by Steven Bird
Chapter 22: Killing the Spider
Jason, Evan, and Ed quickly began their ascent of the hill. They knew it would take some time to reach the house quietly on foot, and wanted to be in position with a plan long before the truck was expected back. They had to jog just shy of a half mile down the road towards the bridge and then take a gravel road that led off to the left and up the side of the hill. The road was steep with many switchbacks as it wound its way up the side of the mountain. The moonlight that illuminated their way was quickly being replaced by darkness as a thin layer of clouds moved in, blocking out the night’s sky.
As their useful ambient light faded, Jason quietly said, “C’mon moon! Get back out here.”
“Tell me about it,” whispered Evan. “I really don’t want to have to flick on a flashlight at any point.”
They could see the house off in the distance as they rounded the next switchback. The house had a generator running somewhere in the background, keeping the lights on both inside and on the front porch.
“These guys must be cocky,” Jason remarked. “I’d have this place dark and quiet at night. If you light up your interior perimeter, your enemy can easily see you, but you can’t see them hiding off in the darkness.”
“Well, let’s be thankful that’s the case and use it to our advantage. Speaking of which, that noisy, old gas generator is providing good cover, as well.”
“Let’s not get too cocky like them, though, and assume it’s gonna be easy,” added Evan.
Once they got close, they ducked into the tree line to establish a plan. Jason said, “Okay, we need to try and get a look inside. We don’t want to be shooting directly into a part of the house where the women are being held and risk injuring them. Evan, you go around to the right. Ed, you go around through the woods to the left. I’ll cover you from here and keep an ear on the radio for the guys down below. Don’t shoot unless you have to. We don’t want to give up the initiative too soon. In about fifteen minutes, work your way back to me so we can nail this down.”
Evan and Ed both nodded in the affirmative and began to creep around the darkness of the wooded perimeter in their assigned directions. Evan, being on the downhill side of the house, had the clearest path, but also had the disadvantage of having to get elevation to see inside the first floor windows. Without leaving the security of the woods, he threw his VZ58 across his back and climbed a tree to try to get a better vantage point. He hoped to be able to see into what he assumed was a bedroom window on the side of the house.
Meanwhile, Ed crept around the uphill side of the house, being careful not to make a sound. An awning over the house’s back deck blocked his view inside from his elevated position. He decided he needed to get lower and closer to get any real intel on the situation. With that in mind, he carefully crept down the hill, using caution to avoid making too much noise in the dead leaves that still covered the ground from the previous fall and winter. As he crept slowly towards the unlit rear deck, he stumbled on something in the darkness along the edge of the tree line. Nearly tripping and falling onto the ground, he caught himself and knelt down on all fours, being still, making sure he didn’t inadvertently make a sound to give his position away.
What the hell is this? he thought as he pulled back a plastic tarp covering the object. It was too dark to see, so he tried to feel inside with his bare hand. As he felt the cold, soft object, the smell from within the wrapped bundle hit him. He flinched and jumped back, falling to the ground as he realized, with horror, what he had just touched; it was a woman’s body, cast outside like the trash. The smell and the feel of the corpse sent chills up his spine, causing him to vomit, as he instantly felt nauseated. His stomach was already twisted into knots from the stress of the situation, and his morbid discovery sent him over the edge.
After he regained his composure and wiped the vomit from his mouth, spitting on the ground, Ed crept closer to the house, inching up to a window next to the deck. The light from inside the house illuminated his immediate area so he could get a good look around. He did not want to step onto the deck itself, as he was afraid a creaky or loose board would give him away. The deck looked a few years beyond some needed TLC, and he didn’t want to chance it.
As he peeked in the window, he saw that it looked into the laundry room, adjacent to a bathroom. Just then, the generator sputtered to a stop, followed immediately by the lights in the house going dark.
He heard a man yell inside the house, “Damn it! Did you forget to top off the gas in the generator?” followed by a muffled reply coming from further inside the house. He heard the first voice yell, “Then get your ass out there and get it going! And hurry the hell up before Dog gets back up here. He’ll ride you like one of them whores, if you don’t!”
The door leading off the deck, just a few feet away from Ed, swung open violently, causing him to flinch and raise his rifle. Out burst a scuzzy looking man, cussing under his breath while stomping his way over to the generator. “I’m getting so sick of this bullshit!” the man said aloud as he poured gasoline into the generator from a jug that was sitting on the ground. “I’m gonna pop some mother fuckers if they don’t chill the hell out and get off my back,” he said with rage and disgust.
Ed did his best to duck into the shadows below the window as the generator started back up and the lights came on. He knew he could engage and take the unsuspecting man out with little trouble but didn’t want to blow their cover and risk their chances of recovering the Jackson women.
~~~~
Evan saw the lights go off, followed by the man out back getting the generator going again. He wondered how far around Ed had made it. He then turned his attentions back to the interior of the house, as he could now see through the window on the side. He saw a door open inside the room; a man entered and then walked out of view. After a brief moment, the man passed back in front of the window and appeared to be yelling at someone in the corner, against the exterior wall. He then left the room, slamming the door behind him. I wonder if that’s where the women are, he thought to himself. He wanted to get a better look, but it was time to join back up with Jason and Ed. He slipped out of the tree and quietly backtracked to Jason’s position.
