CHAPTER 39

REECE WAS AWAKE, STARING up into the darkness, when he heard the dog barking in the distance. You might have the best plan, the most high-tech equipment, and the best-trained operators but the dogs could always give you away. He wasn’t wearing his watch, but he figured it was about 4 a. m. Sleep hadn’t come easy since the death of his family and SEAL brothers; he’d spent many an hour listening to the rolling seas, the sounds of the African bush, and, here in XXXXXXX, the hum of his room’s AC unit.

The screaming of a vehicle engine at high RPMs and a handful of outgoing 5. 56mm rounds sent him rolling off his bed and onto the floor before a massive shock wave blew the glass from his bedroom window.

Reece knew what it was immediately. VBIED—just like in Iraq.

Who the hell had found them out here? Not now, Reece. Win the fight.

A switch flipped in his mind. He was no longer at a safe house in XXXXXXX. He was at war.

Wearing only boxers and a T-shirt, with no time to get fully suited up, Reece slid into his running shoes as he processed the situation. He was sure that the vehicle-borne explosion had breached the wall of the compound. If this was a coordinated attack, which he believed it was, whoever had targeted them would be surging in at any moment. He’d seen this tactic before.

A second blast hit the back side of the compound, near the buildings where the other occupants lived. As he crawled quickly across the room and felt for his plate carrier in the darkness, he could hear the unmistakable sound of suppressed rounds coming from the window of the room down the hall; Freddy Strain was already engaging targets.

Reece did a quick rundown of friendly forces: Freddy, four XXX security personnel, and his Islamic studies teacher, Maajid. He quickly pulled on his armor and helmet, less for protection than for the advantage of the NODs mounted to it. He found his MP7 leaning against the wall and pulled the two-point sling over his head as he activated the IR aiming laser. He wore Peltor tactical ear protection with a boom microphone integrated into his helmet but without a radio there was no way to communicate with the other friendlies. Knowing that Freddy was overwatch at the window, Reece cracked his door and peered into the hallway.

Whoever had planned this was following the now-familiar script from Iraq and Afghanistan of using a vehicle to breach the perimeter before flooding the compound with fanatical men armed with small arms and suicide vests. The lack of gunfire from the perimeter indicated that the XXX contractor who had fired at the approaching vehicle before it exploded had been either killed or seriously wounded by the blast.

The hallway was dark and quiet in the green glow of his NODs, only the popping of Freddy’s outgoing rounds audible over the ringing in Reece’s ears. Reece peered over the balcony railing and saw no sign of movement below. He crept slowly and quietly down the stairs, his lightweight running shoes masking his movement.

Close-quarters combat is a tricky game of angles, and Reece used his years of training and experience to his advantage as he made his way toward the front of the structure. As he “sliced the pie” of the corner that led into the home’s grand entryway, incoming full-auto gunfire sprayed across the front of the building, shattering the windows. Those rounds sounded suppressed. What the hell is going on? He took a knee behind an antique bookshelf and could hear rounds impacting the building’s thick stone walls. Fortunately, they did not penetrate. Good cover.

Reece rose to his feet and spotted muzzle flashes through the window’s opening. A dozen-round burst from his submachine gun sent the shooter to the afterlife. He checked to ensure that no one had entered the room behind him and moved closer to the window to get a better angle on the area outside. He could see a ragged black hole in the perimeter wall forty yards away, the blinding flames of the burning vehicle casting strange shadows of twisted metal across the yard. Two men carrying M4s sprinted through the breach, running laterally across Reece’s vantage point. He held his fire, confused by the sight of weapons and gear typically associated with friendlies. When they aimed their fully automatic fire at the upper level where Freddy held the high ground, he snapped out of his paralysis. He led the first man and put a burst into him that sent him tumbling forward onto the ground. The second runner tripped over the falling man, causing Reece to miss him high. He adjusted his aim and stitched the remainder of his magazine into him as he attempted to regain his feet. A head shot into the front of his face dropped him for good.

