The other important lesson he learned at the time came indirectly from former World Heavyweight Champion and boxing legend, Muhammad Ali of all people. This boxer actually had been a sparring partner of Ali's back in the day. He told Charlie how generous Ali was to his partners.
Everybody called him Champ, and he said that Champ used to have three sparring partners he worked out with at onceâa guy his upcoming opponent's size, then a real big, strong heavyweight, and then someone smaller and much faster. He said that Champ would allow his opponents to hit him, and they would really tee off on him since he was the Champ. He would do the rope-a-dope and taunt them and even put his hands down and let them hit him sometimes.
He said after one of those sessions he said to Ali, “Champ, why do you let the other guys and me hit you full power like that?”
The boxer said Muhammad Ali grinned at him and said, “ 'Cause I don't want it to be no surprise in the ring in a real fight.”
The friend then went on to explain to Charlie that it was important to let himself get hit and keep sparring nonstop in the ring. He did this, too, in practice and really learned to take a punch. This helped him win several boxing smokers at Fort Bragg. His mind-set was to work through the maze if he got his bells rung, and keep fighting.
These two factors came into play on this day, as well as the warning from the translator.
The Little Bird helicopters whizzed along the highway at top speed, and dust blew all over Charlie as the first set down and Custer jumped off and ran to him.
He rolled Charlie over on his back, and Charlie, barely able to speak, said softly, “Medic, quick, smelling salts.”
There was a horrible gash under his right eye and the cheek was torn open, leaving his chipped and cracked cheekbone exposed.
Charlie thought he heard Custer yell, “Medic!” and he suddenly was smelling that old horrible smell of ammonia. He had always wondered why they called them smelling salts and not “horrible ammonia or bleach smell that wakes you up quickly.”
Charlie sat up and shook his head, blood flying all over the Delta medic and Custer.
Things now flooded into his mind, and he yelled, “Fila?”
Custer said, “They took her, Charlie, but we will get her, I promise you we will!”
“Bullshit!” Charlie said, trying to stand but falling back. “I am still in charge! Doc, quick patch me up fast. Give me a shot of adrenaline. Stop the bleeding. I need weapons.”
The medic gave Charlie a shot of adrenaline and said, “Poke, you have lost lots of blood, have a concussion, a broken cheekbone . . .”
Charlie said, “Screw that! We are SF! Delta Force, not the Kindergarten Whammies football team! Get me on my feet! Let's go!”
His head started clearing as they roared off in the three Little Birds.
The medic held on to Charlie's arm as they roared along, paralleling the highway at treetop level, if there had been any trees. He somehow patched the bloody cheek and got a bandage over it. Charlie's hair and shoulder were drenched in blood. He did not care.
Custer said, “I called for the Spooky.”
Charlie said, “Negative! Our mission is to affect the job without making international news headlines. Any major air strikes will end up on the evening news back home. They are headed towards his compound, and I have a target to take out, and we have an operator in enemy hands. We can handle this by just doing what we practice over and over.”
While they flew, Charlie was handed an M4A1 fully automatic rifle with an A203 grenade launcher mounted underneath. He was also handed a Glock 17 and several magazines. He tossed off his suit coat and put a tactical vest on, and he made sure he had ammo.
Charlie asked Custer, “Was Booty shot?”
“No,” Custer said, “The vid cam on the UAV showed the guy behind her butt-smashing her in the back of the head. Like you, she is going to have a nasty headache, Poke.”
Charlie was reminded how bad his cheekbone was hurting and his head was aching. His eyes went out of focus every few minutes, and he had nausea a few times. He knew he had a concussion. That did not matter right now.
Custer touched his arm and said, “Don't worry, Charlie. We'll get her back.”
Charlie looked straight ahead, saying, “Damned right we will!”
Several minutes later, Custer said, “HQ reports that a UAV has them pulling into the road to the compound.”
Charlie gave him a thumbs-up.
He said, “Are you translators still there?”
Samireh said, “Yes, sir, we are.”
The President, Kerri, and Pops were all still monitoring his powerful microphone transmissions.
Charlie said, “Who warned me about him taking Fila?”
“That was me, sir.”
