Bag of Bones

Waiting was getting old. Anticipation infected a group of superior warriors, itching to go in and release. Tonight, this release was just a few miles away in a three-story military compound surrounded by dust and other remains. An armada of rotor blades slipped through the night with a thundering rumble as their fanfare. Two Little Birds buzzed around three Pave Hawks speeding low over the Saharan coastline. Inside each helicopter sat a silent few machines; catalogues of history, knowledge, and power. Accessories of ammunition, various grenades, knee pads, nomex gloves, helmets, goggles, and night vision plugged into the machines’ hardware. My teammates sat in the darkness underneath the deafening turbine engines and drained our brains of any unnecessary thought. Only the essentials remained; tactics, codes, protocol, and aggression.

My feet dangled out of the open door of the third Pave Hawk as I watched moonlit waves flow beneath me. A waning moon splashed light over the eastern Atlantic, forcing uninvited serenity into our focused zone. I looked toward the cockpit, eyeing a pair of sprawling angelic wings etched on the back on Dyno’s helmet. His steady hands moved the flight controls with a grace deserving of his helmet art. Twin night vision tubes hung before his eyes as he scanned over his glowing instrument panel. Bones sat next to me, staring out into the moonlight. He had taken the time to mark his balaclava with chalk to form an intimidating skull over the face. Davorin, our Italian counterpart, sat behind me, minding my instructions of, “Stay on my ass, cover me, and stay out of the way.” We brought him along as an interpreter for this mission, rescuing two Italian tourists being held hostage in a military compound outside Dakhla. Capturing the garrison leader at the compound was considered a secondary objective.

Our aerial gunner pressed his headset to his ear, never moving his other hand from the six barrels of spinning death at his control. After he received the transmission, he signaled to us that we were three minutes from the target. The helicopter rolled into a right turn towards the land, heading directly into the wind to mask our approach. The calm, but distorted voice of the pilot to the lead Pave Hawk crackled in my headset, “And, down to the deck.”
Dyno pushed the nose down towards the choppy waves, nearly bringing the water to my feet. 

A Little Bird flying alongside us sped ahead of the formation, commencing a rush of activity inside the Pave Hawks. Every member of the 33-man strike team made a final check of their gear, then checked their closest teammate. I found my carbine exactly where I left it, slung across the filled pouches over my chest. I clicked on my Aimpoint optic, then press-checked the pistol on my left thigh. My gloved hands pulled a pair of goggles down from atop my helmet. I wiped away the dust; a surrogate sweat. I checked Davorin’s gear, then gave him an “ok”. Nine more "ok’s" and a middle finger from Bones told the flight engineer we were ready. I pushed the boom microphone to my mouth and keyed my radio. “Madhouse-1 this is Scarlet-6 Actual, White team is ready to rock.”

The pilot replied, “Roger Scarlet, one minute.” Red and Blue teams checked in from the other Pave Hawks, all good. I flipped my night vision down over my eyes, morphing my view to infinite shades of green. The lead pilot of the Little Bird flight checked in with a particularly uplifting announcement, “Madhouse-1 this is Vulgar-1, we’re playing the music.”  Fists were raised and a collective smile ran across the masked faces of the strike team as Bones responded for us all, “Crank that shit!”

I poked my head out to the slipstream to find the Little Birds ahead in the distance. The two helicopters circled a lone building enclosed by a wall of earth and rock. Loudspeakers behind the pilots beckoned down death metal, electrifying the air. Adrenaline ignited every bloodstream in the aircraft; eyes dilated, hearts raced and breathing intensified at the sound of shredding frets, screaming guttural lyrics and a pounding double bass pedal. The strike team looked on as the Vulgar crews hurled rockets down at the compound, blasting open the outer wall.

The Pave Hawks separated and dropped down to insert the strike team. A swirling shroud of dust spawned under the rotor wash, vanishing my green world in a gritty haze. Madhouse-2 disappeared in the abyss as it slowly cleared the outer wall, touching down in a courtyard next to the building. Dyno pitched the nose up for a fast approach, aiming at an open spot fifty meters outside the smoking hole in the wall. I gripped my carbine hard, pulling it into my shoulder. The floor shuddered beneath me as the main landing gear settled in the sand. Davorin shoved me outboard, launching White team in to the storm.

