by John O'Brien
Approaching the scene, she comes across the first body. The ground has been chewed up and the figure mutilated by multiple bullet strikes. Lying inert with splotches of blood that has soaked into the ground, the body is missing part of its arm from the elbow down. Lynn can’t identify whether it’s part of Greg’s team as a round has taken off most of the face. With nausea rising in her throat, she kneels and reaches down to see if there is a dog tag present. Peeling back the collar, stiff with blood, she sees a chain around the neck. Pulling it clear, she wipes drying blood from the connected tag.
Walking to other mutilated bodies that have been torn apart by heavy caliber rounds, she pulls more dog tags from five others. Along with the soldiers, there are also four civilians among the dead.
With a sick feeling, she rises and keys her mic, “Jack, this is part of the team that went with Greg.”
“Are you sure? Never mind, of course you are,” Jack responds. “Have you found any alive?”
“Negative. I’m pulling dog tags now. I can only account for five of them at the moment and there were four others with them. I’m working toward the Stryker now.”
“Copy that.”
Lynn hears the dejected note in Jack’s voice. Backtracking to the armored vehicle, she gathers an additional dog tag from a body lying alongside it. An acrid odor surrounds the Stryker from a small stream of smoke escaping from it.
Rounding the corner of the vehicle, she looks inside. Equipment and gear is strewn about the interior. On one bench, a young boy lies staring blankly to the side, his face pale from blood loss. Discarded, bloodied bandages, wrappings, used IV bags, and other medical supplies are scattered throughout and, underneath all of the debris, pools of blood are drying on the floor. Looking to the other side, she gasps as she sees Greg’s body lying on the opposite bench, one arm and leg draping to the floor.
Tears well in her eyes, not only from seeing Greg like this, but from the loss of the others as well. They’ve arrived too late. Staring mutely at the carnage, her stomach threatens to upend itself. She can’t pull her eyes away nor make the radio call to Jack.
From all appearances, it looks like Greg was spared the mutilation of the others. They were so badly decimated that she didn’t need to check for pulses. She just pulled dog tags, stuck them in her pocket, and moved on.
Ducking her head, Lynn steps in, kicking some of the wreckage aside to make room for her footing. Bending over the still from of Greg, she places her fingers on his large wrist. She leans closer and tilts her head, as if that will allow her fingers to ‘hear’ better. A shot of adrenaline courses through her. Beneath her fingers beats a very faint, thready pulse.
“Get a poncho and see if you can find more IVs,” Lynn orders, turning to Gonzalez who is standing in the open hatch.
Gonzalez sifts through some of the gear lying on the floor and pulls out a poncho. Henderson crawls through the wreckage to crouch near Lynn. With Lynn and Henderson on one side, and Gonzalez and Denton on the other, they manage to roll Greg onto his back, taking care to keep his neck stabilized. Gonzalez finds a single IV bag and needle and succeeds in getting it inserted.
“Jack, we’ve found the remaining team. All of them are dead. We’ve located Greg in the Stryker. He’s unconscious and barely holding on, but we’ve managed to get an IV hooked up. We’re going to need some help moving him.”
“Okay, hold on. I’m sending the rest of the crew to you,” Jack replies.
* * * * * *
I feel horrible about the loss of the team, which is only made marginally better by Lynn finding Greg still alive. From the urgency in her voice, I know he has a precarious hold on life. Moving him might upset that shaky hold, but we don’t really have much choice. He needs us to get him to a doctor, and the sooner we can make that happen, the better.
“Robert, do you see anything in the area?” I radio.
“Negative.”
“Do you feel comfortable flying back home without a flight engineer?” I ask.
“I think so.”
“Alright, I want you to set down behind me and send Bri over. We’re going to load Greg into your aircraft with a couple of handlers to keep him as stable as possible. Make a beeline for home and watch switching those fuel tanks. You’re going to have to monitor them yourself,” I state.
“Okay, Dad. We’re coming in now.”
Robert sets down on the road as Lynn and the others slowly carry Greg from the Stryker. They set him up in Robert’s 130, detailing a couple of our ammo handlers to remain with him along with extra IV bags and instructions on how to replace them. I turn as Bri settles into the seat behind me.
“Hey, Dad,” she says, clicking into the intercom system.
“Hey there, Bri.”
With Lynn and the others having secured Greg aboard Robert’s aircraft, they set out across the plain to gather the bodies of our comrades. As they are going about their gruesome task, I raise the ramp and apply the throttles, soon lifting off the highway. I would have just raised the ramp to its level position and taxied forward to give Robert room to take off, but it’s not the safest thing being in front like that. If anything went wrong and he needed to abort, he’d plow right into the back end. That’s a bad thing. Something like that makes for a really bad day.
Circling around to land again, I see dust blowing from the rear of Robert’s aircraft as he powers up and the 130 begins rolling. A short distance later, he lifts off and banks to the northwest, clawing for altitude. I’m nervous about him flying alone like that, but the weather looked clear all of the way home and Greg needs immediate medical attention.
