1 - SHEPARDS AND GOATS

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Damn, that fucking hurts! Jack screamed to himself.

It was his fault really. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been screaming out loud, the machine guns were drowning out anything but hand and arm signals. Red hot 7.62 x 51mm spent brass spilled down Jack’s shirt, causing him to jump and squirm in a desperate attempt to fish out the shell casings before they went too deep.

He was lying prone in a small rock outcropping just east of the objective. Jack had spent the last four days reconnoitering this location. He knew exactly where he was going to place the guns. He’d decided days ago that this was the perfect spot to Objective Spike. He just hadn’t expected there to be so much shooting when he’d decided where he was going to lay in relation to the guns. M240s can spit some real hate when they get cooking. And they were cooking now. But he wasn’t thinking about that four days ago.

He’d spent those preceding four days on hard routine. Jack and his team had been dropped off in the valley to the east and humped nearly twenty klicks over the ridgeline before dropping down into a hide site nestled between a small wadi and some scrub brush about halfway up the mountain. It was a good spot to hunker down in. The wadi had been carved by thousands of years of geology into a perfect little hole to hide eight guys. Even with the 120 pounds of gear each man carried in overstuffed rucksacks, there was plenty of room for what they needed. The scrub brush gave just enough concealment for their SATCOM antennas, and you could almost convince yourself that shitting into a plastic bag wasn’t completely exposed to the whole team. It was nasty, but not totally exposed. The jagged crook in the wadi had looked promising on the overhead imagery they’d used during planning, and it turned out better than expected. A little camo netting overhead and it was near perfect.

This was no ordinary target development. Jack and the team had spent nearly a full week planning for every possible contingency. The Task Force commander had been clear. “Boys, there’s some shit going on in that compound and you’re going to find out what it is and how to stop it. These IEDs are kicking our ass and the S-2 thinks this compound is connected.” So Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 3314 was tasked with conducting Special Reconnaissance on a compound assessed to be a waypoint bringing foreign fighters and bombmaking materials into eastern Afghanistan. That wasn’t all that uncommon in this part of the beleaguered country, but this compound also seemed to have lots of traffic going the other way, back into Pakistan. That meant there was something more going on, so ODA 3314 was tasked with finding out what that something more was.

The compound looked like most of the others they’d dealt with before this mission. Walled compounds made with thick mud dotted the countryside. “Mud” doesn’t really do it justice though. It is mud, but it’s as tough as concrete when it’s built right. Some of these walls have stood for a century or longer. These particular walls seemed a touch higher than most. Maybe twelve feet all around. The compound was also larger than most, with an expansive central courtyard and what almost seemed like another prominent courtyard off to the side, with a fairly large building near the middle. Mikey, Jack’s Intel Sergeant, had assessed that it was probably a barn, although they’d never seen any animals on the imagery.

They’d gotten an MQ-1 Predator to do a slow orbit one period of darkness, POD, which is what operators call night, and saw lots of foot traffic in and out of the “barn,” but no animals. That was one of the things they prioritized getting eyes on once they set up the hide site in the wadi and started their reconnaissance patrols closer to the target. That’s when Jack found the rock outcropping that was now torturing him.

After infil the first night, he’d spent the next POD with Ray-Ray snooping around the likely avenues of approach to the objective. Jack watched Ray-Ray come up the slope and marveled, not for the first time, at how a man that size could move like that. No sound. No wasted motion. Just a ghost drifting uphill through the scrub.

He’d noticed it the first time they’d gone out to the woodline by Mott Lake back at Bragg. Jack had been walking point and Ray trailed him, watching. After about a klick Ray tapped him on the shoulder and they stopped.

“You’re walkin’ on your toes,” Ray had said quietly. “Roll through your heel. Better weight distribution. Less noise.”

Jack had thought that was backwards. Every instinct said tiptoe when you’re trying to be quiet. But Ray was right. Within a week Jack had stopped snapping every dry twig in Harnett County.

Ray had grown up hunting the foothills of the Appalachians and it showed in everything he did in the field. He taught Jack to move his eyes instead of his head, to use peripheral vision rather than turning toward movement. Game picked up on that kind of thing. So did bad guys. Before long the two of them were walking right up on deer grazing in the woodline without so much as a lifted head from the animals.

They’d nearly gotten a wild boar out in Nevada during a training rotation in terrain that looked uncomfortably like where they were right now. The restricted fire zone around the Area 51 range at the Nevada Test Site had been the only thing standing between Ray-Ray and what he still insisted would have been a two-boar morning.

