“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Tailor said, his face illuminated by the small screen on his GPS. “What the hell? We’re even farther from the target than we were at the fort!”
“Hey man, are we in the right place?” I asked, approaching the driver’s side door of the van. Conrad had gotten out and was leaning against the van. He reached underneath his 5.11 vest and retrieved a pack of cigarettes.
“We’re in the right spot,” he said nonchalantly, lighting up. “Your ride will be here shortly. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.” Tailor just shrugged, leaned against the van himself, and lit up a cigarette.
Minutes ticked by. None of us spoke. I gazed up into the night sky; it was the first time I’d been able to see the stars since I’d arrived in Zubara. I don’t think any of us wanted to ruin the rare quiet moment we were having.
The quiet was suddenly interrupted by a low beeping sound. Conrad pulled out a device that looked like a pager and read the little display.“Your ride is here,” he said, putting the gadget back into his pocket. Tailor and I looked around. No lights could be seen on the road. Not a single car had driven by in the few minutes we’d been standing there.
“Where?” I asked. Conrad just shook his head like I was stupid. A moment later, I heard a dull thwup-thwup-thwup noise. It sounded like a helicopter off in the distance.
“Is that a chopper?” Tailor asked.
“Something like that,” Conrad said. I wondered what in the hell he was being so coy about. I quickly found out. The thwupping noise grew louder, but the helicopter still sounded far off in the distance, and it was difficult to tell which direction it was coming from. Then I saw a black shape slowly moving across the sky; the helicopter was a lot closer than it sounded.
“Now, what the hell is that?” Tailor asked as the helicopter approached.
“I have no idea,” I said. Seeing new and strange things had become the theme of the evening, it seemed. I’m something of an aviation buff. As a matter of fact, I have a private pilot’s license. But I’d never seen anything like the machine that was setting down in the desert in front of us.
It wasn’t very big, maybe the size of an old Huey. Its hull was painted black and was made up of oddly curved and faceted surfaces. The chopper looked like a bastard love-child of a Huey and the RAH-66 Comanche. It kicked up a cloud of white dust as it touched down onto the bleached, rocky Zubaran desert, but it still was ridiculously quiet. The muted whine of turbine engines could be heard over the dull thwupping of the rotor. The rotor blades themselves appeared to be very wide and were oddly shaped.
“It’s a stealth helicopter,” I said, somewhat in disbelief. There I was, working for a secret government organization, engaged in an honest-to-goodness black operation, and I was about to climb onto a genuine black helicopter. I shook my head. Tailor laughed to himself.
The chopper settled onto the desert floor, and an off-kilter-looking door slid open on the side of the fuselage. The interior cabin was lit with a red light.
“Let’s go!” Tailor said, slapping me on the shoulder. He took off toward the chopper at a jog, and I followed. We both crouched down as we approached the aircraft. The unbelievably quiet rotor was still turning. We climbed into the small cabin. A bench was in the middle, with five seats facing outward on each side. As we sat down and strapped ourselves in, the sliding door closed itself.
“Here,” the copilot said, reaching back toward me. He was wearing a black flight suit and a helmet with night-vision goggles mounted on it. He handed me a bulky little flash drive. “Updated mission information.” I took it from him and handed it to Tailor. Tailor pulled the PDA out of its pouch on his vest and plugged the drive into it. We both studied the screen as the helicopter lifted off, carrying us into the night sky.
I closed my eyes briefly, trying not to think about my last ride in a helicopter.
“Thirty seconds!” the copilot said. “We won’t touch down.” Tailor and I nodded. The stealth helicopter was running dark, flying low over the desert floor toward the village of Umm Bab. We were slowing down now. I unbuckled my seat belt and readied myself.
“We’re at the LZ!” the pilot said. The door on the chopper slid open. Cool, dusty desert air rushed in. “Now!” Without replying, Tailor stood up, made his way to the door, and jumped out into the darkness. Following suit, I stepped up to the door, bent down, and jumped out.
