Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) (45 page)

Chapter 11

The early
morning silence was shattered by the sound of a boy yelling.

Tariq
Hijazi, the village’s chief enforcer, raced toward the commotion equipped with
his AK-47. He carried the AK not because of the shout, but because any
self-respecting male over the age of twelve carried their weapons with them in
this part of the country. Always.

A couple
hundred yards from his compound, Tariq pushed through a group of men to have a
look at the boy, who he now saw was crying over a dog.

The dog was
dead. He yanked the boy out of the way and nudged the dog over with his sandal.
Three bullet holes marked the head of what had been the enclave’s biggest and
strongest dog.

His first
thought was that the tribe of ul-Haq was behind this. This tribe resided in the
mountains on the other side of the road below them. Often, boys of each tribe
would try to sneak up on each other’s homes as part of a way to show courage.

It was a
dangerous game that often left young boys dead, but whoever had made these
three shots was no boy. (They were spaced a couple of inches apart --
remarkable shooting in the dark, and pretty good shooting in daylight.)

“Tariq,”
someone said behind him.

“Shut up,”
he hissed. “I’m thinking.”

The dog was
facing down the draw. Tariq followed the direction of the dog’s look and
spotted a single shell casing ten yards away. He shoved a sleepy yet curious
boy out of his way and picked it up.

It was a
short, pistol casing. On the base, it was marked “.45 AUTO.”

Tariq
pinched the casing in his hand. Could it have been an American? The .45 was a
popular American round, and the shooting had been exceptional. And clearly
silenced, since it hadn’t been heard. So, someone with an expensive (and hard
to obtain) pistol attachment had shot the dog with incredible skill in the dark
of night.

The tracks
in the dirt moved down the hill, and Tariq easily determined that the person
who had done this wore boots. Further possible proof. Most Pakistani and Afghan
men wore tennis shoes or sandals. Boots were a luxury beyond most of their
means.

Perhaps it
was an American, or perhaps it was a wayward soldier for the Pakistani army.
The Army had moved hundreds of troops into the area, but the terms had been
spelled out prior to the incursion. And a silencer among their troops?
Completely unnecessary and almost impossible to fathom.

The
Pakistani army wouldn’t interfere with villagers or search tribal enclaves, and
local villagers were supposed to leave the Army alone. But someone -- either an
American or a foolish soldier in the Pakistani army -- had made a big mistake.
Many of the urban-raised soldiers saw the tribal villagers as nothing but
uneducated and dangerous religious zealots.

Tariq wasn’t
sure who he hated most: an American or a so-called “Muslim,” who had turned his
back on the true teachings of Islam.

“Round up
our warriors,” Tariq Hijazi commanded to the men around him. “We will hunt down
this fool.”

Chapter 12

Nick and the
S3 team had pushed hard after the incident with the dog. They now camped four
and a half miles east of the enclave.

In the other
direction, less than a mere four miles separated them from Ahmud al-Habshi’s
compound. But depending on what was being discovered and decided about the dead
dog they’d left behind, that four miles might as well be another hundred miles.
If they had a hunting party after them, then Ahmud al-Habshi would be their
last concern.

Worries of
such a threat had caused them to look for a hideout up on a finger -- a high
piece of ground -- that ran down from the ridge, instead of in one of the small
valleys nestled just beneath the higher hills, as they had been. If they were
being tracked, they’d be found either way. And it was better to be up high and
able to defend yourself than down in some gully hoping they didn’t toss
grenades down on you.

As the sun
and the heat climbed higher and higher, the men sweated under their nets. Each
man was awake and alert, fighting off fatigue with the kind of energy that can
only come from the feeling of being hunted.

Although
they couldn’t be sure, the suspicious and volatile reputation of the people in
this area made it easy to assume that danger was not far behind them. The
villagers, or possibly even the Pakistani army if they had been alerted, might
have spread out and could approach from above, below, or from either side.

There’d be
no sleeping today.

Nick laid on
his stomach, rolling dirt between his fingers and chewing on their situation.
He looked down at the dirt, then dragged his hand across the dry, dusty ground.
Damn it, he thought, he was sick of all the humping and more than ready to
infiltrate al-Habshi’s compound.

“Hey, guys,”
Red whispered. “We’ve got a serious problem.”

Nick turned
and saw Red, who was behind him, holding his hand out with two shell casings in
it.

Truck saw
the casings, as well, and scoffed, “Sorry, you little commie environmentalist,
but there’s no recycling bins in the area.”

“No,
asshole,” Red replied, clearly not in the joking mood. His eyes were fixated to
his palm. “I only have two casings. I thought I fired two rounds into that dog,
but I just remembered to reload my pistol and the magazine is missing three
rounds. I left a casing back there.”

That wasn’t
good, Nick thought. And then he remembered the stress of the moving through the
huts and how he’d ordered everyone to move out immediately.