The swooping rotor blades flickered above me as I sprinted alongside my teammates. Bones ran next to me and lobbed a stun grenade over the wall. The ground at my feet shook with a single thud as the stun grenade exploded with smoke and sparks awaiting us on the other side of the hole in the wall. Madhouse-1 hovered above a tower at the far end of the compound; Red team fast roping down two by two. The roar of a low-passing Little Bird mixed with a ferocious chorus as White team entered a long corridor, racing to the end. The chaotic sounds of yelling, gunfire, and stun grenades flooded the airwaves inside the building. Bones and four others ran ahead to search a stairway at the end of the hallway, splitting White team in two. The ratcheted scream of a minigun from a hovering Madhouse-1 ripped up the ground outside as my group began searching doors. Three from my group searched the right side of the corridor while I joined Davorin and my radio man Squawk on the left side, kicking in doors and yelling commands, waiting to see a human appear behind the dot in my Aimpoint.

Red team called out, “Top level secure, Tally-ho!”

“Room clear!” I yelled, seeing four empty walls around the three of us. “Coming out! Three coming out!” I followed Davorin and Squawk out to the hallway, moving on to the next room. I lowered my carbine as I kicked the door in. Davorin tossed in a stun grenade, and I crossed the threshold eyes closed. A concussion rocked the room, and I opened my eyes to see sparks flying, my sight picture instinctively aimed at a gunman close enough for a contact shot. Less than a second passed before the recoil pumped into my shoulder, the weapon's report muffled by a shirted chest against the barrel. Muzzle flashes alongside me penetrated the smoke, spraying the far wall with blood and flesh. The remains of the body before me slumped to the floor. Another figure appeared across the room, huddled in the corner. Squawk dropped his weapon to his sling, pouncing on the man with total aggression. Davorin joined in wrestling the man to his stomach. I stood over them as Davorin secured the man’s hands with a flexcuff. With his hands tied behind him, the man was thrown into the hallway.

A yell came from Bones’ group downstairs, “Corpsman! Corpsman!”

Surge, our corpsman, ran past me to the stairs as I left the room. The rest of my group secured the hallway, keeping all captives on the ground against the walls. Blue team called out, “Ground level secure, Tally-ho!”

I directed Red team to move down to ground level when another yell came from downstairs. “Pro! Pro get down here!”

'Fuck,' I thought, before giving my group orders. “Squawk, stay in place, hold the hallway. Dav, you’re with me.”

We passed a bleeding body on the stairs down to a quiet hallway. A member of Bones’ group pointed towards an open door. Four weapon lights offered poor illumination, but enough to show a body face down against the wall. Surge knelt over the man as he searched for any sign of life. After accepting futility, Surge rose and came to me. “That’s him. He’s gone, and it’s not fresh,” he said.

The captors had left their hostage for dead. No fairy tale, no knights or cowboys coming to save the day, riding off into the sunset. Satan’s horsemen came to collect a soul long ago. I looked at the masked faces of my teammates. No one spoke, so I addressed the team. “Changes nothing. Pick him up, let’s go.”

I returned to Squawk and a hall of suspicious eyes. “What’s up?” he asked.
Without responding, I keyed my radio. “Madhouse-1, this is Scarlet-6 Actual. Building secure, ready for extraction. We’re coming out plus three.”
“Roger, we’ll be outside.”

I signaled to the rest of White team to exit the building. We filed out of the corridor, back into the open. The grounds outside the building were littered with burning vehicles, smoking craters and bloody flesh. The captives were left to fend for themselves, bound on the various floors of the building. Kneeling in the sand, I turned back for a headcount, and counted eleven, including the bag of bones on Surge's shoulders. The Little Birds hovered overhead, still blaring our entrance theme. I watched a line of reflective squares in the courtyard move into the dust of a waiting helo.

Dyno slowly lowered Madhouse-3 to the ground, its long refueling probe poking deeper into the night. The gunner sat over the glowing barrels of his minigun, his shielded face looking out at us being whipped by the wind of his rotors. As the main struts collapsed, I signaled the team to load up. One by one and two by two, White team departed the area.