I heard Andy getting dressed at 4 AM. I did the same. I looked at the satellite images that Kevin was sending to me. It was five minutes old, there was no one at the villa yet and no changes from yesterday; good news I hoped. The note on the email said to expect an updated one every two hours.

Breakfast was ready in the embassy lunchroom. After breakfast, back in the basement Andy laid out the plan. An hour later we had loaded both Range Rovers and both Suburban’s with the drones and other weapons.

Across the road from the villa were a dying mangrove orchard and a burned and an abandoned homestead from the last local war. The thermals had shown no activity there all week. A quick search as we unloaded reinforced the assumption.

Charlie and Hoss immediately flew the two drones with the thermal cameras over the rest of the orchard to be sure no one was hiding amongst the dying trees and brush piles.

Another e-mail from Kevin showed no life at the villa; the image was so recent it showed us parked behind the abandon house across the road. Andy handed out the ear wicks; it was Go time. I walked with four of the group to the second row of trees on the left side of the dirt lane. The first guy peeled off to take a position where he would be able to take out the guard on the south-east corner when he showed up.

Andy, Howie and Bernie slipped out of the group at the villa to hide the C4 charges where they would do the most good and then they were taking position on the east side of the villa two rows of trees away for the time being. I continued on to the north east corner to wait for the guard who was stationed there.

There were 3 who made their way in the right side of the orchard. One went to each corner and the third was to be a lookout and provide covering fire for Andy and Howie while they were planting the devices, if it became necessary.

At ten the first of the group started arriving; they were the guards and staff for today’s festivities. Two persons instead of one went to each corner. They took the well worn path that was used every day to their position; it was a suicide path today.

A complication for sure but not much of one as Andy continued to give updates as cars continued to arrive, including Faaiz Faeq Fahad. By the time they were done there were 4 Land Rovers with different sect signs on each of them, each with 3 to 4 people.

From the description, it was a status symbol for a terrorist to have a driver/ body guard or two. There were a total of 15 people in the first group.

Prince Aabad Aabzaari arrived in style; new Land Rovers, in the third car of the four car convoy with three in the car; two bodyguards plus the driver. The other three cars in the procession each had 2, a driver and additional bodyguard I assumed for a total of ten. The grand total was 33 to 11 of us.

I sure hoped that the drones, explosives and the element of surprise were a big equalizer.

I watched my two guys as they were doing some half-assed shadow fighting and wrestling when they were not looking out at the field. They never considered that there may have been someone behind them.

Andy gave the command for the perimeter guards to go down. The second round was going into the chamber before number two realized that his buddy had just died. He joined his buddy on the path to see Allah two seconds later. There was no sound of them dying; the silencers took care of that.

With rifle at the ready, I made my way to Andy’s group just in time for the real action to start. The eight leaders and the prince with his three body guards had gone in the villa; the rest were having an old fashioned bullshit session standing by the vehicles in two separate groups.

I took my second position in the same tree row as Andy to cover the rear of the building, in case anyone survived the explosive package and tried to escape. Oscar – who had taken out the guards on the north-east corner – was on the opposite side to provide a cross fire with me and down each side of the villa

The prince’s drivers and extra guards were by their vehicles while the terrorist drivers and guards were on other side by their vehicles. I guess they didn’t associate very well. The go command for gun drones to make the first pass was given.

The operators had their attack well planned; they came out over the top of the mangrove trees, within 100 feet of the groups and put withering fire onto the groups. As soon as they made their first pass and turned around, Howie tripped off all the C4 charges.

Howie had placed the charges in a triple row of ceramic jars that were lined up to divide the dirt lane in front of the villa. The prince’s men were on one side and the terrorist group on the other. Between the gun drones and the flying ceramic, only a few were moving.

Howie had also placed charges at the rear and front of the building; the result was part of the ends of the villa were blown away giving me and Oscar a clear shooting field. The gun drones made one slower pass, this time moving from target to target until they were out of ammo. They made a fast run to the controllers for new ammo belts.

I put down four moving targets trying to escape out the back of the villa; Oscar fired on several more before Andy called for a cease fire. They moved along the row of victims by the cars; if they were not dead, a knife finished the job – I wanted none of them to roll over and shoot us in the back.

I pulled my Glock – that was better for close in shooting than the rifle – and made it to the corner where I could make quick glances into the villa. Andy did the same on the other end.

The only sound was someone shouting first in Arabic then in broken English “I surrender, I surrender.”

We eased our way in gently; all inside were dead or badly wounded. The prince was trapped under his two dead bodyguards with his legs mangled. All 9 of us were in the remains of the building with the drones flying back overhead for protection.

We pulled the dead bodyguards off the prince and set him up. I pulled my phone out and took several pictures of him. Then I pressed record and pulled off my camo hood. When my face came into view he recognized me and was very happy for a minute.

“You paid to kill my men; then you paid to have me and my family killed. Did you really think you could get away without repercussions?” I asked.

