East Meets West Pt. 01 Ch. 01

"Who am I looking for?" I asked.

"All I can tell you at this point," he answered, "is a young, female Chinese national who just defected. I don't have photos or anything else I can email you at this point."

"Acknowledge, Evaluate, then Extract or Eliminate," I affirmed.

Even though both the Colonel and I knew there was only going to be one outcome from this mission, we were both adhering to the unspoken rules about believing there might be another ending.

I immediately ran down to my basement, and grabbed everything I thought I might need.

That include camouflage clothing, my sniper rifle and scope, a 9mm silenced Glock 17, and a Heckler and Koch UMP sub-machine gun, the successor to their MP5. The UMP also fired 9mm rounds. I grabbed a half-dozen 30-round clips, along with my night vision glasses, and the infra-reds as well.

My sniper rifle is not the Marine Corps issued one I used in Afghanistan. In fact, I had purchased it after my first few missions for the CIA. I had nearly missed a shot and knew I needed something with a longer range.

The British, who invented it, simply call it -- with typical understated British reserve -- "The Long Range Rifle." Everyone else calls it L115A3. It fires an 8.59mm bullet which is heavier than the old 7.62mm round I had been using. The heavier bullet is less likely to be deflected over extremely long ranges. It had cost me over $50,000 and was worth every penny.

The rifle itself, loaded, weighs about 15 pounds but its accuracy more than makes up for its weight. The folding stock reduces its length, making it easier to carry in a backpack. It also includes a built-in sound suppressor which reduces both flash and noise, but there is no such thing as a truly silenced weapon.

Within minutes I had started jogging towards the safe house.

There was a medium-high, fairly steep hill between our two houses. If you were anywhere but in the mountains, most people would have said the hill qualified as a mountain on its own, but here in the actual mountains we usually referred to something this size as a hill.

I knew if there were any bad guys there, they would be expecting trouble to come from the road. I would be coming in the back door, down a mountain.

After I crested the hill, I immediately started checking out the house through both the night vision glasses and the infra-reds. The night vision glasses would amplify any light, making the grounds nearly as bright as daytime, although everything would look green.

The infra-red glasses would pick up any heat coming from a defender lying in wait for me.

There were lights coming from the house, but I could not see anyone outside, so I started slowly making my way closer. I was probably about a half-mile from the house, and about 500 feet higher.

About 250 feet from the house, and down about 400 feet from the hilltop, I found a large boulder about the size of a washing machine. I crouched down and made sure I had a good line-of-sight on the house. I was now looking at the side of the house, rather than from straight back.

I immediately spotted two "bogies," inside the house at ground level.

At this point, I didn't know if they were the good guys or the bad guys, but I could see both appeared to be armed with assault rifles. Not a good sign.

After checking all the other downstairs windows in my line of vision, I began tracking upstairs where I could see light coming from what I assumed was a bedroom window.

I immediately saw two men, standing with their backs to the windows.

One guy was huge. He had to be at least 300 pounds, and towered over the second man, who was standing slightly to his right. The second guy was nearly a foot shorter, and was really thin and scrawny.

Short-thin was standing about a foot in front of big-fat, and had one hand in front of him, looking as though he was holding someone or something. I saw his hand jerk downward, then he stepped back towards the window and moved a little to his right until he and big-fat were about a foot apart..

I could see he was holding what looked like a dress.

And in the space between the two men, I could see that I had found my target!

The Colonel had said, "Young, female Chinese," and she was definitely all of that. If the Colonel had added extraordinarily beautiful, then that would certainly have applied as well.

I could see that her hands were behind her back, and I had to assume her hands were tied together, or perhaps she was wearing handcuffs.

Aside from the possible rope or handcuffs the only other thing she wore was a pair of panties!

When I first saw her through the scope, I almost assumed she had to be a young child, since she was so tiny, and her breasts were so small. But as I began studying her more through the scope, I realized I was probably wrong in my initial assessment. She had a very narrow waist, widening to very shapely hips, and I could see that her legs were thin, but very well-muscled.

