Bullets cross the dawn sky. Tracer rounds whizzing past creating a fireworks show of some sort. The silent and dark morning was fast changing into a furious battle-field.
Milhan's men were mercilessly attacking the convoy of two land-rovers. He could hear over the gunfire, shouts of instructions in a foreign language, probably middle-eastern. They were firing AK47s and severely outnumbered by his men. One by one he could see them slump to the ground, succumbing to fatal gunshot wounds or grenade shrapnel. There were about eight soldiers in each land-rover. He could only see two of them still firing.
"Surrender...come on..." he thought. Milhan wanted to wrap it up quick. Somehow, he was not too pleased with this operation, it was too easy.
One of the surviving enemies took a hit. The other one stopped firing for a moment and it seemed like he was taking the latter's remaining magazines. He reloaded his weapon and started to charge in Milhan's direction.
"This is one crazy bastard!" Milhan thought.
The enemy soldier got hit and fell to the ground, sliding down the slope a bit. Milhan thought it was over. To everyone's surprise, he managed to get up, cocked his weapon and charged again, this time with a slight limp.
"Fire!"
The soldier fell again. This time Milhan saw that the soldier's right hand had been severely injured, dangling lifelessly from its' shoulder socket but he was still alive. The fallen soldier picked up his rifle with his left hand, got up and charged again, firing off his rifle, this time walking and dragging his left leg which was also severely wounded by gunshots. Milhan's men fired at the soldier as he did not show any signs of surrender.
Falling to the ground, this time motionless. Milhan got up and walked cautiously towards the soldier, who was lying face down on the sandy dessert plain. Two section commanders flanking him, all of them with rifles aimed at the stubborn soldier.
Milhan saw that the soldier was still breathing, but slowly. With his rifle, he flipped his body so that he could see the soldier's face. His face was a mixture of sand, blood and dirt. The soldier's beard stained dark red with blood. He had a crooked smile as he struggled to open his eyes. His stare was far-reaching into the dawn sky. His face had become pale-white but still emitted some life in it. Despite the blood and dirt, the soldier's face looked happy.
Milhan kicked away the soldier's rifle and started to search his pockets and pouches for whatever information he could get. Some intel would be useful. As he was doing that, he heard the soldier saying something in a low, breathless voice. The soldier's breathing was getting faster.
"Get Sayyid over here!" Milhan called for one of his translators.
Corporal Sayyid knelt beside him as Milhan stood and watched. Sayyid tried to listen to what was spoken by the dying soldier. After a few minutes, Sayyid crossed the soldier's arms and used his palm to close the soldier's eyelids.
"He is dead."
"What was he saying?"
Sayyid got up and pulled Milhan out of earshot from the two section commanders and whispered into Milhan's ear...
"He was breathing really hard and I only got a bit out of what he was saying."
"Tell me what is it..." Milhan was curious.
"HE is ONE."
