This is from Lew Perdue's new book
Die By Wire. He based the heroine on me. This is reprinted here with his permission. Some liberties have been taken with the fictionalization if my life. And that of my husband, Jackson Day.
Al-Kut Iraq, April 23, 2003
Mira Longbow fell in love with Jackson Day moments before he died. It would be the most wonderful pain she ever survived.
But for now, she followed him and the Bravo fire team up a crumbling flight of debris-jammed stairs that offered temporary shelter from small-arms fire and a glaring sun that could bleach the world white in seconds.
Minutes before, she had been frisking Muslim women as part of the squad's house-to-house search for weapons and jihadis. Then came an urgent mission to rescue a sniper-scout team pinned down on the roof by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army thugs.
At the third floor, an arched window framed a brilliant, heat-warped panorama of palm trees, chunky white and chamois buildings and a greasy brown bend of the Tigris River. Glare spilled from the window silhouetting Sergeant Day's broad shoulders and lean, six-foot-two physique.
Mira indulged herself with a quick flashback to the base cafeteria. The image of taut, cut muscles that sculpted his linebacker shoulders and made him a recruiting poster hunk worth knowing. Biblically.
"Gimme a SAW!" Day pointed to a jagged opening recently punched through the wall by an RPG, Rocket-Propelled Grenade. "There!"
Machine gunners Gold and Rivera set up their Squad Automatic Weapon and responded instants later.
From below, AK-47s crack-crack-cracked from a bomb-flattened ruin across the alley. Slugs smacked into the third floor ceiling, showering them with fine debris.
"Suppress those fuckers," Day barked.
Gold and Rivera loosed a long ripping burst from the SAW. The incoming AK-47 rounds paused for reflection.
"Alpha team! Roof!" Day shouted.
Mira's heart raced and senses sharpened. An unreal sense of immortality coursed through her then and made her skin tingle. Baptism by combat.
Hustle! Hustle! This is what you asked for!
A chance to prove herself in combat.
While a lot of military old farts loathed having "the weaker sex" in combat situations, they had no choice. In a Muslim culture only women could search women and that meant bending the regulations.
Before Iraq, straight-arrow Mira Longbow had always gone "by the book," first in her criminal justice studies at Corning Community College, then afterwards with the New York State Police.
9/11 changed that.
On 9/12, she enlisted in the Army, which assigned her to the Military Police.
"Charlie Team, cover the rear," Day barked.
"Corporal Longbow! See if you can manage to cover the flank without getting yourself hurt." Day pointed.
Can I cover it? Just watch!
Mira hustled through the debris.
On the far side of the room, she wrestled away the twisted remains of a bed frame blocking access to the window. She shouldered her M16, thumbed off the safety and swept the demolished alley below with the iron sights. Nothing but an avalanche of debris, trash and crows picking at a dead something that might once have been a dog.
She risked a quick glance in Day's direction. He was a misogynous bastard, but he moved like a total stud: pointing, directing, issuing orders. Totally in command. Totally alpha.
Day was definitely hot.
Some other time, some other place, some other life.
She had a mission and no inclination to screw that up.
Day turned to follow Alpha team up stairs.
A mortar round detonated on the roof.
Hell rained down. Day vanished in a firestorm of shattered concrete and shrapnel.
The shockwave slammed Mira to her knees. Slugs swarmed through her window.
White-hot pain hot slashed at her left shoulder.
Concrete debris careened off her helmet. Brilliant blue pinpoints shone through the blackness that gathered behind her eyes.
Hang on!
Mira cradled her M16 and rolled away from the concrete and slugs.
Show the bastards THIS is women's work too!
Two years into her enlistment Mira had been buried with public affairs assignments — women's work
— until the night she took down bad-ass Master Sergeant Dan Brown who'd been big, bad and disorderly. She single-handedly dropped him in a matter of seconds with her bare hands: no baton, no pepper spray, no sidearm.
Respect came immediately. Some joked about the Xena in their midst. But Mira was no Amazon, just an intensely motivated, highly fit, five-foot-nine redhead. She ran, worked out, fought smart and did her best to keep her generous curves out of the equation.
Shortly after taking down Master Sergeant Brown, company brass attached her to Day's squad. Not a member of the squad. Just attached, tolerated to handle the culturally explosive task of searching Iraqi women.
