According to the plan, none of the bombs were to be dropped further south than the northernmost point of the laser. The massive explosions were meant to end the jihadist camp but spare the Marines designating the target. The Force Recon team hated the idea of surviving a helicopter crash and a raid only to be killed by friendly fire from the sky. Then a thought occurred to Iman. They had been without communications to Command since the helicopter crash. No doubt remained that McKenzee was aware of the downed bird. Iman then considered the scenario as it would have played out in the command center.
McKenzee gets word that the bird is down. We are Mission-Priority One, so he would have sent Para Rescue or TRAP…Tactical Recovery of Aircraft Personnel. Why can’t they just call them Pilot Go-Getters? Iman smirked to his coy mocking of Marine acronym complexity. If he sent TRAP, then they would have found the bodies to be a team shy of complete. He’s either going to assume we were captured and call off the mission…or he’s going to give the go-ahead and sacrifice the team. In any case, he’s probably having somebody monitor for laser signals in our area…I hope. He was distracted by fatigue. Man, I’m tired. He rubbed his eyes. Then he signaled the next Marine over to his right side.
Iman put his fists together, end over end, and held them to his eye like a sailor looking into an old telescopic lens. He was calling for the laser designator. Rodriguez, the next man over, understood the command and passed it down the line.
The message carried like an elementary game of telephone. However, the request was received clearly on the other end. The game ended with Sergeant Ingle. The sergeant turned from his position. He slid from the right flank and behind the line of prone Marines with a medium-sized equipment box in tow. Ingle tapped the boot of every man he passed. He silently told the other Marines that he was on the move. He also kept his bearing in the dark to make sure he met the unit commander without unnecessary delay.
Ingle slipped into the fighting hole, never increasing his shadowed silhouette from a downed position. His face was as black as the night, covered with camouflage paint and dirt. He was invisible even in close proximity to Iman. Ingle was trained to move without being detected. He knew that Marines who followed their training stayed alive more often than those who did not. He was an ambassador of what fighting men should do in the field.
Iman nodded to the dark figure that slithered into the former enemy-held hole. Ingle understood Iman’s head motion as being the go-ahead to remove the laser designator from its heavy plastic case. Such a feat would require finesse in the blackest hours of early morning. The case was made of thick industrial plastic that banged like a drum when accidentally struck by any object. Metal snaps on the case clicked and popped loudly into the silence of the night if not twisted loose with the lightest of touches. Burdensome and loud, the equipment carrier was an albatross seeking only to give away the Marines’ position and intentions.
Sergeant Ingle’s fingers eased the metal butterfly clips open at either side of the case. He considered how loud a metal-on-metal click would be in the void of night. Then he wondered why the equipment designers had not created a more silent means of opening the box. They might as well have covered the edges with Velcro and put a car alarm in it. Ingle’s humor remained silently intact as he nervously opened the clips. He moved like a man disarming a bomb. He was careful to avoid making any sudden or wrong moves.
Once the clips quietly popped open, Ingle was able to remove the top half of the box. The laser designator was held securely in place by thick foam. The box was much larger than needed, and the foam was broad enough to keep the weapon system from getting damaged in the event of a sudden collision. Considering the laser designator was the last piece of communications equipment the team had after an unexpected bang of a helicopter crash, Ingle was thankful for the cumbersome box and the excessive padding inside.
Ingle withdrew the laser from its foam surroundings. He flipped an accompanying low-profile tripod open and readied the weapon guide. Then he looked to Iman for further orders.
Iman signaled for the Marine to move across the fighting hole. He knew that Hasim had a direct line of sight on the main camp. Hasim, in his wisdom of the place, had chosen the most optimal position to obtain as many kills as possible. The younger brother seemed pressingly full of vengeful desire, more so than ever before.
