Chapter 4: First Mission, Richard

Insertion was by a convoy of Humvees provided by the Army, which stopped about half a mile south of the target structure. The Master Chief had taken the time to talk with each SEAL personally along the way, or at least as personal as he could get over a radio since most of the team was in other vehicles. Richard learned a lot about the man, his twelve years of experience and the various conflicts he'd been involved in, he felt that he could put his trust in Victor's leadership. It was the middle of the night and cooler than Richard expected it to be.

Once out of the Humvees, it was time to walk. "We don't want to attract attention, keep things low and quiet" Victor ordered. "Red team, check in."

"Red team checking in, ready" Richard heard over his earpiece.

"Blue team check in."

"Blue team checking in, ready."

"You see anything suspicious let us know, weapons cold, Harper, you're on point."

Roy turned to look at Victor with a startled expression, but quickly regained his composure "yes sir" he replied as he moved north down the street, keeping up against the structures on the left and ducking below windows. Richard was behind Roy, who stopped at a corner. Doing a "quick peek" around it Roy signaled for Victor to come to the front of the group. Victor crouched down next to Roy without a word. "Single military age male ten yards down, he's armed" Roy whispered.

Victor did his own quick peek. "He's facing away from us, take him out." Roy hesitated, but moved to aim his rifle, Victor stopped him. "Not with that, it'll alert every hostile within a mile, you got to do this hand to hand." Roy lowered his rifle and pulled out his knife, but hesitated, Victor picked up on it right away. "Listen, you got to do this, remember your training."

Roy gulped and gripped his knife firmly, staying low and keeping his footsteps light he snuck up behind the man, used his left hand to cover his mouth and stabbed him in the base of the spine with his knife, twisting the blade once it had penetrated as deep as possible. The enemy didn't even have a chance to resist, as soon as Roy twisted the knife he went limp, falling into Roy's arms.

"Got to get him off the street so nobody sees the body" Victor ordered over the radio. Roy complied by dragging the body into an alley to the left of where the man was standing, then moving back to where his teammates were. "Good, you okay?" Roy nodded hesitantly. "You good to stay on point?"

"I, I..." Roy stuttered, "I'd rather not sir..."

"Grayson, you're on point" Victor ordered. Richard looked at opening to the alley Roy's kill was now laying in, then crossed the street to the next structure.

"Red team has eyes on a vehicle moving south on your road, twenty seconds to encounter" Ryuku reported over everyone's earpieces.

"Out of sight, everybody!" Victor whispered. Most of the SEALs ducked down the side road where Roy had killed the first man but Richard and the man right behind him opted to duck into a doorway. They didn't enter the building but concealed themselves in the archway and waited, before long an SUV drove by. The vehicle passed Richard and the rest of his team without incident. "Form up, continue forward."

The rest of the hike to the target structure was uneventful, which was another set of mixed feelings for Richard. He had joined to kill terrorists but now that he was finally here he had doubts. He now knew first hand how different it is to sit in the comfort of your home and say you would have no issue killing terrorists by the thousands and actually being there with a rifle in your hands, a handgun and knife on your hip and orders to raid a building full of hostiles. He approached the south entrance to the structure and listened, there was no noise coming from inside so he examined the door, it was heavy duty and was going to require something with a bit more power than their battering ram to break open. Richard extended a fist and opened it quickly, indicating he wanted to use an explosive charge to breach the door. Victor tapped the shoulder of a SEAL and sent him to the front of the group, the man crouched down in front of the door and pulled out a brick of C4. This C4 was packaged differently, it was surrounded on all sides except one by a titanium shell meant to direct the blast in one direction. The SEAL peeled off the paper on the one exposed side and stuck it to the door, he then connected the detonator to it. He moved to the opposite side of the door and turned away from it, as did Richard, then turned the switch. After the explosion Richard turned back and kicked the door in, entered the building and moved to the right, he immediately saw a man rushing to get up from a couch, then saw the AK-47 on the table near him. Everything from that point on went into slow motion, Richard put his sights center mass on the man and pulled the trigger, he released the trigger and pulled it again, released it and pulled it a third time. He didn't even hear his three shots or feel the recoil of the gun, but he did see the man fall on top of the table, lifeless. "Clear on the right!" He called out involuntarily, startling himself. Time sped back up to normal and he found himself scanning the right side of the room.

Victor entered the room. "You four clear the kitchen" he said pointing to a huddled up group, "Harper, Grayson, right flank, everybody else straight ahead!"

