"You don't think she was coerced at all? Coached?"
"No sir," Morgan answered. "She spoke with me alone. I think she's got some good support from her family, sir, but the parents clearly didn't know we were coming and neither did she. This wasn't rehearsed. She even showed me bruising that matches what was reported on Franklin's phone. And I think she'll go the distance and testify."
There was a pause. It was, after all, a heavy thing. "You have it all on tape?"
"Yes, sir."
"It's amazing that she would talk to any of us at all. Outstanding work, sergeant."
"Thank you, sir," Morgan said. She felt a rush of satisfaction. The situation was certainly as ugly as anything she'd seen in Iraq—it was hard to smile about this after all the pain she had just witnessed—and yet the moment left her feeling a little proud. Morgan felt a pang of guilt for thinking of herself at a time like this, but she couldn't deny that it felt good to know she was very good at her job.
"Very well. Is Morkot there with you?"
"No sir, he's in the other Humvee, but he recommends arrest."
"Alright, we'll get to that. You just—"
She didn't hear the rest over the explosion that blew the Humvee ahead of hers end over end to land on its roof. Washington slammed on the brakes before he struck the wrecked vehicle. Curses of surprise and anger erupted from inside Morgan's Humvee, followed an instant later by gunfire as they took hits from both sides. She saw blood burst from Jensen's left shoulder beside her as the allegedly bullet-resistant window on his side shattered.
Her M4 was already in her hands. She leaned left while Jensen groaned and reflexively jerked right, almost putting his head in her lap. Even as she pointed her weapon out Jensen's now open window, Morgan spotted a man shooting an AK-47 from behind a parked car. Another man beside him wielded an RPG. The streets of the area were lined with shops and small merchants' stalls, though any civilian who hadn't already found someplace to hide was desperately doing so.
The hostile with the rocket hesitated; the one with the rifle sprayed wildly. Morgan was far more controlled as she shot back. Training took over as she fired tight groups at the greatest threat first. The one with the RPG jerked back as a red, wet spray burst from his head. The other went down much the same way.
More bullets hit the vehicle. The situation was too chaotic at first for her to tell which way they came from. Morgan looked down at Jensen, who was already groaning more in anger than in pain. His shoulder was covered in blood, but the arm still moved. "It's not too bad," he managed.
Washington was already on the radio calling in the ambush. He crouched down away from the windows just like everyone else. "We gotta get them out!" Gomez snapped. "Jensen!"
"He's hit," Morgan grunted. "I'm with you."
"Jensen, can you cover from the door?"
"Yeah! Go!"
"Ready?" Gomez asked. He only waited for a quick nod, then turned back and opened his side door just as Morgan opened hers. She was greeted with the sight of another masked attacker, literally within arm's reach of the door, crouched beside the rear wheel. She saw him toss the small black shape inside, right in her lap.
"Grenade!" she yelled. She had it in her hand within a second, out the door in the next, slammed the door shut once more and ducked. When it blew, her window held up much better than the one beside Jensen had. The armored vehicle rocked hard just the same, collapsing on her side without much of a right rear tire left to hold it up. She glanced over to see that Gomez had reacted just the way she'd hoped. He had slammed his door shut as well.
There just wasn't time to process any of it. "Ready again?" Gomez asked.
"Go!" she answered. She saw his door open and threw herself out of her own. There was plenty of smoke from the grenade, along with plenty of blood on the ground around her, but her first concern was over keeping up with Gomez. She found him already crouched in front of her, almost bowling him over. He fired at targets up ahead.
There were hostiles at the doors of the overturned Humvee. One had turned his attention from the doors of the Humvee to Gomez, but came up on the losing end of the ensuing exchange of gunfire. The other gunman beside him scrambled to get to cover around the front of the wrecked vehicle.
It was a lot to take in all at once. Morgan had been in many tense situations before in Baghdad, had been very close to live firefights and had even seen an IED take out the vehicle ahead of hers on her second deployment, but she hadn't ever had cause to fire her weapon outside of training. She had always been diligent about going to the range—she knew where she'd be deployed, after all—and had been through the pre-deployment combat refreshers, but she wasn't an infantry trooper. There had to be a hundred things she didn't even know enough to worry about here.
She quickly looked around, saw no targets in view, and immediately followed Gomez into the smoke around the wrecked Humvee. "Watch right, watch right," Gomez warned, and as he kept an eye on the forward field of fire, Morgan kept up her guard for anyone who might shoot from the buildings on their side of the street.
A bullet ricocheted at her feet. As she jerked over to the side of the wreck she heard Jensen and Washington open up behind her. Looking back quickly, she realized they were both shooting for the rooftops.
"Help me!" Gomez demanded. She turned back, seeing him with the door to the Humvee open and a battered and bloody soldier inside trying to crawl out with Gomez's assistance.
She reached down with her left hand, grabbing the soldier by his web gear to help drag him out. He groggily fumbled around on hands and knees while she and Gomez heaved him clear. Morgan had him almost upright and moving back to her still mostly-intact vehicle when something slammed into her back and her right thigh. She staggered, whirling around without meaning to. Other bullets bounced off of the side of the Humvee beside her.
The impact knocked the wind out of her, but her body armor saved her from much worse. The small of her back came up against the Humvee, right where she had been hit, preventing her from falling all the way to the ground. Gomez was down. She saw him there, clutching at his chest. Gunfire roared from several directions, but the bullets weren't going for her. Through the broken windows of the shop on the street, two masked gunmen unloaded on Jensen and Washington to keep them down.
Another leapt forth from the doorway, bringing the butt of his AK-47 down across Morgan's head. She tried to block but was too sluggish. The blow was harsh enough to knock her down to one knee. She felt her weapon torn from her hands by another attacker. Then they both grabbed her and yanked her back from the street, hauling her into the storefront.
She cursed and struggled, but it was two against one and both men were considerably larger than Morgan. One had her by the left arm; the other, on her right, managed to get her sidearm out of her belt as they crossed the threshold of the store. There were shelves and hanging trinkets everywhere. Another hostile waited inside with a sack that looked like it was meant for her head. A fourth covered the others from the window.
Morgan kept fighting. She got one arm free, shrugging off blows to the gut and the constant struggle to get her completely under control again. Before they could stop her, she snatched a grenade from the belt of the one on her right. Morgan twisted up into her left arm rather than trying to get free from the man holding it. It was a fumbling, desperate fight.
The moment she had a finger through the pin of the grenade, she yanked it free and let it drop at her feet. Her Arabic was quite good; she heard the man yell, "Grenade! Get away!" as he shoved her free.
She had three seconds after that. Morgan grabbed onto another of her attackers, using him to haul herself out of the way. Her weight threw him off balance, sending him to the floor beside the grenade. She took one limping step, just enough to haul herself around a long shelf of pots, pans and tall bottles before the grenade went off.
Shrapnel tore through her left foot and calf. The rack shielded her from the rest of the blast, but her leg simply wasn't clear in time. She went down as the heavy rack fell against the one next to it, leaving her enough space that she wasn't crushed. Falling cookware battered her just the same.
Morgan couldn't hear anything but a constant throb that reverberated through her skull. Even with the smoke and darkness she felt the world spinning around her.
