For our Troops by Mixed Wrestler

Marti was an exceptional beauty, not the kind of woman one would expect to see in a United States Marine Battalion. At a statuesque 5'7”, 133 pounds with long legs, a well toned 33-24-32 figure and angelic face with long bronze hair, she looked more like a Miss America contestant that a soldier.

Her slightly nasally accent left no doubt as to the 24 year olds New York background. In fact, she had joined the service after losing her two brothers on 9-11. Members of the Manhattan Fire Department, they both died in the line of duty during the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. From that moment on, rage consumed her and thoughts of revenge fueled her desire to join the service. She knew that being a woman would hinder her efforts to enter combat and hunt down the vile bastards responsible for such a travesty, so she joined the Navy and worked her way toward becoming a Medic, knowing full well that the Marines, who hunt down these bastards, use Navy Medics in the field. It took her 2 years to complete her training and another three months to get the assignment she wanted, but finally she was there and assigned to the Marine's 2nd Battalion in Afghanistan as one of the Unit's two Navy Medics. The Unit's other assigned Medic was Lieutenant Stephan Merker.

The 2 nd Battalion's main duty was to track, engage and either destroy or capture renegade al-Qaeda fighters hiding out in the Tora Bora mountains on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Though Marti could physically hold her own with any of the guys in the Battalion, she was not a welcome addition to the Unit. The men, many of which seemed to Marti to have some serious inadequacy issues and who viewed a woman in the Unit as bad luck, even refused to call her by her given name of Martina or even her preferred nickname of “Marti” and instead made light of her family name, Magdalene, by referring to her as “the Mary” in reference to the famous Lady of the Evening mentioned in the Old Testament.

Marti really didn't care if they liked her or not. She had a purpose and a duty and she had worked hard and earned her assignment here. She was in exceptional physical condition and held Black Belts in Judo and Taekwondo and breezed through the physical demands of basic training with higher scores than most of the men in her Unit. Though she would have generally liked to have the respect of her fellow comrades, she could physically hold her own with any of them, and they knew it, which is what really bothered the majority of them. Her angelic features only served to further aggravate that situation

Marti had been with the Unit for nearly 4 months when on this particular day, the Battalion was awoken earlier than usual for a pre dawn meeting. Marti knew that it could only mean new information. Occasionally, the Battalion would get information from undisclosed sources about the whereabouts of small cells of al-Qaeda fighters hidden in the mountain's secret caves. Sometimes, the information panned out. Usually however, it turned out to be bogus or too old to be of any use and there was always the possibility of being feed misleading information that could lead to an al-Qaeda ambush. When this happened, it was routine to send out a small scouting party to confirm the location before committing the entire Unit and it was standard operating procedure that they be accompanied by a Medic.

As the higher ranking Medical officer for the 2 nd Battalion, it was the duty of Lieutenant Merker to assign the Medic. Normally, he would take on the assignment himself rather than send a woman, but a plethora of bogus information recently had left him in a rather ornery mood this particular morning and when the scouting party was assembled he was in no mood to accompany them for what was sure to be another wasted couple of hours traipsing around in the hot desert sun.

“Take the Mary,” was the order from Merker.

The men grumbled their frustration at the decision but since Merker was a higher ranking officer, no one dared question it. Marti was teamed with Corporal Daniel Castinelli, a 26 year old Texan, Private Bryan LaPlante, a freckled faced 23 year old from Detroit and Private David Glick, a 19 year old chauvinist from Maryland. Castinelli was a third generation Marine. At 5'8, 155 pounds, he was a bit scrawny for a Marine in this type of duty, but his father had pulled some stings. He wasn't so much in the service as a duty to his country than as an obligation to his family to keep up the legacy. LaPlante was your stereotypical redneck Texan who, like Marti, joined the service out of a sense of patriotic fervor after the 9-11 attacks. His gung-ho, cowboy attitude made him a perfect fit with the jarhead Marine mentality. Glick on the other hand was anything but your prototype Marine. No one could really figure out what he was actually doing in the service or how he got in. Marti had easily bested him in a hand-to-hand drill when she first got assigned here. The defeat at the hands of a woman had left him feeling like less than a man. Since then he has been desperate to prove himself.