Now, watching him materialize silently out of the darkness below the outcropping, Jack felt the familiar mix of admiration and mild embarrassment. Ray-Ray made him sound like a bull in a china shop and they both knew it. But Jack was better for having learned from him, and out here, in this kind of darkness, on this kind of ground, that wasn’t nothing. Ray eased up beside him without a word, settled into position, and peered down toward the compound. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.

It was almost another stroll in the park when Jack and Ray set out that first POD to get eyes on the compound. They stalked their way down the mountain while two other S/O teams, Surveillance and Observation, from 3314 scooted south along their own lines of drift. When Jack popped out onto the outcropping he knew he’d found his spot. A mountain back-drop prevented any silhouette, they had good visibility both to their rear and toward the compound, and they had a perfect line of sight to the barn. They immediately started recording. They had the usual complement of night vision goggles and optics mounted to their M4A1s. The recce mission meant they weren’t wearing helmets, so running goggles on the move wasn’t as convenient. But with nearly forty percent illumination from the moonlight, navigating the craggy mountainside wasn’t too bad. From the outcropping, the compound almost seemed to glow.

Jack and Ray-Ray also had some new tech with them. They’d been testing thermal optics provided by the guys at the Group Training Det, and it was perfect for this mission. SOCOM had been pushing RTD&E to its limits and the boys at the pointy end of the spear were the beneficiaries. The FLIR ThermoSight Pro PTS536 thermal imaging scope was a little too big to mount on their rifles, but on a small handheld tripod it was damn near perfect. With 6x zoom and a full terabyte of onboard HD recording, it was capturing everything on this side of the barn and then some. They couldn’t quite get a line of sight into the barn despite the largewindow openings on the front. That struck Jack as odd. Most barns in these mud compounds didn’t have many windows. They could see the windows, but not through them. That’s one limitation of most thermals — they can’t see through drapes.

Maybe drapes isn’t the right word, but there was something covering the windows and they could see it flutter occasionally when the cool breeze picked up. That was the first thing that got their attention. The drapes, or whatever they were, kept getting caught on something in the windows. The windows were fairly large, maybe three feet high and six or seven feet wide, and set a little higher than most, but there wasn’t much in the way of building code enforcement out here in the hinterland. It wasn’t until a couple of hours of recording, both on the thermal scope’s hard drive and in scribbled notes, diagrams, and azimuths in his trusty Rite-in-the-Rain notebook, that Ray- Ray started monkeying with the scope.

It was a pretty advanced piece of kit and you could cycle through all sorts of settings, zoom in and out, adjust picture contrast and hue, but it wasn’t until Ray flipped it to “Black Hot” mode that they saw it. In the default “White Hot” mode it hadn’t really registered, but with all the adjustments Ray was inputting there was no mistaking it now.

“What the fuck is that?” Ray muttered.

Jack looked over at him, just a few inches away. “Whatcha got, brother?”

“I don’t think that’s a barn, man.”

“What makes you say that?” Jack whispered back.

“‘Cause I ain’t never seen no barn with bars on thewindows. Take a look.”

Sure as shit, the “Black Hot” image was pretty clear. There were bars in the windows. That’s what kept snagging the drapes in the wind. Jack scooted up behind the rubber eyepiece to get a clearer look.

“Damn, those are definitely bars. And if they’re registering in the thermal they’re probably metal, there wouldn’t be enough thermal variance to show up otherwise.”

“You only put bars like that on something to keep people out,” Ray drawled.

“Or to keep something in,” Jack noted. “That’s why we haven’t seen any animals. There aren’t any. That’s a cell.”

***

“SHEPHERD, this is Goat 1 — acknowledged. I copy, remain in place. Maintain eyes on. Relief comes next POD.”

“Goat, Shepherd. Roger that. Advise significant movement only and don’t get caught. Shepherd out.”

The AN/PRC 152 went silent. Jack glanced at Ray-Ray, who was way too close given his Copenhagen and morning breath. Disgusting habit, but nothing kept Ray from his vice, especially after a full night up. He needed the nicotine.

“Yeah, no shit don’t get caught,” Ray drawled. “Looks like we’re hunkering down. You’ve got first watch.”

This was no big deal. The best case scenario had always been that the three recce teams, Goat 1, 2, and 3, would get eyes on the compound during the night and return to the wadi to wait until the next POD to resume their watch. But the Detach-ment Commander, Captain Shepherd, was right to keep them in place. The discovery of the bars, and the assessment that the barn was actually some sort of holding cell, had triggered one of those contingencies the team had always planned for.

