The Severance (7 page)

“What the fuck was that?” he bellowed, ears ringing.

“Recoilless rifle!” Nelson shouted back.

Jake could hear machine gun fire. It was Cooper and Mosby shooting at where they thought the round had originated. The other positions had no safe angle from which to engage and therefore they had to sit helplessly, waiting for orders.

“That shit landed at the base of the goddamned wall just below us!” Big Joe yelled.

Another blast rocked their position, this one not as bad. Jake could at least see the explosion and knew that the round had landed short. Big Joe began spraying into the night with bursts from his carbine, until Jake ordered him to stop wasting his ammunition. Nelson grabbed the M240 and looked through the thermal scope, hoping to put accurate fire on the now-confirmed hostiles. The scope was not working. He quickly looked at the front of the scope and saw what the problem was—the concussive force of the first explosion had shattered the front lens.

“We’re blind up here, Sir!” Nelson said. Below him, Jake could now hear soldiers struggling to climb up to the perimeter wall to help defend the outpost.

“Get the fuck up there! Go, Go, Go!” Sergeant Lopez screamed, as he pushed soldiers up the ladder.

A third round impacted and detonated just to the left of the main gate to the compound, closer to Cooper and Mosby’s position. Soldiers taking up defensive positions along the wall were knocked off their feet and struggled to right themselves. The enemy now opened up with a barrage of intense, small arms fire. Muzzle flashes flickered like fireflies as red tracers danced across the night sky. The Kodiak soldiers returned the volley with their own fire, aiming for the muzzle flashes as best they could.

“
Air Support inbound, Sir! On station in one five
mikes!”
McBride barked through the radio. Jake knew the platoon sergeant didn’t like being in the command post while the soldiers were taking fire, but there was no way that both of them could be on the wall at the same time and still control the fight properly.

“Fifteen minutes? Are they kidding?” Jake yelled over the din of battle.

“Negative. Best they can do. Said to hold out!”
McBride replied.

“Yeah, easier said!” Jake said, clipping the radio to his vest and grabbing his rifle. His soldiers were all crouched behind pre-positioned sandbag piles along the top of the wall, firing their weapons into the night. Most of them only had a vague idea where to aim. Luckily, the insurgents firing back at them were just as inaccurate. Another recoilless rifle round streaked across the night sky and over the outpost, missing it entirely. That massive weapon was the power player of the engagement. If that gun could score more than one hit in the same area along the perimeter, the insurgents could collapse a huge section of the wall and make a rush for the inside of the compound. The gun had to be taken out.

The trick was finding it and then putting accurate fire on it. In an era of satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles with powerful night optics, the concept of fighting at night without being able to see with near-perfect clarity was a foreign one. Even Jake, who liked to think of himself as “old school,” was perplexed. The rattle of dozens of automatic weapons and the crack of bullets as they passed by made it hard to think clearly. The only solution he could think of was a crude one that lacked significant tactics.

“Sergeant Lopez!” Jake shouted, kicking the closest soldier in the thigh. The soldier realized his platoon leader was putting out a call and began crying out the NCO’s name. Soon, the call was echoing up the line and Jake could see the silhouette of a crouched figure scurrying toward him.

“Lopez here, Sir!” the NCO shouted. Jake pulled him down to his level behind a pile of sandbags.

“I want M203 parachute flares at 250 meters! Get a bead on the big gun and use two-zero-three grenades to kill it! Understand?” Jake yelled into his squad leader’s ear. Another heavy explosion rocked the compound.

“Got it, Sir!” Lopez said, nodding his head. A few minutes later, flares began igniting in the sky, illuminating the ground below. The first volley of flares ignited short of their intended range, as the soldiers were out of practice. The second volley was better, and after a few seconds, soldiers began to shout that they could see the enemy. Jake looked out and saw what he was looking for—the recoilless rifle. Even at over 200 meters and under flare light, Jake could easily identify the weapon. It was a SPG-9 73-mm. At one point, the devastating weapon had been the pride of the Russian Army. And Jake had never actually been on the wrong end of one.