The guys made sure to load the Humvee in such a way as to give Marti no other option than to sit in the open ended rear of the vehicle. She would have preferred the comfort of the enclosed cab, but was not about to give her male counterparts the satisfaction of complaining about the conditions. She wrapped a bandana around her mouth and nose and tilted her helmet down low over her eyes to protect from the grating sand being whipped up by the desert wind and the speeding Humvee.

They were about an hour into their mission near the southern most end of the Tora Bora mountains when an intense flash of red and orange suddenly illuminated the vehicle from all sides as it seemed to lift up off the ground and disintegrate beneath her. Marti felt herself being hurdled through the air. Then blackness.

Marti slowly awoke. Her head felt like it was being crushed in a vice. A searing pain emanated from her left shoulder and she could taste blood. She could hear the noises around her and strained to focus her eyes. They were voices and they sounded Arabic, probably Pashtu. Instinctively she struggled in vain to raise herself up and locate her weapon only to have a sudden dull pain of a boot in her ribs cascade through her torso, sending her sprawling her onto her back. The unmistakable clicks of an AK-47 riffle being locked into firing position rattled above her. As her eyes finally refocused, she could make out the image of a bearded Arab in a grayish turban standing astride above her, the business end of his weapon starring her squarely in her beautiful brown eyes. Marti quickly looked over her captor and identified his attire as probably being Saudi. He was filthy, tall and thin, probably about 20 to 22 years old and looked more terrified at his position over Marti than she felt to be beneath him. His voice bellowed in harsh Arabic tones as if desperately trying to mask the fact that his hands were shaking and the fear in his own eyes. Marti recognized the dialect. It was definitely Pashtu. She had learned bits and pieces of the language during her tour of duty. It came in handy often and although she couldn't make out all of the words, she could understand enough to know that he did not want her to get up.

Marti surveyed the area. He scouting party and the Humvee were nowhere to be seen. While unconscious she must have been transported here, Marti thought. Still, she recognized the terrain. she knew the area well. The Marines called it “Sandy Lagoon”, a small patch of desert, about a quarter of a mile in diameter, at the base of Tora Bora's southeastern most point in which the mountain literally encircled a small valley resembling a dried up lagoon.. A small three to six foot incline of rock carved through the sand in a snake-like pattern, like a large stepping stone bridge, cutting off a small portion of the valley's eastern end from the rest. The smaller portion was concealed from above by the mountains oddly shaped overhang making it appear as if the “bridge” was in fact the rear wall of the “lagoon”. She had seen it several times, but only from the air, accompanying routine patrols. They had deemed it a box canyon of no consequence as the only known entrance to the “Lagoon” was a narrow canyon corridor. Now inside however, Marti could distinguish a solitary cave opening concealed across the “bridge” running into the rock face. The mountain's odd configuration, which had been seen as nothing more than a dead end valley, perfectly concealed it from above.

The shouting of her captor called over three others. As they approached, she recognized them immediately as Fahad bin Saleh Al-Fulani, Zayed bin Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa and Hamad bin Said Tamiur Al-Busaid, three of al-Queda's higher level officers. Their faces had been burned into her memory through numerous daily briefings. Fahad had been rumored to be in the area conducting terrorist training activities. The Battalion had been tracking them for the past several months, but what were the other two doing here, Marti thought. For security purposes, rarely were any of the terrorist group's Commanders ever together in the same place, unless…

She never completed her thought as Zayed rushed over and yanked her to her feet. He called out to Fahad who hurriedly pick up Marti's medical bag lying a few yards away. Reaching in, he pulled out a neatly folded American flag. Marti had carried it with her since leaving the States. She had visions of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, and had hoped that she could be part of a similar event here.

No one knew it, but this flag had been lifted from the rubble at Ground Zero by the firefighters who had served with her brothers and given to her to take with her for just that purpose. Now, much to her chagrin, it was in the hands of an al-Qaeda terrorist.

Fahad spat upon the flag before violently dragging Marti to her feet and tying her hands behind her back with it. Marti spat back in his face to which he responded by backhanding the young woman across the face, splitting her lip and knocking her back to the ground.

Reaching for her now tussled main, Fahad dragged Marti to her feet again and drove his knee hard into her mid-section. Her normally firm abdominals crumpled under the force of the unexpected blow, expelling all of the air in her lungs and doubling her over causing her gasp and wretch for air. Grabbing another fistful of hair, Fahad forced her upright, yanking back violently and forcing her head back to face him.

