Page 2 of Saving Grace

Women and children hurry inside. Our men file into buildings on the opposite side of the street. A tall reddish stone three-story faces Mack’s twelve o’clock. He will find his mark. He does, every time this dream unfolds. Like a play known by heart.

Only seconds whip past before he tenses by the rifle.

“Now, gunny!” the radio squeals.

“Contact.”

The radio whines, beeps.

He slides his finger over the trigger.

“Range two hundred,” the young man at the tripod says.

Mack is still, barely breathing. “Two hundred.”

“Zero-point-three right.”

Adjusting his rifle almost imperceptibly, my son’s words are fast. “Zero-point-three right.”

“Spotter up.”

His shoulders rise and still. A long breath in. “Shooter ready.”

I hold my own breath, knuckles white over the opening of my nightgown.

“Send it.” The young man on the tripod goes rigid with the words.

Shoulders rising and falling in a steady rhythm, Mack whispers two words. I can’t make them out. His body frozen, he holds his breath. His trigger finger moves back with a precise movement.

Crack.

The window shatters on the top floor of the building opposite. Glass falls, tinkling like rain onto the sidewalk below.

“Impact! Move out ASAP.”

Static on the radio washes away the next command.

The boys pack their gear. A deep drone whooshes in from the other side of the building.

This isn’t right. The whoosh never comes. This isn’t what is supposed to happen.

“Fuck! Now, Rawlins!” the spotter yells, swiping up his gear in a bundle.

“Calm down, Daisy, it’s probably backup comin’.”

The young man pauses, eyes darting as if that will produce the source of the rotor wash. Mack swings his head up as a militant helicopter buzzes overhead. My son’s face turns from business to something else entirely.

His spotter runs to the rooftop door and disappears through it. A militant leans out of the window of the helicopter, bullets strapped to his cloth-clad chest. His head wrapped in bright colored fabric, he yells down. Aiming the tip of his weapon downward, he screams something like a madman. The aircraft jerks to one side.

Mack lets off a shot at the bird with the pistol from his hip and, leaving his rifle, makes for the door.

The weapon suspended in the air fires. A rocket-type round dives for the rooftop.

“Run, Mackinlay!” I claw at my throat. “Run, my boy!”

Rounds spark from somewhere close, charging for the helicopter. They intercept before it can meet its mark. The explosion swallows the chopper. It plummets, rotors spinning, crashing into the building’s top.

The old structure cracks under the weight. Stone bursting.

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