After The Pulse (Book 1): Homestead

by Hogan, L. Douglas

  “I don’t like this,” Mitchell said in a soft voice. He could barely be heard by the driver, who was sitting not two feet away. Mitchell was wearing night-vision goggles and saw several Iraqi men of fighting age standing on the rooftops with cell phones in hand. Some of them were making phone calls.

  Corporal Guy was in the turret behind a .50-caliber machine gun. He also had NVGs on and was concerned the same way Mitchell was. Not knowing if Mitchell was seeing what he was seeing, he slouched down out of position of the turret and said, “Mitchell, you be careful out there. This don’t smell right.”

  Mitchell nodded and went back to watching the suspicious red-flag behavior. He picked up the mic and held it up to his mouth. He was about to say something about lookouts when a notification came over the radio:

  “Echo Six Tango, Echo Five Sierra, do you see the lookouts? Over.”

  “Affirmative. Mission is still a go. Over.”

  Mitchell put the mic back on the radio clip, frustrated that the raid was still on. The Humvee came to a stop, signaling that the inner cordon was in place and it was time for him to exit on foot and rally on the extraction team for a final headcount before making the breach.

  “Hey,” he heard Guy call out.

  Mitchell turned to look up at the gunner.

  “You be careful in there. This smells bad,” Guy whispered.

  Mitchell waved to Guy. The weight of the NVGs prevented him from making any sudden head movements without throwing the fit of the goggles off.

  A few moments later, Mitchell was lined up against a wall with the few Marines involved in the extraction. Each of them was mentally preparing themselves for the imminent fight with Halsheem’s security team.

  Time seemed to slow as they waited for the team leader’s signal to move in. When the signal finally came, the first Marine mounted the wall and shot over like it was nothing. Then the second, the third, the fourth, and so on, until it was Mitchell’s turn. He was the seventh Marine of eight, so the pressure was a little less than the guys up front, but the threat was real. Mitchell jumped over the wall and looked back to secure the last Marine to go over.

  The group reassembled against the house and prepared to breach the door. He couldn’t see the team leader, but knew he was placing a charge that would destroy the door’s locking system so they could force it open and enter the house. Their left side was against the house, with their right side exposed to the rooftops of neighboring buildings. Mitchell could feel his heart pounding in his chest. This was only his third raid, so he wasn’t bringing a whole lot of experience to the table, but it was enough for this particular snatch and grab. The night-vision goggles were cumbersome, but provided him with the visibility he needed. Mitchell looked up and to the right one last time before the detonation went off. On the rooftop of the house next door, he saw a man standing with a cell phone in hand.

  This ain’t right. Something’s wrong, he thought.

  There was a loud boom and the team began their entry. Mitchell took his eyes off the man on the rooftop and followed his brothers-in-arms into the Halsheem residence. His senses were heightened and his paranoia for something being out of place was haunting him. Gunshots could be heard as he rushed into the house and brought his rifle up into the high ready position.

  Something’s wrong, he thought again. The gunshots were AK-47s, and he wasn’t hearing any return fire. No sooner than the enemy’s rifles had started shooting, there were loud explosions heard in the not-so-distant background. They were accompanied by the distinctive sounds of the .50-caliber machine guns. Michell’s fears were being realized. It was an ambush. One of the Marines that were ahead of him shouted, “We’re in a kill box!” In that moment, the Marines’ mission had instantly changed from a raid to survival.

  Mitchell could hear the Marines ahead of him starting to return fire. He was patiently waiting for the command to fall back or retreat, and deep inside he knew it wouldn’t come. Mitchell was in his seventh year of service and he had never heard the words retreat or fall back in a combat engagement. He knew the reason his unit was so successful in mission accomplishment was because of their tenacity. Mitchell assumed the radioman was calling for help, so it was a matter of time before the inner cordon sent men into the raid point to provide some assistance. He was wrong.

  Outside, a few yards away, the inner cordon was also being fired upon. The Weapons Company Humvees were under heavy AK-47, RPG, and mortar fire attack. The mortar rounds were not precise and were landing rather sloppily around or near the American war machines, causing nothing but havoc and disarray. The RPGs and AK-47s were destroying the security element.

  Back in Halsheem’s home, Mitchell had made his way through the point of entry. He could now hear a balanced mixture of M4 and AK-47 rifles. When he turned the corner of the next room, he saw two Marines lying on the floor bleeding out, one from the chest and the other from the neck. An Iraqi man shot up out of a hatch in the floor, catching Mitchell off guard with a shot to the abdomen. He returned fire and shot the man in the chest. He was pulled back down into the hatch.

  A loud explosion rocked the residence. The percussion shook Mitchell and the team violently. Much of the shooting that had been heard in the eastern room was silenced. The Marines collected themselves, but not before a group of armed insurgents ran into the residence and started shooting.

  Mitchell backed up against the wall. Realizing that their formation had been broken and there would be no hope of extraction any time soon, he raised his rifle in the direction of insurgents and started shooting them. They were also shooting, albeit without precision.