Day had quickly let her know that, given a choice, he'd certainly have nothing to do with women in the infantry. "Follow my orders to the letter. Try to keep up with us. Don't do stupid things that'll get people killed."
Mira quickly discovered an innate ability to pick up Arabic. That quick fluency connected her with the women she searched. They women confided in her, told her the locations of weapons caches, men, booby-traps. And that they hated al-Sadr and his jihadi perverts.
WHUMP! The shell-shocked structure shuddered. Gold's machine gun banged a comforting tattoo that hammered past the ringing in her ears. TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! "Eat shit and die you fucking assholes!"
Not Gold's voice.
Mira frowned. TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! The SAW rattled out a hailstorm of 5.56 slugs. From outside came the softer replies from a trio of AKs. "C'mon futhermuckers!" Sergeant Day's voice.
What happened to Gold?
TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! The AKs stopped. "Gotcha! Motherfucking Mahdi assholes." Then the sizzle-roar of incoming RPGs filtered through the dust cloud. WHAM! Next door. WHAM! The floor shook. The next rocket hit the wall one floor down. THUD! A dud clattered off concrete somewhere to her left.
Move! Move!
Stoked by an adrenaline rush that lit her insides, Mira rose to her window. In the alley below, two militiamen with RPGs.
Mira aimed. Squeezed the trigger. The first gunman's head snapped back. She'd gone for the head shot because jihadis often wore body armor the Iranians had given them.
And because I'm that good.
Before the first insurgent hit the ground, Mira took out his buddy.
"Longbow!" Day barked. "Here!"
Mira hustled. One floor below, Charlie team's SAW opened up with a long sustained burst accompanied by the report of a couple of M4s.
But nothing from the point fire team that had gone up to the roof.
And why was a squad leader manning a machine gun?
What happened to Gold? Damn!
Mira hustled through wrecking-ball debris that littered the floor. A gust of 100-degree wind blasted through the battered building and swirled away the dust revealing walls scorched in more shades of black than she had ever seen. One corner of the roof cambered down in a curved slope that might have been graceful but for the tortured rebar along the edges.
To her right, a finger lay on top of a jagged concrete piece the size of a Candie’s shoe box. Just a single, disembodied digit, ragged and bloody at one end, pale as concrete dust elsewhere.
Mira checked out her own hands, then scanned the area. Spotted a hand at the end of a bloody kibble trail. She realized why no one had heard from the point fire team.
Damn!
Anger seethed in Mira's belly as she approached Day. To his left lay Adam Gold's catastrophically damaged remains. Private Javier Rivera, the fire team's assistant SAW gunner sat to Day's right, feeding the machine gun's ammo belt. Rivera's sienna skin had bled to a pale yellow; shock glazed his dark eyes. A pulsing thigh wound left him sitting in a shimmering pool of blood
Day fired the last shot in the belt, and opened the feed cover. Rivera fumbled a fresh ammo belt toward the feedtray.
Then collapsed.
Mira took over. Leaned her M16 against the fractured masonry wall, nimbly positioned the first round against the SAW's cartridge stop.
"C Team," Day barked down the stairs. "I need a SAW gunner!"
Day closed the feed cover and racked the bolt to chamber the first round.
Next to him, Rivera struggled to sit. "I ... need to … “
"You need to take it easy," Mira said.
Rivera let her press him firmly back. Day fired a short burst.
Rivera could bleed out any time from the leg wound. More AKs opened fire below. Mira used her K-Bar to slash Rivera's pant leg open from thigh to cuff. She whipped the Quik-Clot packet out of her first-aid kit, ripped it open and sifted the fine, clay-like powder over River's wounds. Then she strapped on an H compression bandage and pressed hard. She felt the heat as the Quik-Clot went to work.
Charlie Team's assistant machine gunner Mac MacCarthy lunged up the steps and took over the machine gun.
Day surveyed the situation. He looked first at Rivera.
"Nice work."
Then Day looked at her. "That your blood? Or Rivera's?"
Mira followed his gaze. A red splotch soaked the left shoulder of her shirt.
"Must be contagious." She shrugged it off.
Day raised his eyebrows, shook his head. Never thought a woman could joke away a battle wound.
Then he turned to survey the room.
Mira watched his face fall.
"Fuck al-Sadr," he mumbled, turned to face the stairs leading one flight down.
"Grady!" Day's voice cut through the noise of battle. "Medevacs. Now! And air support."