Marti eyes filled with rage and utter contempt as Fahad grasped her face around the chin and raised it to within inches of his own. The stench of his breath alone was enough to knock Marti back down had she not been held upright. She knew the horrors of what al-Qaeda was known to do with its female prisoners of war and by the look in his eyes, Fahad had every intention of making her experience each and every one of those horrors.

More Arabic words cut through the air. Fahad's attention was diverted by Zayed calling to him.

“The Emir is here,” Marti translated the words in her mind.

Fahad pulled Marti in front of him, wrapping his arm around her throat just enough to hold her in place. He made a crude remark about her form that Marti couldn't completely translate but she could vaguely interpret. Both men laughed as Zayed moved closer eyeing Marti's body. She made out the words “infidel” and “concubine”. Marti struggled as Zayed rubbed himself against her and then tore open her fatigues, exposing her perfect breasts to the desert sun.

“Boo-yah!” Marti suddenly hollered, calling out the Marine battle cry.

Quickly their laughter was halted as Marti threw her head backward, striking Fahad squarely in the center of his face. An explosion of crimson shot forth from the bridge of his nose, forcing him to release her arms and sending him sprawling, unconscious behind her. She immediately shot out her right boot catching Zayed squarely between his legs and dropping him to his knees clutching his manhood. His screams echoed off the mountain walls, alerting Hamad. With a quick spin, Marti unleashed a vicious tornado kick that caught Zayed flush on the temple, abruptly ending his screams and sending him crashing face down into the desert sand.

As the two men lay on the desert floor, Marti struggled to free her hands, managing to just slip her wrists out of the flag as Hamad raced toward her thrusting the hilt of his Soviet made M43 rifle toward her. Marti quickly rolled to one side as the weapon whizzed by just inched from her head. As she completed her roll, Marti immediately struck out with a sweeping motion of her right leg, taking out the legs of her foe and sending him crashing to his back, the rifle flung skyward where it rattled off the base of the rock “bridge” just a few feet away.

Marti scurried on all fours toward the weapon. This was her chance. Reaching the rifle Marti quickly scrambled to her feet and prepared to open fire. Hamad was just getting to his knees when he noticed the beautiful young American aiming his own weapon at him. Immediately Hamad began pleading, in Arabic, for his life. Marti made out several references to Allah, she pulled the trigger anyway. Nothing.

“Damn cheap piece of Soviet Shit!” Marti exclaimed.

Just then, the unmistakable clicks of non-jammed weapons echoed on the rocks just above her. Marti looked up to the rock above her. Three al-Qaeda fighters had weapons similar to the one she was holding trained directly on her from the “bridge”. She recognized one of the men immediately as Isa bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, a top aide to “the Emir” himself, Usama bin Laden.

Marti threw down her weapon. Hamad quickly rose to his feet and angrily marched toward her. Pulling a large knife from his boot, Hamad grabbed the young woman by the hair and prepared to slash her throat. A harsh command from Isa stopped him in his tracks.

Isa yelled down to Hamad and the two exchanged what Marti could make out as verbal jabs and insults. Isa and the others were obviously having fun at Hamad's expense. The fact that he had been bested in battle, by a woman no less, raised questions of his manhood. She sensed that Hamad was desperately attempting to come up with some sort of excuse that would allow him to save face. Suddenly, Marti made out the word “wager” and large sums of money began changing hands amongst the fighters. More appeared from the other side of the bridge including a very familiar looking tall and frail Saudi.

“The Emir”, Marti thought and instantly, she knew that Hamad was being given his chance to prove himself in front of him.

A single gunshot from Isa's weapon began the battle as Hamad quickly lunged at the young woman catching her off guard and driving a knee deep into her crotch. Marti gave out a loud, sustained yell as she doubled over in pain. Hamad quickly raised his knee again connecting it flush with Marti's chin and sending the young beauty crashing to the ground moaning in agony.

As Marti rolled on the sand trying to shake the cobwebs from her head, clutching at her pained sex, Hamad strutted about, bowing to “the Emir”, as men above laughed and cheered at the developing events.