“Excuse me, Staff Sergeant,” Ingle whispered quietly. He requested access to Hasim’s position, but he did so in reverence of the senior fighter. Ingle saw the slain guard’s body jammed into the corner of the fighting hole. The dead man’s shape was barely recognizable in the darkness, so he glared harder to adjust his vision. He saw the destruction that Hasim wrought on the man. Ingle looked to Hasim in a new light, that of Spartan pride and victory lust. Any doubts that Ingle might have held about Iman and Hasim dissipated.
Hasim moved aside just enough for Ingle to take place. Ingle, having only used the designator a few times in training scenarios, acted as if it was part of his daily routine. The Marine mastered the tool quicker than any of his immediate peers, living or dead.
Back home, Sergeant Ingle was ultimately out of his element. If someone were to put him behind the wheel of a car with a street map, he would be lost forever. However, he could pick up an ancient compass and a topographical map to find his way anywhere in the world. Scopes, radios, satellite communications, and computers all became as natural to Ingle as his rifle or sidearm. He found his niche in pieces of military gear, operating them with more comfort and ease than the common man operating a toaster.
He was one of very few Marines that instantly became proficient with any technical equipment ever handed to him. Therefore, he was the resident target acquisition expert. Ingle spent many missions serving as part of a two-man Forward Observation post in Joint Task Force missions with the fast movers of the United States Air Force. His efforts in Iraq were recognized in the destruction of several enemy bunkers and the payoff of many high-value targets. There was no better man in Iman’s Marine Corps suited for the job at hand.
Ingle embraced the mission and equipment wholeheartedly. He stood in the corner of the fighting hole facing out from his team. Any observant enemy soldier would be able to see the highly exposed equipment and the Marine behind it at first daylight. However, Ingle hoped against day and observation. Then he used the night-vision setting on the laser to acquire his target. He pointed north-northwest and found his mark.
“On target, Staff Sergeant,” Ingle breathed only in a whisper to confirm his aim. Iman would have missed Ingle’s impossibly quiet words in the mountain’s winds had darkness not been so still. However, the air was thick and heavy. No morning breeze came about. The previous days’ snow melted away in wet pools of sloppy earth. Living vegetation lapped at the precious water in the sun’s heat throughout previous afternoon hours. Water then refroze in the dropped temperatures of night. Even desert sand felt like shards of ice as Iman placed his hand at the edge of the fighting hole.
Iman acknowledged Sergeant Ingle then paused. He inhaled deeply and with a soft and firm order. “No matter what happens next, you keep the target painted. You hear me?” The staff sergeant wanted confirmation of his order before he made any further move. “This mission is now in your hands, Marine,” Iman reiterated through chattering teeth and a heavy whisper.
Ingle nodded while looking over the top of the laser designator. “I understand, Staff Sergeant. They’ll have to kill me to move me.”
Ingle didn’t see Iman smile. The younger Marine was too focused on his task. He stared too far off into the eight hundred meters between him and what he hoped would soon be lit with fire. Iman countered, “You don’t have permission to die on this team, Sergeant.”
Ingle didn’t miss a beat. He simply answered as if there was any realism to Iman’s comment. “Aye-aye, Staff Sergeant.”
Iman patted Ingle on the back. He barely knew the young man but was proud of the sergeant all the same. Iman counted Ingle as a brother. He was readil
y willing to give his life so that the younger Marine could follow the ridiculous order to stay alive. Iman had no doubt that Ingle would do the same in return.
The staff sergeant looked at his surroundings. He tried not to tear up with pain, exhaustion, and emotion. Iman knew that the team was made of men who were cut from a different cloth. They were, in fact, cut directly from the Marine Corps flag. They were crimson and gold. They were the beings that protected friendly dreams and haunted enemy nightmares. Iman reveled at the professional devotion to their tasks, to mission accomplishment, and to each other. If only the rest of the world could know what it is like to be one of us, the few. Iman pondered the idea in the dark.
Silence. Darkness. Boredom. Emptiness made an awful foe to face in the fog of war. Fatigued and fight-ready Marines had to battle sleep. They had to remain alert even though the average brain wandered and dreamed of other things. The Marines defied their bodies’ urges to move from one distracting subject after the next before disappearing to sleep. Their only duty was to remain awake, and for normal people the task would have been too much.
