Bring On the Dusk

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There were few times that Colonel Michael Gibson of Delta Force appreciated the near-psychotic level of commitment displayed by terrorists, but this was one of those times. If they hadn’t been so rigid, including their attire, his disguise would have been much more difficult.
The al-Qaeda terrorist training camp deep in the Yemeni desert required that all of their hundred new trainees dress in white with black headdresses that left only the eyes exposed. The thirty-four trainers were dressed similarly but wholly in black, making them easy to distinguish. At this early stage of training, they were also the only ones armed, which was a definite advantage.
The camp’s dress code made for a perfect cover. The four men of his team wore loose-fitting black robes like the trainers. Like himself, Captain Bill Bruce used dark contacts to hide his blue eyes, and they all had rubbed a dye from fingertips to elbows, the only other uncovered portion of their bodies if their sleeves slipped upward.
Michael and his team had parachuted into the deep desert the night before and traveled a quick ten kilometers on foot before burying themselves in the sand along the edges of the main training grounds. Only their faces were exposed, each carefully hidden by a thorn bush.
The midday temperatures had easily blown through a one-ten Fahrenheit. It felt twice that inside the heavy clothing and lying under a foot of hot sand, but uncomfortable was a way of life in The Unit as Delta Force called itself, so this was of no concern. They’d dug in deep enough so that they weren’t simply roasted alive, though it felt that way by the end of the motionless day.
It was three minutes to sunset, three minutes until the start of Maghrib, the fourth scheduled prayer of the five that were performed daily.
At the instant of sunset, the muezzin began chanting adhan, the call to prayer.
Thinking themselves secure in the deep desert of the Abyan province of southern Yemen, every one of the trainees and the trainers knelt and faced northwest toward Mecca.
After fourteen motionless hours—eleven steps from a hundred and thirty terrorists—moving smoothly and naturally was a challenge as Michael rose from his hiding place. He shook off the sand and swung his AK-47 into a comfortable position. The four of them approached the prostrate group in staggered formation from the southeast over a small hillock.
The Delta operators interspersed themselves among the other trainers and knelt, blending in perfectly. Of necessity, they all spoke enough Arabic to pass if questioned.
Michael didn’t check the others because that might draw attention. If they hadn’t made it cleanly into place, an alarm would have been raised and the plan would have changed drastically. All was quiet, so he listened to the muezzin’s words and allowed himself to settle into the peace of the prayer.
Bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm…
In the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful…
He sank into the rhythm and meaning of it—not as these terrorists twisted it in the name of murder and warfare, but as it was literally stated. Moments like this one drove home the irony of his long career to become the most senior field operative in Delta while finding an inner quiet in the moments before dealing death.
Perhaps in their religious fervor, the terrorists found the same experience. But what they lacked was flexibility. They wound themselves up to throw away their lives, if necessary, to complete their preprogrammed actions exactly as planned.
For Michael, an essential centering in self allowed high-factor adaptability when situations went kinetic—Delta’s word for the shit unexpectedly hitting the fan.
That was Delta’s absolute specialty.
Starting with zero preconceptions in either energy or strategy allowed for the best action that fit each moment in a rapidly evolving scenario. Among the team, they’d joke sometimes about how Zen, if not Buddhist, the moment before battle was.
And, as always, he accepted the irony of that, with no more than a brief smile at life’s whimsy.
Dealing death was but one element of what The Unit did.
US SFOD-D, Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, went where no other fighting force could go and did what no one else could do.
Today, it was a Yemeni terrorist training camp. Tomorrow would take care of itself.

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