Hamad returned his attention to his fallen foe. As Marti struggled to get to all fours he attempted to kick her in her side but Marti rolled out of the way and quickly bounded to her feet. Hamad's eyes grew wide in shock at the site of this…this…woman again standing before him. He lunged again but this time Marti was prepared and landed a straight left jab flush on his nose. Hamad's head snapped back, staggering the young Arab and Marti followed her advantage with another left jab…and another… and another. Hamad's head looked like a speed bag as blood began to spew from his mouth and nose. With cat-like quickness, Marti delivered a front snap kick with deadly accuracy, catching Hamad between his rubbery legs and doubling him over. A huge right uppercut by Marti landed squarely on Hamad's jaw lifting the al-Qaeda fighter off his feet, into the air and sent him crashing down to the ground again. Hamad's head rolled from side to side before coming to rest flat on his back and out cold.

Before Marti could catch her breath, she heard Isa make the command for another fighter to attack her. Then another. Two fighters immediately made their way over the bridge. Marti made out their names to be Husayn and Abdal-Karimm. Husayn was a monster of a man; 6'3” and approximately 220 to 230 pounds with a barrel chest and massive biceps. Abdal-Karimm was much smaller, but at 6' even and 185 pounds, still towered above the Marine Corp Medic.

In an instant, both fighters were on top of Marti who vainly attempted to battle them both off. She lashed out with a flurry of Taekwondo kicks and Judo style grappling techniques. Early on, many found their mark as she succeeded in opening a large gash on the forehead of Abdal-Karimm and twice was able to Judo flip Husayn. But in the end, their size and strength combined with the injuries she already sustained proved to be too much.

Husayn held her arms from behind as Abdal-Karimm punished her breasts with vicious rights and lefts. Marti tried not to cry out. She didn't want to give them the satisfaction but as Abdal-Karimm began to maul her already battered tits, clawing and tearing at her plentiful orbs, she could no longer hide her anguish. Tears began to flow freely from Marti's eyes as large purplish bruises and deep gashes began to form on her breasts. The pain became nearly unbearable as Marti's head began to swirl. She was brought back around slightly by the sudden burning pain in her crotch as Abdal-Karimm reached his hand into the front of her kakis and began tearing at her soft bush yanking several of the hairs out by their roots.

Marti's body began to go limp as the intense pain began to overwhelm her. Suddenly a vise like grip slammed against her temples as the Husayn thrust the palms of his massive hands into her temples. Marti screamed as Husayn crushed the side of her head in his hands.

As Marti struggled against the vise like grip on her skull, Abdal-Karimm ripped off the pants of the young woman drove several boots deep into her unprotected crotch. Marti's body jerked and convulsed with each vicious blow and blood began to pour from her nostrils. Her vision began to blur as her body involuntarily spazimed and her mind began to slowly slip into unconsciousness.

Husayn suddenly released his grip and reached between Marti's legs, lifting her off the ground and then dropping her down across his outstretched knee. Marti let out an agonizing scream as her spine arched awkwardly over the massive thigh of her foe, her arms and legs flailing uselessly at her sides.

Husayn applied intense pressure to her thigh and chin, arching her back to the breaking point as Abdal-Karimm knelt beside her, raising both hands high above his head and driving them like a sledgehammer into her exposed abdominals. Martin sobbed uncontrollably now as the two men continued to pummel her helpless body.

Marti crumpled like a rag doll as Husayn dumped her now nude form onto the desert floor. Cheered on by their fellow al-Qaeda brethren the two men stood above the defeated American soldier and began to disrobe. Marti could barely remain conscious at this point, much less defend herself or even determine the fate about to befall her. Husayn straddled Marti's upper body and dropped to his knees, pinning her arms out to her side as ground his naked crotch down onto her chest, his dick growing hard between her tits. Marti's lungs burned for air as Husayn's massive weight crushed her rib cage making difficult to breathe as he vigorously ground his shaft between her battered breasts. She could feel her ribs begin to snap beneath him and more blood began to spew from her lips.

Raucous cheers rained down from the “bridge” as Husayn climaxed, arching his body and letting out a deep, pleasurable moan as he showered his man juices over Marti's face and chest. He moved his body up hers, covering her mouth and nose with his crotch as Abdal-Karimm parted Marti's long legs and dropped down driving his head into her exposed cunt. Marti let out a pained shriek of anguish that was muffled beneath the weight if Husayn. Abdal-Karimm gnawed at Marti's sex, using his teeth to tear at the tender flesh of her pussy. Husayn would raise his body off of Marti's face just long enough for the young woman to take in a quick breath of air, denying her the release of unconsciousness. Abdal-Karimm emerged from between Marti's now blood soaked thighs after several moments with her blood smearing his mouth and lower jaw. He held her legs aloft once aging, edging his body between them and thrusting his now rock hard member deep into her damaged pussy. Marti's body convulsed as the young Arab sadistically pounded away at her pussy and climaxed deep inside her ravaged sex.

