by J B Black
REB’S REVENGE
A Reb Rogers Thriller
J B BLACK
http://jbblackauthor.com/
Copyright © 2016 by J B BLACK
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed, or electronic form without express written permission of the author.
Please do not participate in, or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
NOTE FROM AUTHOR
Free Bonus Story - Jake’s Iranian Mata Hari
CHAPTER 1
Farnook Province
Afghanistan
February 14, 2009
The early morning sky was overcast and there was a chill in the air as a school bus traveled down the rural dirt road that connected the village of Kwajha to the nearby town of Bagshir. The school bus was carrying sixteen young Afghani girls from Kwajha to the girl’s school in Bagshir. Recent threats by the Taliban had the bus driver on edge.
Farzana, a young Afghani woman who taught at the girl’s school, was driving the bus. Martha Rawlings, a young American woman who also taught at the school, was leading the children, ages eight to fourteen, in the song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” The children were taking great delight in singing the song at the top of their voices.
When the Taliban had controlled Afghanistan, they outlawed the education of all girls. Since girls would no longer receive formal educations, there was no need for schools for girls and the Taliban destroyed the girl’s school that had been in the town of Bagshir.
After the Americans and their allies defeated Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and drove the Taliban underground, the girl’s school in Bagshir was rebuilt. At the urging of the Afghanistan government, families from the surrounding area started sending their daughters back to school again.
Then the Americans elected a new President who promptly announced that he was going to start withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He went so far as to tell the world the dates by which he planned to pull the American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Taliban leaders—who had gone underground and were fighting an insurgency in Afghanistan—were overjoyed when they heard the news about the new American President’s military plans for Afghanistan. They knew, if they bided their time, that the Taliban would once again rule Afghanistan.
As the school bus rounded a curve, the driver saw two Toyota pickup trucks blocking the road ahead. Several Afghan men armed with AK-47s were standing in the road signaling for the driver to stop.
The driver realized that the men were Taliban and slammed on the brakes causing the bus to swerve out of control. The children stopped singing and began screaming in fear.
When the driver turned the steering wheel to try to get out of the swerve, she over-corrected and the bus flipped over onto the driver’s side and slid to a stop not thirty feet from the Taliban roadblock. The driver’s head slammed against the side window and she was knocked unconscious.
The children who had been seated on the right side of the bus were thrown on top of the children sitting on the left side. All of the children were crying either because of their injuries or because of their fear for what was to happen next.
Martha, the young American teacher, was dazed, lying on her back on top of two of the children. She knew of the atrocities committed by the Taliban against young girls who attended the schools in Afghanistan and her immediate concern was for the lives of the children.
One of the pickup trucks drove up alongside the bus and Martha looked up when she heard someone scrambling up onto the side of the bus. Through the windows on the side of the bus above her she could see that a bearded man was standing up there looking down into the interior of the bus. He seemed to be looking right at her.
The man knelt down and using the butt of his rifle broke out one of the side windows causing a shower of glass to fall down onto her. When she tried to raise her arm to protect her face, she cried out in agony as she discovered that her arm was broken.
As she blinked away tears from the pain, Martha watched as the man proceeded to break out the rest of the windows on the side of the bus.
The man stood up and moved out of her sight for a moment. When he reappeared, Martha saw that he was carrying a large, red container with a spout. She realized it was a five-gallon gas container.
As she watched him, the man walked to the back end of the bus, lifted the container and poured gasoline into the bus as he walked from window to window. When that container was empty he picked up another container and repeated the process.
By the time the man had emptied the last container, Martha, the driver, and all of the schoolgirls were drenched in gasoline and gagging from the fumes.
Martha, who spoke Pashto fluently, screamed, “Why are you doing this?”
The man replied, “It is because you Westerners persist in teaching our young women your satanic western ways. You have corrupted our young women. And for that, all of you will burn in hell.”
Helpless, Martha watched as the man reached inside his cloak, pulled out a road flare, ignited it, and dropped it inside the bus, setting everything and everyone inside the bus on fire.
CHAPTER 2
Farnook Province
Afghanistan
February 14, 2009
The burned out hulk of the school bus was still smoldering when a team of 4th Scouts special operators arrived at the scene in five uparmored Humvees armed with M134 miniguns in topmounted turrets.
An old, beat up Toyota pickup truck was parked about twenty yards from the rear of the bus and several Afghani men, from the nearby village of Kwajha, were standing around the truck engaged in a heated discussion.
