by Jason Kasper
“It’s not about the gate,” Ian insisted. “It’s about the sedan that just pulled in. When we hit that ISIS checkpoint just over an hour ago, there were six cars lined up. The guard questioned every driver, but he only searched a single pickup truck.”
“And that means...what?”
“It means that we didn’t see six civilian vehicles—we saw one. The rest were transport vehicles redirecting to Ibrahimkhel to load the rockets. BK isn’t transferring the cargo to flatbeds or marked ISIS trucks that we can bomb. He’s going to divide the rockets among regular cars that can blend into the normal traffic pattern and be indistinguishable from the air.”
Ian was a sharp guy, but I wasn’t convinced—and the last thing we needed was to give Duchess false hope before we’d canvassed the entire city. She’d already launched a strike force into Sepaya upon receiving our previous transmission, and I didn’t want to risk another expenditure of resources until we were certain.
“We have to be sure, Ian.”
“I am sure. Think about it—in the time it took us to attack that checkpoint, clear the objective, and conduct our search, we didn’t see a single additional vehicle pull up from either direction.”
“No,” Worthy said, “we didn’t.”
“That’s because we weren’t looking at the first vehicles in the transport fleet—we were looking at the last. And that’s just out of the ones redirecting from Sepaya to Ibrahimkhel. There’s no telling how many already traveled here from other towns.”
I reached forward to tap Elias on the shoulder.
“What do you say, Mister Syrian Intelligence?”
Elias said, “I believe he may be correct.”
Ian spoke quickly, continuing to follow the street. “I don’t know how many cars BK is using, but the one that just entered has got to be one of the last. If we wait much longer, they’re going to start coming back out. Even with air support, we couldn’t follow them all.”
“All right,” I said, “this has got ‘airstrike’ written all over it. Let me see what Duchess has available.”
But as I prepared to transmit to Duchess, my words were halted by an incoming transmission—not on my team’s frequency, or even the command net, but from the truck’s radio console.
It was another stream of Arabic, though this time Elias’s reaction was notably different.
He looked back at me and spoke quickly. “The cars will leave in five minutes.”
26
Duchess rubbed her temples, waiting for the next update.
The strike force was in the midst of redirecting to Ibrahimkhel, a nightmare of a logistical movement after they’d just expended vast amounts of fuel, therefore station time, for every aerial platform required to put troops on target with air support.
And in the meantime, she was on the brink of a knock-down, drag-out verbal brawl with Jo Ann, who’d proven herself to have all the narrow-mindedness of a woman who’d spent her entire career in an OPCEN much like this one. Devoid of any particular field experience to guide her perspective, Jo Ann existed in a self-induced cesspool of rules and consequences that eliminated free thought. The only way to forestall another verbal confrontation seemed to be to ignore Jo Ann altogether, and for now Duchess was trying to do just that.
She heard a flurry of activity from the J2 staff, saw three people converge around a computer as they spoke in hushed voices.
Duchess rolled her eyes and called out, “J2, something you’d like to share with the class?”
The J2 rose and faced her. “Ma’am, the analysts have reported back.”
“About time. What took them so long?”
“The holdup wasn’t them, ma’am. It was the White House.”
Duchess paused, swallowing hard. “You have my undivided attention.”
The J2 continued, “On July third, the president is going to visit Thomas Jefferson’s plantation at Monticello with the president of India. It’s been kept quiet so as not to disrupt a Pakistan defense contract that’s being signed later today. Monticello is in Albemarle County, Virginia, and it’s less than two miles from downtown Charlottesville.”
Duchess felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck but surprised herself by calmly replying, “Thank you.”
Then she spun her chair to face Jo Ann. “Convinced, Commander?”
Jo Ann looked pale. “I’ve never doubted the need to stop these rockets, or Bari Khan—but this is so much bigger, Duchess. An asinine level of sophistication. We barely found out about the POTUS visit, so how did they? There must be a leak in DC, and the NSA and Secret Service had better start looking for it.”
“For once,” Duchess replied, “you and I are in agreement.”
“So what’s the next step?”
Before Duchess could answer, David Rivers reported in over the satellite radio frequency.
“Have time-sensitive intel requiring immediate airstrike. Assess we have found the location of the cargo—stand by for grid.”
She typed the grid into her keyboard as he spoke it, pulling up the location for herself even as an analyst projected an overhead view on the central screen—it appeared to be an open compound between buildings, surrounded by multiple alleys and side streets leading into the city.
“Got it,” she transmitted back. “Go ahead.”
David continued, “We assess that the cargo has been loaded onto an unknown number of civilian vehicles for further transport. Once those cars leave the compound, they’re going to vanish into civilian traffic—and with the highway a half-kilometer from town, the odds of locating them after that point are around zero. We can’t afford to wait for the strike force—you need to hit it from the air ASAP. Request the biggest munitions you’ve got dropped center mass of the compound. But we’ve got to move fast: intercepted enemy radio chatter indicates the vehicles will depart the compound en masse in five minutes.”
