Back to the Dust ~ Mission Three

    
         Both ears exploded in an array of static and survival. The puffs identified themselves as gunfire, Emery and Koehler passed out orders in a panic, and Alec was torn between foreign swearing and crying out in pain.

         “Alec…” Jasmine commanded in the respite between gunshots. “Hold on… GSW to the hip, Sergeant!” BANGBANG! “I count two hostels flanking my left!”

         “Drew.” Srgt. Emery roared- more in rage then in volume. “What’s going on!”

         Drew’s heart released from his stomach and he pounded his fingers into the keyboard.

         “Contact front, Sergeant!” Hosiah added to the fury. “We got four of ‘em!”

         “You see the whites of their eyes?” Brent joined the fray.

         “No sir.” Hosiah grunted.

         “Fire anyway!” Koehler shouted, his rifle sending out a spray of lead. Hosiah followed with a “Yes sir!”

         “Paisley!” Emery demanded again. Drew widened his screen, narrowed it again, keeping the thermal on. His green dots became glowing red aliens. Only rather then eight as there had been, there were now over fifteen!

         “Thermal…” Drew hyperventilated the words.” Puts… ten hostels in your path. Serg… Sultan I swear, they weren’t there three minutes ago.”

         He wasn’t sure if anyone heard him. Emery, Koehler, and Pruitt were barking out maneuvers and positions, trying to stay ahead of the bullets that darted back and forth. Drew stilled and listened. Hosiah was covering Eddie, Jasmine held Alec’s position while he comforted himself by cussing out the Taliban and any known associates.

         All that could be heard of Holst was his ammo pinging into the night. Or so Drew was telling himself to believe. He kept his hands poised over the keyboard, but what could they do? Thousands of geographical miles laid between them and even then, he had never fired a gun. He had never wanted to, lacking the backbone his friends obviously had.

         Hey egghead! His subconscious Special Agent Gibbs slapped his brain. They need you! They need answers, statistics! Do what you do!

         Drew zipped his screen back into a wide shot, the cluster of his team on the far left end, their intended target, the village, to the far right. The five heat signatures hadn’t moved from the compound, though they would certainly hear the echo of the gunfight by now. Nothing in-between. Where had the others come from? People didn’t just appear out of thin air, yet that was what they had done! There was no way to completely scramble a thermal scan, no way was it possible…

         “Tunnels!” Drew leaned forward, the answer hitting him like cold water. “Sergeant Emery, there have to be tunnels! If anybody hears me, tunnels! It’s the only way…”

         “We copy, Paisley!’ Mason huffed. “Now shut up while we…”

         “AAGGGHHHH!”

         Everything stopped. Not really, but all other sounds became dull and hollow as the cry suspended through the earwigs. A cry, then a soft thud, unlike Humriche’s. His shout came afterwards. “Sultan! Jazz’s down!”

         English and Arabic became one dialogue, the bullets coming harder and faster. Hosiah’s praying rang louder, Pruitt and Duro’s cursing harsher. But all Drew heard was a gurgled breathing. Jasmine’s breathing. It seemed to be all there was, the epicenter of the swirling hornet’s nest they’d fallen into.

         “Grenade!” came the shout, then the rattling explosion that caused Drew to rip out his headset. He stared at the mike, the noise emitting through the net of tiny black holes. How could this be happening? He needed to remember to breathe, to slow his heart rate down, before he connected himself back to them. In, out, in, out…

         “Paisley!” Emery’s scream about shook the earwig out of Drew’s fingers. “Radio base, NOW! I wanna hear copter blades five minutes ago!”

         Drew looked at the barren blue screen that surrounded their skirmish. It would be thirty minutes before anyone heard anything! He placed his headset back in its sweaty socket. “I’ll have to disconnect to open a channel with the base… sir.”

         Three more seconds of rapid gunfire, followed by Sultan’s shout. “Get on it, Paisley.”

         Two strokes of the keys and it was all gone. Drew punched in the secure line that went straight to the military base.  The voice of Military Commander Quinn Hayley answered. “This is…”

         “Sir, Drew Paisley.” Drew interrupted. “Operation Christmas Goose is south. I repeat sir, Christmas Goose has gone south. We have two teams under heavy fire, two wounded…”

         “Coordinates!” Commander Hayley demanded. Drew spat them off. “Sir, permission to reestablish contact with Srgt. Scott Emery.”

