Task Force Desperate by Nealen Peter

Author:Nealen, Peter [Nealen, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Outskirts Press, Inc.
Published: 2012-10-29T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Larry, Hank, Bob, and I scrambled forward through the scrub, bent half over, our NVGs lowered in front of our FAST helmets, before spreading out and going to ground, crouching in the low, prickly brush deep enough that we would be lost in it to an observer from the town, without obscuring our own view.

In my head, I was cussing. It had been a pretty hellish five-klick movement from the shallow wadi where we had done what we could to conceal the vehicles. The oppressive heat hadn’t lifted much once the sun went down, so we were all sweating profusely under our kit, which had included about three liters of water per man. The ground had been soft and sandy most of the way, which makes it twice as hard to walk as over firm ground. Add to that the vicious, thorny tangle of the brush out in the desert, and we were all about as miserable as we could get. I was reasonably sure I was bleeding in several places under my trousers, but with all the sweat, it was hard to tell.

Focus. On task. I swept my gaze across what I could see of the tiny town of Balli Gubat, the darkness turned to shades of green. Directly ahead I could see a large enclosure made of shrubs just like many of the livestock enclosures that we had been seeing all over the place out here, only this one was considerably taller and thicker. From the imagery, there were a handful of these thicker, taller enclosures in the town, all apparently around wells. For obvious reasons, water was the primary concern of the people who lived here.

Imad was already at the enclosure, and starting past it. I could see down the track that served as a main road through Balli Gubat, which also ran past the same large enclosure, heading straight to the town square/well area. It was there that the Galmudug soldiers had set up, and I could see a couple of them gathered around a fire barrel. I couldn’t see a lot of detail with the NVGs, since it showed mostly their heat signature, but it looked like they were wearing cammies and some sort of chest rigs. One had an AK variant slung, while the other looked to be unarmed, until I caught sight of the PKM leaning against another barrel.

I flicked on the IR laser on the PEQ-15 affixed to my rifle, laid it on the AK-carrier, and waited for Imad’s move.

Imad was going old-school, without night vision. While he was still dressed in our pseudo-field uniform of baggy cargo trousers, T-shirt, and hiking boots, as opposed to much of any local attire, he wasn’t fully tac-ed out, and only had his Kimber holstered high on his hip, under the trailing edge of his shirt. He’d look pretty non-threatening at first glance.

He paused just inside the shadow of the enclosure, back where the two paramilitaries couldn’t see him in the glow of the fires, and called out in Somali.

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