"We haven"t heard anything from Command in a couple of weeks."

I was starting to feel uneasy. It was a weird situation. We were basically having a stand-off with these guys. And for what? They didn"t even know about the distress call.

Gordon motioned with his head at the hut the Green Berets seemed to be guarding. "Who you got inside."

"You know what our objective is. We"re here to work with these people."

"That"s not what I asked," Gordon said calmly. "Who"s inside?"

The team leader paused, like he was weighing up his options. He then told one of his men to open the door. The man seemed to hesitate for a second before opening it. As he did, two other guys stood behind him, weapons at the ready.

"We"re not entirely sure who they are," the team leader answered. "But if I had to take a guess I"d say they were Al Qaeda. They came in yesterday, guns blazing."

We had a look inside the mud hut. I counted ten men. They were lying on their backs. Their arms were tied down by their side and their legs were tied together.

"Look, we"ve been delivering intel to Command for months now," the team leader said. "We"ve been all over this area raiding hide outs and supply routes. Trust us, these guys in there. They"re bad news."

I snuck another look pa.s.sed the Special Forces soldiers. The prisoners were lying down, eyes closed. One of them seemed to be moaning in pain. They looked ill. They did not look like hardened guerrillas.

"Why do they look so sick?" Franco asked. "Have you been mistreating them?"

"h.e.l.l no. They came here on a suicide mission. They had planted IED"s around the outskirts of the village. Probably a couple of nights ago."

"IED"s?" Drake said, surprised.

"Improvised Explosive Devices."

"We know what they are," Gordon replied. "But why here? All they way up in the mountains. Doesn"t make sense."

"As far as we can tell, their plan was to come in here and cause as much damage as possible," he said as he pointed at the men in the hut. "I mean, look at them. They"re sick. They"ve probably got pneumonia. It"s been a hard winter. These guys are malnourished. They"re dying. They wanted to go out as martyrs. Tomorrow we"re gonna set out with one of the local guides. I"m guessing we"ll find their hideout. We were lucky to nip this in the bud."

What he said made sense. But I still felt uneasy. The Green Berets were famous for supplying misinformation.

Eventually we all calmed down. About twenty minutes later some reinforcements moved in on the village to make sure it was truly secure. Well maybe they weren"t reinforcements. They looked more like a forensic investigation unit or something.

We decided it wasn"t worth the time and energy to hang around. Besides the Special Forces team had seniority and they were here in this area for the long haul. No point in arguing. Command had obviously screwed up with the lines of communication.

I had one last look at their prisoners before we left. They were older men. Sick and desperate. They were helpless.

Again, I couldn"t help but think about how they looked nothing like battle-hardened warriors.

Jan 15th PAYBACK Command called us in the next day. I a.s.sumed it was for another debrief.

I was wrong.

They were organizing a bombing mission and they wanted eyes on the ground for a battle damage a.s.sessment.

It was probably at the request of the Green Berets. I"m guessing they had searched the surrounding area with one of the local guides, like they said they would.

I"m guessing they had found something.

Gordon volunteered to lead the mission as usual. But Command said they only wanted a two man team. Basically, all they needed was a sniper and a scout.

Franco and I were chosen.

I had only been in the team for a short time but I had proven myself as the best marksmen. I was honored to be singled out for a mission like this.

Apparently, the Green Berets had discovered a hideout of insurgents. And according to their intelligence, this particular hideout was used by the Al Qaeda leadership. The plan was to fly two F16 jets into the valley and destroy it.

All we had to do was observe and report.

We took a chopper ride up into the mountains and dropped in just on the other side of the valley. We were pretty close to the target area but the mountainous terrain provided us with plenty of cover.

The chopper moved out and away from us. It then descended down into the valley that led back towards the base. The noise of the rotor blades, echoed off the valley walls, giving the impression there was more than one helicopter.

Franco and I waited for the chopper to clear out before we made our move. To get eyes on the target we needed to climb up and over the ridge above us. We would then need to climb down and get underneath the cloud cover.

The cloud cover was good for concealing us and keeping us hidden. But we needed to get below the haze and the mist of the clouds so we could see the target.

I checked my watch. We had about ten minutes until the F16"s would be here.