As I began moving the cross-hairs of the scope upward, I again stopped when I came up to her breasts. Yes, her breasts were definitely small, but perfectly shaped and firm. I could also see that her nipples were hard. I guessed her body was reacting to fear.

As I brought the cross-hairs up across her torso to her face, I realized this was not a child, but a young, and as I have mentioned, extraordinarily beautiful woman.

Just based on her face, I upped the estimate of her age to about 18 or 19.

She was bleeding from a cut on her lower lip, and I could see a small bruise just under her eye. Apparently short-thin had already done more than just rip her dress off.

I could also tell that she was angry, and guessed she was probably cussing out the smaller of the two men, since she was looking at him and apparently yelling.

Short-thin then struck her across the face, opening up the cut on her lip some more.

But again, rather than cower in fear, she seemed to be getting angrier.

I really spent more time than I normally would just watching the young woman, and realized that I had a job to do, and needed to hurry up and get it done.

My orders were quite specific. If there was any kind of risk -- and at least four armed men meant there was a big risk -- then I was to eliminate the young lady.

There was virtually no wind, and I would be shooting downhill. From my spot on the hillside, I estimated I was about 250 feet from the house, and probably 25 or 30 feet higher up. It would be a slight downward shot, but not difficult at all.

I again sighted in on her face, and was beginning my normal routine before making a shot, which always included my saying, under my breath, "Well, folks, it's show time!"

As almost always happens to me, in those 60 to 90 seconds before I pull the trigger, I entered an almost otherworldly state.

It first started happening when I was hunting for food in the mountains, then seemed to grow stronger at Paris Island in Marine Corps Boot Camp and by the time I completed my first mission in Iraq, it had become part and parcel of who and what I was.

Usually, just a minute or so before "eliminating" someone, time just seemed to slow down.

In addition, I would have an almost otherworldly feeling of supreme clarity.

I would suddenly start hearing sounds that I knew I would otherwise never been able to hear.

I could smell odors that I would never have been able to smell before.

And I could see everything with an absolute crystal clarity. Colors were more vibrant and intense.

As intense as those feelings had been in the past, they were almost nothing to what I was experiencing now.

I was focusing every fiber of my being through the scope of my rifle, and yet I was also aware of everything that surrounded me.

I could hear a mouse moving in the leaves 40 or 50 feet away. How I knew it was a mouse was something I could not tell you, but I knew.

I could hear the wings of an owl swooping down to snare that mouse, even though it is almost impossible to hear an owl fly. I heard a terrified squeak coming from the mouse as it was caught in the owl's talons.

I heard other forest denizens reacting to that mouse's cry of terror as they begin searching for hidden threats.

Even though I was several hundred feet away I could hear the two men in the downstairs part of the house move around, and I could hear the angry words from the Chinese woman as she berated her captors. The window was closed and yet I could clearly hear every word. I didn't speak Chinese, but if I did I could have understood everything she was saying.

I heard a toilet flush in the downstairs part of the house, then water running in a sink. A few seconds later I heard a door close, then the men downstairs spoke to each other. Without even being entirely conscious of it, I now knew there were three men downstairs, plus the two upstairs.

Were there any more outside? If there were, then they would have to wait. I knew there was no one close to me, and that was the only thing that was important at the moment.

I was preparing to take my shot, using what I had learned at Paris Island, and Marine Corps Sniper School. There was NO possibility of my missing. I was only 250 feet from the house and was using a rifle capable of hitting a target a mile away.

The Long Range Rifle has a muzzle velocity of 936 meters per second. That means when the bullet comes out of the barrel it is supersonic, traveling 936 meters per second or over 3,000 feet per second, or roughly triple the speed of sound.

That means even before I can take my finger off the trigger, the woman would be dead.

The Marine Corps called it the BRASS system of shooting.

B -- Breathe. I took a deep breath.

R -- Relax. I exhaled.

A -- Aim. I was already dead on target.

