A Touch Of War

by Isaac Stormm

  He slid back behind the crest and wiped his lips. Talon nodded to him. This time, he was right. It appeared abandoned. Theirs to inspect. They were about four hundred meters away from the first dwelling. He intended to send Talon and David in first, by the goat pen, receive a signal if clear, and then bring the rest of the team in. They would make their way to Talon’s house which he told them faced the unseen road area. Then they would split up and search the houses which he determined to number about twenty to twenty-five. Then they would post guard and rest, if possible, and after a few hours, start proceeding to the mine.

  He motioned at David, pointing to the VSS. “Keep that thing ready. I’m sending you and Talon in. Come here.” They both looked over the crest. “I know you’re tired but I need you to run in beside the pen, search through those houses quickly and any paths connecting them. If all clear, come back out there and signal us.”

  “Right boss.” He reached over and tapped Talon and both men eased over the top and made their way down, Carlson quickly losing view of them.

  “The village looks like it’ll be available,” he said. “How long I don’t know. After David gives a signal, we will go in. I’ll use the Geiger counter on each house we search. Anything that has any heightened radioactive levels will be avoided. If all the houses are that way, we’ll move back into the forest. There should be a well in that town that we can refill our packs with. Remember to use the purification tablets after topping off… All right?” He nodded to each one. “Stand by.”

  Foxmann pushed himself back up to the crest and started thinking about the terrain around him. Beyond the village at about a kilometer’s distance, it looked like scrub grass with a few interspersed boulders that ended at another expanse of forest which grew into more ridges that climbed much higher than any they had negotiated. A tough trek to be sure. Especially, since way off at the limit of the binoculars power of 10X, the ridges seemed to climb into the mistiness of the cloud layers. He planned on grabbing some sleep even if he didn’t feel like it. The years in the field taught him to program his body to shut down within a short time if he knew he’d need it, even if he just woke up less than an hour before. The rest of the team could too, and he remembered it all started with a chance discovery of meditation from a British Special Forces member who came through a few years ago in the exchange program. The guy was a fitness freak who showed them meditation techniques he learned from some Japanese martial arts master. They all scoffed until they starting practicing it. And from that point, everyone who continued with it found themselves able to drown out all activity and thought for a short time. Gaining anywhere from a few minutes to hours, whichever they wanted. It proved glorious in the field when having to overnight outside with no cover except for a thin poncho liner.

  He checked the watch and counted past eleven minutes since the two’s entry. David emerged beside the pen a little past minute twelve and waved a thumbs up in the binoculars.

  “Move out,” Carlson said.

  They headed for the village, jogging, which kicked up enough dust over them so that nostrils snorted and garb became more mixed with the brown particles finding refuge in folds and caking on their skin. David was joined by Talon when they arrived, and offered unique though not unexpected news.

  “Gone. I mean everything. Not so much as a dinner bowl left.”

  Carlson imagined the Iranians found enough dangerous levels that they ordered everything packed up and sent to be destroyed. He pulled out the Geiger counter. “Take us to your home,” he told Talon. They filed through a narrow pathway out toward the main road then followed the countless rectangular-squared tread imprints then stopped at the furthest edge of the town. Talon’s home look as everyone else’s did, squat and telling of poverty. The floors were planks of dried wood rotting with greenish mold where they met the walls. Three rooms. That was all. What served as a den and next to it through a doorless way, the sleeping area and another doorless way to a storage area which showed smears of dirt where tools of some kind once lay.

  Foxmann swept the Geiger counter over each area. The needle was still. There were no abnormal readings. He moved on to the next house. Again, signs of a quick abandonment and the residual mold. The needle suddenly jumped and the device begin crackling. He had something but what, there was nothing to be seen. No clothing fibers. Anything. It was as bereft of existence as one could make it. “The ones who lived here, did they work in the mines?”

  Talon peeked through the door. “Yes, the man did. He had a wife and two children. A boy and girl.”

  Odd. There was something causing the needle to register abnormal levels of radiation. Not enough to cause poisoning unless one stayed here for days. Enough though, that it shouldn’t read like this. Unless something was buried underneath the house. Did they somehow put clothing or whatever else was radioactive under some of the houses? That really didn’t make sense. Too unsafe. Even if they didn’t want this place inhabited. For some reason, he failed to see the Iranians going to the trouble. He walked outside and around the house with Talon close behind. The readings were normal and he saw no hint that the earth had been moved by hands or shovel. Walking back in, the counter started up again.

  He rested his rifle against the wall, and kneeled down, letting the device sweep closer to the floor. Then he lay his hand on the wood moving it over in a gentle scrub. Something felt rough, like sand. He looked at his palm and saw brown smudges of dust and tiny granules, whitish, almost imperceptible to the eye. He brought his hand up to his nose seeing the granules looking more like crystals. He smelled, but there was no odor save for a trace of sour mildew. He laid the hand down again, started another swipe and felt the sharp coarseness of more crystals. He couldn't see them on the floor, only when he brought his hand up did they appear again, embedded in more dirt, tiny, almost translucent.