We climbed down to a vantage point. We could see a few buildings in the valley below. Like most of the buildings up in these mountains, they were little more than mud huts. But according to the intelligence of the Green Berets, these buildings were used for Al Qaeda leadership.

We decided to get a little closer. We continued to climb down. We came across a switch-back road cut into the side of the valley. Well actually it was more like a muddy goat track. I guess it wasn"t all that unusual, but the thing that freaked me out was that it wasn"t on any of the maps we"d studied.

It was enough to make me even more nervous than I already was. But ultimately there was nothing we could do about it.

We found a section of the goat track where a few low lying scrubs grew out between some huge boulders and took cover. Even though we were a fair distance away from the target we still took the time to make sure we were completely hidden from view. I did not want to take any chances.

We settled in. I positioned my sniper rifle and looked through the scope. Franco was acting as my spotter. The mud huts were pretty dilapidated. It wouldn"t take much for the F16"s to reduce these structures to complete nothingness.

I checked my watch again. Five minutes until the jets would be here. The excitement and antic.i.p.ation was growing.

I was about to say something to Franco. I think I was going to ask him if he had ever done anything like this before, when we heard a noise coming from back down the muddy track. It sounded like a cowbell. Franco pointed to his eyes and then pointed back down the road, indicating that he had seen some possible enemies.

We hunkered down behind the scrub and the rock boulders.

Coming towards us was a malnourished looking donkey. It was pulling a rickety old cart. An elderly looking man was driving the cart, urging the donkey forward.

The donkey slowly but surely made his way down the track towards us.

On the back of the cart were two younger men. They were armed with AK-47"s. Lying down next to the men in the back of the cart was an RPG - rocket propelled grenade launcher. And several body bags.

My heart began to beat faster. I held my breath and prayed that our choice of cover was enough to keep us hidden.

I rested my hand on my sidearm and thumbed the safety off as quietly as humanly possible. I glanced across at Franco; he had his M4 rifle aimed at the men.

His face was a picture of complete serenity.

Franco out ranked me, so he had the say on whether or not we engaged. Basically, if he fired his weapon, I would fire mine.

The cart moved slowly, pa.s.sing us by only a few feet. Just when I thought they were going to move on they stopped.

One of the men jumped off the back of the cart and looked around. He took a drag on a cigarette he was smoking and then threw it in the mud. After that he coughed up a bit of phlegm and spat on the ground.

My heart was beating so hard at this point; I was convinced they could hear it.

The man then had a real good look around. He couldn"t see us though. We were completely concealed. But if he came any closer we would have no choice but to open fire and get the h.e.l.l out of this area.

Fortunately, he got back on the cart and they continued on their way.

The donkey climbed down the switch back road and they made their way into the valley. They moved slowly pa.s.sed the mud huts and then disappeared on the opposite side of the valley.

They must"ve entered a cave, I thought. But we couldn"t see from where we were.

The whole incident seemed to last an eternity. But in reality it was only a couple of minutes.

I flicked the safety back on my sidearm and repositioned my rifle. I checked my watch. The F16"s would be here any second now.

I looked towards the east, the direction where the jets would come from. But there was no sign of them yet.

About a minute later or so the donkey cart remerged from the cave down in the valley. And weirdly, it was stacked full with bodies. There must"ve been a dozen or so.

The old man stopped the cart next to a ma.s.sive ditch about a hundred feet away from the mud huts. Two men unloaded the bodies. From what we could tell, the bodies appeared to be fellow guerrillas. But we couldn"t be totally sure.

The bodies were dumped unceremoniously in the ditch.

Once the cart was empty, the old man and the cart disappeared from view. But then another cart appeared. A bigger cart. It was carrying even more bodies. They dumped these bodies on the ground in a heap. I noticed a couple more men next to the pile. They had begun to dig another ma.s.s grave.

Thirty seconds later, Franco tapped me on the shoulder and nodded back towards the east. "They"re here," he whispered.

I turned my head to have a look. It took me a split second to spot them. The jets were so low to the ground I could barely see them. I actually thought they were helicopters at first.

But they came in fast. Too fast for helicopters. And way too fast to be flying at such low levels, through a rocky valley in a mountain range. The pilots were either extremely good or extremely crazy. Maybe both.

