"Manhunt: For the Sins of the Father"

November 28th, 2018. 2206 hours. (10:06 pm.)

Cpl. Samantha J. Puckett.

United States Marine Corps MAGTF. 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion. FORECON team "GHOST".

Somewhere inside the city. Farah province, Afghanistan.

The rain came down in soft drops, patting lightly against dirt and stone and glass. It came down just enough to wet the world, just enough to be there and to be heard. But I was the only one that could hear it. I was the only one that looked out the window at the drops, watched as they slid down the glass or fell further out at the forming puddles and the ripples in them. I was the only who took a deep breath and felt comfortable at the smell of it all.

Everyone was silent, not a word for close to an hour. Everyone had picked a spot and curled into a ball. A few slept, but the rest sat quietly with their hands wrapped around themselves to fend off the cold. None were strong enough to act on their own, Noor's words still in their ears. I had long forgotten most of them. I didn't care about his speech or his threats, just one piece of information he gave out. One thing for me to latch onto, one thing to obsess over.

For everyone else, it was the possibility of escape. They heard they had a chance and quickly made up their minds as to what needed to be done.

"I have neither the time nor the need to deal with you. I have bigger concerns and my men must prepare." His voice was cold and empty. It left a chill in the spine and a ping of fear in the heart.

He was telling the truth, he had somehow found out about the assault launching soon and was sending his men to get ready. We had run quite a ways and disappeared into alleyways and side streets. He didn't know where we were, how could he? And to send his men after us would take days and dozens of men he needed elsewhere. We were safe for the moment. But that wasn't what I cared about.

"I will think no less of you if you flee. And I pray you do, so that you may carry my message to your masters."

He wouldn't chase us. His men most likely wouldn't even see us slip out of the city. We would flee south, into the hills and over the other side, out of the range of his jammers. We could leave if we tired.

But that didn't matter to me either. I had no intentions of running from him, but I can't speak for the others. They were cold and scared, as they should be. Any sane person would be broken from the last twenty-four hours. But while they sat and shivered and thought of getting away, I smelled the rain. I thought of the feeling of the rain on my skin and the feeling of it patting against my shoulders.

I shifted myself, my back sore and my butt numb from the cold floor. I leaned forward from the shelves behind me, moving my rifle to the side and running a thumb against the dirt under the dust cover. It didn't change much, the rifle covered in dirt and dust, but the rest of the rifle didn't matter, just the chamber.

I took a moment to look down the aisle I had sat in. It was empty, the shelves and racks having been ransacked days ago. Only the brochure stand, barely in view around the counter, had items left unpicked. And the counter itself, the end just poking into view, still held the dead Marine. The granite top stained red, the sides covered in lines where the blood had spilled down from the man.

I furrowed my brow at the sight of his boots, dirty and covered in blood. I didn't even know his name. Whether I had never met the man or simply forgot his name from a lack of interaction didn't matter, he still died and I still didn't know his name. I stifled a yawn and looked at the rain again, it had picked up some, but only a little. I looked at him again and felt sorry that I couldn't save him. But that wasn't what mattered either. I looked at my hands and saw his blood and felt dirty.

I was silent as I stood, a small stretch for stiff shoulders and a deep breath for a tired body. I slowly stepped down the aisle, my boots audible as I practically dragged them against the worn, white tiles. I paused and looked at the man on the counter. That could have been me, should have been my a dozen times over. But it wasn't, I lived and he died.

I saw his carrier on the ground, dropped to the side and forgotten. His name was still hidden from me, printed on the other side. His name wouldn't change anything right now. It would only slow me down, future guilt coming now and keeping me from acting. I dropped the rifle against the brochure rack and looked out the doors, out into the rain. He wasn't what I cared about

The rain was just as cold as I thought it would be as I stepped out the door into the street. It landed against my scalp and smacked into my shoulders with wet thuds. I stopped after a few more steps, breathing in the cold air and letting the chill run down my spine. It didn't bother me. I looked up at the night sky, to the clouds and the drops of rain as they came down against my face. I swayed slightly as I let it wash away dirt and grime and the blood of the others, the cold didn't matter. I heard steps behind me, a hand on my shoulder.

"Sam, come back inside." John's worried, I can hear it in his voice.

And why shouldn't he be? Not because I wandered off into the rain. Not because I was scared or cold. He was worried because he heard the same thing I did. He knows what I'm thinking.