Sutherland was already locking eyes with her, shaking his head as he flashed an open palm twice, then held up four fingers.
She transmitted back, “Closest air platforms are fourteen minutes out.”
After a pause, David spoke again.
“Well I guess it’s up to my team.”
“You don’t have close to enough manpower to raid an objective of that size.”
“You’re right about that,” he replied. “But we don’t have to kill everyone; just disrupt their operation, prevent the cargo from leaving, and hold our own until the cavalry arrives. I won’t know how to do that until I see the inside of the loading area, and by the time that happens you’re not going to get much in the way of viable reporting. We’re going to be fighting for our lives.”
“You’ve got twenty-two minutes before the strike force lands, and that’s if there are no mechanical issues with the birds.”
“Sure. Whatever. Doesn’t change what I’m telling you, and we’re ready to roll over here.”
Duchess looked to Jo Ann, who cautioned her, “The senator said all further ground action is military-only.”
“The military,” Duchess shot back, “is too far out to make a difference. You have a problem with the way I do business, take it up with me after the rockets are back in our possession.”
Then she transmitted back to David, “Want the strike force to cordon the area and fight their way to your location once they arrive?”
“Hundred percent. This is going to be fast and loose—and as soon as we make our way inside, it’s going to turn into the Alamo.”
Well, she thought, this was it. Verbally authorizing David’s team to conduct a raid was crossing the line into an outright rejection of Gossweiler’s order to leave any further strikes to the military, and whatever the fallout, the stakes just got raised considerably.
“Godspeed, Suicide.” Taking a final breath, she concluded, “You are cleared to execute your assault.”
27
Cancer tightened his grip on the steering wheel, completing the turn onto the street where they’d seen the gated
entrance to the compound.
They’d already rounded the large, angular city block, finding no less than four possible vehicle egress points aside from the entry gate. Each was blocked by an ISIS truck, limiting their options to the original gate.
Worthy rode shotgun in the otherwise empty lead truck. Reilly manned the machinegun in David’s truck, with Nizar and Elias as passengers.
The hasty personnel swap was done for good reason. There was no telling how many enemy fighters were inside the compound; and while it was unlikely that all the transport drivers were armed, that was the only factor in the team’s favor. With their dwindling ammo supply, it was a virtual certainty they’d need to resort to the enemy weapons they’d captured at the checkpoint. The problem with that, of course, was that they’d never be able to carry all those weapons inside without being noticed.
And the solution, David and Cancer had decided, was not to carry them at all.
Slowing the truck at the side street, Cancer whipped a quick ninety-degree turn to face the gate and its force of guard personnel.
They appraised the ISIS truck with routine disinterest, one man holding up a palm for Cancer to stop.
Cancer floored the gas instead, rocketing the truck forward. The guards reacted at once, their actions varying based on their proximity to the gate.
Those in his truck’s direct path dove out of the way. The rest opened fire, blasting on full automatic as Reilly opened up with the machinegun atop the trail vehicle.
Cancer caught a fleeting glimpse of machinegun rounds wiping out the cluster of fighters to his left, then the muzzle flashes of men to his right. But his main focus was keeping his head low, maintaining just enough visibility to keep his truck pointed toward the center of the gate.
His bumper impacted with tremendous force, slowing the pickup to a near-halt in the span of one moment marked by a great metallic clang. But the gate blasted open, his tires regaining traction as the revving truck engine struggled to provide power.
Then he was inside the compound, catching his first glimpses of the scene beyond.
It was, he realized in a split second of muted horror, far worse than he’d imagined.
Worthy unbuckled his seatbelt the moment Cancer’s pickup blasted through the closed gate, and he angled his rifle through the open passenger window to begin engaging targets.
As he did so, he took in the larger scene in the open compound, suppressing a sense of complete shock at the sight before him.
There had clearly been an orderly loading process prior to this; dozens of cars were parked in parallel rows, almost bumper-to-bumper. A few in the final row had their trunks open, still in the process of having rockets loaded by ISIS fighters.
But that process came to a screeching halt as Cancer’s pickup barreled into the compound. To call the scene inside the compound total chaos would be an understatement.
The transport drivers may well have had no clue what they were hauling or why, but they were a hundred percent certain that they were about to get gunned down, and those standing outside their vehicle at the time of breach were leaping inside and firing the ignition. Half the cars seemed to be in motion already, the carefully lined procession disintegrating into disarray as they began wheeling toward multiple vehicle exits, some colliding with each other in the process.
Worthy observed all this in the two seconds it took him to take aim out his passenger window, and he opened fire on the closest two men he saw as Cancer shouted, “Fuckin’ ISIS demolition derby!”
Worthy saw one of his targets drop dead and the other dart for cover, both lost in a blur as Cancer wheeled the pickup toward a corner of the compound.
As the truck lurched to a halt, Worthy threw his door open and jumped outside. They had to get away from the truck ASAP—it had just become the focal point of every enemy fighter inside the compound and currently served no purpose beyond carrying a cache of captured weapons in the bed. He already had one slung over his shoulder in anticipation of burning through his last remaining HK416 magazines in record time.
