The operative who had jumped behind Sergei had a malfunction. His legs were on fire.
Dammit!
She heard his scream as he tried in vain to jettison the booster system, dropping from the flight path as flames propagated up his waist, then his chest. Somewhere around a thousand feet below the group, his fuel tank detonated in a burst of orange flames.
“Fucking boots!” Sergei cursed over the secure channel.
“Steady!” she said, forcing her mind to focus on the display. “Stay the course.”
Thirty-nine thousand feet.
The computerized system recalculated flight parameters after the booster increased the glide ratio to 9.7 to 1, extending her range to eighty-two miles. On paper, that should have been more than enough, but the boosters only had enough fuel to burn for roughly a third of their total glide time. The simulations back home had shown that, after taking into consideration the increased speed and glide ratio, she would be less than five miles from her target. But that didn’t allow for the winds aloft, which worked in her favor, and other atmospheric conditions. And that all meant she would not know for certain until the boosters cut off and the system recalculated the new touchdown location.
So we wait, she thought, making minute adjustments to follow her team coasting slightly below and ahead of her, their paths marked by streams of light shooting out of their boots. The wingsuit and the battle dress she wore beneath it temporarily shielded her from the freezing temperatures as she breathed in slowly, trying to stretch her limited supply of oxygen.
Easy does it. And—setting aside an equipment malfunction—that was the key to a successful glide: being relaxed. It not only minimized the amount of oxygen she consumed but it also worked to optimize the overall stability of her high-altitude insertion, keeping her in the desired pipe.
Twenty-eight thousand feet.
The boosters cut off just as they reached the top of the clouds, and the system automatically jettisoned them to reduce weight. This also exposed the boots integrated with her battle dress, so she would be ready for action the instant she reached the ground.
They now approached the most critical phase, since she would lose the horizon for the thirty or so seconds it took to break through the clouds.
“Steady now,” she spoke into her mask, as the team vanished one by one. “Remember your training,” she added, which called for forcing oneself to avoid making any flight adjustments in response to the brain’s natural tendency to compensate for the sudden loss of being able to tell up from down. The problem, experienced by pilots immersed in instrument conditions, was that the brain would lie. Pilots would enter deadly turns or descents while thinking they were just making corrections to remain in level flight. But unlike Kira and her team, pilots could rely on their instruments, especially the attitude indicator—also called the artificial horizon—to keep them out of trouble.
But she lacked such instruments.
When she finally broke through at twenty-four thousand feet, Kira had remained in proper glide attitude. But there was a problem. There had been five team members ahead of her when they entered the clouds. Kira now saw only three.
Risking a brief downward glance, she spotted two figures spinning out of control a couple thousand feet below. It was the two least experienced gliders, but they still knew better.
Dammit!
She followed their near-vertical trajectories as they jerked their suits to attempt to break the spins. However, the tri-wing suit’s lack of a vertical stabilizer, like those used to apply opposing rudder in planes, made it quite difficult to counter a spin.
Realizing there wasn’t a damn thing she could do for them, she maintained her profile while reviewing the new flight parameters, which had her touching down six miles from the current location of the hardware.
It’ll do.
Now she could see the Sulaimans in the distance as she soared over the desert, which reflected the moonlight filtering through the clouds, creating a faint sheen across this war-torn land.
Afghanistan.
She cringed at the thought of what these bastards had done to her father, maiming his body and mind.
Focus.
Desert dunes became visible as they dropped below twenty thousand feet, as the distant lights of Lashkar Gah loomed over the eastern horizon.
Kira continued making slight adjustments, primarily moving her shoulders, hips, and knees, which changed the tension applied to the fabric wings, optimizing her overall glide angle.
Eighteen thousand feet.
They crossed the edge of the desert, leaving sand dunes behind and rushing over the agricultural plains surrounding the Helmand River as it flowed out of the mountain range before curving east toward Lashkar Gah.
