The Lonely Hearts 06 The Grunt 2 (3 page)

“Going on 10 months with the Lord,” Joe said, proudly. “I feel sober.”

“You were never a hard-core drinker,” Brett laughed.

Joe shook his head as if he was ready to explode into a fiery sermon.  “No, sober in another kind of way.”  A broad smile crossed his brown lips and his eyes sparkled.  “I feel free…refreshed.  I feel like everything is going to be fine no matter what.  Have you ever had that feeling, bruh?”

Brett pursed his lips together and considered the feeling.  “When I’m with Courtney.”

Joe leaned into Brett like he was telling him a huge secret.  “What if I told you that you could have it all the time?”

“What if I told you that a couple hours before the op is not the time to try to save my soul,” Brett said with a wink.

Joe’s response was immediate, like a used car salesman. “It’s the perfect time if you ask me.”

“I got baptized when I was a teenager. You know that.”

“Then all you’re doing is returning back to the fold,” Joe said as they walked.

“I tell you what, if I ever decided to get all churchy, then I’ll come and see you first.”

“Deal,” Joe said, serious but playing. 

Brett had known Joe for many years.  He had been his confident and often his big brother in times of despair.  Over the course of their career, Joe had been faithful to his wife, who was a white woman while he was a black man.  He had persevered in the face of adversity and racism in the Marine Corps.  In all, he was an honorable man before he was saved, but shortly before their last tour to Afghanistan, Joe had gone with the family, as he did every Sunday, to church and really found God.  He hadn’t been the same since.  He was a better version of Joe and everyone around him knew it.  Brett preferred it, although he also enjoyed giving him shit about it.   

Brett patted his best friend on the back.  “Think about what you’re turning from,” he joked. “No more titty bars, no more shots at the bar…”

Joe raised his hand to clarify. “No titty bars, but a few shots at the house will work.  Drinking is fine, just gotta know my limits. I don’t drink to get drunk anymore.”

“Well, no more shots at the bar then.  Just living your life on the straight and narrow. I can respect that.  Hell, I’m so deep in love with Cort, until I can’t see past her, so I know.  I guess we’ve both just finally grown up and found a better life.” 

Joe huffed. “I want you to get saved so that you don’t crumble if something were to ever go haywire in your life.  Right now, you got it all figured out,
but in this life
we have to prepare for bigger trials.  That preparation comes in the form of prayer and meditation.  Think of it as Recon training on a spiritual level.”

“You think Courtney is going to run off and leave me too?” It felt like a million years ago, but not even two years ago, his late wife had died in an airplane crash trying to ditch him to run to Japan to be with a higher-ranking Marine. 

“I don’t think Courtney is going anywhere,” Joe clarified.

Brett stopped at the door of his room and looked his friend in the eye.  “So why do I still have this gut thing, man?  If everything in the world is fine, why is my gut going crazy?”

Joe laughed and walked off. “You need, Jesus, man.”

“Why don’t you want to talk about the gut?” Brett said, shrugging his shoulders and laughing as he disappeared into his room.
 

Chapter 3

"If in order to kill the enemy you have to kill an innocent, don’t take the shot. Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act."

-
                                   
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis

Dressed out in full tactical uniforms, camouflage, aviator gloves, go-packs and parachutes the Recon Unit assembled quietly inside of the HH-60 Pave Hawk in preparation for their HALO (high-altitude, low-opening or HALO) parachute insertion jump.

It was everything that kids across the country dreamt of as they played their life-like video games, and everything wannabes lied about when trying to impress women in bars.  However, this was the real thing; there were no video cameras for reality TV, no theme music for an action movie, no updates every minute on Facebook and most of all, no turning back for the sake of life over country. 

Standing by the hatch already let down for their departure, Brett looked down the line at his men standing at the ready. Each one of these men were brave and had shown valor in the face of death a hundred times.  Joe, Bear, Rusty, Geek and Hound.  He would die for either of them,
all of them
, if needed.  But he hoped that their training would prevent the need to ever make that decision. 

Right before the team reached their mark; Brett stepped out where he could see his men and made his normal speech. It was the same one every time, but each time it was warranted,
needed in fact
, to remind each man of why he was there. 

His voice thundered, “No one on this plane rang that bell three times in training.  No one gave up
then
. No one gives up
now
.  Do you know why they send us, Devil Dogs?  It’s because we’re the baddest motherfuckers they could find!”

“Oorah!” the men replied in cadence.  Their voices boomed like lightning against the black night as the wind from the open hatch beat across their camouflaged faces.

Bear, the six-foot six Irish ginger good ole boy from Alabama, spit his brown snuff out on the floor beside his boot and tugged at his Kevlar.  It was his normal routine and Bear’s way of saying that he was ready to earn his paycheck. 