Iman knew that he should be more alert and more focused toward his mission. However, he took the time to distract himself from soon-to-come horrors with any thought that came to mind. He could not stop thinking of other things or he would begin to think of her. Rasa was always at the forefront of his mind. He could not shake her from his daydreams and fantasies of a peaceful life together. Every dull moment between mission-pertinent actions and orders were brightened by Rasa. She was his addiction.
The senior Marine was glad that the desert was so dark. No one in the immediate area could see him smiling like a fool with tears in his eyes. He was a schoolboy in love. He was an infatuated teen chasing the prom queen. He was somewhere thousands of miles away, working in a cubicle, and watching the clock to see when he could get back home to her.
A light chuckle escaped his distracted smile. His inner thoughts broke free from his lips and violated noise discipline. I never even got to see her face. How can I love her and I’ve never seen her? How will I know her in Paradise? I’m certain that Allah does not want his most beautiful creatures to be covered. I need to see her. I can’t die without ever having looked into her eyes to tell her.
Iman suddenly committed an unthinkable act. He placed his flat palms to the edge of the fighting hole and hoisted himself out of the earth. He sprang upward like a random weed that appears in a well-manicured garden. His silhouette sprouted an unwelcomed shadow amidst prone Marines.
The team was stunned and distracted by the noise. Bold motions in the defense were unheard of. If a Marine had to relieve himself while in the defense, he peed his pants rather than get out of his fighting hole. He did not leave his piece of dirt unless tapped to go on patrol. Only then would he move from his position, and only to the call-and-challenge of passwords set by other defending Marines.
“What are you doing?” Hasim turned quickly to snap at Iman through a near-silent hiss. He wondered if his older brother was sleepwalking or if Iman had simply lost his mind to the boredom of waiting for war. “Get back down, you idiot,” Hasim screamed through a whisper.
Iman didn’t pretend that Hasim’s scolding went unheard. Instead, he acknowledged his brother. He turned to Hasim at the corner of the shallow hole where warriors sat uncomfortably eager. The older man knelt so that he could whisper even quieter than needed. “I have to…” Iman paused. He wondered how ludicrous his next words might sound. Then he continued, opinions be damned. “I have to see her. I have to see her face before either of us dies…before both of us die. I cannot imagine living another day without knowing her face.”
Hasim looked at Iman, intent, angry, and confused. Then he looked into his big brother’s eyes and understood how serious Iman was about going back into the snake pit. Iman was going to see Rasa. Their attempts to remove themselves from the raid and act only as professional Marines fluttered away. Nothing was ever going to be more intimate than the attack on Jericho. They knew every single person in the camp. The brothers had walked among the enemy. They knew names and family histories. They would be haunted by the faces of Jericho for the rest of their lives. Hasim knew it to be true and wholeheartedly embraced Iman’s thoughts.
“I’m going with you,” Hasim whispered back. Iman tried to shake him off, but Hasim leapt from the fighting hole just as the elder had done.
“Whatever you are doing, do it quick. Get away from us before you get us all killed,” Ingle whispered to the exposed staff sergeants.
“Ingle, you have command,” Iman spoke softly in response. He handed mission control over to the next ranking man, the most proficient behind the laser designator. Then he looked over and shook his head to Hasim.
“You don’t have to do this,” Iman said, trying to coax Hasim out of the suicide mission.
Hasim shrugged. “If you get to see Rasa…then I get to kill Farhad.” A wave of understanding filled the air between the brothers. Neither of the men could disavow emotional connection to the village and the people within. Iman was connected to Rasa through love. Hasim was connected to Farhad through hate. Iman then patted Hasim on the shoulder. They gave one last look to the Marines before turning to the enemy.
The patrolling Marines remained behind a shield, a stone wall separating them from other defensive positions, so they could travel the eight hundred meters in a straight line unabated by enemy gunfire. The brothers were able to move quickly without having to exercise extensive tactical maneuvers. They were also endowed with the firsthand knowledge of the trail between the southern defense and the main body of camp.