The computer system now had her landing five miles from the target, and the only explanation had to be stronger-than-anticipated southerly winds.
I’ll take it, she thought, following the winged formation as they broke below ten thousand feet, dashing through the air at almost seventy miles per hour, completely in control. Her mind stayed ahead of the tri-wing glider, making minute corrections while shifting her attention between the computerized real-time glide ratio, altitude, and speed and the picture in front of her as her team rushed toward their landing zone.
Fifteen thousand feet.
The mountains rose higher as she managed her flight efficiency with constant body-shape manipulation, optimizing her forward speed and fall rate.
Thirteen thousand feet.
The terrain began to rise as they officially left the valley and crossed over the foot of the range, initially rocky and desolate, its jagged features casting shadows in the moonlight. And for the first time she spotted her own shadow shooting over this rugged land, like a predator hunting for prey.
Eleven thousand feet … and now for the tricky part, she thought, realizing that the altimeter provided altitude relative to sea level and not to the rapidly rising terrain. Lacking a radar altimeter, which would have provided her with true distance to the ground, Kira would have to eyeball it.
And that’s where HALO experience came into play, enabling her to determine what five hundred feet high looked like.
Sparse vegetation gave way to a sea of pine trees layering the mountainside, sporadically broken by rock-strewn ledges as they dropped below ten thousand feet. But the thick canopy below them appeared to be less than a thousand feet away.
Sergei led the way, almost a quarter mile ahead, pulling his rip cord just as he appeared about to crash headfirst into the side of the mountain.
His dark canopy blossomed a moment later, arresting his forward speed before he reached a small clearing between clusters of trees.
The rest of the team followed suit, rectangular parachutes deploying in short intervals just as a rocky precipice filled her field of view.
The parachute tug killed her momentum in the blink of an eye, the straps compressing her chest as she tightened her muscles, and she cringed while transitioning from a glide to a gradual descent. She pulled on the steering handles, guiding herself toward the same small clearing where Sergei now gathered his parachute.
She landed softly with a short run, pulling on the canopy as it lost tension, letting it fall behind her while she released the straps and worked the heavy-duty zipper of the tri-wing suit from neck to groin.
Walking out of it in her skintight battle dress, Kira tested the integrated boots, the spring-loaded heels cushioning her feet. They certainly gave her a nice bounce while walking, lessening the strain on her legs.
She removed her oxygen mask and took a deep breath of fresh mountain air strong with a pine resin fragrance.
Reaching for the sound-suppressed AK-9 strapped to the side of her utility vest, she verified a chambered round before setting the safety/fire selector lever to semiautomatic or single-shot mode.
She readjusted the goggles and the helmet, the latter made of layers of Kevlar and carbon fiber. She pulled up the long st
retchable neck of her battle dress and connected it to the base of the helmet, forming a unified armored profile without losing flexibility.
The other two operatives made their way to the clearing a couple of minutes later, joining Sergei and Kira, who reviewed the information on her helmet display.
“Just under five miles that way,” she said, pointing her AK-9’s silencer to the east.
“What the hell is out here?” Sergei asked.
She shook her head, reading the GPS, which included any structure left over from the days of the Soviet Union’s invasion.
“Well,” Kira finally replied, “the closest thing besides our old bases at Kandahar and Lashkar Gah is a concrete bunker used to house forward deployments.”
“Could the courier be going there?” Sergei asked.
She shrugged. “Anything is possible. Everyone set?”
Sergei and the two surviving operatives nodded in unison.
“All right. Single file. Five-meter spacing. Go,” she said.
Not off to a good start, Kira thought, as Sergei led the way. Losing 40 percent of her team before the hard part even started had not been in any of her planning scenarios.
Initiative. Ingenuity. Patience.
Sighing, she fell in line behind her remaining operatives, hoping that a maniacal focus on the pillars, combined with their training—and perhaps a bit of luck—would be enough to achieve their objective and get them off this mountain in one piece.
