6:15, inside Ahmed's command vehicle.
When the first bad news came, Ahmed was in the middle of war-gaming the final assault on the Hulmatu Hospital strongpoint on his map.
He planned to launch the last strike at dawn, blast open the hospital walls with direct fire from T-72 tanks, then commit his finest reserve—five hundred of his most fanatical assault troops.
"Commander… the rear-guard… ran into an ambush…"
The radio operator's voice was broken and choppy, with a backdrop of dense gunfire and explosions, plus human screams.
Ahmed snatched the handset: "Speak clearly! What scale of ambush? Where is the enemy?"
"Don't know… they're everywhere… they've got machine guns, missiles, mortars… our artillery is wiped out… requesting support… ah—"
The transmission cut off in a single explosion.
Ahmed froze for two seconds, then hurled the handset at the vehicle floor in a rage: "Trash! A rear guard of several thousand men, and they can't hold for even half an hour?!"