I would have called our mission short and flown back with him, but I know in my gut that this other group had something to do with this. It’s obvious they aren’t going to relent, although I’m still not sure why. If we put our mission off, that will only give them more time in which to come at us. We need information and we need a plan. The smoldering Stryker below and the shots fired have pretty much eliminated any chance of dialogue that we might have had. As I roll onto final, my grip on the control wheel tightens. The guilt and what they’ve done to us builds into a deep-set anger. I know part of that is me feeling responsible for sending Greg out like I did, but fuck it, I’m pissed.
We’ve lost a whole team, McCafferty, possibly Greg—and, indirectly, Drescoll—to these fucks. I want retribution. I want to walk into their place and just start shooting every last one of them in the face. Feeling the wheels contact the surface of the road, I take a deep breath. I know we need to do this right, and letting anger take control will only lead to doing something rash. While calming a little, I still feel a deep, red rage slowly simmering.
Knowing it’s going to take a while to recover the bodies, I shut down two of the engines to conserve fuel. The bodies are eventually recovered and placed in the back wrapped in ponchos. It took considerable time marching across the plain and carrying them back. The sun has passed its zenith and is heading into afternoon by the time we are ready to proceed. It’s a very melancholy group that settles back into their positions.
With our fallen comrades in the back, and those they had picked up somewhere along the way, the Spooky lifts off the highway. I turn toward the north northeast, eager to conduct our flyover before the day gets too far down the road. It will be nice to capture the video with shadows present so objects will show up clearer and we can discern their heights. With only a slight change in heading, our route will take us over the coordinates of the underground facility as we head toward the town of Greeley. It’s there that we’ll conduct our fake rescue operation.
Without the use of the Stryker, which is now on its way back to Cabela’s in the back of Robert’s aircraft, we’ll have to find another method of transportation. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but that’s something we’ll have to cover once we arrive at Greeley.
The long valley that spreads north from where we found Greg and the others give way to a range of mountains that exte
nds past Denver. There are a few gaps in which roads pass through the rough terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Our route parallels this vast ridgeline to a degree, angling slightly toward the upper Colorado plains.
The mountains will eventually give way to the flat farmlands of the upper plateau, with the three hundred-plus mile flight to the facility taking us just under an hour. In the back, Gonzalez makes sure the recording equipment is ready. We’ll gather footage in every available spectrum that we can and analyze it later.
With the mountainous terrain drifting under our nose as we drone onward, Gonzalez calls, “Sir, I’m picking up a line of thermal images. They’re at…about our ten o’clock position and twenty miles.”
“Give me a heading,” I reply.
“Uh…turn left to, well, about 300 degrees, sir.”
I bank the aircraft, hoping that we’ve found some indication of those who attacked Greg and his team. They couldn’t have traveled very far as the Stryker had still been smoldering and the blood on the dog tags was still in the process of drying. I feel the simmering anger begin to stir.
A few minutes takes me closer, and I eventually make out a line of vehicles moving along a road leading through one of the mountain passes. Steep slopes on both sides of the highway rise almost from road’s edge. An initial glance shows a long column of Strykers and Humvees.
Turning parallel to the column, I radio, “Gonzalez, I want an accurate count and type of vehicles. We’re looking for anything that looks like it has anti-air capabilities.”
“Will do, sir.”
We fly north along the convoy at altitude to get a clear picture of what we are dealing with.
“Sir, I count twenty Humvees with eight Strykers. All of the Humvees have turret-mounted weapons and the Strykers with long guns. I don’t see anything that might have anti-air, but I can’t be positive about that,” Gonzalez calls as we pass the northern end of the formation.
“Copy. We’re going to maneuver east and descend coming at them from the north. We’re going to try and block them in that pass. Your first target will be the northernmost vehicle,” I state.
“We’ll be ready.”
Pulling the throttles back, I begin a turning descent over the ridgeline, planning it so we roll out over a valley to the north that the pass opens into. Leveling off at what I judge to be about four thousand above the ground, we turn toward the pass and the head of the column.
Setting up an orbit, I see an eruption of dirt next to the lead vehicle. A few seconds later, a cloud of smoke obscures the vehicle, one of the Strykers. Moments go by. Then the nose, followed by the rest of the armored vehicle, emerges from under the billowing cloud of dark smoke.
“Direct hit. Re-engaging,” Gonzalez calls.
Another explosion boils up from the target. This time the Stryker doesn’t emerge and, as the smoke clears, it becomes obvious that it’s disabled. Dark, oily smoke rises from the engine compartment, mixing with that already towering from the impact.
“Direct hit. Kill,” Gonzalez says, the satisfaction obvious in her voice.
With taking out the Stryker, the vehicles on the ground react. At first, the reaction is slow and only a few tracers begin arcing up in our direction. Then, others join in. Red tracers reach upward, seeming slow at first as if crawling inches at a time, then speeding up dramatically as they streak behind. It won’t be too long before they find the correct lead and those streaks of red begin getting closer. Seeing those red lines as they whiz by to the rear reminds me of another time…
* * * * * *
The mission was to accompany a two-ship of helicopters into someone’s back yard. One helicopter carried a team that was to be dropped off to observe a crossroads during times when satellite coverage was unavailable. It was fairly common knowledge when surveillance satellites rose and set below the horizon. Movement was conducted during the blackout periods, so teams on the ground were necessary to gain insight into what was actually going on.
