Monster (28 page)

“Never speak of Islam in my presence. You insult Allah simply by speaking of it,” Rasheed said fiercely, still gripping the choking Muhyee. “Please do not cooperate. Please. I will have you then. Oh what times we will have.”

Rasheed released Muhyee as they heard the office outside being taken by their special unit. Muhyee collapsed heavily into his chair, rubbing his throat and still gasping for air. He looked across at Rutledge with terror replacing the fear on his face.

“Wha…What does he mean?” Muhyee croaked painfully.

“Kay here is our resident special interrogator,” Rutledge answered. “If we find out you are giving us bad info at any time, Kay will handle you from then on.”

Rasheed smiled happily at Muhyee, who looked up at him in horror and dawning comprehension.

Chapter 20

Recuperation

It was late afternoon when the three agents returned to their office. All of the materials seized in the raid were being catalogued and photographed. Muhyee had been transferred for the time being to a safe house with all of his family under twenty-four hour guard. The C.A.I.R. office employees had all been detained for questioning pursuant to the team’s investigation of what had been gathered in the raid. Barrington carried a box with C.A.I.R.’s already catalogued computer hard drives. Muhyee had given the team all the passwords to retrieve the system data.

“That was very exciting,” Rasheed commented as the three walked toward their office.

“The best part will be breaking down the info we snatched,” Barrington replied. “We’ll let Diane know how big a part you played, Kay.”

“You were kick-ass in there.” Rutledge chuckled. She swiped her card to enter the office. “I think Muhyee needed a change of pants after your attitude adjustment.”

“In Iraq we would have retrieved the information and then sent the traitor to hell,” Rasheed grumbled, following Rutledge and Barrington into the office.

Barrington set the box down near Rutledge’s workstation. The three continued on to Reskova’s office. They could hear Reskova talking to someone so Rutledge knocked on her door. Reskova’s voice called out for them to enter. Inside, a young Marine they recognized from Anderson Air Base stood up courteously while the agents entered.

“You all remember Gunnery Sergeant Dominguez, don’t you,” Reskova asked.

Barrington, Rutledge, and Rasheed all shook hands with the young Marine.

“How’s the leg, Gunny,” Barrington asked.

“The Doc at Bethesda said I’ll be a hundred percent in a few weeks,” Dominguez answered with a grin.

“Sergeant Dominguez came by at Cold’s request,” Reskova explained, unable to suppress her irritated tone. “They operated on him today. The shrapnel they were tracing was in a position where they could get at it safely. Abe here only came when Cold was out of surgery.”

“He ordered me not to tell anyone until he was out of surgery, Ma’am,” Dominguez said apologetically. “I tried to get the Colonel to let me call you. He said no, and if the Colonel says no, then no it is.”

“I’d go see him, but Cold left orders at Walter Reed for no visitors.”

“That sounds like him,” Rutledge said. “We’re going to be pretty busy, Diane. I think we hit the jackpot. Did you pump the Sergeant here for details about the Colonel’s exploits?”

“I just brought him up here ten minutes before you three walked in. Cold probably issued orders silencing the Sergeant anyway.”

“Actually, he didn’t get a chance to cover that detail, Ma’am.”

“Sit down Sergeant.” Rutledge gestured toward his chair. “We have a little time to hear the details. I think I detected a hidden glee in the Sergeant’s tone. Could it be the Colonel was engaged in unauthorized sneaking up on Marines, Sergeant?”

Dominguez looked surprised at first. “How… oh… he did you guys too, huh?”

“Big time,” Barrington laughed. He explained the Hughes’ mission to Dominguez’ delight.

“Oh yeah!” Dominguez nodded in commiseration. “The Colonel’s a freak. He’d show up in the middle of us as if he was beamed there. We threatened to frag him. Most of us were vets from the beginning of the war. We thought we knew it all. He taught us a lot. He saved my life. That’s how he got wounded.”

“Details, Sergeant, details,” Rutledge urged.

