He stopped and used his right hand to do something more useful, tracing over the SOPMOD M4 rifle in his lap and then inventorying the magazine pouches on his vest.
“Still only the single truck,” came Baldwin’s calm voice in his headset from the Ember TOC on the other side of the world. Dempsey had requested Smith bring Ember’s resident genius regarding all things technical on the line. But was that the real reason he’d wanted Baldwin in his ear? Or was it because—despite his propensity to pontificate at the worst possible times—the man had been there, like some kind of a guardian angel in his ear, during the most stressful and dangerous moments of his life over the past year? Dempsey snorted a laugh through his nose. He might as well admit it: Baldwin had become his damn lucky rabbit’s foot, and if there was ever a time he needed luck, it was now.
“Any converging vehicles or hostile aircraft within twenty-five clicks?” Dempsey asked, wanting to make sure that the Persian Army wasn’t sending another assault their way.
He waited while Baldwin correlated images from satellites with those from whatever drones he had working the theater now. “Keep in mind, John, that the target is only 32.3 miles from the western border, and there is considerable activity along the border, particularly around the Bashmaq outpost west of Marivan, but you already knew that. So, if you could be a trifle more specific?”
“Okay, let me rephrase,” Dempsey said. “Do you see a Persian QRF on an intercept course with the truck?”
“No,” came the reply.
Dempsey looked over at Chunk, who gave him a thumbs-up at that news, but the SEAL officer’s face was completely devoid of its normal humor and nonchalance. Dempsey reckoned that Chunk was feeling the same “door kicker’s anxiety” that he was feeling. Taking on bad guys with guns, even when the odds were overwhelming, was one thing. But tangling with a nuke was an entirely different proposition. With a nuke, their combat experience, their superior training, and their M4s with laser target designators were irrelevant. With a nuke, there was no duck-and-cover. No headshot to win the day.
“How many in the truck?” Dempsey asked.
“Thermals show five. Two in the front and three in the back,” Baldwin replied, his voice entirely too cheerful. “Undoubtedly babysitting the device.”
“Two minutes,” Chunk said.
Dempsey nodded and realized at that moment that this had become a SEAL team assault. Technically, he’d been EXFIL’d, meaning this had gone from his deep-cover covert operation to Chunk’s mission to lead.
“All right, listen up, here’s the brief,” the young SEAL officer said. “We loop in ahead of the truck and the gunner puts enough fifties into the engine block to stop them dead. Gunner, hold on the target for support, but don’t engage unless ordered. If possible, our spooky friends would like us to take at least one bad guy alive for intel, but the priority is to gain control of the nuke.”
“Check,” came the voice of the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment door gunner.
“We are a four-man team, so two per side from a low hover to get us down quickly. Two advance and two hold back.”
“I’ll advance,” Dempsey said, leaving no room for doubt.
“Of course you will,” Chunk said with a tight grin. “Dempsey and I advance on the truck. Sonny and Psyche, you hold the road behind us, air offset hover for fire support. Easy day.”
“Hooyah,” said Sonny, his voice relaxed. He was a SEAL, fearless and young. For him this wasn’t a life-and-death, brink-of-war, possibility-of-nuclear-holocaust event—it was just another op.
“We’re Crusader,” Dempsey said. “I’m Crusader One.”
“Okay,” Chunk said, ignoring the shift in leadership that implied. “I’m Two. Sonny—Three. Psyche—Four.”
“One minute,” the pilot said.
Dempsey closed his eyes. The low, red sun shone warm on his face through the open door of the helo. The wind buffeted his leg as it dangled out the open door, snapping the fabric of his pants rhythmically against the inside of his calf. He inhaled deeply and savored the aromatic mélange of oil and propane, sweat, and sulfur. The radio static in his ears connected him to every element of the operation, and every element to him. The SOPMOD M4 he clutched in his right hand was not a separate thing; rather, it seemed to be an extension of him.
He was a machine of war, and the machine of war was him.
He opened his eyes.
