“Alpha has a good view from the roof across the street,” reported the team leader.
“Bravo ready,” reported the other team leader.
Moving through the new arrivals, their eyes wide with surprise and fear at the sight of Killer and Slade armed to the teeth, they chose a window inside the small front bedroom. It was just to the right of the front door. Slade went to the south side of the window, opening the curtains just enough so that he got a good view of the yard and the street.
He could hear the ISIS group approaching, and then he saw them, advancing south toward the house. They were either undisciplined or more likely they feared nothing from the villagers. They were talking and yelling but they weren’t paying any attention to their flanks or the rooftops. Every door and window was closed. The fear was palpable.
The first few terrorists pointed at the house and crossed over the yard to the door. Slade caught only a little of what they were saying, but the AK-47’s made their intentions clear. Before they got to the door Sulla opened it and met them outside holding the Quran.
“You’re hiding some of the Shia swine in your home,” one of them said tritely. “Give them up; it’s no use hiding them.”
“By this holy book you shall not have them!” Sulla told them firmly, holding up the Quran. “They are Muslim, loyal to Allah, why are you pursuing them? What wrong have they done you?”
“They are Shia dogs, do we need another reason?” said the first.
A second terrorist motioned at Sulla with his rifle, and said, “Bring them outside. We will shoot them and be on our way; we have many more to track down tonight. Do it quickly or it will mean trouble for you and your family, not just the Shia!”
CHAPTER 4: It only Gets Worse
The ISIS terrorists were insistent, but Sulla stood his ground waving the Quran in their faces. “I cannot give up my guests! They are Muslims. They sought my aid in good faith. I would be violating all we hold dear.”
“They are going to die!” the terrorist told him firmly, motioning his men forward, shouting to two of them, “Go around back and see that none escape.”
Two of the terrorists headed around the corner of the house to the back door. Slade heard Killer whisper in his mike, “Bravo, two Tangos coming to you — quietly!”
“Bravo!”
As the rest of the ISIS party approached the front door, Sulla tried desperately to bribe them. That caught the terrorist’s attention. “They are a middle aged man, his young son, wife and three girls; what possible threat could they be to you? I will pay for their safety!”
The terrorists talked it over amongst themselves. While they did so Slade heard Bravo team report in a matter-of-fact way, “Tangos are down.”
At that moment the ISIS party made their decision. Four terrorists pushed past Sulla and forced the door open. They were met by screams and shouts. The head terrorist told Sulla, “We will take your money for the lives of the woman and girls. They will satisfy my men, but we will let them live. The man and boy we will shoot!”
“You cannot shoot the boy!” Sulla objected, tearing at his beard. “How can you say such a thing; he is only fourteen!”
“We have fighters already his age,” the ISIS terrorist said, yanking Sulla out of the way as his men shoved open the door. “Besides, what do you care; he is Shia? Do you have some love for these dogs?”
Slade heard yelling in the next room, screams from the women and girls, and guttural curses from the ISIS thugs. Calm and cool, Killer’s voice came over his headset, “Easy boys, no one makes a move until they get outside and we have a clear line of fire. I don’t want a firefight inside the residence with all these women and girls — steady now. Shooter’s got the triggermen. Everyone on his mark!”
The KRISS Super-V was already steadied in the corner of the window. The room behind him was dark, so Slade was invisible to those outside. He had a perfect view of the entire area in front of the house through his red-dot sight. It wasn’t a scope, but Slade didn’t need one at twenty meters. He could have placed a round up the lead bastard’s nose without leaving a mark.
The ISIS terrorists dragged the man and boy outside. The father was pleading for the life of his son. The boy was skinny and gangly at that age; awkward and stumbling. He was in shock. His eyes were round and staring at the ground, not registering what was happening. For Slade, his deep seated rage turned him to ice — everything slowed down — he was in complete control. The entire scene unfolded as if he were a movie director editing the film, frame-by-frame, picking his time and his spot.
The boy was thrust to his shaking knees, falling almost prone before the ISIS scum yanked him viciously upward, shouting, “On your knees boy! I want your father to see you die!”
The father’s voice was one long drawn out wail. Every pair of ISIS eyes looked at the boy, lusting for the slaughter of the innocent. A short rumble of automatic fire split the night air. It was just a burst, a split second long, and the boy flinched, his hands spasmodically jerking toward the back of his head as a spray of blood splattered over him.
The blood erupted from a ragged hole in the ISIS thug’s face. Three forty-five caliber slugs slammed through the sweaty, greasy flesh at the narrow isthmus of the uni-brow, punching into the festering, diseased brain and blowing out the back of his skull. The material not exiting the crater in the terrorist’s head sloshed back forward in a fountain of blood and chewed up brains, exiting through the hole like sludge from a sewer pipe.
Before the terrorist’s knees began to buckle, Slade had already shifted his sights to the ISIS thug holding the father. The KRISS finished its slight recoil, bucking up almost imperceptibly thanks to its delayed blowback mechanism. He centered on the shocked expression of the terrorist and pumped three bullets right up his nose.
The terrorist’s head snapped back, certainly breaking his neck, and he collapsed like a rag doll, dropping his pistol. The father reacted instinctively, leaping across the space and tackling his son, smothering the boy beneath his own body to protect him from the incoming hail of bullets.
That fire came swift and deadly.
To his consternation, Slade didn’t have an opportunity to get in another shot. The Deltas were strikingly efficient and deadly, dropping the other eight terrorists in short, concentrated bursts of fire. The firefight was over in seconds. When the last body dropped to the ground Killer’s calm voice penetrated Slade’s earpiece.
“Alpha is everyone down?”
“No more Tangos,” Alpha said calmly.
“All right,” Killer said tersely, “let’s get these bodies in the back. We don’t want ISIS to know any of this happened.”
Slade walked back out to the front room. Both families were huddled together, sobbing, praying; happy to be alive but frayed. As the Deltas dragged the bodies out back, Sulla was already speaking to Killer, his voice still heavy with excitement.
“When ISIS finds out these men were killed here they will slaughter everyone in the village — everyone!”
“Now Sulla, we’ll put them in the desert,” Kincaid told him. “No one will find them for days — if ever. You’re going to have to bug out by then anyway.”
Sulla argued that his neighbors would have to face the repercussions, but surprisingly it was one of the neighbors who provided a solution. He’d watched the firefight from his window and hurried over to Sulla’s afterwards, afraid for the same reasons.
“I drove from the village north of us today, just ahead of the ISIS dogs. There is a place only a few kilometers from here on the road where we can get rid of the bodies,” he said eagerly. “No one will ever know they attacked our village and died.”