Seven Years (#3 in Military Series)

Prologue

Prologue

Southern Iraq, 2008

Sat on a half-demolished roof top in an abandoned town somewhere in the south of Iraq, Jules set her back against the wall and proceeded to throw peanuts into the air, catching them with her open mouth.

A USMC Barrett M82 sniper rifle rested beside her outstretched legs as the sun beat down on her neck.

Jules liked the United States weapons and by the age of twenty she had handled sniper rifles on both sides of the pond, but she was slightly biased when she said that she preferred the British Sniper Rifles.

Catching another peanut with her mouth, Jules heard Ramirez come over the headset.

"Where the hell are these guys?" Ramirez sighed, "I was hoping to be back in base in time for tea. It's meatloaf tonight."

Reynolds laughed as she ate the last handful of peanuts quickly and grabbed her rifle.

Turning onto her stomach, Jules set the rifle up on the ledge and peered through the scope towards the roof opposite her.

A distance of eight hundred yards rested between the two buildings, making it a perfect ambush spot.

"Hey Ramirez," Jules replied through the headset as she watched Carlos through her scope, his dark hair standing out against the grey rooftop, he was led out beside his rifle as he looked around their position with binoculars.

"Sorry to disappoint you but Meatloaf was last night." Jules released her finger off the transmission as she laughed.

She saw Carlos nod his head in frustration, no doubt a swear word finding its way across his lips, "Another meatloaf missed. Huh, remind me again why we agreed to this Special Task Force, Reynolds."

Jules pulled back from the scope, her eyes falling over the disused road between the buildings, "It definitely wasn't because of their- Ramirez, hostiles, twelve o'clock."

The playful banter instantly diffused the moment Jules spotted it; a two-vehicle convoy approaching slowly from the North.

"Evans, Jackson come in, we have eyes on convoy." Carlos turned professional in her ear as Jules pressed her cheek to her rifle, nuzzling the end into her shoulder comfortably.

"I count twenty hostiles fifty metres out- Carlos?" Jules lifted her head away from the scope to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"Reynolds?" Ramirez's voice questioned her sudden abrupt stop when he looked towards the convoy and saw the same thing she did.

"Evans? Jackson? Report in." Ramirez called again more insistently, a part of him not believing what he was seeing at that moment.

Jules pressed her face to the scope until she could feel the circular instrument marking the flesh around her eye.

Looking once again to the front of the convoy, Jules soaked up the image of their team mates.

Evans with his baby face had been beaten, blood poured from a cut to his eye, and Jackson was helping to support their friend as they were forced through the town at the head of the convoy.

Their eyes were scouring the rooftops as they tried to keep their heads faced forward, their headsets were missing.

Carlos was immediately contacting headquarters, asking for orders on how to proceed.

The reply which came back haunted them.

A complacent monotone voice replied over the static, "Do not deviate from the plan."

"Did you hear me!?" Carlos replied in anger, "Evans and Jackson have been captured. We need immediate exfil."

The convoy was getting closer with every second and she could see Evans and Jackson looking for support, as she remembered General Ridgeway's comment the previous day.

It had been the same before every mission they executed. 'You do not exist. If you get caught you will not be rescued. You are a ghost. You do not exist.'

Jules was snapped back to reality when she heard a new response come over the radio.

"Retreat to rendezvous."

Jules prayed that the General's words had been a scare tactic and support was coming to rescue them.

However the hope was fleeting when they heard the next sentence.

Jules would never know whether they were meant to hear what was said next, or if someone accidentally left the transmission on, either way the following order made her blood run cold.

"Call in the F-15 fighter jets. Raze the town to the ground."

Jules looked at Evans and Jackson as they walked between the buildings, completely unaware that the military service they had pledged their lives to was about to kill them.

'Collateral damage' was the term that popped up into Reynolds's mind.

"Negative!" Ramirez's voice was filled with fire, "Two of our men are down there!"

There was a long pause as the convoy reached the street beneath them.

"Retreat to rendezvous. Air strike ETA two minutes." The monotone voice replied before the line seemed to go dead.

"Screw that," Jules snapped, not caring about the orders she was breaking, as she settled back into her rifle and aimed for the petrol tank on the second vehicle as a distraction.

Her first round shot an insurgent in the chest, his body blocking her access to the tank.

Her second shot ignited the fuel and the vehicle erupted into a ball of flames, taking the driver and his passenger with it.

At this point, Carlos had joined in and within a half a minute they had shot nearly a dozen insurgents between them.

The hostiles return fire blew holes into the building a few storeys up but their range was too short.

"Get to the ground!" Carlos shouted over the headset, as he offered cover fire, "Get Evans and Jackson out of there!"

"Affirmative," Jules watched Jackson drop Evans behind a car for cover. He did not know about the approaching missiles.

Jules stood, rifle resting in her arms, when a tremendous noise filled the skies. It reminded Jules of thunder but it wasn't thunder, it was much worse.

"No," she whispered as she lifted her eyes and saw two F-15 fighter jets approaching them with speed, beginning their descent to drop the bombs.

Gripping her rifle, Jules sprinted back into the building, jumping down the stairs as she tried to reach her friends.

She had barely made it down three flights of stairs when the walls around her began to shake as the fighter jets reached them, the noise drowning out her cries.

"NO!" Jules screamed when the bombs were dropped and the force threw her down the stairs and against the wall.