Sean and Hahn ran to the group, yelling for them to move out. Brad grabbed his heavy rucksack and looped the straps over his shoulders. He joined in line behind the rest of Charlie Group running toward the loading ramp of the aircraft. He followed until the line quickly stopped, then dropped into a seat on the port side. When everyone was onboard and set, Gunner flashed a thumbs up to the crew chief.
Slowly the CH-53 rose into the still dark, early morning sky. The ramp remained down and they could see the dim outlines of the darkened camp as they flew away back out over the Arabian Sea and towards the Gulf of Aden. Quickly they were up and at cruising speed; the two hundred mile trip to the main land would take them just over an hour. The sun was starting to break the horizon and the sky glowed in response.
Brad tried to relax. He went over the checklists in his head. He didn’t have to worry about forgetting anything; everything he owned was in his pack or on his person. He was carrying food and water for six days, which might seem like a lot, but not for continuous operations. Lately he had trained himself to survive on as little as one meal a day. One high calorie meal a day had done little to prevent the weight loss he had experienced in the last month.
He had two hundred and ten rounds of 5.56 ammo strapped to his vest and another hundred and forty rounds in his pack. He carried seventy-five rounds of 9mm ammo, not counting the fifteen rounds loaded into his Sigma pistol. The tomahawk was strapped to his hip, his fighting knife on the left breast of his armor. Brad had reluctantly discarded his helmet in exchange for a lightweight boonie cap. He had two changes of uniform and a light poncho liner in a bivy sack. Altogether, his kit was over eighty-five pounds.
The helicopter flared and changed altitude as they approached the coast line. The CH-53 cut right to approach the city in a slow, sweeping arc, out and away from their true objective. Just as in normal combat operations, the idea was to deceive the enemy of their true landing point. The helicopter neared the edge of the city and several times made false insertions.
The crew chief gave a five minute warning and everyone gripped onto their rucksacks and weapons. The Sea Stallion made another dry landing nearly two blocks from the target building before it leapfrogged up and sped to the actual drop site. The bird lowered and hovered just over the building as the crew chief yelled for them to get out. Quickly they grabbed their gear and poured out of the helicopter. The Sea Stallion crew members grabbed web and sling load materials and dumped it onto the deck just as the throttles went up and the helicopter roared away.
Brad watched as it made more false insertions and slowed its speed to lure any hunting primals away from the target building. Charlie Group cleared the area and made a full circle perimeter along the inside of the roof. They had formed a basic perimeter with the Alpha element taking responsibility of covering the two rooftop entrances. Then they dropped and became silent, listening for any movement, and smelling the air for signs of the primals.
Brad sat uncomfortably; he had unwisely chosen a position amongst broken stone and debris. The sun was now in full force and he could feel the sweltering heat and the sweat rolling down his back. The building they had chosen was three stories high. The roof was constructed of concrete but mainly held together by asphalt. The edges of the roof were skirted by a three-foot wall. Small vents, chimneys, and two roof access structures were almost randomly placed.
Brad quickly made a visual check of the rest of the Bravo element. Sean was in the middle of the hasty perimeter kneeling next to Hahn and Gunner. Chelsea and the other techs were in a broken line along the east end of the roof. Brooks had taken up a crouched position near the south wall where he could observe both roof access structures.
After waiting over ten minutes in silence, Gunner stood and called everyone to his position near the center of the roof. Brad got to his feet in the middle of the debris and looked around to make sure everyone had received the message. Brad reached for his rucksack that he had dropped near him just after exiting the helicopter. As he grabbed the top handle and went to lift the bag, he felt a sagging in his knees and heard the creaking sound of splitting wood. He quickly released the handle and stood motionless. For an instance he had felt a sensation of dropping. He relaxed and took a deep breath as he slowly took a step forward.
Just as he leaned forward the roof gave out from underneath him. He dropped fast as if a trap door had opened. He slipped feet first with no time to outstretch his arms. He slapped his face on a beam as he fell through layers of rotted wood and asphalt. He consciously fought to hold on to his rifle as he slapped into, then through, a large pile of debris. He felt as if he was lying on piles of rotten bodies and skeletons. A hot white flash of pain rushed through his body.