We were a little higher up than I thought. I landed hard, swearing aloud as I flopped onto the rocky desert floor, rolling onto my side. We were so obscured by fine dust that I could hardly see anything. Tailor grabbed me and pulled me upright as the muted sounds of the stealth helicopter faded away. The dust cloud began to settle, leaving us alone in the desert.
“Where are we?” I asked as I quietly chambered a round on my weapon.
“That’s Umm Bab over there.” He pointed toward the amber lights in the distance. “Control, Xbox,” Tailor whispered into his headset. “We’re on the ground.”
“Copy that, Xbox,” Sarah replied. “Proceed to the target.” There was some static interference as she spoke. We were a long way from the fort.
“Roger,” Tailor replied. “Let’s move, Val.” Flipping down his night-vision goggles, he took off toward Umm Bab at a fast walk, submachine gun held at the low-ready. I pulled my own NVGs down over my eyes and turned them on. The dark desert was now bright green. The stars overhead were incredibly bright, and the lights of Umm Bab were almost blinding.
I stood up and followed Tailor. I unfolded the stock on my weapon and turned on the holographic sight, setting it for night-vision mode. Carrying the assault ladder on my back, I moved through the darkness in silence. It took us a long time to reach the outskirts of the village. The moon was set to rise at 0122, and we wanted to be out of the open desert before that happened.
Tailor broke into a run and took cover behind a high wall that surrounded a large house. Once he was in place, he signaled for me to follow while he kept a lookout. I quickly ran to him, crouching down next to him against the wall. “Over there,” he said. “The target house is just down this street. Follow me to the alley. Watch out for dogs.” In Zubara, like many Middle Eastern countries, one could occasionally find packs of feral dogs roaming the streets.
Tailor nodded, stood up, and quietly moved toward the alley. I followed, constantly watching our backs while Tailor led the way. We came to the end of the wall. Tailor leaned around it. He used hand signals to tell me it was clear, then disappeared.
Checking our six one last time, I peeked around the corner. Tailor was a few meters up the alley, crouched behind a large trash bin, waiting for me. I could see no other movement in the alley, and mercifully no lights. The alley itself was narrow, barely wide enough for a truck to drive down. The back walls of compounds lined either side. There was no movement, except for single a black cat trotting along the wall. I signaled for Tailor to advance again. He moved forward, another twenty meters or so, before crouching down in front of a parked pickup truck. The cat took off running and disappeared. Tailor leaned around the vehicle and signaled for me to move forward. In this fashion we leapfrogged toward our target as quietly as possible.
Just after midnight, we arrived behind Adar’s compound, in the exact spot we’d picked out from the aerial photos. I began to unfold the ladder, locking it into its extended position. I leaned it up against the ten-foot wall. Tailor and I froze when we heard someone loudly talking in Arabic on the other side of the wall. Tailor mouthed the word shit. I whispered that I’d go check it out and began to climb the ladder as quietly as I could.
Reaching the top of the wall, I laid eyes on Adar’s compound for the first time. The house was large, square, and made of white stone. A lush garden of palm trees and ferns sat in the middle. There was also a fountain, loudly splashing water into an artificial pond. I was grateful for this as the noise of the water could cover our footsteps.
Below me was the shed, and directly below me, leaning against the wa
ll I’d just climbed, was an Arab man wearing a suit. He was smoking a cigarette and talking to somebody on his cell phone. Shit.
I turned around and looked down at Tailor. I held up one finger, telling him that there was one guy. I pointed down, indicating his location. I held my hand to my head, mimicking a phone, to tell Tailor what he was doing. Tailor nodded and dragged his finger across his throat. I nodded back.
Turning around again, I shuffled forward onto the top of the wall, as slowly as I could, so as not to make noise. The man was oblivious to my presence. His lit cigarette was as bright as a flashlight through my goggles, and it illuminated him clearly.
I brought my weapon around, being very careful not to let it touch the top of the concrete wall. I waited. I didn’t want to interrupt the call, just in case he was talking to somebody who might tip these guys off.
