The Outside Man

by Don Bentley

  Swearing, I stumbled to my feet, favoring my leg, as Pom Pom accelerated out of her hover, thundering away. The Iranian helicopter pilot had landed his bird in a field covered by knee-high scrub brush about three hundred yards away from two low hills bridged by a saddle. A road meandered to the left of the helicopter. The thoroughfare might have been paved once, but after more than a decade of nonstop fighting, the huge fissures crisscrossing the broken concrete were visible even by moonlight.

  Pom Pom had done her work well, putting me down about fifty meters behind the stricken helicopter. Judging by the lack of noise, the pilots had killed the engines, but the main rotor was still turning, spindly blades drooping as the centrifugal force that stiffened them slowly bled away.

  My plan, such as it was, centered around taking the Iranians by surprise, preferably while they were still bunched together near the helicopter. I’d done quite a bit of the precision shooting required for CQB. In the Ranger Regiment, my trusty M4 rifle was the weapon of choice for this task, but once I joined the DIA, much of the training favored MP5 variants due to their concealability and accuracy.

  Even so, I’d never entered an engagement with such lopsided odds. Counting the pilots, I was outnumbered by as many as five to one, and I was operating at night. The full moon provided decent illumination, but nowhere near the tactical advantage I normally enjoyed when outfitted with night-vision goggles paired with an infrared laser mounted to my rifle.

  And then there was the elephant in the room. Laila. Practicing stress shoots was all well and good, but seeing a loved one in your aiming reticle changed the equation. It had to. Even the most experienced operator was still a human being subject to human emotions. If putting a bullet into a bad guy holding a gun to your wife’s head didn’t give you a case of the jitters, you probably needed to talk to a shrink.

  Or a divorce attorney.

  All things considered, my current situation was less than ideal. On the other hand, I was alive and armed with a weapon accurate enough to drive nails. That would have to do.

  Thumbing down the EOTech’s brightness to try to save as much night vision as possible, I brought the HK to my shoulder and started toward the helicopter. As much as I tried to ignore it, the pain radiating from my knee forced me to limp, making my shooting platform decidedly less stable. The scarlet holographic circle projected by the EOTech floated across the helicopter as I panned the HK left and right, searching for targets.

  Having survived a helicopter hard landing a time or two myself, I could picture what was going on in the cockpit. First came the sense of euphoria at facing down gravity and living to tell the tale. Next was the realization that while you were alive, you were also stuck somewhere you did not want to be. Somewhere inhabited by people who wanted to kill you.

  This revelation usually prompted two responses. First, the pilots would start working the radios in an attempt to get friendlies to the crash site. Next, any shooters on board would exit the downed bird and set up an ad hoc security perimeter.

  By now the Iranians had had more than enough time to celebrate the fact that they were still alive. Any moment now the shooters should start egressing the aircraft. My plan was to put the HK’s superb integrated suppressor to work by killing them as quickly and quietly as possible before they realized they had a predator in their midst.

  * * *

  —

  I was about ten meters from the tail boom when I heard the squeak of metal on metal. Following the sound to the left, I saw the pilot and one of the passengers standing just outside the helicopter, staring skyward with the cabin’s doors open. I could only guess that the helicopter’s ambient noise had kept them from hearing the CV-22 loitering overhead, and now they were a bit perplexed.

  I crouched on one knee, angling my muzzle line away from the fuselage to prevent any errant rounds from passing through the cabin, endangering Laila. Then I squeezed off a single shot into the passenger’s head. Though incredibly accurate, the MP5’s 9mm pistol rounds could be stopped by soft body armor, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

  The passenger collapsed, his AK-47 clattering to the ground beside him.

  The pilot turned toward me, the weak green light spilling from inside the cockpit illuminating his confused expression. This time, I held the trigger down, putting a three-round burst into his chest.

  Then there were two bodies on the ground.

  So far, so good.

