was to retreat back toward the bird.
As darkness fell, the force was going to move indoors. One by one, the men on his comet
sprinted across the intersection. Stebbins and Heard waited their turn. The volume of fire
had died down.

Okay, the big part of the war is over.

Stebbins then heard a whistling sound, and turned in time to see what looked like a rock
hurtling straight at him. It was going to hit his head. He ducked and turned his helmet
toward the missile, and then he vanished in fire and light.

5

Sergeant Fales, the wounded PJ, got a radio call for a medic. They needed somebody fast
across the wide intersection west of the downed helicopter. Private Rodriguez was bleeding
badly from the gunshot wound to his crotch.

The men were all falling back into the various casualty collection points. The medic Kurt
Schmid was in the courtyard up the road working on Corporal Smith. No one on the other
side of Marehan Road had the skills to deal with an injury as severe as Rodriguez's. Fales
was propped up behind the Kevlar plates near the tail boom of the helicopter, his hastily
bandaged leg stretched out useless before him.

His buddy Tim Wilkinson, who was working on some of the wounded alongside him, had been
making him laugh. The two air force medics had long commiserated over how unlikely they
were to see real combat on this deployment. Wilkinson had just tapped Fales on the
shoulder as the bullets flew overhead and said, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Wilkinson was still working under the impression that the ground convoy (long since
returned broken and bleeding to base) was going to arrive at any moment.

He felt his job was to get all the wounded patched up and on litters, ready to be loaded
up as soon as the trucks arrived. When he'd instructed Fales to get on a stretcher earlier
that afternoon, the master sergeant had balked.

“Hey, you know the deal. Get on!” Wilkinson insisted.

Fales had climbed on reluctantly and had been strapped down, but as time wore on and the
vehicles didn't show, Fales worked himself free of the straps, retrieved his weapon, and
resumed firing. Now he heard the call from across the street.

“They need a medic, Wilky.”

Bullets and RPG rounds formed a deadly barrier between their position and the men across
Marehan Road. Wilkinson folded up his medical kit and moved toward the intersection. Then
he stopped. If he was afraid, he had simply filed the emotion away. Ever since the rounds
had peppered the inside of the helicopter, filling it with a little snowstorm of dust and
debris, Wilkinson had just stopped worrying about bullets and focused on his job, which
was demanding enough to block out everything else. He worked quickly and with purpose.
There were more things to do than he could get done. It was as though he couldn't think
about both things, about both the danger and the work. So he concentrated on the work. Now
he turned to his friend and deadpanned an absurd and deliberately cinematic request.