"I will think no less of you if you flee. And I pray you do, so that you may carry my message to your masters. But those that I have captured, those that are in my custody, will stay. And come morning they will be set as examples with the others that have defied me."

He had some of our men. There were only a few unaccounted for. With Bruce and Kirk at the top of the list. That was what I had heard, what I had spent my time thinking over. He had my brothers, and he was going to kill them. That was what mattered to me. I looked at John and nodded to him as I took a slow step to the door.

"We can"t do it, but if you try, I'm there with you." He knew what I was thinking because he thought the same thing.

Maybe not for as long, or as intently, but he had the same thought. We had to get them. I noticed the others had all stood to stare at me, the crazy one, the broken one standing in the rain. They didn't move as I got to the door, just stared.

A group of men who'd been beaten and pushed to the point of breaking. All had tired eyes and slumped shoulders, all save the Captain. It was clear in his eyes, he had also been thinking. He had also spent his time trying to come up with a plan, but it wasn't to save his men. Time to go to work.

I push past them and stop at the rack of pamphlets and look them over, searching for one thing. I find something close enough and grab my rifle, slinging it over my shoulder and walking to the counter. Their eyes had followed but their feet stayed in place.

"How many people has Noor executed on video? How does he do it?" The gruesome questions met with blank, confused stares as I unfolded the city map on the part of the counter not taken up by the dead Marine.

I spend a moment looking at his lifeless green eyes before closing them and returning to my task. The map was small and even a little damp, but it would serve its purpose.

"Does he put on a show or does he just cut their heads off?"

They all take a few steps from each other and stare at me. I slam a hand on the map.

"I never watched the execution videos, so I don't know how he does it. I know at least one of you has studied this." I set my eyes on the Captain, almost still as he tilted his head just a little. He was the one who would speak, I just had to wait.

"He likes to make it theatrical. He builds small stages and gathers a portion of his men to stand as a crowd." He took a step forward and shook his head. "That means that he'll have even fewer of his men in the streets." He looks over the men and nods slightly, appealing to them and their desire to escape.

"Great, mag check." I stared at the map, trying to compare the sparsely detailed map to the satellite photos in my memory.

There was some shuffling as everyone started to gather their gear and circle me. They give varied responses. A few bullets here, a mag and a half there. No-one had a lot, but it would have to be enough.

I look them over again: so worn and beaten by it all. I notice White was silent, I noticed his carrier and the magazines sitting inside. I take another look at the map and wipe the rain from my brow.

"Mag check."

Silence, everyone has already done so. Everyone except White. I look him in the eyes as I step around the counter and make my way to him.

"I said, mag check."

He looks in-between myself and the Captain, trying to shift the focus away somehow.

"I don't even have a rifle, I can't help us if we get attacked. Besides, if we do this right we get away without being seen, no fighting."

He flinched when I landed my hands on his chest, his reflexes kicking in as he grabbed my wrists. I keep looking him in the eyes until he bothered to see what I was doing and loosened his grip. I tore the magazines from him: four full ones. He never even tried to help us fight.

"Who's lowest? Anybody empty? Hands."

A few moments as they look around at each other and a few put their hands up. I toss them the mags and kneel down next to the carrier sitting on the floor. I tried to ignore the name on the front, but it was almost all I saw. Carmine, his name was Carmine.

I heard my uncles voice in the back of my head for a moment before I grabbed the mag and stood. One more. I held it and looked at them all again. This was going to hard.

"If he likes to put on a show, then he'll do it in this plaza." I tap at the map and a few started to murmur to each other. "He'll do it here. He wants to send a message that he isn't to be messed with. The world doesn't know about this city yet, so he wants to break the news himself. He'll do it here because it's a big space for a crowd and you can see the Citadel of Alexander in the background. It'll show he's able to do this in the city, show he's taken it and he'll kill our men to flex his power. There's a construction project on the south side of the plaza, I saw it in the satellite photos in the briefing, it's not on this map, but it's there. A sniper team up there with another-"

"What the hell are you talking about? We need to get out of here and you're talking about stuff near the city center. The place that's in the wrong direction," White mumbles.

He's nervous, as he has every right to be, but I can't help but wonder how he ever got this far. John steps through the crowd and I hand him the ammo. He knew what I was feeling, he knows what's going to happen. I guess he thinks it's better to step in himself.