They were silent in their approach. A split second later, they dropped their bombs and climbed up and out of the valley and hit the after burners.

It wasn"t until they began their climb that we could hear the deafening roar of their engines. In the blink of an eye the jets had climbed out of the valley and disappeared over the mountain range.

Meanwhile the bombs and the missiles they had launched streaked towards their targets. The warheads erupted in giant orange fireb.a.l.l.s. Black columns of smoke rolled up into the sky as if they were chasing the F16"s.

The once silent valley was now full of noise, full of death and destruction.

A few seconds later there was another explosion, as something, maybe an ammunition supply shed caught on fire and detonated.

The missiles and bombs they had dropped completely annihilated the mud huts. But we couldn"t see from where we were if the cave had been affected. Who knows how big that underground section was? It could"ve cut right back into the mountain range.

The noise of the explosions continued to reverberate and echo throughout the valley.

It was impossible not to be humbled by the firepower of the air strike. I would not want to be caught in the middle of one. Not ever.

Several minutes later the smoke had drifted away. Franco and I scanned the area. As predicted, the mud huts were completely destroyed.

Once the smoke had cleared away, the survivors emerged. They seemed to be running around in a panic. Strangely, as some of the men searched the huts and the surrounding area for survivors, a couple of other men continued to dig the ma.s.s grave. Another cart emerged from the cave. It was also loaded up with bodies. There"s no way they were killed by the bombing, I thought.

The other men continued to search for survivors in amongst the ruins of the mud huts. But we knew they wouldn"t find any.

We had seen enough. Franco and I were just about to make a move and get to the extraction point, when all of a sudden one of the men pointed up to our location.

I looked over at Franco. I was confused. There was no way they could see us, right? If the guy on the back of the cart couldn"t see us when they rode pa.s.s, there was no way they could see us from all the way down in the valley.

But then it hit me. The guy pointing up at us was probably the guy on the back of the donkey cart. He had been spooked. That"s why he had a look around. And now the bombing had confirmed his suspicions. Suddenly, a whole squad of bad guys emerged from the cave. They began taking up positions around the ruins of their crumbled buildings. At least the intel was correct, I thought. It was definitely a hideout.

A few seconds later they opened fire. Fortunately they were lousy shots. At least they were to begin with. They slowly adjusted their aim. The bullets started landing closer, smashing into the surrounding rocks.

Then they started advancing on us.

At this point we had two options. Fall back or return fire.

Falling back was the nice, easy option. But these guys knew the terrain. They knew every rock and goat track and hidden pa.s.sage. They would run us down in no time.

So we had no choice but to return fire.

At first Franco was acting as my spotter and I was able to take out a number of bad guys. But then they started getting closer, their aim was getting better. Franco had to put the spotting scope down and return fire as well. He unleashed with his rifle, laying down a suppressive line of fire, pinning them down so I could pick them off. He also pumped a few 40mm grenades down on them.

I"m not sure how long the fire fight lasted. Time seems to lose all meaning when I get jacked up on adrenalin. It"s like I become super focused. My eye sight turns into what I would imagine an eagle"s eyesight to be. Everything kind of goes into slow motion. I can see the enemy, my prey as clear as day.

I inhale. Exhale. Squeeze the trigger.

And move on to the next target.

I"m not sure how many we took out but after awhile they stopped shooting at us. The valley fell silent and we made our retreat.

We reported the incident to Command. Surprisingly they didn"t seem too concerned with the actual fire fight. They wanted to know the specific details of the bombing, they wanted the damage report. We reported that the airstrike had completely obliterated the small buildings within the valley. But when we told them we couldn"t really confirm any battle damage for the cave section of the hideout, they didn"t look too happy.

They then asked us if any of the guerrillas got up after the bombing or after the fire fight.

It was a strange question.

"No, sir." Franco answered. "I"m pretty sure we eliminated any of the survivors during the fire fight."

"Good."

They marked something on a map of the area and we were dismissed.

Jan 16th - New Orders I can"t believe it. We"re being redeployed. A whole regiment. Over five thousand soldiers.

And we"re being sent to Australia of all places. It just doesn"t make sense to me. Australia is a peaceful country.