Four of the Humvees spread out and took up defensive positions, while the fifth pulled up perpendicular to the bus until the front bumper made contact with the undercarriage of the bus. Captain T. R. “Reb” Rogers got out of the front passenger side of the Humvee and looked over at the men standing around the pic
kup truck. Reb recognized Ahmad Majeed, the gray bearded village leader of Kwajha. Majeed had called Reb earlier that morning and told him about what had happened to the young girls from his village and had requested that Reb meet him at the site of the massacre.
Reb, a six foot three, two hundred forty pound, green eyed, sandy brown haired, twenty-eight year old Captain in the U.S. Army—dressed in native Afghan garb—jumped up on the Humvee’s hood and then clambered up onto the side of the bus so he could look inside the burned out bus.
Immediately after looking down inside the bus and seeing the burned bodies of the girls, many of whom had died looking up with outstretched arms as if in beseechment, Reb jumped down from the bus and managed to make it to the side of the road before he bent over and lost his breakfast.
Jake Gant was the CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer assigned to Reb’s team of 4th Scouts. He ran over to where Reb was still bent over—with his hands on his knees, puking his guts out—and said, “Hey buddy, you gonna be alright?”
Reb looked up from his bent-over position at the thirty-four year old former Navy SEAL. Jake stood six foot one, weighed two hundred twenty-five pounds, and had blue eyes and black hair. His usual easy going grin was absent from his face.
“God damn it Jake, what kind of sick son of a bitch burns a school bus full of little girls alive?” Reb asked. “If I find the animals who did this—they’re dead.”
* * *
Reb was a member of the 4th Scouts—an elite unit of special operators based out of Camp Apache, a U. S. military outpost on the outskirts of Kambul. Kambul, the capital of Farnook Province, was a bustling city with a population of 82,000 inhabitants. Farnook Province had been a hotbed of Taliban activity long before Reb started his first tour of duty in Afghanistan as a shavetail Second Lieutenant.
When 9/11 occurred, Reb was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina waiting for the Army to assign him to his first posting. He was a newly minted graduate of the ROTC program at Alabama College—having graduated after the Summer Semester, 2001—and had reported for active duty on September 1, 2001.
On September 18, 2001, Reb was in the Office of Personnel Management at Fort Bragg sitting on the opposite side of the desk from a Major, who was reviewing his records.
The Major looked up and said, “It says here, Lieutenant Rogers, that you can speak Pashto and that you enjoy horseback riding.”
To which Reb responded, “Yessir, I dated a British girl who attended Alabama College. Her father was in their foreign service, and she had spent some time in Pakistan and other countries throughout the Middle East traveling with her family and all. Anyway, she was real good with languages and she taught me several including Pashto.”
“What about the horseback riding?” the Major asked.
“Well, I was born and raised on a farm in Alabama where we had horses, sir,” Reb said. “I guess you could say I’ve been riding horses most all of my life.”
The Major looked at Reb’s records again and said, “Says you got your degree in Business Administration.”
“Yessir, I plan on going into business for myself after I serve out my eight year commitment. I plan on staying on active duty for the full eight.”
“Well, Lieutenant, I think I’ve got just the assignment for you,” the Major said.
Two weeks later, Reb became an active participant in America’s war on terrorism when he was assigned to a Special Forces unit that was working with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in the fight to overthrow Al Qaeda and the Taliban. When Reb wasn’t acting as an interpreter, he found himself on horseback participating in cavalry charges against enemy positions in the wilds of Afghanistan in the early stages of the war.
Now, in what was to be his eighth and final year of active duty service, Reb was a team leader in an elite unit of special operators—the 4th Scouts. The mission of the 4th Scouts was to hunt down high-level members of the Taliban leadership and capture them for intelligence purposes.
Each of the teams in the 4th Scouts was partnered with a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer, who was responsible for the intelligence side of the team’s operations. Jake Gant was the CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer assigned to Reb’s team.
Because their missions were covert and involved the kidnapping and/or termination of high-level members of the Taliban, it was necessary that the members of the 4th Scouts blend in with the Afghan population as much as possible.
All of the men in the 4th Scouts and their CIA partners were fluent in Pashto, the local language.
When they were in the field, both the special operators and the CIA Paramilitary Operations Officers dressed in native Afghan garb—long baggy pants, knee-length, long-sleeve tunics, turbans and head scarves worn wrapped around their heads with only a slit for the eyes, and wool blankets draped over their shoulders during cold weather.
The 4th Scouts had cultivated a network of informants—who were anti-Taliban—in the villages and towns throughout Farnook Province. The informants kept Reb’s unit apprised of the comings and goings of the Taliban throughout the province and were well rewarded for their cooperation.