M4s. Why are we being attacked by a unit using M4s? Later, Reece. You know what to do.

Words from Reece’s father came to him: If something just doesn’t look right, it’s probably not.

Reece took a moment to study the men he had put down and was surprised that one was attempting to regain his feet. Too many men to count had been killed by people they thought were dead.

Reece took carful aim, depressed the trigger, and sent a round through the PVS-15 night vision attached to a helmet similar to the one worn by Reece and into the left eye socket of his attacker.

Night vision? I need to see one of these guys closer up.

Reece stripped the empty magazine from the weapon and inserted a fresh one from a pouch on the front of his armor before hitting the slide release and sending the bolt home. A firefight erupted behind the main house, from the direction of the security contractors’ building. The longer strings of fire were being answered by short bursts from what sounded like a belt-fed weapon, which let Reece know that at least one of the XXX contractors was alive and fighting.

As Reece scanned for targets, a window broke behind him and suppressed gunfire erupted into the room. An attacker had made his way to the back of the house and was firing his M4 with its muzzle stuck through the window. Reece dropped prone, behind a large sofa, effectively pinned down by the shooter.

Only concealment, not cover. Move, Reece!

The rounds blistered the wall above his head, filling the room with dust and sending tiny red-hot bullet fragments into Reece’s exposed legs. He crawled toward the heavy wooden front door, thinking that he could head outside to maneuver behind the shooter. As he reached the door, two more M4-wielding attackers fired at the front of the house from the direction of the breach, their rounds thudding into the walls and door, leaving Reece with no means of escape.

The fully automatic fire from the rear of the house continued, chewing the room’s fine furnishings into splinters. Reece had a fragmentation grenade in a pouch on his armor, but the window he’d have to throw it through was small and he couldn’t risk the explosive bouncing off the wall back in his direction.

“Freddy! I’m pinned down here! ” Reece yelled, hoping that his partner could hear him over the sounds of battle.

The firing resumed, his attackers unable to get a good angle on their target. Time slowed as muzzle flashes illuminated the smoke, airborne plaster and concrete dust filling the house, the entire room flashing like a strobe-lit nightclub through the green display of the NODs, a surreal and visceral assault on the senses.

Nothing back from Freddy, which meant he was in a fight of his own, or dead.

Reece had to move. He waited for the shooter to change magazines, then rose to his knees to unbolt the front door. As he did, he heard something thud onto the floor to his right and roll across the tile. The grenade spun like a top five yards away, its fuse burning rapidly toward the explosive charge and coiled wire concealed beneath the outside casing.

Reece yanked open the door and button-hooked through to escape the blast. His sudden emergence from the door surprised the man who had tossed the frag, stacked outside preparing to make entry following detonation. Reece couldn’t stop his forward momentum and found himself crashing into the team who had moments before held the upper hand.

Speed. Surprise. Violence of action.

Forcing his attacker’s rifle up and out of the way as he tumbled into the first man in the stack, the strong smell of sweat filling his nostrils, Reece drove the suppressed MP7 into his opponent’s throat, zipping a burst of 4. 6mm rounds through the enemy’s neck and into the face of the man behind him.

The thunderous detonation of the grenade sent shards of the already shattered window into the side of Reece’s head and shoulder as his momentum sent him into the last man in the stack. Momentarily confused by the two men in front of him dropping to the ground and from the dust and debris exploding through the open door and window, he was not ready for the full weight and fury of the man who had suddenly appeared like a vision of death from out of the chaos.

With his NODs dusted out from the explosion, Reece felt more than saw the man in full battle gear before him, his MP7 caught up in the collision of man and gear. Face-to-face with the enemy, his MP7 knocked to the side, Reece seamlessly transitioned to the knife on the front of his body armor, crashing the gap and indexing the chest plate on the man before him with his elbow, using it as a reference point to sink the blade into his throat. Quickly, Reece stepped left to sweep the man’s leg and put his startled enemy on the ground.

