More Than Courage (14 page)
Authors: Harold Coyle
Tags: #Fiction, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #Espionage
Aveno found himself wondering if Burman's head injuries were severe enough to cause temporary or permanent brain damage.
At the moment there was no way of telling. It would be only when his commanding officer recovered consciousness that he would be able to ascertain if his mental facilities were impaired,, and to what extent. After that, only the passage of time would clarify whether Burma'n would recover fully from his injuries.
Even after Burman came to, Aveno doubted if he'd be able to resume command right away. That would mean he himself would have to continue as the acting CO. The surviving members of the team would have no choice but to rely on him for leadership and inspiration.
This realization caused Aveno to look out the rear of the Cargo truck he was in past the four Syrian guards seated on either
side of the open flap. Shrouded in dust being thrown up by his ehicle was a second Chinese-made truck. Three other members ¦9* Kilo were in that truck.
As he was lying bound and gagged on
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the ground in the village square Aveno had watched helplessly as Kannen, Davis, and Mendez were dragged to the rear of that truck by Syrian soldiers and tossed in. Only Kannen managed to make eye contact with him. Though it was still quite dark and Kannen was twenty meters away, he managed to convey an intense anger and loathing that Aveno felt sure was meant for him and not their captors.
Closing his eyes, Aveno rested his head against the truck's canvas side. Why had Kannen glared at him like that? Aveno had only been in command for the briefest of time. He'd done all he could given his circumstances. He had tried to sort out the confusing, complex nightmare as best he could and given the only orders that made sense. While his actions hadn't been particularly heroic, he suspected that he had managed to save two of the humvees and some of the men.
So why had Kannen been angry at him>. What did he expect? Did he expect me to reach into my rucksack and pull out a miracle
that would save them from the Syrian BRDMs? Aveno found himself wondering. Or perform a grand sacrifice that would inspire him and the others? Perhaps, Aveno thought, that was what Bur man had been doing when the Syrians had overpowered him, engaging in a valiant and noble effort by fighting them tooth and nail before they overpowered him. Had Burman's resistance motivated and inspired the pair of spec fours with Kilo Six? Had his sacrifice allowed them to escape? Or had his resistance been for naught, a futile display of bravado that had cost him dearly?
Aveno had no way of knowing this for sure. Looking at Bur man again, he wondered if he would ever know. The one thing that the Special Forces officer did know was that he wasn't capable of miracles or grand sacrifices. Perhaps Kannen already knew that maybe that was why the team's senior NCO had used his brief eye contact to display a feeling of intense anger that pierced him like a shot in the heart.
Opening his eyes, Aveno looked back at the truck following his once more. After all his long years of preparation, after four MORE THAN COURAGE
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years of West Point, Infantry Officers' basic training, and the long, grueling ordeal that every volunteer for the Special Forces has to endure before he has the right to wear the coveted Green Beret, he'd had but one chance to do something meaningful, to do something important. Just one chance. And somehow, he'd blown it. Now all he had left to look forward to was pain, suffering, and shame.
The arrival of a black Mercedes limousine escorted by a pair of Russian-built Gaz jeeps caused a stir in the village marketplace.
The civilian inhabitants withdrew into the shadows while Syrian officers began shouting at their soldiers to straighten up and salute as the Mercedes came to an abrupt halt. The two guards who flanked Yousaf Hashmi, who had been seated against the wall, jumped to their feet and assumed a position of rigid attention.
Hashmi casually looked around the market place and saw that everyone's eyes were riveted on the limousine, not on him or Specialist Four Insram Amer. Also sensing that he was no longer being watched, Amer stopped digging in the waist-high hole he stood in. For the briefest of moments, the two American soldiers looked at each other. Both saw that the other had suffered severe beatings that had left their faces bruised and swollen. Amer seemed to be the worse for the wear, with one eye so puffy he couldn't see out of it.