But as long as that weapon still had bullets, he’d put them to good use.
Worthy scrambled to a building corner a few meters beside the truck, transitioning his rifle to an opposite-hand grip to maximize his use of cover.
As he got his bearings, he began shooting at the men darting among the cars. There was no shortage of targets to choose from—instead, there were so many that he couldn’t prioritize before one vanished into a car and two more appeared.
Worthy settled for lighting up the men as quickly as he could identify them, directing his suppressed fire with precise double taps before moving to the next without pausing to assess whether he’d hit his previous target or not. A few dropped in a spray of pink mist; others vanished from view without a visible impact. Right now, it didn’t matter.
There was zero discrimination between targets—things were happening too quickly to be concerned whether the men in his sights appeared to be returning fire or not. They were all either currently armed or about to be, and anyone not dressed in his team’s tactical kit received his precision fire with impunity.
As Worthy scanned and fired, he heard the enormous crescendo of Reilly’s machinegun from the second truck, a wave of metallic sparks erupting across the vehicle roofs as men ducked between the cars.
Then a barrage of gunfire erupted to his front, the incoming bullets hissing and cracking through the air. He tucked himself against the wall, trying to identify the closest threat when a grenade explosion sent him flying to the ground.
Worthy’s vision was a starscape of flashing color, his head ringing as he sensed the gunshots drawing nearer through the swirling fog of his mind.
Reilly’s first words as his truck entered the compound were muttered with a sense of disbelief.
“Holy shit.”
Cancer’s truck was wheeling into a semicircle to his front right, and everything left of that point was a melee of moving cars and running bodies. Reilly pivoted his machinegun left and fired a long burst across the sea of vehicle roofs—there were too many for him to begin systematically shooting out engine blocks, and his first goal was to make the enemy forces too terrified to stick their heads out until his team had fully penetrated the compound and dismounted from trucks that had become rolling bullet magnets.
Reilly swept three long bursts of automatic fire over the formation of cars before glancing right, trying to locate Cancer and Worthy to establish the far limit of his sector of fire.
He registered a grenade explosion ahead, identifying his teammates a moment later and realizing that, if anything, he was already too late to stop what was about to occur.
A group of four men were advancing on the now-stationary lead pickup, three of them firing wildly as the fourth readied a second grenade to throw.
Reilly swung his machinegun to them, squeezing the trigger before his sights were fully aligned. Puffing explosions of sand erupted a few meters behind the group, and Reilly used the sight of his first bullet impacts to sweep the burst right into the mass of fighters.
They vanished in a cloud of sand and blood as he swept his aim left, lacing them with a second burst of fire before seeing the orange flash of the fallen grenade detonating among their ranks.
Then Ian braked his truck to a stop, the occupants bailing out of both sides as the crack of incoming bullets swept through the air around Reilly’s head.
By then he was down to a short ammo belt for the machinegun, with somewhere shy of a hundred rounds remaining. Determined to provide his team as much covering fire as possible for their dismount into the compound, he swept the barrel back and forth over the cars streaming toward the vehicle exits, keeping the trigger depressed until the final bullet had cycled and the captured machinegun went silent for the last time.
Dropping behind the cab, he planted a hand on the side of the pickup bed. Then, using the opposite arm to steady the HK416 and enemy rifle slung across his back, Reilly leapt
to the ground.
Ian did his best to keep pace with David, who was maneuvering forward in a zigzag pattern between covered firing positions as he engaged enemy fighters on the move.
Spraying bursts of fire wherever he saw movement, Ian leapfrogged forward behind David, knowing full well what was occurring inside the compound even before Cancer blasted through the gate. Bari Khan had intended to send all the transport vehicles out at once, flooding the streets and removing all possibility of US air assets tracking the now-dispersed rocket load.
But the team’s raid had sped up that plan considerably, and cars were speeding toward the vehicle exits in a frantic race to escape.
For every car he could see, it seemed there was a dismounted fighter somewhere in the compound, shooting at the team and their pickups. While he couldn’t hear his own team’s return gunfire—they were operating their own suppressed weapons as long as the bullets lasted—he could tell that the enemy force here was in fearful disarray, taking casualties faster than they could sustain the fight.
Bodies lay in the open, and Ian saw a man limping toward cover. He aligned his barrel while on the move, almost in disbelief that he’d have a chance to shoot—normally his teammates would have gunned down every target before he could locate them, much less take aim.
But the fighter was still trying to hobble toward a car when Ian’s sights landed on his torso, and he opened fire with a half-dozen imprecise shots that dropped the man in place.
“I got one,” Ian announced to David, unsure why even as he did so—the statement sounded more like an announcement to himself than any critical piece of battlefield information—and at any rate, his team leader didn’t seem to notice.
David had already emptied his final HK magazine and transitioned weapons to the AK-47 slung on his back before resuming fire as he took a knee behind a parked vehicle.