Upon finishing, the two men climbed off of Marti's now limp body. She was conscious, but that was about all. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as her body desperately attempted to reclaim much need oxygen. Blood, sweat and sand splattered her naked form as Husayn and Abdal-Karimm continued to hold the young American down while others brutally came and brutally took turns raping her, much to the delight of those remaining on the “bridge”.

The carnage continued for over an hour before Marti could no longer take the abuse and drifted into consciousness. Several of the fighters pissed on her limp body. The warm fluid spattering her face began to revive the defeated Navy medic. As Marti slowly came to, she could hear Isa ordering his men to drag her to her feet. As they held her up, they raised her head to look at Isa. He gave a small laugh as her called over one of his own personal aids who handed him a small hand-held revolver. Coldly, Isa raise the weapon, pointing it directly at Marti and calmly squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out, echoing off the mountain walls. Marti felt the searing heat of the bullet penetrate her upper chest. The force of the bullets' impact propelled Marti's body back several feet sending her sprawling to the sand in a lifeless heap.

“Leave her here,” shouted Isa in a gruff Arabic tone. “Let the buzzards have her.”

He motioned to two other fighters with him to gather Hamad, to which they quickly complied. Dragging the defeated Islamic rebel to his feet the two fighters carried him to the incline toward the cave. Marti lay motionless as one of them drove his boot deep into her side as they passed her fallen body.

For several moments, until all of her captors had made their way past the incline to the other side of the “lagoon”, there was no movement at all from Marti until…a sudden gasp of air permeated her body. She had feigned death to draw her captors away and give herself one final chance at literally snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Marti scanned the area. Hamad's weapon, the one that had jammed earlier, still lay on the ground at the base of the incline. All of the top members of the world's most feared terrorist organization were here…now! Marti knew the stakes. If she could get the old Soviet weapon to operate she could take out the core of the al-Qaeda network in one full swoop.

The pain resonated throughout her body. She moaned softly, trying not to make any noise that would arouse suspicion from over the “bridge”. Blood poured freely from the new wound above her left breast. Her left arm was practically useless, the bullet having completely shattered her collar bone. Sand clung to her naked skin as she dragged her battered body across the desert floor toward the discarded weapon.

The “bridge” was only about three feet high in some places. Marti tried to stay low to the ground to avoid being detected. As far as any of them knew, she lay dead at the base and she didn't want to let them know otherwise until it was too late. Reaching the weapon, Marti quickly examined its mechanisms. Using the remains of her American flag she had hoped that sand had been the earlier culprit to the weapon's misfiring. After cleaning the weapon, Marti muttered a quick prayer and with every last ounce of strength in her, struggled to her feet and raced up the incline to the top of the “bridge”.

“Boo-Yah!” she cried as she opened fire even before she could even make out any of her intended targets, hoping to catch them all off guard. It worked. The steady spray of bullets rained in on the al-Qaeda fighters, sending them scurrying like rats for any cover they could find. Other rushed to protect “the Emir”, hurdling their bodies between him and the ensuing gunfire, giving their own lives in the process. In addition to those fighters, a line of gunfire ripped through the bodies of Zayed bin Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa and Isa bin Sultan Al-Nahyan.

Isa body convulsed as several of the rounds pelted his body, running a streak of bullets from his groin, up the center of his torso to the middle of his forehead. For a brief instant, Isa stayed upright like a marionette on a string before collapsing in a pool of his own blood, face first onto the ground.

Zayed never saw his executioner as several bullets tore through his back, blowing gaping holes in his chest cavity as they exited his body.

The barrage of bullets continued for several moments also laying waste to Husayn and Abdal-Karimm before the M43 rifle simply ran out of ammunition. As the weapon ceased firing, Marti body collapsed from exhaustion, dropping the weapon and tumbling back down the far side of the incline.

Several fighters lay dead but the Emir was still alive and Marti could here the Arabic command sending the remaining fighters over the “bridge” after her. The fall had left her with a broken leg and three shattered ribs in addition to the injuries she had already sustained. Blood poured from her scalp, tinting her normally bronze colored hair a deep crimson hue. Looking down, she noticed that she still clutched the remains of the American flag in her hands and at that moment, Martina Ferris did the bravest thing that any person…any soldier could have possibly done.

