บท 7: Chapter 7 All Done
Song Heping lay on the ground, his mind a mess due to the sequelae of the recent explosion. His thoughts were offline, and he had yet to figure out what had happened.
It wasn't until he saw a Black Hawk helicopter sweep overhead that he understood.
The rapid response team from the Green Zone had come.
Rescue had finally arrived...
He would not die.
The first to come over and pull him from the rubble was Thomas.
Song Heping's survival surprised Thomas. As a former SEAL and a current GRS team leader, the fact that this youngster had survived the explosion was shocking to him.
"Song, I thought you were a goner!"
Song Heping pushed away a corpse and struggled to stand with the assistance of Thomas, catching his breath to say, "I'm not that easy to kill."
Then he couldn't resist correcting him, "I've told you, my name is SONG, SONG! Not SANG!"
Thomas paused, not understanding why the man before him was so particular about the pronunciation, so he laughed heartily and then solemnly yelled, "Sang!"
Song Heping cursed in Chinese, "Idiot!"
Thomas asked, "What does that mean?"
Song Heping said, "It's how we say hello in Chinese, like 'How are you.'"
With a sudden realization, Thomas repeated to himself, "Idiot... How are you, idiot, How are you..."
Song Heping almost couldn't help but laugh, but as a smile crept across his face, he suddenly remembered something extremely important and took off running towards the highway.
The highway was in complete disarray by then.
Burning vehicles were everywhere, with shell casings underfoot. After an intense firefight, the armed insurgents either fled or died, and the US Army rapid response team had the area thoroughly secured. Army ground forces had also arrived, and soldiers, armed and vigilant, were everywhere.
As soon as Song Heping got to the roadside, he was met with a dozen guns aimed at him. A sergeant, built like a gorilla, stared at him with eyes as big as brass bells and shouted, "Drop the gun! Get down! Get down!"
It was then that Song Heping realized why he was considered an enemy. Covered in dust and blood, especially that of the insurgent who had been shot in the head by a rapid response team sniper from the Black Hawk helicopter and had landed on him, splattering him with blood, and with an AKM assault rifle and no uniform, no rank, no branch insignia, he was easily mistaken for a threat.
"I'm not an attacker, I'm just passing by..."
Song Heping had no choice but to lie down as the big guy commanded.
A wise man knows better than to face a losing battle.
US Army soldiers rushed over like a pack of wolves, disarming him, twisting his arms behind his back, and started to bind his wrists with restraint straps.
Song Heping didn't have a chance to explain.
His neck was being kneeled on by the big Sergeant, a classic military police control technique, also known as a knee chokehold. Supposedly derived from military and police combat techniques in Kesa Country of the Middle East, the objective was to restrict breathing, preventing the controlled person from getting air, and thus strength, to fight back or turn over, making it easier to subdue a target larger or stronger than oneself.
The downside was that poorly controlled or prolonged knee pressure could lead to respiratory failure and death.
"I'm not... an insurgent... I fucking..."
Song Heping tried desperately to make a sound, but his voice was muffled from the pressure on his windpipe, and he found it hard to breathe.
In his line of sight, the truck driven by Fat Tan was engulfed in flames...
The big sergeant weighed at least two hundred pounds, and the fact that his knee on Song Heping's neck didn't break it was already lucky.
"Stop!"
At the critical moment, savior Thomas appeared.
"He's one of us!"
Having said that, Thomas took out his credentials and flashed them in front of the big guy.
"GRS?"
The big guy's face changed, and after less than a second of hesitation, he ordered his men to release Song Heping.
Song Heping got up, his face half-covered in sand and dirt, shot the big guy a venomous look, then bolted toward his truck.
Fat Tan was finished.
His truck had crashed into a pile of dirt by the roadside and had long since turned into a ball of fire. Looking around, he couldn't see Fat Tan's body. Peering into the driver's seat, he could vaguely make out a human shape that was already carbonized.
Song Heping felt blocked up, on the verge of tears.
After the attack, Song Heping had immediately tried to contact Fat Tan in the following car with his walkie-talkie. At that time, there was no response from Fat Tan, and Song Heping suspected the worst but still couldn't accept the reality.
Seeing it with his own eyes now, it was still hard not to feel heartache.
He went back to his own truck and climbed into the cab to drag out Ah Guan's body.
Ah Guan's eyes were wide open, staring straight at the sky, his pupils devoid of any sign of life, as his body had long turned cold.
Song Heping extended his hand to close his eyelids, whispering, "Ah Guan, may your journey be peaceful..."
"Your friend?"
Thomas had appeared beside Song Heping at some point, unnoticed.
At that moment, Song Heping had no desire to speak with anyone.
His chest was filled with too many emotions, like a clogged drain that couldn't release.
He ignored Thomas.
Instead, he turned to look at the cargo and saw three generators scattered at the roadside.
Song Heping got up to inspect them and felt his heart turn ice cold.
Two of them were covered in countless bullet marks, too numerous to count, and the severe impact had deformed the generators. One of them had been hit directly by an RPG, leaving a gaping hole, rendering it beyond repair.
Six generators, goods worth 240,000 RMB, all gone.
Of the 240,000, 120,000 was his own, 30,000 was saved from working after retirement, 50,000 was borrowed from friends and comrades, and 40,000 was loaned from the bank by mortgaging his parents' house.
At the time, he had thought of it as a final stand.
Now, he had metaphorically dived headfirst into disaster.
The explosion not only took him back to square one but thrust him into an era of negative assets.
His younger brother and sister's tuition fees, as well as their living expenses.
And the loans and borrowings that were due in less than half a year.
Thinking of this, Song Heping felt worse than if he had been shot.
He wanted to cry, but as a man, he didn't have the right to cry.
Thomas, looking at the desolate Song Heping, roughly guessed the young man's pain. He took a piece of paper from his pocket, wrote down a number and his name, and handed it to Song Heping.
"I need to thank you for your help today. I'll be in the Green Zone recently. Call me if you need any assistance," he said before turning away.
Song Heping glanced at the piece of paper and irritably stuffed it into his pocket.
Because more important things awaited him, such as dealing with the truck and the bodies.
He couldn't expect any help from the US Army with these tasks; he had to rely on himself.
Song Heping called Old Demon to ask him to arrange for a vehicle to hoist the wrecked generators and see if anything could be salvaged.
After everything was dealt with, Song Heping could only stand beside the truck, watching helplessly as the truck driven by Tan Fatty burned to ashes right before his eyes.
This too was his money.
Two Mercedes-Benz L-type trucks, albeit old, had cost him 10,000 US dollars.
Now, gone up in flames, all was lost.
The money earned over the past few months and previous investments had been wiped out by a sudden attack and a great fire.
Such is the unpredictability of life.
This was it.
The fire blazed for a full two hours before being extinguished. Ambulances from the local Baghdad hospital arrived, as did the fire brigade.
By the time the fire brigade arrived, the flames had died, and even Tan Fatty's charred body couldn't be salvaged; it was in pieces.
The fire brigade left.
The medics examined Ah Guan's body, shook their heads, got in their vehicle, and drove off, stating a hearse would be sent.
They too departed.
"Damn it..."
Song Heping couldn't help but swear inwardly, his throat bitter.
In this war-torn region, everything was so surreal.
A flock of crows flew overhead, landing on the barren date palm trees nearby, squawking loudly.
Song Heping took a deep breath of the air, suppressing the roiling emotions in his chest. What filled his nostrils was the scent of death...
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