  I stood and moved to the left, intending to get a better angle into the helicopter’s interior, when a gun fired behind me. After the MP5’s suppressed pops, a pistol’s unmuted discharge scared the shit out of me. But not as much as the sledgehammer that slammed into my back, squarely between my shoulder blades.

  I stumbled, shifting my weight to my right leg, which promptly buckled. I tumbled to the ground, landing with the grace of a sumo wrestler on ice skates. After smacking my right shoulder, I rolled left, tracking the shooter’s muzzle flash. No time to get a proper sight picture, so I shot from the hip. I squeezed the trigger twice, orienting the barrel onto target like I was pointing at the shooter with my left index finger. I walked the rounds from his crotch to his neck, and he flopped over backward.

  Not the tightest shot grouping in the world, but once again, the MP5 had worked as advertised.

  I pushed myself to my feet with my left hand, holding the MP5 with my right. The throbbing between my shoulder blades flared with each breath, but it was the dull ache of deep bruising rather than the burning agony of a bullet wound.

  Zain’s body armor had just saved my life.

  The thump thump thump of machine-gun fire reverberated from above and behind me, accompanied by the whine of ricocheting rounds. Spinning toward the sound, I saw a body torn to pieces lying in front of and to the left of the helicopter’s nose.

  Unlike his compatriot, this Quds Force operative had an AK-47 rifle in his lifeless hands. A 7.62mm round from which Zain’s soft body armor would not have stopped. I owed Pom Pom’s crew chief a case of beer once this was all over.

  Four men dead meant one remaining.

  Leading with the HK, I spied around the helicopter’s open doors, clearing the cabin.

  Empty.

  Well, shit.

  * * *

  —

  Hobbling past the helicopter’s nose, I saw two figures backlit by moonlight about seventy-five meters away. The larger silhouette was dragging the smaller by her hair. As I stepped toward them, he jerked Laila between us and crouched behind her shoulder.

  “Easy, Matthew,” a familiar voice said. “You already have the death of one woman on your hands tonight. I’d hate for your wife to be number two.”

  The Devil. The fucking Devil. He must have switched helicopters. The little shit bag had more lives than a cat.

  “Matt,” Laila said, her voice breaking.

  “Hush, baby,” I said, panning the EOTech’s holographic sight over Laila’s shoulder. “It’s almost over.”

  “Couldn’t agree more, Matthew,” the Devil said. “Put your weapon on the ground. Now.”

  The Osprey thundered overhead, turning lazy circles in the sky. Pom Pom’s door gunner was pretty shit hot, but his .50-caliber machine gun was useless for an engagement like this. Saving Laila would require a precision shot from a precision shooter.

  In other words, me.

  “I’m not going to say this again,” the Devil said. “Put your weapon on the ground.”

  “Or what?” I said, moving closer. “You’ll kill her?”

  I could hear the Devil, but I couldn’t see him. The little bastard was crouching behind Laila, his head hidden by her hair. I could put a round over her shoulder, but that was an action of last resort. The HK was a close-in weapon, hell on wheels in the tight confines of urban warfare. It was not meant for a seventy-five-meter shot.

  Not to mention that I was sure t
he Devil had a pistol buried in Laila’s spine. A head shot, directly between the eyes, was the only guaranteed way to instantly incapacitate a gunman. Anything else risked the shooter’s trigger finger spasming in death.

  “Let her go,” I said, shuffling closer still.

  A shot rang out.

  My heart stopped.

  Not again. Please, Jesus. Not again.

  Then Laila whimpered, and I could breathe.

  “Last warning, Matthew,” the Devil said. “The next shot will be in her kneecap. You’re right. I can’t kill her. But I can fill your pretty wife’s arms and legs with holes until you tire of hearing her scream. Put down your weapon before I count to three.”

  If I dropped the HK, we were both dead. I’d have to take the shot.

  “One.”

  I inhaled.

  Exhaled.

  Banished the image of Laila.

  Forgot I even had a wife.

  Or a swollen knee pulsing with every heartbeat.