Ahmad Majeed, leader of the village where the murdered school girls had lived, was one of Reb’s more reliable informants against the Taliban.
* * *
Reb and Jake walked back to the Humvee where Reb quickly cleaned up and washed the foul taste out of his mouth.
Feeling somewhat better, Reb, accompanied by Jake, walked over to the group of Afghani men and said, “Hello Majeed. I am so sorry that this has happened to the people of your village.”
“Thank you for your condolences, Captain Rogers,” Majeed replied.
“Is there anything we can do?” Reb asked, as he looked around at the distraught men, knowing full well that what the fathers of the dead girls wanted was revenge.
“The Taliban and their extremist views almost ruined my country once,” Majeed said. “I have worked with you against the Taliban because they are evil and must be destroyed before they can gain control of my country again. I need your help bringing the men responsible for this atrocity to justice.”
Reb shook his head sadly and said, “I would like nothing better than to kill every last one of the animals responsible for murdering the young girls of your village but, unless you know where the Taliban are who were responsible for this, there’s not much I can do, Majeed.”
Majeed looked Reb in the eye and said, “I know where they are.”
CHAPTER 3
Lashwan Village
Farnook Province
Afghanistan
February 14, 2009
Reb, Jake, and the other members of Reb’s 4th Scouts team followed Majeed’s pickup truck as it drove the short distance to the nearby village of Lashwan. Majeed’s cousin, Abdul Waleed, who lived in Lashwan, had notified Majeed that the Taliban who had murdered the schoolgirls from Majeed’s village were hiding out in Lashwan.
Waleed met them on the outskirts of the village and, after Majeed and Waleed exchanged greetings and Majeed made introductions, Reb said, “The Taliban, where are they?”
“They’re in the community center. That’s the fifth building down the road through the village, on the right,” Waleed said.
“How many Taliban are there?” Reb asked.
“There are eight of them. The vehicles they arrived in are parked in the courtyard behind the building.”
“Are you certain that these are the men responsible for murdering the girls?” Reb asked.
“When they first got here, I overheard them bragging to another villager, who is a Taliban supporter, what they had done to the girls,” Waleed said. “I am certain of it.”
“It would be helpful if you’d walk down there with us and check to see if the Taliban are still inside the building,” Reb said. “Are you willing to do that?”
“Yes,” Waleed answered.
Reb turned to his senior NCO and said, “Sergeant Monroe, Mr. Gant and I are going to walk down to the
community center with Majeed and his cousin to see if the Taliban are still there. If I call, you and the men come at a dead run.”
“You got it, Cap’n,” Sergeant Monroe responded.
* * *
Reb, Jake, and Majeed were standing outside the door of the single-story mud brick building that was the village’s community center. Waleed had gone inside the building a few minutes earlier and they were waiting for him to come back out and report on whether or not the Taliban were still inside.
Both Reb and Jake were dressed the same as Majeed—baggy pants, long-sleeve knee-length tunics, headscarves, and blankets draped across their shoulders.
The door opened and Waleed came out of the building, closed the door behind him, and walked over to where Reb and the others were waiting.
“Are they still inside?” Reb asked.
“Yes, there are eight Taliban inside,” Waleed reported. “It’s one large room and they are seated at tables drinking tea and talking amongst themselves. Just as I was leaving though, I heard one of them tell the others to get ready to leave.”
“Sounds like the clock’s running out on us,” Reb said. “Was there anyone else in there with them?”
“No, only the eight Taliban.”
“Good. Thank you for your help, Waleed,” Reb said.
Reb keyed the mic on his tactical comm unit to call his men waiting in the hummers back at the outskirts of the village. “Sergeant, these guys are about to rabbit and Jake and I are going into the community center building to take them down,” Reb said. “I need you guys down here pronto to back us up.”
Reb was wearing a headband with a mini sports video camera attached to it. He adjusted his headscarf so that the lens was unobscured and switched the camera on. Jake did the same with the camera he was wearing and then each man made sure that the little red light on the other man’s camera was on indicating the camera was recording.
Reb reached for his 12-gauge pump shotgun—a Winchester Model 1897 trench gun his grandfather had given to him. The shotgun was hanging barrel-down on a sling under his right arm and it was concealed under the blanket draped over his shoulders. Reb used Federal’s Premium Law Enforcement Tactical double-aught buckshot ammunition. He liked the tight groupings of the pellets he got due to Federal’s Flitecontrol wad. He had one round loaded in the chamber and six more rounds in the shotgun’s tube magazine. Reb thumbed the safety off and cocked the hammer back as he looked at Jake.