66
A Bloody Mess
COMPOUND 57. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Stark knew it would be difficult, even with plenty of eyes on the ground, high assets, a U.S. Marines rifle company of three rifle platoons, and his own team playing quarterback by orders of Colonel Duggan.
But the money was good, and it was for a good cause.
“So, Mr. Gorman,” he said, lying on the ground at the edge of a bluff with a clear line of sight into the front and right side of the compound, while Larson and Hagen were perched kitty-corner to cover the rear and left side. “You want us to clear the compound of hags but leave the building and its contents intact? And at three o’clock in the morning?”
The CIA man and his asset, some ISI looker named Maryam Gadai—who Gorman said could be trusted—flanked Stark at his vantage point. All three combed the compound with ATN DNVM-4 digital night vision monocular scopes. Martin stood guard behind them to cover their six while Ryan was off finding an adequate vantage point to set up his .50-caliber sniper rifle.
But the problem was that Stark could not get himself to trust a fucking new guy—much less when the FNG happened to be a CIA spook. And he could trust the asset of the FNG even less, especially when that asset happened to work for the archenemy of the CIA. And sure, Gorman had already given him the “enemy of my enemy” speech shortly after they arrived here a couple of hours ago, explaining his very valid reasons for this CIA–ISI joint op, but that didn’t mean Stark had to like it. The place was a damn fortress, with a single access point beyond the fortified perimeter wall.
Gorman, who was built like him but much younger, with thick dark hair, a goatee, and the classic in-country tan, looked over from his Leupold scope and said, “Yeah, Colonel. And I get the difficulty level on this one. Only one way in or out, and the place is a damn Russian concrete bunker. But look, if it were easier, I’d have the CIA do it. As of late, though, we seem to be tripping all over our damned dicks. So…”
Maryam lifted her head and said, “You can actually trip on your tallywacker, Bill? Nice one, really.”
“It’s just a saying … Never mind,” Gorman said.
“Oh, that’s too bad, love,” she replied, smiling before returning to her scope.
“I trip on my tallywacker all day long, love,” said Martin, from behind.
“In your dreams, shorty,” Maryam said.
Stark regarded her for a moment, in the silver moonlight filtering through the trees. She was indeed quite the looker, in an ethnic sort of way, even with the camouflage cream and hair tied in a ponytail. He could see how her fine nose and high cheekbones, leading up to large catlike brown eyes under thick brows, could warm the coldest man. For a moment he wondered if she was playing Gorman—or like they said in the trade, “honey-trapping” him.
But he at least had to give her credit for holding her own with his often-crude team. And to Gorman’s credit—and that of his asset, or whatever she was—they had chosen to get their hands dirty instead of calling the shots from behind the walls at KAF, like Harwich and the other intelligence types.
“Delta One, Sierra Echo One. SitRep,” Stark said into the mike connected to his MBITR, contacting Ryan, call sign Delta One for this op.
Stark was Sierra Echo One and Larson and Hagen shared the call sign Sierra Echo Two. The SE denomination was Duggan’s way of having a little fun with him, since in soldier speak special operations guys were called snake eaters.
And speaking of soldiers, Captain John Wright had volunteered to coordinate the rifle company, call sign Six Six Zulu. They were standing by a thousand yards away, not far from where they were ambushed the day before, and had already dug in defensive fighting positions. He actually admired the man for getting back on the horse so damn quickly, though Stark had a feeling that Wright’s decision may have had something to do with one Captain Laura Vaccaro, still MIA in the area.
“Delta One in position,” replied Ryan. “Range comfortable. Five hundred yards. Wind five to ten, left to right.”
“Sierra Echo One has PIDs,” said Stark, shifting the monocular around to count the rebels posted at the four machine gun emplacements. “Positive ID four times insurgents atop watchtowers at each corner of perimeter wall armed with RPDs. Confirm.”
“Delta One confirms four PIDs, plus two Tangos on trees,” Ryan replied.