That’s what makes Green Berets so effective, not just toughness, but the ability to plan. Physical fitness was a prerequisite screened for in Selection, and every Green Beret was fit. But so were other special operators. What set Green Berets apart was that they were expert planners. Nothing was left to chance. When they went into Isolation to plan a mission they emerged relentlessly prepared, with a PACE, primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency, plan for every possible event. It was a running joke that every time a SEAL team had a snafu they got a book deal and a motion picture. When that. stuff happened to an SF A-Team you got a battle drill and a continued mission. No drama. They had a plan. That’s what Green Berets do.

Spending the day in the rock outcropping was just another contingency they’d planned for. Jack and Ray-Ray didn’t need Captain Shepherd, hence the Goat and Shepherd callsigns, to remind them not to get caught, but he was a good team leader so they gave him the benefit of the doubt. They had food, water, and plenty of Copenhagen to stay put without much issue.

Confirming the barn’s true purpose was the priority now. The Captain was undoubtedly cranking up a message to burst out to the Task Force Tactical Operations Center as they settled in. The weather was cooperating, the comms window would be solid, and their report was almost certain to generate significant attention from the old man. Colonel Mitchell, commander of TF 161, to which SFODA 3314 was assigned, had a way of getting what he wanted. And this discovery was sure to make him want more. What had begun as a fishing expedition had just landed a big catch.

With the sun now peeking into the valley, Jack could use his URG-1 mounted Leupold Mk6 to get eyes on the objective. The two-point sling was critical so it didn’t interfere with going prone. Weapons and gear were hand-picked for functionality and teams were given latitude to customize for mission requirements. With the sun at his back he didn’t have to worry about flash, the kind that could glint off the glass and compromise his position, so he settled in to figure out what was in that barn while Ray-Ray caught some shut-eye. One of the first rules you learn as a young Green Beret is to sleep whenever you can. Even quick combat naps can keep you going in a pinch, and this mission promised to keep them busy. So Ray, despite a fat upper lip full of Cope, was already nodding off as Jack made another note in his notebook.

He stayed awake taking notes and checking his watch often. He was once again struck by how well it held up out here. He’d gifted himself the Resco Instruments Gen II Patriot after his second deployment. He’d used his first deployment’s tax-free earnings for the down payment on his house, and his second for the watch and a used truck. Most guys were buying Rolexes, but Jack was function over form. The Rolex was a great watch, but the Resco was a quarter of the price of some of the bracelets the boys were eyeing. And Jack liked the rugged good looks of his wrist candy.

By mid-morning Jack was starting to fade. There wasn’t much going on in the compound, and lying prone seems easy until you’re about ten hours into it. It really doesn’t matter how fit you are, and Jack was fitter than most, the head is a heavy weight in that position. So when Ray finally stirred, Jack was eager to swap. No need to shift positions in the LP/OP, too much movement was bound to make staying hidden a challenge. Instead Ray just shifted slightly, pissed into his purpose-made Gatorade bottle tactical bedpan, and took up the watch.

Jack gave him a quick brief on the intermittent foot traffic to and from the barn but no real read on what was inside. It was clearly something, but the fact that most of the traffic was women suggested it wasn’t anything particularly dangerous or critical. Afghan women weren’t trusted with that sort of thing, and the Taliban commander suspected to own this compound, Fasil al-Bilza’i, aka High Value Target Number Two, wasn’t known for his progressive views on gender. Bomb making, yes. Women’s rights, not so much. So it was something, just not likely something critical.

By mid-afternoon both Jack and Ray were up and scanning. Ray had just finished squeezing a cold beef stew MRE main meal packet into his mouth. Jack, despite his long history with MREs, simply could not comprehend how Ray did that. Jack found MREs disgusting even when heated and properly seasoned with the little bottle of Tabasco that came in every pouch. He’d found a way to make it through the entirety of Ranger School without eating a single main meal, trading them to other guys for crackers, cheese, or peanut butter. Roughly the same calories, none of the chemical aftertaste. Ray-Ray, on the other hand, found them delectable and was always eager to demonstrate his affection for the foil-packaged meals by squeezing them cold into his mouth while Jack protested beside him. This meant Jack kept his own provisions, a rotation of protein bars, in his kit. His current offering was a cookies-and-cream bar pushing fifty grams of protein. Just what the doctor ordered. It’s amazing what a little nap and a snack can do for you on hard routine. So Jack and Ray-Ray were feeling pretty good when they spotted movement near the barn.

