Chapter Twenty Four
The plane made one last turn before it began its approach to the runway. Ramon had been by the window during the flight. Now, Taylor was leaning over him to get a good view of Afghanistan. Finally she admitted, “I didn’t think that this place could look any bleaker than the practice area back in the states, but it certainly does. That place was a rose garden compared to this.”
“I know what you mean,” Ramon agreed. “Is it me or do the rocks look dryer?”
A captain who was flying with them explained, “After the plane finishes its maneuver, you might be able to see the reason. A dust storm just traveled through the area. When you disembark, you’ll find a layer of fine, powdery dust almost an inch thick over just about everything. Look, there it is now, straight ahead of us.”
Taylor and Ramon almost became contortionists trying to catch a glimpse of the fast moving storm. Ramon conjectured, “It must be a half a mile high. Look at those plumes of dust. It must be really whipping around down there.”
Taylor offered, “My guess is that there’s no way to avoid being in one.”
“That’s right,” the captain agreed. “No matter what you try to do or where you try to go to get out of one’s path, you’re going to get stranded right in the middle of one at some point in time. Most of the guys learn to just hunker down and wait ‘til it’s over.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Ramon said.”
After the plane came to a stop, everyone got out of their seats and began getting their carry-ons ready. The captain reminded everyone before the door was opened, “For those of you who are new here, don’t forget. There are no officers here so there will be no saluting, period. Everyone’s insignia is sewn into their uniforms. There is nothing shiny to be worn by anybody at any time. To a sniper a couple of hundred yards away, shiny means officer. And, it also means death.” As they started out of the plane he continued, “And, for God’s sake none of this ‘Yes, SIR’ stuff. Send your ‘Sirs’ back home. To an infiltrator who doesn’t know insignia a sir means sick ‘em.”
As they walked down the steps to the ground, a captain with a corporal on each side met them. Without being asked, they gave their briefcases to the captain and set their bags down for the corporals to handle. The captain shook their hands and said, “Welcome to Afghanistan. Major Bennett has spoken highly of you two.” As he looked at Taylor he smiled broadly and added, “Sgt. Givens had several words about you, also, Sanders.”
Taylor tried to keep a giggle at bay but it was no use. The way the captain said it and the amused look on his face was too much. She snickered, “I just bet he did.”
He continued, “I just wish someone could have had a camera to record that, I know about ten officers that would have LOVED to have a copy.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, s-s…. uh, sorry.”
“We’re counting on you, also, Rodriguez,” he said as he looked Ramon in the eyes. “All the gifts you have will be put to the test.” His voice thinned and lowered as he finished by saying, “We’ve lost too many men out there.” As he turned to leave, he looked at the ground and repeated, “Way too many.”
An extended cab truck pulled up beside them with their bags wrapped up in a tarp and sitting in the bed of the truck. The two corporals were sitting in the front seat. They climbed into the back and saw their weapons and ammo belts on the seat. Before they could get their doors shut the truck spun off toward the Afghan mountains and the one in the passenger seat took out a pair of binoculars. The driver said as he sped away from the tarmac, “The plane was about fifteen minutes late so we’re going to have to lay on the gas a bit to catch up with the convoy. A single vehicle can be an inviting target, if you know what I mean. Corporal Jennings will try to watch out for possible roadside bombs and terrorist looking individuals. If you would keep your weapons ready that would be just wonderful. As for me, I will keep the pedal to the metal and my fingers in the rear window buttons…….just in case.”
As the truck jostled its way out of the city, Taylor and Ramon readied their weapons. Ramon caught Taylor’s eye and asked her quietly, “Are you scared?”
She answered in like manner, “No, but ever since we got off the plane, I’ve got this funny feeling. It’s not fear, really, it’s more of an oppressive…….force that keeps hammering away at me. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I felt it too.”
“What is it?”
“My guess is that it’s the prevailing belief in Islam of the people,” he offered. “You know, like when you go into some churches and you can sense the Lord’s presence almost immediately because everybody there has a deep abiding love for Him.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” she admitted. “Are you scared?”
“Fear did try to take hold of me for a moment.”
“A moment?”