He felt the nose lift as the helicopter flared on approach. Then, the pilot swung the bird around, perpendicular to the road. Fast ropes were kicked out, and a short burst from the door gunner on the opposite side of the helicopter set off the assault. He repositioned his rifle along his right flank and gripped the rope in both hands, twisting it tight. Then, he stepped out of the helicopter, his feet doing the lion’s share of the work controlling and guiding his descent to the ground.
The .50 roared again, above him now, for suppression as he slid to the earth in under two seconds flat. He stepped off the rope and advanced on the Iranian cargo truck, pulling his rifle up to the ready and positioning the floating red reticle of his holosite in space as he scanned for targets. White steam and black smoke rose from the engine compartment the Blackhawk gunner had torn to pieces as liberated water and oil vaporized against the red-hot engine block.
He was aware of Chunk moving parallel to him off to his left, but he felt another presence accompanying him, too. Ghosts of his fallen teammates—his Tier One brothers lost in the original Operation Crusader—were advancing with him. On his right were Thiel, Pablo, Helo, and Gabe. On his left, Rousche, Gator, and Spaz. They were all here. And so were their wives, and their children. Everyone had come to help him, the entire Tier One extended family he’d lost. Normally, he chased his ghosts away, but not this time. Not today. He let his teammates and their families advance on the truck with him. This was their mission, too. Hell, they were the mission.
Through the windshield, he made eye contact with a soldier in the driver’s seat. The driver’s hands were up, but he was gripping a pistol in his right hand and the door was hanging wide open. Dempsey put the red floating reticle on the center of the man’s face and squeezed the trigger. Then, he sensed movement to his right and shifted his aim. His brain recognized the Artesh uniform in a tenth of a second, and he put a bullet in the man’s forehead.
Chunk, who had drifted to the passenger side of the vehicle, was hollering something in broken Arabic at the soldier sitting in the passenger seat of the cab. Dempsey, who was now even with the cab, glanced left through the open driver-side door and saw that the passenger was holding a rifle low and pointing through the door at Chunk. Dempsey placed his dot, squeezed, and shot that man dead as well.
No more games. No more distractions.
As he approached the canvas-covered trailer section of the truck, it took all his willpower not to empty his magazine along the entire length of the compartment. But instead of doing that, he ducked low and sprinted toward the back of the truck, his shoulder hugging the trailer chassis. When he reached the back corner, he had a decision to make. There were two men inside. One must certainly have been Modiri’s VEVAK agent. The other was either a bomb technician or another shooter. Kill the wrong guy, and the outcome could be disastrous. Hesitate, and he’d probably get shot in the face.
The little voice inside his head told him he should wait for Chunk.
But . . . Fuck it. Today was his day to die.
He stepped around the back of the truck, sighting into the open rear compartment over his rifle, and as expected there were two Persian men: one old, one young. The old man was shaking with terror and had his hands raised over his head. The young man had a pistol leveled at Dempsey’s forehead. Between them was a nuclear warhead.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Chunk step up beside him, rifle raised.
“Get out of here, Chunk,” he ordered. “And pull the bird back, too.”
Chunk said nothing and didn’t move.
“Do it, Lieu
tenant,” he barked.
“Stalker, drift west a hundred yards,” Chunk said, but he didn’t move a muscle.
Dempsey heard the pitch change of the Blackhawk’s rotors as it repositioned—at least somebody listened. He locked eyes with the young shooter and saw the hate, malice, and rage of a man bent on revenge.
“You are him,” the young man said in clipped English. “You are the one. The one responsible for the death of my father, of my brother, of my mother, and now my uncle as well.”
Dempsey studied the face in his gunsight and realization crashed in on him. The resemblance was unmistakable. “You’re Masoud Modiri’s son,” Dempsey said, his own voice now filling with rage. This young man was Amir Modiri’s final weapon. This young man was the missing assassin. He had killed Rostami. He had killed the DNI, and now he was going to use a nuke to kill God only knew how many more.
