It was like time slowed down to a crawl as the bullets ripped right through the right side of the armored BMW.  Cupid could hear the steel and metal of the car’s armor give away as a linear hail of bullets pushed through the car from back to front. It seemed like the bullets were indiscriminately trying to find objects to slow themselves down as bits of fluff and plastic shrapnel from the upholstery and door panels filled the air like a giant, silent, snow globe.  As the last three projectiles hit the glass directly next to his head, Cupid instinctively, ducked down toward the center of the car, which would have been too late, if not for the integrity of the armored glass. As he heard what sounded like three cracks of lighting hitting the glass, time immediately seemed to speed up again and like a switch was flicked on, he could all of a sudden hear clearly again.

“Fuck, I’m hit Noodle yelled from behind the steering wheel.  With a name given to him based on his Italian heritage, Noodle was a former Marine Master Sargeant that was generally calm under pressure and solid behind the wheel of a car. As pieces of while fluff blew out from the back of his seat, Noodle fell limp as he allowed his head and body to slouch to the left propped up only by his driver side door.

A “Driver Down” drill was more often thought of as a team building exercise than something that would actually be executed under fire, but it was practised often and was part of the Secret Service and State Department Diplomatic Security Service standard training Curriculum. It typically happened in a vehicle travelling at high speeds on a closed circuit track. The driver would be given a cue to “play dead” then would typically slump over the steering wheel, sometimes while moving at extremely high speeds. The person in the front right passenger seat would immediately take control of the car by swinging their left leg over the partition to control the gas and brake while also getting a hand on the steering wheel. One of the team members in the rear would get the seat to recline as much as possible, so the incapacitated driver could be pulled directly over that seat and into the rear, while the new driver simultaneously got the rest of their body behind the wheel to take positive control of the vehicle.

As Noodle slumped to the side, Cupid immediately performed a “Driver Down” drill.  Cupid took hold of the wheel with his left hand and guided the car onto the upcoming off ramp leading to gate 12 of the Green Zone.  Simultaneously, using his right arm to support his stretched out body, he brought his left leg over the hump separating him from the driver. He swept Noodles legs to the left with his legs, found the accelerator and put it to the floor.  Scooby, who was holding a position in the back seat, would have then brought back Noodles seat as far as possible in order to give him the clearance to pull him right over the top and into the back.  Unfortunately, before Noodle could be moved, the car sputtered to a stop, with smoke bellowing from under the hood.  As the smoking BMW came to a stop, Cupid heard Scooby say, “Fuck, I’m hit too.  I think I got shot in the ass!” Cupid yelled for the team to deploy out of the vehicle and both Scooby and Noodle, managed to get their bullet-wounded bodies out of the vehicle and onto the hot asphalt of Route Irish.

Due to a surge of adrenaline, both Scooby and Noodle managed to crawl their bullet-wounded bodies out of the vehicle and into a “gun ready” position to hold back what looked like hundreds of Iraqi civilian vehicles that were stacked up behind the attack site.  The first few cars were all slowly inching forward, wondering if they should take their chances and attempt to drive around the bullet riddled BMW.  A double tap from Scooby’s AR15 Landing just in front of one of the drivers cars ensured they stayed where they were.

As our lead vehicle, another blue 7 series BMW driven by Doc, finally got turned around and made its way back to us, a US military police convoy made up of Humvees also broke through the jam of Iraqi of civilian vehicles from the opposite side and pulled up beside our wreck.  Doc’s Beemer couldn’t cross the curb-high medium that seperated the north and south bound lanes, so he came back to the attack site on what would have been on coming traffic. Doc stopped the car on the crest of the off-ramp about 30 meters away, looking slightly ominous as it sat looking over us. As Cupid moved to speak to the patrol commander in the lead Humvee about getting a tow into the green zone, the young turret gunner running a 50 Caliber machine gun launched a hail of bullets into our lead vehicle.

“They’re coming back around at us.” yelled the gunner between bursts of machine gun fire.

I looked up and quickly realized he was putting rounds into our lead vehicle,

“STOP FUCKING SHOOTING!  THEY’RE OURS!” Cupid yelled up at the turret gunner.

The machine gun fire immediately stopped.

An eerie silence filled the air for what seemed to last forever, but was most likely only a couple of seconds.  All eyes were locked on Doc’s smoking vehicle, but nothing moved inside.  Smoke was rising up from under the hood which blocked any possible view into the car.  It seemed like an eternity went by as we waited and hoped for some form of life to show itself.  In the background, you could hear the gunner crying from behind his machine gun, “I didn’t know…I didn’t know.” A female soldier standing in the turret of the second Humvee also began sobbing.