  Was this causing the abnormal readings? Or was it the dirt or a combination of the two?

  "Find something?” It was Carlson coming up behind him. He stood and watched Foxmann rub his thumb across his palm.

  "Listen." He handed him the counter, then rubbed both hands over the floor. Then he placed the edges of his palms together like he was holding the bottom of a flower pot and raised them toward the counter. It crackled into an almost continuous stream of static sounding like the noise on a TV when it loses the broadcast signal. “I think we may have something." He wiped his hands on the wall, took off his pack and unbuttoned the pouch, stuck a hand in and felt at the bottom for one of the instruments they planned to take samples with. A baggie.

  He scraped the floor with the edge of his hand, trying to get a buildup of the crystals. He gathered a small pinch of the stuff embedded with dirt and sprinkled it in the bag. Then he did it again. Sealing it up, he put it away and grabbed the rifle. "The readouts don't mean danger, just elevated levels. The kind that shouldn't be in ninety-nine point nine percent of places in the world, only in a laboratory setting or in the core of a nuclear power plant." He took the device back. "Or an explosion. Come on, I'll need to check every house and every room." He was confident the first clue just appeared and a brief thought flashed about how Carlson and his team were going to feel when the evidence played out. Almost a missed opportunity, the kind Special Forces live and die for.

  They walked out and David and Quinn joined them. “We've got signs of radioactivity,” Foxmann said. He turned to Talon. "Your house next."

  When they entered the structure, the layout was similar to the the other house. Again, there was not a trace of habitation. Talon went into another room and Foxmann began another sweep, watching the needle stay pegged at normal readout, not once indicating the slightest movement beyond.

  Foxmann happened to look over at Talon whose face appeared ashen underneath his welling eyes. "I'm sorry. But until you know for certain they're not coming back, you must never give up hope. My family underwent a similar ordeal a long time ago. My father was born in the Warsaw Ghetto days before it was liquidated. He w
as smuggled out by a nurse who really was nothing more than a woman who knew the names of lots of medicines. His entire family, seventeen members, perished. He was hidden by some Gentiles who sent him to an orphanage in Israel after independence. Though he was too young to remember, he never gave up hope someone in his family survived. He provided his DNA to an organization that helped reunite victims of the Nazis. They found a match and today his sister and my aunt live a few houses away from each other.” He moved past him to read the next room.

  “It is odd,” Talon said. “A Muslim and a Jew united against the same enemy.”

  Foxmann didn’t feel the need to go into philosophy or virtues of religion with the man. He knew his world was over and words would do nothing to ease it. At any rate, the job must come first.

  Carlson entered. “I’ve got David and Quinn acting as lookouts. Also, I need to see these readouts for myself. Talon, take me to another house whose people worked in the fields.”

  Foxmann entered a short while later and Talon said, “I must ask you. I know it is not in the plan, but I’d like to return to Israel with you. I—“

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” He didn’t bother adding on or even looking at him. They entered the next house and he started taking readings, somewhat at a quicker pace. They moved through each room every few seconds, eyes always on the needle. “Nothing. Now those who worked in the mines.”

  “I know, Mister… May I be permitted to know your first name?”

  “Better that you don’t.” Foxmann suspected the man knew better but was trying to become friendly. No way in hell though, was he going to reveal who he was. And if he ever found out his name, it would only come from overhearing it from one of the team. Still, he added, “The less you know about all of us, the better,” in case he was a touch naïve.

  The next house gave the same level of readings of abnormality. A scrape across the floor produced more of the tiny offenders to be put away in the baggie. When he finished with the last, he headed back to the house where David was.

  “Get some sleep,” David said.

  “Thanks.” He got out the the tablet, sat down beside him and started sending another message on his discovery. Soon, Foxmann’s head drooped to where it rested on the floor and David couldn’t help but chuckle, knowing the man was not pretending. He was asleep. The deep kind arrived at in under a few minutes when the body felt too weary.

  Foxmann awoke with his mind on the crystals. Their appearance was that of salt. It must make up the mines composition. The significance of that he knew not, or even if it was significant. He knew they would have plenty of the salt coating the hazmat suits once they were done. They would then be discarded because the radioactive levels might be far beyond just abnormal. The villagers working there may have been exposed to varying degrees of contamination depending on where they were forced to labor. Some may have begun getting sick, prompting the Iranians need to dispose of them quickly. He didn’t know if that was the reason or that they didn’t want anyone’s bodies or clothing bearing witness to the event. Probably somewhere in the middle. What dawned on him is the only way they could be contaminated was if they were in the mine after the explosion. What was the reason? He had no clue. Maybe it was to measure radiation levels on the human body. Yes, they had detectors for that though, such a concept cruel as it was, was not out of the question. This decision probably came directly from the Ayatollah’s office. No chance of being prosecuted or anyone even caring that a group of people from a small village were exterminated so long as it were for the greater good. Just like the Nazis. It was the final train of visions in his mind because he suddenly drifted off again, paying no attention to the tickling drops of sweat curling around his cheeks to drip off his chin and form a large blot on his already moistened shirt, and the hands lowering the tablet almost in slow motion to his lap.

