Sniper

The audible sound of the radio in their ear piece startled alpha team. They had been sitting on hill 342 for more than a week with out a single contact from HQ. Their job was not a glamorous job. A two man sniper team crawling around a mountain, engaging insurgents, and preventing them from being able to move supplies in and out of Pakistan. Not glamorous but clearly important, and on more than one occasion they had to use those government issued rifles. Over the last week they had been the hunter and the hunted. Now they were being contacted prior to their planned extraction.

Sgt. Vasquez answered the call as Specialist Davis covered the trail. “Bravo two niner this is Alpha six, go ahead.”

“Alpha six this is bravo two niner. Movement order Charlie three four two, proceed to xray three niner. We have a high value target being extracted from this area with heavy insurgent activity. Over.”

“Copy bravo two niner, alpha six is proceeding to xray three niner. Out” Sgt Vasquez checked his GPS device. It was 2.5 miles across heavy mountain terrain. It would take nearly an hour to get there even if they could run part of the distance, and for them to get a movement order meant this target must be very important, but even so, they were being hunted and would have to be careful.  Sgt Vasquez signaled for Davis.

“We’ve got to move. Command wants us to cover the extraction of a high value target at xray three niner”

Looking at their map, alpha team planned their route and began moving towards their position. They decided to avoid the ridge line to keep from silhouetting themselves. It would take them a little longer to get to their destination, but the foliage on the side of the mountain would provide concealment.

It was early spring and the mountains were surprisingly green with fresh foliage. It was not exactly what people would think of when thinking about Afghanistan, but the cover was a welcome difference over the vast deserts of Iraq.

Vasquez and Davis had been together through multiple deployments having spent a grand total of two years in Iraq, and a little more than eight months in Afghanistan. The two were like brothers. They knew each other as well as any two people could. They laughed together. They cried together, and they knew one day they would likely die together.

For Vasquez, Davis was his only family. His parents had been killed when he was a teenager, and he had spent years angry at the man responsible for their death. Every time he pulled the trigger on his army issued M-14, he saw the face of the man that had killed his parents.

He had been the only child of Maria and Miguel Vasquez, themselves orphans, who met each other while growing up in an orphanage in Mexico. They had come to America for an opportunity at a better life shortly after getting married at the age of twenty.  It was a couple of years later when Maria gave birth to their only child. A son, Dominguez Vasquez. A son that was to have everything they didn’t. A son that would grow up knowing his parents.

It all changed that cold winter day. The day that Henry Davidson walked into the family store. Maria and Miguel were the only ones there when he demanded all of the money from the register. It should have ended with Henry taking the money, but after Maria gave him what he wanted, he opened fire on her and Miguel. Maria was killed instantly, but Miguel fought for life. The police found him half conscious and holding Maria in his arms. He lived for two more days before passing away from his injuries.

Their death drove Vasquez. He dreamt of killing the man responsible. When he couldn’t kill their killer, he went into the Army. It was the Army that focused this rage. It was the Army that made him the killing machine he is today. It was the Army that introduced him to his brother. Together he and Davis had killed more than 60 men. The most recent only hours ago, and to Vasquez everyone of them was Henry Davidson.

Right now, Vasquez did not have time to think about Davidson. He and Davis  had to move and move quickly to their next objective. Vasquez checked his sat display for enemy movement. The overhead satellites showed no enemy movement on their side of the mountain. While they were not 100% reliable, the overhead satellites tracked movement based on heat signatures, and it gave alpha team a tactical advantage.

Comfortable with the plan they set out with Davis in the lead.