Brother and sister might have a change of clothing and a “Sunday” pair of shoes or sandals. Otherwise, most went barefooted all summer. Out behind the family’s mud hovel might be a pole corral or a field fenced in with sticks and posts where a skinny mule or camel existed with some sheep or goats. The more well-to-do might own some cows. Often, four or five families went in together to purchase an old rattletrap Toyota pickup for transportation and use on their farms.
Remarkably, though few people claimed many possessions, almost everyone had a cell phone stuffed underneath his robe or in his baggy trousers. Cell phones for Taliban fighters was an essential part of their armament. It was how they kept track of American troop movements and operations.
Bear considered how fortunate he was that Sarah would be born in the United States of America instead of a place where many infants died before they were a year old due to the shortage of medical facilities, and where most of the rest grew up in abject poverty and war.
He became aware of Caulder shouting, “Bear! Get your ass in here!”
The clan gathered in the TOC tent, which was crowded with a couple of big-screen TVs, white briefing boards, maps on three-legged stands, a cork board displaying photos of bad-guy high-value targets, or HVTs, and four navy support techs pounding on computers. Taggart stood spread-legged behind a field table as White Team gathered close and took canvas stools to wait for the briefing to begin.
For a few minutes the team chief flipped through images on the table featuring atrocities committed by Taliban and al-Qaeda—IEDs exploding in an open market, torn bodies strewn about in the wreckage; a family beheaded in their mud hut because Daddy was suspected of being an informer; a village chief hanging upside down from a tree with his throat slit and blood streaming onto the ground …
It wasn’t enough that terrorists slaughtered; they had to advertise it, photograph their work and distribute prints as a warning to others.
With his lean face set, his lips a grim knife slit, his entire body a tense portrait of righteous fury, Taggart held up a colored photo of children slaughtered in a schoolyard. Vultures perched on the roof of the little mud schoolhouse, necks craned and patient.
“Look at this,” he grated out. “Every activity in this stinking province, that shitbag al-Muttaqi’s been behind.”
He exchanged the photo for one of a dark-skinned, jackal-faced man who appeared to be in his early forties. He didn’t have to identify him. Hatim al-Muttaqi. SEALs had been chasing his murderous ass for the past five years.
Three years ago, al-Muttaqi was responsible for the deaths of ten SEAL Six operators over in Wardak Province. Taggart had known some of them since BUD/S—Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. They were brothers to every man inside the TOC tent.
MH-60 Blackhawks had inserted the SEALs in a raid on a house where insurgent leaders headed by al-Muttaqi had gathered to plot. As it turned out, informers in the village learned of the raid and warned al-Muttaqi and the others. The SEALs landed into a trap. A bloody L-shaped ambush wiped out most of a troop in one of the biggest single losses in SEAL Six’s history.
The primary target, al-Muttaqi, not only got away that night but again three days later when he escaped a US air strike on a compound where he was hiding. Intel began to suspect he had inside sources that were tipping him off.
Taggart glared at the terrorist’s photo. “We just picked up SIGINT from a village up in Kunar,” he revealed. “He’s surrounded by civilians—so drones and air strikes are out. We’re working up a CONOPS now. Command wants us to take a shot.”
His cold eyes swept the team. “Tonight,” he added.
Caulder appeared skeptical; hell, he was always skeptical. “You know how many times we’ve rolled snake eyes with this guy? He could be tipped off by farmers, could be a courier, could be Fishbait’s cousins.”
“They’re all my cousins,” Fishbait badgered back. “That’s how this tribal thing works.”
Bear Graves was already coiled for action. “What do you think, Rip?”
“You know what I think.”
“Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Caulder appeared to be considering. He shrugged and threw up his hands. “Screw it. I’m in.”
Buddha Ortiz sipped maté he had succeeded in heating up and brought with him in a gourd cup. A connoisseur never drank it from a canteen cup. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Nice night for a walk. But Bear’s got some news first. Bear, tell him—”
Graves stood up, a proud papa-to-be. “Lena and I, we’re having a baby,” he blurted out.
