by David Poyer
And the assembled marines and SEALs had given the deep grunting “Hooyah” that meant they’d taken the directive aboard.
The helicopter banked and he leaned into the webbing, eyes closed, chewing for all he was worth as it dropped a thousand feet in sixty seconds. Something broke free aft and rolled forward. He stuck out a boot and trapped the grenade. “Somebody lose something?” he yelled. Nobody answered, so he jammed it into his thigh pocket. A spare might come in handy.
Taking buildings wasn’t your typical SEAL mission. Usually a team just spotted the bad guy, then sent in the direct-action dudes. But the major had asked if his guys could do it. There was only one answer.
More sweat broke as he contemplated it. They had the gear, hooleys and hammers and demo, but as far as he was concerned, the best way to clear a building was with a five-hundred-pound bomb. Except this BVIP’s hide site was in the middle of Fenteni, the second-biggest city in the country. Guy had his own militia, and Russian-trained personal security with night vision equipment. They’d already gone after him once, in the city, but missed him by minutes.
The major had passed around a photo. Teddy had held it, burning it into his forever memory. Abdullahi Assad. A dark face, long-boned, in a Brit-style uniform blouse. The expression intellectual, calm, but the dark eyes burning. In any group, the major had said, Assad would stand out.
He might not be here, either. No point getting worked up before they knew. His hyperactive brain started to go over his gear again, but he stopped it. He’d checked every round in his mags, he was in full battle rattle from body armor to flex cuffs. He rubbed his crotch, visualizing the Air Force captain in Saudi, the tangled nest between her legs. The reddened, pouting, somehow surly-looking slit, as if it could eat anything and it’d never be enough—
“Minute out, frogs,” said a bored voice in his ear. “Dude on the roof. Lookin’ our way.”
Obie made his voice weary too. “Roger dodger. Locked and cocked.”
He pulled his night vision down and turned it on. The black interior became a green-and-white seethe, angles distorted by the short focal length lens on the imaging tube. Across from him Sumo grimaced under his own goggles, snarling like a Maori war god crossed with a cyborg techwarrior. Teddy put his game face on and snarled back. Arkin demonstrated his trademark pit-bull bark-and-growl. Kowacki was rapping his mag against the seat frame, shoving it back in, hitting it with the heel of his hand. “Concentrate and live!” he shouted at them. “Fuck up and die! Hooyah!”
“Hooyah!”
“Forty seconds,” the voice said in his ear. “Gunship engaging.”
Tick tick tick tick tick, not far distant. The Cobra, taking out that rooftop lookout with IR sights and twenty-millimeter shells. Tick tick tick.
“Thirty seconds. HLZ hot. Marines going in.”
They were hitting the buildings overlooking the compound, to over-watch and suppress so no one could fire down on the team as it went in. He hoped nobody got confused. They had reflective patches on their backs, but from the front, in a narrow hallway, one shooter looked like any other.
He tripped the seat belt. Stood awkwardly and braced his boots, got his gloves on the door handle. The fast rope at his feet, ready to kick out so they could drop into the dust and murk to whatever awaited. His heart squeezed beat after beat like a sniper squeezing out rounds. He panted, salting away oxygen. No fear. Let them fear him. Fear the Navy SEALs and American vengeance.
“Ten seconds . . . five . . .”
The howl of turbines. The slam of his heart.
“Assault team: Go! Go! Go!”
The door hauled open over a pit of black sparkling with flame. Muzzle flashes. The disorienting pulse of an IR strobe through a seethe of dust. This was why he was alive, while he was alive. Not to make deals, or movies. Savage joy filled his heart. He kicked out the rope, positioned it so nothing would hang up on the way down. Then grabbed it and dove through.
BACK at the JOC, Dan slid from his chair as Ahearn appeared in the doorway. Peyster was with him, the guy from State security. So was Pride, and the JTF J-3, an Army bird colonel named Dickinson. His shaved head was pebbled like an orange, and he wore wraparound sunglasses even indoors. Ahearn looked tired but recently shaven, in fresh BDUs, cap pulled low. He tossed it on a terminal. His gaze moved past Dan, then back. “What’s the status on Viper, Commander?”
