by Margaret Kay
Shepherd Security – Operation Recruited Angel
Margaret Kay
Copyright and Disclaimer
Copyright © 2018 by Margaret Kay
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Alpha
The jungle terrain was dense, the heat stifling, the humidity oppressive. It had been two long, sleepless weeks that the men from Shepherd Security had boots on the ground in this remote region in one of the world’s areas of continuous discontent. For over fifty years the ENL guerrilla group, or National Liberation Army as they were known, waged war against the legitimate government of Colombia. They financed their operation through kidnappings with ransom demands, extortion, and earnings from drug sales.
A group of Americans had been taken, a group that by all accounts shouldn’t have been in the region. The official request came through appropriate government channels to Colonel Samuel Shepherd, United States Army, Retired. Well, officially retired on paper only. Two of Shepherd’s teams were briefed and dispatched immediately. They joined an elite Colombian military unit that was well acquainted with the movements of the rogue military group.
Washington wanted this group returned home breathing. That was why Shepherd’s group was called in. This was not an official US Military mission. The members of Shepherd Security could and would act with impudence and impunity and do whatever had to be done to bring the Americans home.
Cooper stopped and crouched low with a clenched fist, concealing himself within the thick, gnarled brush that carpeted the densely wooded hilly terrain through which they had been slowly making their way for hours. A thick tree trunk was at his back. He didn’t even have to look back. He knew the men in his unit behind him would all assume similar cover at his signal. His face and neck were painted with camouflage grease paint, matching his FRACU, flame-resistant Army combat uniform, which was drenched with sweat.
The sun was high in the sky. It was still way too many hours till sunset when the cool-off, down to a pleasant eighty degrees, would occur. This was worse than the Middle East! He knew the seven other members of their team couldn’t wait to finish this mission and get home too. How he longed for his comfortable bed, a good meal, and a functioning toilet.
He was invisible. He knew the enemy was out there, watching. He waited for a member of his team to call out a location. He’d not so much heard an indicator that someone was close by, but he felt it. It was a sixth sense he had after so many years of operating in enemy territory. It was as though he knew by instinct where the enemy would be.
“Tango at one o’clock,” the Birdman’s Louisiana-Creole accented voice whispered through everyone’s comms.
“Roger that, got a pair of them crossing our six too, routine patrol, don’t appear to be tracking us,” Razor’s deep voice added in a barely audible whisper.
Branches cracked, and leaves rustled at Cooper’s one o’clock. He pressed his form more firmly into the rough bark of the thick tree trunk. He dropped his AR-15 to his side and drew his pistol. He gripped it, a Sig Saur P226 MK25 with the SR09 suppressor, his finger on the trigger, ready to fire. And then he remained perfectly still; waiting.
He smelled tobacco burning and then he heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper. The warm liquid splattered against the tree trunk and ran around the back of the trunk pooling at Cooper’s feet. He cringed when he felt the warm wetness hit his arm. His eyes met those of the man who had stepped to the side to view his urine running down the sloped ground.
That man didn’t get the chance to utter a sound. A single, silent, Sig Elite 124gr FMJ 9mm round hit his forehead, dead center. After all, Cooper’s hands were free. The man’s hands were occupied. Cooper caught him as he crumpled forward. He held him against the tree and listened for any indication his patrol partner was nearby.
“What the fuck?” Birdman’s unmistakable voice whispered. “You shot him Coop?”
“The fucker pissed on me.”
“Got his partner at two o’clock,” Jax whispered. “I’ve got a clear shot.”
“Hold,” Cooper ordered.
Cooper soundlessly dropped the dead man in his arms to the ground, laying him face-down in his own urine. Then he assumed his position, concealed and invisible.
“I’ve got two more moving in on our nine o’clock,” Birdman announced.
“Drop the partner at the two o’clock,” Cooper ordered. “Let’s try to avoid the nine o’clock and tail them back to their home base.”
“Tango at two o’clock neutralized,” Jax confirmed a few seconds later.
The men they trailed were not highly trained, much to everyone’s surprise. They talked and laughed like a couple of buddies in their favorite bar watching a football game. They lit up a joint that they passed between them as they walked through the jungle. They didn’t seem to be on alert for anyone or anything, just out for a stroll.
It was several hours later that the pair led them to a muddy, pot-hole ridden path that passed for a road in these parts. Thanks to the two men’s determination not to return to their base too early, Razor, who had moved in close to do recon, planted a tracker on the truck as they lounged in the front seats talking about their wives and the whores at the compound. The eight men from Shepherd Security along with the ten-man team of Colombian special forces watched the truck pull away.
“That was almost too easy,” Jax said as the men gathered in a group.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, my American friend. We got lucky,” one of the Colombian soldiers said.
