The Girl I Left Behind Me

By

UCSBDad

Disclaimer: Sir! I do not own Castle, Sir! Rating: T: For language. Time: Three months after the end of season eight.

"Fucking A!" Gunner cried. "Did you see that?" He ducked his head down inside the armored HUMVEE.

From six miles above the desert floor, a flight of four French Air Force fighters, using eight laser guided bombs, had reduced a convoy of trucks to pillars of smoke and fire over shattered metal and roasted flesh.

"Get your eyes back outside and your head on a swivel." Chief snarled. "I don't want you to even think about anything but Ma Deuce."

Gunner got his head outside and wrapped his hands around the machine gun's spade handled grips, his fingers resting lightly on the butterfly triggers.

"Shit! There's a vehicle moving. Nail the fucker."

Gunner peered through his optical sight and squeezed a burst. He swore. "He's outta range. The tracers are burning out. I can't see where I'm shooting."

Behind them, a Malian Army technical unleashed a burst of fire from an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back of the pickup truck. The shells sailed far to the left of the car, which was now starting to pick up speed and escape the ambush.

The car was stopped by a single round from a French AMX 10 armored car. The round exploded in front of the car, knocking it on its side.

The four French armored cars, followed by more French armored personnel carriers, began to move towards the remains of the convoy. The Malian vehicles followed more slowly. The four American HUMVEES kept up with the French.

The HUMVEE pulled up by the damaged car. Chief jumped out. "Doc, you do your thing with Mr. Dembele. Cody, you get to pull the bodies out. I want DNA from every body and body part in the convoy. Fingerprints if you can, dental, and all their IDs. Move."

Cody didn't move. "Why do I have to pull body parts and shit out."

"Because I said so." Chief said with a glare. "I'm going to check the wrecks to see if I can find out what kind of weapons the jihadis were moving. Doc needs to take DNA, and Mr. Dembele is an educated man and a civilian."

"What about Gunner?" Cody asked.

"He's on the M 2 making sure no jihadis jump us. Now, move, dammit." Chief headed towards the adjutant from the 1er Regiment Etranger de Cavalrie who was just dismounting from his AMX 10.

Mr. Dembele was the first to move. He was an educated man having taught at a lycee before the jihadis burned it down. Speaking and reading French, English and Arabic, he was happy working for the Americans as they paid well. However, he would prefer a nice clean job in the air-conditioned American Embassy in Bamoko. A Mr. Hunt there seemed to be interested in him.

Doc looked at the car, which was on its side. "Get on the other side and we'll push it over." Once the car was upright, Doc looked it over. "Brand new Mercedes. We got us a jihadi bigshot coming down from Libya, for sure. We'll check the back seat."

Unhappily, Cody pulled the first corpse out of the car.

Doc began his work. "He's got a Libyan ID. Check him against the databases, Mr. Dembele."

Dembele pulled out a laptop and typed in the information from the ID. "No record, Sergeant." Mr. Dembele always felt he should address his employers properly. "He's a young man, from Sirte according to his ID. I'd bet he's a local hired as a bodyguard and servant."

Doc nodded as he took fingerprints from the corpse. "We'll try the big guy next."

Once Cody had pulled the second corpse from the back, Doc searched him. "Bingo! Our boy has three passports on him. One Jordanian, one Egyptian and one German. Same picture, different names. Run him through the databases, please."

Mr. Dembele smiled. "We have one. Adnan Kartal. According to the database, he's a very important Daesh moneyman."

"Hey, Chief." Doc yelled. "We got some bigshot IS moneyman."

Chief trotted over and checked the ID and the database. "Let's pop the trunk and see what's there."

The trunk was full of heavy duty plastic bags. Chief opened one. "Oh my God."

"Those are US hundreds." Doc said softly.

Chief went through the rest of the bags. "US hundreds, British pounds, Euros, some Russian rubles and even some renminbi. Chinese money."

"There must be a million there."

Chief nodded. "Put all the money in a body bag and seal it up. We'll take the dead guy back with us, too."

"Where's he gonna ride?" Cody demanded.

"On your fuckin' lap." Doc said quickly.

"We'll get one of the Malian technicals to carry the bastard." Chief said.

They moved onto to the driver, who appeared to be just another young Libyan jihadi. The Doc started searching the man in the front passenger seat, after Cody had pulled him out.

"Oh, shit. This dude has a US passport. The bastard's an American." Doc leaned over to check the dead man's face. "Shit! Shit! Shit. I know this dude. He's Bob Bakari." He checked the passport. "Bashir al Bakari."

"You hang around with jihadis?" Chief asked.

Doc shook his head. "I went to high school with him. Everyone called him Bob. He was a good dude. Drank beer, ate pork, didn't mind his sisters running around dressed like…Well, dressed like Americans. Shit. How did he end up here?"

"Put him in a body bag. We'll send him back to his family. Then get busy taking DNA from all the other bodies."

Doc looked down the line of burned out trucks. "There's nothing but body parts all over the damned desert."

Chief nodded. "Then you'd better get to it."

The military didn't worry too much about keeping the air conditioning going in quarters. Consequently, Doc's air conditioning unit was crapped out more than it worked. However, computers and other sensitive electronics were another matter. So, Doc curled up in the tactical operations center in cool comfort, knowing that Sergeant Mullins wouldn't be sticking his boots in Doc's face for a good four hours. He rolled his woobie, AKA, poncho liner, up into a pillow and prepared for several hours of restful sleep.

Someone kicked him.

"Mullins, dammit. I'm trying to sleep here."

"Get up." Chief said. "We're leaving."

"We just got in off of a patrol!" Doc complained. "Why are they sending us out again."

"They're not. We're headed for Fort Bragg. They want you and me back ASAP."

"Are we in trouble?"

Chief shrugged. "They'll tell us when we get there."