Charlie said, “Ma'am, you saved my life. I got shot in the face, but your warning gave me enough time to keep it from being through my head. God bless you, ma'am. If I survive this, my fiancée and I are taking you out for a big steak dinner. How's that?”
“Sounds great!”
He said to Custer, “What's our ETA?”
Custer said, “That is the compound coming up on the horizon.”
Charlie gritted his teeth and whispered to himself, forgetting that he was being listened to, “Stay alive, sweetheart,”
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FILA
opened her eyes. She was in the backseat of the Mercedes, between two men and slumped over, lying head down toward the floor. The man behind her was moving around, and she did not know it was Yaghoub bandaging his shoulder. The one to her right was the one she was facing more directly. She would take him out first. Carefully, she slid her right hand up her thigh and discovered that both guns were gone. She slid her hand up farther and gripped the Yarborough knife. The car passed through a gate and was stopping. Her hand came out and up, and the blade went up into the base of the man's chin and drove straight into his brain. Both his legs straightened out, and he started convulsing violently.
Yaghoub's massive right arm wrapped around her neck from behind smashing and bloodying her lips and nose. Fila bit down on his forearm with all her might, and he screamed in pain, but she kept biting. He tried to use his left arm, but it would not work. She switched the knife in her hand and let go of her bite, pivoting at the hips and ramming the blade into his torso, just below the right rib cage. She twisted the knife as hard as she could, and he screamed in paralyzing pain. This totally unnerved the jihadist driving, who started yelling himself in panic. He knew he was next. The car was now stopped.
Fila's immediate concern was the monster next to her, who had killed her fiancé, or so she thought. She spun around and reversed the knife again, into an underhand hold, and struck forward, plunging it accidentally into his right bicep. He was genuinely scared to death for the first time in years, and he had the deer-in-the-headlights look. He screamed in pain again, and Fila turned the knife upward and thrust straight up with all her energy, and it went up into his sinus cavity. Blood spilled out his nose and down his throat. His eyes were opened wider than she had ever seen on anybody.
Staring into those panicked eyes, she pulled the knife out and in English said, “Yes, I am a woman and an American soldier and this is for Charlie, you piece of trash.”
She cut sideways, and his throat was slashed open all the way to his spine. Blood gushed out, and she heard him gurgling and drowning in it, as his massive body went limp and he voided his bowels and bladder. The door slammed, and she realized she was surrounded by crazed trained killers, all pointing guns at her. She jumped into the front seat and started the ignition, then she spotted Davood Faraz Dabdeh aiming an AK-47 at her. She looked around for a weapon and, finding none, stuck out her jaw defiantly and flipped him the middle finger. He opened fire and so did his men.
Fila waited for death but was amazed. The car was armor-plated. Hundreds of bullets bounced off the vehicle, even the windows. She saw the gate they had just come in, but she had a mission and that was to kill Dabdeh. She spun the wheel, slammed it into gear, and headed right toward the psycho killer. More bullets peppered her car, but she was intent on killing him. Fila reached down and grabbed her cyanide pill. She would not be taken prisoner again, nor would she ever be raped again. Those were certainties. She put it between her lips, but not her teeth.
She was upon her target, and a shoulder-fired rocket hit the rear of the car, just as she was about to run him over. The right front fender sent him flying off to the side as her rear end slid around, but he rolled to his feet, bloody and limping, but alive. Fila saw a man with a rocket tube on his shoulder. Then she saw a chanceâa window in the stone wall, so the wall would not be as strong there. She floored it, stomping down on the accelerator. She might get killed, but Charlie was gone anyway, she thought. More bullets hit her car, thousands now, as trainees and cadre alike shot at her. Men jumped out of the way as the Mercedes sped across the courtyard. Right before she hit the wall, Fila spit out the cyanide pill.
She screamed as loud as she could, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” and the heavy white car crashed through the wall, hitting so hard on the desert floor it knocked the wind out of the courageous sergeant and bounced several times, but she kept the pedal down, wondering why the air bag did not deploy. The bags had apparently been disabled.
A Mercedes came through the gate of the compound and sped toward Fila. She saw it in her rearview and slammed her brakes on, spun the wheel to the left, and floored it, spinning around 180 degrees.
