The Zen Gene Read Free Page B

The other man was taller and armed with an AK47, and he turned and appeared to be looking directly at him. Torgesen sighted on him and almost shot him but the man jumped when he heard the unmistakable sound of a .50 cal. echoing from the hills west of their position.
    That was when another Taliban let out a surprised grunt and gave away his position. It was a third man that Team Two failed to spot and he was standing less than ten meters away. Torgesen turned in the direction of the sound being careful to move slowly so the insurgent’s eyes would not detect the movement.
    It took an agonizingly long time for his muzzle to be pointed in the direction of the third man. As he was turning he decided to make a pre-emptive strike and take him out first. He took aim at the centre of the blackness where he thought the voice had come from.
    He swiveled his eyes away from the spot and he could almost make out the shape of a man using his slightly more sensitive peripheral vision against the inky blackness of the rocks behind him. He turned his eyes back and placed his finger on the trigger aiming centre mass.
    Time slowed as his concentration centered on that chunk of darkness. If the target had not moved away in the last few seconds he would be dead in the next few. Torgesen hoped he would have enough time to turn and kill his comrades.
    He was about to squeeze the trigger when the night erupted with sounds from the compound below. He could hear yelling and sporadic gun fire from the insurgents and he thought he saw his target move out of position. The man had only gone a few meters when Sergeant Peters moaned.
    The insurgent stopped and turned towards them but before Torgesen could pull the trigger and kill him something weird happened. Both his eyes began to flutter wildly and twitch and then shut completely. They would not open. It felt like something heavy was pressing down on his eyes from inside his head. He had an urge to turn his head to see what it was but he was unable to move his neck. He felt something gritty pressing on them squeezing them painfully. He was trying hard to gain control over the situation when his left leg went into a hard spasm. The muscle cramped and locked pitching him forwards. He tripped over Peters when he tried to recover but overcompensated and stumbled backwards landing on his butt.
    He was helpless, he could not open his eyes and he could not move. Like an injured dog struck on a roadway he could not understand what was happening to him, but he was sure it was going to kill him. He couldn’t open his eyes and the pain inside his head was shutting out his other senses. He was balanced on his butt, stunned and swaying, and as consciousness drifted away he thought of his wife Jean answering the phone and hearing he was dead.
    He tipped over and slumped down beside Sergeant Peters no longer aware of his surroundings or the peril they were in; no longer caring. The Taliban soldier heard him fall and he was pointing his AK at them in the darkness and, though he and Sergeant Peters would never think of it this way, they were lucky that night. Kowalski decided, on his own initiative, to shoot the target before bugging out. As he later told it he nailed the guy as he was opening the door to re-enter the building and shooting him felt so good he decided to shoot the propane tank next to the goat barn
    The exploding tank distracted the insurgent; the light blew his night vision which kept him from spotting Torgesen and Peters lying helpless a few meters away. It was the screams of burning comrades that made him forget them and sent him running back to the compound below leaving the prone soldiers safe and forgotten.
    Kowalski emptied the fifty shooting burning insurgents then picked up Slick and carried him fireman-style back to the extraction point. When he got there and realized that the Sarge and Torgesen were in trouble he went back and found them, carrying them out one at a time.

Chapter 2
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