Chapter 350

I heard Andy getting dressed at 4 AM. I did the same. I looked at the satellite images that Kevin was sending to me. It was five minutes old, there was no one at the villa yet and no changes from yesterday; good news I hoped. The note on the email said to expect an updated one every two hours.

Breakfast was ready in the embassy lunchroom. After breakfast, back in the basement Andy laid out the plan. An hour later we had loaded both Range Rovers and both Suburban’s with the drones and other weapons.

Across the road from the villa were a dying mangrove orchard and a burned and an abandoned homestead from the last local war. The thermals had shown no activity there all week. A quick search as we unloaded reinforced the assumption.

Charlie and Hoss immediately flew the two drones with the thermal cameras over the rest of the orchard to be sure no one was hiding amongst the dying trees and brush piles.

Another e-mail from Kevin showed no life at the villa; the image was so recent it showed us parked behind the abandon house across the road. Andy handed out the ear wicks; it was Go time. I walked with four of the group to the second row of trees on the left side of the dirt lane. The first guy peeled off to take a position where he would be able to take out the guard on the south-east corner when he showed up.

Andy, Howie and Bernie slipped out of the group at the villa to hide the C4 charges where they would do the most good and then they were taking position on the east side of the villa two rows of trees away for the time being. I continued on to the north east corner to wait for the guard who was stationed there.

There were 3 who made their way in the right side of the orchard. One went to each corner and the third was to be a lookout and provide covering fire for Andy and Howie while they were planting the devices, if it became necessary.

At ten the first of the group started arriving; they were the guards and staff for today’s festivities. Two persons instead of one went to each corner. They took the well worn path that was used every day to their position; it was a suicide path today.

A complication for sure but not much of one as Andy continued to give updates as cars continued to arrive, including Faaiz Faeq Fahad. By the time they were done there were 4 Land Rovers with different sect signs on each of them, each with 3 to 4 people.

From the description, it was a status symbol for a terrorist to have a driver/ body guard or two. There were a total of 15 people in the first group.

Prince Aabad Aabzaari arrived in style; new Land Rovers, in the third car of the four car convoy with three in the car; two bodyguards plus the driver. The other three cars in the procession each had 2, a driver and additional bodyguard I assumed for a total of ten. The grand total was 33 to 11 of us.

I sure hoped that the drones, explosives and the element of surprise were a big equalizer.

I watched my two guys as they were doing some half-assed shadow fighting and wrestling when they were not looking out at the field. They never considered that there may have been someone behind them.

Andy gave the command for the perimeter guards to go down. The second round was going into the chamber before number two realized that his buddy had just died. He joined his buddy on the path to see Allah two seconds later. There was no sound of them dying; the silencers took care of that.

With rifle at the ready, I made my way to Andy’s group just in time for the real action to start. The eight leaders and the prince with his three body guards had gone in the villa; the rest were having an old fashioned bullshit session standing by the vehicles in two separate groups.

I took my second position in the same tree row as Andy to cover the rear of the building, in case anyone survived the explosive package and tried to escape. Oscar - who had taken out the guards on the north-east corner - was on the opposite side to provide a cross fire with me and down each side of the villa

The prince’s drivers and extra guards were by their vehicles while the terrorist drivers and guards were on other side by their vehicles. I guess they didn’t associate very well. The go command for gun drones to make the first pass was given.

The operators had their attack well planned; they came out over the top of the mangrove trees, within 100 feet of the groups and put withering fire onto the groups. As soon as they made their first pass and turned around, Howie tripped off all the C4 charges.

Howie had placed the charges in a triple row of ceramic jars that were lined up to divide the dirt lane in front of the villa. The prince’s men were on one side and the terrorist group on the other. Between the gun drones and the flying ceramic, only a few were moving.

Howie had also placed charges at the rear and front of the building; the result was part of the ends of the villa were blown away giving me and Oscar a clear shooting field. The gun drones made one slower pass, this time moving from target to target until they were out of ammo. They made a fast run to the controllers for new ammo belts.

I put down four moving targets trying to escape out the back of the villa; Oscar fired on several more before Andy called for a cease fire. They moved along the row of victims by the cars; if they were not dead, a knife finished the job - I wanted none of them to roll over and shoot us in the back.

I pulled my Glock - that was better for close in shooting than the rifle - and made it to the corner where I could make quick glances into the villa. Andy did the same on the other end.

The only sound was someone shouting first in Arabic then in broken English “I surrender, I surrender.”

We eased our way in gently; all inside were dead or badly wounded. The prince was trapped under his two dead bodyguards with his legs mangled. All 9 of us were in the remains of the building with the drones flying back overhead for protection.

We pulled the dead bodyguards off the prince and set him up. I pulled my phone out and took several pictures of him. Then I pressed record and pulled off my camo hood. When my face came into view he recognized me and was very happy for a minute.

“You paid to kill my men; then you paid to have me and my family killed. Did you really think you could get away without repercussions?” I asked.