After a moment, he snapped the phone closed. I was ready. Leaning a little bit farther forward, I aimed for the top-rear portion of my target’s head, just as he began to walk back to the house. The suppressed submachine gun clicked and hissed as I fired a two-round burst, and the man collapsed to the ground, blood pouring out of the back of his perforated skull. The strange submachine gun had surprisingly little recoil.
I gave Tailor the thumbs-up and took one last look around the compound. There were bright lights on the front of the house but none on the rear. Seeing no movement, I climbed over the wall and dropped ten feet to the ground below. I landed hard in the dirt between the shed and the wall, and my ankle stung a little. I ignored it, ran forward, and grabbed the dead man’s feet. As Tailor cleared the top of the wall, I dragged my victim into the darkness behind the shed.
Above me, Tailor carefully maintained his balance while he pulled the ladder up over the wall. He handed it down to me. I held it as he quickly climbed down. Once he was on the ground, he covered the courtyard with his weapon as I laid the ladder down in the dirt behind the shed.
“Control, Nightcrawler, we’re inside the compound. Proceeding to the house.”
“Roger that, Nightcrawler,” Sarah replied, her voice still shrouded in static. “Is that you behind the shed?”
“Uh, affirmative,” I said.
“Understood. I see three heat signatures.”
“One of the tangos,” Tailor said. “He’s down.”
“Copy that,” Sarah replied. “We just got the UAV in place. We’ll be providing overwatch.”
“Roger that. Out.” I was happy for the cover of the aerial drone, of course, but I wondered why in the hell they didn’t have it there from the get-go.
“Nice work,” Tailor said, indicating the dead man. “You see the back door?”
“Yes,” I said, peering around the shed. The house was only about fifty feet from our position, but we’d have to bolt across the courtyard and hope we weren’t seen.
“I’ll cover you.”
“Roger,” I said, as Tailor positioned himself to cover the courtyard with his weapon. He gave me the high sign when he was ready. “Moving!” I said, and ran toward the house as quickly and as quietly as I could. I was across the courtyard a moment later. I took a knee, and leaned around the corner of the building, covering the courtyard for Tailor. He then ran from the shed to my position, and crouched down next to me.
Together we moved to the back door of Adar’s safe house. It was locked.
“Can you pick it?” I asked.
“Probably,” Tailor replied, lifting his night-vision goggles up onto his head. I covered him as he pulled out some bump keys and began to work on the door. It wasn’t the best lock ever designed, and thankfully the door wasn’t dead-bolted. It was open in a few seconds.
I turned off my NVGs and lifted them off my face. Giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, I nodded to Tailor. We readied our weapons, and Tailor quietly opened the door. It led into a large kitchen, but no one could be seen, and the lights were off. Tailor and I crept inside, silently closing the door behind us.
Music could be heard from the next room. It sounded like a radio or a television, and we could hear men talking in Arabic. We moved through the kitchen, and I risked a peek around the corner into the other room.
It was a living room. Against the far wall was a huge television. Four more men sat around it watching a porno flick. Cheesy music, grunting, and moaning resonated though the house. I looked back at Tailor and told him what was happening through hand signals. Three men were sitting on a couch, facing the television. Their backs were toward us. The fourth sat in a chair off to the side. He’d be able to see us if he looked away from the TV.
Through hand signals, Tailor told me what he wanted to do. Tailor crawled up right next to me, very slowly so as not to make noise, and stood up. We simultaneously leaned around the corner, bringing our weapons to bear. A short burst from Tailor’s Vector tore into the head of the man sitting in the chair. Tailor’s target slumped forward, his blood pouring down his neck.
At the same time, I put the reticule of my holographic sight on the back of the couch and held down the trigger. The .45 rounds ripped through the couch in puffs of fabric and stuffing. I swept from right to left, stitching bullets across them. The men gasped as bullets tore into them, but they were quickly silenced. Tailor switched targets and emptied the rest of his magazine into the three men as well.
It was over in seconds. They never knew what hit them. We both quickly changed magazines and moved into the living room, doing our best to cover all angles. The men on the couch had been thoroughly ventilated. A few stray rounds had gone into the far wall, but the television was still blaring pornography at an unpleasantly high volume. A cloud of smoke hung in the room, and the air smelled like burnt powder.