Viper was a truck convoy evacuating all World Food personnel and as much equipment as possible from camps and feeding stations in the southwest. The pullback had been rendered more difficult by the sudden vanishing of all the hired Ashaaran security. Dan was trying to protect it, but aside from a Spectre gunship from the Air Force’s Sixteenth Special Operations Squadron, he had no way to defend a convoy of fifty-seven trucks with 270 aid personnel and transport staff. And right now, the Spectre was over Fenteni, backing up the QRT assault on General Assad’s hide site.
On the other hand, he did have imagery. “Sir, the convoy’s ten klicks north of Tarkash.”
“What in fuck’s name are they doing there? That’s way south of the river.” Ahearn sounded angry but Dan knew now this was his battle persona. His own was detached rather than enraged, but either worked, as long as you kept your brain engaged.
“I rerouted them off the main road.” Dan went to the main screen up front and bent to the keyboard. The scene zoomed, superimposing tactical map and overhead imagery. A road junction, a village, ragged folds of difficult land.
He explained the rerouting, then toggled another video source. This moved jerkily, ten frames a second, with bright streaks that wiped out the picture from time to time. It was in the green-tinted monochrome of night vision. Grid, altitude, and other reference numbers flickered at the edges of the frame. “Real time, sir. Downloading from a Pioneer.”
Pioneer was the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ go-to unmanned aerial vehicle, a four-hundred-pound drone that looked like a downsized Piper Cub. The Marines used it for over-the-horizon recon, targeting, and damage assessment. The control station was west of Haramah, but the output from onboard electro-opticals went to a satellite via a C-band datalink, then down again to both the control van and the JOC.
“What’s he got in mind?” Ahearn muttered.
Meaning Assad. The leader of the Governing Council had vanished after the bombing. No one claimed credit, but the consensus was he was responsible. The QRT had assaulted his compound in Ashaara City. They got aides and a mass of security ministry files, some dating into the rule of the Morgue. But Assad was long gone.
If the raid went right, they might have him in custody tonight.
“It’s an ambush,” Dan told him. “The Night Owls picked up these guys in the valley and tracked them into two villages. Our reading is they’re still there. But we’d need troops to go in.”
“We’re fully committed, sir,” the J-3 said. “As you know. Did Centcom forward our request for follow-on forces?”
Ahearn had requested another MEU and a light infantry battalion, an armor task force and a battery of self-propelled artillery. Also a corps engineer battalion and a lot more aviation. And a special operations task force to take some of the strain off the SEALs, who were getting worn down with back-to-back missions getting the civilians out of the field.
Ahearn chewed the inside of his mouth, blinking.
“They don’t pony up, we need to start thinking about a withdrawal timetable,” Pride said. “I know you don’t want to. That’s why you need to start your planners on it.”
“I’d rather have them thinking about how to hold,” Ahearn said, not angrily now, but as if he’d lost the energy to invest emotionally. He squinted at Dan. “How far from contact’s our lead vehicle? What do you have on tap?”
“About half an hour,” Dan told him. “I’ve got two Humvees with the force itself. Fifties. That’s about it.”
“Ma Deuce. Always nice to have her, but where’s the Spectre?”
“Over Fenteni, sir. Supporting the ra
id.”
“Cobras? Same-same?”
“Yessir.”
“Can they do without one, Jim?” Ahearn asked the J-3, who looked dismayed. “Never mind. Forget I asked. There are times when you really wish for fast movers.”
“Yes sir, General,” Dan agreed. Fast movers were fighters, attack aircraft.
This was one of those times.
THE fast rope was fast. It burned Teddy’s hands despite the gloves as the pop-pop-pop of blades and howl of the turbines scrambled his ears. Every second you were on the line you were a target.
And he was in somebody’s sights, despite the marines overwatching this rooftop. Not close enough, because bullets were zowing past him, punching through the helo above. He hoped the team was out of the box, because the box was getting shot up pretty bad.
Whoever put out the burst only nine-ringed him all around, but the second his boots hit rooftop somebody else started firing too, the tracers floating by just overhead. Over his head, even though they should’ve hit him, because he’d gone right through the roof.
