Free The Mormon Candidate - a Novel by Avraham Azrieli

remain as low as possible, and that’s when the pain really hit me. It was a shocking sensation , to be torn like this with overwhelming hurt , like a deafening voice that reached every corner of my brain, ordering me to lie down, curl up, and cry.
    And I did cry, loud and bitterly while I grabbed the radio and dropped down to the ground, the spiral cord extending to its max.
    Regaining a measure of self-control , I started calling for help. I kept repeating the name of the village and our unit number, but my voice didn’t even reach my own ears in the middle of this firestorm , let alon e hear if anyone responded .
    I kept at it until I realized that the radio had died .
    Sitting with my back to the Humvee, I aimed my gun upward and pressed the trigger, emptying the magazine so that the enemy would think we were shooting back. It was then that I n oticed that the fuel -truck driver at the gas station across the street was busy with some kind of a contraption under the rear of the tanker. My first instinct was to yell at him to seek shelter before he got hit b y a bullet , but then I realized what he was doing.
    Explosives!
    I felt cold fear. It was one thing to get shot . Either you die immediately or get fixed up by surgeons. But to be burnt alive meant torture, often months of slow, horrible death, or a life of deformity and pain that was worse than dying.
    The driver was done with his preparations and sprinted away from the tanker.
    I prepared to launch myself in a mad da sh across the street to d e fuse the explosives. My chances were slim—the area was exposed to the gunmen in the health clinic who, I now realized, were careful not to hit the tanker. How long did we have before it went off?
    The sound of helicopter rotors penetrated through the racket.
    Someone had heard me!
    It appeared over the school at the dead end . The Seahawk was a common n avy chopper that could do reconnaissance and transportation pretty well, but its weapons weren’t the best choice for urban combat. T he pilot must have been in the area and heard my radio transmission .
    A single gun began blasting from above , and the fire from the health clinic declined .
    I r olled back to my position by the front tire and saw that the chopper was spraying the clinic with great accuracy, the rounds poking an almost straight line of holes just above the windows. Not a single Arab wom a n was hurt, but they all jumped out and lay on the ground in front of the building, and the gunmen were no longer shooting.
    The Seahawk hovered above us, releasing an occasional burst of bullets toward the clinic , while we scrambled to get into the Humvee, the three unconscious Marines thrown in unceremoniously. We had to get out of here before the tanker exploded!
    Our driver had been hit in the head . The helmet had saved his life, but he l ay groaning in the back , pressing a rag to the wound . No one else seemed in better shape than me, so I climbed behind the wheel and lifted my immobile left leg over the door sill.
    The engine was off. I tried to re start it, but nothing happened.
    I tried again.
    And then the explosive s went off under the rear of the tanker.
    The blast threw up a small fireball, but it failed to rupture the tanker . Flames engulfed the rear section . The driver must ha ve left a fuel line running , and I could feel the heat on my face.
    “Get rolling, soldier !” The order came through a loudspeaker from the helicopter above. The voice was commanding but even, not anxious. He repeated, “Get rolling now!”
    There was nothing I wanted to do more than obey the order , but the starter revolved freely, the engine not catching.
    “ It’s dead ,” I yelled. “ Can’t get it going!”
    As if he heard me, the voice from the chopper said, “Try the other vehicle . Tanker’s about to blow .”
    Moving myself over to the other Humvee wasn’t easy, but I made it, only to find that its cabin was totally destroyed, the dashboard and steering wheel