Retribution For The Burkes

By CS Bennett

This incredible story centers on six brave members of America's elite Special Missions Unit, both Tier One and Tier Two levels, who are formed into a tight and highly classified combined joint task force. The mission is code-named Operation 600 Spears. Consisting of three simultaneous raids, across three troubled continents, something terrible goes wrong, leaving six American KIAs. However, there is something unique about these six warriors. As US officials search for answers, and news of the tragedy hits the press, the American public makes it clear, they want retribution, but at what cost. Many believe that those behind this tragedy are going to regret the day they tangled with US Special Forces. They will be quickly reminded why there is a reason our commandoes are feared the world over. The question is, could there be more to this tragedy than meets the eye. Some believe there is, others say they know it is. In Washington, policy experts work frantically in an attempt to answer this question. My advice, get your copy now! This is a firefight between elite forces the world over you will not want to miss out on. Leading the fight are two of the United States deadliest fighting units, Delta Force (US Army) and SEAL Team 6 (US Navy)...

• Language: English
• Publisher: CS Bennett
• Release date: Sep 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781513684116

CS Bennett

CS Bennett hails from Philadelphia, Pa. and is a current Florida resident. He is a decorated Gulf War Veteran (United States Navy). He is a world traveler, a poet, and family man. He has degrees in Social Science, Criminal Justice, and Political Science/Public Administration. He graduated with honors (Magna cum Laude) from the University of North Florida (2012). Author became a Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation Book Award recipient at the young age of 12. Author has written 28 books covering various topics, both fiction and non-fiction.

Book preview

Chapter 1

(The Battle In Real Time)

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Pulling his muscular upper torso up from his bed, the young man, wearing PJ plaid bottoms only, ran his fingers through his coarse sandy blonde hair, then sat on the edge of the bed. His muscular upper body was beaded with sweat. He wasn’t ill, or feeling under the weather, just hot. After an agonizing long hour, his attempt to fall asleep came up short. He had a lot on his mind and it did not help that the air-conditioning system was down thanks to a power outage that began thirty minutes earlier. After sitting motionless, for what seemed forever without any signs of drifting off again, he decided to get up. Perhaps if he listened to some music, maybe he might fall asleep, he thought. It was going to be difficult though. Hindering his efforts was a place he wanted to be, and felt he needed to be, but was unable to be. The disappointment of having been left behind weighed heavy on his mind. How could this happen to me, he asked aloud repeatedly?

In an effort to take his mind off of the situation, he placed his headphones over his ears, took his smart phone in hand, and connected it to his headphones. His first thought was to play something soothing and relaxing so that he could fall asleep. Instead, with his battle ready comrades on his mind nonstop he decided instead, to cued up one of his favorite old school hip hop funk tunes and roll with that. The song was Ego Trippin’, by the hip hop sensation De La Soul. It was the instrumental version he always favored. Not one for lyrics, he was driven by a song’s rhythm, kick-ass bass accompaniment, and syncopated beat. This tune had it all, a steady James Brown funk inspired drum cadence accompanied by a foot stomping bass line. The keyboard player, later joined by the trumpet player, combined to make the funk component of the song really rock. Their crisp syncopated contributions took the song to another level.

On any other occasion, he could easily envisioned being at a night club sharing a beer with his pals as they enjoyed music and the local beauties. He could actually see himself on the dance floor with his lovely wife, Tracy, along with his buddies and their women, the whole lot of them snapping their fingers while dipping and swaying their bodies to the rhythm of the song. For that one moment, his mind drifted to Tracy, their movements in poetic sync with each others. Moments like this were far and few. But wives, pretty women, dancing, and having a good time, were the last things on his mind tonight. Outside of his current thoughts, he was anxious for his wife Tracy to return home from a four day out of state work conference.

As the tune played on, the shirtless warrior made his way over to the window. To his left, on the dresser, lay a Special Forces adventure novel he had been reading earlier. Next to it was a framed picture of himself and five of his comrades-in-arms, two of them posing with M-4 rifles, another with a 45-calibre handgun, and one with a M16 rifle. Moving the curtain partially aside with his hand, he peered out into the night sky. 

