by Jason Kasper
I took aim and found my first target, a rifleman shooting from behind an open truck door. Before I could squeeze off my first shots, a trio of rounds stitched across his collarbone and face. Judging by the accuracy, Worthy had just wiped him off the battlefield.
Swinging my rifle to the right, I fired four bullets at another fighter, tagging him with at least one round that caused him to drop out of sight. I aimed at the next visible ISIS combatant, who was standing in the open and paid for it with two bullets to the chest.
There was little we could do now but hold our positions and keep the enemy at bay until Cancer was ready to speed us to safety. Maybe—if we were lucky—we could get a clean shot at BK as he made his way to the trucks.
A shrill scream outside the window cut my thoughts short, and I adjusted my position to locate the source.
She was a girl of eight or nine, now crouched behind the insubstantial cover provided by a pile of mud bricks on the opposite side of the street, remnants of some half-remembered repair project that had probably been abandoned at the start of the civil war.
Now the bullets were kicking up sand around her, impacting the bricks to her front and the wall to her side. It was a matter of time before she got struck by a direct hit or a ricochet.
The sight of her seemed to suck all the oxygen from my surroundings; whether I liked it or not, the tactical situation faded completely from my mind. Here was a girl not much older than my own daughter, and I’d placed her in danger. If I didn’t do something fast, she’d die because of me.
I was moving for the door before I consciously realized what I was doing, priming for the fastest run of my life. The morning sunshine beyond the doorway was dim behind the sandy clouds kicked up by bullet impacts, and with a final breath, I charged into the open.
There is a certain surreal quality imparted by racing through a hail of enemy gunfire. As my legs pumped in an adrenaline-fueled sprint, my peripheral vision registered the bullet impacts on the dirt road, on the brick and cinder block buildings around me.
The little girl watched my approach, screaming words I couldn’t register above the noise and sobbing with terror. I heard the sharp paper-tearing sounds of bullets passing by, released my rifle with one hand, and fell backward into a baseball slide for the remaining few feet between us.
Skidding to a stop on my back, I wrapped my open arm around her chest, hoisted her tight against my side, and rose to a crouch.
The remaining distance to the nearest building corner was only four meters or so, but the few footfalls it took me to get there seemed to take an eternity. I darted for the corner and a narrow alleyway beyond it; the last thing I saw before reaching it was a bullet strike the tan wall, an impact that fired a spray of sand and debris into my eyes.
Then my vision was gone, eyes stinging as I proceeded into the alley by memory alone. I threw my back against the wall, hearing the staccato pops of gunfire continuing beside me. The girl was safe now. I tried to set her down, but it was no use—she clung to my side with animal ferocity, refusing to let go.
I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes until I could make out the foggy, unfocused expanse of alley before me, then found the nearest door and kicked it open.
She was still sobbing as I carried her inside to safety, perhaps uncertain whether she’d been rescued or kidnapped, and in the war-torn hellhole this nation had become, I couldn’t blame her.
“It’s okay,” I said, aiming for a reassuring tone only to be met with a sense of sheer absurdity. There were no good guys or bad guys in this fight, and regardless of our intention—or the greater evils BK could inflict upon civilian masses if left unchecked—we’d nonetheless brought danger into this village, into her home. If I was looking for gratitude, I wasn’t going to get it from her.
I tried to set her down again, to get back into the fight unencumbered. But she continued clinging to me with savage intensity, apparently deciding that in this moment I represented the lesser of two evils. I couldn’t blame her for that assumption, and struggled to the nearest window to appraise the situation.
The convoy hadn’t moved, though the fighters had dispersed to the surrounding structures to hold their line. I scanned the buildings across the street, trying to determine whether the fighters had begun advancing on us, when I caught a sudden flash of movement. I was prepared to duck behind the wall—with the girl clinging to my side, I wasn’t about to get the jump on any determined enemy.
But something stopped me from hiding completely. It was a sense of disbelief, the jarring thought that I couldn’t possibly be seeing what I was seeing.
I only observed him for a second, a momentary alignment of angles that caused me to catch a glimpse of the man’s face in the window across the street.
For a fleeting moment, we locked eyes—here was my target, the man I’d been sent to kill. We referred to him as BK, but his real name was Bari Khan, and the face that met mine was not Arab but Chinese. A Uyghur dissident, he’d found not-so-strange bedfellows in ISIS, with many of the same goals and enemies.
Bari Khan’s face was covered in dust and glistening blood.
But his eyes were strangely unemotional, coolly in control. He seemed to be appraising me with disinterest, making no attempt to take aim.
I wasn’t about to return the favor. Maneuvering my rifle around the girl, I struggled to bring my sights to bear on him.
It was too late. He was gone.
That was it, I knew at once. My team was stretched too thin to pursue any further—had, in fact, been stretched too thin to begin pursuing after the ambush failed to kill him. Our survival streak would end if we pushed our luck any further.
Moments later, the incoming gunfire abated almost completely as a group of enemy trucks whipped wild U-turns in the street, accelerating out of the village as my team continued firing at them. Two trucks remained abandoned, their engine blocks shot out by Reilly’s machinegun.