“Yeah,” he explained. “I remembered something Tom taught us about the letters ‘o’ and ‘f.’ He said that we should let oppression open the doors of our faith and let fear sharpen our faith in Him and our actions to be vigilant.”
She remembered the lesson he taught so often and added, “That was when he was teaching about us walking ‘through’ the valley of the shadow of death wasn’t it? Boy, I sure enjoyed that teaching. It meant a lot to me then.” She hesitated before adding, “It looks like I’ll be using it now.”
Ramon lingered a little bit longer on the thought. He looked at Taylor. She was looking out her window. He touched her knee with his hand and she looked at him. He could tell that there was a struggle going on in her. He added, “Tom also said that if God called us to a job, he had already qualified us for that job and he had already concluded that job for us. We just have to put our trust in Him and walk one step at a time by faith.”
She reached over and grabbed his hand. As her eyes reddened she asked, “Pray with me ‘Mone?”
They bowed their heads and leaned against each other. The two corporals heard the rustle of their uniforms against the seat and looked at them then looked at each other. No one was going to begrudge anyone for praying. Not in a place like this and going through what every one of them was going through.
As Ramon led in prayer, Taylor prayed in her heart, “Lord, I thank you for my partner…’ She meant to say ‘prayer partner’ like she always did but when she just prayed the word ‘partner’ a shockwave shook her soul. She lifted her head and couldn’t help but stare at Ramon holding her hand and praying quietly. Surely she had seen that look hundreds of times before, but right now and in this situation……something was different. Something she hadn’t sensed before was unfolding in her heart. It was brand new to her and she didn’t quite know what it was or how to deal with it. “Give me Your wisdom, God,” she prayed out loud, “Give me Your wisdom.”
They headed toward the northwest corner of Afghanistan where it borders Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. There were no military bases in that area at that point in time. However, they had information that there was quite a bit of Taliban movement going on. The deploying of an engineering battalion was just as much of an information gathering ploy as it was anything else.
In the past months, terrorist sniper activity had increased. Army intelligence had intercepted several communiques that seemed to indicate that some kind of full offensive was about to take place. So far, nobody could figure out what it possibly could be. The snipers on day shift would hardly see a thing. It was the ones that were stationed around the perimeter at night that took the hits.
The battalion had twice as many snipers assigned to it than they normally would have. Every sniper wore an open mike that communicated all of their conversations to a double staffed command post. AH-64 Apache helicopters were manned and ready 24/7 and could be at the attacked position in a matter of minutes.
However, the attacks came undetected. Despite all of their vigilance, each attack was a complete surprise. There would be a series of explosions presumably from rocket propelled grenades, a h
ail of gunfire that would last only one minute and two dead snipers who never had a chance.
Where did they come from and where did they go? No one had a clue. There was constant surveillance during the night. Only twice did they capture what happened on film. It looked like the terrorists crawled out from underneath the rocks, did their job and crawled back underneath the rocks. However, a full inspection of the area during the next day showed no caves or any possible way that a sneak attack could have happened.
Taylor and Ramon spent the rest of the day drinking coffee and listening to everyone talk about their experiences since coming to the region. Each individual had their own slant on the problem. Many ideas were tossed around. In the end, no one could come up with a firm and plausible idea as to why they were stalemated by the enemy.
When the talk subsided for a moment, Sgt. Rivera, the head NCO asked Ramon, “So I hear that you have some kind of special intuition that not everyone has. Where did you get it from? Did GOD give it to you?” He chuckled at his own remarks and several others joined him.
Ramon was a little amused at the question but didn’t back down one iota, “You might say that He did. Then again you might say that life itself did. I believe that God is the author of all things that come into my life. He brought me through various sets of circumstances that none of you have gone through. You might call it a special training course that just might be useful for what we are going through right now.”
As he quickly scanned the faces of all who were at the table, he knew that he had pushed several buttons. Leisurely, he took a sip of his coffee and waited for the next question.
Sgt. Rivera bought it by asking, “How so?”
