Rusty

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“Fuck. How the hell did we find ourselves in another FUBAR?” Wilson yelled.

“No idea. Just keep going.” I yelled back. This was supposed to be another fast mover. We’d been dropped in at darkness from a bird in the middle of Iran. Not my favorite place. Too much shit happening here for my tastes. We were supposed to pull out one man—a very important man who had very important information. But that target had too many other people who wanted him as much as we did. That’s how we found ourselves in the crossfire between the Irani’s and the rest of the motherfucking world—or so it seemed.

Now we were hoofing it to our supposed pick up point. Only that hadn’t worked out quite like we’d planned. Our bird took a damn hit and we lost her. No survivors either. We ran to the crash and rigged it with C4 just to make sure the enemy couldn’t retrieve any vital information from the craft. Then we were off again. The looming question was—to where?

“Any ideas of our final destination?” Wilson asked.

“Waiting to hear,” Thompson replied. I did know one thing. We needed the fuck out of this country. We’d dropped outside of a small town called Darkhovin, which was the site of a nuclear facility. Our contact was supposed to provide us vital information regarding that site and its role in Iran’s nuclear arms program. Then shit went south.

“We need to get to Basra, or over the border at the very least. We’re not that far. Iraq is what? Seventy kilos?” I asked.

“About a hundred, give or take,” Shelton, another one of our group answered.

“We’re headed that way. At least we don’t have any damn mountains to navigate,” Thompson said.

And wasn’t that the truth. Our asset wasn’t exactly in prime physical condition. He was elderly and didn’t appear to be up to a one hundred kilo jaunt by any means. We’d be piggybacking him by the end of the night if I were a guessing guy.

“But the bad part is we don’t have much cover either. We’re gonna need some means of transportation if we’re to do this,” someone said.

“Oh, you don’t think we can escape an entire regiment of Irani police?” I asked, sarcasm coating my words.

“I’m going to disregard that comment, Garrett,” Thompson said.

“Yes, sir.” We were good and truly fucked if we didn’t come up with something and fast. Then the little old guy we’d come to heist spoke up.

“Excuse me. I can help.”

“What did you say?” Thompson was the one who asked but all of us whipped around to stare at him. He was a small guy, short in stature and there wasn’t much to him in the form of muscle. A good strong wind could knock him on his tiny ass.

“I said, I help you find vehicle. For you to escape.”

“Where? The vehicle,” Wilson prodded.

An arm, not much larger than an adolescent’s, pointed to a building across the road. “There.” He wore the traditional dishdasha, or long tunic, with loose fitting trousers underneath, and his head bore a keffiyeh held in place by an agal. The dishdasha was old and worn so it was easy to see his arms through it.

“It has to be large enough to fit all of us,” Thompson told him.

“Yes. Is large. A … uh, what you call. Truck.”

Thompson edged his way closer to the man. “And this truck runs okay?”

“Yes. Is good.”

Using two fingers, Thompson pointed to two men. “You two, go now. Check it out. If it’s good, we’re dust in the wind.”

“Copy that, Captain.”

We waited in silence, almost afraid to say or think anything, until Thompson’s radio crackled to life. “Rover to base. We have a live wire. On the move. Over.”

“Copy that Rover. Herd will be ready for the cattle drive. Over.”

“Copy that base. Meet you at the trough.”

There was an unused fountain in the back of the building we were holed up in, so we filed toward it, waiting for our wheels to show up. When they did, we would’ve laughed if they weren’t our ticket to paradise. The best way to describe it was a rust bucket with an active engine in it. The front bumper dangled by a thread, but by God, we all fit.

“Go, go,” one of the men yelled as soon as we were all on board. I was the navigator, as usual, and plotted our course to freedom. Basra was only about ten miles on the other side of the border so if we could make it that far, we could always ditch the jalopy and walk the rest of the way.

“Wilson, how much fuel do we have?”

“No clue. There isn’t a gas gauge.”

“What?”

“Look.”

The gas gauge was busted out. “Damn. This is a new one on me.” I turned to the rear and hollered, “Hey, Amir, how much petrol does this have?”

“Good petrol,” Amir answered.

Wilson shrugged. “Guess that means we’re okay.”

“I sure hope so.”

But we were far from being in the clear. Even though the helicopter explosion had diverted the attention away from us, and we had escaped without being noticed, there were still checkpoints we had to avoid.

Hitting my comm link, I asked, “Eagle 1, we are in the wind. Request a clear path to freedom. Over.”

“Copy that Rover. Calculating.”

Waiting for my answer, I checked out our surroundings and my GPS. Wilson was headed in the right direction. My radio hissed. “Rover, continue bearing west. In a quarter mile, you will detour to the left for one-tenth of a mile. Then return to course. Over.”

“Copy that Eagle 1. Over.” I calculated the route and saw our turn. “Okay Wilson, you’re coming up to the turn, and this will be a shorty. Then you’re turning again.”

“Got it.”

He stuck with my directions and I jumped back on the radio. “Eagle 1, this is Rover waiting for our next directive. Over.”

“Rover, you are clear for one mile. Over.”

“Copy that. Over.”

“Stay the course for a mile,” I told Wilson.

The radio sputtered again. “Rover, in a half a mile, you will head north for a half mile and then you’ll go west again. Over.”

“Copy that. Over.”

“You got that Wilson?” I asked.

“Copy that.”

We zigzagged our way out of the area until we were in no man’s land and then we had radio silence for about forty minutes. When it came to life again, our directions were clear. “Rover, abandon wheels and continue on foot. The road to freedom is closed until tomorrow. All other options are blocked. Trek two point three miles on westerly route to safety and wait for oh dark thirty for freedom. Over.”

“Copy that. Over.” The rest of it would be made on foot.

We ended up spending the night and day in an abandoned structure that was what we called an Irani farmhouse. There were old animal pens outside and water troughs. It was hot, and we tried to catch some shuteye.

We had enough food and water to share so we were fine on those accounts. This was when patience ruled. I drew on my background and how I’d been raised. Everyone else had been raised in a cushy home, comparatively speaking. This was where I was one step ahead of them. I sank into my reserves and thought about how Midnight had survived all those nights. How she did it alone, I don’t know, but I remembered praying for her as a kid, hoping he’d stop raping her and beating me. Tonight was a different story. Even though the stakes were larger and we were playing for our lives, in my soul I knew all would be well. No matter what happened, life would never be that bad again. I would die first.

When darkness fell, we waited until after midnight to make our move. We reached the crossing at the right time, the right place, but we didn’t anticipate the wrong company being there, waiting for us. We don’t know how or why but it didn’t matter. We needed to get through and protect our asset.

Fortunately for everyone, even though a lot of gunfire was exchanged, they made it through unscathed. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t. I took a shot to the upper chest and one to the thigh. Luckily my Kevlar saved my life on the chest shot and the one to the leg missed my femoral artery. I made it across, but they had to drag my ass the rest of the way. I blacked out on evac.