S -- Slack. Take up any slack in the trigger.

S -- Squeeze. I was already beginning to squeeze the trigger when the most extraordinary thing happened.

She stopped talking and looked over at the window.

Suddenly I was looking right into her eyes from a couple hundred feet away.

She was in a situation that should have terrified her, and yet I could see no fear in her eyes. Instead I could see anger and defiance, and then a look I could only call relief.

She actually gave a half-smile, then slightly nodded her head up and down.

I would have sworn that somehow she could see me, and was telling me to go ahead and shoot, that it would be a relief and infinitely preferable to what would otherwise lay in store for her.

Even as I was thinking that thought, I knew how utterly impossible it was. It was night, I was quite a distance away, and was so well hidden that if someone was walking just five feet away from me, they would have never seen me.

It was impossible that this woman could know I was there, and yet I somehow felt she knew. And she was telling me to shoot.

Instead, I shifted the cross-hairs over to big-fat, and squeezed off a round into the back of his head. In less than a second, I had chambered another round, and squeezed this off into the torso of short-thin.

Big-fat's head had exploded, throwing pieces of skull and brains all over the room. Before his body could even start falling, the chest of short-thin erupted, blowing blood, pieces of spine and rib cage fragments across the room. An 8.59mm round makes a big hole going in, and an enormous hole coming out.

The two shots were so close together, they probably sounded as a single discharge.

The lights immediately went out in the living room of the house.

Fighting against every instinct I had, which was to get as far away as possible, as quickly as I could, I continued to study the young woman in the bedroom,

She, quite literally, was covered in gore. Brains and blood from big-fat, and blood and pieces of bone from short-thin were covering her upper torso and face.

I had expected her to collapse in terror, but again I was amazed to see no fear.

Instead, she took a step backward until she hit the bed with the backs of her legs. She immediately laid down on the bed and raised her legs high into the air and brought her hands down over her panty clad buttocks and slipped first one, then the other leg through until her hands were in front of her.

It looked as though she had zip-ties on each wrist, with another zip-tie connecting them together.

She ran over to both bodies, knelt down, and when she stood up she had pistols in both hands.

She ran back over to the bed, put both pistols down and turned towards the window again.

She held up five fingers on one hand, plus a single finger from the other.

Then she held up two fingers, and then made a slashing motion in the air, and pointed to the two men I had killed.

She then held up three fingers, and pointed to her feet.

Finally, she held up one finger and made a circular motion around her head.

I knew she was telling me there were a total of six men. Two were now dead, three were downstairs in the house, and one was somewhere outside. I had only seen two men downstairs, but had heard another, and she was confirming that third man was there.

It was the most surreal experience I have ever had.

How did she know I was there?

How did she know I was still there?

I was still watching her and continued to be amazed at the courage this woman was displaying.

She grabbed both pistols, ran over to the bedroom door and I saw her lock it from inside. She then walked very carefully to another door, which I assumed was the bathroom. She opened that door, and ducked inside.

Within seconds of her entering the bathroom, the inside walls of the bedroom starting coming apart.

Have you ever seen what a sub-machine gun, on full automatic, can do to a sheetrock wall?

I have, and it can utterly destroy it in seconds.

I was assuming that at least two, if not all three, men from downstairs were now in the hallway outside the bedroom, firing through the walls. I could only suppose they had called out to the men inside, and stated firing when they received no answer.

The room was soon filled with dust and debris from the sheetrock walls.

I still didn't know where the outside man was hiding, but had to assume he was somewhere down near the road.

I was already making so many assumptions tonight that I knew sooner or later one of those assumptions was probably going to come back and bite me in the ass.

I knew that by now the girl should be dead and I should be at least a half-mile away from the house, and yet here I was -- acting like a complete idiot -- still hanging around with at least four armed and very dangerous men and a girl hiding in the bathroom.

I was still looking inside the bedroom through my high-powered scope. From the window I could see the door, which I had to assume was the only way into the room.

There is that damned word again -- assumed.