An Afghan sat cross-legged behind the firing mechanism and another bent over the weapon with a round in hand, preparing to load it. The two insurgents looked up at the flares above them, momentarily stupefied.

Before Jake could shout for his soldiers to fire at the SPG-9, an M203 grenade impacted at the base of the gun’s tripod, killing both the gunner and loader instantly. It had been a lucky shot, as none of the following grenades was anywhere near as accurate. Other insurgents were identified and attacked with devastating machine gun and rifle fire.

Without the big gun, the insurgents’ will to fight was broken and they quickly broke off their attack and melted away into the night. Jake sat up and looked around him, panting for breath. For just a moment, everything was perfectly quiet and still. It was a tranquil moment and Jake wanted to remember and hold on to it.

“Medic!” The call sounded distant and childlike. It didn’t register with him that it was real; it was more like a dream.

“Medic!” The call came again, now louder. It was being echoed. Jake jumped to his feet and peered down the wall.

“Medic! Help! Petey’s hit! Petey’s hit!”

Jake struggled to get down the wall, stepping over, and sometimes on, prone soldiers. By the time he got to the source of the calls, Doc Ramirez was already working on the wounded soldier—Corporal Peter Harris.

“I need light. Get me some light!” Ramirez commanded.

“Please, Doc, you gotta save him! Please!” Private First Class Tim Parsons said, near tears.

“Parsons, calm down and get me some damn light!” Ramirez barked. A second later, other soldiers gathered around, shining their LED white lights down onto the medic and the wounded man.

“Parsons, what happened?” Jake asked.

“I d-don’t know! I was reloading my 249 and Petey j-just fell down on top of me,” Parsons cried out.

“Sir, he’s Urgent Surgical. We need to get him out of here, now,” Ramirez said, as he worked over Harris. Jake snatched the handheld radio off his vest.

“McBride, we need a Medevac flight in here. Call it in. Harris is hit—Urgent Surgical,”

“Roger that. Keep me advised,”
McBride responded calmly. Jake knew that it took everything McBride had to remain collected while one of his soldiers was badly hurt.

“Doc, what’s going on?” Jake asked.

“Bullet hit him just below the armpit. Missed the vest completely. At least one lung is collapsed. He’s messed up real bad, Sir,” Ramirez replied.

“Doc, please save him. Don’t let him die!” Parsons shouted through sudden sobs.

“Parsons, I’m trying. Please be quiet.” Ramirez said.

Jake looked at the injured man for the first time. Under the cold, antiseptic LED lights, Harris’ blood looked almost black. His face was smeared with blood and grime and there was only a hint of life in his eyes. He was wearing his lucky lime green Led Zeppelin T-shirt, now dark with blood. Abruptly, as if struck by some form of invisible lightning, he began to convulse.

“Christ, he’s crashing. I’m losing him!” Ramirez said, beginning chest compressions and rescue breaths. Parsons began to wail. One of the others soldiers tried to pull Parsons away, but the hysterical soldier would not budge.

“Update on the Medevac?” Jake transmitted into the radio.

“Medevac will be wheels down on the LZ in one eight
mikes. CAS will be on station in six mikes and has been re-
tasked to cover Medevac exfil. Update on Harris?”

“He’s crashing. Tell them to get the lead out on those choppers,” Jake said, while Ramirez compressed Harris’s chest with all his might. There was a long pause between Jake’s transmission and McBride’s response.

“Medevac can be here in one four minutes. That’s the
fastest they can push.”

“That’s not going to work, Sir!” Ramirez shouted, short of breath.

“Doc said that won’t work,” Jake relayed into the radio.

“
You tell Doc to keep that boy alive. Make it work!”

A few minutes passed and Ramirez finally fell back onto his buttocks.

“Why’d you stop?” Parsons cried out.

“I’m sorry, Parsons, I’m so sorry. He’s dead,” Ramirez said, gasping for air.

“B-but he can’t be dead, he just can’t be dead,” Parsons said, wiping his eyes and the snot from his nose on his sleeve.

