Collateral Damage

Hidden in the shadows provided by the slight outcropping of rock above him, Safir kept his eyes on the sky as the others said their evening prayers. Five of his last, most loyal men. Though there was only one he trusted with his life.

Qasim had chosen this location because he said it was the safest for now. Safir hated being exposed this much, worried that the others would somehow give his presence away if there were any drones or satellites patrolling the area.

You’re being overly paranoid, he scolded himself, but drew his blanket tighter around himself anyway, using the top portion to cover the lower half of his face. It was already getting cold in the evenings here in the mountains. He didn’t relish the idea of facing a long winter out here.

He could hear Qasim’s voice as he prayed, thanking Allah for the grand victory yesterday in the United States. The death toll was fairly small compared to what Safir had been hoping, but it didn’t matter because the President was dead. The devastating psychological blow he’d delivered… That had been extremely rewarding. The entire country—the whole world—was reeling in the wake of the attack he’d orchestrated.

And now the entire world was hunting him. Intelligence agencies had traced the origins of the attack back to him, as he’d known they would.

He glanced back at the cave entrance, thinking of the underground bunker he’d be sleeping in again tonight. Above ground it was cool, but down there was cold as a tomb.

A wave of unease swept through him at the last word. Why did it feel like he was being watched even now, hidden out here in the middle of nowhere? The stars shone like brilliant pinpricks of light through a black velvet curtain. Only a gentle wind stirred the air. There was no sound but Qasim’s and the others’ voices as they finished praying.

Safir added his own silent prayer to the heavens. Allah protect me.

His life as he’d known it was over now. A necessary sacrifice, and one he’d known would have to be made in order to carry out such a devastating attack. As of yesterday he’d begun the life of a nomad. He could never stay put for more than twelve hours again. Soon he’d cull the number of his followers to ensure no one but Qasim would know his location. The victory was huge, but bittersweet, and carried a heavy price.

“Safir?”

“Here,” he called out to Qasim.

His friend smiled when he drew close, his teeth gleaming in the light of the half moon. All the men were forbidden to light a fire or use a flashlight. No electronics or any light source that might alert an outsider to his presence. “Why so glum?” he asked in English, wrapping his arm around Safir’s shoulders. “You just pulled off the greatest attack against the U.S. since 9/11.”

Safir grunted and sca

“Well you’ll sleep well tonight. Come on. We’ll have tea inside where you can relax.”

Safir eyed the other four men as they all passed by him on their way into the cave. They’d sleep in the upper chamber and act as both sentries and guards while he and Qasim would stay below. “I’d prefer to have it in the bunker,” he said, casting one last wary look at the empty night sky. He felt like a miner must before a shift, drinking in the sight of the vast sky above him before he descended to the darkness below.

Underground was the only safe place for him now.

****

Poised on the slope of a barren hillside, Staff Sergeant Ryan Wentworth lay beneath the cover of sun-withered bushes, staring at the small screen in his hands. His gloved thumbs manipulated the twin toggles, directing the small drone to turn in a tight circle over the suspected target area.

On screen the heat signatures showed a group of six men standing near a cave entrance. Two stood off to the side, away from the others, who waited until the group had passed by before entering the cave. Ryan zoomed in close and took another snapshot of them both just before they disappeared inside, getting as high resolution a shot as he could of them before sending it back to HQ.

Ryan knew in his gut that one of them had to be Safir. He would consider it a personal honor to help blow the fucker to hell for what he’d done last night.

“It’s like playing X-Box,” the Ranger captain whispered beside him with a grin.

“Nah, man, way cooler than X-Box,” Ryan added, waiting for command to reply to his message. He and the captain waited in the darkness while the rest of the platoon spread out around them in a protective circle. Nothing moved on the hillside, the cool night breeze barely stirring the air.

The response came less than fifteen minutes later over Ryan’s headset. “Target confirmed.”

Fuck, yeah. “Roger that.” His heart thudded in anticipation as he got on his radio and contacted the pilot for this op. As he spoke he could feel the Ranger captain watching him, an almost palpable current of excitement coming from him.

Using his laser designator rangefinder set up on a short tripod in front of him, Ryan helped mark the target location and verified the coordinates with the pilot. A new feed was patched through to his device. On screen he watched the bird’s eye view of the ground from the new drone overhead. Launched from a FOB less than twenty miles from here, it took only a matter of minutes to arrive on station.

“Affirmative, target coordinates confirmed,” Ryan murmured through his mic to the pilot sitting back at his station somewhere stateside. An American soldier about to deliver some serious payback to the asshole who’d killed their president and attacked JBLM. It was rumored that Safir was terrified of the possibility of dying by drone strike. Sheer, poetic fucking justice that one was about to end him now. “Green light to engage target in three, two, one.”

Ryan’s gaze remained riveted to the small screen in his hands as it showed a missile streaking away from the drone. Setting the device down, he peered through his rangefinder at the cave location on the bottom of the far mountain ridge across the valley.

Three seconds passed, then a distant boom shook the air. A bright orange fireball erupted into the night sky. “Good hit,” Ryan told the pilot. “Stand by for confirmation.”

Using his remote control device he accessed the feed to the smaller drone he’d carried here in his ruck. He flew it over top of the target and used the powerful camera to zoom in on the destruction. A large chunk of the mountainside was missing, blown away by the missile. Amidst the piles of debris, he started counting the heat signatures lying in the rubble.

Three scattered in one grouping. None of them moving.

A fourth trying to drag himself away, but he collapsed after only a few feet.

A fifth lay in two pieces at the base of a large boulder.

And a sixth lay twitching in the dirt at the bottom of the hill.

Ryan zoomed in on all of them. Using the device’s night vision equipment, he took pictures to send back to HQ for identification. But when he saw the face of the sixth target up close, the wide open, sightless eyes, he already knew.

Triumph roared through him. Smiling in satisfaction, he muttered, “See ya in hell, motherfucker.”

Epilogue

Two months later

“Are the others here yet?” Honor asked Erin, craning her neck to see beyond the flagstone entryway at the edge of the beautifully decorated lawn of the resort where the ceremony would be held.

She’d been to Leavenworth a couple of times, years before, and loved it. The former logging town nestled in the heart of the Cascade Mountains had been turned into a Bavarian-style tourist town and provided the absolute perfect setting for Cam and Devon’s wedding.