I had been taught over and over and over again to NEVER assume anything!

If I were inside the house, waiting to come inside the bedroom and kill anyone there, I knew how I would play it.

In Hollywood a guy always kicks open the door, then calmly walks inside moving his weapon back and forth ready to kill anyone who moves.

In the real world -- my world -- there is a word for the kind of man who kicks open a door, then walks upright through the middle of the door. That word is corpse.

I would wait 30 or 40 seconds for the worst of the dust to settle, and IF all three inside men were actually in the hallway, one man would kick open the door while the other two would duck-walk through the door, or roll in, with guns blazing.

If I were in charge that is what would happen. I had to assume (damn that word), these were professionals and they would react in a similar manner. I also had to assume they would expect me to be long gone.

I waited for nearly 40 seconds, then fired one shot just to the right of the door, about three feet off the floor. I immediately chambered another round and fired it just to the left of the door, again about three feet off the ground.

That was when I was shot!

A barrage of automatic weapons fire started peppering the rock I was using as a shield.

One bullet hit me high on the right shoulder, barely grazing the skin, while another passed through the fleshly part of my upper right arm.

Whoever was shooting may not have known EXACTLY where I was, but he had a pretty good idea!

I started sliding backward, behind more of the rock. The entire time the rock continued to be peppered by bullets. A brief respite told me he was reloading.

Mentally, I had to shift gears. I was no longer the hunter, but now the hunted.

Again, if I were out there, how would I play it?

As a research analyst, my life depended on analyzing his movements during the next minute or two.

I quickly determined that while I may have been shot -- not too sure just how serious yet -- I actually liked my odds better than his.

I still had my sniper scope, still had my night vision glasses and had to assume he had a pair as well, and I also had my infra-red glasses. The fact that I was still alive was a pretty good indication he did not have infra-red glasses.

If he had been using infra-red glasses, he could easily have picked up my heat signature and zeroed all his fire directly towards me. Instead he was shooting back and forth across the rock, trying to keep me pinned down. I had to assume (God, I hate that word), that he was also advancing while firing.

I continued to slide backward, up the slope, trying to keep the rock between me and where I thought the fire was coming from. I remembered passing a large oak tree on my way down, and it wasn't long until my feet hit the tree.

Once my feet hit the tree, I shifted around and quickly ducked behind it.

After that, well it became just another day at the office.

Thirty seconds later I started going back down the hill, towards the house. I quickly passed what was left of my assailant, not stopping until I was only about 50 feet from the house where I again hid behind a large tree.

I had taken out half the enemy forces, but now had no idea what was going on inside the house.

Even while sliding backward up the slope, I had heard gunfire coming from inside the house. It was rather surprising but the shots seemed to be coming from a pistol or pistols rather than automatic fire from a sub-machine gun.

Violating every principle I had ever been taught about remaining hidden until you know what you are up against, I called out to whoever was inside.

"Hello in the house. Are you okay?" I yelled, very loudly.

I was fully expecting another barrage of gunfire, but instead -- after a few seconds of silence -- I heard a woman's voice.

"Yes," came an answer, in English.

"Five dead inside," I heard, in heavily accented Chinese.

"I have one dead outside," I replied. "Are you sure there were only six?"

When she answered affirmatively, I began cautiously walking towards the house.

Once again, I was assuming (I HATE that word) that no one was holding a gun to her head and making her tell me what I wanted to hear. Somehow I knew she wouldn't bow to that kind of threat.

As I walked onto the porch, the front door opened, and she stepped outside.

She was still covered in brains and blood, still only wearing a pair of panties.

She was also light gray from head to toe with what I realized was sheetrock dust.

And even more remarkable, she was still beautiful! Even covered in blood and brains and dust, she was still beautiful!

I am only about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, but I was probably nine inches taller than she was. I doubt that she could have weighed more than 85 or 90 pounds.

I was not sure what kind of reception I would receive from this young lady after saving her life, but the reception I got was NOT what I was expecting.