Hard Favored Rage

by Don Shift

  The inability to stop the county from falling apart and resorting to the rule of the gun threatened the last of their honor. Sam remembered his pastor once saying, “Honor is hope for the goodness of mankind.” Hope that one risking his life for the good of many made the basis of honor. Tonight was more than just a raid on a vicious enemy; it was a restoration of hope. Honor would be restored tonight and with it hope in the future.

  David and Sam hung around the back of the room drinking coffee out of a large urn. Sam had insisted on separating themselves from Brooke and Mika to concentrate on their portion of the mission. Tonight Hidalgo had broken out real coffee, not the freeze-dried kind anyone still drinking coffee had. Like giving a condemned man a last meal, David thought. He had not slept well all day after being up all night on alert after the Todd Road attack and was pounding the free coffee.

  “Look a little wired Palmer,” Sam said. “Might want to lay off.”

  “I feel great man, real great.” David was turning his fast as if he was trying to catch something in the corner of his eye before it disappeared.

  “You’re tweaking dude. How much coffee have you had?”

  “First cup. I had two Five-Hour Energies though.”

  Sam shrugged. He had been the same way in Fallujah, drinking cans of Rip-It until his heart felt like it would burst. Someone always wanted to interrogate a jihadi in the middle of the night and he always wanted to be at his best.

  “Listen up!” Luther Washington yelled. “Form up into your chalks and stand-by for briefing.”

  David and Sam joined Auggie and Marco, the other two men of Chalk 1, part of Alpha Team. Mr. Sibley, Luther Washington, a guy from SWAT, and one of Hidalgo’s Army vets made up Chalk 2. Auggie was relaxed. Older than the others, he spent two tours in Afghanistan. Marco was tense, and for the first time since they left the ranch had stopped making nervous jokes and blustering as young men do to hide their anxiety.

  “There’s so few of us going in on the ground,” Marco whispered.

  “The fewer men, the greater share of honor,” David quoted back facetiously.

  “Perish the man whose mind is backwards now!” Sam chimed in.

  Once the group had assembled, the leadership took their places at the front of the room.

  “Attention!” bellowed a soldier in a two-part count. Everyone in the room had either been through the academy or in the military, so they quickly snapped smartly to.

  “As you were,” Major Huerta said as he stepped up to a stack of produce boxes made into a podium. He introduced himself as Grizzly Six, his callsign. Army unit commanders were always given the “six” callsign number. “We have all committed tonight to curtail the cartel operations in our area. Thank you all for volunteering. Though we face superior numbers in hostile territory, rest assured we have superior firepower, better training, and none of us are stoned or drunk. I hope,” he joked, getting a nervous laugh.

  A list of bullet points appeared on the screen. Going on, he divulged the full plan of the cartel, which surprised the men, who typically were not surprised by much. Their concentration was intense and the righteous anger that burned in their eyes was discernable.

  “Our objective is to destroy the cartel’s base of operations and eliminate them as a threat to the area. Specific objectives are as follows: Alpha, neutralize the farmhouse with high value targets. Bravo liberate the sex slaves. Charlie, annihilate the sicarios, preferably before they have a chance to get out of their trailers and into the fight. Delta; clear the prefab house and the barn.

  “Secondary objectives are: Alpha, gather any intel inside the house and a prisoner for interrogation, but not at the expense of death or injuries. Charlie, destroy the well and puncture the water tanks. Delta, we’re giving you a guy who can drive a semi. Try to steal that diesel tanker. Alpha and Delta, you must breach and clear the houses in the event there are children and innocent women inside.”

  He listed some of the specifics of the enemy forces including numbers, weapons, and expected responses. “It will be hard for some of us to adapt our tactics. As we all know, things have changed. You are not here to arrest anyone or accept surrender. You will kill any military age male in the target area so that they cannot retaliate against us, oppress the people of this county, or setup their own little warlord kingdom. This is our country, our county, and we will prevail. Hooah!”

