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Improvised Explosive Device

  By Bryan Knower

  Copyright 2012 Bryan Knower

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  Improvised Explosive Device

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  A stray shaft of early afternoon sunlight penetrated the half closed drapes and danced across the face of Private First Class David Morales, lying immobile on a bed beneath the window. The woman in the doorway saw his eyelids flicker and lingered a moment longer, taking in the silence of the room and the still figure she had first met three days ago. In that time she had come to know his physical form very well, but behind those flickering eyelids, she had no idea if Private Morales was aware of her presence. Did the sunlight bother him? Walking over to the window she drew the blinds a little tighter, throwing his expressionless face into shadowed relief, but his features continued to twitch and quiver, an automatic response to some far away stimulus. If he was dreaming, let him dream. At least he had that.

  ***

  It was hot in the armored halftrack as the patrol rolled out of the compound on the eastern edge of the Green Area in Baghdad. They moved across Sabatash Temuz Bridge onto Abi Talib Street, the sun baking David's head inside his helmet. Sweat rolled into his eyes and he blinked, focusing on the asphalt ribbon unrolling ahead of him. On either side of the pavement the vegetation had been cleared away almost completely, making him feel very exposed. Riding shotgun in the point vehicle of an active convoy tended to do that. He rested his palms on the turret gun handles, uncomfortably aware that half of his body was outside the protective armor of the halftrack. Below his perch he could see Trucks straining to keep the vehicle in the center of a street wide enough to be a major road. The Hog, they called it affectionately, and it was an unwieldy monster, part of its frame permanently bent from a previous explosion. The ad-hoc armor plate they had welded on the bottom and sides made it wallow like a pig, hence the name.

  Nothing stirred outside as the convoy sped down the road, but occasionally David thought he saw flickers of movement at the windows they passed by. They were fleeting, barely perceptible, and David wasn’t sure if he was imagining them, but the convoy wasn’t slowing down for anything here. Could be just the inhabitants, could be his imagination, could be a fighter with an RPG trying to get a bead on them. The back of David's neck itched as he reflected on the various possible ways to die out here in the middle of nowhere. Behind him the growl of the four other vehicles in the convoy seemed to fit the mood of the morning. No one travelled alone in Baghdad, not even the locals. They were going to Al Khalis, a routine trip if there was such a thing in Iraq, to investigate the murder of an Iraqi policeman the night before. David had no idea why they were risking their lives for a dead Iraqi. The guy was dead anyway, and as far as he cared, they could kill each other and to hell with it.

  Lulled into complacency by the monotony of the scenery, he was slow to spot the splotch of color against the relentless beige brown that should have caught his attention earlier. Tensing up he brought his spotter scope to bear, cursing the cramped confines of the Hog's gun turret. He couldn't make it out clearly but it looked like two figures, one on the ground and another standing over it.

  "Activity ahead," he shouted bringing the figures into focus in his scope. "Two people. Could be hostiles."

  Down near David's left foot, Butler crouched in his seat, peering through his firing slot, trying to bring the forward machine gun to bear on something he couldn't see yet. "Sight me in, dammit," he yelled, pulling off his helmet.

  "Ahead eleven thirty, about nine hundred meters," David replied, eyes glued to the rangefinder.

  "Gun it. Gun it." Butler screamed at Trucks as David tried to swing the heavy turret mounted twenty caliber machine gun forwards while keeping the scope to his eyes. He knew he was a tempting target for any sniper. Hell, he was the only target for a sniper unless the bastard could see through a gun slit.

  "Bravo, contact ahead, nine hundred meters and closing." He keyed his helmet mike and updated the rest of the convoy. "Probable hostiles. Multiple contacts. Stay alert."

  Trucks revved the engine hard, the roar of the halftrack obliterating any ambient sound in the vicinity. The crouching figure stood upright and waved at them. In the scope, she looked like a younger girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and missing her head scarf. From the way she was gesticulating she was probably screaming too, but there was no way to hear her over the sound of the engine. To David's eyes the figure curled on the ground in a fetal position looked older. He couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

  "Tell them to put their hands on their heads," Butler screamed from down below. "Hands on their heads, dammit, or I'm gonna fucking blow them away."