“It’s a little embarrassing.” Dominguez sighed, sitting down again. The others joined him around Reskova’s desk. “We’d been building up for the attack way too long. When word finally came, we were really pumped. The Colonel knew the area we were going into real well so they attached him to our recon unit. The…”

“It’s pretty unusual to get an army guy assigned to a Marine unit,” Barrington observed with interest.

“The Colonel was a mystery to us. We all tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Like I said, most of us had already seen heavy combat and urban warfare. He’s so big we joked about the best way for him to help us out would be by taking the first hit.”

The agents all laughed, with Rasheed laughing the hardest, and nodding his head in agreement.

“Yes, yes,” Rasheed confirmed. “In my unit too we thought the same thing. Always he would be in the lead. Yet mysteriously he would not get hit. He managed to keep us alive too.”

“We could tell right away the Colonel knew where he was going. It all started out by the book and then all hell broke loose. By the end of the first day we were way ahead of schedule. Our Lieutenant was a hard charger. We had tank and air support. We figured things would keep going well. That’s when we hit our first holy Mosque,” Dominguez said ruefully. “Holy place… that’s a joke.”

“These vermin are using our holiest places against your forces,” Rasheed said with bitterness. “They have been desecrated. It would be better to blow them all up into dust, along with the rats inside.”

“Ah… yes, Sir, that is how we figured it too,” Dominguez replied with surprise at hearing Rasheed say it.

“Call me Kay, Sergeant. I do not want anymore of you young men killed or wounded protecting what is no longer sacred.”

“We should put you in charge, Kay. Anyhow, the Colonel was less than thrilled when our Lieutenant told him we were to push on. It was getting dark. With all the smoke and noise he said the Mosque was a bridge too far. The Lieutenant agreed. He relayed the Colonel’s doubts, but our commander overruled him. When the Lieutenant told us we’d have to take it, I volunteered for point but the Colonel told us to hold back until he did a recon.”

“He said he’d signal us from the front of the Mosque if he thought it was safe to cross over. It was spooky quiet. We figured the enemy had bugged out. The Colonel ghosted away down this avenue in a circling pattern. When he didn’t come back after half an hour or show up to signal us near the Mosque, I urged the Lieutenant to let me take my squad and secure the front of the Mosque. He let me do it. We made it across to the Mosque without drawing any fire. Instead of securing the front of the Mosque like I said I’d do, I was so pumped, I just headed inside. A…”

“The Colonel still wasn’t in sight?” Barrington broke in to ask.

Dominguez chuckled. “That’s what we thought. I headed into the entrance. The Colonel like materialized from nowhere. I felt a hand grab the back of my pack and pull me backwards. At the same time I heard the Colonel scream for my squad to hit the deck. It was a trap. They triggered explosives inside the entrance. If not for the Colonel we would have all been dead or maimed. As it was I heard the Colonel grunt in pain from on top of me. He rolled free, shedding his stuff which was smoking. The Colonel retrieved his weapon and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. He says, ‘get back across the street Abe and wait there like I told you the first time. Hurry up before the smoke clears’.”

“I did like I was told. The shit hit the fan just about the time we made it back. When I looked toward the Mosque, all I could see was the Colonel’s smoldering gear. They started blanketing the area with everything you could think of. When they started walking in mortar rounds toward our position the Colonel calls out the password so as not to get shot and then leads us away from the hotspot. I could see all he had left on top was pieces of his tee-shirt. Blood was trickling down into the waistband of his pants.”

“When we were out of the kill zone, the Colonel gets our radioman and calls in some coordinates. The Lieutenant signaled our medic forward and Doc patched the Colonel up while he called in targets. Air Cav blew the shit out of the places called into them. The heavy stuff was silenced. We were all sort of taking a moment. I told the Colonel I was sorry but he just shook his head. He said, ‘forget it, Abe, combat’s an inexact science, sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you. He only got a taste this time’.”

“So, Cold was hit the first day,” Reskova commented. “Why…”

“I know, Ma’am,” Dominguez interrupted gently. “His neck and upper back were burned and he was carrying metal. He told Doc to layer on the burn salve he had. One of our guys, nearly as big as the Colonel, stripped off his tee-shirt and gave it to him.”