Yeah, none of the men from Shepherd Security believed in luck. All the same, they took off hoofing it in the direction the truck went. They followed the signal for two hours. The sun was low in the sky, dipping beneath the jungle canopy before the tracking signal stopped moving, they hoped at home base.
Long shadows from the trees provided them cover as they moved in closer to the compound which was nestled under tall trees in a small clearing that was mostly covered by the leaves of the trees. A camouflage netting was strung between the trees concealing the rest. No wonder air surveillance was not able to uncover this compound’s location.
Four buildings, an outhouse, a dozen vehicles, several dozen armed men, cattle and chickens made up the compound. What looked like an outside cooking facility was vacant. Shepherd’s men and the Colombian military unit moved in slowly, twice dodging patrols around the perimeter. Near the far side of the encampment sat a fuel tank. Awesome! A distraction waiting to happen. Coop and Jax broke from the group to go in for close recon. They needed to confirm the hostages were held here and identify which of the four buildings they were in.
A gooseneck camera reached up to a window in the rear of building number one, the largest of the buildings. Bunks and tables were lined up end to end. This was a barracks for the guerrillas. Twenty plus men were within. Coop knew when they blew the fuel tank, he’d have several guns trained on the doors of this building to mow down all who exited.
The second building was a processing room for the coca plant to be turned into cocaine. A second area within was set up to package it. It appeared a harvest had just occurred. The room was packed with the drug in all phases of manufacturing. This building would definite
ly be burned to the ground regardless if the hostages were found at this location or not.
The third building housed hostages, at least fifty of them, men, women, and children, including infants. Through the gooseneck camera, they identified members of the group they had come for.
“Doc, Undertaker, are you both tuned into this feed?” Coop whispered.
“Roger that,” Doc replied. “Looks like several are in bad shape.”
“Put the choppers on standby for exfil,” Coop ordered. “We’ll need both. We’re taking all the hostages with us.”
“Roger,” Razor replied.
Working their way to the back of the fourth and final building, Cooper and Jackson found the armory. A stockpile of military grade weapons of all sorts, from pistols to RPG’s. The Colombian military wouldn’t like it, but they would also destroy this building. There was no way they would allow this cache of weapons to survive and possibly find their way back into the guerrilla’s hands.
When Coop and Jax finally made it back with the others, they pulled Lambchop and Mother aside, their two explosives experts. After a quick briefing the pair prepared their charges and set off to plant them on the fuel tank, the back of the barracks, and inside the armory. The first two would be triggered by remote detonators. The charge within the armory would be triggered by the door opening, which if they did their job right would not happen, and also be time-delayed to explode after they cleared the compound.
Then they went over the plan and waited for Lambchop and Mother to return. Once they had, the men fanned out to take up their designated positions for the assault and rescue operation. At five minutes till the appointed hour, Razor contacted the pilot of the lead chopper. They were in route. Exfil scheduled for ten minutes after go-time.
The adrenaline pumped through Cooper as he, the Undertaker, and Doc made their way around to the back of the building that housed the hostages. He tightly gripped his AR-15 M4 with suppressor, loaded with thirty 5.56, 62gr FMJ Green Tip rounds in his hands, ready. As they approached the building, watching the time click down, t-minus one minute till the fuel tank would blow, they crossed paths with a two-man patrol, twenty-five yards ahead.
As the Tangos’ eyes registered the threat, before they could react, Cooper took out one of them; two muffled rounds through his chest, a third to his head. The Undertaker took the other out, a double-tap to his forehead.
Night became day as a series of two, deafening explosions in quick succession and a huge fireball lit up the compound, accompanied by a violent ground-shake. The surrounding trees became a blazing spectacle as the flames engulfed the nearby trees and then jumped from tree to tree, setting a fire to every leaf in the canopy.
That was enough of a distraction for Shepherd’s men to get a drop on the guerrillas. As the ENL members pulled themselves to their feet, Jax, Mother, and the Birdman opened fire from their positions in the tree-line, weapons set to full automatic. Seconds later, the few surviving guerrillas staggered out of the barracks building and were mowed down as well.
Coop, Doc, and the Undertaker breached the back of the primitive building where the hostages were held with little effort and no harm to those within. Not a single ENL member was inside, just frightened, screaming people and crying children.
Razor and Lambchop each led five of the Colombian military in from the left and the right respectively, flanking assault forces attacking the compound. They took out every guerrilla fighter that got in their crosshairs.
In less than ten minutes, all the ENL members in the compound were killed, fifty hostages were rescued and were loaded into two trucks in front of the burned-out barracks building. It would be a short drive to the clearing where they would rendezvous with the two incoming Boeing MH-47G Chinooks. Lambchop and Mother planted the devices that would blow the cocaine processing building and the building the hostages had been held in. They wouldn’t leave a wall intact.