Only two hours remained before Fajr. One hundred and twenty minutes would tick away like seconds. The morning’s call to prayer would soon alert the entire village of the Marines lurking about. An inevitable fight was upon them, so the men wasted no time disappearing into darkness on the trek north-northwest. They moved through the night to bring war directly to the devil’s doorstep
PAINTED
Eight hundred meters over hard terrain, void of light, would have been too much for a commander to ask of any man under any other circumstances. Yet Iman and Hasim were able to cross the distance without issue. They broke the cardinal rules of patrolling enemy territory. Rather than take to the high side of the hill at their eastern flank, they walked the trail. There was no sense in braving the needled brushes and deep holes in the hillside for the sake of carrying out a suicide mission. The men willingly risked a quick death. They thought it better than being injured following patrol procedures and limping to the same inevitable demise.
Each of the men had walked the trail from the southern defense back to the main camp so many times they were able to do it blindfolded by night. They remembered where to step and where they dare not place their feet. Iman and Hasim remembered their every observation of the trail, where they would have been visible to an observing enemy had clouds not covered the moon, and where they would be able to encroach the camp undetected.
Even though the Marines were at ease on the trail, they never relaxed from their patrol postures. Both hunched over their weapons and kept ready to fire. Their fists wrenched tightly and desperately into the rifles’ handgrips. They scanned left and right nervously. The many previous days and nights walked over the trail no longer brought an empty sense of safety. Security, or the illusions thereof, became darker than the fading night sky. The Marines were back on the other side of the combat line. Disloyal to the jihadists’ cause of hate, Iman and Hasim would be killed on sight. They could no longer leisurely stroll by any standing guard under the assumption that the Marines meant no harm. They were present and held with them a clear purpose of destruction.
Marine camouflage utilities, covered with body armor, draped in special operations gear were tell-all signs that Farhad’s enemies had come. The prophet, false in faith, was accurate in a portion of his sermons. Americans were coming to destroy his way of life. Iman and Hasim, former sons of jihad, wer
e coming home to kill the father.
Hasim covered the left side of the trail. He paced, pointing forward and scanning left. The younger brother tried to prepare himself, mentally and physically, to down any target on the left side of the rocky path.
Iman was set to the right side. He scanned and moved forward as Hasim’s mirror image. They continually checked over the tops of their weapons. They aimed high, low, and straight ahead. The enemy was omnipresent and would not hesitate to kill any intruders. Gunfire would not come as a surprise. Yet the direction from which the bullets came was difficult to determine in the remnant dark. They were vigilant.
Iman’s mind raced. Surely, they had to have changed something. How far removed from communication are they if Farhad hasn’t heard of our escape? This has to be a trap. Iman did not trust the ease with which they approached the main camp. No one was present. He suspected that they were being lured into a snare. Iman anticipated Farhad, or any of his lieutenants, would soon spring the ambush and the Marines would be killed.
Concerned reservations set in with the staff sergeants as they considered rapidly diminishing concealment from enemy troops. The pile of boulders separating the southern Marine-held position from the western enemy-held hole no longer provided cover from the jihadists on post. Iman and Hasim entered into the slight clearing at the end of the trail. They walked into the open, standing between sleeping watchmen to their west and the main camp to their north. They were suddenly unnerved.
Iman feared for his life, and for that of his brother, but he remembered his accompanied walks when he lived as an insurgent. It was the part of his daily stroll from camp, his chore to defend the village, that he loved the most. It was the only time of day when he and Rasa were nearly alone. It was the only time he was able to appreciate her presence and understand their bond. He remembered glancing at her, wanting to touch her despite the forbidden contact, and felt the connection to the alluring woman once again. Iman suddenly felt as if he were a young man, a pilgrim, returning home to his sweetheart. Then he parted from the area and from Rasa for the moment. He was back to war.
Operation Jericho Page 16