Chapter Text
The Corporal's arm screamed pain as she crawled on her belly through the ruins of the sandbagged bunker towards the M60 machine gun emplacement. Incoming fire divoted the area around her. In the dim light provided by her burning re-supply truck she could see that the gunner was dead. They're were all dead.
The squad that manned this forward guard post, her partner from the re-supply truck, even the TV news crew that rode out here with them to photograph this desolate pass and this forward post. A post at the ass end of nowhere which would be withdrawn in a few days. It was only here to guard the road through the pass. Only going to be here until the Italian medical team in the Afghan village below had completed their humanitarian work with the women and children refugees that were there and then returned to Kabul.
The soldiers that manned this position had been caught out in the open, most of the squad excitedly hamming it up for one of the TV crew's cameras. She and her partner were unloading supplies from the truck and moving them into the bunker. She was approaching the open door to the bunker carrying an arm-full of MRE rations. The TV crew's second camera man, who'd been attempting to flirt with her outrageously, was filming her from inside the bunker door when the first rocket grenade had hit. Most of the TV crew and half the squad were gone in an instant. The rest had been picked off in the next handful of seconds by stifling automatic weapons fire and fierce rocket grenades as the soldiers tried to respond to the surprise attack.
One of the deadly missiles had rocketed past her ear, missing her by only inches and passed through the open portal into the bunker. Its detonation had blown off the roof and violently thrown the Corporal backwards, knocking her off her feet. With ringing ears and half blind from blood covering her face, she tried to rise but quickly discovered that her left leg wouldn't hold her weight. The left sleeve of her jacket was in bloody shreds and her arm was alive with pain. She found it hard to breathe as she began to crawl, knowing that the rubble of the bunker was her best chance for some kind of cover.
The Corporal was aware that this was an attack in force, that the Taliban insurgents were here in serious numbers. The number of AK-47's she heard firing on her position told her that. She thought of the women and children in the village below. They would be treated as collaborators. The Italian medical team would likely be killed outright. At least the men would be. She had heard stories of what happened to women that the insurgents considered enemy military personnel. She had no intention of allowing such things to happen to her.
Her rifle, which had been slung on its webbing on her left shoulder, had been torn away from her when she was hit. She scanned her stinging eyes around her position and spotted it lying on the ground about twenty feet away. To retrieve it would require her to move from behind cover. Her best hope was to find a weapon in the wreckage of the bunker. She was cold and very aware of the volume of blood that was seeping from her shrapnel wounds. Her ballistic armor had likely saved her life but her leg, arm, armpit and the side of her neck weren't protected. Leaving her left side virtually useless. She was truly scared now, because her leg didn't hurt. It just felt like dead weight. She had heard that when the body was really badly wounded, shock shut the pain responses down.
She pulled herself farther into the rubble, tears forming in her eyes as she struggled. She drew herself up behind the heavy machine gun and looked out. She could see the insurgents moving up. They were confidently out in the open, as if convinced that the bunker was no longer a threat. Their plan was clear, they would over run the position and then attack the village below. It was hopeless. She knew it. She was bleeding badly and knew that she'd likely lose consciousness before to very long. There was only so much ammunition in the bandoleer feeding the weapon. There was no one to resupply her. But as she sighted down the barrel of the weapon on the advancing enemy, she knew she had no choice. In the acrid stench of gunpowder and the chattering of the heavy gun firing she proved their assumption wrong.
Time slowed around her and she found her thoughts drifting to the young male nurse she had met yesterday when she was bringing provisions to the medical team. A sweet young man who had pinged on the Corporal's gaydar. His laughing smile and dark hair reminded her a great deal of her best friend Doug back home. She remembered the Afghan mother with her twin daughters. The twin teens' dark eyed similarity reminded her of the blue eyed identical twins she had left behind. Blue eyes so much like their mother's. She had promised their mother that she would come home safe. It was one of the last things she'd said to the woman that had come to be her whole world.
