20:05 / 8:05 P.M. IRST
Get out of here if you want to save your lives,” Nir said in Arabic. He had to give some respect to the three young shepherds. Despite the fact they had only one rifle and two long staffs, they were standing their ground against six heavily armed men dressed in military fatigues.
“What about our sheep?” asked the one with the rifle. “We want to take our sheep.”
“There’s no time. You leave without your sheep or you die with them.”
“We want our sheep.”
“Boss, we don’t have time for this,” Yaron said. The other team members were already scouting the best cover among the three small stone buildings that made up the sheep pen and shepherds’ hut.
Nir reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of rial notes worth just under two thousand dollars—the entire stash headquarters had given him in case they were somehow stranded in Iran. “Take this and get out of here.”
The man with the rifle nodded to one of the other men, who raced up and grabbed the cash. All three then ran off, leaving their sheep behind.
“Everybody’s got their price,” Nir said.
“Shouldn’t have let them go.” Yaron was kneeling behind a low stone wall, checking his Galil machine gun. “Now they’ll let everyone know we’re here.”
“Who are they going to call? The IRGC?” Nir moved to a spot ten meters away.
“Good point.”
“Term base, this is Term Lead. Be advised that we’ve taken shelter at a sheep pen at…” Nir reached in his pocket for his GPS but couldn’t find it. “Doron, give her our coordinates.”
Doron did so, then Nir continued. “We expect company very soon. At least 50. Any sign of our helo friends?”
“Negative,” said Liora. “We can’t even raise them on the phone anymore. I think they’ve stopped taking our calls.”
Nir couldn’t help feeling betrayed. The two marines had seemed like they understood the wider brotherhood of ops. Granted, they could only do what their superiors allowed them to do, but still…
“Keep trying. Term Lead out.”
Headlights crested a hill 80 meters away. A jeep took the rise, followed by a truck. They paused as if they were planning their approach.
Nir looked to his left. He could just make out Lahav behind a windowless wall that made up one of the three sides of the open shepherds’ hut. He was sitting with his legs tucked up and his head on his knees.
To his right he locked eyes with Yaron, who raised his eyebrows and gave a small smile. They both knew none of them would likely survive this. And for any who did, their fate might even be worse—captured, interrogated, tortured, executed.
Looking forward, Nir saw that both vehicles had begun to approach their location.
“Don’t waste rounds, guys. Take only good shots. Wait for my order.”
As he lined up his rifle, Nir’s mind drifted to Nicole. He wondered if she was praying for him right now. While he didn’t buy into all that Jesus stuff, she certainly did. Right now, he’d take all the help he could get. The two of them once had a conversation about dying, when she’d said she wasn’t afraid to die because she knew where she would go. He wished he had that same kind of confidence. If this was his last night on earth, he had no idea what would happen to him after.
Nicole’s God—or Jesus, I guess—if You’re really there, I could use some help here. If You get me out of this, I promise to really listen to Nicole next time she talks about You. Protect me, but most of all protect my men.
The squeak of brakes cut through the quiet night. He heard a lot of activity from the truck but couldn’t see past the glare of the headlights. However, in front of the truck, he saw four officers exit the jeep. Nir could hear them talking, but he couldn’t understand their Persian words.
Four soldiers appeared in the light and began moving forward while the officers and the rest of the troops took positions of cover behind the vehicles.
Wait for it, Nir thought. Let them get closer.
When they were three meters away, Nir fired, and one of the soldiers dropped to the ground with most of his neck torn away. Instantly, four more shots echoed, and the rest of the lead squad went down. Without pausing, Nir directed his rifle at the vehicles and began firing. The IRGC men shot back, and Nir’s face was peppered with chips of stone.
He ducked and wiped the dust from his eyes. When he looked back over the wall, he spotted a low target alongside the jeep. One shot took the soldier in the hip and put him on the ground. A second shot finished him off.
Two grenades flew from the opposite side of the sheep pen. One landed near the officers, putting three of them down. The second was perfectly thrown toward the transport truck’s external fuel tank. A fraction of a second after the grenade blew, the truck did too. All gunfire from the IRGC soldiers stopped.
“Doron, Dima, clear the area.”
“Root,” they said. Nir saw them up and moving toward the burning truck, rifles ready. Moments later, he heard two shots, followed seconds later by another double tap.
“Cleared,” said Dima. “All hostiles are down.”
“Collect whatever weapons and ammo you can salvage, then get back,” Nir said. “This was the easy round. Anybody bleeding?”
“Just a little.” Nir looked over and in the light of the fire saw blood smeared across Yaron’s forehead.
“My arm got tagged, but it’s just a graze. Lost a little flesh is all,” Doron said.
“How you doing, Lahav?” Looking to where the analyst had been shaking, Nir was surprised to see him with his Jericho 941 in his hand, looking around the wall toward the truck fire.
“It’s really different from Assassin’s Creed.”
All the guys laughed. Nir said, “Yeah, just a bit different from a video game.” Noticing Lahav’s slide was locked back, he added, “You may want to change your mag.”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
“Get ready, everybody. The rest should be here any moment.”