  Or a back spasming with every breath.

  I forgot everything but the red dot floating over Laila’s shoulder.

  “Two.”

  I took another breath.

  Exhaled.

  Found the natural space between breaths.

  Began to squeeze the trigger.

  And then Pom Pom took matters into her own hands. Shrieking down from heaven like a falcon diving toward prey, the Osprey came to a twenty-foot hover. The eighty-knot rotor wash pummeled the Devil and Laila with gale-force winds. Laila stumbled backward, falling.

  I saw my target.

  The crimson dot found the Devil’s face. I pulled the trigger. His head snapped backward. He fell to the ground. I staggered forward, firing twice more into his prone form.

  Then it was over.

  “Laila,” I screamed, letting the VTAC sling catch the MP5 as I lurched toward her. “Laila!”

  The Osprey had transitioned from a hover and was back circling overhead, but Laila had been knocked to the ground. She turned toward the sound of my voice as she struggled to her feet, midnight hair swirling in the wind. Moonlight washed across her face, and her heart-stopping green eyes found mine.

  “Matt!”

  I tried to run, but could manage only a drunken hobble. But not Laila. Legs pumping, raven hair billowing, she sprinted toward me.

  “You came,” Laila said, half speaking, half sobbing as she crashed into my chest. “You came for me.”

  “I’ll always come for you,” I said, crushing her to me. “I’m your husband.”

  I pressed my face into her hair, breathing her in with deep, gasping breaths. She wrapped herself around me, trembling in my arms. In that moment, everything was right with the world.

  Absolutely everything.

  And then that moment was gone.

  A flash from the hillside split the darkness. I looked up to see a finger of flame shooting skyward, trailing a dirty cloud of gray like a comet’s tail. The streak of fire bridged the distance to the loitering Osprey in less than a heartbeat, erupting under the aircraft’s left engine with a thunderous boom.

  At first, the CV-22 seemed to shrug off the impact, turning to the right, away from us, as oily smoke poured from the fuselage. Then everything changed. The stricken engine exploded, sending the three-bladed proprotor spiraling into space in as many pieces. Flames engulfed the aircraft in billowing waves. Like an elk hamstrung by a pack of wolves, the Osprey seemed to stumble before slowly listing to the left. As the aircraft began to roll, it shuddered, then plummeted toward the unforgiving desert soil.

  I tackled Laila, covering her body with my own, but the explosion as the CV-22 slammed into the ground still tossed us both into the air. Heat scorched my head and neck, and bits of metal and debris pinged off the stones next to me.

  “What happened?” Laila said.

  “Come on,” I said, helping her to her feet. “We’ve got to go.”

  In that moment I was terrified, but terrified for the wrong reason. I was afraid Laila would ask where we were going, forcing me to tell her the truth. That I had no idea. None at all. The Osprey was now a cauldron of smoke and boiling fire. A pyre to the dead. With safety miles behind us and the Iranians just beyond the two hills, I dreaded hearing this unanswerable question from my wife’s lips.

  But there was another sound I should have been dreading even more. The sound a high-velocity round makes when it impacts human flesh. One moment, Laila was facing me, her jade eyes boring into mine. The next, a dull thump came between us, followed by the rolling report of a Dragunov sniper rifle.

  Then my wife collapsed to the ground, and my world collapsed with her.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Laila,” I screamed. “Laila!”

  Blood washed over my hands in a crimson wave as her eyelashes fluttered.

  “Matt?”

  “Stay still, baby. Stay still.”

  A tiny portion of my mind realized that the angry buzzing sounds snapping past my head corresponded to the muzzle flashes on top of the hills in front of me. People were shooting at us. Probably the same people who had swatted the Osprey from the sky. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the scarlet flood pouring over my fingertips.

  “Laila? Can you hear me? You’ve got to keep talking.”

  Blood covered her torso. Spurting blood. Arterial blood. I ripped her shirt away, starting with her chest and moving out, fingers touching every inch of exposed skin, looking for the entry wound.

