Princes of War Read Online Free PDF Page A

up. Stationary vehicles without an occupant were the most concerning. The eyes moved on. All the while the soldiers reported back and forth succinctly on the vehicle radios.
    They looked for indicators of hidden bombs on both sides of the road, as the drivers tried to keep their vehicles in the center to reduce the strength of any blast coming from either roadside. Broken road surfaces were studied. Anything on the road surface was suspect. Cans, jugs, boxes, discarded tires, even animal carcasses had been used to hide bombs. The eyes moved on. When possible, the Wolfhounds drove fast.
    Kale figured they’d driven past hidden bombs that didn’t explode because the trigger man wasn’t there or the device was defective. The two most common forms of IED attack were command detonation and remote detonation. Command meant the device was hardwired. Remote meant the device relied on a wireless signal, like a cell phone. One attacker initiated many IEDs. Others had timers or pressure plates. Eyes moved on. They drove on. Just too damn much to take in.
    It felt like swimming with sharks. And recently, he felt more and more like his blood was in the water.
    There was some positive news. The Task Force regularly rolled up IED manufacturing operations. Often informants revealed their whereabouts. A typical raid might uncover caches of old artillery rounds, batteries, cell phones, wire, various ancillary components to making the bombs. The bad news was that such raids confirmed that extensive amounts of artillery and mortar ammunition had been buried by Saddam’s forces and were now available to the insurgents.

    After passing through the Iraqi checkpoint, Wynn came up on the radio.
    “Speedy and aggressive, that’s how we’re going to take it, man. Speedy and aggressive,”
    “Uh huh,” grunted Gung, Wynn’s Chinese-American driver.
    The traffic thinned and the platoon drove faster.
    D22 still led. D21 followed, then 23 and 24.
    “Love ya, baby,” said Moose. His crew knew he was referring to the big machine gun.
    Each man shifted in his seat, charged by the intensity and adrenalin this ride had unleashed.
    Turnbeck restarted the reporting chatter. “Friendly convoy ahead. Coming this way.”
    The convoy drove 45 miles per hour, the four trucks spaced at 50-meter intervals.
    “IA vehicle ahead.”
    An Iraqi Army truck was stopped on the roadside. The Wolfhounds slowed, curious. Two Iraqi soldiers were changing a tire.
    “Go, go, go!” blurted Turnbeck, prodding his driver to the right side of the road, away from the down Iraqi truck, not wanting to slow down too much.
    “Those guys actually look like they’re working,” commented Halliburton, Turnbeck’s driver, as he blew paper spittle from his mouth into a soda can.
    “Female ahead, two o’clock,” Turnbeck reported. A lone female walked on the left shoulder of the road. “Not displaying anything in her hand.”
    “She’s displaying something else,” Halliburton said.
    “Meaning?” asked Moog, a back-seater in D22.
    “Dumb fuck! I mean she’s got something I need.”
    “Keep your mind on the business, man.”
    “Thicker traffic ahead,” reported Turnbeck.
    “I got something thick for ya!” Halliburton said.
    “Right.” Moog scratched his crotch.
    Traffic increased. The convoy slowed, crawling through two back-to-back intersections. The road expanded to four lanes. Civilian vehicles now approached from side streets, too—side entries always alerted the men to possible Vehicle-Borne-Improvised-Explosive-Devices, what the Army called “VBIEDs.” Everybody’s eyes fired, looking for threats.
    Moose, D24’s gunner, traversed his 50-caliber onto an approaching car.
    “If only they knew the damage this baby could do,” he said over the intercom.
    “Some of them might, knucklehead,” commented Cooke, always eager to convey the right lesson.
    A few minutes passed, then Turnbeck continued, “Car coming in at one o’clock.”
    “Another coming in