Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Bronco Starr and Jaws covered the left corner of the house, angled off Jack Valentine’s flank. And likewise, Hub Biggs and Bobby Durant covered Cotton Martin’s flank.

The four two-man sniper teams had set their hides at eight hundred meters from the house, covering quartering angles, eliminating every inch of possible dead space. If anyone showed up, they had him dead to rights, and on worldwide video for verification.

The eight-man squad had parachuted into position around Zarqawi’s safe house at four o’clock in the morning, counting on the al-Qaeda leader’s guards standing the late shift with heavy eyelids. No one in or around Hibhib paid attention to the high-flying Marine Corps C130 Hercules as it cruised overhead, spilling out its passengers. Nor did anyone see the eight dark canopies of the Special Operations Marines’ MC5 free-fall, ram-air parachutes as Jack and his boys silently dove from a high-altitude deployment at twenty-nine thousand feet and steered from their low opening at twenty-five hundred feet to exact landing points. Each of the two-man teams precision glided to four landing sites, each one a mile from the four corners of the house.

They shed their oxygen tanks, masks, helmets, and skydiving rigs, and hid them well. The Marines would pick up their expensive gear en route to their extraction point.

As the four teams lay invisible in their hides, the sun slowly broke light across the eastern horizon. Jack hoped that Zarqawi might step outside for a breath of morning air. But that wasn’t happening. So the Marine Scout-Snipers lay in their hides, chilling and watching.

As he waited for the al-Qaeda leader to show his face, Jack fought the urge, but had to chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Cochise whispered.

“Thinking about yesterday, when we got back to Baghdad,” he answered, and giggled more.

“You know, Billy’s good about shit like that,” Cochise said, and couldn’t help but snigger, too.

Keeping his promise, Elmore Snow had called Liberty Cruz, who waited in Baghdad with Smedley and Captain Burkehart. The colonel had said that he would tell her the minute he got word on the gunny, just before they launched on the operation from Haditha Dam. His first opportunity to keep the promise came when he landed at Al Asad Air Base, thus he called when Jack finally showered.

Chris Gray and Elmore both tried to get the FBI agent approved to fly out to Al Asad, and see Jack there, but the general saw no good reason for the risk. She would see her beau soon enough. She should thank her lucky stars that she was in Baghdad, he reminded them. Any Marine wife would trade places with her in a heartbeat. The colonel couldn’t argue, nor could Miz Cruz. So she waited for Snow’s next call when he knew what time they would land at home base. Liberty wanted to keep her presence in Iraq a surprise for Jack, so the whole team played dumb.

“We’re inbound late this afternoon. Should be there just at dark,” Elmore told her, and Liberty went to work.

She showered and put on ample squirts in all the right spots of Christian Dior’s fancy-smelling perfume that Jack really liked, J’adore. A rich and sexy fragrance that always brought the gunny’s nose straight in for a deep landing.

“If that stuff don’t make a man’s dick hard, then he’s gotta be dead,” Jack would say.

After her shower, a little lotion, body powder, and ample clouds of J’adore mist sweetening her from little toe to top knot, she brushed out her long, beautiful black hair and let it fall free all around her shoulders and face.

From her suitcase, she pulled out a clean, black silky thin Under Armour T-shirt and put it on with no bra. Jack always loved that. Naked body beneath a thin layer of nearly nothing.

“Like two babies fighting under a blanket,” he’d say, watching her walk around braless in a T-shirt.

To finish off the whole effect, Liberty slipped on some nice-fitting supersexy, black-silk, low-cut underwear with black lace around the legs and waist. Then, as an afterthought, she took the back of her T-shirt and tied an overhand knot in it, so that it rode high up, showing off her panties.

Then she took a seat on Jack’s bunk and waited.

It seemed like forever had passed, then Liberty finally heard a rattle at the operations hooch front door. She got on her feet, shook her hair good, and gave herself a bounce on her toes. A big, sexy smile spread on her face.

She had told both Captain Burkehart and Corporal Butler to stay out of the operations building because she had a special something planned for her gunny’s homecoming. They agreed and stayed away.

Liberty peeked around the hallway corner, after the overhead lights came on, and a familiar-looking back and flop hat sat down at the gunny’s desk. Barefooted, she padded her way behind him, J’adore wafting through the air, and in a sexy slur, she said, “Hi there, Sailor. Looking for a good time?”

Billy Claybaugh spun around in Gunny Valentine’s chair and fell out of it when he saw Liberty Cruz in all her heart-stopping glory.

“Holy shit!” he wailed from the floor, and scrambled to his feet. He stood dumb stupid, eyeballing her from top to bottom and back up again. “Who the hell let you in?”

“Who the hell let you in!” Liberty fired back, her hands on her hips, ready to kill.

“Gunny Valentine’s on his way from the flight line with Colonel Snow, and I just got back from Haditha Dam with Chico and Petey,” Staff Sergeant Claybaugh said, fast as he could think. “Cotton and everybody else, and those three other guys, Hacksaw and Kermit and Habu, they’re coming, too. Liberty! You need to put some clothes on!”

“Captain Burkehart didn’t get hold of you guys and warn you?” Liberty asked the Marine, fuming. The same knucklehead had once again stepped into her romantic surprise for Jack.

“I guess not,” Billy said, wringing his flop hat like a rag but still totally enjoying the view, memorizing it.

Frowning at MARSOC’s duty clown, she asked, “How did you manage to slip up here ahead of the crowd?”

“I wanted to fix up a surprise on Jack’s computer. You know, welcome home. Sort of,” Billy explained, and then clicked open the greeting on the gunny’s screen.

It was that favorite photo of Liberty in the bikini on the beach, hard nipples and all, and Claybaugh had floated large red letters across the top, “Welcome Home Big Boy!”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Liberty huffed.

“It sure as hell isn’t as nice as what you had planned,” Billy-C said. “But you really ought to go put something on. All those guys are coming with the gunny and the colonel. I’m embarrassing enough for you, and you don’t need to fuck up their minds like you’ve fucked up mine.”

“Serves you right, you little twirp,” Liberty said, and tramped back to Jack’s room, where she put on her shoes, cargo pants, and matching tan jacket, but she left her hair down, bra off, and still smelled awfully good.

Midmorning, Bronco Starr called Jack on the intercom, and asked, “What if I went up and knocked on the door and asked if Abu Musab can come out to play?”

“Shut the fuck up, Cortez,” Jaws grumbled.

“Dude, it’s like nobody’s home,” Jesse complained.

Jack checked his watch, clicked on the command radio, and called Elmore. “Pushing ten o’clock and no movement.”

“Remain in place,” the colonel responded.

“You get that, Bronco?” Jack said.

“Roger that, Ghost,” the short guy answered.

“We got movement at the back door,” Cotton Martin broke in. “Two guys with AKs. Taking out trash. Raking out scraps to a couple of dogs.”

“Barking alarms,” Jack said. “Probably finished breakfast. Those guys must get up late.”