“Please god, still work,” Marti thought as she dragged her body across the sand and rocks to her medical bag just a few feet away. Reaching in, she pulled out the one item she knew could still win her the day.

“Bloodhound to Command,” Marti called out over her portable radio. “The groundhog has seen his shadow. Repeat, the groundhog has seen his shadow. Request immediate Eagle strike at 70 degrees 2 minutes 6.5 seconds North latitude by 34 degrees 4 minutes 58 seconds West longitude”

“The groundhog” is the Marine's code name for bin Laden. Marti had heard the Unit in which she was assigned use it several times over the last few months while searching for the elusive terrorist. “Seeing his shadow” referred to their prey being out and visible and “Eagle strike,” was a request for a full out aerial assault by any and all Allied aircraft in range. The coordinates she gave, were for her own position.

Lieutenant Stephen Merker heard the call over his portable. He recognized the voice on the other end. He also recognized the code.

As Marti's body lay battered and broken on the rugged terrain, she prayed that her signal had been received and correctly interpreted by whoever might have been listening. Within moments, she knew that those prayers had been answered. Just as the remaining al-Qaeda fighters reached the top of the “bridge” and had Marti in their sights, she heard the thumping rotors reverberating off the mountain walls and managed a weak chuckle as several US Blackhawk helicopters came into view over the mountainside. The black gun ships glistened what little sunlight filtered through the dull grey Afghani sky as they thundered closer sending the fighters scurrying for cover once again.

Marti struggled to pull her body to the top of one of the bridge's shallowest inclines. Seeing them scramble, she knew the terrorists would not be able to outrun the advancing copters in their vehicles, as did they. Their only hope was to take cover deep within the Tora Bora caves whose entrance was just 100 yards or so away. Several of the fighters carried bin Laden up the rocky slope.

“Faster… Faster,” Marti thought almost trying to will the copters, with her last ounce of strength, to get there in time. She clutched the remains of Old Glory close to her bosom and then began to scrawl a message across the white strips of the tattered flag in her own blood.

“Fry, you bastard.” Marti said to herself as she watched the massive gun ships unloaded their vast arsenals upon her exact location, taking direct aim at the precise section of the Tora Bora mountainside that had been radioed to them.

Marti saw the first Tomahawk cruise missile strike the entrance of the cave. The ensuing explosion rained dust and debris for a quarter mile and obscured any further vision. The onslaught continued for several minutes in a thunderous display of American military might that laid waste to the Tora Bora mountainside.

Several hours later the United States Marines 2 nd Battalion, along with other Units and high ranking military personnel arrived at “Sandy Lagoon” to investigate the site. The stripped remains of a United States military Humvee lay as a marker for three dead Marines at the canyon entrance. Castinelli and LaPlante appeared to have been killed in the initial assault on the vehicle. Probably with a hand held mortar. Glick's body was several hundred feet from the destroyed vehicle. He had been shot in the back of the head, execution style with his hands tied behind his back. Corporal Magdalene was nowhere to be seen.

Inside the “lagoon”, devastation reigned. At least half a dozen bodies littered the landscape along with several other vehicles and what appeared to be the remains a mobile medical dialysis unit.

As ranking Medic of the 2 nd Battalion, Lieutenant Merker's job was to catalog the dead. Three of the dead lay at a cave entrance, two more at the bottom of the rocky slope and at least the pieces of two more splattered on the rock face. All Arab.

“We got one more over here,” cried a young Marine. “She's American!”

Lieutenant Merker knew instantly what he would find as he rushed to the newly found body. A young woman in the remains of shredded marine fatigues lay face down in the desert sand at the base of another rocky incline. Kneeling beside the body of his fallen counterpart, he gently rolled her onto her back and out of respect, covered her nudity with his own vest. He knew he didn't have to check for a pulse but he did anyway. Nothing. He noticed the remains of the flag still clutched in her fists and removed it. On it, written in blood he could only assume was hers, was a simple message… “Did we get him?”

Merker looked over at the other members of his Unit as they celebrated around the remains of several al-Qaeda fighters including a relatively familiar looking tall Saudi. It would take days for DNA tests to confirm it was really him, but even in the battered and bloodied condition his corpse now appeared, the distinguishing features of the world's most wanted man was unmistakable.

“Yeah Marti,” said Mercker. “We got him.”