The driver side door of Doc’s vehicle finally opened.  Cupid watched as two legs slowly swung to the outside of the vehicle. Blood was gushing out of Doc’s lower leg like someone opened up a pressurized tap.  Cupid could see that there was already two tourniquets applied to the leg, but the blood was still flowing heavily.

45 Minutes Earlier….

Because the safety of Cupid’s low profile motorcade relied on speed, they always timed their exit from BIAP so the driver had the gas peddle fully on the floor just before the last turn in the concrete serpentine. As The Cars pulled away from the last barrier, you could hear their engines screaming in agony as they pulled the extra weight of the armor up to 160km/h.  Traffic was always light coming out of the secure area surrounding the Baghdad Airport, but eventually, the combination of on-ramps and slow moving US military patrols created a great deal of congestion and confusion.  US Military patrols, made up primarily of Humvees, moved very slowly and their rear facing machine guns, that were quick to fire warning shots, kept local vehicles jockeying for positions at least 100 feet behind them.

As the motorcade started getting close to the last off-ramp that led into the Green zone, Cupids vehicle was caught in some heavy traffic and was travelling at about 30km/h, a dangerously slow speed as it eliminated the ability to escape detection.

“I’ve got a car hovering off of our 4 o’clock with four males in it,” Scooby shouted from the rear seat.  A car full of men in their thirties is one of the characteristics of an insurgent attack team on Route Irish. Scooby cracked the rear door open and pointed his rifle at the vehicle.  This motion showed a vehicle that their pre-attack surveillance has been compromised and that their target is armed and dangerous.  Showing a physical presence was the first step in the use of force policy and was typically very effective. “Fuck, They’re rolling their windows down!” Scooby yelled. “Should I light them up?” he asked rhetorically, already knowing that you can not open fire on a vehicle that we have not fully identified as an immediate threat.

“Just keep your eyes on them, but if you see a gun come out of the window, hit them first.” Cupid said while looking forward and trying to help Noodle navigate through the last bit of congestion.  Scooby cracked his door again and tried to present his barrel to the vehicle. “Shit, they’ve moved further behind us, so I can’t get a good shot” Scooby said with a slight tremor in his voice. “Shut your door, we’re about to turn off to Check Point 12 anyway.  I think we’re good!” As Cupid’s vehicle broke through the last of the traffic and veered left to exit Route Irish, everybody’s eyes turned to the front and the sighs of relief in the heavy BMW sounded like a bunch of beach balls simultaneously being deflated.

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!  Without being noticed, the insurgent vehicle swiftly shot up from a blind spot directly beside Cupid’s vehicle as two PKM machine guns, that were hung over the sides of the doors, launched steel core bullets through the lightly armored BMW.  Within seconds, and timed perfectly, the insurgent vehicle veered right back onto Route Irish and disappeared.

After Doc’s legs swung out of the car, Cupid moved toward him. Bacon, a former green beret, had already moved to Doc from our third vehicle, which arrived on scene at some unknown point and had two tourniquets placed below his knee and just above the wound.  Even as Bacon worked the second tourniquet tight, the blood did not seem to subside.  Doc was a renowned Special Forces Medic and a trained Physicians Assistant and we all knew he was not a big believer in QuickClot.  QuickClot is a Hemostatic dressing that at the time of the attack, was only available in granular form and had a reputation for being extremely difficult to clean out of wounds.
While Bacon continued to work on the leg, I watched Doc, reach behind him and pull out a package of QuickClot.  Although a large amount of his blood was already pooled under the car, he was eerily calm and composed as he started to work on himself with the same purposeful and quiet intensity that you would expect to see in a clinical surgeon.  Within seconds of Doc starting  to work the QuickClot into both the entrance and exit wounds of his own leg, the bleeding just stopped.

With an additional US Army patrol securing the site, Doc and Noodle were moved into Humvees and taken directy to the “Cash” (28th Combat Support Hospital). Another Humvee towed Cupid and Doc’s cars the remaining way down Route Irish like a slow moving, crippled train.  Scooby chose to have the bullet fragments lodged in his butt cheek pulled out by one of our own medics and the two damaged BMWs collected dust at house 10 and never moved again.

Cupid and Bacon were back out on route Irish the next day.  Doc underwent multiple surgeries and it is unknown if he kept the leg.