“Looks like they left in a hurry,” Flick said, as the soldiers fanned out through the house. The base was radioed and told that the place was empty, but Captain Higgins wanted to make sure no one was hiding in a hollowed-out wall or hole in the floor, so he told the platoon to take its time searching the place. This meant lifting up the bed, knocking on the brick walls for hollow spots, and checking the foundations of the house for spider holes. Out back, a couple of soldiers walked through the chicken coup and the cinderblock stall that housed the donkey that we had seen yesterday, but which was now gone.

Making one last sweep, Lieutenant Pappas, standing in the donkey’s stall, called a few soldiers over. “You guys searched in here, right?”

“Yessir.”

“Yeah?”

“Yessir.”

“That’s funny. What’s this look like?” he asked, brandishing a hand grenade. “I found it sitting right here,” he said, pointing to a cinderblock column that didn’t reach the top of the stall. “Do it again, and pay attention this time.”

Some of the soldiers started jokingly suggesting that Pappas pull the pin on the grenade and throw it—or at least let one of them snipe it from a distance—but the decision on what to do with it had already been made. One of Pappas’ squad leaders had radioed back to combat outpost IBA to inform them of the find, and the order had been given not to blow it. So the only thing to do was to throw it—with the pin in place—into a canal. “It’s probably a good thing,” Pappas said, as we walked back to the Strykers. “The thing would probably go off in my hand before I got the chance to throw it.”

The sweep complete, we trudged back down the dirt road we had run up just a little while earlier, and as we crossed the small footbridge—amid the groans of his men who wanted to see the grenade in action—Lieutenant Pappas wound up and hurled it into the rushing water. With a heavy “plunk” it sunk out of sight, and with it, the last remaining piece of the weapons cache was gone.

Part One, “The Rejected,” is here.

Part Two, “Men With Guns,” is here.

Part Three: “Night Patrol,” is here.

Part Four: “The Suicide Bomber” is here.

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