“They tell me that if you do not have your testicles and penis when you die, you are denied your harem of virgins.”

He was wearing the traditional Arab flowing robe of the elite when I flipped it up; no underwear. Nearby was the local version of a mason jar.

I had my combat knife I always carried – it was razor sharp – and nitrile gloves; with one fast cut his testicles sack and all were in the jar, then his puny cock joined them

“No virgins for you, they will look nice bronzed and mounted in a trophy case on my desk,” I said.

I did not wait for an answer; he knew what was coming as I pointed my Glock and put one round between the eyes and another in his chest for good measure. I stopped the recording and took a couple more pictures.

“Turn the terrorists over face up, make sure they are dead and check them for papers. If you find any lay, them on their chest. I need pictures of their faces and to collect everything on them,” I said.

“What do you want that for?” Andy asked as his men complied.

“I may need bargaining chips and leverage later; call it insurance,” I replied.

It only took a few minutes to finish and it was a good thing. I was no doctor and the smell of blood and guts was getting to me. It was something I would never get used to.

Once outside I looked at the princes vehicles and wondered why they had come in four. As I searched the first one I found out why, in the back were four medium suitcases. I expected to find explosives or weapons in them.

What I found was the weapon of billionaires. Each suitcase was filled with six blocks of $100 US bills; one million to each block, still wrapped in the US Treasury packing and with a Saudi national bank stamp on the plastic. All four suitcases held the same thing. All four vehicles had the same suitcases and held the same money. This was more than a planning session; the planning was already done – this was the funding to carry out the plans.

“Andy, see of any of those vehicles will start,” I was pointing at the terrorist trucks. “If they do, go get our Rovers and Suburban’s and hurry it up,” I shouted.

Four guys left with Andy, the rest of the guys I sent to collect all the loose weapons lying on the ground to put in the vehicles and to look for something to start them on fire.

When the Suburban’s arrived, we loaded all the suitcases in the back of them, along with all the laptops and information we found in their vehicles. I ordered the gas we had found poured in all the terrorist vehicles including the new Land Rovers. Andy and Howie calmly walked past each one and tossed in a grenade.

Then we went back to the embassy, for me to change into something more professional looking, also to pick up my bags and all the unused ammo and weapons I had brought.

They also packaged the drones back up; they and all the equipment was going with me. It was risky but far less so than leaving them at the embassy. If things went to crap while we were on the flight back, we could drop to near sea level and I could kick the stuff out the door and into the ocean before we reached the states.

The State Department letter of a contractor I had may help a bit if it happened before we got off the ground.

We went to the airport and put everything in the G550; the plane had been fully fueled and was ready to fly. Andy handed me the sealed Mason jar they had filled with alcohol while I was changing.

I had stopped by the 24/7 truck stop on the way to the airport before I left the island. I bought several dozen DVDs and several copies of reading material for the men to put in the basement. I handed the bags to Andy and told him where it was to go.

I thanked them for a well executed plan and that I would see them at Morton Field on Sunday evening.

Ten minutes later we were airborne, gaining altitude and heading west over the Atlantic Ocean to Maryland.

I turned on the laptop to look at alerts, waiting for all hell to break loose in Morocco and Saudi Arabia. In my emails I had dozens of thermals from Kevin. He must have every satellite that passed over take images.

I could see my teams in the orchard then at the back of the villa, the bodies on the ground, the drones in the air even firing the guns, the cars burning and us leaving.

The note on the last one said, “Follow up HUH! Looks more like a clean up team to me; all images have been deleted from the files, do the same on your end.” How Kevin could hide that I would never know and did not want to. But, I would owe him plenty.

I called Vicky, “Run everyone out of my office, open my email, save all images and emails from the agency and Kevin for the last four days to a thumb drive; you will need a big one. Print the images and then permanently delete them from the email and do it now please. Then put everything in one of my secure shipping packages and lock it in the safe. After that have Marcy run a clean-up program on the email server.”

The adrenaline rush of today was gone; I was dog tired, but I had one more thing to do. I called Robbie. I gave him a time we would be landing, I wanted the hangar open all the way to the back and I wanted this jet pushed all the way to the back next to the pilot’s room and then the hangar locked down. Put all the other planes in the super hangar.

The last call was to Dad, “I need your help when I get back this afternoon,” and gave him the time.

“Do you want Jake too, he is back?” Dad asked.

“Yes, it will make things go faster,” I replied.

It was stupid to bring the money; what could we do with it? I should have let it burn. Taking it made what happened there look like a robbery. If anyone knew about the money, that could be a cover for us, a no honor among thieves kind of thing. To leave it, possibly some of it would not burn and be used for terror.

Then again, knowing Washington they would give the Saudis new money for the ashes if it were found.

The G550 has a shower; I took a hot one. I was asleep before I was comfortable on the day bed.

Edit by Alfmeister

Proof read by Bob W.