Her ammunition all but gone she closed her eyes as she grabbed for the radio, knowing what she must do. “Foxfire Two Actual this is Sierra Four One, do you copy?” she shouted above the chatter of incoming gunfire.
“Foxfire Two Actual, we copy.” the tinny voice from the radio replied.
“Foxfire Two Actual, Position is over run! Squad down! We have hostiles in the front door and headed out the back. Require immediate artillery support!” The soldier screamed into the mike. The insurgents were moving up again, although more cautiously this time. As she ducked behind what was left of the sandbagged wall she incongruently noticed that the record light was still lit on the TV camera lying in the ruble next to the mangled body of its operator.
“Sierra Four One, provide barrage coordinates.” the speaker on the radio replied.
The Corporal closed her eyes and reached her blood covered responsive hand up to her uninjured shoulder activating the emergency IRF retrieval beacon that hung there. “On my beacon!” she hollered into the mike. “Let it rain! I repeat! Let it rain!”
“Sierra Four One, barrage on your signal will put you at ground zero of the strike....” replied the tinny voice of the radio operator.
A tear ran down her cheek as she dared to glance out the gun port. The nearest of the Taliban were close enough that she could see their faces. She quickly pulled her head back down. “It's a shame some of my last words to Miranda have to be a lie....” she whispered. “Foxfire Two Actual,” she yelled into the radio, “civilian refugees and a non-combatant medical team in the village below. Enemy in-force headed for the back door! I repeat again, on my location! Let it rain! Let it rain!”
Miles away the radio operator looked to his Commanding Officer, who nodded. The radio operator spoke into his microphone, “Duck and cover Sierra Four One. Incoming.” He clicked off the mike, closed his eyes and quietly whispered “and God's speed you brave crazy bitch.” Seconds later the eight Howitzers of the battery roared into life sending screaming death into the sky. Seconds after that the forward guard post and everything around it for more than a hundred meters disappeared in the hellish aftermath of a heavy artillery shelling.
*****
Half a world away Cassidy Priestly sat, bored, in 7th grade Contemporary Social Studies watching web articles about the war in Afghanistan on her laptop computer. Try as she might she couldn't bring herself to care about that conflict so far away. She really didn't understand why American soldiers needed to be there; to Cassidy, it was just wrong. She changed websites going to CNN and the images of a breaking news story caught her eye. The camera angle was terrible, the lighting poor as an American soldier crawled past the camera. The body of the soldier obscured the lens for a moment but Cassidy could clearly see the bloody shoulder and the name on the breast of the jacket; SACHS, A. Cassidy covered her mouth to stifle the gasp of shock as she watched the soldier crawl away from the camera and struggle to pull herself up behind a machine gun. As the weapon began to fire Cassidy's eyes grew large as she watched the horror of the scene unfold.
Andy had gone to Afghanistan. Mother had told them so. Mother had told them that Andy was part of a supply unit for the National Guard and had to go, because the country needed her. It was her duty. Mother had said Andy would be stationed in the city of Kabul where she would be safe. The images from CNN didn't tell the same story. Andy wasn't safe. Andy was scared and screaming into a radio and then there were explosions before the image went black. The commentator said the camera had belonged to a reporter that had been killed in the attack. It had captured the images of the heroic American soldier protecting women and children refugees and an Italian medical team. That the images had been transmitted from the camera by satellite and only ended when the camera had been destroyed by the shelling of American artillery. That the soldier had called down a strike on her own position to protect the village below. The talking head on CNN said that the soldier had bravely given her life in the defense of innocent civilians.