“It’s my
fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t have rushed you back there.”

“It wouldn’t
have mattered. I thought I only fired twice.”

“It doesn’t
matter,” Marcus said. “We live as a team, and we die as a team.”

No one said
anything for a moment, and Marcus added, “Truth be known, it should have
occurred to me to grab that dog. We could have carried it out of there, and the
bloody mess could have easily been buried under loose dirt.”

Nick slung a
handful of dirt to the ground with frustration. The situation was spiraling out
of control. It was out of the norm for him to have overreacted to his fear. It
was out of the norm for Red, such an incredible point man, to have accidentally
fired three rounds instead of two. He was typically used to the adrenaline. And
Marcus never missed anything.

What the
hell was happening to them? He wiped his nose and knew it was the fatigue. This
mission just pushed the parameters of what any team could achieve.

He ran his
hand through the dirt and wondered if he’d signed their death sentences the
moment they crossed the border.

“It is what
it is,” Nick finally said. “Let’s stay sharp and with luck, we’ll hit this
compound tomorrow.”

He picked up
another clod of dirt and sifted it through his fingers. He saw movement,
dropped the dirt, and raised a pair of binoculars along the trail behind them.

“Speak of
the devil,” Nick said.

Chapter 13

Tariq Hijazi
and his men slowed. They had to be getting close. And at some point the trail
would end with a man waiting for them. And that man would be armed.

Tariq had
more than thirty men with him, and besides being armed with AKs, his men had
brought machine guns and RPGs to strengthen their power. At forty-four, Tariq
was more than an elder. He was the enclave’s military leader. And this hunt
presented a great opportunity for fame.

He was
willing to sacrifice them all, including himself, to earn the respect and honor
he had spent his life pursuing.

The group
pushed to the top of another finger of the mountain range, scanning ahead.

“There!” one
of his men yelled, pointing to the next finger.

And
squinting, Tariq saw it. Off in the distance, on the next piece of high ground,
a small, almost-imperceptible hump. Some kind of netting barely flapping in the
wind, with what appeared to be several men hiding in its shadows.

Nick Woods
and his team had given up the idea of concealment and were no longer lying
motionless. They had been spotted, and now it was time to fight. Red, Marcus,
and Truck now faced the same direction, watching their backtrail from under the
net.

They had
shoved packs in front of them for cover, as well as cushioned rifle rests, and
pulled ammo out from the pockets of their packs.

Truck yanked
out a big piece of beef jerky and threw it into his mouth, then while prone,
pushed himself forward into his RPK machine gun, using his toes to press
forward and apply pressure against the bipod legs.

Red popped a
cigarette in his mouth and lit it. It was his first cigarette in nearly two
weeks, and he relished the nicotine rush. Besides, he’d always believed that he
shot better when he smoked.

Marcus
checked their rear and stuck his head out from the net, looking up and down the
hill. He wanted to find the best egress route in case they couldn’t stop the
villagers.

And Nick
went into his own world.
Despite
his role as the leader, Nick was, at his core, a sniper first. And in
situations like this, it was not possible to focus on sniping individual
targets, while at the same time monitor the overall situation as necessary when
in command. Thankfully with the vast expertise of each individual and the
cohesion they had as a team, there wasn’t really much to command. And whatever
leadership was needed when Nick was otherwise engaged, was instinctively picked
up by Nick’s more than capable second-in-command, Marcus.

Nick had
laid six, ten-round magazines to his left and eased behind the Dragunov weapon
he carried. He was the only man on the team toting a sniper rifle, and now he
felt glad that he’d made the choice to bring it.

Marcus was
watching the group of villagers through his binoculars when he said, “Mark the
older one with the white turban and scraggly beard as the leader.”

Nick smiled
to himself, grateful to have a man like Marcus in S3 assisting him. Nick moved
his scope toward the man in question.

Marcus
scanned the group of villagers topping the crest of a hill. “I count at least
thirty, maybe more. Hard to tell with them all moving around.”

“Distance?”
Red asked.

“Maybe
twelve or fifteen hundred yards?” Marcus said, some doubt in his voice. “Nick?
What do you say?”

Nick tried
to use the Dragunov’s scope to measure the height of the men and assess the
range better, but the targets weren’t being cooperative. And he hadn’t drawn a
range card as he would have had he been in a true sniper capacity. Range cards
had notable landmarks and pieces of cover with the correct distance to within
mere yards. When the fighting began, the cards could make all the difference in
the world, since thinking that boulder was 500 yards away instead of 700 was a
big deal and enough to cause you to miss.

“Nick?”
Marcus asked again.

“Sounds like
a good guess,” he replied. “Definitely too far to shoot right now. But once
they start down the draw, they’ll be in range pretty quickly.”

To continue
reading, purchase it from here:
Afghan Storm (Nick Woods,
No. 3)
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