Rip took a moment to absorb the news, as though searching to tap into something inside he might have lost going to war for so many years. Finally, he forced his thin lips into the semblance of a smile. “That’s great, Bear. Good for you.”
“We want you to be the godfather.”
Taggart looked uncertain. “I’m honored, Bear. But, Jesus, me? What do I have to do?”
Buddha had the answer. He lifted his gourd in a salute. “I’ll cover the God part, Rip. You just show up with candy and presents.”
Bear laughed and dug out his cell phone. “Let’s get a picture for Lena.”
“New guy, you take it,” Ortiz suggested to Buckley as the six members of Team White, prepped for tonight and ready to take on all comers, jauntily crowded around Taggart with their arms and legs around one another in some kind of rendition of frat night at the U. Buckley shot the selfie from arm’s length.
Graves would later make copies for everyone that showed the team members smiling and cutting up in high excitement. All except Rip Taggart, who stared solemn-faced into the lens, his lips pressed thin, his eyes like agate.
Chapter Three
Kunar Province, Afghanistan
Kunar Province, “Enemy Central,” was one of the toughest sectors in-country to target the Taliban. Rarely did US or ANA troops venture into this hostile region and not end up in a fight. The geography was more suited to goats than men. The lower Hindu Kush was a maze of mountain peaks and narrow valleys with steep sides that served as formidable natural obstacles. Insurgent groups had used it for centuries. When the Russians invaded in 1979, they refused to enter this area with any unit smaller than a mech infantry company.
Taliban were an especially hardy lot, just as cunning at fighting in the Afghan mountains as the Apache had been in the desert mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. Give a Taliban a rifle, a baggy pair of shepherd’s trousers, and a pocketful each of mutton and bullets, and he was ready to run with the wolves.
Caulder was skeptical about their chances of capturing al-Muttaqi. “He’s like the Road Runner cartoon. The coyote chases him with all that fancy shit from Acme, but he always goes Meep! Meep! and gets away.”
Under cover of darkness, during that bewitching hour after midnight, MH-60 Blackhawk helicopters inserted a troop of fifteen SEALs on a makeshift landing zone on the downside of a ridge south of the targeted village where, according to a source, al-Muttaqi was staying. SEALs consisting of Taggart’s team of six men, Delta team, and a Quick Reaction Force unassed the helicopters and the birds jerked back into the black air.
By military standards, the SEALs looked like vikings on a raid with their longish hair, beards, and mismatched uniforms. Employing stealth and cover techniques, the small force followed a faint goat trail up the ridge and through a narrow gorge with steep rocky sides. High above, all but invisible in the night sky, an AC-130 Spectre Gunship, radio call sign Reaper One-One, flew overwatch with its 40mm cannon, its 105mm howitzers, and its thermal imagers and sensor pods. It was said that with such sophisticated equipment a tech at the panel could not only locate a gnat on the ground but could determine its sex as well.
SEALs traveled light. “Light is right,” or “travel light, freeze at night.” Most carried rifle magazines, frag and thermobaric grenades, water, GPS unit, compass, and radio. Each man wore protective ballistic body armor and carried a sidearm and a suppressed H&K416 5.56 rifle that allo
wed easy maneuvering in an urban environment, which meant in and out of doorways and rooms and through hallways. Buckley’s assigned weapon was a heavy MK48 7.62 machine gun that, if the feces hit the oscillator, made the difference between kicking ass and getting ass-kicked.
Each man also wore state-of-the-art panoramic night-vision goggles attached to his helmet. His rifle was equipped with lights, a laser, and optics
The narrow gorge up the ridge deposited the silent SEALs through a saddle slightly above the targeted village. The settlement appeared quite peaceful through the greenish glow of NVGs. It consisted of a cluster of closely-packed central buildings around a town square. Buildings were constructed of stone and mud and seemed to merge into the surrounding valley walls.