A gate into the courtyard swung open and three women appeared. The lead woman carried what looked like a basket covered with a cloth, and the two behind her carried a large metal pot with cloth wrapped around the handles. A hot meal, by the look of it. A large one, judging by the size of the basket and pot. They watched as the women set their loads down in front of the central door and disappeared inside, emerging shortly after with a stack of metal bowls about two feet high. They looked like dog bowls, though it was hard to tell at this distance. What was clear was that it was feeding time. Jack and Ray counted as the women served and shuttled bowls into the barn.

Jack counted twenty-seven. Ray insisted it was twenty-eight. Whatever the number, it was obviously a significant operation. One woman scooped a serving from the pot into each bowl, a second laid a piece of bread from the basket on top, and the third shuttled them inside and returned for more. It took about ten minutes, with the women ducking in occasionally to tend to whatever was in the barn. At one point one of them came out with a bucket, maybe two gallons, and swapped it with several others lined up below one of the windows. When they finished they collected the pot, the basket, and the extra buckets and headed back across the courtyard. Jack and Ray both noted that they didn’t appear to lock the door on their way out. So whatever was behind those bars wasn’t locked up in the way you’d expect a cell to be.

The sun was setting behind the western ridge when a small convoy of ragged Toyota Hilux trucks came into view. From their position they could see the road leading to the compound, so Ray got on the radio to alert the others. Goat 2 had returned to the hide site in the wadi, but Goat 3 had stayed forward, though further back than Jack and Ray-Ray.

“Goat 3, Goat 1. Five Vics inbound. Unknown pax. Looks like the barn just had feeding time,” Ray transmitted quietly.

“1, 3. Copy. Saw the three women, couldn’t see them once they reached the barn.”

“Shepherd, this is 1, you copy?”

The radio static broke squelch twice, the universal brevity signal for “affirmative.”

“Looks like the Captain is learning,” Jack chuckled.

Ray, the team’s 18E, Special Forces Communications Sergeant, had taken particular interest in teaching the young officer the finer points of comms, including radio discipline and brevity. The Taliban weren’t known to have any radio direction- finding capability, but Ray wasn’t one to get caught off guard. Captain Shepherd was redeeming himself after the morning’s unnecessary reminder. Ray smiled slightly, packed another wad of Copenhagen into his upper lip, and resumed his position behind his rifle scope to monitor the incoming convoy.

As Jack got the thermal scope into position ahead of the rapidly fading light, Ray-Ray watched the convoy pull up to the compound and pause as the gate opened. Two men, young but not quite boys, came out and had a brief exchange with the lead driver before waving them in. The trucks pulled through and combat parked, all of them backing into spots in the corner of the compound. It was large enough to easily accommodate the convoy, and the disciplined practice of combat parking made clear that these weren’t family visiting wayward cousins. They counted as fifteen passengers climbed out, and while the dwindling light didn’t give Ray much detail through his scope, Jack could make out on the thermal imager that every one of them was carrying a rifle. The silhouette of the AK series was hard to mistake.

Most of the men disappeared into one of the buildings in the main courtyard while two began offloading cargo from one of the trucks into another building, what ODA 3314 had designated as Building 6. Jack couldn’t tell what they were unloading, but it was a full truckload of whatever it was. When they finished they joined the others in the largest building. There was dim light at the door when it opened and smoke rising from a chimney in the corner of the roof, but Jack couldn’t get a read on what was happening inside. A meeting, no doubt. But what kind? And with whom?

***

THE SUN WAS FULLY down and the moon hadn’t yet risen. It was dark and quiet and nothing had moved in the compound since the convoy arrived when the radio in Ray’s pouch cracked to life.

“Goat 1, Goat 2. We’re about 300 meters behind you.”

Ray smiled at Mikey’s voice. It was time to swap out recce teams and it couldn’t come soon enough. Ray was down to his last pinch of Copenhagen. Three full cans hadn’t lasted nearly as long as he’d expected, and he was ready to get back to the hide site and the full log of tins in his ruck.

“2, 1. Roger. We’ve got a firefly out for you,” Ray whispered.

