Page 54 of The Only Reason (The Trident Trilogy 2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Fallujah, Iraq

July 31, 2011

As the helicopter landed just outside the village, Mack made sure he was the last one off. He took the rear position in the line as they started their approach. They covered the quarter mile quickly. It didn’t seem like anyone was around. George told the team this morning that locals reported an Al Qaeda leader hiding out there. When they got within a couple hundred yards, Mack saw the small house with the red door and the black X. Most of the houses had some kind of color on them, so it didn’t stand out too much, but Mack thought they could have been a little more subtle.

When the rest of the team had passed the house, he heard voices coming from a house about a hundred feet in front of their position. The rest of the team started hustling that way. Mack swerved to the right and entered through the red door. He saw the table. He pushed it aside and opened the trap door.

As he climbed down into the dimly lit tunnel, he heard the house explode above him. He instinctively flung his body to the ground and covered his head. The tunnel walls shook violently, but didn’t collapse. He quickly got to his feet and flipped his goggles down to help see through the wall of dust ahead of him. He saw two people in front of him—motioning for him to follow. He heard his team in the distance scream his name. As the tunnel began to clear, he started running. It only took a few minutes for their screaming voices to fade out behind him.

***

“Mack!” Chase screamed. “Mack! Answer me!”

“Mack!” The entire team screamed his name as they tried to get close enough to the burning rubble to look for his body that they knew wasn’t there. The building had been blown into small bits, and they knew anyone inside it had suffered the same fate. Still, they screamed his name—hoping for a miracle.

Suddenly gunfire began to rain down on them from the hills above the village. As they began taking fire, they all jumped behind whatever cover they could find.

“Where’s it coming from?” Clem yelled as a round split the rock above his head. He scrunched down farther and poked his rifle out. A bullet hit the dirt in front of him. He rolled back behind the rock.

Chase made it behind a building. He peered around the side through his rifle scope. “We’ve got at least ten on that southeastern ridge. They’ve got good cover,” he shouted above the gunfire.

The rest of his team was spread out within twenty feet of him. They were all trying to return fire, but Chase knew they didn’t have position. They were basically sitting ducks. He didn’t quite understand why the enemy were only firing from one position. If they spread out at all, they could have made quick work of his team.

“Alpha One to Base,” Chase said, lowering his microphone into position.

“This is Base. You got a sit rep for me?”

“Nothing good. We have one down. House exploded around him. He’s gone. We’re taking fire from the southeast. What do you see on the satellite?”

“Southeast looks like about twenty tangoes. I’m not seeing any more surrounding. You’ve got an easy escape path at the north-northwest position. I have a bird incoming. Five mikes out. Can you hold until then?”

“Yeah. We’ve got it.”

Chase looked over to the exploded building. He was half hoping to see Mack walk over, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. All he saw was burning embers of nothing. He fought back the tears coming to his eyes, leveled his rifle, and started returning fire.

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