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“I never realized how attuned you were to the enemy.”
“So I get my scope out, trying to figure out if the person was friend, foe or indifferent,” he said. “It’s a fucking snowstorm, the last thing I want is our location flushed out by a random wanderer.”
“Naturally,” Mountain said, getting pulled into the story enough he sat across from the men.
“Anyway, I’m freaking out, because I’m scanning and scanning, the man had to be a good mile out with the size ratio and angle of my vantage point. Heart racing, I’m looking through this scope, thinking the son of a bitch was belly crawling because I must have sent a glass reflection flash when I pulled up my rifle.” Mike could feel the hair on the back of his neck rising at the memory, the moment a joke among the men didn’t mean he wasn’t haunted in his nightmares of his failure in the moment. “My dumbass sends up a call to the guys sacking out, I’m calling for back up, saying our position was breached. Enemy approaching. All that bullshit right.”
“Yeah, so what happened?”
“Creek, Burns and McArthur come rushing up, weapons drawn all pointing in the direction I was trying to find the missing hadji I thought spotted us.”
Heart thundering in his chest, Mike dug in talking about the chatter among men. How he relayed what he saw so they could help him locate the missing enemy.
“All of the sudden, the man popped up. Standing tall and I shot.” Holding his hands up as if he were shooting in that moment, then shifting to splayed fingers illustrating the explosion of the head he took off the shoulders. “I’m double timing it in the direction of the fallen man with the men following me. Remember, I thought I had a good mile at least through heavy snow, practically shin deep on uneven terrain in the Hindu Kush Mountains.”
“Oh, I heard those were fucking monsters.”
“Right they are,” Mike said, keeping Mountain reeled in fully to the moment. “I’m freezing and sweating at the same time. My thighs burning from cutting through piled high snow. Lungs struggling between the altitude and icy air as I’m getting pelted with ice shard snowflakes at least fifty miles per hour.”
His hands curled into claws and came toward his face.
“Ahead of me, a flash of red came up fast as a body lay lifeless in front of me in the snow already forming a casket around the figure.”
“It can pile up quick.”
“Not this quick,” Creek said, his focus on the laptop as he worked on creating a screen full of closed-circuit videos. “Trust me, the man barely made it thirty feet.”
“I slid down a pile.”
“Uh, huh, sure you did,” Creek said. “All action hero style, gun in the air as he did it.”
“Brushing off the snow I took in my kill.” Mike hung his head in shame.
“You did blow his head clean off, we never found his ears.”
“Ears?” Mountain questioned.
“Yeah, he killed Bugs,” Creek said. “RIP, hope there are carrots where you are.”
“As in Bugs Bunny? You killed a damn bunny rabbit?”
“First off,” Mike said defensively. “The thing wasn’t some small, hold in one palm little baby. That sucker was at least—”
“Eighteen inches? Of course, that’s an estimate since the top three to five inches were gone. I mean I’ve seen lots of shorter men, but a foot and a half,” Creek said tsking afterward. “I get it, the thing was light enough he probably didn’t sink in the snow so you thought add the snow pack and he’s three foot.”
“And you thought it was a mile away, even though you couldn’t see five feet in front of you in the snow.”
“You know what,” Mike said trying his best to not admit his stupidity as he grasped the back of his neck as if that would tamp down the fifty degree spike in temperature. “That is a very good point and one my team hadn’t added to the story. Thank you, Mountain, for that.”
“Anytime.” The large man with the thick beard shook his head. “A fucking bunny, I can’t believe you killed a damn bunny.”
“It was a rabbit,” Mike countered. “Full grown, four-o-one K and life insurance. Don’t worry, I’m sure his wife collected fully.”
“A little gamy, but otherwise an all-around good snack,” Creek added with a few final snickers. “Mountain you here for a reason or wandering to avoid the family?”
“Heard tell from Red, Mike here was helping with security, thought I’d ask him for help since the foundation is laid and walls are going up at the old homestead.”
“This is kinda how it works,” Creek explained. “His house is going to end up being a second clubhouse until Nightingale gets to be a better shot.”
