Passengers Pt 3

Rolling South, the temperatures is below freezing, and with wind chill I figure it is in the single digits. I swap out my gloves every twenty minutes or so, but the my fingers still go numb and I have to beat them back to feeling. The full moon makes NVGs useless, and I spend most of my time with my eye pressed up against the thermal sight.
The world as seen as warm and cold. The radio is silent, just the calls as we pass checkpoints. Lifeguard is pounding away at the BFT, and Mighty Mouse zones out to his own music. The miles click away.
“TWO STOP.” The radio jumpstarts my adrenaline.
The lead truck has seen something, and hopefully the second truck stopped before they ran over it. We stop and wait will they check it out.
Time ticks away, five minutes turns into ten, ten into thirty. They confirm it and we call up for the disposal guys. Sitting on the road. I scan, and scan. I memorize the terrain. Time ticks on.
An hour passes then two, we still wait. A car rolls by 500m out in the desert, it stops and drops someone off. We watch the car and the person left behind.
Moto asses the situation and calls the BC. We have the extra trucks, could he take the 4 truck out and see who this guy is? Moto repositions the other trucks and we move out to link up.
“TRUCK 4 THIS IS DOME 6, WE WILL MOVE OUT ON THIS ACCESS ROAD TO THE DISMOUNT. I WILL LEAD, AND DRAW HIS FIRE, YOU STAY 50 METERS BACK AND SUPRESS HIM IF HE FIRES.”
This is what the man has spent twenty years in the army to do. Granted it is a two truck element, not over sixty armored vehicles. I am a impressed he has made the right leadership decision, will take the big risk.
Lifeguard acknowledges and off we go. Mighty Mouse has really grown as a driver since we got here. He takes the embankment just right, then puts himself 50 meters back and a little to the right of the lead truck. The road 500m out runs along a railroad embankment. The BC pops over it, and Mighty Mouse stops us just as I can get a line of sight over it. I can’t depress onto the target. He rolls forward just enough.
The thermal does not show uniform or faces, but the targets body language says it all, just a rent-a-cop, Iraqi style. We search the area for the fun of it and roll back. A little bit of activity to kill time.
After a three and a half hour wait the disposal guys show up. The poke and prod the suspicious object. They run it over with their robot. It is a rock. No bad on our lead element. This is the nature of the beast.
The road clear we roll south, with the sun over the Horizon, and traffic going both ways in the other lane. A twenty four hour mission. As we roll in the passengers thank us for the ride and extend kudos. CSM Snarf wants to see Moto in his office the next day.
He had nothing but bad to say. As a very senior NCO said to me about his comments and criticism, consider the source.
All told I would rather not have passengers.