A knife fight is not like it’s portrayed in the movies. It’s close. It’s personal. It’s visceral. It’s the most primal and devastating thing one man can do to another, and sometimes men die hard. Reece did not shy from the task. From his dominant mount position, he drove his shoulder down and into the pommel of his blade, driving it deeper into the unprotected neck of his adversary, whose body, mind, and spirit were finding the reserve of strength and energy known only to those on the brink of death.

Reece grabbed his opponent’s NODs, twisting them from his head, finding the carotid artery with the edge of his blade and trapping the arm while moving his blade just below the armpit and driving it into the lungs. Avoiding the body armor designed to protect, Reece used it as a guide. Sliding perpendicular to find the side control position, Reece transitioned his blade just below the body armor and above the pelvis, stabbing it in and ratcheting it back and forth to create a massive wound channel in the man’s guts.

In the violence that is hand-to-hand combat, seconds seem like minutes and minutes seem like hours. Only five seconds had elapsed since Reece had connected with the man whose life he was now extinguishing. Even with the blood draining from his body, Reece’s opponent fought on. Just like countless men over the centuries, he didn’t yet know he was dead. Reece felt the man’s hands flailing, reaching in adrenaline-fueled desperation for the grenade Reece wore on the left side of his armor. Moving immediately back to the mount, ripping his grenade from the dying man’s grasp, Reece sank the blade into his opponent’s left eye, before cutting down across the man’s face to the back of his head toward the mandible. He worked his own left arm around the back of the enemy’s head, where it met his other hand holding the blade. Reece’s face was pressed against the side of his opponent’s head as he worked the blade deeper and deeper into his brain stem until the thrashing body went limp. Reece held the deadly embrace for a moment, before disengaging the knife and sliding off the corpse beneath him.

Situational awareness, Reece.

Breathing heavily, Reece straightened his helmet and pushed himself back against the building that had minutes before been his sanctuary, scanning the compound before him as the discipline of his years of training took over. Resheathing the blade that had just saved his life, Reece caught a glimpse of the inscription. Interrupted by blood, bile, and sticky white slivers of bone and brain were the words Pamwe Chete; the gift from Rich Hastings had taken another soul.

Smoothly bringing his MP7 up into his workspace, Reece pulled a magazine from his armor and performed a tactical reload, retaining the partially spent one for later use. Without pockets to stow the magazine, he shoved it into the empty radio pouch on his rig. Seeing no sign of movement in his immediate vicinity, he knelt at the side of the man he had just killed and removed his helmet. The man’s face was a bloody mess but something about it seemed vaguely familiar. Do I know him?

He wore desert boots, a chest rig over his body armor, and an older Kevlar helmet. But what really interested Reece were his NODs and uniform. PVS-15s meant one thing—they were U. S. backed. The desert tiger-stripe uniforms meant something else—CIA.

Later, Reece. Make sense of this later. Win the fight. Prioritize and execute. Where is the nearest threat?

Taking a wide angle, Reece moved around the side of the house. He was doing the most natural thing a man could do: he was hunting.

After the grenade blast, the firing coming from the back of the building had stopped, which meant that the shooter could be on the move. Reece crept quietly but quickly down the ten-foot-wide alley between the side of the house and the perimeter wall where there was no cover. He needed to get through the lethal funnel as fast as he could. He could still hear the pitched battle at the back of the compound, where things sounded like they had reached a stalemate.

As he approached the back of the house, Reece had the strong urge to toss a grenade around the corner, but, not knowing the location of the other friendlies, he held back. He eased around, step by step, and saw the bright streak of Freddy’s IR laser coming from the upstairs window. Knowing the yard was covered, Reece rounded the corner to clear the area close to the house that would be below his partner’s line of sight. Expecting to find his target directly behind the building, Reece was surprised when he saw no sign of movement. Assuming that the man had moved around the opposite side of the house, Reece checked back the way he had come to ensure that he wasn’t being outmaneuvered.