         “Permission granted.” the commander told him. “You tell them ETA’s twenty minutes.”

         Drew doubted that his calculation of thirty minutes was wrong, but there was no arguing with a Marine pursuing a fallen comrade.

         Just hurry. He couldn’t help but pray as he switched the channels back, bracing himself. Only he was met with nothing. No buzzing machine guns, no splitting explosions, no profanity… how long had he been on with the commander? Two minutes? No, not even that. Wait, there was still the shouting.

         “I’m fine!” Humriche huffed out heavily. “I’m good. Jasmine… check Jazz!”

         “Hosiah, get over here.” Holst shouted out desperately and that’s when the breathing came back into Drew’s focus. “T-to the only… God our Savior… be gl-lory… majesty, power, a-a-and authority…”

         “Jazz just take it easy.”

         “…Jesus Christ… now-w and fo-orever more. A-ugh-Amen.”

         The words were pinched, the breathing shallow and hitched, and after everything else, hearing them was turning Drew’s ears numb. “Sergeant… Sergeant Emery, the helicopter is twenty minutes out. How are they?”

         “The hostels are all dead.” Emery reported gruffly. “Private Humriche has sustained minimal bleeding…”

         “Get her vest off!” Hosiah’s voice took over. There was shuffling and a hoarse cry from Jasmine.

         “Sorry, Foley.” Eddie muttered.

         “How’s she looking?” Pruitt demanded.  Drew could feel the whole team take in their breath. Hosiah however, took too long to answer. “Ah, Jazz..”

         Nonononono! Drew’s thoughts fired the word in rapid succession.

         “The one to her neck was a graze.” Hosiah said. “But this second one ricocheted into her lung. It’s filling up.”

         No one had to ask with what.

         “Make an incision.” Holst cried. “Relive the pressure so she can breath.”

         “She’s already losing too much blood.” Hosiah spoke like a robot now. “I make a hole, it’ll just speed up the process.”

         “The copter will have reserves.” Duro protested, Humriche quickly agreeing. “Yeah, they’ll have an IV ready…”

         “Not in time.” Brent stopped them, his tone cold and dry. There was silence, stunness, seconds of disbelief. Then Drew’s weight hit the back of his chair at the same moment expletives hit the Pakistani sky.

         “Christmas.” Jasmine blurted, then gasped for air. “Isn’t today… Christmas… Hosiah?”

         “Shh, sister.” Hosiah’s voice became so calm, so gentle. “Yeah, it’s Christmas. Only 300 miles from Bethlehem, ain’t that something?”

         Drew braced both his palms on his desk so neither would take his earwig back out.

         “Christ’s bir-r-rth-hday.” Jasmine’s sharp exhale. “God’s… h-having me… home… on H-His Son’s birthday.”

         Was that a smile in her voice?

         “Paisley, where’s that copter!” Emery demanded.

         “Still eighteen minutes out.”

         More swearing, hot and sobbing, wreaked his ear. Drew was surprised he had yet to join in their filthy song. The probability of death and the actual reality of it often refuse to coincide in our minds until it’s forced to. Drew felt himself descending, degrading from that reality, denying its existence. But Hosiah spoke before he was too far gone.

         “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” Hosiah broke out, silencing Alec, Mason, and the others. “We’re gonna sing to You, Father God, for You have been good to us…”

         For a moment, there was nothing. Then came bleeding, dying, Jasmine’s reply. “Amen.”

         “God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me,” Hosiah recited a bit louder. “Yet… Lord, we are not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers our faces.”

         Another sickening gargle. “A-Amen.”

         Stop it. Drew pleaded, his brow sweating the tears that his eyes were supposed to feel. These weren’t the words meant for a dying Marine. Marines didn’t just get shot and die! God in Heaven, they survived explosions, shrapnel, the loss of all four limbs! Two bullets were nothing.

         “Arise and shine for your light has come,” Hosiah choked the words out, but he kept on. “And the glory of the Lord- sweet glory, sister- rises upon you. Then you will look and be radiant. Your heart, Jazz, will throb and swell with joy.”

         There was a breath.

         Two breaths; and still, Jasmine didn’t say amen.

            C’mon Jasmine, say it! Drew stared at his screen, willing her number to speak, to move. But there was only the cease of her tortured breathing.

*To Be Continued*