Friendly Fire by Mike Friscolanti

Author:Mike Friscolanti [Frisconalti, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443429849
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Brett Perry has rarely left his hotel room since landing in Shreveport a few days ago.While the other Canadian troops have at least toured the city, Brett has stayed by himself, drinking beer and listening to the voices in his head. They keep telling him about the targeting pod video, about the flash of that fifth Carl G. round—his round—that prompted Maj. Schmidt to roll in. You’re the reason everyone is here in Louisiana.You did this.

This morning, as he sits down in the witness chair, Brett glares across the hearing room, locking eyes with Harry Schmidt. He and some of the other paratroopers made a pact that they would stare him down. For what feels like an hour, Brett gazes at the Top Gun pilot, doing his very best to be the old Brett Perry, the one who would never back down from anyone—especially some asshole who hurt his friends. Harry Schmidt stares back.

“What happened after Decaire fired his three rounds?” Col. Odom asks.

“We switched around,” Cpl. Perry says. “I became the Number One and he became the Number Two loader, sir.”

“How many rounds did you fire that night?”

“Two rounds, sir.”

“Was the rate of fire for your two rounds any different than the rate of fire had been for the first three rounds?”

“The first two rounds were basically the same rate of fire, sir, however, the third round we encountered a problem with the Carl Gustav, sir.”

“Did you ever get that third round off?” Col. Odom asks.

“No I didn’t, sir.”

“What was the problem that you had with the 84 millimeter?”

“Cpl. Decaire had just told me that he had a problem loading and he told me to just wait out because he had to reload the round, sir.”

“Alright, what happened before you fired the last round with the Carl Gustav?”

“In between that time, Sgt. Léger had come over to me and told me to put my helmet on. It is common practice for us not to wear helmets when we are firing that round because you cannot get your head close enough in to the Carl Gustav, but he had come over to me and told me to put that on, so I put the Carl G. down, put my helmet on, picked it back up. That’s when Cpl. Decaire told me there was a problem. He was trying to sort it out and then there was a violent explosion to my left, sir.”

“When Cpl. Decaire was firing the Carl G., how many of the machine guns were firing?”

“I believe it was the C-6 was firing, sir, as well as the C-9.”

“Now when you took over as the gunner on the Carl G., how many of the machine guns were firing?”

“Both of the machine guns were still firing, sir, however, on the—after I fired my second round, the gun team reported that they were out of ammo. And I also had heard Cpl. Paquette say he’s running low on ammo, sir.”

“What thoughts did you have about that?”

“I didn’t know how I

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