Gazing up into the crescent moon, his mind drifted to a time and place quite different than where he was now, and one few civilians knew, or cared to know. What he envisioned was the silhouette of a squadron of stealthy special ops helicopters making their way through the desert night in a far away place, each aircraft carrying 14 to 18 of America’s elite commandos on another dangerous mission. As the music played through his headphones, he could envision them fast roping from the helicopters, one after another; a long dangling rope their only path to the sandy ground and danger below. With weapons in hand, armed and at the ready, the commandos crouched low and surveyed the area. They knew that once the bullets started flying, it was game on. To a man, they were ready to respond with surround-sound plus rapid fire noise and lots of it. These brave and gallant men were his friends, and his brothers in arms. Tier 1 American Spartan warriors like himself were America’s best, its most lethal, and its most feared assault units in this nation’s arsenal. In short, they were the crème de la crème of special operations forces. Unsung heroes they were, though rarely recognized for their heroics. On this night, there stood one American warrior who felt anything but heroic.

Pounding the wooden window frame with his balled fist in frustration, he returned to bed where he stretched out on his back. Closing his eyes, the hip hop groove flowing through his phone continued to play. It would be sometime before he would overcome the feeling of guilt and of being left behind, especially on such a high priority mission as this one. It was hell for him. Why me??? was the heart wrenching sentiment that reverberated throughout his tortured mind like a spent round in an echo chamber. Being here at home meant he was not out there covering his teammates back and that ate at him. But what could one do, he was forced to acknowledge? Not one thing, but pray that the mission went off without a hitch and that everyone involved returned home safely. In the back of his mind, he knew that his teammates were going up against some bad actors and that was always a concern. Taking on someone willing to die for his or her cause was as dangerous an adversary as it they come. Coming face to face with such a devoted warrior, it was your blood or theirs that was going to be spilled. For the operator on the ground, warfare came down to that one reality. In the meantime, you do what you have to do to save your life and the lives of your teammates, get the mission accomplished, and pray for forgiveness later.

Somewhere In The Dark Jungles And Deserts Of Hell On Earth

Across three vast continents, on the same dark moonless night, across a nine hour time zone period, three separate raids began, all three raids unleashing a volley of violent explosions that erupted on the ground, accompanied by loud sporadic automatic gunfire. With the night skies illuminating the surrounding darkness like fiery Roman candles on the 4th of July, with accompanying sparklers, the spectacular light show now on display was on a much grander scale. For those involved, what broke out around them began as a quiet, though foreboding, night right up to the moment several deadly firefights broke out, all under a veil of secrecy. Brilliant flashes of blue, yellow, purple, red and orange from various types of explosive munitions, illuminated the once dark sky, making for a kaleidoscope of colors that belied the deadly symphony taking place below and above. This much anticipated encounter was bad blood going back to the bombing of the US Marines’ barracks in Lebanon, the sneak missile attack on the USS Stake, the suicide assault against the USS Cole, the Iranian static mine attack on the USS Roberts, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, Black Hawk down, Tora Bora, Extortion 17, Benghazi, and Osama bin Laden’s greatest triumph, 9/11. Add to this, the more recent political snafu surrounding the evacuation of Americans in Afghanistan in 2021. No way should our people have suffered at the hands of hardcore Islamic militants, especially since we were known as the most feared military superpower in the world. Tonight, it was apparent to all in the vicinity of the fighting, that the Americans had returned to their shores and their power-packed arsenal was a signal to all that they were not here to take names, but to kick ass and fill body bags.

Acting under the order of a new president, the very sons, nephews, and second and third cousins, and grandchildren, of some of those killed in prior missions from prior eras, were now active members of this three prong task force and they all had long memories. Islamic Jihad, it did not matter the cause, our boys were ready to take them on, no matter who they were or how large their numbers. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Black September, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad (or Boko Haram), the Taliban, Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna, and Al-Shabaab, it did not matter. Our forces were prepared to take these groups on separately or all together.