  Another explosion rocked the house, but this time it came from behind him. The wall exploded inward, knocking him down onto his face. His ears were ringing and his head was numb. He tried to find his bearings. Remembering that he was in a fight for his life, he looked up and didn’t see anything. The night-vision goggles had been knocked off his head, and his eyes weren’t adjusting to the darkness. They now had the advantage, as he was used to looking at a bright green environment.

  He could hear people walking around and speaking, but none of the voices were English. One of the voices standing nearby was Arabic. It was an angry-sounding voice and it was directly over the top of him. It was dark, so Mitchell remained still and slowly prepared his rifle for one last attack. He pointed it in the direction of the Iraqi and pulled the trigger several times.

  He stood up to run, but tripped over a fallen Marine. It was the radioman. Next to him was the team leader. He felt his way up the man’s body and took the night-vision goggles off his head and held them up to his face. The explosions outside had not subsided, which told Mitchell the fight was still on.

  Inside the house, Mitchell saw the insurgent he’d shot. He was leaning against a wall and he was alone. He removed the Ka-Bar he had attached to his belt and silently ran up to the man, stabbing him in the chest. After the blade sank into the man, he began to fight back. Having to defend himself, Darrick dropped the night-vision goggles to pull the knife out of the man’s chest. After that, he sliced the man’s throat. The insurgent stopped fighting to use both hands in a futile attempt to stop or slow the bleeding. In seconds, the man was limp.

  Mitchell stood up, grabbing the NVGs as he went. He saw two Marines lying on the floor in another room. He ran to help them, but a mortar round landed. The blast that killed those two Marines rendered Mitchell unconscious and threw him several yards from the house, ending the botched raid.

  The next morning

  Muffled sounds filled Mitchell’s ears. He tried to move, but his body was in immense pain. Swells of water gently lifted him up and down against the reeds of the Euphrates.

  Another muffled sound. This time he could tell it was a voice.

  They’re coming for me. They’re going to kill me. Maybe even torture me.

  He was finished. Mitchell counted himself among the dead Marines and was content to know he was going to die with his brothers, but he
decided he wasn’t going to let them take him alive, so he went to reach for his rifle. He was going to shoot himself to save himself. The rifle was gone. His mind was still in a fog. Mitchell knew the worst possible fate was about to befall him. Too painful to move. Too weak to fight. One of the men grabbed him. More muffled voices. His eyes were blurry and his head was aching.

  Mitchell was placed on a rescue stretcher and evacuated on foot. His vision was starting to return, and he could clearly see Marines to his left and to his right. He didn’t recognize any of them. He began to call out the names of those who died in the raid.

  “Easy, brother. We got you. You’re going home,” he heard.

  Turning to the voice, Mitchell asked, “Did anybody else make it?”

  The Marine didn’t answer at first, but Mitchell pressed, “Did anybody else make it?”

  “No, man. You’re the only one making it out,” he finally said.

  Mitchell didn’t want to make it, though.

  How can I live with myself knowing everybody on my team died? Who gets to make that call? Why didn’t I die? Those men should have killed me. The mortar should have killed me. I don’t want to be alive.

  ***

  “Darrick, you okay?” he heard a feminine voice whisper.

  He snapped out of his memory and looked back at Kara. He was back at the Berts’ homestead with Kara. She was looking at him with concern written all over her face.

  “Are you okay?” she asked a second time.

  “I’m good. Stay down. I’m going to clear the house. After that, we collect Jimmie.”

  Kara nodded to him. She watched as Darrick pulled the door open and entered. It was a well maneuvered and quick entry. She was impressed. It would have gone down perfectly except for that delay where he seemed to be out of it. After about five minutes, she began to grow concerned.

  I hope he’s alright.

  About that time, Darrick came walking around from the rear corner of the house. “All clear.”

  Kara stepped out from the rabbit cages and began walking toward the area where Jimmie’s body was located. “He’s over here.”

  Darrick joined her as she began stepping into the woods.

  “He’s here,” she said, locating him.

  Darrick took one look at Jimmie and began to break down. His eyes were hazy white and lifeless. Other parts of his body looked as if they had been chewed up by wild predators.

  Kara caressed his shoulder. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked in a soft tone.

  “Have to. We can’t leave him out here like those two idiots,” he said, pointing at Larry and Shawn, who appeared to be in better condition than Jimmie. Perhaps due to the location of the bodies.

  “I’ll go get some bed linens out of the house and a couple of two-by-fours out of the barn. We can make a stretcher,” she said.

  Darrick nodded in agreement and sat with Jimmie as Kara left them alone together.

  Jimmie was still wearing their dad’s analogue Timex wristwatch. When he went to remove the family heirloom from his wrist, he began to cry again. Jimmie’s hand was cold, and rigor mortis had long since set in. He removed the watch and placed it on his own wrist. It was to serve him as a reminder of due diligence and rational forethought. Jimmie had lost his life because he believed Darrick’s word that he was going to check on the Berts. That lie exacted a heavy price. Darrick realized the only person to blame was himself. The guilt was weighing upon him. He acted mad at Kara for not telling him about his brother, but even that was his fault. He wouldn’t even be dead if he hadn’t lied and went out on his own.