  David switched his microphone to the Hog's external speaker, giving up the struggle with the scope and putting both his hands on the handles of the twenty caliber. There was no need for the scope anyway. He could see the two figures clearly now, growing larger and more distinct by the second as the lurching Hog reeled them in.

  "Put your hands on your head. Now!" he yelled, using the Arabic phrase they all knew by heart. "Now!" he repeated, the words booming metallically over the din, amplified so loud it overpowered even the noise of the Hog. To his horror, the young girl began to run towards them, still waving her arms. The distance between them closed rapidly, with Trucks showing no inclination to slow down. They were going to run her over.

  "Let me take her out," Butler pleaded, his knuckles white on the handles of his guns. "For God's sakes man, let's just shoot the bitch and get the fuck out of here."

  Butler was losing it. Trucks too.

  "Tell her to stop, Dave." He yelled. "Do it, man, or she's toast."

  "Stop! Put your hands on your head! Stop!" David repeated the exhortation, yelling at the top of his lungs. His hands on the handles were slippery with sweat and his finger trembled on the gun trigger as he tried to keep the sights trained on the girl.

  It worked.

  She stopped abruptly and Trucks cursed as he swung to the right to go by her. The engine pitch became shrill as Trucks barreled the Hog past the standing figure, the halftrack swaying alarmingly, all of them cursing and swearing. The edge of a roadside culvert flowed by just feet away as the halftrack skidded through Truck’s over-steer. Ahead, the figure on the ground was crouching in the road now. A man, not a woman. David instinctively slid feet first into the belly of the Hog as time slowed down.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The pavement beneath the Hog punched upwards, accompanied by a maelstrom of noise, dust, smoke and whistling metal shards. The turret peeled back, as if pried open by a can-opener and disappeared above David's head. The force of the explosion blew the halftrack on its side and then rolled it over the edge of the culvert, throwing the three of them into a heap. David tried to hold on to something to break his fall but his body wouldn't respond to his mental commands. He heard Trucks scream and felt his friend’s upper body fall back across his midsection. Butler was cursing in a continuous monotone. There was a bright orange flash and the sides of their little metal coffin exploded outwards. His head hit a piece of metal, his body twisted at the waist and he blacked out.

  When he came to again he was cold and shivering. Sporadic sounds of automatic fire punctuated the heavy thud of machine guns and the hollow thump and woof of mortars. The rest of the convoy was responding with maximum force. The din of combat waxed and waned in his ears but he couldn't see anything. The blackness was overwhelming.

  "Help me," he screamed, panic surging inside him. He struggled to raise himself but his lower body seemed pinned down by a great we
ight. His left arm had twisted at the elbow, and it hurt so badly when he tried to move it that he knew it was broken. Only his right arm worked and he used it to wipe his face, leaving it sticky. The smell of fresh blood and charred flesh filled his nostrils.

  "Over here," he screamed again. "Please help. Someone please?"

  After a long time, something pricked him in the arm. He felt hands at his sides and his neck and then a pain unlike any other he had felt before. The agony was so intense that he passed out again.

  ***

  "Time for your wash, David." She kept her voice soft. "I'm sorry, but I have to sponge you down now."

  She always spoke to him, even though he never responded. Continuing her one sided conversation she tugged at the sheet, peeling it back, flinching slightly as it came down past his thighs, revealing the flaps of skin folded neatly over both stumps. Inured as she was to the detritus of combat, the sight moved her. They had amputated both his legs above the knee, the doctors placing him in a medically induced coma from which he was yet to awake. Apparently he was the sole survivor of an IED attack on an armored vehicle in Iraq eight days ago.

  ###

  About the author:

  Bryan Knower was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He holds a Masters degree in Computer Science and a Bachelors degree in Music. He lives in New York, where he works as a statistician and sometimes moonlights as an amateur musician.

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