Incoming AK rounds lanced through the air. Day crab-crawled to the remains of the stairs leading to the roof.
"A Team report!" Day yelled up the shaft.
No reply.
With his M16 slung at his back, Day clambered through the ruins with the grace of a rock-climber.
Mira bent over to assist McCarthy on the SAW, but Rivera struggled into position.
"I can do it now," he insisted.
Mira hesitated, nodded, then moved the ammo containers closer to him.
Just then, a metal storm of incoming slugs jack hammered the masonry into dust and shards.
"Oh shit!" McCarthy mumbled, then opened up with the SAW. "Sarge! They're swarming like cockroaches down there!"
Mira grabbed her M16. Down below, the street crawled with insurgents, some with AKs, others with RPGs. Just beyond them, three Toyota pick-ups slewed to a halt and disgorged more jihadis.
McCarthy opened up with tight, accurate bursts, scything at the approaching onslaught.
Mira set her M16 to semi-automatic, sighted in on an insurgent ready to fire his RPG. She pulled the trigger once. The man fell as he pulled the trigger. The RPG's rocket hit another insurgent and blew him into ballistic bits.
For an instant, the extravagant explosion froze nearby insurgents. During that short lull, Mira pulled the trigger three times. Three more insurgents fell.
"Nice shooting," Day shouted behind her.
The surprise in his voice severely pissed her off.
Mira continued to shoot. Insurgents continued to fall. A daughter can learn much from a crack-shot, deer-hunting Dad. Science had proved that women's hand-eye coordination made them better shots than men. Which was why she could outshoot her dad by the time she turned thirteen.
"Time for tea with Allah, mofos!" McCarthy shouted. He walked the machine gun's rounds up the back of the closest pick-up. The slugs blasted past a cache of RPG rounds, shattered the back window then decorated the cab's interior with the fine red and gray debris of the driver's most intimate thoughts.
The SAW's tracers ignited the truck's gas tank.
Mira killed jihadis one after another, so they zeroed in on her. She ducked, lunged. To her left, Day crouched near the base of what had been the stairs. At his feet lay a bloody canvas pack splotched with blood. Next to that lay a rifle she immediately recognized as an M82A1A.
This variant of the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle could fire Raufoss Mk 211 armor-piercing, incendiary rounds typically used against vehicles, and to breach walls and other fortifications.
The incoming fire grew more intense. Mira reloaded and turned back to the firefight. Insurgents fanned out, advanced. McCarthy's SAW would chew one of them up and he'd get up again. Hit again, up again.
Wired on amphetamines and every other sort of chemical enhancement, you had to decapitate the bastards or cut them in half before they'd stop.
Or hit between the eyes.
Mira sighted through a crack in the wall, brought her M16 to bear on another RPG carrier. Squeezed the trigger. Dropped him like a sack of pork chops.
Then she did it again. And again.
Half a dozen RPGs zeroed in on her. Mira took out two of them then tucked and rolled away. A moment later other rockets took out the entire wall that had protected her.
"Fucking A!" Day yelled. Debris hailed down. "The hell you learned to shoot like that?"
His voice now conveyed respect.
Before Mira could enjoy his attitude change, the battle schooled her in rule number one: in a war zone, life can go from bad to worse faster than a UN Peacekeeper can throw down his rifle.
The building trembled.
RPGs silenced Charlie Team's machine gun on the floor below.
"Jesus! We're the fucking bait. Look!" Day yelled.
In the distance, maybe 900 yards away, Mira watched a pick-up disgorge three jihadis with shoulder-launched missile tubes.
"Grady!" Day barked. "Warn off air support. Tell 'em an ambush. They got Iglas! SA-18s it looks."
No reply.
"Shit!"
The unmistakable thwack of Apache gunships grew closer. Mira scrambled to the remains of a window.
"Comms!" Day shouted. "Who's got fucking comms?"
The only reply came from McCarthy's SAW still hammering away.
Mira watched the jihadi missile carriers in the distance.
Too far for the M16.
An M16 had an effective range of 550 yards. The missiles — any one of which could bring down an Apache — were almost twice that distance away.
Must try.
Mira braced her M16 on the window sill and sighted in. They were within range of an "area shot" meaning the slug could reach the area but was unlikely to be accurately aimed by the average infantryman.
I am not average.
Day's voice filtered through the distance of her concentration. "Comms? Radio? Anybody with a fucking radio?"
