The Coup de Gras

The survivor, in bloody desert fatigues, leaned heavily on his AK-47 sitting on the roof, with heavy wounds to his back and legs from the strafing he took in the hall. His LZ smoke rose in plumes from the roof, red as an early desert sunrise, the sun not yet crested… The helicopter was banking into a turn, having passed the smoking battle scene to confirm the safety of its landing. Black hair full of grit and blood, his face would forever offer a reminder of this battle with blisters and cuts from the last explosion and shrapnel. But they were wounds that made the man smile… because he survived just long enough to make the evacuation.

He chuckled at his own pleasure as the bird flying in was American, a Blackhawk helicopter… He loved the irony, while he rarely let his brutish mind go to such entertaining reflection. All he knew was, he was getting out of the war zone, finally.

The Blackhawk hovered, one of the rescue team hung out of the door in further assessment, seeing only one bloodied and fatigued warrior, he waved his approval. A thumbs-up was the return gesture, too drained to offer anything more.

The pilot levelled, then descended, with no obstructions. There was nothing of an assault team remaining… the complex was strewn with smoking wreckage and a few bodies, lying in grisly rest. The pilot and his mate were shouting things to one another that could not be heard over the heavy beating of the rotors… their skids came to full rest on the roof… but the warrior was too beaten up to get up, leaning on his weapon, attempting to lift himself. The copilot jumped form the helicopter, keeping his head low, and jogged to the man shouting, again overwhelmed by the roar of the big military bird.

He reached the wounded mercenary, grabbed his arm and pulled him up, swinging the man’s arm around his neck, absorbing the weight, and he began shouting again, “Başka kimse var mı?”

It was an easy answer, of course, it is always the first question to a dying man, being retrieved from the front lines of an inhospitable war. The mercenary was spitting blood, shook his head adamantly in answer…

The copilot grabbed the belt of the man, feeling the warmth of his blood scaling down his back… He knew this was urgent, so he ran, almost carrying the dying man; the pilot helped pull him in and they both secured him in a belt, for there was no stability left in the ghastly figure. The pilot then yelled out to both, “Kanatlar yukarı. İyi rüzgarlarda olacağız.”

He only had the energy for another thumbs-up.

The pilot yelled more to the copilot who sat asking the warrior if he wanted water, holding up a bottle… one of a soldier’s first needs in desert warfare… the soldier nodded, the copilot twisted the cap and half the bottle disappeared in the instant… The Blackhawk lifted off the roof, it turned its nose down as it leaned into its forward rush, its massive rotors revved, shaking the cab with its mammoth engines.

The copilot then pulled down a health pack stowed in the craft, and reached out to the wounded man, his fatigues saturating in blood, the warrior waved him off, knowing it was pointless… it was nothing of heroics, it was pragmatism. He shook his head adamantly, and the copilot yelled at him above the noise of the bird… “Yardıma ihtiyacın var yoksa öleceksinYardıma ihtiyacın var yoksa!”

He waved off the declaration, ignoring the severity of the circumstance, because there was only one end, he knew. Dying soldiers always know.

The copilot yelled again, more adamantly, “Yardıma ihtiyacın var yoksa öleceksinYardıma ihtiyacın var yoksa!”

Then the soldier looked up at the copilot, and he grinned in gratitude… or peace… or irony. And he shouted back at the Turkish copilot.

“I have no fucking idea what you’re sayin’ asshole! I just came aboard to give you our American send-off!” He pulled open his stolen fatigue tunic and he had a claymore held tightly to his chest, strung up like a catcher’s chest protector; it sardonically read, “Front to the Enemy” … and surrounding the lethal munition was a string of five fragment grenades, strung like Christmas ornaments. The eyes grew into bulging orbs of fear… “My name’s Donnie Yankovich, the Polish lover, and I wanted to make sure I gave you my American blessing… you fucking mutts!” and he pulled the ignition line, sending piercing death, flame and folly and all hell back to where they all belonged.

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