Jack had stayed on the thermal scope while Ray used the cover of darkness to slip out the back of the LP/OP and place a small infrared marker to guide in the relief. It wasn’t technically a Firefly, that was a specific type of infrared strobe that attached to a nine-volt battery and threw a light signature visible for miles. What Ray placed was a Cejay Phoenix Jr. 123 IR Beacon in a nylon shroud, directional and visible no further than about 100 meters. No sense in broadcasting a bigger signature than necessary, even if the Taliban didn’t have night vision. Just like with his radio procedures, Ray wasn’t about to throw caution to the wind. Maybe a SEAL would. Getting compromised wasn’t part of his plan.

Just as Ray set down his radio, Jack whispered.

“We’ve got movement. Building 5, three pax. Headed for the other courtyard.”

The radio came to life.

“1, 3. You seeing this?”

Ray keyed the mike twice.

Jack narrated quietly as he watched the men cross the compound, pause to take what appeared to be a long collective piss, then pass through the gate into the barn courtyard. They made their way to the building and began fumbling around in front of one of the windows. Jack watched as they stacked a few buckets into a rough platform and climbed up. They were peering into the window, and then one of them reached up and grabbed the drape and yanked it down.

As Jack watched the cloth fall away he heard Mikey and John scraping their way up to the outcropping. He kept his eyes in the scope as heat signatures appeared in the window. They rose slowly into the opening and began forming shapes.

“What is that?” he wondered aloud.

Bobbing heads. Donkeys maybe?

Ray turned toward the relief party as Jack suddenly understood what he was seeing. The blobs coalesced into human heads and he was certain of it when a mass of arms, human arms, shot through the bars, grasping at the men on the bucket platform. They tumbled off and bolted out of the courtyard.

Jack was stunned.

“Holy shit! What the fuck is that!” He caught himself before he got too loud. He watched in something close to horror as the arms and heads continued to reach through the window, clearly visible in the thermal scope. The door never moved.

“What is it?” Ray whispered.

Jack hesitated, then said quietly, “You’re not going to believe this, but it looks like fucking zombies.”

Mikey, who had stealthily taken up position beside Jack and was pressing himself behind the scope, whispered, “Jack, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Jack pointed at the eyepiece. “You tell me, Mr. Intel.”

Mikey pressed his eye to the rubber eyepiece, leaned in slightly, and whispered back, “Well shit. Those aren’t fucking donkeys, that’s for sure.”

***

BACK AT THE HIDE SITE, Jack leaned against his rucksack, took a long pull from his canteen, and sighed. “Look, Cappy, I know I’m smoked but I’m not crazy. I saw some shit and it wasn’t animals. That’s not a barn, and whatever they’re keeping in there behind bars eats and has arms and a head. I’m not saying it’s zombies. I’m saying it looked like zombies. Mikey saw it too.”

“I got you, Jack. I see the images. That thermal scope is pretty good. It definitely looks human. Let me get this packaged up for transmission. Our window is coming up and I’m not quite sure what the response is going to be when they see this.”

Captain Shepherd, despite his limited combat experience, was a solid team leader. ODA 3314 had been selected for this mission in part because of the reputation he’d quickly built. But he wasn’t about to send up a report of Taliban zombies. Nobody would send that report. So he did what all good officers do. He asked his NCOs.

Master Sergeant Devonte Cash was a good NCO to ask. With eighteen years in, there wasn’t much he couldn’t work through. He’d been extended a third year as Team Sergeant of 3314 specifically to mentor Captain Shepherd into a proper Green Beret through this deployment.

“Cash, what say you? What do I do with this?”

MSG Cash took his signature extended pause, looked Captain Shepherd in the eyes, and said, “Cap’n, you don’t do anything but send that video up and report what we saw. Not what we think we saw. What we saw. Trucks, pax numbers, weapons types, enemy activity. Just say ‘suspected prisoners.’ Let the video do the talking.”

“What do you think it is, Cash?”

“Fuck if I know, Cap’n. But I know what it ain’t. And so do you. Jack and Ray-Ray just did twenty-four hours on hard routine. They’re tired. They’ve got tired eyes. Talk to Mikey directly before you make any decisions. Send the video and the text report and let the old man decide what he wants from us.”

“Alright. That sounds like a plan. Thanks, Cash.”

“We’re good, Cap’n. We’ve got eyes on the target and we’re collecting. Let the head shed figure the rest of it out.”

Captain Shepherd crawled over to Ray-Ray, who had taken up position in front of the Panasonic Toughbook and was just closing out the report.

“Alright, Cappy. It’s all set. Just the facts. Big file so it’ll be a long burst, but we’re in the window. Say the word.”

“Send it, Ray. Let’s get this done.”

