Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Combat Ops Read Free Page B

go live but needed to be sure about it. I’d take the heat for their actions. The rules of engagement were as thick as a phone book and written by lawyers whose combat experience extended no further than fighting with line cutters at the local Starbucks.
    Ramirez led us down a long, narrow hallway filled with dust motes and illuminated by sconces supporting thick candles. Our boots scraped along the dirt floor as we turned a corner and found a sleeping quarters with empty beds and ornate rugs splayed across the floor. I placed my hand on one mattress: still warm. On a nearby table sat a half dozen bricks of opium. No time to con fiscate them now. We shifted on, out into the hall, and toward the next room.
    More gunfire thundered outside, quickening my pulse.

    I knew if we didn’t clear the compound within the next minute or so, Zahed would be long gone. These guys always had their escape routes planned, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d constructed several tunnel exits, though our intel did not reveal any.
    The next two rooms were more sleeping quarters, empty, and then we reached another small courtyard and rushed into the next building, where in the entrance a woman with a shawl draped over her head saw us and began crying and waving her hands. I lifted my rifle to show her we wouldn’t shoot, but that sent her toward me, arms up, fingers tensing as she went for my neck.
    Ramirez shoved her hard against the wall and we rushed on by, emerging into another room where at least a dozen more women were huddled in a corner, crying and yelling at us as they clutched their small children.
    Lifting his voice, Ramirez, whose Pashto was a lot better than mine, told them it was okay and we were looking for Zahed. Did they know where he was?
    The women frowned and shook their heads.
    No, we didn’t expect to find women and children in the compound. Our intel indicated Zahed had estab lished a command center occupied by his troops.
    Our investigation of the next two rooms provided more clues. They were both empty, but you could see that equipment had been there and dragged out: tables and some abandoned wires along with a gas generator that had scorch marks along its sides.
    “He got tipped off,” said Ramirez. “He moved the women and children in here, thinking maybe we’d blow the place and kill them. Bad press for us.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” I said in disgust.
    We rushed outside, where we met up with two more of my guys, Smith and Nolan.
    Smith, the avid hunter from North Carolina, wore his mask pushed atop his bald head and gasped as he spoke. “Cleared the building back there. Nothing. What the hell happened to our Cross-Coms?”
    “I don’t know. Get the others. Get to the rally point.
    Now!” I ordered.
    They took off, and Ramirez looked to me: We had one more building on the west side to clear. I had the map of the compound committed to memory, and we’d made several guesses about this structure: food storage or maybe a weapons cache, based on what we’d seen being moved in and out of there.
    The door was locked. Ramirez opted for his faster boot. In we went.
    No surprise: two big empty rooms whose dirt floors showed outlines where cases had been. Probably a large weapons cache temporarily stored there and as quickly moved out.
    I was reminded of an earlier operation up in Shah E-Pari, a village in the northeastern mountains. We’d been trying to disrupt the rat lines in and out of Paki stan. Insurgents were using the tribal lands in Waziristan and other places to recruit and train their members, then send them across the border on missions in Afghanistan.

    A buddy of mine, Rutang, had been captured up there, but we got him out. Anyway, the Taliban terrorized members of small villages like Shah E-Pari. The men would be forced to join them or suffer the consequences. So we went up there, armed and trained the guys, and thought it was all working out. The villagers began win ning battles with the Taliban