Joe made the sign of the cross and rolled his neck. 
He was ready.

Rusty kissed the picture of his son.

Hound scratched his balls.

Geek stood stoically focused on the hatch, ready to wig out on as many insurgents as possible as soon as his feet hit the ground.  

Each man had a thing, and now was the time to do it. 

Brett’s square jaw clenched tight as he moved to the open hatch; the wind pushing and pulling at him like a rag doll.  Anticipation coursed through his veins like a synthetic drug.  The veins in his muscular neck protruded as he screamed, “Let’s go to work!”

If one had never thought about their mortality before, they thought about it then, being as small as ants in a world so vast that it could suck them up before anyone could notice.  The twinkling stars and the full moon in the sky looked close enough for the men to reach out and touch, and the ground so infinite below looked like it was a million miles away while they dwelled somewhere in the middle of this world and the next. 

Brett stood by the opening, hitting each man on his back as they plunged out into the night in a free fall. 

They looked angelic as they fell from the heavens under the moonlight, but in fact, they were trained killers,
the whole lot of them
, going to do the government’s bidding. 

With a nod toward the Birdman, Brett prepared in his own way.  Checking his gear and his lucky watch, he clasped the sides of the entryway with his gloved fingers, looked out at the vast world below him, imagined his family back home, and made the unreturnable leap toward danger.

With his arms splayed wide, he cut through the thin clouds in a perfect arch, feeling his body become one with the air.  His massive, brawny frame, while formidable on land, dropped through the atmosphere like penny off a tower. 

Balancing himself out, he fell hundreds of feet before he checked his wrist detector and pulled the rip cord on his parachute when he had reached the right altitude.

The parachute exploded open violently, giving him a small familiar jolt as he navigated it down into darkness. 

Brett bent his knees before his boots hit the ground.  Dust billowed up around him while his feet crunched dry soil below.  The sound of a perfect landing was always a welcomed one. 

Releasing himself from the parachute, he pulled his earpieces from inside of his tactical gear and knelt in a crouched position to look around.

It was dead silent around him. No motion. No lights.  No people.

“Check in Bulldog Team,” he said, listening as all the men sounded off on their tactical communications equipment.  All five men were right around him, but with no light, they were nearly impossible to see, save the light coming off some of the men’s tactical watches.  He waited while his eyes naturally adjusted to the night. 

As soon as his voice registered on the radio, the Command Center back at the base went live.  Captain Lawless, who had been leaning on his desk, glaring impatiently at the blank wall of monitors, popped up and put his coffee mug down.

“Bulldog Four to Nest, we are live.  I repeat, Bulldog Team is live,” Brett said, just below a whisper as the men gathered closely; ready to move on the Captain’s command.

“Do we have eyes on our men yet?” Captain Lawless asked, glaring at his Comms Specialist. 

The young Specialist quickly averted his eyes to the monitor while the screen in front of them linked to the satellite and produced a night vision picture.  “We are live, sir,” the young man said, typing into his computer.

Captain Lawless turned to his second-in-command but did not bother to look him in the eye.  “Get the General now,” he ordered, taking a wide stance in the middle of the floor and watching the operation from the body cameras installed on each man. 

This was what Captain Lawless did best.  In this command room, he was a warrior, a strategist and a swift hand for the U. S. Marine Corps.  The sudden pride that always overcame him made him want to sing
God Bless America
, but for now, he would just settle for kicking some ass. 

“Zoom into Bulldog Four,” Captain Lawless said flatly. He slipped on his earpiece to communicate with the team.   “Bulldog Four, we have eyes.  Satellite says you’re good to go.  Proceed.”

Slipping on his night vision googles, Brett wiped sweat from his brow.  “Copy that,” he said, making a knife hand motion for the men to advance toward the house. 

They humped fast and low, but still paying attention the entire time to the ground, making sure to avoid possible land mines. 

When they arrived to the house, which sat down in the valley, they surveilled their surroundings.  The back of the house was surrounded by an elevated hill with a steep incline.  It was perfect for them to take initial cover and monitor the surroundings. Plus, the view spanned out at least a mile out down the dirt road. 

Exactly 10 under trained insurgents were guarding the perimeter, all carrying AK-47s.  None of them looked too formidable, a possible walk in the park for the sniper, Bear, who had already taken his position. 

Each one of Brett’s men had a specific talent, but Rusty was special at crawling fast. His tall lean body could slide against any surface like a snake.  Moving toward the two-story white washed house as soon as the guards had moved out sight, Rusty made his way to the side of the house and stuck a listening device on the exterior wall.

As Rusty made it back to his position up on the hill, Captain Lawless tapped his ear and raised a brow.  “We have sound, Bulldog Four,” he confirmed to Brett. 