“Holy fuck,” he muttered, slapping at something crackly corseting his waist. He was so heavy with gear and water and ammo that, despite scorching his hands on the fast line, his boots had punched right through what felt like layers of tar paper. Or maybe, leaves glued together with what stunk like dried dung. He was kicking his feet in the air while the rest of him stuck out of the roof like a heavily armed mushroom.
His whole body convulsed at an image of his legs sticking out of the ceiling below, balls wide open. He rolled, jackknifed his knees, and kept rolling, over hard things that didn’t move. He came up with the sights to his face and triggered two quick bursts full auto toward where he figured the shooter was. Whoever the Cobra had seen on the rooftop, either they hadn’t gotten him, or somebody else was up here too.
Then Sumo charged past, bounding and covering. Teddy got to his knees, then his feet, and cut left to cover the Hawaiian with another burst as he bounded again. Until the flash and crack of a grenade stilled whoever was firing.
When he spun, his IR beam lit up reflectors like bright billboards jerking against the still-triggering strobe the marines had put down. A lot of light, too much for the AN/PVS’s tube. He pushed it up but still couldn’t see anything, dazzled from the lightning flashes of the screen. You were supposed to keep your left eye closed to retain night vision but that didn’t work when some asshole was shooting tracer at you.
“Fireinahole!” yelled Bitch Dog. He and Whacker crouched on either side of a rooftop doorway. Another grenade crack, and both SEALs went down the black gap of the stairway.
When Obie caught up they were in a downstairs hallway, stacked against the first doorway on the left. Standard clearing procedure—they’d done it ad nauseam back at the Kill House. Drilled it again and again waiting to assault Tahia. A flash of Suleyman’s contemptuous grin. Just let him come face-to-face with that asshole here. . . .
He took low position, left of the door. Bitch Dog crimped his shoulder. He grunted, “Go,” and Sumo jerked it open.
Teddy went through with carbine at low ready, sticking to the left wall, sweeping right as Kaulukukui went right and swept left. Still dark as shit, and the fucking night viz had zero peripheral vision. Anybody with a flashlight taped to an AK could mow them down. But he saw only empty bunks. Shouts from the hallway: “Clear left.”
“Clear right.”
“Coming out!” he yelled, but overlaid with his shout was the flash and stutter of a burst from down the hallway, a turn in the corridor.
Four carbines chattered as one, chewing through the corner somebody had taken for cover and knocking the guy sprawling back into the opposite wall. Oberg held the aim point for a second, in case there was someone behind, then hugged the wall as Whacker caromed a grenade around the corner.
But when they rounded it, it was empty, except for blood on one wall. The smear was still hot, glowing in the IR image. Dots across the floor glowed too, cooling and darkening even as he moved past, covering the looming emptiness of another door down. He hesitated, not knowing why, just that something about the glowing blood didn’t seem . . . “Hooley it. Hooley it!” Bitch Dog was grunting behind him, followed by a splintering crack as the pry-bar destroyed the lock.
Sumo’s big hand slammed onto his shoulder as the other fire team yelled, “All clear,” from the other room, and “Coming out.” Teddy eyed the stairway, not liking it. He pulled the grenade out of his cargo pocket. Dropped the carbine to hang by its assault sling, pulled the pin, and crammed into the left wall, folding up small as he could. “Frag out!” he screamed, coughing in the dust and smoke. He hated clearing buildings. Still, it pushed buttons he liked having pushed.
The crack dented his eardrums in the narrow space, the blast focused upward by the stairwell. He went down it fast and low and double-tapped a skinny coming out of a hide behind some large console thing. In the weird green looming of night vision he recognized a pachinko machine. Skinnies played pachinko?
A burst flared from the far end. Bullets whacked and whined off concrete and metal. They traded bursts, ducking, and Sumo fired from behind and above him. The Hawaiian yelled, “Frag,” and Teddy went down on his face. When he scrambled up a glowing blur lay in the doorway.
“Lights,” he yelled. Enough of this, he couldn’t see shit. He tore the goggles off and stuffed them—you didn’t want to leave them behind—and hit his Surefire. The whole room and two doorways illuminated. The body lay in one; the other was closed. He checked behind where the guy had fired from. Pantry. A stir, and he aimed, but it was too small to be human. Probably a rat.