Ray leaned into the screen, dragged the file into the transmit window, and clicked send. The AN/PRC 117G flashed briefly then went silent. Ray watched the screen until the receipt message bounced back.

“Now we wait,” Ray said, offering Captain Shepherd a pinch from his freshly opened tin.

“Now we wait,” Captain Shepherd muttered, waving it off.

2 - FRAGO

The Ready Room was empty except for a skeleton early morning crew. The night Battle Captain had dutifully compiled the previous night’s reports, high lighted the key issues, and had the video ODA 3314 sent queued up on the big screen. He wanted the boss to see it before the regular Commander’s Update Brief.

The CUB was usually scheduled for 0900 every day, the staff’s chance to report key activities to the commander, typically just the primary staff officers and a few stragglers. The SIG DET guys were huddled around the 3314 video up on one of the large side monitors, animatedly pointing at the scene unfolding on the screen.

“Where’s Captain Warren?” Colonel Mitchell half-barked.

The soldiers around the monitor popped to attention and the senior sergeant on duty pointed to the Ready Room door.

“He’s got something pulled up for you in there, Sir.”

Colonel Mitchell walked in as Mike Warren was watching the video for what was clearly not the first time.

“What do you have, Mike?” the Task Force commander asked.

“Sir, we got a video from 3314. I’m still getting my head around it. The text of the message is in the briefing folder on the table.” Captain Warren gestured toward it. “I thought you’d want to see this before the CUB.”

Colonel Mitchell watched the video on the big monitor, leaning against the table, the folder sitting untouched beside him.

“What is that, Mike? What are we looking at here?”

“Sir, this is thermal video from 3314 on Objective Spike. Those new scopes are giving us great fidelity. I’m not sure what to make of it. Captain Shepherd didn’t elaborate much. He just reports ‘suspected prisoners, likely 28 in total.’ That’s the barn from the earlier reporting.”

Colonel Mitchell picked up the folder and scanned the message, appearing to read it through twice.

“Play that video again, Mike.”

“Yessir.” Captain Warren cued it up and hit play.

“What the fuck is that, Mike?”

“I was hoping you could tell me, Sir,” Captain Warren said flatly, watching the arms reach through the bars again.

“You’d better send up the balloon, Mike,” the Task Force 161 commander said. “All-hands, thirty minutes. Better get the

coffee ready.”

Captain Warren followed Colonel Mitchell out and went straight to the alert pagers. Looks like my shift just got extended, he thought.

***

COLONEL MITCHELL TURNED to the packed Ready Room.

“I don’t know what that is, but I know it’s not good. We have twelve hours until the next comms window to 3314, so you have eleven hours to get every ISR platform we can scrape together over Objective Spike. I want options and I need answers. Not speculation, answers. Get to work and tell me what wheels need greasing. This is priority number one until further notice. Make it happen.” He paused. “Captain Warren, I’ll be in my office.”

He walked out and left the staff staring at the big monitor.

***

JACK ROLLED BACK under his woobie. The venerable poncho liner, also known as the woobie, was a staple of any true soldier. The quilted polyester blanket was one of those pieces of kit that just worked. Jack had owned this one for at least a decade and this was its third rotation to Afghanistan. The boys liked to remind Captain Shepherd that their woobies had more combat time than he did. Jack was still smiling at that thought when Captain Shepherd nudged him awake.

“Rise and shine, Jack. You and Ray-Ray are on the clock. Check on Cash, then come find me for an update.”

“Fuck, already? What time is it?” Jack mumbled, glancing at his glowing watch. “And what’s wrong with Cash?”

“It’s time to go to work. And I don’t know what’s wrong with Cash. You’re the medic, you tell me.” Captain Shepherd shot

back.

Jack could hear the strain in his voice. It was too early to rotate back to the hide site and switch out with Mikey and John.

Better check on Cash first. Jack crawled over to where Cash was wiping down his weapon.

“What’s up, Cash. You call a doctor?” Jack said.

“I’m good, Jack. Just a little heartburn. Captain just got new orders so he’s a little amped up.”

“You still have those pills I gave you?” Jack asked quietly, glancing past the rucks toward the Captain hunched over the

laptop.

“Yeah, I’m good. Go get your update and get ready. I’m headed out with you and Ray tonight.”

That’s new, Jack thought. Cash headed out to the LP/OP? What’s got the Captain so worried?

He crawled over to Captain Shepherd’s position and saw a new overhead image of the objective pulled up on the laptop, not the same imagery from planning. This was fresh, with graphics overlaid on it.

