Rocket’s Red Glare

PROLOGUE

Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad

Sergeant Jeff Carnes sat paralyzed in the passenger seat of the smoldering Humvee, slowly regaining consciousness after the concussion of the RPG.

As small-arms fire ricocheted off the Humvee’s armored doors, Carnes tried to figure out how badly he was wounded. Garbled chatter was coming over the radio, but he couldn’t shake his mental fog enough to answer.

The daze extended to everyone else in the vehicle. “I’m okay,” someone said.

For how long? Carnes asked himself.

Despite mounting pain, he turned his head to glance out his window and saw two angry Iraqis looking back at him from about twenty feet away. He watched one of the bandits hand a grenade launcher to the other, as if in slow motion.

Carnes tried to muster the strength to make a last-ditch call for help on his radio, but his hands wouldn’t work. All he could do was brace for the impact of the round and hope the inevitable—death—was instant and painless.

In even slower motion, he watched the black-and-white-checked shemagh worn on the head of his executioner ruffle in a nonexistent breeze.

As the material seemed to lift off the Iraqi bandit’s head, a ripple of dark red liquid erupted from underneath the headdress.

The RPG fell to the ground and the man collapsed.

Sergeant Carnes had seen people die before, but never so suddenly or so violently. One second the terrorist was lifting an RPG; the next he was a corpse.

“Holy shit,” he mumbled as he witnessed the accomplice also fold.

As his senses began returning, Carnes heard the muffled sound of allied gunfire coming from the driver’s side of their vehicle, then saw a group of people in civilian clothes and body armor running at full sprint toward the enemy.

A moment later he saw a small American flag held against his window by a tall man with Oakley sunglasses and a rhinoceros silhouette on his helmet.

Carnes read the man’s lips: “We’re the good guys. You’re gonna be okay.”