Cassidy stood from her chair, knocking it over backward, her vision blinded by tears running down her cheeks. Andy was Mother's friend. Was becoming her and Caroline's friend. She had to find Caroline and then she had to call her Mother. Andy made her Mother happy. The horror of realization made her usually rational mind retreat into the frightened little girl inside. Mummy needed to know what CNN was saying. Mummy could make them tell the truth. Make them say Andy was alright. Ignoring the objection of her teacher she blindly made for the classroom door. Caroline would be in English Lit just a few rooms down the hall. It was hard to see through the tears but she had to get to Caroline and then call Mummy....
*****
Miranda Priestly never took calls during meetings. This was a stone cut ironclad fact as far as Nigel knew, and he had been with her at Runway for more than twenty years. Today was different. Today Emily interrupted the meeting with the Art Department to quietly tell her that her daughters were on the telephone and that they sounded quite upset. Miranda immediately took the call. After listening for a few moments Nigel could see her face pale, and then her beautiful complexion turned to gray. She told the girls that Roy would come and fetch them and then bring them to her, that she would be with them soon. She then dropped the phone and, zombiefied, she walked out of her office without a word to the assembled employees. In Nigel's experience this was unprecedented. He dismissed the members of the Art department and then, with a rising dread, followed Miranda out of the office. Emily sat at her desk watching Miranda through the glass window of the conference room. Miranda stood there, motionless, watching something on the big screen TV that hung on the wall there.
Nigel looked to Emily at her desk who returned his look wide eyed with worry. Her slight head shake told him that she probably didn't know any more than he did. Nigel stopped and spoke to the frazzled girl. “What's going on?” he quietly demanded.
Emily looked at him. “How the bloody hell should I know?” she whispered. “Her 'little monsters' called crying and then she had me call Roy to pick them up from school and then to come to get her. He's due any minute. She's canceled the rest of her day and all of tomorrow too!” The girl was on the verge of hyperventilating.
Nigel headed for the conference room to ask Miranda if she was okay when Miranda, who rarely raised her voice, shouted, actually shouted for Emily.
Emily flew past him to the conference room doorway. “Emily,” Miranda said, obviously trying to control violent emotions. “I met a general of the Army at the MOMA event a few weeks ago. Get him on the telephone.” Scared, Emily rushed to obey.
Nigel looked to Miranda, concerned. He'd never seen her like this. She stared at the TV, her hand reaching out, seemingly of its own volition, to caress the image of a soldier on the screen. The background audio from the TV was distorted, the camera askew and not in a good position to catch the action it was recording. Incoming bullets pocked the ground around the obviously wounded figure on the screen as the soldier seemed to be screaming something into a radio. The famous white haired CNN news anchor solemnly added voice over commentary. “Our sources at the Pentagon confirm that after the other soldiers at this forward guard post were killed in a surprise attack, this brave American soldier held off the enemy as long as she could and then, in a complete act of self sacrifice, called down an artillery strike on her own head to stop insurgents from getting past her position. The insurgents intended target was apparently a civilian village in the valley below this post. The village has lately become a refugee center with an Italian medical team supplying aid to those Afghan civilians in need of medial help.” Nigel's eyes were glued to the screen. There was something about the soldier in the image, he thought as he watched her turn her scared, achingly familiar, doe brown eyes back to the camera. She reached to her throat and clasped something hanging around her neck before closing her eyes. Shells screamed out of the night sky and turned the image to hot light before the screen changed to black. The news anchor looked solemnly at the camera. “We have just been informed that this American hero's name was Corporal Andrea Sachs of the 192nd Supply Regiment of the Ohio National Guard,” he said in compassionate -award winning -anchor style.
“Jesus Christ,” Nigel whispered.
“General Keiffer on line one Miranda,” came Emily's voice over the intercom. Marshaling herself Miranda picked up the telephone receiver. Covering the receiver with her hand for a split-second she said “Out, Nigel.” The last thing Nigel heard was Miranda saying “General Keiffer? Miranda Priestly. I have a favor to ask....” as he left the conference room.
Nigel closed his eyes and felt his heart ache. He now had an idea of what had happened. And of what the ramifications were likely to be.
*****