“Cash is good to go, Captain. Just that heartburn. But why is he coming out with me and Ray-Ray?” Jack whispered.

“New orders from the Task Force. They’ve been saturating the objective with ISR since our report. They’re just as curious about what we saw as we are, and they moved everything they could get their hands on overhead. They got several SIGINT hits and we’re now priority number one. They think HVT 2 and 3 from the target list are on that compound. One-Five is planning a raid with the uplift platoon and we’re working up an assault plan. Cash is going up with you to confirm the support by fire position.”

One-Five was ODA 3315, the sister team to 3314. Jack’s team was a designated Special Reconnaissance team and the sister team was their Direct Action counterpart. Every ODA could execute the full range of missions, but specialty skills were the norm. 3315 were some shit-hot shooters and the uplift platoon brought serious firepower. A reinforced infantry platoon with a heavy weapons squad packed a lot of heat. Whatever the Task Force thought they’d found on Objective Spike had them very concerned.

Was it that video I took? Jack wondered.

“Okay, what’s the plan?” he asked.

“Take Cash up and show him around, relieve Mikey and Brad on Goat 2, and stay on overwatch while Cash comes back to help me plan the assault. The TF wants to move tomorrow night.”

Damn, that’s fast. Too fast. Jack thought.

“What are we doing during the assault?”

“Not sure yet, but you’re likely with the support by fire position and on call for medical coverage. For now just get Cash up

there.” Captain Shepherd said.

“Roger that. Don’t sweat it, Captain. One-Five is good at this and Cash won’t let you down. We’ll be ready.”

“Is it always this fucked up, Jack?” Captain Shepherd muttered.

“Oh, no Sir. We’re usually much more fucked up than this.”

Jack smirked and held out his fist.

“Oh good,” the Captain smiled and bumped back. “You’d better take your woobie. I’m not sure you’ll be coming back

here when this thing kicks off.”

“See you on the high ground then, Cap’n,” Jack whispered, and crawled back to his rucksack.

***

SHIT! Shit! Shit!

Damn, that fucking brass is hot.

Jack was digging into his shirt to fish out the spent shell casings. The last thirty-six hours had gone fast. They’d brought Cash up and he’d confirmed this was a perfect spot for a support by fire position — good visibility over almost the entire compound, with plunging fires that could isolate the separate courtyards and buildings.

One-Five and the uplift platoon had infiled at sundown. Cash and Captain Shepherd had guided all the assault elements into position. The Captain was with 3315 and a couple of squads from the uplift platoon while Cash had brought the weapons squad, three M240 medium machine guns. That’s what had Jack squirming. He and Ray each took a gun team into position and Cash took the third. The outcropping wasn’t quite big enough for everyone, so Jack had shifted off to the side where he could stay on the thermal scope to track the assault force moving across the compound while still communicating with the gun team leader.

The assault was on and the gun teams were eager. They didn’t get the chance to lay down fires like this very often and they wanted to do right by the Special Forces guys they looked up to. Being assigned to the uplift platoon was a double-edged sword. You got to hang out with cool guys and walk around with your hands in your pockets, but you rarely got much trigger time. So they were making the most of it and laying it on thick. The only problem for Jack was the steady shower of hot brass.

After shifting fires across the objective just ahead of the assault force, they finally got the call to lift. The gun teams swapped barrels and readied fresh belts in case they needed to lay down more, but the radio chatter on Jack’s chest rig suggested they wouldn’t. After fishing the last of the hot casings out of his shirt, Jack got back on the thermal and watched One-Five work.

In what could only be described as violent choreography, they systematically cleared each building, dragging occupants out to be zip-tied by the trailing uplift squads. In what seemed like mere minutes the first courtyard was secure. As the lead assault element from 3315 collapsed on the barn and kicked in the door, Jack watched them flow cleanly inside. They almost immediately stormed back out.

What the fuck makes those hard meat-eaters turn around like that? Jack wondered.

His radio cracked to life.

“Goat 1, this is Shepherd. We need another medic down here ASAP. Like, right now!”

The strain in the Captain’s voice was unmistakable.

“Jack, you and Ray-Ray haul ass. I’ll bring the guns up. Leave your ruck. Just take your aid bag and go!” Cash shouted

down to him.

Before Jack could even get to his feet Ray-Ray had him bythe arm and was pulling him up.

“Let’s go, Jack! That didn’t sound good. Follow me!” Ray scrambled off the rocks and Jack went after him.