Amer's turning to Hashmi was how it had always been between them. Since the first day Amer joined Burman's team, the young Muslim had looked to the older, American-born Arab for guidance and solace. This was partly due to their shared cultural customs. But mostly it was a feeling of separation from the fest of Kilo. It was more than a matter of their swarthy complexlons
and the manner in which they showed their devotions to their
^od. Even the most liberal-minded team member looked upon them as foreigners even though Hashmi was born in America and Anier had been raised in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.
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Hashmi and Amer had long ago accepted that they would have to deal with this sort of thing for the rest of their lives. It was only their hope that their children would one day be perceived as regular Americans that kept them working to achieve the American dream.
During this interlude Hashmi nodded at Amer in the same reassuring way his father had done when his children were distressed or frightened. Understanding his gesture, Amer straightened up, his face relaxing into an expression of tranquility and confidence.
Turning away, Hashmi watched the driver of the Mercedes spring from his seat and scamper around the vehicle to open the right rear door. Taking his time as befit a man of his importance, a Syrian colonel slowly emerged. Hashmi was disappointed. He'd expected at least a general. Then he silently laughed at his own foolishness. He was thinking too much like an American. "We ain't in Kansas no more, Toto," he whispered.
Hashmi's whisper caught the attention of one of his guards, who punished his impudence with a single quick swing of the butt of his Kalashnikov against the side of Hashmi's head. The action caught the attention of the newly arrived Syrian colonel, who was being briefed by the commander of the local garrison. The colonel silenced the garrison commander, and looked at Hashmi.
As Hashmi recovered from the unexpected blow, he realized that he was now the object of the colonel's attention. He studied the colonel and realized that he was not the sort of man who cared to be trifled with. He had that look that could send chills down another man's spine. With a cold smile and his gaze firmly fixed on Hashmi, the colonel started walking toward him.
Immediately the pair of guards braced themselves as if they anticipated being smacked about for their prisoner's misconduct.
Hashmi concentrated on recovering from the butt stroke while resisting every effort the guards made to get him up onto his feet.
Though a prisoner, Hashmi was determined to give nothing to the people who had murdered his uncles.
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The Syrian colonel came to a halt before the seated American and ordered the two guards to cease their efforts and back away.
The colonel took his time as he studied Hashmi. When he finally spoke, it was almost a whisper. "You have been with the Americans too long. Their arrogance has rubbed off on you."
Though he understood the colonel's Arabic and could have responded in kind, Hashmi used English tainted with a slight New York accent. "Joseph Hashmi. Sergeant. One hundred fifty nine- for ty- two - seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-six."
"Yes, of course. Name, rank, and service number." Bending slightly at the waist, the colonel patted Hashmi on the check as an affectionate father would do to a small child. "Sergeant Hashmi, you do not disappoint me." ,
The Syrian colonel straightened up, looked at the garrison commander and nodded. The commander marched to the hole that Amer had been digging. Instinctively Amer's guards came to attention. The garrison commander barked orders that Hashmi at first thought he'd misunderstood. One guard snatched the shovel out of Amer's hand, while the other brought his Kalashnikov up to his shoulder before lowering its muzzle until it was within inches of Amer's forehead.
Hashmi watched in stunned disbelief as both Americans realized what was about to happen. Sensing that he had but one chance to get this right, Amer snapped to a position of attention.
Closing his eyes, he titled his face to the heavens above, and raising his1 voice in prayer. "Allah be prais.ed." Then, opening his eyes, the son of Palestinian refugees glared at his executioner and bellowed,
"God bless America!" before the Syrian guard could pull the trigger.
Ml
Fort Chaffee, Arkansas
21:20 LOCAL (01:20 ZULU)
With the last of their evaluations finished and an arduous training cycle at Fort Chaffee winding down, it was time for the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment to gather his officers together and troop them off to the officers club to celebrate the conclusion of another successful exercise. Seated in the center of a long row of tables that had been shoved together in a haphazard and thoroughly unmilitary fashion, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Shaddock sipped his beer and listened intently as his command sergeant major spun the sort of tale that had gained him notoriety throughout the special ops community.