This is too easy, I thought, but I wasn’t about to get complacent. Complacency is what had gotten these assholes killed. We still hadn’t found Adar, and we knew from the surveillance that three more individuals were in the house.
“Control, Xbox,” Tailor whispered. “Main floor clear. Four more tangos down. Sweeping the building now.” I could barely hear Sarah’s voice. She was drowned in static. Tailor tried again, but he got the same result. Something in the area was interfering with our transmissions.
Tailor pointed up. He proceeded to an ornate staircase, weapon shouldered and at the ready. I followed, constantly swiveling my head around to make sure no one was coming up behind. The top of the stairs revealed a wide hallway, with a few doors on either side. Strange music resonated through the upper level, and it included people chanting in some language that wasn’t Arabic. At the end of the hall was a closed door that probably led to the master bedroom.
Tailor started down the hallway, and I followed. Most of the doors on either side were open, and we carefully checked each one before proceeding past. One was locked, so we kept going.
A toilet flushed. Tailor and I froze and swung our weapons toward the bathroom door just as it opened. The man inside was buttoning his shirt back up when he saw us. He had a pistol in a shoulder holster. His eyes grew wide, and he reached for it, but he wasn’t nearly fast enough. His white shirt splashed red as we both hit him with a two-round burst. He fell over backward, hitting the hardwood floor with a thud.
Tailor immediately swung his weapon toward the door at the end of the hall. I swung mine back toward the stairs. Back to back, we waited for a long moment. Nothing happened. The strange music was the only sound that could be heard. The upstairs of the house must have been sound-dampened or something. Sweat trickled down Tailor’s blackened face. He nodded at the door at the end of the hall and started toward it. All of the rooms in the upstairs hallway were now empty. If Adar was in the house, he was through that door.
The bizarre chanting music grew louder as we drew closer, but it was muffled enough that I still couldn’t tell what language it was. As we approached the end of the hall, I felt strange. Apprehension grew in me. My heart rate sped up. The Calm was wavering. Something was wrong.
I put a hand on Tailo
r’s shoulder. He stopped and looked a question back at me. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Looking irritated, Tailor just jerked his head at the door and reached for the handle. He signaled me to go right while he’d go straight. It’s hard to properly cover the angles in a room when there’re only two of you. We’d have to be quick. He hesitated for a long second, hand hovering over the handle, then grabbed it and slammed the door open. Together, we rushed into the room.
The bedroom was huge. Directly opposite the door was a large four-poster bed, with some kind of big painting hung above it. Against the far wall was a mirrored dresser, a desk, and what looked like a vanity.
Adar stood in the middle of the room. He was taller than I thought he’d be. He was also completely naked and splattered with blood. He clutched some kind of curved dagger in his hand.
In front of him, hanging from the ceiling, was a woman. Her hands were bound over her head. Her hair, matted and wet, hung down in her face. Blood dripped from her ravaged body onto plastic sheets spread across the floor. She’d been utterly mutilated. Adar had split her open like he was cleaning a game animal. Bloody lumps that appeared to be internal organs had been neatly arranged on the dresser. Behind them was an iPod and a set of speakers, the source of the strange music.
My stomach lurched. My mouth fell open. It felt like my balls were trying to crawl up into my stomach. It took me a moment to process what I was actually seeing. I could hear a strange buzzing in my ears over the bizarre rhythms of Adar’s music.
“Jesus Christ,” Tailor said, turning toward Adar. I don’t know why neither of us fired. The whole thing was surreal.
Adar, as if noticing our presence for the first time, turned toward us. His face was a mask. If he was surprised or afraid, he didn’t show it. My heart was racing now. My knees were weak, and I thought I was going to fall. I wanted to turn and run out of the room. Adar spoke to us then. He said something in Arabic that I didn’t understand. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he talked. I looked over at the dead girl again, then back at Adar. I felt numb. Adar smiled. I closed my eyes . . .
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