Bari Khan was gone, this time for good, and his departure spelled something worse for our team. ISIS wasn’t going to let our presence remain uncontested, and regardless of where they were taking the terrorist leader we’d been sent to kill, I knew at once that a larger opposition force was on its way to kill us.
I transmitted, “Cancer, they’re gone. Need you to bring up the truck ASAP to get us out of here. Come up the main road until you see us.”
He responded with one word: “Moving.”
Before I could attempt to pry the little girl off my side, Reilly transmitted, “Suicide, you need support?”
“Negative. Just flag down Cancer and I’ll meet you at the truck.”
Then I heard running footsteps approaching and immediately regretted my declaration to move alone. Whoever was coming toward me was doing so in a hurry, and it was too late to request help without him hearing me—and with confrontation imminent and the little girl still clinging to me like a spider monkey, my only advantage was the element of surprise.
I darted to the corner beside the doorway and knelt to keep the girl tucked behind my body. Then I aimed my rifle.
A man burst into the room so quickly that I almost fired out of blind reaction. His hands were empty, shirt taut against his torso, leaving no room for a suicide vest. This was no enemy fighter, but a panic-stricken man with tears staining his face.
Her father.
The man’s eyes were wide, uncomprehending of the terror around him. He’d probably struggled to survive amid the endless bloodshed of the Syrian Civil War, only to find a group of armed men doing battle at his doorstep through no fault of his own.
He was just trying to safeguard his family the best he could, the same as I would have in his situation. The difference between us was little more than our place of birth.
I lowered my rifle and stood to hand him the child. She immediately clung to him, and as the man’s eyes met mine with impossible gratitude, I gave him a silent nod—Arabic wasn’t my specialty.
To my surprise, he addressed me
in English.
“Thank you.”
I felt a goofy half-grin spread across my face as the dim euphoria of recognition set in—if I’d been born elsewhere, this could just as easily have been my own daughter being saved. Then, I gave the only response I could think to muster.
“You’re welcome.”
I only had a moment to study his long, thin face and well-trimmed beard. Then he turned, keeping his daughter in his grasp as he moved not outside but rather up the stairs to the second floor. I realized in that moment that this wasn’t some random structure I’d been occupying, but the girl’s home.
Their departure jarred me to reality—my team was compromised in Syria, and the enemy surely didn’t intend on letting us leave if they could prevent it.
The sound of an engine approached outside, and I knew Cancer was almost at my position. Then all hell broke loose as an automatic weapon began firing in wild bursts from just up the street.
I looked outside to find the source, and saw that the only possible location was from behind a partially finished cinder block wall jutting out from a building. Whoever this remaining enemy was, he was blasting rounds in our direction, shooting up the sides of buildings and shattering windows.
I transmitted, “Doc, can you drop that wall?”
“Negative, I’m black on ammo.”
“Anyone else got a shot?”
Worthy answered, “No, we can’t see him from here.”
The remaining fighter was firing wildly while screaming in Arabic. He’d either not heard the order to withdraw, decided to ignore it, or had been sent to cover BK’s withdrawal. The circumstances mattered precious little to us at present—he was shooting at us, and we couldn’t flee the scene until he was dealt with. A single errant bullet at this point could disable our lone remaining truck, and I didn’t want to test our odds with a commandeered local vehicle.
I also didn’t want to take the time to maneuver forward until we could get a clear shot—not when there was a much quicker option available.
“Cancer,” I transmitted, “we need you to get him. We’ll cover you. He’s behind the cinder block wall to your front.”
He didn’t respond; instead, I saw his tan SUV roll to a stop at the side of the road before he got out, hoisting his heavy sniper rifle and shaking his head in irritation. He marched angrily toward the cinder block wall, where the single entrenched fighter was still firing upward. Cancer’s massive sniper rifle was intended for mile-long shots, not working up close and personal; but in the current situation, it was the best tool for the job.
Cancer moved along the wall, following the sound of gunfire on the other side. When he came abreast of the noise, he stopped, knelt, and strained to lift the enormous Barrett until its muzzle was level with the cinder block surface.
Then he fired a single shot, a deafening boom whose blast sent an enormous cloud of sand dust washing over him. The bullet ejected a spray of concrete out of the other side of the wall, bowling the enemy fighter over in a whirling froth of blood and bone fragments that painted the ground red.
I transmitted, “You got him.”
Cancer’s voice shot back over my earpiece.
“No shit.”
I shrugged and keyed my radio again.
“Consolidate on the truck. Let’s get out of here while we can.”
I ran toward the SUV, now idling with Ian at the wheel. Sliding onto the passenger seat, I turned to my team as Ian wheeled around and accelerated out of the village.
Worthy had piled into the storage space in the back of the SUV, and Reilly and Cancer fought to maneuver their giant weapons in the backseat. Combat always looked so cool in the movies, but the current dogpile reflected the reality we’d all experienced before: real war was an unglamorous, messy process of improvisation, and it would either claim your life or leave scars both physical and psychological.
