Blue on Blue by Thomas Matt

Author:Thomas, Matt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Getting from Camp Victory to the "Green Zone," so-called by the public due to the supposed security surrounding the Iraqi government's central buildings, required no more than climbing aboard the most heavily armed bus route in the world. The "Rhino Run," named after the armored trucks whose anti-IED components jutted forward from the engine block like a horn, ran three trips along Route Irish each morning, noon, and evening. A combination of armored vehicles, squat MRAPs with heavy machine guns, cargo trucks, and a pair of buses identical to the mechanisms of mass transportation save for several inches of steel covering their skin.

Ben and Tania sweltered in the hundred and fifty degree heat inside the metal oven of the armored vehicles baking in the Iraqi sun. While they may have traveled in more style in a convoy dedicated to their mission, doing so required burdensome coordination and widespread dissemination of their plan. Instead, the pair managed to climb aboard with only a note on a roster.

Nearly everyone sharing seats came from either the staff or civilian world. A lieutenant colonel bearing the patch of the mobile hospital pulled out a compass and tried to note every movement and waypoint in his diary, despite the spinning of the compass dial in a vehicle surrounded by ferrous metal. Civilian contractors, none of whom either Ben or Tania recognized, wore loose fitting helmets with straps twisted. Another field-grade officer struggled with her pistol when it came time to insert a magazine. By now, Ben had grown nearly as professional as the Marine accompanying him. He maintained vigilance through the thick, scratched, and fogged window next to him. Hip to hip, Tania stretched her legs into the aisle, appearing relaxed while staring down the rows of seats out the front of the bus.

The trip took nearly an hour, driving through Iraqi traffic no longer held back by bright red signs that once adorned the back of American trucks proclaiming that lethal force would be used if anything closed within one hundred meters. To Ben, it was odd to be crossing his own wire to see the area so close to where he lived and worked. Those who lived on the other side of the wall did so in poverty he recalled seeing from the air closer to Mahmudiyah. Just outside the gate, half-demolished buildings housed local nationals who flooded Victory Base Complex every morning to provide the most menial of labor. Turning a corner from the dirt road onto Route Irish proper, the scenery reminded Ben of a Florida interstate. A large, divided highway rowed with palms, the blast walls sat far enough away that they easily could have been barriers erected to keep noise out of suburban neighborhoods. In place of graffiti, art and mosaics covered the walls. Billboards advertised products in both Arabic and English. The sun shown through the blue sky, and Ben half-expected the bus ride to end at an Orlando amusement park. Only the occasional checkpoint broke the illusion.

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