Once the three had regrouped, Ed and Evan both reported what they saw and heard. Ed explained, “The rear of the house has little to no security. When the generator shut down, I was within mere feet of the man who got it going again. He could have easily spotted me, but had his head so far up his own ass with his disdain for his fellow scumbags that he didn’t have the presence of mind to even look around.”
“That’s something that we can use to our advantage,” Jason said, taking all in.
Ed then continued saying, “Now to the bad news.”
“Bad news?” queried Jason.
“Well, I stumbled across something in the dark, out back in the tree line. I stopped to check it out and it was a dead female body, wrapped up like trash and just thrown outside.”
“Damn… Was it one of the Jacksons?” Evan asked.
“I dunno. I was kind of freaked out when I realized what it was. I didn’t use a light or look very close. In hindsight, I know I should have, but…”
“Don’t sweat it,” Jason interrupted getting them back on track. “We’ll figure it out soon enough. Here’s the plan: Ed, you stay on the high side in the woods, with your M1A, to be able to lay down a harassing fire at their flank wherever necessary to keep them from being able to focus on either of the advances. We’ll call in the truck from below, and when they arrive, the enemy’s attention will be focused on what they think are their returning comrades. Evan and I will make entry from the rear of the house and rush them from behind. We’ve operated in close quarters together quite a bit, so we should be up for the close and personal stuff. We’ll have Nate, Charlie, and Jimmy hold them down from the front. As loosely as they are organized, and hitting them from three points, we should be able to roll them pretty easy. Just don’t assume that, though, and
we’ll be fine.”
“Sounds good to me,” affirmed Evan.
“Me too,” seconded Ed.
“Alrighty then. Ed, be making your way to your spot on the hill. I’ll call in the truck, and then Evan and I will get into position.”
Ed complied and began to move into position as Jason relayed the plan to the team waiting with the truck down on Highway 70. Once the plan was thoroughly briefed, he and Evan made their way to the back of the house.
Still in the tree line, but in the back yard, Evan said, “Let’s hold here until we see the truck getting close. Then once their attention is on the truck, we can make a move across the yard and position by the door for our entry.”
“Roger Roger,” Jason sharply replied in his typical fashion.
It wasn’t long before they heard the old pickup truck lumbering its way up the hill, slowing for the sharp switchback turns along the way. As the truck rounded the last corner and its lights shined on the front of the house, Evan made his move for the back door, followed by Jason once he was in position and providing cover.
As the truck pulled to a stop out front and shut off the engine, there was a moment of uneasy silence for Evan and Jason, not being able to see what was taking place from their position. Then, all of a sudden, gunfire erupted at the front of the house, giving Evan and Jason their cue. Jason patted Evan on the shoulder and Evan pulled open the door and rushed inside, with Jason following along behind. Evan took a knee on the floor a few feet inside and covered the hallway leading towards the front of the house. Jason went right, to check the first room on that side. He kicked the door open, scanned the room, and yelled, “Laundry… Clear!” He then moved into position with Evan and patted him on the shoulder to initiate the leapfrog.
Jason now covered the hallway while Evan kicked in the door on the left and scanned the room. As he started to yell clear, he noticed a young girl’s arm cuffed to the metal bed frame reaching up from behind. She appeared to be hiding behind the bed, but her restraints were keeping her partially in view. Just as Evan yelled, “Girl!” Jason began firing his Remington down the hallway, cycling the bolt and reengaging as fast as he could. It was times like this when the long-range advantage of his large, bolt-action rifle was lost in the tight confines of close-quarters battle. Evan partially reentered the hallway and laid down a rapid cover fire with his VZ58 as Jason’s next shot took down his assailant.
~~~~
At the front of the house, the man who appeared at the front door was quickly dispatched by Nate before he could figure out it wasn’t his friends returning, after all. Nate continued to fire from the bed of the truck while Charlie and Jimmy moved to positions of cover. Using the shots from Nate, Charlie, and Jimmy as his cue, Ed fired into the side of the house, near the windows, to confuse the occupants and force them to divide their attention.
A second man appeared at a window and opened fire on them with a fully automatic machine gun, ripping into the truck and sending debris flying in all directions. Nate had left the tailgate of the truck down for ease of egress; he dove out of the back of the truck, taking cover underneath to avoid the barrage of bullets tearing the truck to shreds.
“SAW! He’s got a freaking SAW!” yelled Nate to Charlie and Jimmy as they took cover behind a group of oak trees.
Nate was pinned down by the machine gun fire and unable to move. Fearing for Nate’s predicament, Jimmy exposed himself to lay down cover fire for Nate. Not long after, he was hit by the incoming fire and knocked to the ground. He felt a searing heat in his left shoulder and a dull pain in his chest. He could barely breathe and was nearly hyperventilating.
Nate had taken advantage of Jimmy’s momentary suppressing fire and leapt from the truck. He nearly dislocated his prosthetic leg upon hitting the ground. After re-securing it, he crawled on the ground and took cover in the trees with the other two men. Realizing that Jimmy was down, he dove behind Jimmy’s tree, pulling him out of the line of fire.
