Dima, Gil, on me. Everyone else, cover.” Nir popped up and over the berm, his X95 readied and his eyes forward. Someone passed in front of a window to his right, but Dima put the man down before Nir could sight him in.
The rear compound wall had been shredded enough for them to simply step over it. Reaching the house, they flattened themselves against the back wall. There were two windows facing out, one on each side of them, and a back door. Nir pointed Dima to one and Gil to the other, then counted down with his fingers.
3…2…1
The two men moved, while Nir pushed down on the back door handle. There was no movement. Taking one step back, he kicked his right leg forward and connected just under the handle. The door swung open more easily than Nir had anticipated, throwing him off balance as he stumbled into the kitchen. A Hezbollah soldier stood beyond the doorway taking aim, but Dima leaned through a broken window and sent two rounds into the man’s chest. He dropped.
Something metallic bounced into the room.
“Grenade!” Nir yelled. Still off balance, he fell across the kitchen, snatching hold of a table to use as a shield. The grenade went off, and the pressed-wood table exploded into tiny pieces. Splinters imbedded into his face and ricocheted off his body armor. Thankfully, the table had taken much of the force of the grenade, but still the air was driven from his lungs, and his head felt like someone had pinged an aluminum bat off his temple.
Stay in the game. Stay in the game.
Looking up, he spotted Dima and Gil, who were peeking through the back door into the kitchen. Both shook their heads. They didn’t know where the grenade had come from either. Nir signaled for the two men to go opposite directions and clear the outside of the house.
“Lead, we’re coming forward,” said Yaron from back at the berm.
“Negative! Hold.” He had to find where this other guy was. Then he heard the faintest sound. It was metallic. Like that of a pin being pulled from a grenade. And it came from down in the tunnel.
Leaping to his feet, Nir took three steps to the hole in the floor and opened fire. In the muzzle flashes, he saw what an up-close rifle round could do to a man’s face. He immediately knew that this Lebanese fighter would join the long line of others who would sometimes visit him in his dreams.
A loud explosion from the terrorist’s grenade sounded from below the ground. Nir stumbled backward as rocks and dirt flew up through the hole in the ground.
“Farzat, drop back into the tunnel and send a couple of those grenades rolling this way. I just took out someone down the hole and I don’t know if he was alone.”
“Root,” said the 504 man.
Nir crossed to the other side of the kitchen, but kept his rifle trained on the hole. Soon there was a boom, and a dust cloud blew up out of the hole. That was followed by another. This time a voice cried out in Arabic, “I surrender! I surrender!”
First one hand rose above the floor, then a head and chest. It was a young Lebanese man no more than 20. Once he had pulled himself all the way out, he went to his knees and wrapped both hands behind his head. “I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me! My mother depends upon me!”
The young man was shaking as he stared down at the floor. “Please, sir, I am so sorry! Spare my life! I left all my weapons in the tunnel. Come check me. I promise!”
“Who are you?” Nir demanded. He had been ready to advance on the man and pull him to the ground. But when the guy had said those last words, “Come check me,” he almost seemed too eager.
“Please sir, do not hurt me. See, I have no weapons!”
Nir heard Gil and Dima both confirm the outside of the house was clear. “Okay, clear the rest of the inside.” Turning back to the young man, he said, “I asked you your name.”
“I am Kabbani. Wesalaam Kabbani. They came and took me when I was a teen. I didn’t want to join them. They forced me. They threatened my mother.” He was crying now.
“Open your shirt,” Nir commanded in Arabic. The young man had said he left his weapons in the tunnel. Before Nir approached him, he was going to make sure.
Confused, the man asked, “Please, what do you want?”
“I want you to keep one hand above your head and use the other to open your shirt.”
Kabbani seemed even more frightened now. “Please, sir, just let me go. My mother needs me. Please, come check me. No weapons.”
Nir lifted his rifle and pointed it at the Hezbollah terrorist. “Open your shirt! Now!”
The man brought his hand down hard toward his chest, giving him just enough time to yell “Allahu akb—” before he blew up.
When the man started moving his hand, Nir dove toward the living room. The concussive wave caught him before he hit the ground and kept him airborne across the entire room. Because the front wall was so torn up by bullets, he burst through it and landed outside on the cement of the drive. The hard surface rejected his head’s attempt to merge with it, and everything went black.
Nir may have passed out or maybe he didn’t. He was never too sure even much later, after the ringing in his ears had stopped and he was able to piece together multiple coherent thoughts. For now, the first words that went through his mind were, Voices. Who’s talking? What’s happening?
As the fog began to clear, he saw Dima next to him, laid out on the ground and holding his head. The Russian had been clearing the room on the other side of the kitchen wall and, like Nir, had been tossed out onto the drive. Gil was kneeling over Nir, checking him for injuries.
“Nir, are you okay? Say something!”
“Well, that sucked,” Nir tried to say, but he wasn’t sure if he had actually formed real words.
To his left, Dima swore in some foreign tongue, then spat blood out of his mouth.
The rest of the team came running up. Along the way, Imri called out, “House is cleared. All are down.”
Farzat dropped to his knees next to Nir. “You okay?”
“Never been better,” Nir said before breaking into a coughing fit. This time, he was pretty sure his words made sense.
“That’s good, achi, because Stavro and I have spent five years remodeling this house. Kidon comes by and destroys it in fifteen minutes. You people owe me some work.”
Nir stared at him, trying to process the man’s words. Then the 504 man began to laugh and slapped him on the shoulder, which Nir immediately discovered must have been the one he had landed on.
“Nir, coms. Listen to your coms,” said Gil.
Reaching to his ear, he realized that he had lost his coms in the explosion. Farzat quickly pulled his out and handed it to Nir. He caught Nicole as she was saying, “…at least six vehicles. This isn’t over yet. You’ve got to get out of there.”
“Copy,” he groaned.
“Hey, look here!” It was Stavro. He was out in the street standing next to one of the trucks. Next to him was Imri, who had his rifle trained on the neighbors, who had started exiting their homes now that the shooting was over. The 504 man continued, “The other two will never move again without donkeys towing them. But this one still seems good.” Reaching in, he turned the key. It started up.
Unfortunately, it was the one without a machine gun.
“Okay, let’s get moving,” Nir croaked out as Gil helped him to his feet.