The Marine Corps Farsi translator listened in through the device and typed the conversation going on in the house into a system that showed up on one of the large monitors in front of Captain Lawless in English,
although the Captain prided himself in reading Farsi just fine.

Evidently based upon the insurgents’ conversation between each other, they were exhausted and hungry from packing all day and were anxious to move to their new location tonight.  The Intel had been correct.  This was the team’s last chance to get life-saving information. 

With his sniper rifle pointed directly at three men congregating on the opposite corner of the house, Bear slipped his finger carefully near the trigger and locked in on them.

Captain Lawless watched on from the men’s body cameras as well as the satellite above the house.  “Wait,” he said abruptly. The cameras zoomed in to the moving object coming toward the op. “You’ve got a vehicle approaching.  It’s about two miles from you.”

One of Captain Lawless’ men passed him a large black and white picture in a file. He quickly scanned it and looked back at the monitor translating the men as they talked inside of the house.

Throwing the file down on the desk, Captain Lawless licked his lips and cracked his fingers.  “The vehicle approaching may be Nabi.  Don’t move in until you have a visual confirmation that it is, and he is inside of the house.”

“Check,” Brett responded. 

The tension intensified immediately.  They all knew that it was a possibility that the target could show, but now the second layer of the mission rolled out in front of them.  Nabi was a target that the Marine Corps wanted alive.  This meant this just elevated to a snatch-and-grab operation. 

Brett took a deep breath and leaned his body against the hill.  “Bulldog Three get closer to the road to give me a visual on just how many people are in that vehicle,” he said calmly. 

“Copy,” a voice said.

Not even a minute later, a tattered off-road Range Rover came down the dirt road blasting high-beam lights.  As it passed, Joe radioed in.  “It appears to be a man and a boy. I repeat - we have a civilian.”

“Motherfucker!” Brett snarled. 

Taking out his binoculars, Brett zoomed in on the truck as it pulled toward the front of the house.  A man in his mid-to-late 30s with a short beard and traditional Afghan dress stepped out of the truck.  Guards met him and helped bring empty crates into the house from the back of the truck.  A young boy barely seven years old jumped out of the passenger seat and followed his father. 

Captain Lawless didn’t blink.  Watching the monitors carefully, he read the conversation between the men as the translator relayed it to the monitor. 

A tall, stately graying General walked into the war room and strode over to Captain Lawless’ side.  With a nod to acknowledge the General’s presence, Captain Lawless focused in on his men.  Now was not the time for ass kissing.  He had lives to protect and a mission to complete.

“What’s the status?” the General asked, taking a file passed to him by the First Lieutenant. 

“We are active on the site.  Nabi has just arrived with his son,” Captain Lawless reported.

The General’s eye twitched.  “Good.  Well, let’s get him back to the base and get some answers.”

“Yes, sir,” Captain Lawless answered, rolling his shoulders. 

On the other end of the radio, Brett waited patiently.  He knew that with additional people involved, especially a child, the Command Center would want to weigh their options before moving forward. 

Crossing his arms across his wide chest, Captain Lawless released a deep breath. “Move in.”

As soon as Brett heard Captain Lawless’ voice, he was up on the hill.  “Move, move,” he said quietly over the radio.

On cue, Bear took a deep breath and as he exhaled, pulled the trigger three times.  Each man standing outside fell, knees buckling under them, into the dirt before they knew what hit him.  As far as Bear was concerned, it was the most painless way to go.

Another unsuspecting insurgent moved out of the darkness into the light when he heard the thud of bodies dropping and was hit dead between the eyes by one of Bear’s bullets before he could even process that they were being attacked. His blood splattered against the wall as he fell backward without dropping his gun. 

“I could do this shit all day,” Bear said to himself.  He scanned the perimeter for other possible threats as the men moved in. 

Brett and his team advanced down the hill swiftly in a two-by-two formation. Muzzles up, they surrounded the house while Bear picked off more men from his position.

Kicking open the front door, Rusty threw a flash grenade into the house and moved back to the side with his team to take cover.  “Fire in the hole!” he screamed.

The explosion was instant and effective.  The men inside, completely disoriented, grabbed their ears, ran into the walls due to temporary blindness or dropped to the ground to take cover.

“Bulldog Four, take Nabi alive,” Captain Lawless reminded them with his hands planted on his hips.  He had to will himself not to show the emotion that was overwhelming him at that moment. Since Brett had married his sister, the relationship between him and his brother-in-law had become more complicated, especially ever since the baby had been born.  It wasn’t enough for him to be responsible for six military men; he was also responsible for his sister’s entire family, including his new little niece, who was ever-present in the back of his mind.