by two cars. The lead car is a yellow Chevy. If you can get a gunship in the air you may save a couple of lives."
"Roger that," repeated the duty officer. "Stay on the line. We're calling down to the flight line for choppers. We'll see what we can do."
Ferris looked back toward the yellow car. He saw a man leaning out from the back-seat window on the driver's side. He had something big in his hands. It looked almost like a television camera and then Ferris realized: Fuck no, it's an RPG.
"Faster," he said to Bassam. "As fast as it will go." Bassam revved it all the way, pushing the needle past eighty, then ninety, but there were cars up ahead and he had to slow so that he wouldn't rear end them.
And then in an instant Ferris's world nearly flickered out for good. He didn't hear the roar of the RPG as it left the muzzle of the launcher. He saw a sudden burst of light to his left, just beyond Bassam, and then the shattering sound of the grenade exploding at the front wheel base, and then everything was white, and things went into slow motion. The car rocked up off its wheels from the concussion of the explosion, swaying once, twice and then settling back down on its tires. He heard a piercing scream in Arabic from Bassam, and saw that he was spurting blood from wounds across his chest. Oh, shit, thought Ferris, and he reached out his arm in a strobe-lit motion and then pulled back in horror. Where Bassam's stomach had been was a mess of blood and intestines. The shrapnel had carved into his gut like a surgeon's knife. Bassam was screaming, but somehow his hands were still on the steering wheel and his foot was on the gas pedal. Ferris felt a sharp sting, like he had been bitten by wasps up and down his leg, and only then did he see that the shrapnel of the grenade had hit him, too. His left leg was blood and bone, from midthigh down toward his calf. He put his hand to his balls to make sure they were still there.
"Can you drive?" shouted Ferris. All he heard back was the screaming, but Bassam managed to steer around the cars that had stopped up ahead because of the explosion and was accelerating into open highway. "Can you drive?" asked Ferris again, but the car was already weaving and he could see the life going out of Bassam's eyes and in a moment his body slumped over.
Ferris grabbed the wheel and managed to steady the car, but he couldn't move his left leg past Bassam's to reach the gas. The car began to slow. This is how I am going to die, thought Ferris. He thought of his mother, his dead father. He did not think of his wife. The car was slowing and the pursuers were coming faster. He heard a loud noise, but he was too dizzy to know what it was. The noise was louder still, and then there was an explosive roar, like another missile coming at him, but his vision was dimming and he could no longer process the signals. This is it, he thought. I did it. That was the last thought he had before everything went black: I did it.
T HE NOISE Ferris heard was a helicopter gunship that had been dispatched from Balad when his call to the duty officer had come in. The Apache took out the yellow Chevy in an instant, and then destroyed the second chase car behind. Two more helicopters landed and formed a perimeter by the highway. They put Ferris on a stretcher, and were going to do the same with Bassam until they saw that he was dead, so they put him in a bag. Ferris was back inside the Balad perimeter a few minutes later--safely across the line that separated life from death--and he was in the emergency room of the Balad field hospital twenty minutes after that, where the doctors struggled to save his leg.
The first call Ferris received when he woke up was from Hoffman, and he said pretty much the same thing Ferris had said to himself: You did it. It sounded like an ending, but that was really the beginning of their story.
5
WASHINGTON
F ERRIS WAS LUCKY : They put his leg back together, got him out of Iraq and found him a
"Roger that," repeated the duty officer. "Stay on the line. We're calling down to the flight line for choppers. We'll see what we can do."
Ferris looked back toward the yellow car. He saw a man leaning out from the back-seat window on the driver's side. He had something big in his hands. It looked almost like a television camera and then Ferris realized: Fuck no, it's an RPG.
"Faster," he said to Bassam. "As fast as it will go." Bassam revved it all the way, pushing the needle past eighty, then ninety, but there were cars up ahead and he had to slow so that he wouldn't rear end them.
And then in an instant Ferris's world nearly flickered out for good. He didn't hear the roar of the RPG as it left the muzzle of the launcher. He saw a sudden burst of light to his left, just beyond Bassam, and then the shattering sound of the grenade exploding at the front wheel base, and then everything was white, and things went into slow motion. The car rocked up off its wheels from the concussion of the explosion, swaying once, twice and then settling back down on its tires. He heard a piercing scream in Arabic from Bassam, and saw that he was spurting blood from wounds across his chest. Oh, shit, thought Ferris, and he reached out his arm in a strobe-lit motion and then pulled back in horror. Where Bassam's stomach had been was a mess of blood and intestines. The shrapnel had carved into his gut like a surgeon's knife. Bassam was screaming, but somehow his hands were still on the steering wheel and his foot was on the gas pedal. Ferris felt a sharp sting, like he had been bitten by wasps up and down his leg, and only then did he see that the shrapnel of the grenade had hit him, too. His left leg was blood and bone, from midthigh down toward his calf. He put his hand to his balls to make sure they were still there.
"Can you drive?" shouted Ferris. All he heard back was the screaming, but Bassam managed to steer around the cars that had stopped up ahead because of the explosion and was accelerating into open highway. "Can you drive?" asked Ferris again, but the car was already weaving and he could see the life going out of Bassam's eyes and in a moment his body slumped over.
Ferris grabbed the wheel and managed to steady the car, but he couldn't move his left leg past Bassam's to reach the gas. The car began to slow. This is how I am going to die, thought Ferris. He thought of his mother, his dead father. He did not think of his wife. The car was slowing and the pursuers were coming faster. He heard a loud noise, but he was too dizzy to know what it was. The noise was louder still, and then there was an explosive roar, like another missile coming at him, but his vision was dimming and he could no longer process the signals. This is it, he thought. I did it. That was the last thought he had before everything went black: I did it.
T HE NOISE Ferris heard was a helicopter gunship that had been dispatched from Balad when his call to the duty officer had come in. The Apache took out the yellow Chevy in an instant, and then destroyed the second chase car behind. Two more helicopters landed and formed a perimeter by the highway. They put Ferris on a stretcher, and were going to do the same with Bassam until they saw that he was dead, so they put him in a bag. Ferris was back inside the Balad perimeter a few minutes later--safely across the line that separated life from death--and he was in the emergency room of the Balad field hospital twenty minutes after that, where the doctors struggled to save his leg.
The first call Ferris received when he woke up was from Hoffman, and he said pretty much the same thing Ferris had said to himself: You did it. It sounded like an ending, but that was really the beginning of their story.
5
WASHINGTON
F ERRIS WAS LUCKY : They put his leg back together, got him out of Iraq and found him a
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