“Yes, Lieutenant!” they all replied in unison.
“We don't leave a single terrorist alive in there; you got it? These are the bastards who have been shooting women and children in the streets, remember that...”
Then we heard voices from inside the compound shouting in Arabic, giving instructions to open the huge steel gates to allow the munitions truck access to the fortified compound.
“That's it, boys; the gates are about to open! Lock and load; we're going in!” I shouted.
The enormous gates creaked open, hauled by a diesel motor on the inside, and once they had started opening, the process couldn't be stopped until they were wide open, giving us a 20-second window to get into the compound. It was going to be a hard and bloody fight, but for the sake of peace in the region, someone had to do it. Someone had to stop these guys, and that's exactly what we were gonna do.
“Three, two, one... go, go, go!” I commanded, and we all rose up out of the ditch in which we'd been hiding and charged, our assault rifles hammering out a thunderous symphony of aggression as the battle began. Bullets were flying fast and furious around us as the terrorists in the compound scrambled about in confusion to try to fight back against our surprise attack.
Still, their half-hearted efforts couldn't stop us, and we began pouring in through the now-open gates, shooting them down as they ran about in confusion. Now, however, they were beginning to get some semblance of order together, and a defense was mounting.
“Take cover!” I shouted as one of them got behind a machine gun turret mounted on a tower and started spraying us with deadly heavy machine gun fire.
“Someone take that son of a bitch out before he takes us out!” I yelled.
I dove behind a big steel oil drum as the machine gunner started spraying his hail of deadly lead in my direction, and right there I found a trapdoor.
“Well, this is an unexpected find – and just what I needed,” I muttered to myself as I hauled it open and dropped down into it. It was the entrance to an underground tunnel that ran straight to the heart of the compound – and there I would find the leader of this terrorist cell himself. I needed him alive at all costs; he had valuable information that we in the Coalition needed. While the battle continued to thunder above me, I raced through the tunnel, my firearm at the ready. I was going to capture this guy, and I was going to take him alive.
; Then, out of nowhere, a huge Iraqi jumped out from a hidden alcove. He was too close and too fast; I didn't even have time to take one shot before he had his hands on my rifle. We struggled over it with mad violence, and both of us eventually fell to the ground, where we continued to fight.
Then, somehow, a knife appeared in his right hand, and he aimed a stab at my stomach, trying to get the knife in under my bulletproof vest. I grabbed his wrist, but he kept pushing, and the blade kept coming toward me, slowly but surely. My arms were burning from the effort, and I was panting like a dog, and using all my strength to hold him, but he was just too big and powerful, and that knife kept edging closer and closer to me... until it broke my skin. I screamed out in pain as I felt the steel sliding into me, slicing through me, inch by inch—
I woke up with a start, sitting bolt upright in my bed. I was sweating from the nightmare, and I had to take a few minutes to calm myself down. I didn't often get flashbacks or nightmares from the war, but when they did come, they could be pretty intense, as this one had just been.
My shoulder was aching with a dull pain from the gunshot wound I'd received earlier, and my heart was still hammering from the intensity of the nightmare. I leaned over and checked my phone – it was two o' clock in the morning. I felt groggy, presumably from the drugs Jimmy had given me to help me sleep, but I was more or less awake. I stood, gripped the drip stand, and wheeled it over to the window. I parted the curtains and looked across the street at Vivienne's house. All of the lights were off – I guessed she was sleeping.
I felt terrible about standing her up, and couldn't help feeling tremendously guilty about how the evening had gone. I really hoped that she would understand why I had done what I had done, but of course, I had been a complete idiot for not taking my phone with me, and I was prepared to accept the consequences of that. There was no excusing that.
I would go over there in the morning with a big bunch of flowers and some chocolates and ask for her forgiveness. I could only pray that she would give it to me.
As for now, I knew that I should probably head back to bed, as I needed rest to be able to recuperate from my injury. Hey, at least I had proof that I had actually been out doing what I said I was doing; it wasn't as if she could really accuse me of drinking with buddies or something like that when I had a fresh gunshot wound in my shoulder to prove that I'd been where I'd said I was.
I checked in on Jane who was sleeping, got a glass of water and then went to lay back down on my bed. I turned off the light and prepared to go to sleep. As I was drifting off, however, I was jolted out of my sleep daze by the sound through the baby monitor – Jane was crying, and she was crying loudly.
I put the light on, climbed out of bed, and shuffled over to her room again, pulling the drip stand along next to me. I opened the door and put on the light, and was alarmed to see her hair plastered to her head, soaked with sweat. I rushed over to her and put a hand on her forehead. She was burning up.
“Oh no, oh no,” I muttered to myself. “Jane, my lil' sweet pea, are you okay?”
“I don't feel good, Daddy,” she murmured between sobs. “Make it stop, Daddy, make the bad feeling stop...”
I hurried over to the dresser in her room and got a thermometer out and took her temperature. She was at 105 degrees – this was an emergency.
“We have to go see a doctor now, sweet pea,” I said, my heart racing with panic. “Come on; Daddy's taking you to see a doctor.”
I didn't have time to get the drip out of my arm properly, so I simply yanked it out, forgetting that Jimmy was asleep in the guest room. Some blood dribbled out from where the needle had just come out, but I figured it would close up quickly enough. I was dressed only in boxer shorts, so I ran into my room, grabbed the first pair of jeans and the first t-shirt I saw, and pulled them on quickly. I slipped my feet into some flip flops – not ideal, but I didn't have the time to lace up actual shoes – and then raced back into Jane's room. I picked her up and bolted out to the garage, not even bothering to lock the house up or tell Jimmy what was going on.
I hurriedly strapped her into the car seat in my truck, then started it and roared out of the garage, screeching the tires as I careened out of my driveway.
I raced through the back roads, breaking all of the speed limits and blasting through red lights – I had to get my little girl to the hospital immediately.
We reached the hospital after a few minutes of frantic driving, and I raced straight into the ER with Jane in my arms. A nurse ran out to see what was wrong.
“She's running a really, really high fever,” I gasped. “We need help right now.”