Pickers
The pursuit of happiness
The figure in the back of the Toyota pick-up clung to the custom-mounted .50 caliber machine gun as the truck bounced along the dirt road toward the ambush site. It was traveling at a speed that suggested the driver was attempting to shake his buddy in the back loose. He wasn’t. He was, however, unaware of the three-man team of “security” contractors waiting behind the dirt mounds on the side of the road with an RPG pointed at him.
“Here we go, boys,” said a man with a British accent as he tucked a pair of binoculars into one of the many pockets of his pants. He tapped Ron on the shoulder, double checked his rifle was locked and loaded, and crouched down into position. Ron maintained the vehicle within the rudimentary sights of the RPG, and he counted, “three…two…one…see ya…”
Whooooooshhhhhhhh……….
The rocket propelled grenade hit its target with a reverberating thunder crack. Upon impact the grenade blew the truck onto its side. Two of the contractors stepped carefully around the front of the truck, filling the cab with rounds from their rifles as they moved. Pop pop… pop pop pop pop pop… The contractor with the British accent held back and kept eyes on the road.
“Secure!” shouted one of the two men circling the truck.
“Secure!” shouted the second man.
One of the men knelt down and reached into the cab of the truck through the broken windshield. His hand rummaged through the dead driver’s chest pockets. The second contractor walked up behind him, “Whatcha got, Ron?”
“Just looking for something to take home and show the wife. Help me drag him out, would ya?” Ron and the other man dragged the body out, breaking leftover pieces of glass in the windshield as they did. Once it was clear of the truck, they dropped the body. It hit the ground with a thud, and a small cloud of dusty sand settled on the dead man’s bloody face. His eyes were still open, maintaining an expression somewhere between surprise and terror. “This bastard’s holding a rosary. Look! What the…”
“Nah, that’s his Muslim prayer beads,” said Steve. He untangled the beads from the dead man’s hands and threw them at an emaciated dog that was getting a bit too close. “Didn’t bring him much luck today.” The dog hobbled away to wait at a safer distance.
Ron pulled a bright blue guitar pick from one of the dead man’s pockets. The shiny pick caught Steve’s eye as Ron held it up to examine it closer. They both stared at it, mesmerized. “Look alive, gents!” shouted the chief from the other side of the road.
“Chief?!” shouted Steve. The two men turned their attention from the guitar pick to the road. The chief was looking up the road through his binoculars.
“We’ve got company!” he said to the two men. “Looks like another Technical… with a fifty… a couple miles out.”
The shiny blue guitar pick went into Ron’s chest pocket, and the three men moved quickly into their previous positions behind the dirt mounds. Steve took note of which pocket the pick went into, and he didn’t know why; he just knew he needed to know where it was.
Unlike the preceding ambush, this second vehicle was a surprise, but it was one for which they were well prepared. The RPG remained unloaded and on the floor. This was going to be a “wait and see” type of attack.
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The approaching truck bumped and slid to a stop. As it did, it sent a cloud of sand and gravel at the truck laying on its side with the two bodies beside it. The three contractors behind the dirt mounds on the other side of the street watched two men wearing head scarfs and carrying AK-47s jump out of the cab of the new truck and walk over to the bodies. They were shouting in arabic and waving their rifles around like laser pointers in a PowerPoint presentation. The man in the back of the truck manning the mounted .50 caliber machine gun stayed on the trigger, covering his buddies. He was shouting, too.
The chief rolled from his front to his back on the dirt mound to address his men. “I’ll give the guy on the fifty the good news. You two divvy up the leftovers.” Before it could nod in agreement, Ron’s head disappeared into a pink and red, fleshy mess followed by a mist of blood.
Thud Thud Thud… Follow up rounds from the .50 caliber rained into the dirt mounds. Dirt flew. Ron’s headless body fell limp, and the chief and Steve hit the ground. They felt the rounds more than they heard them. Thud thud thud…
Pop pop pop… pop pop pop pop… The two AK-47s opened fire on the dirt mounds. The chief and Steve stayed down and listened to the men across the road shouting”
“Allahu Akbar!!… Allahu Akbar!!”
As if they had read each other’s minds, the chief and Steve both pulled grenade pins and lobbed the grenades over the dirt mounds in the general direction of the .50 caliber machine gun.
Pop pop pop pop pop…..
Thud thud thud….
Boom!… boom!…
Without waiting around to listen and see if the shooting had stopped, the chief and Steve charged over the dirt mounds. They ran a classic two-man advancing formation and did not stop. If the key to winning a firefight is aggression, these two followed the book to a tee. They unleashed everything in their small arsenal as they advanced forward and cut through their attackers like an office shredder eating TPS reports.
Victorious, the chief and Steve rummaged through the carnage and scored some ammunition and a couple of kalashnikovs. The chief stepped over one of the bodies while arranging a rendezvous with their boss on his cell phone. “Nah, you must have me confused with someone who doesn’t care about losing my men…”
Back on the other side of the road, Steve crossed his chest and knelt down next to Ron’s body. He carefully removed the shiny blue guitar pick from Ron’s chest pocket and held it up in front of his face. He felt instant comfort from the pain he was suppressing after losing his buddy in such a horrific manner. It was as if the pick was entering his soul through his eyes and washing his inner being. The more he stared at it, the greater was the feeling of peace. Not that he had become unaware of the atrocity that lay in front of him on the ground and across the road, he just didn’t care anymore.
“Hey, whatcha got there?” said the chief, walking across the road. Steve continued to stare at the pick with a relaxed smile on his face. “Yo! Mr. Happy!” said the chief.
The pick was snatched from Steve’s hand. It took him a second to realize. When he did, he jumped up to face the thief. “That’s mine, Chief. Give it back right now.” He spoke calmly, but he appeared to not be in the mood for games. The chief had intended to give it back. He’d just wanted a look and to mess with his buddy. Now, however, he was unable to comprehend letting the thing go. It was his. He stared at the pick like he was at his own wedding and it was his bride, and the priest had just granted them permission to kiss.
“I’m not joking, Chief. Give it back. It’s mine,” Steve said with growing agitation.
“No way, mate. You two pulled this off that raghead. She’s mine now.”
Steve charged the chief. The chief stumbled back a few paces to absorb Steve’s impact. Like two rams fighting in the wild, trying to push through each other, they locked up. The pick hit the floor; they both noted its location. With his right shoulder planted in the chief’s abdomen, Steve hooked his arms around the chief’s legs and lifted him off the ground before slamming him down hard into the sand. Steve felt the chief’s body go limp. He sat up on his knees to begin raining down fists and elbows but stopped as he noticed the chief didn’t look right. It looked like someone had put a Chief mask on a watermelon and then dropped it onto a rock. The chief was dead.
Once the cogs clicked into place in Steve’s head and he realized what had happened, he went straight for the pick. He held it up high in the air like it was a Grammy. He was standing in bloody sand, surrounded by mutilated bodies, and he could not have been more content. It wasn’t that he enjoyed the presence of dead people and blood on his boots, it’s just that the pick made everything feel good. Everything.