Whacker and Bitch Dog took the door. Looked at each other, leaned to the wall. Oberg frowned, then put his ear against it too. Through the pitch-pipe whalesong of fire tinnitus came the babble of many voices, raised in frenzied shouts of . . . defiance? Disagreement? Insult? He couldn’t tell, but that many people meant Mister Big’s personal bodyguard. Maybe the Main Man himself.
“Demo,” he said, but Sumo was already on it. The Hawaiian loved making things go bang. He folded the clayey brick and stuck in the detonator. Pasted it to the center of the door panel. Yeah, they were in there waiting for them to crash through, so they could AK them. Great, see how they liked a door coming at them at the velocity of a pistol bullet.
“Fire in the hole,” Sumo grunted, not too loud, in case they spoke English on the other side. The SEALs ducked and covered, Teddy vising his gloves over ringing ears. Much more of this and he wouldn’t be able to hear a fucking thing. The door blew in a blast of smoke and splinters. He and Sumo took the opening, high and low, carbines at high ready, following probing beams of brilliant light.
AHEARN stood, turning toward the door of the JOC. So did the others. Dan glanced that way, then rose.
The ambassador was in cream slacks and a sweat-mooned golf shirt with a Whiskey Creek logo. His white hair was rumpled and sweaty, as if he’d just taken off a cranial. He looked smaller, more worn, than at the coordination meeting at the embassy. When they’d beaten off a few looters and considered themselves invulnerable. Sure, they’d feed Ashaara. Stand up a democratic government. Fix a country run into the ground since colonial days, and save seven million people from drought and famine that had plagued them for generations.
Right. Piece of cake.
Jedidiah Dalton wrung Ahearn’s hand as if being rescued after many days adrift. “General. The convoy?”
“Being watched. And the raid’s going in on our friend.” The marine waved to a seat in front of the main screen. “Colonel Dickinson’s got the big picture. Where we go from here, what our options are. Should we let him start?”
Over the next few minutes the J-3 outlined the status of current operations, then blocked out a four-phase campaign plan. He recommended a strategic withdrawal, while maintaining the tactical offensive, to what he called the “country core.” Phase Two was Consolidation and Search for Allies. Phase Three was Stabili
zation; Phase Four, Withdrawal.
Ahearn sat contemplating the final slide. Dalton didn’t speak. Finally the general said, “What if I want to go firm earlier than Haramah?”
“We accept more risk,” the J-3 said.
“Have to secure the force first,” Pride pointed out. “Before we make some of these decisions. And really, they’re Centcom decisions.”
“I know that, goddamn it, Colonel,” snapped Ahearn. “But we couldn’t leave these NGO people out there. And whoever the enemy is, he’ll need an operational pause too. At some point.”
“Search for allies,” Dalton muttered, trying to smooth his hair but making it look worse. “That means internal allies, right? We’ve got all those weapons your people collected. I mean, you’ve gotta have a shitload of guns there. Mr. Peyster, can you organize that?”
The security officer said carefully, “The question is, who we could give them to, Mr. Ambassador, without in effect turning them over to the insurgents. Without the elders and the ADA, we have few links left to the population.”
“The key to everything’s going to be mobility. And frankly, our mobility planning so far has sucked,” the J-3 said. He seemed on a different wavelength, even given the fact he was still wearing his wraparounds. “Not due to any shortcoming on our part, but this whole idea of combining the JTF J-4 with the Centcom transportation people—”
“Let’s not revisit that,” Ahearn said. “Concentrate on what we can do, not what we can’t. And I don’t want to hear that fucking word ‘frankly’ again in this discussion. What about withdrawing, Ambassador? If it gets to be a bloodbath.”
Peyster argued fiercely that withdrawal wasn’t an option. It would leave the whole west bank of the Red Sea ungoverned, threaten energy traffic through the Suez Canal, and irretrievably injure U.S. prestige. “We can’t withdraw until the NGOs and camps are secure. At least that. And we can’t make them secure unless we can hand over to someone at least sort of representing the will of the people. But if we had someone like that, there’d be no need to withdraw.”