"She doesn't plan on leaving. You all heard Noor, he has some of our guys. We have to do something." He spoke calmly, something I don't think I can do at the moment. But his tone didn't change the message or the reaction.

"Oh, yeah, let's all go get killed." White threw his hands in the air. "Yeah, great fucking plan. Let's all go charging into the bad guys. Maybe we can find some squirt guns along the way, cause that's about as much damage as we could do."

I didn't look at him not this time. But I don't need to, the Captain shoving himself in front of White, who had taken an aggressive step towards me.

"That's enough Marine. Step back and get your head together. And you, Puckett, enough with this bullshit. I get wanting to save our guys, I really do. But we don't have the men, or the weapons to pull off a rescue mission." He was calm, as always. He was logical, as always. And he was cold, as always. And it really bothered me.

"Fuck off." It's not the intelligent, inspiring comeback I had hoped for, but it summed up my point pretty well. I take a deep breath and try again. "I mean, seriously, cut the fucking bullshit. You fucked up, drug us out here on what was literally a suicide mission to begin with, and now you want to say no to my crazy idea? Oh, I'm sorry Oppenheimer, do you not like it when I try to save the men your shitty orders are going to get killed." That's not going to help either. But it did get a reaction out of him, for the first time he actually showed anger, legitimate anger at the thought of his incompetence.

He takes a step towards me, nearly puffing himself up. He wasn't a very large man, so I didn't have to look up all that much to see the flecks of brown in his eyes.

"It is Captain Oppenheimer, and you will address me as such. I will not take this bullshit, Puckett." He didn't see it coming.

I wasn't sure I had thrown it at first, but sure enough, my fist landed against the bottom of his jaw with a smack and the sound of his teeth clacking together. John stepped in front of me, trying to make sure I didn't do anything worse, but he didn't fight hard when I moved him to the side. I stood over the angry man, he had sat up but he had yet to stand as I looked down at him.

"My bad, Captain, I'm sorry Captain. But... it's Corporal Puckett, and I don't give a shit about the chain of command right now. You're only my Captain so long as your orders are worth following." He stares at me, rubbing his jaw. I look at the others, still staring at the sight of my insubordination. "Do any of you really care about orders right now? There is a fucking madman running around with his own goddamn army. He's slaughtering people left and right, he's got our men and he's going to fucking execute them. And he'll do the same thing to us when he finds us. But he won't find us, right? That's what you're all thinking. We can just get away, right? Well, bad news guys, we are probably going to fucking die either way. I mean, do you really think that we could slip out unnoticed? He has snipers that land perfect kill shots on little girls. You really think we can get away from that?" I make a gesture to them and let my arms fall limply at my sides.

"If you still want to leave, I'm not going to stop you. A couple of you might even get away. I won't blame you or hate you, I won't need to. How do you think you'll feel when it's just you that gets picked up? How will you feel when you're labeled a hero for making it out alive, a living testament to the horror that happened here? And how will you feel a year or two from now, when all of this is over and you're sitting at dinner with your wives, girlfriends or your families and you hear on the news that the conflict is finally over, finally ending and one of them turns to you and talks about how happy they are, still, that you were smart enough to get away from it all. How happy they are for you to be alive.

"And in that moment you'll be sitting there, thinking back on this exact moment, and you have to fight the urge to correct them. You didn't leave, you ran away when you fellow Marines needed you most and every single one of them died. But I'm just one guy, you try to rationalize, try to make it better, but it's been a long time and guess what, even one guy can make a difference. One man can change the goddamn world. So how about it's us that change it, huh? How about we go down as the ones who killed a genocidal maniac. We'll go down as fucking heroes, and if we make it out the other side, that's just a cherry on top. I don't know about you guys, but if I make it out of here, I want to be able to sleep at night."

It was all a grand gesture, all words and no action, trying to play on their honor or their sense of duty. Whether it was what I said, or some other reason knocked loose they began to mumble in agreement. It took a moment but they went from staring wide-eyed to nodding in agreement. They were still tired, weary from a hard day, but I had their support.

I take a deep breath and scratch a piece of stubborn dirt from above my eye. The Captain had stood during the speech, hardly moved by my words, but he heard a few words that sparked an interest.

"And how, exactly, does this plan work? How does this go down in a way where we take down a group of militants that outnumber us a hundred-to-one in the plaza alone?" He was skeptical, as were the others, but he was willing to listen and that's all I need.

