Sgt. Vasquez put down his binoculars and turned to look at his men. All eyes were on him, they knew it was "Go Time". He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow with a gloved hand then pointed his finger at Private Paterno.
"OK. Paterno and Taylor, you're coming down with me. The rest of you, keep watch BUT keep out of sight. Now let's go down there and get our guy."
With that, Vasquez started moving down the rest of the hill, keeping the shack between the farmhouse and himself. The last thing they wanted to do was be spotted by the dismounted infantry milling around the farmhouse. Paterno and Taylor followed close behind. As soon as they got to the shack all three dropped down and looked at each other. Vasquez got on one knee as he gave the other two a sign to stay down. At first he whispered. "Rusty!" Then a little louder - "Rusty". Nothing. He crawled around to the front of the shack. Now he was no longer able to shield himself from the farmhouse, he was exposed if spotted - not a good feeling. Lying on his back he reached over to the door. It was wooden, rotting and generally not in very god shape. There was a five centimeter gap between the floor and the door. Again he whispered Rusty, only this time under the doorway as directly as he could. Nothing. He looked up and saw the lock on the door was dangling. "Oh no.", he said to himself. He turned and looked back at the farmhouse from his prone position. The grass in the field was too high and too thick for him to see the farmhouse or to be seen. His cover was better than he had thought. So, he took a little risk. He opened the door a little bit and peeked inside.
The shack was empty except for a few old pieces of farm equipment and the tell tale sign of muddy foot prints. It looked like someone was in there with a few guest, hard to tell if they were invited or uninvited. Exactly what he was afraid of. Vasquez let the door close gently and crawled back to the other two men. Paterno spoke first - barely in a whisper. A simple "What?" was all he could get out. Paterno was totally confused by this whole mission. Now that Vasquez came back from the shack empty handed he was baffled at what they would do next.
Vasquez smiled directly at him and held his gaze for a moment. "It looks like they got him. So, we're gonna get him back." Vasquez turned to his MBITR (MultiBand Intra Team Radio) and called down the rest of the team. "Miller, stay up there with the M40A3. Your providing sniper cover. The rest of you get down here with the rest of the gear."
Over the next few minutes Vasquez went over the plan. Miller would stay behind and provide sniper cover and keep a look out for any more hostiles while the other five members crawled the two hundred meters across the grass field to the farmhouse. Once there, they'll take out the dismount infantrymen and regroup by the front door to storm the house.
Miller chose a nice spot just below the ridge of the hill that the team came in on to set up his sniper rifle. He was about 20 meters up on the hill and had a good view of the farm house. More importantly, he could see a few kilometers in either direction and could alert the team if they had any more company. The position he chose allowed for a good meter of earth sloping up behind him so that he didn't leave a silhouette against the sky. Now laying prone, Miller extended the rifle's bipod down for support. He was just around 200 Meters from the farm house. At this range, he was sure to hit his targets with ease. He was watching the Chinese infantrymen carefully as they were milling around the front of the house, which he could only partially see. At any given moment he could see two or three of them. Every twenty seconds or so, he looked up from his scope to check the road that ran past the farmhouse to make sure no one else was approaching. In not too much time, he got a signal from Sgt. Vasquez on his MBITR.
"We're here" Vasquez whispered." "Roger SL." Miller spoke back. "I have three targets in sight."
Vasquez continued with the instructions, "Take out number One on my mark. We have the others."
Frick and Taylor had crawled around the right side of the house where they could barely see two of the infantrymen leaning against the porch rail. They were talking quietly to each other about twenty meters from the two Recon Marines. Frick and Taylor had their M4s ready to go and were waiting for the signal from Vasquez to open fire. Both men were feeling their hearts racing. The anticipation was enormous.