After introducing their arrival, the Americans wasted no time seeking out, engaging, and destroying the enemy, and with a vengeance. The firefight that broke out was as intense as a twelve alarm fire at a petroleum plant. It was as heated, furious, and acrimonious as battles get. Warring street gangs going by the names of Crips and Bloods, and knife wielding, gun toting, crowbar swinging, brawling biker gangs the likes of Hell’s Angels, Pagans, Mongols, Bandidos, Outlaws, and Warlocks, had nothing on what was going down tonight thousands of miles away beyond the dark horizon of America’s eastern and southern shores. Going at it with a fury were two dangerous and diametrically opposing forces who lived their lives by a different philosophy relating to life and death matters.

This was an all out slug-fest; a fierce and hard fought battle for the American commandos involved, and one lasting nearly two hours across the three targeted theaters. So fierce and deadly an encounter this became that the surrounding air reeked of hot spent shells and gunpowder as the two sides engaged in a fight to the death, their darken silhouettes barely visible through the gunpowder-like haze that enveloped them. Whatever animal life, or pesky insect, that thrived in the area, fled once the bullets and mortars started flying. Wildlife that failed to evacuate died, a result of something known as collateral damage. The noise level of the weapons employed ranged between a deafening 140 decibels to 175 decibels. Both were above what was medically known to cause permanent hearing loss. But it did not matter to harden men like these. Their singular focus was on exterminating the other guy and with extreme prejudice, and that alone.

Acting on direct orders from the President of the United States, hundreds of American special ops forces had been given the task of descending on these three separate geographical targets with orders to attack with extreme prejudice and malice and neutralize anyone, and everyone, considered a threat to them. Matters of national security were at stake. Intel had been collected over the past year that something major, and something much larger than what happened on 9/11, was being planned by nefarious militants in all three areas of interest. What had been uncovered by the CIA, via enhanced interrogation methods abroad, amounted to a major attack on the state capitols of America’s original thirteen colonies. This bodacious plan included blowing up the homes of the governors in each original state targeted, as well as blowing up Independence Hall, Carpenters’ Hall, Betsy Ross’ House and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, a city that was the United States Capital for ten years. It was a sophisticated plan and those involved had committed themselves completely. To a man, they understood that this was a suicide mission. Organizers of this bold and coordinated multifaceted attack had been discovered to be operating in all three locations our forces were now fighting in after the general consensus in Washington DC was that these bad actors had to be taken down before they acted.

In the Middle East arena, locals accustomed to such violent skirmishes, thought it was another offensive involving Israeli forces, and possible US forces, against remnants of ISIS and al Qaeda loyalists. In the African theater, it was believed that heavily armed US forces were going up against the combined forces of Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, along with holdovers from several Somali renegade forces. In a battle in the thick jungles south of Colombia, South America, the intense firefight that erupted there was prosecuted by a third joint US commando force, which was the only raid to include elite British and Canadian special ops forces, all three countries having a vested interest in disrupting the cocaine and heroin drug trade in that part of the world. Their target, feared narco-terrorists who were holed up in the mountainous terrain of that country and were well armed and not known for dropping their weapons and running. These were battle harden combatants and believed in what they stood for and were willing to die for their beliefs.

While intelligence gathering had been ongoing for just over two years, the three raids had been in the planning stages for the better part of ten months and were meant to be conducted near simultaneously, depending on the time zones the divided task forces were operating in. The American commandos involved had orders to apprehend, dead or alive, several high valued human targets, though preferably alive, and bring them back to the United States to face justice and made to answer for their attacks on America’s interests and its citizens.  

Planned in secret, rehearsed in secret, and now executed in secret, the mission had gone operational with the full element of surprise and the capture of several low-level and high valued individuals (HVI) as the main focus. The captured were to be brought to justice for the horrific deaths of thousands of Western citizens at home and abroad, and for planning future attacks on American soil. If those targeted for capture refused to be apprehended, or they put up deadly resistance, the task force members had orders to bring them back to the States toe tagged and in body bags.

Though they came close, the Americans were unable to complete all of their main objectives. They were not allowed to. As for the CIA agents on the ground, their mission was cut abruptly short, too. Unknown to the operators, this operation was designed to go far beyond just going after the bad guys for planning an attack on the original thirteen colonies. Known only to CIA operatives embedded in the task force, there had been another classified component attached to the mission. It was a mission designed to uncover which major world power, outside of Iran, was behind the funding, and the material support, of the targeted terrorist groups. There