Oh Sh%t!
“Oh shit sir! I got two guys running away from a pick-up truck full of bad guys, 4 O’colck, heading towards the base of that hill,” Jaf said with some alarm in his voice into the small plastic microphone attached to his flight helmet by an adjustable metal bracket. He had the microphone adjusted so that the flat part pressed firmly against his lips, he preferred it that way, always had for some 1500 plus hours of flying. Jaf initially saw a rising trail of dust chasing a white pick-up truck as it raced across a relatively flat section of earth sloping up towards a hill, then noticed that leading the truck by a click and a half or so were two men dressed in what looked like ghillie suits running at a full sprint towards the hill.
Responding to instructions from the pilot-in-command, Jaf briefly turned his attention inside the cabin to the text messaging machine that his crew chief called a ‘mutant laptop’, sending an urgent message to the tactical operation center outlining the situation that was unfolding before them, along with the grid coordinates of the strangely dressed men being chased, one of them, he could now see, carrying a longer than normal rifle, a sniper maybe? In the meantime, the PIC radioed back to their escort AH64 Apache helicopter to do a sweep of the pursuit truck in an attempt to get a better feel for what the hell was going on.
As soon as the driver of the truck saw the American attack helicopter streaking towards it as a hawk might swoop down upon a rabbit, he swerved hard to the right, hitting the brakes, momentarily disappearing in a cloud of dust, then emerging at full throttle heading in the opposite direction. The Apache gave chase but was given permission to engage only if fired upon or if the truck resumed pursuit of the sniper team. The bad guys did neither.
A reply text message came across the mutant laptop explaining that the two men in ghillie suits were indeed a sniper team whose position had been compromised moments earlier and the CH47 was instructed to land and pick them up immediately. The attack helicopter, hungry for a fight, flew cover while Jaf and the crew shot an approach about ten meters from where the team had halted their retreat.
Jaffy called the aircraft down from his vantage in the right door, making sure to call out the location of the enormous cloud of dust that formed first at the aft of the aircraft then moving like a rolling fog across a Scottish cove to mid-cabin, then at the cabin door and finally browning out the cockpit just as the helicopter touched down. Kevin immediately dropped the ramp and excitedly motioned for the Soldiers to board, they happily did. Much later, Kevin asked the team what they would’ve done had their aircraft not come along to rescue them. The two sheepishly grinned and explained that they had decided on taking up a good fighting position as soon as they gained the high ground and would’ve first put a .50 caliber round through the driver’s forehead and then planned to systematically pick off each son of a bitch, one at a time, until all seven were dead and they could drive away in their new white pick-up truck. Sounded like a good plan to Kevin who apologized for ruining their fun.
“Message sent sir,” Jaf reported to the PIC after hitting the send button on the sturdy looking laptop connected to a large green box wtih a series of cables running from it, informing the TOC that the “packages had been retrieved and were safe, Redbeard77 was continuing mission.”
The AH64 rejoined them enroute to the next FOB. Kevin gave each of the strangely dressed passengers an MRE and a bottle of mineral water for which they were extremely grateful, more so than for the ride. Sgt Hook out.
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