This particular yarn concerned Shaddock himself. It told of an incident when he had been a strapping young second lieutenant and Command Sergeant Major John Harris had been a newly minted staff sergeant doing time in Korea. "The day before the colonel, then Second Lieutenant Shaddock, arrived, Gus Franklin, our platoon sergeant, told us that we were to keep our mouths shut and let the new LT do his thing so long as he wasn't threatening to hurt anyone."
From the end of the table a captain who was a bit further along the path to inebriation, groaned. "Now, there's a tall order for you."
After a round of laughter died away, Harris continued. "The colonel, then Second Lieutenant Shaddock, reported for duty in the late afternoon just as we were preparing for stand-to. Well, having been told at the Fort Benning School for Lost Boys that 114
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you needed to hit the ground running when you were given a platoon, the colonel, then Second Lieutenant Shaddock, decided that this was an excellent time to inspect his platoon. Now, as luck would have it, he arrives at my bunker just as one of my biggest foul-ups is in the midst of making a circuit test on a Claymore mine."
Seated next to Shaddock, Major Ben Casalane, the battalion's executive officer, rolled his eyes. "Oh, Lordy, I see where we're going on this one."
Again Harris paused until the laughter died away. "As I was saying, on seeing that this man was having some difficulty with his basic hand-eye coordination, our newly arrived platoon leader seized the occasion to demonstrate his proficiency in the art of war. With a voice that he must have practiced for weeks, the colonel, then Second Lieutenant Shaddock, walks over to the soldier, orders him to hand over the clacker and the wire running to the mine, and states, 'Here, let me show you how to make a circuit test.' The colonel, then Second Lieutenant Shaddock, jammed his end of the wire into the clacker, flipped off the safety, and squeezed the clacker."
Every officer and staff NCO of the Ranger battalion roared as they pictured the scene. Standing up, Harris made like he was holding the triggering mechanism of a Claymore mine. "He just stood there, eyes bigger than saucers holding the clacker at arm's 1!'' length like a viper while he watched the dust and dirt kicked up by the mine he had just set off drift away like his career. Everyone in the bunker looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Everyone, that is, except the soldier, who the colonel, then Second Lieutenant Shaddock, had taken the clacker away from. The soldier
reaches into his pocket, pulls out the circuit tester, and offers it to his new platoon leader, saying, 'You might want to use this next time, sir. I always found it helps keep that sort of thing from happening.' Well, wouldn't you know who gets blamed for this.
The man who actually set the Claymore off? Noooo! Gus and me!
We spent the next two days going before every sergeant major MORE THAN COURAGE
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and commanding officer in our chain of command to receive the most protracted ass chewing in recorded military history."
Another NCO yelled to Harris over the chorus of laughter.
"So what was the colonel doing while you were being counseled?"
"Yes, well," Harris replied with a twinkle in his eye. "While Gus and I were having our prostate glands massaged, the colonel, then Second Lieutenant Shaddock, was touring the entire division, inventorying every Claymore assigned to it."
Shaddock rose to his feet. "And I must say," he shouted above the roar, "it was the most comprehensive and accurate inventory of Claymores in the entire history of the Second Infantry Division."
Having defended his honor as best he could, Shaddock raised his bottle of beer. The assembled leadership of the 1st of the 75th corralled their own drinks in preparation for the toast that their commanding officer was about to make. When he had their undivided attention, Shaddock scanned the faces of the officers and NCOs who served under him. "For the past two weeks you have been put to the test, and pronounced the best." This statement unleashed a new round of hoorahs, whistling, and the pounding of hands and bottles on tabletops.
After letting his men hoot and holler, Shaddock called for quiet. "This success did not come easy. Like everything else worth having, each and every one of you paid for this battalion's achievements through hard work and dedication. For this, I thank' you."
Befitting the tone of their colonel's speech, the response this time was a more sedate clapping of hands and light rapping of bottles on tabletops. "Now that you've had a moment to bask in your glory, hear an atta-boy from the old man, and enjoy the fruits of your success, it is my duty remind you that the first elements are scheduled to depart at oh-five-thirty in the morning. So finish up your drinks, listen to another one of Sergeant Major John Harris's tall stories if you must, and then get some sleep."