  Nothing.

  My heart shuddered as I swallowed a sob. The bullet hadn’t passed through her chest cavity. Her lungs and heart were safe. Neck was untouched.

  Where the fuck was the blood coming from?

  With a start, I realized that there must not be an exit wound. The bullet was still lodged inside her. Rolling Laila over, I followed the same procedure, fingers probing skin as my breath came in shuddering gasps. Kidneys and liver untouched. No abdominal wound. No upper-chest wound.

  What the fuck?

  And then I saw it. High on the inside of her right arm. The bullet must have just clipped her brachial artery. Compressing the wound with one hand, I reached for Zain’s med kit, unzipping it and scattering the contents on the ground beside me.

  “Laila,” I said, sorting through the mess one-handed, “can you hear me?”

  She groaned, and I worked faster, sending packs of gauze, antiseptic wipes, and other odds and ends tumbling across the dirt until my fingers found what I sought—a tourniquet. Keeping pressure on the wound with my left hand, I slipped the tourniquet over her arm with my right, moving it as high up the limb as possible. Then I cinched down the Velcro band and began twisting the pencil-like rod attached to the tourniquet. Laila moaned as the unforgiving plastic bit into her skin, but I kept twisting and twisting, my heart shattering anew each time she groaned.

  Finally, the bleeding stopped. Looping the Velcro back over the rod, I secured it in place. Laila murmured and her eyes fluttered, but she was alive. My wife was still alive.

  For now.

  In that instant, the sensations from the outside world I’d been ignoring came crashing back in. Muzzle flashes and rifle reports from the hillside and divots of sand erupting to either side of me. By luck, we’d fallen into a slight depression that was making it harder for the sharpshooters to achieve the correct angle. But the whine of bullets buzzing past my head let me know our luck wouldn’t last long.

  And then a buzzing of another sort demanded my attention. The buzzing of the cell phone in my pocket.

  Squirming into the dirt beside Laila, I pulled the device from my pocket. Seven missed calls. What in the hell? I thumbed the answer button and held the phone to my ear.

  “Drake.”

  “Matty, it’s me.”

  “Frodo,” I said. “Thank God. I’
m in the shit, brother. I—”

  “Matty, listen. We retasked a Global Hawk to monitor the Iranian advance. I’ve eyes on you right now. I got permission to launch the Apache QRF. Two gunships are inbound, but they’re going to need a talk onto target. Can you do that?”

  “How?”

  “We’re going to patch this cell through.”

  “That’s possible?”

  “It is now. The chief still swings a big stick when his boys are in harm’s way. The technology to make this happen is beyond a knuckle dragger like me, but what I can tell you is that in about ten seconds you’re going to be talking directly to the gunship pilots.”

  “Laila’s hit,” I said.

  “How bad?”

  “Not good. I’ve got her arm tourniqueted. The hemorrhaging has stopped, but she’s lost a lot of blood. She’s going into shock.”

  “Listen to Uncle Frodo. I’ve got two more Ospreys on the way. They’re carrying a twelve-man A-team and their Iraqi partners. Use the Apaches to secure the LZ. Once you do that, I’ll bring the Ospreys in and the Special Forces Eighteen-D medic will sort out Laila. Can you dig it?”

  “I can dig it,” I said.

  “Good,” Frodo said. “Now, fuck up some Iranians so we can get your wife home. Frodo out.”

  True to form, my best friend jumped off the line before I could thank him. But that was fine, because I knew the best way to express my gratitude was to follow his instructions.

  Time to fuck up some Iranians.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Any station this net, any station, this is Shock Zero-Nine, over.”

  It felt incredibly strange to hear a crackling radio transmission over my phone. But with rounds snapping by my head, and the geysers of dirt drawing ever closer, the gunship pilot’s voice was also incredibly comforting.

  “Shock Zero-Nine, this is Mustang Six,” I said, my old call sign slipping off my lips. “I’ve got you loud and clear.”