Captain Brian Wilcox watched the men loading the back of the old Yemeni army truck and realized he still had time to back out. To let the Yemenis handle the mission without him. To follow the orders he had been given.
An operational detachment commander from the Fifth Special Forces group, his team was on loan to the CIA with the mission of training a special counterterrorist unit of the Yemeni police. Paid for with CIA dollars, the unit was arguably the best in the country. Wilcox should be proud of what he and his team had accomplished, and he was, but he was sick of hiding on post training while the men he taught went into harm’s way. But that was the deal made with the Yemeni government. No Western face on any assault. Training only.
In his heart, he knew it was prudent. With the troubles wracking Yemen, and the accusations made that the government was nothing more than a Western puppet-especially given the devastation of U.S. drone strikes on AQAP for the past few years-it would do more harm than good for a U.S. Special Forces team to be seen on an assault, giving the terrorists a propaganda coup. In truth, he knew he should feel lucky they were still operational at all, since every other unit had completely lost focus on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and become nothing more than regime protection against the opposition and protests rocking the country.
Still, Wilcox felt the unit had reached a plateau and that the only way to increase the effectiveness of the training was to see how the men operated on a live mission. Relying on what the Yemenis said after the fact, knowing their predisposition to whitewash mistakes and glorify every little success, was not efficient. It was like teaching all the plays on the practice field, then never seeing the team play a game. Being forced to only listen to the team tell him they’d won, when about fifty percent of the time the predator feed he watched in the JOC showed a different score.
To take them to the next level, he needed to at least see a couple of operations from the ground. So, he’d decided to go on this one. Just him and his team sergeant, not the entire team. And not to lead it. To simply observe.
His team sergeant saw his reticence and said, “Sure you want to do this? We’ll be crucified if word gets out.”
“Yeah. It’s the right thing to do. Just be sure you stay out of the fight. No running to the gunfire.”
The team sergeant smiled. “Shit. You know this’ll be another dry hole. Khalid’s not stupid enough to advertise his location like their intel says he did.”
Wilcox cinched the Velcro on his body armor. “Let’s hope so. No way do I want to get in a gunfight. A dry hole will show us plenty about how they operate, and there’s enough intel indicators to say the place is bad.”
The Ghost read the Arabic phrase spray-painted on the brick wall and stopped his vehicle. Right house. Larger than most, with a second story, it had a courtyard out front but was still dilapidated, with the courtyard walls crumbling in places.
As soon as he entered, he knew he was in trouble. Four men with AK-47s faced him, showing no sign that they were friendly. His contact was not in sight. To their rear several chains hung from the ceiling, and piles of soiled clothing lay about the room. What disturbed him most were the maroon stains on the walls and floor.
He said, “Is one of you Khalid al-Asiri?”
The first man spoke. “No, but Khalid sent us. It seems you might not be who you say you are, and we’re going to find out what’s true.”
“What do you mean? I was sent here by the Resistance. By a man named Majid. Surely you know this. Why do you not trust me now, after sending your contact to meet me?”
“Majid’s dead, and the Resistance says you might have killed him, after you killed our friends with a bomb. Maybe you’re an infiltrator for the far enemy.”
“What? That’s insane! They came to me. I didn’t seek them out. How could I be an infiltrator?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
The Ghost didn’t bother to try running, knowing they would simply kill him. He raised his hands in the air. In short order, he was hanging from one of the chains, naked from the waist up. One of the men wheeled over what looked like a battery charger for a car.
Captain Wilcox felt the eyes of Lieutenant Bashir on him and said, “Wishing I’d stayed behind?”
Bashir said, “As long as you stay in back, I don’t mind.”
“Don’t worry. You’re in charge. I won’t do anything but watch.”
Unless things get ugly. Bashir was a good man and a good commander, but Wilcox knew he wouldn’t follow the Yemeni’s orders if they became engaged in a serious firefight. Something Bashir knew as well. The unit was about as good as any force he had trained, with every man hand-selected from the counterterrorist police force, but they were still junior varsity. Still at the level where they could do something stupid in a firefight, and if it came down to it, Wilcox and his team sergeant would take over the operation, their lives superseding the orders to stay hidden.
Wilcox felt the truck jerk to a halt and peeked out the corner of the tarp covering the bed while the men quietly deployed. He saw them fan out in a security perimeter while the breacher placed a charge on the front door. Swift and silent. Pretty good.
He was patting himself on the back when a wrenching scream punctured the air. Coming from inside the house. Then all hell broke loose.