Dempsey saw the Persian’s jaw tense. “This is for my—”
Dempsey’s bullet struck Modiri in the face just above the bridge of his nose, and the young man tumbled backward. His body hit the truck bed with a thud.
“Jesus, dude,” he heard Chunk exclaim, but Dempsey’s focus never wavered from the objective.
In a flash, he was up in the back of the truck, his rifle trained on the old man as he advanced toward the warhead. He was no munitions expert, but he immediately knew something was wrong. Instead of being locked inside a case, or installed inside a nosecone ready for mounting, the device was laid out in front of him. He scanned the old man up and down for a weapon, then looked back at the bomb. After a second, his heart sank. There was a detonator, and it was active.
“Turn it off,” Dempsey barked at the gray-haired technician.
The man, who was shaking now, started babbling in Farsi and waving his hands.
“English! Talk in English!” Dempsey shouted, wishing desperately that Farvad was with him.
“Dude, he doesn’t speak English,” Chunk said from his right shoulder, staring down at the unholy mess in front of them.
Dempsey fumbled for the Arabic, but then a switch flipped in his mind and the words came to him. “Turn it off.”
“I can’t turn it off,” the technician answered in Arabic. “He made me disable the fail-safe.”
“Then what the hell do we do?” Dempsey asked.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” he shouted. “We need to go!”
Dempsey looked at the numerical timer, counting backward from three minutes fifty-nine seconds, and he began to laugh. This was the way it was supposed to be. He was the last one left on either side. Everyone in this blood feud was now dead, everyone except for him. He lowered his weapon and smiled at the ghosts of his brothers standing beside him. And as the tears of vindication, joy, and irony rolled down his cheeks, he tilted his gaze up to heaven.
I’m ready, he said in silent prayer. Take me home to my brothers.
A strong hand jerked the straps on his plate carrier toward the back of the truck, almost pulling him over.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Chunk barked. “We gotta go, bro.”
Wind buffeted the canvas cover of the trailer as the Blackhawk repositioned behind the vehicle. Chunk jerked Dempsey toward the back of the truck, and they both jumped out, landing on the dirt in unison. Then, Chunk turned back to the technician. “Well, c’mon, you, too,” he shouted.
Dempsey felt himself being dragged toward the open door of the helo. He looked over at the SEAL officer but couldn’t understand why Chunk was doing this. His brothers were waiting. This was his destiny.
“Come on, Dempsey,” Chunk hollered, pushing him into the chopper. “You got people who need you.”
Suddenly Dempsey’s mind filled with new images . . . Lizzie in the ICU in Jerusalem, her chest tube draining blood; Munn at the FARP performing emergency surgery on Farvad; Smith staring at satellite feeds; Jarvis meeting with President Warner; Baldwin putting on a headset in the Ember TOC; and that smartass Wang typing on three laptops at the same damn time. What the hell was wrong with him? Yes, some of his brothers were dead, but not all of them . . .
Not all.
Chunk’s SEALs pulled the Iranian technician into the helo behind them as the rotors beat the air into submission and the great metal beast rose into the air.
“What kind of bomb is that?” Dempsey asked the technician in Arabic, his wits returning.
“Twenty-kiloton atomic bomb,” the man answered.
“How far do we need to go to be safe?” he asked.
“I can answer that question, John,” Baldwin said, piping up. “Your warhead is equivalent in size to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War Two. From the hypocenter, everything inside a one-mile radius will be instantly vaporized by a nuclear fireball. You can expect moderate to severe damage inside two miles from the kinetic shock wave and thermal radiation. Outside two miles—”
“Haul ass, pilot. We need to fucking go, go, go!” Chunk shouted at the pilot, drowning out Baldwin.
The helicopter’s engines screamed in protest as the pilot accelerated like Dempsey had never felt in a Blackhawk before. For an instant, he wondered if they might not just die in the explosion of the overtaxed twin turbines above them.
“How long do I have?” the pilot shouted.
“Three minutes,” Chunk shouted.
“Actually, you have two minutes and forty-three seconds,” Baldwin said.