  The room exploded in hooahs, oorahs, and yells. The elation at being able to strike out at an enemy, if they couldn’t fix the broken world itself, had begun its work healing their discouraged hearts.

  Captain Tejada took the podium. “How am I supposed to follow that?” he kidded. “Major Huerta will be back to go over specifics with our army friends Charlie Team’s objective. Let’s look at the compound.”

  Hidalgo’s intel team had developed a map of the compound and further sliced the hours of drone footage into a highlight reel of each individual objective. After the entire compound and area was shown, the video broke down into detailed shots that Tejada narrated. Sam was impressed. In Iraq most of his briefing included grainy satellite photos and long-distance photos that were distorted by the heat. This was like flying over the compound in a helicopter.

  Because there was no time to study the area in detail over days, the video ran over an hour, giving everyone plenty of time to familiarize themselves with the objectives. Everyone watched in silence, running their own mental recorders and soaking up every and any detail that might save their life. This turned into a roundtable where questions were answered, and contingencies discussed. After the group briefing, the teams broke up to confer with each other and their team leaders.

  David noticed that Mr. Sibley, who was already an intense person, was doubly so tonight. His eyes were ablaze with danger and fury. Had he not known this man so well, he would have mistaken the look of resolve for seething anger.

  Palmer leaned towards Sam. “I knew you were trouble and were going to get me in deep.”

  Church grinned. “Tell me that everyday since we met hasn’t been the greatest adventure of your life.” Sam had a knack for finding—or getting himself—into very interesting situations.

  “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  Washington unexpectedly shouted. “Listen up. Weather has deteriorated and the visibility is down to less than one hundred feet. Since the vehicles will be traveling with their lights off, we will have to speed up the timeline in order to make it. In order for action to commence at 0200 as planned, loading of the vehicles will begin at midnight.

  “Drivers, you have the thermal scanners. Use them, not your lights, not even infrared. It’ll reflect off the fog and blind you. Watch the lines on the road. We will convoy out of here at 15 miles per hour, no faster, so watch your speed closely. Wait five seconds before the vehicle in front of you leaves so we have some separation. If anybody stops suddenly there will be no brake lights.” He paused. “Church, Palmer; I need you up here now.”

  “See you guys,” Marco said. Sam and David grabbed their gear and ran to the front of the room.

  “Yes Sergeant Major,” Sam reported.

  “You gotta go early to whack those sentries. Figure out your times and the sheriff will take you to your drop off point.”

  “Oohrah.”

  They moved over to the map table and Sam grabbed a ruler. “This would be so much easier with Google Earth.” In the dark, finding the drop-off point would have to be done by carefully watching the miles on the odometer and then navigating by compass across dark fields. He would have given anything to simply draw a line and drop the little man stick figure to get the Streetview of the area. All he had for landmarks was a brown field and shadows of telephone poles on the old aerial photo. “Dave, you’re good at math. Calculate these fractions into miles, round to the nearest tenth.”

  “You’re thinking of my wife.” David did it anyway.

  “Okay, I made it easier. If the sheriff drops us off at this intersection, we go south six-tenths
of a mile following the telephone poles, then head west one mile along this ditch. How long will it take us to walk it in the dark?”

  “Half an hour? We can jog if we have to. Your plan will make it easier than trying to navigate from the original point.”

  Sam and David jumped up and down to listen if anything on their bodies rattled. Each checked their gear and weapons one last time.

  “Let’s get the sheriff and roll.”

  The two deputies and their sheriff walked out into the parking lot. Sam had never seen such darkness. Even way out in the Mojave Desert there had been starlight. The fog had enveloped everything, swallowing the dim solar lights in a dozen yards.

  David watched the Strikers disappear eerily into the gloom as they drove away. Inside, the crew would navigate easily using thermal scopes to render the fog invisible while rocking out to their choice of battle music. He envied the soldiers sense of invincibility.

  Villareal blacked out his unmarked Tahoe’s as soon as he reached the straight main driveway.