“He’s dead. I did everything I could; he got hit in the worst possible spot. I’m sorry, man,” Ramirez said.

“Fuck you, you quit! You gave up!” Parsons roared. Mosby, who’d left his post, put his hand on Parsons’s shoulder.

“Take it easy man. Take a breath,” Mosby pleaded.

“Fuck you, Mosby! Take it easy? Are you kidding me? Petey is dead and you’re acting like everything is AOK.”

“Calm down, Parsons. Pete wouldn’t want you to flip out like this,” Ramirez said, lifting himself off his rear and to his knees, as he tried to hold Parsons’s hand. Parsons swatted the hand away. Finally, overwhelmed, he put his face in his hands and wept. Ramirez flopped back down and looked off into the impenetrable darkness.

Jake tapped Sergeant Lopez on the shoulder.

“Sir?” Lopez asked in a grave tone.

“Get Harris off the wall and into a bag. Then I need you to get Parsons under control,” Jake whispered. Lopez set himself to the somber task.

“McBride, update Battalion. Cancel the Medevac.

Harris is KIA,” Jake spoke into the handheld radio, his voice fluctuating with every word. It finally occurred to him that he wasn’t sweating now; the streams of liquid on his face were tears.

“Roger,”
McBride responded briskly. Below Jake, in the darkness, he could hear the sound of what was undoubtedly a metal folding chair being thrown against a pinewood wall. Both Jake and McBride had lost soldiers before, but it wasn’t something you could get used to or something you could tune out.

At times like these and despite the overwhelmingly popular opinion in the battalion, Jake knew his men weren’t mindless animals. Some of them had done bad things to end up in the Kodiak platoon, but they were still human beings. And Parsons, a notorious and willfully insubordinate soldier, and not remotely gay, had formed an unlikely and close friendship with Peter Harris, a homosexual.

Harris’s Army career was doomed and he’d been called every slur possible after the Sergeant Major had found out his “condition,” but he had jumped at the chance to serve in the Kodiak platoon. Over time, Harris earned the respect of the platoon. He’d earned it by showing everyone that he could outdo them at any task. For those who still doubted him, Harris used his fists to prove that he could take on all comers. Even Sergeant Olsen gave him a wide berth and wouldn’t dare say anything disparaging to his face.

But of all the soldiers in the Kodiak platoon, Doc Ramirez hurt the most. He’d seen some awful things in his life but the look of Harris’s lifeless eyes trumped them all. Any remaining vestige of Doc’s innocence disappeared that night.

A troubled sleep, followed by nightmares.

“Dude, wake up.” A southern voice filled Jake’s ears. His cot shuddered violently.

Jake didn’t open his eyes, pretending to be asleep. He was still so tired.

“Man, come on. Wake up!” the voice said again. Jake’s cot shook again.

“All right. All right. I’m up. Stop kicking my bed,” Jake groaned.

At the foot of his cot stood Captain Wesley Parker, the battalion personnel officer. Wesley was frowning, but that didn’t mean anything because Wes always frowned when he had to do work.

“Wes, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Jake asked, yawning. He looked at his watch; it was 9:15. He’d been asleep for less than two hours.

“You and the platoon are scheduled to fly to Bagram on a flight leaving at 1800 hours today.”

“Today?” Jake asked, “We were slated to fly out of here like next week.”

“Yeah, that was before you guys got all those medals,” Wes said. “The division commander doesn’t have time to come down to Salerno to award them, so he’s having you flown to him.”

“Well isn’t that sweet of him,” Jake replied.

“Oh, you haven’t even heard the good part yet,” Wes said, taking a seat on a nearby cot.

There was a five-second pause. Wes was waiting for Jake to ask him about the “good part.”

“Okay, I’ll bite, what’s the good part?” Jake asked, feeling around for his flip-flops.

“Central Command got a copy of the UAV feed and Apache gun camera footage with the radio audio and the bosses up there upgraded your award to a Silver Star for Valor,” Wes said, as he handed Jake two folded pieces of paper.