“Sierra Echo Two confirms four PIDs, but can’t see Romeo’s two Tangos,” Larson said from the other side of the compound.
“Delta One, Sierra Echo One. Send them,” Stark said, and a moment later the insurgents manning the RPD light machine guns bent over their hardware with sound-suppressed .50-caliber holes blown through their midriffs in five-second intervals. Then, somewhere west of the compound, a man fell off a tree, followed seconds later by another. Six perfect, silent shots in just over thirty seconds—and at night.
“Sierra Echo One, Delta One. Six times insurgent engaged in center mass. No movement.”
“Roger that, Delta One,” Stark replied.
That was the beauty of using such a large caliber: no need for headshots, as it really didn’t matter if the rebels were wearing vests. Nothing short of an M1 Abrams could stop a .50-caliber round.
“Stand by,” Stark added.
“Roger. Delta One standing by.”
“Best bloody shooting I’ve ever seen,” Maryam whispered to Stark. “I need to meet this Delta One bloke.”
“He’s got a girlfriend, love. I don’t,” Martin whispered behind them.
“I’m too much woman for you, shorty. You’ll never survive it.”
“You gotta die of something,” Martin replied.
Gorman shook his head while Stark ignored them, scanning the compound and saying, “Sierra Echo One sees no other visible threat. Confirm.”
“Sierra Echo Two. Confirmed.”
“Delta One. Confirmed.”
“Strange, Colonel,” said Gorman.
“What is?”
“No other threat in sight. I thought the place was crawling with Tallies.”
“Well, there’s a pretty good chance they took off after NATO’s FUBAR play yesterday.”
“That was a real cock-up,” Maryam said.
“Yeah,” Gorman said with a heavy sigh. “There’s that.”
“Only one way to find out though,” Stark said. “Six Six Zulu, Sierra Echo One.”
“Sierra Echo One, Six Six Zulu, go ahead,” replied Wright.
“Six Six Zulu, proceed.”
“Roger, Sierra Echo One. Six Six Zulu. Moving up the peak and into forward DFP.”
“Bollocks … Not so fast, chaps,” said Maryam.
Stark looked over at her while Gorman said, “What’s up?”
She had her right eye pressed against the rubber cup of the night vision monocular. “Something seems dodgy in that clearing.”
“Where,” Stark said, looking into his scope again, while Gorman did the same.
“Do you see those small patches of discolored soil along the front of the compound? There’s quite a few of them. That’s freshly dug earth.”
Stark focused the DNVM-4 on the ground and slowly panned it back and forth across the long clearing a couple of times. It took a moment, but once he stared at it closely enough—and knew what to look for—he could make out the slightly darker patches of ground, each a couple of feet wide. It looked as if someone had turned the dirt over recently.
“Well. Fuck me,” Stark said, not remembering those from yesterday, deciding that it must have happened while they abandoned their surveillance to assist the marines. “Looks like the hags buried some presents for our jarheads, and that certainly explains their absence outside the wall.”
“Fuck me, indeed,” Gorman mumbled, also realizing what it had to be.
“Easy, chaps. One shag at a time, and what about a pint of lager first?” said Maryam. “But before that you might want to ring your marines.”
“I’ll buy Miss Pakistan that beer,” said Martin.
“Keep dreaming, shorty.”
Stark said, “Six Six Zulu, Sierra Echo One. Stand by. Do not advance to forward DFP. Need to check something in front of the compound first.”
“Roger that. Six Six Zulu holding current DFPs.”
“Delta One, Sierra Echo One.”
“Go ahead Sierra Echo One,” replied Ryan.
“Do you see those patches of discolored dirt along the front perimeter?”
A moment later, Ryan replied, “Affirmative.”
“Put a round in one.”
“That won’t work, love,” Maryam said.
“Delta One standing by.”
“Send it,” Stark said, ignoring her, and a moment later a silent bullet punched the ground, stirring up dirt and rocks. But nothing else happened.
Without Fear Page 31