Nothing. Where did he go?

Then he heard it: a scraping sound above him. He looked up to find a man, just ten feet away, scaling the side of the building using a water pipe as a ladder, with his weapon slung at his side. Ordinarily he would have seen him when he rounded the corner, but the narrow vertical view through his NODs prevented it. The climber was obviously planning to shoot through the window above to take out the SEAL sniper, who was firing from a few feet back in the room. Freddy would never see it coming. Reece calmly put his IR laser on the figure’s backside and gave him a long burst. He could hear the hollow sound of the tiny suppressed rounds impacting flesh and a quiet yelp of pain. The impact of the body hitting the hard ground was louder than either, and Reece put two rounds into his head for good measure. Knowing the enemy had a similar technological advantage of NODs, he resisted the urge to make a circling motion in front of the window with his laser to let his partner know of his position.

“Freddy, ” Reece whispered as loudly as he dared “Freddy! ”

“Reece, that you? ” came the response.

“Yeah, I’m down here. ”

“You okay? ”

“I’m good. These guys have NODs. ”

“I know. What the hell? ”

“I’m going to go help the boys out back. ”

“Roger that, I’m coming down. ”

A minute later the back door opened and Freddy, dressed identically to Reece except that he was wearing pants, emerged, carrying his HK416.

“Do you sleep in that gear? ” Reece asked his buddy, half in jest.

“Says the guy with no pants. Hey, you recognize the uniforms? ” Freddy asked.

“You know I do. Let’s get this done and then figure it out. Try to take one alive to question. ”

“Hey, are you shot? ” Freddy asked, reaching toward his friend.

“No. I’m good. It’s not my blood. ”

“Roger that. ”

“Sounds like they breached the wall in two places with VBIEDs, ” Reece said.

“Yeah, I’ve taken out about a dozen guys back here. You? ”

“Four dead guys out front and Spider-Man here who was coming to get you. ”

Freddy looked down at the body and then looked up at the water pipe, putting two and two together.

“Shit, thanks, bro. ”

“My pleasure. ”

“Let’s move down the left side here, circle behind the barn, and see if we can get behind them. I couldn’t see them from upstairs, but I could hear them. ”

“Let’s do it. ”

No further conversation was needed as they moved toward the gunfight. Freddy led the way, since he had the more capable weapon in the open space of the compound. The little MP7 was great at close range, but Reece suddenly felt way undergunned in the open area between the buildings. They maintained laser discipline, knowing the lasers would be visible through the enemy’s NODs. Luckily for them, the enemy was not as disciplined.

As they approached the large storage barn, they could see infrared beams darting around the courtyard. Freddy motioned upward, indicating that he would look for an elevated position. Reece gave him an exaggerated nod and continued along the backside of the building to flank their aggressors. Even though suppressed, the firing became louder as Reece approached the corner of the building. Suppressed meant just that: suppressed, not silent.

Reece worked his way around the corner and found six men twenty-five yards from his position, all facing away from him, using one of the compound’s vehicles for cover as they fired toward the XXX building. He ducked back behind the barn and pulled the fragmentation grenade from his kit, removing the electrician’s tape from the pull ring. He held the spoon between the web of his right-hand thumb and pointer finger, then yanked the pull ring clear of the device and tossed the baseball-sized bomb around the corner toward the cluster of combatants. The explosion was followed immediately by screams. Reece took a knee and methodically pumped rounds into the heads of each of the writhing bodies on the ground before him.

The XXX contractor who had been guarding the gate stopped firing, aware that friendlies had moved in among his targets. Still, Reece sprinted across the open ground behind the now-burning truck and past the six dead men so as not to be in his line of fire. He would sweep the back corner of the perimeter and come in at the rear of the XXX building to ensure that no one was behind their position. He moved past one of the two small staff houses and scanned for any sign of movement. He heard a scuffle behind him and spun quickly to see two figures struggling fifteen yards away. He took a step toward them when a white-hot explosion blew him from his feet.

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