DARE PHILLIPS CLEARLY REMEMBERED the face of the Marine Captain displayed on the large monitor in the BEF Command Center. He had really wanted to court martial the young Captain for insubordination in Iraq. Dare had been in command of a squadron of Super Cobra attack helicopters involved in a firefight in Najaf when the brash young Captain called him a stupid son of a bitch on the tactical radio. Dare smiled as he remembered how mad he was back then. The then Lt. Colonel Dare Phillips was a no nonsense hard charger and a fearless warrior.
Mujahideen Shiite fighters had taken up positions inside a sacred mosque. Two dozen of them had pinned down the two squads under Captain Hermann's direct command. Several Marines were wounded and two were dead. Dare had refused to fire missiles at the mosque as very clear ROEs had recently been issued to prohibit such actions. Nobody, particularly a young Marine, was going to call Dare a stupid son of a bitch.
Dare hovered 200 feet above the dust colored town after he had responded Unable to the request made by the unseen officer somewhere beneath him. Suddenly, one of the hundreds of former Iraqi military men, now a mujahideen, stepped out of the low mud colored building connected to the west side of the gilded mosque and lined him up in the sights of his Russian made RPG-7. He had fired and in less than a second, the tail rotor assembly of Dare's Super Cobra was history. Lift rotor torque forced his crippled bird to spin rapidly without the counter acting force of the tail rotor. The mortally wounded Cobra had landed hard and flipped over on impact, slightly injuring both Dare and his weapons operator.
The rangy, broad shouldered Marine from Texas reacted quickly and dropped the insurgent who fired the rocket propelled grenade that took down Dare's chopper. The Captain's three shot burst had bracketed the Iraqi's heart. He was also the one who drug Dare and his WSO out of the wreckage, even while under fire from the mosque. That action is where Mike was awarded his first Silver Star and his Purple Heart. Yes, Dare Phillips knew the man in the picture well.
"Cowboy, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?" Dare asked as Kit turned to him.
"You know this guy?" Kit asked incredulously.
"Oh, yeah, we go way back," was the short reply. Dare continued into the phone, "Mr. Richards, Dare Phillips again. How old is this satellite feed we've been watching?"
The GS-11 supervisor at ICE checked his watch.
"Twenty minutes, give or take. I can get you some additional footage in 35 minutes when the next NERA satellite comes within range."
Dare thought for a second. The NERA, Near Earth Reconnaissance Asset, was not necessary. BEF had a RPV, Remote Piloted Vehicle, drone setup in Laredo; it could be launched remotely and in place in under 15 minutes. Kit watched the transformation come over Dare as his mind raced with the adrenaline one always gets before combat. He had seen it before in many other men, but this was the first time he had witnessed it in him. Dare spoke quickly to Richards,
"That won't be necessary, we'll deploy our nearby BEF resources. With your concurrence, BEF will take over operational responsibility of this incident. Standard Protocol on my mark. The time is now 1705 Zulu…Mark."
Back at the ICE intelligence facility in Bethesda, GS-11 Herbert Richards had noticed a change in Dare's voice. He had not personally met Dare, but knew he was thoroughly vetted all the way to Top Secret clearance by the entire US federal security hierarchy. Richards could not put his finger on the subtle change he heard, but it sounded something like steel was being forged inside the voice on the other end of the phone.
"Homeland Security concurs the transfer of operational responsibility, Standard Protocol, at 1705 Zulu. Standing by if you require further assistance."
Richards knew all the conversations were encrypted, time stamped, recorded and transcribed. As the phone connection terminated, he felt a slight tinge of pity for the people who would face the Black Eagle Force.
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