Paul McKellips - Jericho 3

One hundred fifty meters past the first house and beyond the first street in Datta Khel Village, Omid took a hard right to the southwest and away from their southeast plan. The team cut through a field as a large grove of trees started to emerge in the distance where the walls of more houses came into view.

Once inside the grove, code-named Sherwood Forest, Geek pulled out his binoculars to assess the four houses that lined the near side of the second street. The team needed to cross the second street. The second house on the second street was their target-rich environment.

Smoke was pouring from three of the four houses on the first street. Omid watched for Geek’s sign. The second house seemed to be vacant or at worst, no one was up cooking or warming themselves by a fire yet.

Omid climbed the backyard wall of the second house followed by 16 more men. No animals greeted him in the backyard, so that was a good sign. Sheep at the first and third houses started bleating. A goat rose up over the wall as Alpha Team hustled past.

As the two squads of Alpha Team passed over the outer wall of the second house, Chip pulled out his thermal imagery scope and pointed it at the house.

There was nothing “living” in the house. No heat.

Omid approached the front wall of the second house. He scanned up and down the street. There was no activity.

The target house was now clearly visible across the street. There was a large house on the corner of Bannu Road and the smaller street. On the other side of the target house, another property seemed to sit with a vacant area between them.

The target house looked different than the seven houses on the street. Datta Khel Village had less than 200 tribesmen and families. The target house looked half sheet metal and half rock. It had more of a commercial feel to it, if anything in North Waziristan could be called commercial.

Geek’s binoculars were fixed on the smoke that rose out of the stack on the target house. He gave the signal. Chip moved up to Omid’s spot, checked both ways, then crossed over the short front wall, over the street, over the target house wall, and up next to the house. He pulled out his thermal imagery scope.

Four people. Chip gave three long clicks and a short click over his comms. Each member of Alpha Team knew the code that they would soon face three adults and a child. Camp had already lobbied for the preservation and rescue of Miriam’s son. He was denied. But Ferguson did provide an acceptable condition. If the boy could be saved, Alpha Team could bind and gag him, put him in a different location, and hope that the child’s discovery was made long after the team’s egress back through the Hindu Kush.

Three adults and a child meant the team had to go in with silence and surprise. Manson and Colt were the weapons specialists. Master Sergeant “Manson” would not be using his M203 grenade launcher mounted on the 9-inch barrel of his M4 for this part of the mission.

Manson and Colt moved over the wall past Omid, crossed the street, and over the wall and next to the building where Chip was crouched. Chip showed them the imagery. Manson used hand signals to send Colt to the rear southwest corner of the house.

Manson put three short clicks in burst over the comms as the explosives guys crossed and joined Manson and Chip. They looked at the imagery, and Manson sent another soldier to the back of the house with Colt.

On signal, Manson and his soldier would enter from the front as Colt and his soldier entered from the rear. Chip would hold back and watch the imagery unfold. The comms guys stayed back across the street in case things got out of hand and a drone was needed. CW2 “Brick” along with three of the Alpha soldiers stayed at ready distance across the street. If things went bad, Brick and his team would have to deliver some quick justice.

Sanchez, Billy Finn, Camp and three more soldiers crossed the wall, then the street, then the last wall. They would either be the second wave of support or the janitors to clean up the mess.

There were seven sheep, a goat, and an old burro within the walls of the compound. The sheep were bleating but not anymore than usual. The animals huddled close to Alpha Team members on both sides of the house.

According to Omid’s intelligence report, the building was a rambler with two long hallways of interconnected rooms and shorter hallways. The imagery suggested that an adult and a child were in the second room up from the rear door. The second adult was in a center room, and appeared to be working at a table. The third adult was sitting in a chair in the front of the house next to the heat glow that was the open fire pit.

If Alpha Team simply kicked in the doors and started shooting, the Taliban, tribesmen and Pakistani forces, if there were any in the area, would be at the house within seconds.

A soldier held a lamb in his arms as Manson slid the front door open. Colt opened the back door as his soldier held another sheep. On cue, Manson and Colt battered the tin on the door. A loud metal clang echoed from both sides of the house as two sheep entered bleating from both ends of the complex followed by Manson in the front and Colt in the rear.

The man warming himself by the fire cursed at the animal barging in through the front door in search of warmth. Before he could make it to his feet, Manson pushed the Carson flipper on his razor-sharp, triple-point, serrated Tanto M16T tactical knife and with a swift thrust cut through the man’s throat with decapitating force. Manson quietly laid his lifeless body back into the chair as his head snapped back and blood gushed through the gurgling crevice that was recently his neck.

Both sheep bleated louder and ran panic-stricken down the hallways.

The man in the back bedroom emerged through the doorframe looking down the hall as one of the sheep ran past him. He kicked wildly at the passing animal as Colt’s white titanium spearpoint penetrated the back of the man’s neck and out the front side of his throat somewhere around the fourth cervical vertebrae, just as Colt had hoped. He fell to the floor where Jazz finished the work.

Seeing his father fall to the ground surrounded by two men who looked like snow, the boy screamed from his bed.

The man in the center room heard the scream and picked his AK-47 up from the table in front of him and managed one step before another Alpha soldier grabbed his head from behind, and with one violent heave, broke the man’s neck as the lamb jumped over his crumpled body on the dirt floor.

Colt got his hand quickly over the boy’s face before another scream could sound. Within seconds a rag was in the boy’s mouth, and two rounds of tape covered the boy’s mouth, head and hair. Colt flipped the boy on his stomach and plastic restraints joined his hands behind his back and around his two ankles.

Colt carried the frightened boy out of the room and over his father’s body as he took him to the main room. Within seconds, eight soldiers along with Billy Finn and Camp stood by the fire as three terrorists lay dead in the house. Manson sent four short clicks — all clear — across the headset comms and Omid moved over the wall, across the street, over another wall and in through the front door.

The boy’s face was filled with terror.

“Tell him we’re not going to hurt him,” Camp said as Omid entered the room. “We’re here to find an American soldier. Tell us where the soldier is, and you’ll live.”

Omid spoke to the boy in Pashtu. The boy seemed confused by Omid’s Persian accent with extra Dari words.

“Does he know where the American is?” Camp demanded.

Omid translated. The boy nodded and head-pointed down the hallway toward the room he had been in with his father. Colt carried the boy down the long hallway with Manson in front, Omid and two others trailing behind. When they got to the door near his father’s body, the boy shook his head and nodded toward the rear door instead.