3:

Baghdad

Karim presided over a modest-sized light blue cake complete with nine extra-long, yellow candles. Not birthday candles, but they worked. Durable flames on thick wicks. The power was out again, and the cake supplied all the light. Several other children sat around the table, not particularly cheerful. Zeinab moved in behind Karim, wearing a semi-authentic smile. “Go ahead, habibi. Make a wish.” Her eyes widened, and her bright, toothy smile expanded to express a glint of madness. She wanted Karim’s wish to come true just as much – or more – than he did.

Karim looked down in concentration, took a deep breath, then blew out his candles into a thick cloud of smoke. A willful breath for a desperate wish.

East Mosul

2nd Battalion waited for the smoke to clear as rubble fell around them, each man peering through an impenetrable cloud. Someone fired a round, and blood spurt out of a white cloth charging toward them. A would-be suicide bomber crumpled in the haze, explosives intact.

“Great fucking shot, Shawkat!” said a proud Major Salaam. More figures started to emerge from the haze, and the men in black uniforms held their rifles tighter. “Alright, be careful. Civilians coming,” said Salaam. He pulled the megaphone to his mouth and spoke like God. “Arms up, shirts up! Walk very slowly or be shot! Anyone who doesn’t want to be shot, get on the ground.” At least six men and women lowered themselves. Some poorly aimed salvos went through the air around the commandos, popping some canteens and leaving a few flesh wounds on shoulders and hips. They took cover maneuvering like a synchronized closing of windows. A civilian was hit and started to scream. The soldiers immediately used the distraction to fire back with more precision—more blood, more cries. Ahmed saw an arm in the air and shot it. A grenade detonated somewhere in the cloud.

“Good work. Prepare to defuse ordinance.”

The squad walked robotically forward, including Ahmed. No fear, only conviction.

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            Ahmed manned the .50 on his armored Humvee as 2nd Battalion entered a dense neighborhood; the streets got a lot narrower. His vehicle proceeded over rubble ahead of an excavator. “Stop. We need better visibility before bringing any more vehicles to this area,” said a captain.

The excavator inched towards the nearest building. Ahmed trained the .50 cal on its roof as a jihadi with a rifle popped up. “Too easy. OH FUCK!” Just as Ahmed eviscerated the man on the roof, another emerged from a doorway across the street with an RPG. Ahmed swung the gun around as the man kneeled to fire. Ahmed laid a wall of bullets between himself and the militant, which evidently hit the projectile itself because the man exploded. More Daesh fighters crisscrossed the road and shot at the two vehicles.

“I’ll cover the left. We’re going to open that wall. Get ready,” said Corporal Fathalla.

Ahmed swung the gun back towards the building in front of him as the excavator plunged itself into the first-floor wall and backed up. Three armed men inside. Ahmed let loose and splattered them. Two more Humvees rushed up behind Ahmed and the excavator. “Shit. We have to move up.” 

They drove slowly forward, but the weighty vehicle’s engine roared its presence to everything with ears in a kilometer’s radius. Ahmed’s Humvee turned right into an alley to defend the column moving up behind him from ambush. He waited and sat back with his hands glued to the .50 triggers. The passage looked desolate. But this city had a habit of punishing adventurers, and a pick-up truck covered in armor plating crept around a corner heading for Ahmed’s blockade. “Car bomb! Armored!” he shouted. He shot at it, trying to get some rounds between metal sheets covering the windshield. The truck picked up speed. Ahmed turned around and saw more Humvees approaching the death trap. “Shit. Shit! Haythem, get out. Haythem, GET OUT!” 

Ahmed’s driver got out and ran, waving his hands for the column to stop before he dove for cover behind another vehicle. Ahmed held the triggers down and hammered the truck with futile rounds. “Run. GET DOWN!” cried Haythem. Ahmed dropped and balled himself up below his passenger seat as the suicide truck crashed into his grill. A pause, as the commandos sensed that millisecond when a high-explosive first summons every floating molecule in the atmosphere towards it before it shatters time and space. 2nd Battalion hit the deck. As a result, when the atomic clap sounded loud enough to wake God, the men weren’t looking at anything. They didn’t see a large metallic husk get rocketed up into the air and far from their axis of advance. An orange cloud enveloped the area immediately ahead of them leaving a crater surrounded by fire.

- Ian Strome