Richard and Roy didn't think nor hesitate, it was as if their bodies weren't their own, running on some kind of autopilot. They entered the room on the right and found it to be empty, as they moved to the next room to the north they heard gunfire coming from the center hallway, seven shots total from two firearms, the two men didn't know if it was two of their colleagues shooting at the same time, or one of their fellow SEALs exchanging fire with an enemy, but by the small number of shots they knew it was not two enemies firing on their friends. The second room they entered was also empty so they linked up with the other group in the main hallway, seeing the four other SEALs who had cleared the kitchen catching up. "You six start up the stairs, we're right behind you" Victor ordered. Roy was third in line to go up the stairs, Richard was last, gunfire came from the top of the stairs as the SEAL on point engaged an enemy in the second floor hallway. As the group moved up the stairs Richard watched as Roy kicked a door in and brandished his rifle around the room, he stepped out without firing a shot. As the two other men in front of him walked past the door Richard, for no obvious reason, felt compelled to look into the room Roy had cleared, just as he did he saw a small boy, not a day older than five years, crawl out from under the bed and raise a pistol at him, without hesitation, Richard put two rounds into the boy's chest and watched him drop to the floor. Without lowering his rifle, his mouth sat agape and his eyes were wide, staring at his second victim. This was different from an adult reaching for a rifle, even though the boy had pointed a gun at him it was still unnerving to have to put down a child.

"Snap out of it!" Victor yelled as he smacked Richard's on the side of the head, "keep going!"

Richard jumped at the physical contact, but it brought his head back into the game, he turned and started down the hallway, having to step over a dead woman laying a pool of blood.

"Blue team has tangos inbound from the west, two trucks!" Richard heard Mark say over the earpiece.

"Red team, blue team weapons hot, weapons hot!" Victor yelled.

"Blue team copies engaging!" Mark replied.

"Red team copies, no contact" Ryuku said.

The team started up the stairs but the SEAL on point stopped before reaching the top, he pulled out a flashbang grenade and tossed it into the top floor. Everybody closed their eyes and covered their ears, two seconds later the grenade went off and the SEALs moved upstairs. When Richard got to the top he saw that the whole top floor was an open loft with computers and computer parts all over, no hostiles were in the room. Once Victor made it to the top of the stairs he stopped and looked around, "jackpot" he mumbled.

"Red team has contact closing in from the north, two SUV's!" Ryuku exclaimed.

"Take 'em out red team, blue team, status" Victor responded.

"Two tangos down, three more enroute to your location" Mark replied.

"Copy that..." Victor said "Grayson, Harper, Simmons, gather up every computer and hard drive you can find, everybody else downstairs, cover all entrances!" The three SEALs and the Master Chief began gathering up everything they could carry as the rest of the team went back down to the first floor. It wasn't long before they heard gunfire, a lot of gunfire. Victor had placed four computers and a dozen or more harddrives into his backpack. "Whatever you got take it, leave the rest!"

Richard got up and turned to leave but caught something out of the corner of his eye, it was an external harddrive with a brown X drawn on it with some Arabic, he shoved it between his chest and armor plate and followed his teammates back outside. The gunfire had died down once Richard was outside, but he turned to his left upon seeing movement, it was an enemy soldier about to fire on him, he got his rifle halfway up when a large puff of red appeared and the man dropped where he stood. "All hostiles eliminated" Ryuku said over the headset.

"Negitive you got APC's inbound from the east, four of them... And a tank! Get out of there! Less than a minute to contact!" Mark yelled over the radio.

"MOVE OUT!" Victor yelled as he and the team started sprinting south down the road they came in on. After a block of running Victor diverted to the right, then left into an alley and stopped. "Fall in, everybody here?" Everybody looked around, Richard didn't notice anybody missing and nor did anybody else. "Snipers, status."

"Enemy armor just arriving at target structure" Mark replied. "They're stopped, enemies disembarking... Holy shit."

"What?" Victor queried.

Ryuku chimed in "You guys got out of there just in time..."

Mark came back on, "There's got to be at least fifty enemy soldiers down there, and each of those APC's has a fifty cal mounted on top..."

Victor looked over his team and took a breath. "Weapons cold, we get out of here quiet or we don't get out of here at all."

The remainder of the exfiltration was uneventful, they piled back into the convoy of Army Humvees, Richard, Roy, Victor and the third SEAL who gathered hardware, Simmons, in the lead vehicle.

"Find anything of particular interest boys?" Victor asked.

Roy and Simmons shook their heads, Richard pulled the last harddrive he collected out of his improvised pocket. "I found this, was the only one I saw with any kind of markings on it."

Victor took hold of the object and examined it. "Hm... Could be nothing, could be what brings all of ISIS down... Good work, all of you."

"Thank you sir" the trio said semi-simultaneously.

Victor turned to the driver, who was Army, not Navy and much less a SEAL. "Now sir you understand anything that gets said in here can't be repeated right?"

"I understand sir" the man replied.

"Good..." Victor nodded, "I didn't catch your name..."

"Corporal Garth Tempest... At your service sir."