I transmitted over my command frequency, “Paradise Seven One, this is Suicide Actual.”
“Send your traffic.”
“We are no-joy. Require emergency exfiltration, time now.”
Long seconds elapsed before the response, the pause serving as an audible reminder of the collective disappointment from our mission failure.
“Copy, assets are standing by at the link-up point.”
I moved my hand away from the radio switch, suddenly feeling like I’d run the hundred-yard dash while holding my breath. As soon as the adrenaline of battle faded, the body prioritized everything denied to it during the fight: water, oxygen, rest.
Ian looked over at me from the driver’s seat.
“David, you think we’ll ever get another shot at this guy?”
I adjusted the rifle between my legs, barrel pointed down to the floor.
Swallowing against a dry throat, I replied, “I don’t know.”
It was a good question, of course—the CIA had sent us after Bari Khan for a reason, and now he was on the loose with the full knowledge that he’d been located by men who were trying to kill him. He was about to go into hiding, and there was no telling if he’d surface again before an untold number of civilians paid the ultimate price.
But I knew one thing for certain: if the Agency succeeded in locating Bari Khan again, then my team sure as hell wasn’t going to fail a second time.
2
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
I let myself into the house quietly, trying not to jangle the keys in the lock.
Gently closing and locking the door behind me, I turned toward the entryway and living room, lit by the soft glow of various lamps that Laila had left on. I set down my bag and walked forward, tracing my hand atop a long white side table adorned with potted plants and family pictures.
Passing through my living room on the way to the kitchen, I paused to take in my surroundings. They should have felt familiar: a suburban oasis, a beautiful home by anyone’s standards made more so by Laila’s decorative touch, and warmed further by the toys and stuffed animals scattered about faster than they could be picked up.
How often had I passed through these surroundings, barely recognizing the splendor around me? Nearly every day for the past year, and yet it felt like I was seeing it all for the first time. On an average day, I took my home for granted. Having just returned from the frantic chaos of Syria, it seemed like I was passing through some alien wonderland that I didn’t deserve.
I made my way to the cabinet, retrieving the trusty bottle of Woodford Reserve and pouring three fingers over ice. Then I sat at the dining room table, taking the first warming sips of bourbon. By my third pull from the glass, I was back on the high ground, waiting for Bari Khan’s convoy to enter the kill zone, and by the fourth I was trying to pry the Syrian girl from my side so I could resume fighting alongside my team in the village. Those memories seemed real, concrete; by contrast, the normal home, the all-American life I had re-entered seemed to be some foggy, half-remembered dream. I took another sip.
A creak from the top of the stairs alerted me that I’d failed to enter quietly enough, and I approached the bottom of the staircase to see Laila descending toward me.
Even having been awakened by my return, she was stunning.
She wore sweatpants and a thin top without a bra, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders in disarray, face puffy with sleep but radiant with all the beauty that had caused me to fall for her in college.
“Hey, babe,” she whispered.
“Hey,” I said quietly, receiving her into my embrace and kissing her lips. “I tried not to wake you.”
“It’s okay,” she murmured, hugging me tightly before pulling back to appraise me with lucid green eyes. “You’re having a drink?”
“Yeah, but I’ll come to bed. Let’s go.”
“No, I’ll join you.”
“Don’t you have to be at work early?”
“Yeah. It’s okay.”
I poured her a glass of red wine and carried it to the table, where she took a seat beside me. We
raised our glasses and clinked them softly together.
She asked, “How was Jordan?”
“Hot,” I said. “But everything went well.”
“No issues starting up the contract?”
I shook my head. “The host nation instructors were really receptive, good rapport right off the bat. They’re starting the marksmanship instruction today. We’ll see how it goes, but I shouldn’t have to go back over until my team lead needs some assistance.”
“What unit are you guys training, again?”
She asked the question like a wife trying to verify her husband’s whereabouts, and half the time I felt like I was keeping an extramarital affair from her. In a way, I was.
“101st SB,” I replied automatically. “Jordan’s Special Battalion within their Special Forces Group. Kind of like our Rangers. They’re good, really motivated and capable. That makes things more interesting for my instructors, because they can teach higher-level stuff. Should be a great contract.”
She said nothing, taking another sip as I asked, “Enough about me. How have you and Langley been?”
“Langley’s so good, half the time I feel like she could raise herself.”
“Guess she’d have to be that way to survive my parenting. I can’t believe how smart she is, though.”
“It’s scary, right?”
“Yeah, I get the creeping suspicion we aren’t going to need her college fund. How has residency been going?”
Laila took another sip of wine, closing her eyes halfway. “Can’t be over soon enough. Most of my attending physicians are good, a couple have a God complex.”
“I thought that was reserved for surgeons.”
“I know, right?” She shrugged. “Things the movies never tell you, I guess. Pediatricians with God complexes—the threat is real. The kids are great, though. A few crazy parents here and there. Mostly it’s the long hours and studying on top of everything else that makes it hard.”