Ramon looked around the room before answering, “I was born and raised in the slums of Mexico City. Four families lived in our modest three room home. That’s not all that unusual for that part of the country. I was the thirteenth child born in that household and everyone considered me the unlucky devil child. The other twelve children considered it their Catholic duty to beat up on me every chance they got. It didn’t take me very long to become suspicious of doorways, alleyways, the corner of the house, chairs pulled out farther than they were supposed to be and things like that. I also developed a style of running, dodging and hand-slapping to keep from being grabbed. So, yes, the things that God brought me through heightened my intuition probably more than the next guy. I personally don’t think that it’s anything special. If any of you had gone through what I went through when you grew up, you’d probably develop the same kind of intuition. You learn a different meaning of ‘thinking out of the box.”
No one at the table snickered as they heard his story. Lt. Pierce spoke up, “I can see what you mean, now. And, if that’s the case, you might just be able to pick up on the obvious that we can’t come up with……..yet.”
A lot of the heads nodded in affirmation of the lieutenant’s statement. Sgt. Rivera spoke up, “I suggest then, that we all break for chow and get to know each other. Then a couple of you guys take them on a tour of the facility and especially show them the ambush sites. Hopefully, you can find some things that all of the rest of us have missed.”
Thirty minutes after sunrise, Taylor and Ramon found themselves bouncing along the rough Afghanistan terrain with Jeep and Hedgeway. The two snipers showed them some of their sentry spots that overlooked the valley and the subsequent mountain terrain on the other side of it. To say that it was rugged would be an understatement.
When they stopped at the second sentry point about a mile away from camp, Ramon spoke up, “Good golly, where in the world do you begin to look for hiding places on a mountain like that? Every place you look has the possibility of being a cave covered by rocks. Look at how several of the rock formations look like a pyramid. That would be a fantastic way to hide the mouth of a cave. This mountain is at least fifty feet higher than anything around it. Notice how it seems like a ledge of rocks run to the left? That could be the way they get into and out of the cave at a run. And, possibly they could use it as cover to ambush someone from.”
Jeep and Hedgeway looked at each other. Jeep spoke up, “You know, I never thought of it just that way before but you’ve got a good point. However, we would have to watch them pour out of it or run back into it to give us a reason to call a strike.”
“Yep,” Hedgeway interjected, “rules is rules.”
“I know,” Ramon answered, “but just keep that thought alive in the back of your head. You never can tell when something will add up once we get the pieces to the puzzle together.”
As they walked back to their Humvee, Taylor asked, “Are we very far away from one of the places that they ambushed?”
Jeep answered as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “That just happens to be our next stop. We weren’t going to go there right away but we will now. That thought in the back of my head is beating my brains out,” he said as he threw a smile in their direction. “Let’s get over there and look back towards this point and see if anything will add up. We used this point up until a few days ago. I do not know how it happened but a couple of rocket propelled grenades went off and blew the snipers to kingdom come. There was no gunfire, no yelling, no noise or anything. All we heard at the command center was Les and Jimmy talking. Then there was this ‘towsh-sh, towsh-sh, towsh-sh’ and three explosions. The sentries at the base turned just in time to see the explosions but had no idea from which direction they came. Les and Jimmy had no idea. And to be honest with you none of us have any idea. “
They made a slight left turn and went another half a mile before they came to a fifty foot rise. Hedgeway pointed out, “All of us thought that a sniper’s nest up there would be safe enough and would give us a good lookout advantage of the valley. It gives us a good lookout but for whatever reason it is not a safe place.”
They parked the vehicle and got out. “Hedgeway, stay here and cover for us, will you?”
“Gotcha.”
They had to climb about twenty-five feet to get to the lookout point. Not a real exasperating climb but enough of one that you took had to take your hands off of your weapon. Every one of them knew that even a two second delay in getting your weapon ready was more than enough time for the enemy to get the upper hand. A couple of crows were pecking on the remnants of something at the back corner of the snipers nest. The reluctantly flew away as the three of them began to walk around.
Jeep offered as he kept his binoculars to his eyes, “I’ll watch the area as you two look around. I’ve seen it enough myself.”
“Gotcha,” Ramon replied.
He and Taylor began to look around the sight. “What are we looking for?” Taylor asked
“The abnormal among the normal,” he answered.
“Say, what?” she asked.