Mira sighted, adjusted for the distance, elevated the muzzle, took the wind into account as the dust swirled around the men. She cleared her mind, willed everything she had through the M16.
I am the weapon.
She took a deep breath, let it almost out.
Took up the slack in the trigger. Felt herself one with the rifle.
Squeezed the trigger.
A quarter of a second later, the missile carrier spun and fell.
Area shot my ass!
The missile tube skidded on the ground. She tracked it.
The missile tube stopped. Another jihadi bent toward it. She shot again. Missed.
"Shit!"
Mira watched the tube spin, hit by her slug. Disabled?
The tube came to a rest. The remaining jihadis scattered for cover behind the corner of a bullet-pocked building.
Now what?
The Apaches grew louder, the ambush more certain. Day threw himself into the debris next to her. In the next instant, he rested the Barrett on the sill. Took a moment to aim. Fired.
His shot wandered wide and obliterated the front end of a Toyota pick-up. The high-explosive Raufoss round stirred up a hailstorm of hot shrapnel that dropped half a dozen nearby jihadis. Not the ones with SAMs.
"Damn," Day mumbled.
Mira glanced at the massive 30-pound rifle.
"Scope's damaged," she said.
Helo thwacks grew louder, gunships nearing the ambush. An Al-Jazeera clip of bringing down two Apaches would make for priceless recruiting propaganda.
"Give it," Mira said.
Day hesitated. Mira watched a quick flash of skepticism in his pale blue eyes.
She wrested the Barrett from his grip. And enjoyed the flash of anger from his eyes.
In one swift motion, Mira wrenched away the damaged scope and wrestled the Barrett into firing position. Using only the standard iron sights on the barrel, Mira fired an armor-piercing, high-explosive round at the building concealing the insurgents. The corner crumbled.
Beyond the shattered wall, one insurgent rolled on the ground, hands covering his face.
"Much better," she said.
Day mumbled an astonished expletive, his tone shot through with admiration.
Another jihadi scrambled to his feet, shouldered the SA-18.
Mira inhaled, exhaled, prayed, squeezed. An instant later, the high-explosive round chummed the man into a fine red mist.
The lead Apache thundered overhead. Instantly, the ugly, bulging, intimidating, beautiful, lethal helicopter began to plow jihadis into the ground with its 30-millimeter chain gun.
The remaining insurgent settled his SAM into firing position.
Apaches were awesome, not invulnerable.
The jihadi stood rock-still, aimed the Russian Igla.
He sighted.
She sighted. Aimed, fired, missed.
Calm. Concentrate.
Mira focused the world away, wrapped herself in the zone. Nothing existed but the Barrett sights and the man with the missile. Just as she squeezed the trigger, an RPG round blew a hole in the wall to the left of her window.
The concussion rocked her. Mira watched the Raufoss round detonate at missile man's feet, peppering him with shrapnel.
Day shouted.
"Oh hellfuckdamnshit!"
Mira turned.
Day slumped to the ground, his right hand clutching at a bright fountain erupting from his armpit.
Down below, the jihadi missile man sank to his knees, struggled back up.
Bastards!
Mira re-aimed. With no conscious thought, she squeezed the trigger.
A single pale instant after the jihadi triggered the missile, Mira's Raufoss round vaporized his midsection.
Smoke and fire erupt from the missile tube.
Her heart sank.
The missile spun drunkenly from the launch tube. It pitched and yawed erratically a meter or so above the ground.
"Move it Longbow! Move! Move!"
A command from behind her.
Mira turned toward the voice. Halfway across the shattered room stood a soldier straight and tall half-obscured by the dust and flying debris. She didn't recognize him, his voice or his unit markings.
What the hell?
A moment ago, there had been only her and Day. Now a third soldier had materialized.
The whine of Apache engines mounted like the end of the world, then blades battered the air with a beat that transcended hearing and thudded in her chest.
She turned, watched the Apaches jink and yaw to avoid the SA-18.
The missile stabilized, climbed just enough to make straight for Mira.
At that instant, she felt a shove.
And words that came clearly to her ears despite the din beyond.
"I said move!"
She looked back. The unknown soldier again.
But even with his face just inches from hers now, she saw the unknown soldier's features no clearer than before.
He shoved her again. Hard.
Mira fell face first on top of Day.
The missile exploded.