Private Paterno and Corporal Thompson had crawled along the other side of the house just behind Vasquez. From this vantage point, they could see most of the house except for the porch. As they listened to Vasquez's commands, they knew Frick and Taylor had that covered. In front of them, they could see four Chinese infantrymen armed with light machine guns. The men were hanging around the vehicle. Paterno was watching one of them move over to the back of the vehicle away from the group when the man suddenly flew backwards leaving a pink misty cloud where he had just been. A second later they heard the boom of Miller's M40A3. Paterno swung his M4 carbine to his designated target, the one closest to the porch, and easily put three bullets into his upper chest. It looked like one more hit his neck as mist sprayed out the side while the body dropped backwards onto the dusty pavement. He moved his glance back to the secondary targets and saw that they had all been downed. He popped up onto one knee to better assess the situation. All four were down and Vasquez popped up and darted toward the porch. Paterno followed with Thompson covering them from behind.
There were two more dead Chinese Infantrymen on the porch. Frick and Taylor were on either side of the front door and Vasquez wasted no time kicking it in. Frick and Taylor moved inside quickly. Each one looked to his side. Frick yelled "clear" but Taylor saw a Chinese officer with a pistol leveled at him. He went to squeeze off a round but felt a bullet hammer into his chest armor. The glancing bullet spun him around and onto his butt. Paterno entered next, immediately turning and delivered two quick three round shots into the officer just after one more pistol bullet landed behind him in the wall. The Officer's body was blown back against a window then crumpled to the floor in a mass of blood and broken glass. Thompson started to grab Taylor and drag him out the front door when Taylor waved him off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. It glanced off of me."
Vasquez moved over to the stairs and was aiming up the staircase - watching to make sure no one assaulted them from the second floor. The entry hall was filling with smoke from the gunfire. Not too much yet, they could all still see fine. At this point, Frick had cleared the room opposite the one with the hostile Officer. Paterno, Taylor and Thompson leveled their weapons into the room the officer was in while Vasquez continued to cover the stairs.
They could hear some footsteps shuffling. None of the members of the recon team spoke any Chinese. So, there was nothing they could try except to take the room with brute force. Corporal Paterno quickly moved around the door as he dropped to one knee so he could see into the room better. He immediately saw another Chinese officer holding a gagged and bound Caucasian male in front of him. A knife was held to the prisoners throat. Across from him was a radio. The receiver was off the unit and a Chinese voice was playing out the speaker. Taylor moved in next. Without any hesitation he pulled the trigger and blew a hole into the Officer's skull spraying blood on the cieling. The prisoner dropped down onto his knees, his head down against the floor.
Taylor walked up to the prisoner, leveled his rifle at the man's head and spoke loud and clear. "Rusty?". The man shook his head vigorously in an up and down motion signalling yes. Vasquez heaved a huge sigh of relief now that they had found their man. The farmhouse incursion was going well. They had to check the upstairs to make sure no one else was around before they could relax though. He spoke over the MBITR to the squad. "Taylor and Paterno, stay with Rusty. Thompson come with me. Frick watch the front door." He checked in with Miller to make sure there wasn't any other action going on that he wasn't aware of. Then, the two men went upstairs and cleared the remaining rooms. They were all empty.
When they came back down the steps, Thompson turned to Taylor, "John are you sure your fine? Let me see where you got hit."
"I'm fine bro, I took harder hits at football practice."
Thompson looked down at Taylor's chest and saw a six centimeter tear in his tiger camo. The edges around it were black where the bullet had scorched the clothes.
"Man, do you know how to sew, brother?"
The two men laughed together and could feel the tension easing out of them. Vasquez walked outside with Frick. "Any activity out here Private?"
"Nope, just some soon to be rotting corpses of our enemy Sgt."
Vasquez looked out onto the dirty stone pavement in front of the house. There were three dead bodies lying right out front and one more on the other side of the "Brave Warrior" Vehicle. Each one was soaking in its own pool of blood. Alright let's have a look at our man, Vasquez said as he stepped back inside and reached into his pocket to pull out a fresh can of Copenhagen.
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