  Darrick placed his right hand on Jimmie’s chest and said, “I’m so sorry, Jimmie.”

  A noise came from the north. Darrick looked up and out of the woods to see Kara bringing the items they needed to make a hasty stretcher. She carried them into the woods and set the three items to the left side of Jimmie’s body.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Kara spread a light blanket out onto the ground and laid the two-by-fours on top of it about a foot and half apart. After that, she folded the ends of the blanket back over the top of the boards with one end lying under the other.

  “Ready to put him on?” she asked.

  “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  They stood up together and grabbed Jimmie by the clothes he was wearing to move him onto the stretcher. Jimmie’s body was lying on the blanket that was folded over onto itself. His weight kept the blanket in place so that they could grab the boards and lift him up and out of the woods.

  Kara was staying quiet. She was feeling uneasy about saying anything at all. The entire moment was a solemn event. She refused to break the silence, feeling that it wasn’t her place.

  ***

  Three men were scouting an area a few short miles from the Omen’s center of operation. It was a quiet, routine maneuver until one of them began to hear voices.

  The group of three was being led by a military veteran familiar with tactical operations, specifically, hand signs. He threw up a fist, signaling to the two men behind him that they needed to stop moving.

  “Do you guys hear that?” the group leader asked.

  The other two men stood very still and listened.

  “I hear movement in the woods just ahead,” the second man in line whispered.

  They waited another minute or two.

  “I don’t hear anything,” the third man said.

  “Go prone,” the leader said, using only a hand signal.

  Both men lay down on the ground while the leader moved as quietly through the woods as he could. The sounds he was following abated, so he stood still and went back to listening.

  Nothing. He continued out of sheer curiosity and came to an old farmhouse. There were two dead men and a dead woman lying outside. He recognized one of the deceased men and slowly approached him. It was Larry Upton, one of the missing scouts. The leader pulled his rifle into his shoulder and put it in the high ready position, expecting trouble. He pointed it at the window of the house, expecting the moment to erupt into gunfire, but it didn’t happen. He walked toward the house. The back door was wide open, but it was also dead silent. He crept ever so silently up to the door and entered with tactical precision.

  So far, so good.

  The man cleared the front two rooms and moved to the hallway, where he found the body of another man he identified as Shawn Hillerman. The dead scout had a bullet hole in his head, and the carpet beneath him was saturated.

  He knelt down to touch it.

  Still wet .

  He moved on to the next two rooms.

  Empty.

  He turned around and headed for the front room. When he reached it, he used the tip of his rifle barrel to open the curtain and look outside. He saw two people. A man and a woman. They were carrying what appeared to be an injured person on a stretcher. All three of them were headed away from the ranch.

  The man ran out the back door and headed for his teammates.

  ***

  “They’ve been gone a long time,” Carissa said to Tonya.

  “They’ll be here,” Tonya answered, being careful not to make any promises the way she had before, when Darrick let them down.

  Carissa had been standing at the kitchen window for the past hour and hadn’t sat down or quit squirming.

  “You need to relax,” Tonya insisted, but Carissa wasn’t hearing it.

  “I’ll relax when my Jimmie comes home,” she said. As if on cue, she saw Darrick and Kara in the distance. She ran out the back door without telling Tonya what she was doing. Tonya chased her outside and saw her running toward Darrick and Kara. They were carrying a stretcher with Jimmie’s body. It was covered with a blanket.

  Carissa met them at the edge of the yard. Darrick and Kara lowered the stretcher to the ground.

  “Carissa,” Darrick said.

  She dropped to her knees at Jimmie’s side and placed one hand on Jimmie’s head. Darrick was worried that she would a
ttempt to uncover him. He knew that his condition was bad and didn’t want her to see his face.

  Carissa began to wail, and the sound of it made Darrick’s eyes well up with tears. He was about to break and didn’t want the women to see him cry, so he left their presence and walked toward the back door, where Tonya was standing. He grabbed her by the hand and led her to the couch, where he sat down, and she sat next to him.

  He started to cry. It wasn’t a loud I want to be heard cry, but rather it was a soft concealed mourning. His eyes and nose filled with tears. Tonya listened to him sniff and exhale his anguish as he tried to conceal his face from her. She pulled him in for a hug and let him cry on her shoulder. This was the second time Tonya ever saw Darrick cry. The first time was when he first told her about his childhood trauma. Tonya didn’t believe it was the trauma of being beaten with metal clothes hangers that made him cry, but the thought of having lost a father in the process. It was the loss that had driven Darrick to tears.

  Now, with Jimmie gone, she was seeing his pain come alive again for the second time. His loss was felt by her and she joined him in tears. When he had made an end to his evening’s mourning, he stood up from Tonya’s side and said, “I guess I need to get him buried.” Darrick thought for a moment. “I know just the place.”

  Across the street from the homestead, there were a few acres of land that the Mitchells used to small-game hunt. There was a glade about a half mile away. Darrick used to hide there when he was young. It was the only place he felt both alone and safe. That would be a great spot to bury him, he thought.