After the trucks pulled away, two more explosions signaled their departure. The smoke billowed up through the flaming canopy into the starless night. The raid didn’t go unnoticed. Unbeknownst to them, a secondary compound was less than five miles away. Immediately, a force was dispatched and were heading their direction.
Doc and the Undertaker, the unit’s medics, were each in a truck, tending to those in the most serious of conditions. A local Colombian girl was in active labor. One of the hostages they had gone in for, a woman in her late forties, was coaching her through breathing. Doc left her to it after a quick check of the girl’s progress. The baby wasn’t crowning yet, and the mother didn’t seem in distress - besides being in active labor in the jungle during a rescue mission. Another man, an American who had been held hostage for over six months was Doc’s focus. He was dehydrated and emaciated, unable to walk on his own. His breathing was labored, his heart rate erratic.
In the other truck the Undertaker tended a few critical patients as well. A British national had been held for just over a month. He was diabetic and in bad shape, groggy and weak. His blood sugar level was dangerously high, over five-fifty. They had no insulin with them, just glucose, which obviously wouldn’t help him in the least.
As the small convoy neared the extraction point, the third explosion sounded through the night, the armory. It went up with an even louder bang and an earthquake rocked the area. Descending beside the trucks, the whir of the choppers signaled the arrival of the twin-engine, tandem rotor, heavy-lift helicopters.
Ops at home base was dialed in, monitoring the situation from a satellite high above. “You’ve got company moving in Alpha Team,” Yvette ‘Control’ Donaldson’s familiar voice came through the comms of the men from Shepherd Security. “Two clicks southwest of your location, four heavy vehicles, heat signatures show more men than you want to mess with. Move your asses!”
Cooper rode in a jeep with his Colombian counterpart. “We’ve got company two clicks to our southwest, moving in fast. Move your team to intercept and provide us cover while we load the hostages. The second chopper will provide air support to you.”
The captain nodded.
Cooper, Jax, Lambchop, and Razor took up positions in one of the helicopters. It rose and moved in to engage the incoming attackers while the four other members of Shepherd Security carried and herded the civilians onto the other chopper.
The vehicles carrying the Tangos sped into view. They were less than a hundred yards away from the chopper the rescued hostages were being loaded onto. The small team of the Colombian military raced towards them. The sound of gunfire echoed loudly as they engaged. The Colombian military was vastly outnumbered.
“Loaded, Coop,” Doc broadcast.
“Affirmative,” Cooper replied. “Take off!”
Cooper and his team on the modified chopper also engaged. Forward, leaning out the side doors Coop, Razor and Jax fired as they approached. Lambchop was in position at the rear of the craft, the loading ramp down. He manned the 762 six-barrel rotary machine gun as the chopper flew over the four vehicles. It rained down the 7.62 mm NATO rounds at two-thousand rounds per minute. One pass was all it took. The four vehicles were stopped. All within were dead, injured, or running away.
With the threat neutralized, the chopper landed beside the Colombian military troops. They boarded the chopper and it immediately lifted off. Cooper’s counterpart had taken a bullet to his leg, at the femoral artery by the looks of it. Cooper tied it off and applied pressure to the wound. “Control advise Colombian Military Command we are hot, incoming with casualties.”
“Roger that, Coop,” Yvette’s voice came through their comms.
“ETA to Sexta Division Ejercito Nacional De Colombia military base thirty minutes,” the chopper’s pilot broke in.
“Roger that, Jayhawk,” Yvette acknowledged.
A half hour later, the two choppers sat down at the base near a hanger and were greeted by ambulance units and a troop transport truck. The wounded and the Colombian nationals were off loaded. The two choppers, loaners fr
om the American base on Aruba, refueled, and then took back off heading to their base, known as FOLs, Aruba Forward Operating Location, with the American’s and the Shepherd Security personnel.
They were granted immediate clearance to land close to the main hanger belonging to the small American military contingent that was stationed at this base. The American mission was to detect and monitor illicit drug trafficking activities, interdiction, apprehension, and seizure of that cargo. Thanks to Shepherd Security’s activities that evening a shit-ton of cocaine would not be leaving Colombia. Mission assisted.
Upon turning those whom they rescued over to the base personnel, the Shepherd Security team was quartered in the vacant wing of the barracks. It was zero-four-hundred hours, and the men were beat. A hot shower, a comfortable rack to catch a few hours of sleep, followed by a decent meal and they would be good to go.
By ten-hundred hours most of the men had woke, showered if they hadn’t the night before, and been fed at the cafeteria. They had returned to the barracks. Cooper authorized five hours of personal time for the men to enjoy Aruba. They were to report back at fifteen-hundred hours. Their DC9 would take off at sixteen-hundred.
