Monday, July 20, 2015

Latest from the Janitors, Asps, and Other Books - Adios, Amigos (Asps Series) - SAS, SIS, and Asps work togetehr to take down al-Qaida hotshot and a large force of his followers.



Today’s excerpt is from Adios, Amigos, Book #9 of the nine-book Asps Series.  The Asps, working with their British friends from SAS and SIS, Jim and some other old friends, take out several terrorists after killing the head man, who was near the top of everyone’s most-wanted list.  Enjoy and have a great day.

m.j.

 

As Usama Ali ascended the platform, Tony sighed.  “Well, there goes our hopes of taking him alive.”

Ali had come down one of the trails with his group of bodyguards, all mounted on horseback.  One of his bodyguards held his horse as Ali mounted the platform to speak.  Tony glanced at Jim and nodded his head.  Jim nodded back and sighted in on Ali’s forehead.  “Okay, gang—let’s hit it.”  As he spoke, he squeezed off his killing shot.

Within seconds of Jim’s shot, several other terrorists started falling dead in their tracks.  When Ali sagged to the ground with a hole in his forehead, and the back of his head blown away, there was a gasp from the assembled mob.  When others started falling dead with no one knowing where the killing shots were coming from, panic ensued.  The panic only increased when Bear pushed a remote button on the panel he had in front of him. 

The first of the claymores went off, tearing a hole through those standing nearby.  He set off another, then another.  He set off all ten, spaced about ten seconds apart.  With men being ripped to shreds by the claymores—plus men falling dead all over the compound—the assembled mass of terrorists knew what terror was all about now, as they ran in all different directions.  By prior agreement, all of those in the raiding party were killing those furtherest away from them, on the edges of the compound—the idea being to get the bulk of the group to head across the creek, into the face of the claymore field there, thoughts of running early long gone.

Jim fired another killing shot at a man running for the far tree line.  As he got ready for another shot, he noticed the horse Ali had ridden to the meeting was now moving around unattended.  Jim took a closer look.  He saw what—for lack of a better term—were a set of overlarge saddlebags tied to the horse.  He also noticed the animal was getting quite agitated by all the noise made by the futile return fire from the terrorists, who were firing at random all over the area, since they still had no idea where the killing shots were coming from.  Just as he was looking at the horse, it turned facing the firing pits.  Jim shrugged as he lined up a shot for the horse’s rear, just visible to him, due to the saddlebags.  He squeezed off the shot.  It did just what he wanted—gently grazed the buttocks of the horse.  That was all the unhappy horse needed to take off on a full run…toward the pits.  Jim quickly growled, “Don’t anybody shoot the horse running our way.”

The panicked terrorists paid no attention to the horse as it forded the creek and kept right on running up the gentle incline, which eventually rose twenty feet above the creek.  It shot on past the pit to Jim’s right.  Jim set his rifle down before he took off after it, being careful to ease back from the pit, so as to not be seen by those down below.  Then he gave full chase.  The horse was headed in the general direction of where the buggies were parked.  It finally slowed, then stopped about thirty feet from the buggies.  One of the SAS men guarding the buggies had heard Jim’s words about not shooting the horse, so he figured out the horse was wanted for some reason.  He slowly walked toward it with soothing words.  By then, Jim had seen the stopped horse.  He too slowed and offered soothing words.  The SAS man reached the horse first and gently took hold of his reins.

As Jim reached the SAS man holding the horse, he nodded.  “Good job.  Hold him while I take those big saddlebags off him.”

“Thank you, sir.  Yes, sir.”

Jim smiled.  “We’ve been down this road before.  Can the ‘sir’—its Jim.”

The man smiled back at Jim as Jim took the bags off.  A quick inspection found what Jim had hoped against hope he’d find—a laptop that surely had to belong to Usama Ali.  There was also a good deal of paper in the bags, along with a few personal items.  Satisfied the exercise had been worth it, Jim looked at the wound he had caused.  He told the SAS man to get a tight grip on the horse while he did some hasty repairs to the wound.  Each of the team members carried a field first aid kit.  Jim soon had the wound disinfected, then put some healing salve on it.  He did the best he could to bandage it to keep flies off it until it had a chance to begin healing, even though he doubted the bandaging job would stay on very long.  Next, he took off the saddle and removed the harness and bit.  That done, he patted the horse.  “Okay, fella, you’re free to go—hope you find a nice mare to hook up with.”

The horse just walked off a few feet and started eating grass.  Jim grinned as he looked at the SAS man.  “You seem to know horses, been around many?”

“Yes, sir…er, Jim.  Was a farm boy before joining the service.”

Jim just nodded, told the SAS man to put the bags in one of the buggies, then turned to head back toward ongoing battle.  When he got there, most of the enemy was gathered up and headed toward the ridge, where the pits were.  Even as Jim picked up his rifle to start killing more of the terrorists, Bear set off five of the claymores, then five more—and finally, the last ten.  Those blasts had a devastating effect on the terrorists gathered just on the team’s side of the creek. 

Those who were still able to move started running in all different directions, while the team kept up its withering fire.  Finally, Bruce decided it was time to go.  “Cyrus, best get your men down from the trees.  Once they’re down, we can start falling back.  I think we’ve pushed our luck about all we should.”

Cyrus agreed, as he told his six tree snipers to come down, then carefully retreat. As each of those men reached the base of the tree they had been up, they eased back into the forest before they slowly headed for the buggies and were followed by those in the pits.  As soon as everyone was gathered around the buggies, Jack saw one of the tree snipers limping along and took a quick look at him.  He had been hit in the foot by one of the wild shots fired by the terrorists.  The only other wound received by the entire assault team had been a nearly spent round that had ricocheted off a tree before hitting Kye high on her right arm.  Jack had already treated it, even though in reality it was little more than a deep scratch. 

As Jack worked on the SAS man, the others got back in their respective buggies.  Jack helped the man to the buggy he had been assigned to.  After doing so, he got in his own assigned buggy, as Bruce nodded and ordered, “Lead the way, Dusty.”

 

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