He couldn’t see. The quick movement from the bright outdoors to the dark interior of the building had blinded him. He quickly checked every inch of his body for injuries. He felt okay, except for the stinging burn on his face and the taste of blood on his lips. He stretched out his arms and felt the cushioned mess around him. Brad went to straighten his legs and felt the searing pain in his thigh. Apprehensively he dropped his arm and felt a large wooden splinter piercing through the top of his leg. He had apparently fallen into a junk room loaded with piles of broken furniture and masses of garbage bags filled with refuse.
Brad could see light from the hole he had fallen though, a narrow break in the roof maybe ten to twelve feet above him. He tried to stand but found himself tangled in the mass of broken furniture and garbage bags. The pain was unbearable, and made putting weight on his right leg impossible. He heard a voice call his name from above. They were obviously trying to stay away from the break in the roof. He shouted back a quick reply.
Brad again tried to untangle himself from the debris when he heard the first moan.
‘Oh shit,’
he said to himself as he lay there, silently listening. He concentrated on trying to find the source of the noise. There was a skirmish of activity behind him and the noise sounded muted, possibly through a wall. Brad closed his eyes and slowly opened them again, trying to let the light from the hole in the ceiling bleed into the room.
He began to make out the far wall, maybe ten feet away. He could see garbage and debris all around him; it was piled thick to the ceiling and pressed against a battered and destroyed door.
‘Oh no,’
he thought again as he realized where he had fallen. He was positioned in the middle of a makeshift barricade. Brad twisted hard in the garbage and was able to make out a larger portion of the room opening up into the darkness.
‘Now,’
the question he asked himself.
‘Are there primals in the room? Or are they all on the other side of the barricade?’
Another moan, coming from deep within the dark corners of the room, answered his question. The moan was joined by more screams from the other side of the door. Brad saw a shadow in the light above; he strained his eyes to see Brooks lying flat looking, into the hole.
“You okay down there?” Brooks yelled.
“Leg is dicked up, but I’ll live, if that’s what you are asking. I’m also not alone, if you were curious.”
“Yeah I can hear the bastards, how many?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Brad said, shouting over a building chorus of screams and moans. “Sounds like a swarm. I have at least one of them in the room with me; the rest are on the other side of a door.”
“What did you fall in, buddy? You’re in a rat’s nest of shit down there; can you crawl out?”
Brad bent his body and strained his arms, trying to get a handle onto something solid. He reached a long, broken board and was able to get a few fingers around it. He began to pull hard to straighten himself; getting his other arm around the board, he pulled with all of his strength. Just as he finished pulling himself to a painful kneeling position, there was a crash into the pile. A primal had hit it at a full on run. It was snarling and thrashing at the barricade, trying to get at Brad.
Brad was now in complete panic mode, scrambling to get out of reach of the creature, ignoring the pain, and fighting off the shock. With no room to maneuver the M4, he pulled his M9 and tried to get a good angle. Holding the pistol with a bent arm, he fired at the frenzied creature which was moving fast and jumping around the pile. Brad fired again, unsure if he hit it. He fired a third time and saw a portion of the creature’s jaw explode, but it continued to come at him, attacking the barricade from different directions. Brad pressed hard against the obstacles behind him, using his good leg to press back and create a dead space. He brought up the pistol, took careful aim, and finally put down the primal.
The same gunshots that had killed his immediate threat also sounded the dinner bell for the crazies on the other side of the door. Brad forced his way through the pile, crawling and dragging himself toward the creature he had just killed to get to the inside of the room and out of the barricade. As he crawled, he looked back toward the door and saw the first of many hands grab at the battered wooden door.
“Talk to me down there, I can’t see shit from up here!” Brooks yelled.