  He awoke shaken by something. His bleary eyes, still desiring much more sleep, squinted over to David.

  “Wake up. We got company. The bad kind.”

  The weariness died at that moment, replaced by adrenaline and a firm grasp on his surroundings. He raced to the door, seeing Carlson across the street and another doorway pointing to his left down the road.

  “Army truck. Just one,” he hollered.

  Foxmann looked in the direction but could see nothing. The rise kept the convoy hidden, perhaps 300 or so meters distance maximum, giving him only a few seconds to act. “Everybody hide. If they come in on you, open fire,” was all he could say.

  Despite the possibility of being outgunned, nothing else offered itself. Too late to run away, it was the only option available.

  He ducked next to the only window facing the street. David hurried into the next room to take a position by the window facing the back. The low rumble of the diesel engine, brown smoke spewing out from a curved exhaust pipe reaching up over the cab stained a thick trail behind it, it’s sour odor smelled, expanding out over the landscape.

  He couldn’t see it, just now only hear it when the diesel’s gears began to downshift into a lower rumble where he could hear each cylinder coughing. He peeked over the window’s edge and saw the shadow of the truck lowering himself to where he could barely see over the rim. Its front rolled to a stop leaving its wheels and a little bit of the driver’s side visible to him.

  Its door opened and out stepped a thinly bearded man with a pistol holstered on his side. He left Foxmann’s view, walking toward the rear. The Israeli tightened his fingers around the VSS. He glanced at the selector and saw it set to semi-auto. The same voice in a quick authoritative spurt of Farsi called passengers out. A clod of boots sounded in the dirt then silence. More Farsi from the same voice. Not telling them to conduct a sweep, just to help themselves. Foxmann realized they were acting without orders, a troop wanting to plunder anything the official sweep didn’t get. Apparently, they didn’t know about how thorough the place been cleaned out. Maybe they been coming by before the evacuation, stealing things here and there. Or just being a deliberate nuisance to the people they hated.

  A familiar voice began speaking Farsi in a broken dialect. His words were somewhat slurry and hard to follow. The tone was that of someone confused.

  Foxmann shifted to the other side in a low crawl, keeping him out of the window’s periphery. He rose just enough to see Talon standing on the street, his arms raised like he was surrendering or urging calm.

  A hurl of commands met him, forcing him down on his knees. Four men ran to surround him, rifles pointing at his head. Talon placed his hands atop his scalp, trying to discern the orders blaring from each mouth. Hands pressed and pushed him over into a kneel, just as four more soldiers came up, saying nothing. Just watching.

  Bullets blasted from the other side of the street. Foxmann came up before the first second passed. Aiming down through the sight, he stroked the trigger. A single shot tore a small incision that burst a chunk of flesh from the front of a man as the bullet passed completely through, felling him on top of one of his own just as another fell on top of him. The circle of men dissolved into a ragged heap and he couldn’t see Talon. A body was on top of him. Carlson ran to it as David and Quinn rushed out their doors.

  Foxmann emerged just as something caught his eye from the right. It was the driver, pistol in hand, running away from him. He bounded after him, heels pressing hard into the dirt, watching the man turn right past the house where the animal pens were. When Foxmann reached the corner, he took it wide in case of ambush and saw the man racing out into the scrub grass, his head turned skyward, sucking in every breath the hot air offered. In a quick walk, Foxmann moved to beside the pins and aimed the rifle square at the man’s shrinking back. He reckoned he was running past 150 meters so he elevated the barrel a bit indicating 200 meters, inhaled slowly and let the air gently vacate his lungs until empty. The sight held steady and Foxmann squeezed off a single shot. The man disappeared from scope view. He lowered the gun seeing him on the ground still trying to crawl away.
He placed the sight on the tiny dark blot that was the man’s head. Figuring he had the elevation about right, he touched the trigger again, catching the gun’s gentle but negligent recoil in his shoulder. When he lowered, the figure rolled over and started to stretch an arm toward the sky, when it went limp and fell back on his chest.

  A search of the man revealed he was a driver/mechanic of the 127th motorized Battalion. The passengers were probably buddies of his getting a ride somewhere. Foxmann doubted it was to the mines. Something so important would involve men of the Revolutionary Guard or al-Quds force working the area. There was probably a turnoff somewhere or something that wasn’t under guard that they could take to another village. They would be expected though whether there or back at their base. How to dispose of the bodies and truck came next. First though, he needed to check Talon who had blood smeared on his clothing and seemed to be in a bit of shock as David patted his shoulder.

  “He must’ve read our manual, David,” Foxmann said.

  David nodded. Presenting yourself unarmed and looking a bit distressed was viewed as a final option by the Israeli Special Forces when faced with situations like this. Present yourself as a helpless defenseless individual that means no harm to anyone and lure as many of the targets as you can toward you. This makes it easier for those waiting in ambush to kill quickly and not have them scatter. Mind you, it only worked with small groups such as the ones on the truck. Anything larger would’ve been done only to distract, not to set up for elimination.