The target building where al-Muttaqi was believed holed up was a simple two-story structure with a regionally typical flat roof and a courtyard circled by additional small buildings. A faint light glowed through a window of one of the outbuildings, probably supplied by a kerosene lantern. Otherwise, the village lay in pitch-blackness, as though it were without power. Rolling blackouts were common in the area.
Taggart’s team wended its way downslope toward the village on a walking trail that led through a copse of wood, across a small stream and past an orchard. The support and backup element set up security at the edge of the village to cover withdrawal, while a roving team went wide behind the targeted house to nab any squirter who might try to escape the back way.
Bear Graves felt his heart thudding in his chest as his team penetrated the darkened village and made its way through an alleyway toward al-Muttaqi’s compound, hugging buildings to either side of the alley to stay in deeper shadows. Nothing got the blood pumping faster than creeping into an enemy compound, sometimes directly into rooms where enemy fighters were sleeping.
They emerged from the alley to cross a vacant lot that served as a graveyard for abandoned vehicles—a rusting Hilux truck, a Toyota jacked up on its rims, a couple of station wagons with glass salvaged as windows for nearby dwellings. Ahead and across a dark street lay the compound walls. A small gate covered by a bed sheet led into the courtyard beyond.
Taggart signaled for Buckley to drop off and cover the compound with his machine gun. Exfil would be through the same gate. Buck nodded and slipped in among the vehicle wreckage.
On point, Graves led the way across the dusty street while his eyes constantly scanned the compound walls for movement. Detecting nothing that threatened, he cautiously swept aside the sheet that covered the gate and peered inside the courtyard.
His rifle’s IR laser probed two guards asleep in the midst of a litter of trash and tools and old car parts, their AK-47s lying nearby within reach. One slumped on a rock with his head in his arms on his knees. The other sprawled on the ground next to him, legs spread and his back leaning against a rusty engine block. Snoring.
Good. They must be guarding something, which meant an active, occupied hole.
Bear’s laser spotted the top of the first guy’s lowered head, the dot settling on his cranium. He felt Taggart press his shoulder. He nodded in response.
Sayonara, motherfuckers.
With a double tap of the trigger, he dispatched the two men one after the other to Paradise where, presumably, they would be awarded martyrdom and seventy-two virgins each. They died almost without a sound, a result of brain shots. The walls of the compound and the enveloping night muffled the suppressed Thump! Thump! of Bear’s rifle and the meaty smack of the impacting bullets. The night returned to normal sounds.
Bear could almost hear Taggart’s unspoken approval: Fuck ’em! Fuck ’em all!
Bear had noticed for some time a real bitterness in the team leader, a bitterness that went beyond just the war. Something that seemed to be eating out his core.
Chapter Four
Kunar Province, Afghanistan
Outside the walls in the dead car pile, Buck Buckley barely heard the silenced reports of Bear Graves’s rifle taking out the two sentries. He took that as a cue to dart across the street with his machine gun to reestablish vigil inside the compound where he could best cover his guys as they busted into the house. He hit the ground inside the bedsheet-covered gate, eyes darting through the liquid green of NVGs as they searched for hostile movement. He spotted two dead men, but his eyes moved on from them to the house itself. His heart pounded with excitement and tension, but his hands and nerves were steady.
His five teammates moved in a battle stack along the side of the house toward a door just ahead, their lean, swift forms advancing like a perfectly synchronized machine. He watched them crouch past a window illuminated from inside by a dim light and approach the door, weapons ready, every move coordinated. They had rehearsed such tactics a hundred times—no, a thousand times—in the Kill House at the Command in Virginia.
Taggart tested the door and found it locked. He gave Buddha Ortiz a quick signal.
Ortiz attached a breaching charge to the door in a way that would explode its energy toward the inside where overpressure would be more dynamic. He set it, stepped away, and flattened his back against the wall with the rest of the team.
A loud blast accompanied by a flash of fireshredded the wooden door and blew it off its hinges. Smoke billowed. Surprise had also been blown. The entire village would know they were here now. Speed replaced stealth—get in, get the job done, get out again.