Brad finally freed himself from the barricade and out of the cluster of garbage. He slipped, rolled to the hard floor, and then rolled back further, falling flat on his back onto a carpet. He looked around and saw more loose refuse and garbage. Brad struggled at his armor and finally located his flashlight. He quickly panned it around the void, relieved to find he was alone. The single primal must have occupied this hide out. It had probably been wounded somehow and turned here alone, or was abandoned here. Either way, it was not his problem.
“I’m clear, but there are a lot of them trying to get in,” Brad yelled up to Brooks.
Brad took a look at his leg; a large, broken piece of wood had entered the right side of his thigh, piercing through the top of his leg. It came clean through the top and there was no bleeding, so he hoped it missed the artery. There was no time for self-surgery, so he wrapped and stabilized the splinter as best he could with dressings made from his gear. Another pounding and a sound of ripping wood woke his thoughts again.
Brad holstered the M9 and swung his suppressed M4 back into action. He watched the break in the door as creatures poured out. The barricade looked like hell, but it seemed to do the job. Everything that poured into it was quickly bogged down in the piles of broken furniture and garbage. At least five of them had breached the door and were piled into the mess now.
Brad heard the blast of a twelve gauge shotgun come from above, then another crash and the sporadic sounds of suppressed small arms fire.
“Hold on buddy, Alpha element is on its way down. They just breached the door,” Brooks shouted.
“No, come on man, I can’t get out through that door. It’s blocked solid by the barricade,” Brad shouted back over the roaring of the primals.
“Don’t worry about it, just keep yourself safe,” Brooks yelled.
Brad raised the suppressed rifle to his shoulder and took an aimed shot. He struck one of the tangled creatures square in the top of the head. Slowly, Brad used his hands to right himself and to move farther back into the room against a far wall. He propped himself up and raised his rifle, killing another primal that was burrowing through the barricade. Brooks kept calling down, telling him to hold tight. Alpha was in the hallway and would be on him shortly.
There was a muffled explosion. Brad saw sparks from outside the destroyed door. The rest of the door was yanked back and off of its hinges. He heard the men outside shouting instructions, and a light shone into the pile. The last three primals were quickly put down. Brad tried to stand; he struggled but made it to his feet. He looked into the blinding light.
“You okay in there, bro?” he heard the elder Villegas call out to him.
“I’m good, but I can’t get out that way.”
“Okay bro, get away from that wall. We fixing to make a new door,” Daniel answered.
The men left their position outside of the door. Brad heard more gunfire and the shouting of soldiers. Soon there was a pounding at the wall, followed by a muffled yell warning him to get away. There was a loud yell down the hall of
“Fire in the hole”
just as the room exploded and a sharp crack cut Brad’s hearing. He couldn’t see anything; the room was a cloud of dust and debris, and his ears were ringing. Brad struggled again to stand as the men rushed the room and grabbed him.
Quickly they dragged him through the breached wall. Two men carried Brad, two more cleared the way out front, and another two took up the rear. They passed through a cluttered apartment and into a trashed hallway. They moved quickly up and over dead primals. They found the stairway, turned the corner, and the lead men stopped to cover the stairs that led down while the men carrying Brad moved him back up to the roof. Brad was moved several feet from the door just as everyone came onto the roof and the door was secured.
Brad was carefully placed on his back near the wall’s skirt. Quickly, Brooks cut Brad’s uniform away from the wound. He reached in his aid bag; finding what he was looking for, he went to stick Brad. “No … Don’t. There’s no casualty evacuation coming for me, I have to stay sharp,” Brad said.
Brooks gave Brad a worried look and shook his head, “I don’t think you have a choice, Brad. I can’t fix this. Unless you go back on the return chopper, you won’t get any treatment,” Brooks said.
Chelsea came forward and kneeled near Brad. “Let him give you the morphine. The helicopter will be back and they can treat you. We can secure the roof until then,” she said.
Brad looked up at Sean. “Tell them.”
Gunner stepped forward. He told them about the egress plan; the move to the airport. How they had all needed to be gone when the CH-53 returned for the pickup. Yes, there was an option to stay behind and return on the bird, but he hoped they would choose to attempt the airfield. They needed to make a decision, and quick.