“A sniper firing from one of those minarets in the Mosque hit two of our guys, one in the shoulder, and one round almost took the Lieutenant’s head off. We tried to get an Abram’s up for support but they were cut off with rocket fire. It was dark. We were on our own. The sniper must have had night vision equipment. There ain’t no way he could have tracked us to where the Colonel led us after we took casualties. We weren’t going anywhere until morning. We were becoming a magnet for increasing fire. It was impossible to zero in on where it was coming from. The Colonel made sure we had our perimeter covered. Then he says real matter of fact, ‘Abe, keep your heads down, eat and drink, and I’ll go get that bastard who’s makin’ our lives miserable’. I started to argue with him but he was gone in that friggin’ annoying way he has of disappearing.”

When Dominguez paused, Reskova could see his face was flushed and his hands were clenched into fists. Reskova stood up from behind the desk.

“Let me get you something to drink, Sergeant.”

“That’d be great, Ma’am - anything carbonated would be fine,” Dominguez said gratefully, spreading his hands out on his legs. “Sorry, I was getting a little into it.”

“You don’t have to tell us anymore,” Rutledge told him, with Barrington and Rasheed echoing her sentiments. Reskova came back in with a Pepsi.

“That’s for sure, Abe.” Reskova handed the Pepsi to Dominguez, who popped the top and took a long swallow.

“It ain’t like people think, you know,” Dominguez said, almost apologetically. “Kay here probably knows what I’m talking about. I’m a Marine because I want to be. God knows what I’d be without the Corps. I grew up in East LA. The first thing I did right was enlist in the Marines. Now I have my own family. My folks are proud of me. It’s what I do and I wouldn’t do anything else even if I could. This is the first time I’ve been able to tell anyone. If I said anything to my family I’d just freak them out.”

“You’re the man, Abe,” Barrington said. “Go on with your story.”

“Thanks,” Dominguez replied, taking another swallow of Pepsi. “Anyway, after the Colonel leaves, the sniper’s still working our position over every time he gets even a glimpse of movement. Then we start hearing these screams from the darkness. Right away we know it’s got to be the Colonel. He has this great big knife he carries. He was wounding them so they’d howl. Earlier in the day when he was on scout we’d come along after he had been through, and there would be dead guys in his wake with slit throats. He’s nasty with that knife. We could tell the Colonel was givin’ those clowns out there something to think about.”

“About an hour after he left us we’re hearing a chorus of these groans, moans, and screams of pain out of the darkness. We start getting into the spirit. When one of them screams or groans, we start yellin’ ‘rah! Then comes the finale. The friggin’ sniper starts screaming. We know it’s him because the sniping stops and the screams are coming from above. Thinking of the Lieutenant, we’re really enjoying the show. Suddenly this guy’s body smacks down like a ripe tomato right into the street.”

“Dead silence, and then the Colonel yells out in Arabic from up there. One of our guys is of Syrian ancestry and he starts laughing. In between howling in laughter at every new thing the Colonel’s yellin’, Moe’s interpreting for us. See, the Colonel’s up there insulting these smucks’ manhood, mothers, and sexual preferences. The idiots start screaming back at him. Before you know it, they’re attacking the Mosque. Big mistake - not only can the Colonel shoot, us Recon Marines ain’t there as observers. After we start wiping them out like big tunas, I get the idea now would be a good time to follow up with an attack. This time I’m right. We wiped them out and spent the rest of the night in the Mosque. The Colonel recommended me for the Silver Star.”

“Good Lord,” Rutledge said in a hushed voice.

“Yeah!” Barrington added with excitement as Dominguez took a big gulp of his Pepsi. “We never hear any of this from the retards in the media. The only reason those jerk-offs are embedded with you guys is to spy for the enemy.”

“You are indeed the man,” Rasheed reiterated, shaking the smiling Marine’s hand again. “I am wishing almost to be with you and the Cold Mountain there.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Kay.” Rutledge pushed Rasheed’s shoulder playfully. “We fight the way we can. We need you here.”