“What do we need to do to live, Ian?” Dempsey said, his voice surprisingly calm.
“At your current speed, you will be outside five miles in two minutes. That gets you out of the kill zone and also means you will likely not suffer anything other than first-degree burns, but the kinetic-energy shock wave could down the helicopter, and you may be exposed to a lethal dose of ionizing radiation—”
“Damn it, Baldwin, you didn’t answer the question. Help us!”
“Listen very carefully, John,” Baldwin said. “Radiation intensity diminishes quickly with distance because it follows the inverse square law. Distance and shielding are the key.”
“What do you mean shielding?”
“Metal, water, concrete, earth—all these things absorb and attenuate ionizing radiation.”
Dempsey looked out the door at the mountains rising on either side of them. To the south, a formidable-looking mountain towered over a valley pass.
“Can you get around the mountain?” he asked the pilot. “Put all that rock between us and that bomb?”
The pilot didn’t reply, but then the helicopter banked steeply to the left, answering his question, and Dempsey slid toward Chunk, grabbing the frame of the door to steady himself.
“Hang on, people,” the pilot said. “I’m gonna shoot the valley and try to stay below that shock wave. It’s gonna be close.”
Dempsey slid to the rear of the helicopter and pressed his back against the rear bulkhead. He secured himself to the aluminum tubes of the bench with his safety line and carabiner. Then he pulled his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes. The hull shuddered, the engines roared, and Dempsey was sure that, despite the banking and rolling, the pilot was setting a new overland speed record. His stomach floated up as the helicopter twisted to the right and then dropped. Dempsey opened his eyes and saw Chunk watching him. The SEAL shot him a toothy, tobacco-stained smile.
“I’m not worried,” Chunk said. “I’m with you—if you were killable, you’d be dead already. You’re one death-cheating, bullet-dodging, good-luck-charm son of a bitch.”
Dempsey laughed. If only the young SEAL officer knew how true that had been the last twenty years. But maybe now the streak was finally over. He looked left and saw the rock face of the mountain ravine impossibly close to the door. Why weren’t the rotors shattering against the rocks?
“Any second now,” came Baldwin’s reassuring voice.
The helicopter pushed over forward and then banked hard left.
The world went silent, but the air turned elec
tric and a wave of heat swallowed them. A bright light flashed behind them, illuminating the mountains beyond with the brightness of a hundred lightning strikes.
The helicopter shook violently.
But then stopped and kept on flying.
And just when he thought it was over, the entire Blackhawk began to rattle and shake as it was buffeted by wind shear so violent he was sure the rivets holding it together were going to fail and it would be ripped apart in midair. But somehow the pilot maintained control. They continued to weave through the mountain pass, and Dempsey looked up and noticed the ridgeline above them. But something was wrong: the ridgeline was moving. A cascade of rock and debris was falling toward them—but the pilot dipped the nose and dove. This time, gravity was their ally as they raced to escape the maelstrom of the mountain. He heard pings of falling rock and debris hitting them—striking the rotors above. A dark choking cloud of dust enveloped them and the engines growled in protest, but then it was light again and suddenly they were out, on the south side of the mountain, emerging from dust and smoke and falling rock, and still descending fast enough to pull Dempsey’s stomach up into his chest.
A moment later the whine of the engines dropped into a more comfortable, familiar pitch, and the pilot leveled them out. They’d made it. They’d survived.
“Crossing the border in two kilometers,” the pilot said, his voice almost a whisper. “I can have us on the ground at Irbil in forty-five mikes or so.”
“Hit the FARP first,” Chunk said, referring to the forward air refueling point—which was serving as their staging point for CASEVAC and additional air support on Special Operations missions like this one. “We should probably check this bird out, don’t you think?”
The pilot only laughed.
“On the ground in about four minutes then,” he said.
“We have a FARP set up just north of Halabja, on the Iraq side of the border. That’s where Munn is, probably operating on your guy Farvad,” Chunk explained. “I suspect he will want to check you over personally. After that . . .”
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