  “How’d you get this thing running again, sir?” David asked.

  “Alex had some stabilized gasoline.” Villareal was nervous. In his whole career, he had never fired his gun nor been in anything remotely like this. Even so, he couldn’t stay behind waiting for the results.

  David felt tense. Anxious anticipation was not a feeling was he used to, nor was he accustomed to being driven to somewhere urgent when decisive action was needed. Unlike Sam, who had in training and reality been a passenger in armored vehicles and helicopters going into battle, David suffered the tension of a free mind. Countless pursuits and Code 3 runs had never been like this. He was always preoccupied with driving, checking traffic, and listening to or talking on the radio. The inaction only magnified his worries about the unknown.

  The sheriff flicked on the wipers, pushing away the drizzle and condensation from the clouds that streamed down the windshield. He was going faster than expected in the pea soup weather.

  “Going a little fast for the conditions, sir.”

  “Mr. Church, I’ve been driving these roads since before you were born. The fog line and curve signs are there for a reason.”

  ***

  Crossing the fields had been no problem just as David predicted. The dirt was wet, but not muddy. Sam and David popped out at the right place slightly ahead of schedule. The total darkness and silence except for the occasional boot scrape made it seem like both were floating in the Twilight Zone. The convoy radioed the codeword that they had left on time and were progressing as expected. Soon Marco and Auggie would be getting dropped off up the road.

  The main compound was a farmhouse off of Rice Avenue and a defender’s dream. The nearest building was over a quarter of a mile away across flat land with no more cover than the foot-deep furrows between the rows of strawberries. The nearest intersections were a mile in each direction and guarded. If not, any passing vehicle, especially a convoy, would be immediately noticed. If a column of armored vehicles rolled straight up, there would be a firefight. Major Huerta wanted a massacre of sicarios instead.

  David let Sam take point as they walked up towards the first sentry’s position. David was in charge of counting paces to measure distance along the road. Two-fifty put them at the caution point. From there, they hugged the black netting fence that ran between the field and the road and ducked low. After a minute, they stopped, crouched, and listened. Silence. Each step from here on out was a slow, careful one. The toe came down first, followed by the ball of the foot, then slowly rolling onto the heel. Dark traffic signals soon appeared in the fog, their high tops already beginning to be obscured.

  A dusty car sat in the center of the intersection facing just to the right of David and Sam’s approach. There was a flickering glow coming from the driver’s seat. David assumed the driver found an old portable DVD player to replace whatever he used to stream on his phone. Both men crept around to the car’s blind spot.

  “Take the shot,” Sam whispered. David nodded and drew his pistol, a specially suppressed .45 on loan from Mr. Sibley. The sentry was transfixed in whatever he was watching and didn’t notice the black figure a few feet outside his window. David shot twice. With the window shattered, the sound of a porno became audible. He closed the screen and shared a chuckle with Sam.

  “Six, Church. South one down. We’re Oscar Mike to Objective Alpha,” Sam whispered into the radio.

  The next approach was a nervous one. There was little cover other than the small humps that strawberries grew on. At least part of the way, they could walk behind a screen of fencing and shrubs, so they were concealed from the road, but open to the fields beyond. Sam prayed that the cartel didn’t have any outer perimeter security. If the overconfident sentry’s behavior was any sign, they didn’t have anyone else out beyond the house. Confidence was a sometimes-terrible liability, especially in the fog with dangerous men about.

  Auggie and Marco, who worked down from the north, met them behind a burnt-out fruit stand across from the driveway.

  “Our dude was asleep.”

  “Our guy was jerking off,” David said. He explained about the DVD.

  The next phase was to take out anyone guarding the exterior of the house. After that, the vans would start down the road to take down the house and the assault on the other three objectives would begin.

  Marco pulled out a small red device. “What’s that?” David asked.

  “It’s a thermal search device. A gift from a buddy at county fire. We can locate them through the fog.” The original plan was to bump into any bad guys inside the perimeter.

