"I was unaware of your altercation with the man," he said, speaking to Wolfe again. "As you're aware, there's a lot of operations going on here. Are you going to be able to handle this one, or am I going to have to send your team in without you?"
Wolfe swallowed. Sending his squad in without their commander would be as good as him resigning his commission. "No, sir. I'll go."
"Good. Your SP time is 0900," Donato said. Wolfe recognized the military lingo for Starting Point time. "You'll be escorted by a squad of infantry there and back, but you'll be in command. I want you to roll in with a show of force and remind them who their allies are. Be careful, but don't let your history with this 'Actor' to cloud your judgment. You're dismissed so you can get your squad ready."
"Yes, sir," Wolfe said, annoyed at the dismissal. He stormed back to his tent, rousing his men from their sleep. He couldn't shake the bad feeling he had, though.
***
As the vehicles rolled up, mothers grabbed their children and pulled them inside their mud huts. Wolfe couldn't blame them. They were rolling up in a highly armed military convoy, much bigger than the previous times they had come here.
Wolfe left one of the infantry in each of the driver's seats and gunner's spots of their convoy, realizing that his squad would be nothing but passengers if they needed to get out of there in a hurry. His ten man squad, made up of eight senior enlisted men, a lieutenant, and himself, kept their rifles at the low ready as they made their way to the sheikh's hut.
Wolfe noticed that there weren't any kids outside playing, but even that wasn't too bizarre. There were still men outside, doing their daily activities, and he didn't get any weird smells from them. Still, he hoped that this operation would be over with quickly.
The sheikh was waiting outside his hut, barefoot and in the white garb of his culture. Without a word, he motioned them to come inside of his hut. Wolfe could tell he was nervous. He motioned for two of his men to stay at the door.
As soon as he was inside, he took off his Kevlar helmet and set it on the table. The sheikh went to his spot at the table and yelled to his wife. In a moment, she had a tray full of small glasses and a pot of tea. Her hands shook, rattling the dishes.
Wolfe knew that the sheikh knew no English, so he started talking in his native Pashto immediately. "(I hear news that you've been speaking with the insurgency.)"
The sheikh looked at Wolfe. "(Sir,)" he started, then looked out the window quickly. Wolfe could smell a sudden wash of fear roll over him. "(I don't know what you're talking about.)"
Wolfe was on high alert. "(What's out the window?)"
The sheikh shrugged. Wolfe looked out the window himself. He didn't see anything, but the sheikh had a different angle. He moved toward him...
Suddenly, the sheikh raised up his hands, as if to protect himself. "(They made me! They made me!)" he yelled.
Wolfe realized this was an ambush. "It's a trap! Get back to the vehicles, quick!" His squad began to move for the door, but in a moment, he was transported to hell.
There was a series of explosions outside, and gunfire peppered the front of the house. Wolfe watched out the window as his two men that were outside went down. He hit the deck immediately, but not before seeing plumes of smoke rising from where the vehicles were parked. There was no return gunfire coming from that area.
He looked at his helmet and realized he couldn't get to it with all the bullets punching through the fragile mud hut. "Out the back door!" he yelled. The eight survivors began to work their way toward the back. Wolfe was the first one out, and he took up a kneeling position right outside the door. Each soldier got in a different position, covering a different firing lane.
They stayed there for a moment, stacking up, biding their time. Wolfe didn't know what to do exactly, but his training told him that they had to get out of there quick. He was about to order them to move to the next house over, when someone popped out of a house further back in the village. The weapon he was holding was all too familiar.
"RPG!" Wolfe yelled as an explosion hit the front of the house behind him. That probably saved his life, as it propelled him away from the house just as he saw the second rocket propelled grenade sail over his head. It hit the roof of the sheikh's house, and the second blast knocked the wind out of him. He str
uggled to get to his feet to try and return fire, barely pulling one of his men to safety before a bullet seared into his shoulder. The gunfire intensified. He fell to the ground again.
He watched as the man he had just rescued took a bullet to the face, and the rage began to build inside of him. Rage at the enemy, but at Akhtar in particular. His vision tunneled, and as he began to pass out, the only thing he could think about was revenge.
***
A flash of light, and suddenly his vision was crystal clear.
Wolfe felt his body morphing. Changing. He dared not move with everything going on above him, but he felt the energy surging through him, along with the pain of his body rearranging itself.
He nearly passed out again, but as he looked up, he watched another squaddie go down, a bullet wound in his head as well. That was all he needed. In a moment, he was on all fours, somehow moving faster than he had ever moved. He galloped toward the nearest enemy combatant. The man never stood a chance.
He smelled the fear of a nearby man laying down with a rifle, and he watched as the rifle began to point toward him. Wolfe was on him before he could fire...
***
Still in a daze, he stacked the bodies of the enemy platoon in a neat pile, then took a lighter off of one of the men. He had to hide this. He sat naked next to the pile of bodies, watching as some of them still twitched as the fire caressed their bodies. One man regained consciousness enough to start screaming, startling Wolfe out of his shell shocked state. He reached out to the man, trying to pull him from the burning pile. In a moment, however, he saw the blood oozing from the mangled remains of his arms, legs, and torso, and he realized that the man would never survive. A nearby knife provided all the mercy that Wolfe could give the man as it raked across his throat.
Wolfe heard the horrified screams of women and children behind him, but he doubted he would have even understood them if they were speaking English. He dropped the knife and began to stagger away from the bodies and tried to get back to his uniform. He suddenly felt like he hadn't slept in days, and he passed out no more than ten paces from the pile of bodies.