Marc Cameron - National Security

“Gunny,” he whispered. “You’ve been through this drill before, I’ll bet… Cleared building packed with insurgents.”

“Chock-full of the rat bastards,” Thibodaux said.

“They’ve learned from us to block all the entries but one-”

“Then fortify the hell out of the only way in,” Thibodaux completed his thought. “I’ll lay odds the hajjis Diaz saw got a fifty cal pointed straight at our only entry point.”

“Okay, listen,” Quinn said, thumb on the safety of his M4. “Fargo could be another half hour for all we know. If we wait for reinforcements-the guys upstairs are dead. If we charge the door and get ourselves killed-the guys upstairs are dead.”

“Roger that.” Thibodaux nodded, one eyebrow crawling under the front edge of his Kevlar helmet as he wrinkled his forehead in thought. “You look like a man with a plan.”

“Here’s the deal.” Quinn hoped the idea didn’t sound as crazy out loud as it did in his head. “We go in fast and quiet. Diaz will cut left to take a position in the back corner while you and I hustle up the stairs… keeping an eye out for trip wires.” He added the last to show he’d cleared a building or two as well.

“The way those ceilings sag they’re not much but plywood and rotten timber. Diaz, you give us a twenty-count, then spray the ceiling directly over that back corner with a good thirty-round burst. That’s where they’ll have their machine gun. After that, you better come running, because me and the gunny will be bootin’ the door when we hear you shoot. If you don’t get there quick, every bad guy in the place will be DRT before you get a chance to help.”

“You’re a scary man, Chair Force,” Thibodaux grunted. “Death from below… remind me not to ever let you talk to my Delta-Whiskey.”

“Your what?”

“Dependent wife… she’s mean enough as it is. I don’t want her to learn any of your sneaky-ass ways.” The doorknob disappeared under Thibodaux’s huge left hand. “It’s open,” he whispered. “We go in on three.”

Safeties snicked off in the darkness. Thibodaux slid the door open an inch at a time, searching for wires and other telltale signs of alarms.

“What if the hostages are above the back corner?” Diaz said.

“Then they’re dead anyway,” Thibodaux winked, pushing open the door. “ Laissez les bon temps rouler.”

Let the good times roll.

They made it up the stairs in three seconds without meeting any resistance.

“Since I got on my flak vest,” the big Cajun whispered, “and you came to our little fais do-do unprepared, I’ll take the lead.”

“I’ll let you,” Quinn said.

Though the two men had known each other all often minutes, they were professional operators-and good tactics were good tactics. Each moved with a fluid surety that made the other man trust him as though they’d trained together for months. War, like no other catalyst, could forge an instantaneous and lasting friendship between men-if they survived.

Quinn held up his left hand, knifelike, pointing at the middle of the door. “Down the middle?”

The Marine gave a curt nod. He pulled the pin on a flash bang-to blind and deafen anyone in the room. “You take hajjis on the right, I’ll take hajjis on the le-”

A clattering rattle broke loose below as Diaz tore up the floor with a barrage of 7.62.

Thibodaux reacted instantly, slamming a size-thirteen desert combat boot to the door. The flimsy, wooden jamb shattered with a loud crack. The door leapt from its hinges as if torn away by an explosion. A half second later, the Marine’s stun grenade shook the building. Dust, smoke, and panicked Iraqi voices filled the air.

Quinn focused on threats in order of scale: guns first, blades second. He was aware of two bound men, kneeling in the center of the room. Both wore blindfolds, hands tied behind their backs. A dazed Iraqi stood behind each prisoner. Would-be executioners, they held short blades, no bigger than pocket knives-executions were supposed to bring agony as well as death.

The cameraman spun toward the door, his rifle dangling on a sling over his shoulder. He was less than three feet away, close enough Quinn could smell his sweat. Thibodaux moved fast, already behind the cameraman, busy with another target on his side of the room. It was too dangerous for Quinn to chance a shot with the M4.

Quinn’s right hand stayed on his rifle while his left dropped to the Hissatsu killing blade in his belt. There were too many threats to devote inordinate time to any single one. Quinn strode forward, engaging the nine-inch blade point-first to shove the stunned cameraman out of his way. The razor-sharp weapon entered the soft flesh just above the V on the Iraqi’s collarbone. The man’s eyes slammed open in stark realization that the only beheading he would witness tonight would be his own.

Quinn was vaguely aware of warmth and moisture spraying his arm, and the sucking gurgle as the Hissatsu slipped though muscle and cartilage.

The knife slid back to its Kydex sheath with a positive click as Quinn advanced, a red palm print on his khakis where he’d wiped his left hand. The M4 back at eye level, he scanned the room for his next target.

The cameraman twitched on the floor behind him, no longer a threat.

Five feet away, a masked Iraqi who’d been in the process of reading a statement for the camera staggered backward in surprise. He tripped over a startled hostage to fall toward the left side of the room.

“ Allahu akbar! ” he shouted, before two rounds from Thibodaux’s M4 tore his throat away.

Quinn’s rifle spat and a tall Iraqi behind the two kneeling hostages stumbled forward, dropping his AK-47. The teenager who’d been posted with the 50-caliber machine gun, badly wounded by Diaz’s withering fire from below, poked his head over a row of sandbags in the far corner. He made a feeble attempt to fire a pistol.

Thibodaux bounced a grenade off the back wall into the makeshift bunker and turned the kid to jelly. The sandbags directed the blast upward, away from everyone else, but the noise was deafening.

Flanking each blade-wielding executioner, two more insurgents brought long guns to bear as they shook off the effects of the concussion.

Quinn breathed in the smell of cordite and blood, swinging his rifle methodically, resting the glowing red circle on the M4’s EOTech holographic sight on the chest of one target, squeezing the trigger twice, then moving to the next a half a heartbeat later. He had no doubt Thibodaux was doing the same. If Marines were anything, they were expert riflemen.

All the gun-wielding insurgents in his area of responsibility DRT, Quinn rushed forward to get a better angle on the one with the blade, who’d now grabbed the nearest hostage by the collar and used him as a shield.

The young prisoner was difficult to identify through the filth that caked his face and grimy brown T-shirt, but his high-and-tight haircut above the duct tape blindfold made Quinn guess he was the missing Marine.

He fought like a Marine.

The hostage gave a muffled yell beneath his gag and pushed himself backward, rolling over the top of his assailant. Spinning as he rolled, he kicked out with bare feet, connecting with a satisfying thud to the masked Iraqi’s ribs. Enraged and still screaming under his duct tape, the young Marine lashed out blindly, legs pumping as if he were riding a bicycle. The Iraqi shifted away to avoid another blow, giving Jericho enough room to put two rounds below his left ear.

“Clear!” Thibodaux shouted through gray curls of gun smoke and settling dust. His weapon still pressed close to his shoulder, tree-trunk arms tucked tight as he scanned the room.

Jericho did the same.

“I’m a friendly!” Corporal Diaz warned as he came through the door behind them. He blinked in dismay at the nine dead Iraqi’s that littered the room. “Holy shit, Gunny! You guys done already?”