“Are you hit? Are you hit?” he asked.
Jimmy nodded yes, but didn’t reply verbally. That was when Nate saw blood seeping through the jacket sleeve of Jimmy’s left bicep. Knowing it wasn’t life threatening, he quickly began looking Jimmy over for other wounds. The rapid fire of the fully automatic M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) would most likely have made multiple hits. Amidst the continuing barrage of machine gun fire that ripped bark and splinters of wood from the surrounding trees, Nate aggressively unbuckled Jimmy’s load-bearing vest and opened his jacket, looking for other serious wounds while Charlie attempted to return fire at the house.
Jimmy began to catch his breath and said faintly, “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
It was then that Nate found a fully loaded magazine in Jimmy’s vest that had been penetrated by the high velocity 5.56mm NATO round from the SAW. He followed the path of the projectile into his jacket and found it mushroomed and distorted from the impact, in Jimmy’s Bible that he carried in his left inside pocket. As Nate looked at the Bible in amazement, he noticed the bullet had nearly completely penetrated the pages before coming to rest at Psalms 82:4, which reads, Rescue the weak and the needy; rescue them out of the hand of the wicked.
As Nate flipped through the pages, at a loss for words, a photograph of Jimmy’s young wife, Beth, fell to the ground. Jimmy quickly grabbed the picture, kissed it, and held it close to his heart, realizing that he had almost been taken from her in an instant.
Nate simply said, “She saved you, man,” noticing that the picture had also been pierced by the bullet as it came to rest in the pages of the Bible.
~~~~
In the back of the house, after dispatching their immediate threat, Evan said to Jason, “Stay with the girl; I’ll try to take out the machine gun.”
Jason nodded and fell back to the bedroom, where the girl was restrained to the bed. The young girl was terrified as Jason approached. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and held both hands in the air as he approached her, saying softly, “Shhhhh, it’s okay. The Gibbs family sent us for you. Are you Sabrina?”
The young girl nodded yes and began to cry uncontrollably as she realized her ordeal might be coming to an end. The horrors she faced had caused her to hold back much of her emotions until this very minute. Jason looked around the room for something he could use to cover the girl. The sheets and blankets on the floor were all bloodstained and filthy, so he removed his gear and took off his own jacket, placing it over her. He then looked for something he could use to break the thin metal tubing of the headboard to free the girl. They could worry about getting the cuffs off later, but for now, he needed to get her mobile.
His search was to no avail. Her captors had already cleared the room of everything that was usable as a weapon. In his desperation to get the girl free, he remembered the small chain-type survival saw he kept in his pack. He removed his pack and quickly dug around until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a chain-type saw with a nylon loop for a handle on each end. He wrapped the chain around the metal tubing of the headboard that was there for mostly for decorative reasons, and quickly sawed through it, freeing the girl from the bed. He pulled the bed away from the wall a few feet and said, “Get down here in the floor with me. We’ll wait here until Evan gets back.” Propping his rifle up on the bed and using it for cover, he kept his aim on the doorway in the event Evan did not achieve his objective.
As the man in the front of the house focused on Nate, Jimmy, and Charlie, Evan crept up the hallway leading towards the living room and kitchen area. Unsure if there were any other assailants in the house, he proceeded slowly towards the sounds of the gunfire, scanning for threats as he went.
Upon approaching the living room, he saw a large man firing an M249 SAW out of the front windows of the house. With all of the glass blown from the windows, he had the SAW propped up on the back of a loveseat and was laying down a barrage of fire towards the pickup truck. Evan slipped into the kitchen that was just to the right of the living room,
popped up from behind the bar, and fired three rounds into the man’s back, ending the fight.
Outside in the woods, as the barrage of bullets ceased, Charlie and Nate took advantage of the lull to refocus on the front of the house and assess the situation for continuing threats. “Is he out of ammo?” asked Charlie.
“That or the guys got him,” replied Nate. “Let’s lie low for now. He could be waiting to tear into us as soon as he sees movement.”
As Jimmy regained his composure, he took up a defensive position to cover their rear in the event some of the other men from inside of the house were trying to maneuver against them. Nate then yelled to Ed’s position, “Ed… report!”
“I’ve got nothin’ from here!” he yelled in reply.
After a few minutes of silence, they heard a familiar voice over the handheld radio say, “Clear!”
Nate asked in response, “Evan?”
“Yes, clear in here! How about out front?”
“Two down that we can verify, including the machine gunner,” said Nate.
“I think that’s it then. We got the rest inside. I’ll cover you from here while you make a move for the house, just in case,” said Evan as they saw him move into position in the front window.
One at a time, the three men made a move for the house, covering each other as they went. First Charlie and Ed proceeded out of their hunkered down positions to the house, followed by Nate, and then Jimmy. Once they were all inside the living room and Evan advised him that the house was secure, Jason brought the young girl out of the bedroom. His jacket, oversized for her, covered her torso but left her bruised and battered legs exposed in the cold night air. “We’ve gotta find a way to get these cuffs off,” said Jason, looking around the room for ideas.