Enshroud- An Avery Carter Novel

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

            “I got a visual on Swordfish.”

            “Roger that Avery, we got him in our sights.”  Replied one of the DEVGRU snipers nested in one of vacant top floor rooms within the small village of Kalar.  Kalar is a small village situated in Iraq, only twenty miles west of the jagged border between them and Iran.

            “Team Alpha maintain visual, I lost sight of him after he entered the bazaar.”

            “Roger that.  I see Swordfish.”  Replied one of DEVGRU’s ground support team leader, whom were dressed up in traditional flowing Arabic garb and an extra-large head dress meant to cover every facial feature with the exception of the eyes.

            Avery Carter peeled his eyes away from the military-grade binoculars and walked off the balcony and into his hotel room.  His tall muscular frame strode into bed room.  Avery Carter was a young man in his mid-thirties with short dirty-blonde hair.  He had blue eyes and a visage that women found ruggedly handsome.  “Avery” says his partner John Huxley sitting on one of the two beds, “I’m looking over Swordfish’s profile.”

            “Studying up our target?”

            “Covering my bases looking for potential weaknesses is more like it” said John who was gazing intently on the screen.

            “You are too meticulous about everything John.”

            “If I remember correctly it was my meticulousness that saved our behinds when we were full black in Siberia.”  A smile tugged at his lips.  “You should try it sometimes.”

            “I already am.  I looked that file up and down and sideways more times than I could count.”  Avery walked over to the plain wooden desk with a romantic style lamp.  On it were two unloaded USP 45 tactical pistols and full magazines thrown haphazardly on the desk top.  He grabbed one and attached a small laser beam emitter to the bottom of the barrel.  He then screwed on suppressor.  Lastly he rammed home a fresh magazine and pulled the slide back.  Carter slid the pistol into his hip holster.  “Let’s see how well you were paying attention to Swordfish’s profile.”  He turned to look at him, grinning mildly.  “Who is he?”

            John set laptop he was on off to the side.  “Asad Al-Quraishi, forty-two, former insurgent under Al-Qaeda.  He left because he had a change of Islamic faith to the Shiite form.  He runs his own terror network with no known proper name.  He’s short, around five feet tall.  Quraishi has a two scars from shrapnel during the Soviet invasions during the nineties.”

            “Alright you can stop.  You’ve done your homework.” He picked up the other pistol and tossed it at him.  “Heads up.”  John caught it by the grip.  The six and a half foot man stood up and grabbed weapon equipment from the table.

            “This mission we’re going to have to be careful if we are to get Swordfish out alive and back to the States for interrogation.  Since we’ve been here there have been twenty confirmed insurgents, all working for him and protecting him.”

            “Siberia was a lot worse than this.  Those communists knew how to shoot better than these guys.”

            John put his hand to his shoulder, feeling for the scar from where a large caliber round perforated the fleshy region above the armpit.  “Yeah they did.”