Move! Move! Keep moving! Like a deadly ballet, swift and violent, every man functioning through training, experience, and raw instinct.
They cleared the lower floor in explosive movements. Bear Graves brought up rear security as Caulder, Ortiz, and Fishbait rushed up a stairway behind Taggart to the second floor where they entered a long, darkened hallway. Behind them a small window overlooked the courtyard at one end of the hall while a ceiling-to-floor curtain closed off the other end. The curtain fluttered before a fighter armed with an AK-47 yelped something in Pashtu and jumped out from behind it. Taggart dropped him with two quick shots before the guy had a chance to use his weapon. The body crashed to the floor, on its way down overturning a chair with an empty water bucket on it. The bucket rolled clanking down the hall.
The door to the nearest bedroom was open. Taggart, Caulder, and Graves covered it while Ortiz and Fishbait quickly cleared the other rooms. There were only two other doors. One led into a storage room and pantry, the other to a bedroom that appeared to have been recently used but was presently unoccupied.
That left the large master bedroom. Taggart entered first, his NVGs revealing to him three beds and a closet. The bed was stacked with bloody corpses. He identified two small children and a man, all three brutally and freshly slain.
Graves’s voice suddenly rang out. “Drop it, asshole!”
A fighter crouched like a trapped feral animal in the far corner with one arm around a young woman in a white nightgown-like affair, holding her up in front of him as a shield. A knife at her throat kept her frozen in terror, her eyes wide and terrible with fear as seen through NVGs.
SEALs expertly side-stepped out of each other’s field of fire, their eyes focused on the rapidly developing drama in the corner. It didn’t last long. Islamic terrorists lived by a code of martyrdom that stated in stark terms that if you went down, you took everybody you could with you.
Wicked steel flickered as the cornered terrorist’s blade slashed across his hostage’s jugular, almost decapitating her. Black blood fountained. He let her body slump to the floor; a dead hostage was of no value.
The SEALs immediately opened up a cone of fire. Bullets striking flesh and bone resonated louder in the confines of the room than the muted staccato of silenced weapons. The killer died on his way to the floor where he lay unmoving next to his sacrificed victim. The metallic odor and taste of more fresh blood filled the room.
Caulder took out a laminated photograph hanging on a cord around his neck and bent over to compare it to the dead fighter’s face.
“It’s not Muttaqi,” he r
eported.
Graves stood over the bed where the man and two children had been slain. One was a little girl of about three, the other a boy a year or two older. Their throats were slit. The dead woman in the corner must have been their mother. This was apparently the family that lived here.
“Guys, check this out,” Graves said in somber voice.
Blood pooled in the sag of the grass mattress and slowly absorbed into and through it. Dripping blood tapped eerily on the floor beneath the bed. Graves thought again of Sarah as he pulled the bloody blanket over the father and his two little dead children. The others watched him in a moment of silence.
They had witnessed scenes like this before. Based on the four dead Jihadi inside and outside the house, al-Muttaqi and some of his men had likely been here. Once discovered, they went into a frenzy of revenge, apparently assuming the family members had informed on them. Murdering them served as a warning to others of what happened to snitches.
And al-Muttaqi had escaped again.
Rip’s entire frame vibrated with rage over the killing of the family, his face flushed and both fists clutching his weapon. “Fucking damned savages.”
He turned, slung his rifle, and stalked to the corner where he snatched the blade from the dead fighter’s hand. He straddled the body and bent over, his back to the room. Graves wasn’t sure what he was doing.
“Rip?”
Caulder was the first to realize what was happening. “Rip!”
Ortiz caught on. “Oh, man. Hey, don’t do that shit—”
Caulder stepped toward his friend and team leader, hand outstretched. Too late. The awful wet, ripping sound of a scalp departing its skull filled the room.
Chapter Five
Kunar Province, Afghanistan
Taggart stood with his head lowered, glaring at the dead Taliban next to the dead woman, the terrorist’s fresh scalp dangling from one hand, knife in the other.
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