I flatten out the corners of the map again, staring at the plaza where this would hopefully happen.

"So far the only thing the spooks have gotten right is that his forces are heavily divided. He has mercenaries from neighboring countries, battle-hardened vets that won't scare easily and will fight to the death. But the rest of his men are conscripts, people that serve under him because of threats of death or worse. I really don't think that they will stay long when the shit hits the fan. Just... think back to what he said on the radio. Our guys are going to be made an example of with the others. The spooks said his men were starting to turn on him, these executions are his way to show that it won't be tolerated. He wants to scare them back in place and that's our chance." It's a long shot, no doubt about that, but it's the only shot. I point to the plaza on the map and look to the group of men before me. "It's happening here, it has to be. And that's the first bit of luck we've had. Like I was saying earlier. There's an office building here, it's still under construction and so it won't be hard to slip into. Odds are there will be a sniper team in it somewhere. Me and another marksman make our way inside and find the post. Come morning we take them out and wait for the shot on Noor.

"Once we take him down the rest of you come into play. We're real short on ammo, and more importantly, explosives. But plenty of both can be found scattered around the city where firefights have taken place. I suggest the rest of you scout points of conflict for weapons and gear. If we're lucky we'll get our hands on some RPGs and maybe a few forties. Once you get what you can you need to make your way to this building, and this alleyway." I circle one side of the plaza on the map with a bloodstained finger. "If you can secure this building then you can watch this back way out of the plaza. That's where we exfill. What you do when you're there is a bit worse.

"Once the shot is taken you need to lay into the group with explosives until you run low, after that simply fire what you have left into the back of the crowd, drive them out of the plaza. Being conscripts I don't see them trying to hard to stay when all they see are explosions and body parts. Those without explosives need to pick targets from the mercenaries and drop them as fast as possible. They will be the hardest resistance and you need to keep them engaged while a few of you get our guys and pull back out the alley. Try to keep at least one grenade between you so we can try and close it off behind us. Now, any volunteers for the run to the stage?" It was a hard question, with a hard answer.

Who among us was willing to run into the open to get the rest? John scratched his chin for a moment before raising his hand.

"I'll go, I need two others to watch my back as I move. Marquez, Wolfram, you up for it?"

They all look to one another before nodding in agreement. It was a sullen nod, expecting the worst and hoping for the best.

"Well, that settles that. I need someone with me in the office building."

It was the Captain that spoke up. "I'll head in with you, we wait till Noor shows his head before taking any shots. If we're doing this then we have to make sure that we take him out, even if it means losing the others. I know that won't be a popular opinion but it's what needs to be done. Without radios, the shot that takes down Noor will be the mark to engage. If no shot happens or Noor doesn't show, we leave." He pulls his rifle from his shoulder and passes to one of the few without weapons along with his ammo. "I don't like this at all, but it's the only chance we're going to get." He stares at me as he finishes, he doesn't want me to ruin the kill shot.

"Alright, I guess that's it." There's a long silence. No murmurs or moving, no shifting of gear or shaky breaths. "Let's go kill this fuck. Oorah?"

They repeat the call and start gathering anything there is to gather. It takes a few moments but everyone begins to stand ready at the door, weapons shouldered and focus in their eyes.

I grab my rifle and try turn to John. "We get out of this. All of us."

He grabs the top of my carrier and gives it a small shake. "Damn straight." his voice a little more than uneasy as he leads the group out into the rain.

And I'm left with just the Captain. He looks me over as I check mags and load a fresh one into my rifle.

"Noor is the target. We wait for him, am I clear?"

It's hard not to snap back, but instead, I nod and move past him. But I end up speaking anyway.

"Yeah, we'll see."

He grabs my shoulder and pulls me back with a violent tug. "No, Corporal Puckett, we will not see. The only reason I'm going along with this is because it's a chance to end this before it gets worse." Anger is in his eyes and he speaks through a clenched jaw.

I pull myself free and shove him back with a hard push. "Yeah, that leaf is real appealing ain't it? Hell, if you pull this off you might get a memorial. Sounds great, right?" I start towards the door before tossing one last thing over my shoulder. "Just don't get in my way." I don't need to look back at him, I know he's ready to drop me at a moments notice; but for now, he needs me more than he hates me.