Prologue:
She can hear the mournful cries of the women as she crawl along the sandy path near the old village. Sasha Brooks heart races at a familiar pace as she glances over her shoulder at her partner and friend Mack, Mackenzie Matheson. She watches as Mack adjust her helmet to look through binoculars at the darken village in the horizon. The moon is a crescent shape high up in the night sky, its light illuminates the darken sand dooms with its heavenly glow while the sounds of the desert night echo their moans with the grief stricken women in the village. The sounds are a serenade of pain, suffering and fear that vibrates through her system, Brooks hopes the others are keeping low in this unusually bright night.
“ What do you see,” she asks Mack who’s using the night vision binoculars to see the outlining of the village.
“ Nothing. The truck is blocking my view,” she says.
“But they’re there?”
“Yea.”
She hands the binoculars over to Brooks who also adjusts her helmet.
“ You’re right, it blocking our view of the house, but… I think I see movement in the back.”
“What kind of movement?” Mack asks leaning forward.
Brooks adjust the focus. “ Two, no three heading toward another house near Lee.”
“ I’ll let her know she’s getting company.”
They both continue to crawl forward as Mack talks softly through her earpiece.
” Sarge, you got movement coming up on the one.”
“ Got them,” the female’s voice says in their ear.
“ Are you position,” Mack asks?
“ Just there.”
Mack nods to Brooks who gives her the sign.
“Good, we advance in three.” Mack tells Lee.
“Roger that.”
Brooks watches as Mack checks her weapon as the mental clock ticks down in her head.
She sees no fear in the woman’s mannerism, only resolve for what they’re about to do.
She checks her own M16A2 carbine thinking, they’ve been through this before, although this time not only are their lives on the line, so are their careers.
“ Go, go, go,” Brooks yells through her earpiece as she bound out of her hiding place at a dead run, along with the others toward the first house in the village and their fellow male soldiers.
