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The company commander, after pausing a few seconds, said: “All Dog elements, acknowledge readiness to receive the following transmission, over.”
    All three platoon leaders confirmed they were on the horn. Then Baumann continued.
    “At 1422 today, Charlie Company reported a KIA. Subsequent traffic confirmed KIA from sniper fire. Incident took place in the W17 area. Soldier killed while standing outside his Humvee. No other small arms fire. Break.”
    The radio went silent for several seconds.
    “Damn,” Wynn muttered. He sensed the crew’s sudden gut-check. W17 was about four kilometers away from the Wolfhound’s present location.
    Baumann continued: “All elements will ensure that all Soldiers dismounted take appropriate evasive actions. Stay mobile when possible. Stay in vehicles when possible. No fucking lollygagging on the street.”
    Lollygagging? Had the soldier been lollygagging? Regardless, it had been a helluva bad day for that soldier.
    Baumann did not identify the KIA. That information would be kept close-hold for a while longer; more details would follow. Baumann ordered all to acknowledge receiving the message. All did.
    At first, Wynn said nothing to his truck’s crew. Silence seemed the right response.
    Somebody back home would be getting that impossible visit, hearing that impossible news, having to deal with something they would have been telling themselves every day would not happen to them. Another terrible day back home for a mother, a father. Wife. Kids.
    Wynn didn’t tell the rest of the platoon anything over the platoon net, worrying it would affect their concentration. He’d tell them back on the FOB. About a month ago, another soldier was shot through the neck by a sniper. Fortunately, that soldier survived. That shooting, which happened while the soldier was talking to a shopkeeper, took place in another battalion’s battlespace, about 40 to 45 kilometers south. Had enemy sniper activity increased?
    To his own crew inside D21, he said: “That’s why we can never ever let our guard down. It can happen anywhere. All we have is our equipment and our vigilance.”
    His crew kept quiet, each probably digging in his own mind for impossible solutions. Wynn knew that Specialist Lee, the medic in D21’s backseat, would be asking himself whether he could have done anything to save the victim. Singleton would stare harder into the forbidding landscape around them, stroke the big .50 caliber, and want to shoot somebody.
    “Bastards!”
    Gung spit the word out, shaking his head rapidly side-to-side, as if he’d just resurfaced from underwater.
     
    Arriving at the FOB’s entrance, the Wolfhound convoy pulled into another circuitous arrangement of concrete barriers and entered the Bravo gate. Dirt blast-barriers bordered the concrete jersey barriers. From outside the gate you could not see inside the FOB. It looked like the entrance to a mine.
    A series of fences enclosed the FOB. The perimeter fencing consisted of an outer belt of triple concertina wire, and inside of that a chain-link fence crowned with another coil of razor wire. This fencing spread out from the gate area like an industrial scar on the ancient land, running 400 meters west before it turned northwest and continued almost a kilometer and a half before turning again southeast and completing the encirclement of the base. More dirt berms shielded the inner camp. These berms prevented a potential car bomber from crashing the fence and penetrating the inner camp.
    Wynn saw a dozen Iraqi civilians waiting at the pedestrian gate. On some days, 50 or more waited here. Most wanted work on the FOB. Every day except Friday, Islam’s Holy Day, Iraqi laborers entered the FOB to take care of menial work such as cleaning and minor construction projects. Before entering, laborers were thoroughly searched. Those chosen made a few dollars a day, more than most had ever earned. Today, a half-dozen Iraqis filled sandbags for an upside down