The second helicopter was there in case something went wrong and a pickup became necessary. We were there to refuel the helicopters as the insertion was deep within that back yard.
We planned our route based on known radar coverage, utilizing gaps and terrain to mask our flight. It was to be a night flight, avoiding roads and settlements, and using saddles between peaks to cross over ridgelines.
We crossed the border, flying low and using the ridges to mask us. FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared Imaging) assisted with our low-level night flight. We flew along one side of a ridge and crossed over at a low point, shoving the nose down on the other side. Any valleys were crossed on the deck at right angles, away from intersections and any settlements.
The flight was going well; us flying with our flaps lowered to accommodate the slower speed of the helicopters. Crossing a saddle of a particular ridgeline, the aircraft became hung on an updraft coming from the other side. With the control wheel pushed over, we remained suspended, the altitude hanging. The threat systems illuminated as radars became aware of our presence.
Moments later, the sky lit up with tracers from mobile gun platforms situated in the hills, most angling in our direction but not directly at us as the radars hadn’t achieved a very good lock. However, the Fourth of July was occurring, and it was obvious that someone didn’t like us being there. Most of the tracers slid behind or to the side as we flew through the updraft and dove for the deck.
One tracer stayed in the same location in the windshield. It didn’t appear to have any movement, only grew larger by slow degrees. If something in your view is moving but doesn’t change in relation, if it remains in the same spot and is growing larger, you are on a collision course.
I became fascinated and locked onto the tracer. It was almost hypnotizing. Thoughts raced. Robert was still young, and the thought that I wouldn’t see him again ran through my mind. I was looking at my imminent demise approaching and I was going to witness it in slow motion. It was happening so fast that I couldn’t react, but so slow at the same time.
The tracer continued to grow, seeming to fill my entire consciousness. At the last moment, it picked up speed at a dizzying rate, flashing in front of the windscreen and rocketing overhead into the night sky.
“Holy shit,” I heard my co-pilot exclaim.
Real time then took hold of my senses. The mission was aborted, only to be flown without a problem two nights later. Yeah, I became a little wary of tracers following that experience.
* * * * * *
I bank the aircraft away and begin a climb. We can only engage one vehicle at a time. It isn’t that Gonzalez is slow with the systems, it’s that we sent all but one of our ammo loaders with Robert to help with Greg. The remaining one will have his hands full as we work over the convoy below. There is no doubt in my mind that it’s these vehicles that killed our team, and I intend to make them pay.
“Gonzalez, I’m turning away. We’ll come at them from different altitudes and directions. I want you to mark the vehicles and we’ll hit and run. We have the northern end blocked but that won’t last long. Concentrate on the southern end on the next pass. Once we have them blocked on both sides, we’ll hit the ends at random,” I say, leveling off and maneuvering for a run.
I would like to say we dart in, hit them, and flash away. However, there is no ‘darting’ or ‘flashing away’ in a 130. As we begin each run, tracers rise from the multitude of vehicles, trying to intersect with our flight path. I adjust our altitude with each run based on where the tracers fell from the previous one. If the tracers fell behind, I climb to throw off any adjustments that the ones below make. By ascending, it will increase the distance and they’ll continue to fall behind. If they begin leading more, I descend so that the rounds will continue to pass in front. This game lasts for as long as we hit them.
Several vehicles throw smoke as they leave the road and try to work around the burning vehicles to their front and rear. Ignoring the sheer magnitude of the masses below, we pick our targets
deliberately and engage, hitting them and turning to strike at more.
We continue hitting them, making multiple passes over the column. The pass becomes clogged with smoke from the devastation. Dark plumes rise from each vehicle until the road itself seems on fire. Tracers cease to rise as we fly over.
The last vehicle is hit. The scene below is one of complete destruction. Smoke rolls upward in the chill air with flames visible at times through the dark smoke. Each plume combines with the others until it becomes one continuous line. This pass will be closed for some time to come.
* * * * * *
Picking up speed as they cross the flatland, Trey and his column enter one of the mountain passes that they chased their quarry through the night before. Knowing they are vulnerable in the pass, especially with a gunship to the rear, he notifies the vehicle commanders to maintain their spacing but keep their speed up. So far, according to the satellite footage, which has become spotty in the mountainous terrain, the gunship is still on the ground miles to the south. However, the sooner they can get through, the more relieved he’ll be.
With the end of the pass nearly in sight, he calls for the column to split with half taking another pass to the east, and the other half continuing north. This way, they’ll be harder to hit.
No sooner has he transmitted the words when a blast rocks his vehicle. It rolls to the side and then stabilizes. The next moment, it dives downward as if punched. A concussive explosion rolls through the interior. The instant compression of air within makes him feel like he’s been suddenly submersed in the deep end of a pool. The interior lights blink out momentarily, returning a second later. He knows instantly that he was mistaken about the gunship still being on the ground.
“Driver, floor it!” Trey yells.