“Screw this running!” she said boldly, stomping on the accelerator.
Just as she had crashed through the wall, the three Little Birds topped out over the rise and were heading right at the compound. They were now witnessing her acts of boldness and sheer courage, and Charlie got a lump in his throat.
Again, forgetting he was miked, he whispered with great relief, “Fila!”
They watched her car bear down head-on with the other white Mercedes, and the two cars roared at each other. It was a test of wills, and she made up her mind. She was going straight in.
Custer slapped Charlie's arm and yelled, “Look at that! She has brass balls, man!”
Charlie gave him a sidelong glance.
Custer laughed. “I don't mean literally.”
Charlie held his breath. The windows came down in the other car, and men leaned out firing. The third Little Bird zoomed up, flying almost sideways and
whirrrr, brrraappp
. The 3,000-rounds-per-minute mini-gun opened with every fifth round a tracer, and Fila's heart raced as she saw the ribbon of flame over her roof tear into the approaching Mercedes, which now disappeared in a cloud of dust and sand. She was on it and still would not stop. The driver swerved at the last second, and it went sideways and did twelve rolls through the sand sideways. The Little Bird lit it up while it rolled, shredding the tires, and one tracer finally made its way into the gas tank.
Charlie looked at the medic by him and yelled, “Gotta move, Doc!” He crawled off the bench into the chopper, and it set down while the other two hovered and covered. The dust settled, and Fila, blood streaming from her lips and nose, ran from the car and stopped short seeing Charlie running at her, bandage on the side of his very bloody head. She could not help herself, tears streaking down her cheeks.
“Charlie!”
They flew into each other's arms, and ran to the Little Bird, where they jumped side by side on the bench. Custer slapped her arm with a thumbs-up.
Charlie yelled, “Doc!”
The medic was right there, swabbing her face with gauze. She smiled and took it.
She said, “Bloody lips and bloody nose! You should see the other guy! The one who shot you.”
“Shoot him?”
“No,” she yelled as the Little Birds lifted up amid a hail of gunfire from the compound. “Got him and one more with my Yarborough knife!”
Charlie put his hand on her shoulder
He yelled to Custer, “Call it in that the number two man is dead. Yaghoub Ardeshir.” He grinned at Custer and said, “Booty killed him with her Yarborough knife!”
Custer grinned broadly and gave her a thumbs-up.
“I need weapons!” she said.
Custer yelled, “Booty needs weapons.”
She was handed an M1911 Colt .45 automatic, four magazines, and an M-14 7.62-millimeter rifle.
She reached up under her dress and got her Yarborough knife sheath out and attached it to the belt she was handed. That knife would never leave her side the rest of her life. The father of the modern Green Berets had reached out from the grave and saved another life, she thought.
God bless General Yarborough. Heaven must be safer.
Booty leaned over and yelled into Custer's mike above the rotor noise, “Dabdeh is wearing a light tan suit and tie, sunglasses, and no turban.” She looked at Charlie and winked, “And he is limping.”
He laughed.
She said, “Just missed him.”
The armed Little Bird came up sideways again as the three aircraft went up and over the wall of the compound. The mini-gun went to work, and automatics cracked in a steady staccato from all the Delta members. Bloody bad guys fell all over the compound, and Custer winced as a 7.62 bullet slammed into his forearm, shattering the radius.
Charlie yelled, “Doc!”
He immediately put an army pressure bandage over the wound, and Custer jumped down, yelling, “Thanks!”
When they first came up over the wall, Charlie and Fila saw Davood Faraz Dabdeh ducking into a door at the far end of the courtyard, and they fought their way there.
Custer and two others were right behind them firing in all directions. There were many more trainees, but none with the experience and training of the men, and now one woman, of Detachment-Delta, who established fire superiority. They made it to the door, and Charlie looked at each to ensure they were locked and loaded and ready to rock and roll. He went through first with a crash, with Custer right behind him. Charlie covered the center of the room with his weapon, while Custer moved to the right along the wall and took that side, and Fila moved in and immediately swept the left side of the room. Custer and Fila both made out gunmen in their respective corners and fired simultaneously, hitting each terrorist with two bullets center mass in the face. Something flew into the room and thunked on the floor,