  “Then let’s do it.”

  A scan of the house revealed two men armed with rifles held at low ready walking around the house. The white, blob-like figures slowly strolled around on a background of varying shades of gray. David silently gave thanks for the lack of opposition. The four broke into a widely separated group. Sam and David faced forward while Auggie covered the rear. Marco walked with them, whispering where the sentries were.

  The front gate was nothing but chain-link secured with a chain and padlock. A pair of 24-inch bolt cutters was packed along just for this reason and cut the chain in two snips.

  “They heard us!” Both of the sentries heard the tinkling of the chain and started moving to the gate, as seen in infrared. “Moving from the north side of the house.” David unraveled the chain and set it gently in the dirt. He and Sam opened one section of the gate and then went prone. “One hundred feet.”

  Sam could barely hear the words. He wished he could turn on his infrared illuminator and cut through some of the darkness. Two figures emerged on both sides of the driveway, smart enough not to walk down the center. Sam and David fired simultaneously, dropping both sentries. The shots were muffled coming out of the suppressors on the end of the rifle, but the 5.56mm bullet still made a supersonic crack.

  ***

  Captain Tejada led the two Bravo chalks through the murky gloom. Their approach was across 100 yards of open ground. Complicating their advance was the overgrown strawberry furrows. The weeds and untamed berry runners grabbed at their legs as they stepped over each individual furrow. This portion of the field had been plowed at a right angle to the road. Tejada cringed as a man fell behind him, but to the man’s credit, he did not cry out.

  Bravo was holding up the attack due to the problems with walking up to their target. They advanced by counting the furrows they stepped over until the obscure forms of the first chain-link fence appeared. Beyond it, a few dim lights glowed inside the trailers. Tejada listened very carefully. The night was still and silent. No noises came from inside the trailers. No one was up “partying” with the women. Stackhouse, leading the other Bravo chalk, moved to cover their portion of the target. The captain clicked his mic button in Morse Code for the letter B—dit dit dit dah.

  ***

  At Alpha, Auggie whispered out the code word over the radio. The van with Chalk 2 was one minute away. The van stoppe
d fifty yards from the house to let their passengers out to remain stealthy. Leading the charge was Mr. Sibley, who placed pre-made explosive charges on the front door. No one inside the house gave any sign of knowing that heavily armed men were about to breach the door.

  With a bang felt in the chest, the front door was blown open. Using the explosion as a signal, Marco with Chalk 1 in the back struck the rear door with his ram three times. To avoid friendly fire, the other half of the men did not enter the backdoor. They only covered the back to catch anyone who tried to escape or in case the front door became a deathtrap. It wasn’t long before a man ran out clad only in boxer shorts and was shot down.

  Inside the house, the occupants had been taken by surprise. When the front door exploded it woke up a man sleeping on the couch who died when he tried to stand up holding a rifle. With the door open, the team moved slowly into the bedroom hall as haste made waste. A door opened. Washington on point saw a male face and put two bullets in the man’s chest. Screams erupted from the bedroom and two down the hall. Two men peeled off into the open door and the others continued down the hall, kicking in the second bedroom door and killing the man inside.

  There was crying and movement in the last bedroom, but no one opened the door. A male was trying to shush the crying woman. Mr. Sibley gently turned the knob while Washington threw a flashbang in the gap. As the grenade went in the door, a shotgun blast tore out a section of wall, where someone less tactically smart would have stood. Immediately following the grenade’s concussion the two former operators went in the door and shot the stunned shotgun shooter.

  With the primary search complete, Sam left the perimeter and went inside. The three women were pulled into the living room, their hands zip-tied behind their backs and their mouths gagged with tape. They could free themselves later. Sam grabbed some notebooks and maps off the dining room table and stuffed them into his pack for later analysis. Mr. Sibley was rigging his homemade incendiary charge in the living room while the women were taken outside. Sam and David ran out the back door as the charge went off, spreading flame all over the room.