The Whore of Babylon

Part 4

A light so bright that it almost turned night into day appeared on the horizon. Everyone stopped for a second.

"That's the third one this month," one of the soldiers said.

"You think we finally sacked New York?" another soldier said.

"Take this," a soldier told me and handed me some kind of automatic rifle. "You'll need it."

I climbed inside the truck with the children and sat down with my back against the wall. My son approached me, but I gestured him to stop before the soldier joined us. Shortly after, the convoy was on the move. My heartbeat raced in step with the engine of the truck. I couldn't tell minutes from hours. Explosions. Again, it reminded me of fireworks, but now I knew it wasn't. It was the sound of death.

We came to a stop. I heard voiced. Was this it?

"Stop right there!" someone yelled.

After that, someone opened fire. I couldn't tell which side started it. The children began to cry. My son ran up to me, craving me.

"Everyone out!" the soldier who traveled with me said. "We'll have to continue by foot from here."

"We must protect the children!" I said, naively trying to shout down the gunfire. "We must protect them with our lives!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

I picked up my son and tried to convince the other children to exit the truck, but they refused. The young soldier had to force them out. He picked up a little girl and told the other children to stay behind him. And then we jumped off the truck. I had no idea what waited for us outside, but I trusted the old man. I would know.

"Take cover!" the soldier yelled to the children as much as to me.

We were standing in the middle of a street. I recognized it. The buildings were mostly new, but I still recognized it. One of my costumers had lived on this street. But it hadn't been called St. Nicholas Street. The soldiers were taking cover behind cars at the side of the street, cars that would've looked way more modern than any cars I had ever seen before if it wasn't for the fact that they were all burnt out. They were shooting at us from the windows. A large American flag hung on one of the facades.

"We have to bring the children to the third floor!" I said to the soldier carrying the little girl. "And to the door to the left!"

It felt as if everything happened in slow-motion. "What the fuck am I doing?" I asked myself. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I looked back at the children, hiding behind the truck. Slowly, our company advanced toward one of the apartment buildings. Number 45 was written over its door. Would the old man be waiting for me behind the door to the left on the third floor? I had no idea, but I kind of expected it. Why would he had lied about meeting me on the other side when he spoke the truth about everything else?

"Lets's go!" the soldier covering me and the children yelled. "Go! Go! Go!" He ran behind one of the cars closer to the building and we ran after him. The soldier who had asked about New Babylon had been shot in the head, laying dead in the middle of the street.

"Oh my God," I said, "he's dead!"

"We've lost five men so far," the soldier next to me said. "They died for the glory of Persia!"

I felt a sting of guilt. They hadn't died for whatever they believed in. They had died to help a prostitute save her son. I had ordered them to their death, and however much it scared me I knew deep inside that I would have ordered a hundred more if I had to. A bullet scratched my arm, but the chaos around me and the impact it had on my frantic mind made me not even notice the pain.