They were moving in seconds, Ray twisting through the brush and rocks like a sure-footed mountain goat. In no time he had Jack, chest heaving, through the main gate, now guarded by an uplift squad.

“Shepherd, Goat 1. I’ve got Jack. Where do you need him?” Ray said into his radio without a trace of effort.

Damn, he’s barely even breathing, Jack noted jealously.

“Right to the barn, Ray. Bring him to the barn.” Captain Shepherd’s voice was steadier now, but only just.

“Damn, Jack, why you breathing so hard?” Ray chuffed, grabbing him by the collar and heading for the gate into the

barn courtyard.

As they approached the barn and the One-Five perimeter, the smell hit them first. It was like a barnyard, but worse. More human. The smell of suffering. Shit and sweat and something underneath that Jack couldn’t immediately place. You got pretty ripe after four days in a hide site, but this was different. Categorically worse. And because Jack was still gulping air from the sprint down off the outcropping, he couldn’t help but take in big lungfuls of it.

They jogged up to the One-Five Team Leader, Captain Myers, who pointed toward the door without a word.

“Shep’s in there. Brace yourself, fellas,” Myers choked out between gags.

Captain Shepherd pushed out through the door and retched at Jack’s feet. He straightened up and wiped his face with his shemagh.

Damn, that scarf would have been nice around my neck, Jack thought, still feeling the sting of the brass burns on his chest.

“Shit, sorry Jack,” Shepherd said between coughs.

“Cap’n, what the fuck is in there?” Jack choked out.

“It’s retards, Jack. They’re fucking torturing retards, those fucking savages.” He said it without a trace of humor.

Jack pulled his headlamp from around his neck and pushed it up onto his forehead, cycling to the brightest setting. He ducked through the door and the smell hit him like a wall. He’d thought it was bad outside. This was something else entirely. His 400-lumen headlamp swept across a scene from a horror movie.

The Captain was right. There were about two dozen, too many to count, retarded kids.

No, that’s not right. You can’t call them retarded, can you? The thought lasted half a second.

Shit. Get focused. Get clinical, Jack. He silently drove himself forward. Assess the situation and get to work.

He forced himself to look at the scene with a more detached eye. He’d worked mass casualty events before. His 18D refresher had included a rotation through a Baltimore trauma center, and one night he’d worked alongside a dozen nurses and doctors to stabilize nearly twenty gunshot victims of varying severity. An absolute bloodbath. He’d been the first provider on scene at a head-on collision that had destroyed a young family. A drunk in a lifted F-250 had compressed the car so completely you couldn’t even see the car seats under the crushed roof. He’d been in more than a few gunfights. But this was different.

The patients, yeah, that works, stay clinical, were shackled to the walls. Chains around their ankles. Some around their waists.

The heavy chains. That’s what gave them that zombie shamble I saw through the scope.

The patients were in a horrible state. That meal the women had brought clearly wasn’t enough. These kids are dying. They chained them to the walls and they’re dying in their own filth. What kind of savage does this to children? Jack felt the fury rising under the clinical detachment he was trying to hold onto.

What do I do here? I do trauma, but this is different. The bile was starting to move up his throat. He was so consumed by what was in front of him that he hadn’t registered his body responding to the smell until it was almost too late. That’s what death smells like. The thought arrived quietly and settled. Torture and death.

He backed out through the door to collect himself and nearly ran into one of the Cultural Support Team members escorting a screaming Afghan woman toward the barn. The CSTs were specially selected female soldiers attached to male- dominated SOF units to gain access to female non-combatants. Afghan culture forbade interaction between unrelated men and women, and the CSTs could go where the male operators couldn’t. But nothing had prepared anyone for this.

His eyes went to the woman’s hands.

They weren’t up.

Every civilian he’d ever seen approach a perimeter under fire had their hands up. Palms out. The oldest signal in the world. He didn’t know if it was training or instinct or just the basic human understanding that showing your hands to a man with a rifle was how you stayed alive. They always showed their hands.

Hers were crossed at her waist, tucked into the folds of her clothing.

One of the 3315 assaulters moved to intercept the woman.

The Afghani woman shoved the CST soldier into the assaulter and bolted for the barn door. Jack opened his mouth to scream at the Captain and try to grab the woman, but the Captain was in the way. Before anyone could react the burkha draped woman had thrown herself through the door.

The last thing Jack registered was a blinding flash, then a massive wave of heat and pressure.

Then silence