Free Echo Six: Black Ops 5 - Strikeforce Syria by Eric Meyer

like the Syrians had chosen a remote spot to use as a garbage tip. He looked at Guy as they approached, puzzled.
    "What gives?"
    He didn't reply, and when they were near, Talley saw why. It wasn't garbage. It was bodies. Scores of bodies, all torn to shreds by what looked like machine gun fire. And yet, when he bent down to look at the nearest bodies, he realized they all had their hands bound behind their backs. So they'd been prisoners, noncombatants, and all were wearing civilian clothes. Then he felt a chill run up his spine as he saw there was worse to come. Underneath some of the corpses were the bodies of young children, infants and babies. It was obvious their parents had tried to shelter them from the gunfire, to no avail. They were all dead, every single one. Talley had seen plenty of action in some of the most brutal theaters of war, and most of them in Islamic countries. This was worse.
    "Jesus Christ! It's a massacre."
    Guy nodded. "Someone decided to teach the locals a lesson, that's for sure. And it happened recently. I'd say sometime during the afternoon."
    For long moments, Talley stood, surveying the heap of bodies, the slaughter of the innocents.
    Why do these Islamic countries treat their own people so brutally? It looks to me as if most of them have a single method of dealing with disagreement, death, the vicious slaughter of unarmed men, women, and children. 'Pour encourager les autres'.
    He whirled as he heard footsteps on the sand, but it was only Lieutenant Rovere with three survivors from the unit, Roy Reynolds, Drew Jackson, and Julio Garcia. They stared at the bodies, and Garcia had to rush off to vomit into the sands. The Italian glanced over at him, and then looked back at the bodies. The Shakespearean quotation emerged from his lips almost without thinking.
    "Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death, and death will have his day.” He shook his head in sadness. “The poor bastards. Children! What kind of people are these?"
    Talley had been thinking the same. "For once, my friend, you called it about right."
    Rovere had shrugged off his parachute harness and removed his lightweight helmet. He was a handsome man, with Mediterranean looks, recruited from the elite 4th Alpini Parachutist Regiment 'Monte Cervino'. His dark hair, dark eyes, and smooth olive skin made him appear almost ten years younger than his twenty-seven years. He gave Rebecca Dayan a quick once over and then looked away. As well as a joker, he was an inveterate womanizer, but not here. This was a place for chill reflection, not levity, a place for anger and something more. Revenge.
    He looked at Talley. "What's next, Boss?" He started to reply, but unusually, the Italian cut him off. "Don't give me the usual shit about operational difficulties, the fact we're stuck in this place with half our men, and most of our equipment gone." He looked at the ripped and bloody bodies, and his eyes were moist. "I know how important the target is, but right now I couldn't give a shit. Am I alone in wanting to find the people who did this? To pay them back in kind?"
    Talley touched him on the arm. "You're not alone, Domenico. I feel the same, but I don't know how we could pull off what we came here to do, not without men and equipment. As for this…"
    The Italian didn't reply, but his accusing stare was eloquent enough. These people massacred by the Syrian Army had nobody on their side, no military skills or weapons, so they paid the price. Who was prepared to stand up for justice?
    Guy returned with Rebecca beside him.
    "We've searched the area. We found Buchmann, and he got down okay.”
    Talley nodded. “He always does. That guy could jump without a parachute and still make it.”
    “Yeah, but we've lost at least eight men. Some of the wounded may have headed north into Turkey when they exited the aircraft. They'd know they’d only hold us up if they landed here. Some will have died, if they failed to recover consciousness and