“Find something normal and examine it to see if there’s anything different about it. A lot of times we just look at the same thing day in and day out and don’t notice its peculiarities,” he explained.
“Like one of those Where’s Waldo pictures?”
“Pretty much.”
Everyone was occupied by their own actions and thoughts for a few minutes. A hungry crow came back and perched on a nearby rock. When he saw that no one was paying any attention to him, he hopped back to his dinner. Out of the corner of his eye Ramon caught the unusual. The crow picked up something. Ramon glanced over, saw what it was and quickly threw some gravel toward him. The crow dropped its prize and flew away in a dither.
Ramon muttered, “I bet that’s it.” He stepped over and stooped down to investigate.
“What is it, ‘Mone?”
He reached for a thin piece of leather that had been entangled in the remains of a rat. As he lifted it up he said, “Here it is, the abnormal among the normal.”
Jeep and Taylor both watched as he gently pulled the strap up from among the torn pieces of rat that obviously met its fate the same night the snipers did. “There it is,” he said with a smile as he lifted the strap
up for all to look at.
As they all stared at the small object attached to the leather strap, Jeep declared, “Oh, my gosh! That’s an American made GPS device.”
“Correct,” Ramon answered. “The same kind you can get off the internet and put on your pooch to keep track of him. My guess is that the corner over there was where the guys go to take their dump. The rats get trained to eat human waste and get brought out here to scavenge.”
Jeep continued for him, “So they track the rat until he stops to eat. Then they triangulate that point by three experts with RPGs and they don’t have to get that close. The locals know more about the lay of this land than we could ever figure out. It wouldn’t be too hard for them to know exactly where to shoot even in the dark.”
“Precisely,” Ramon answered. “Let’s get back to Lt. Pierce and start making plans on ruining their party.”
On the way back to camp, Jeep posed the question to Ramon. “We’ve solved the problem of how they could pinpoint our sniper’s nests. How could they get so close without being detected?” he asked.
The question had already come up in Ramon’s mind and he had already placed it before the Lord. He knew that if he strained at the problem with his own reasoning, God’s answer would never come.
Instead, he let his mind be at ease and worshipped God in his heart. Hearing from God in His time meant to dwell on Him during times of stress. He always had His answer. The problem was that mankind was not always in a position to hear Him when He was ready to speak.
Ramon answered, “First of all let’s consider the obvious.” As he talked, he sensed the answer coming. “How did they scan the area for enemy movement during the night?” As he mouthed the question to Jeep, it seemed as if God planted the answer in his heart. To him the answer was now obvious.
Jeep answered, “Just like we always do, with infrared binoculars. Your body heat is a tell-tale sign.”
“Then,” Ramon went on, “if they were looking for an infrared sign and didn’t get one that must mean that they were cloaked with something that blocked their body heat. That must NOW be the obvious as to how they could get so close and be undetected.”
“That’s not possible,” Taylor insisted.
“How do the pizza companies keep the pizzas hot so they can deliver them to you?”
Hedgeway answered, “Oh, my gosh. With a thermal lined pouch.”
Ramon continued, “And, what did they teach us in sniper school about our ghillie suits?”
“You’re kiddin’.”
“Think about it. We would use thermal hoodies to hide our face signatures at night wouldn’t we?” Ramon asked. “What if you had one strapped to your ankles and your wrists, a hump on your back and you crawled on all fours. Your weapon could be strung to your neck and your waist and dangle beneath you as you crawled. Little peep holes could be cut. You would look like a rock. You’ve got all night so you could crawl as slow as you needed to. Someone watching the snipers could tell from their infrared signature when they were looking your way. You could stop.”
“And all the time we’re looking for a two-legged soldier to creep up on us, we don’t pay attention to a rock,” Jeep admitted. “That’s it! Ramon, you’re right. It is the obvious.”
Hedgeway shook his head as he admitted, “I read last year that the Japanese had already perfected a cloth that would do that but didn’t think anything about it until just now. And, if it could be copied or stolen, you’d better believe our enemies probably have a bunch of them right now. Oh, my God, it’s a different war.”
“With different rules,” added Ramon. “Gents, it’s up to us to change the rules in our favor. Listen to this plan.”