At the moment, two of the helos were taking the northern sectors, while the others covered the southern ones. Darkness was fast approaching again as the sun had almost set, and they still hadn’t been able to determine where the missing were. Over the headset comms, Marco heard Ian order the two pilots to fly over another southern section of the desert, not wanting to admit defeat and return them to base. They would rescue or recover their own no matter how long it took—no way in hell were they leaving them behind.
Marco thought about his sister, Nina. She was the only blood family he had left since their grandmother had passed away. But even when the crotchety old woman was alive, there had been no love lost between them. She’d been an alcoholic and a gambler who hadn’t been thrilled when her grandchildren ended up living with her after their mother died of a drug overdose.
Nina was the lone person who would be notified if something ever happened to him. The only other people who mattered to him were here with him—his team . . . his brothers. Following Ian and Dev to Tampa was ideal for him when he opted out of the Navy. Nina’s best friend Harper was from the area, and his sister had relocated there after graduating from college with her teaching degree. She had started a new job this past September in one of the Tampa elementary schools. In their last Skype chat, she’d said she would be able to start paying him back for his financial support over the past four years, and he’d basically told her to fuck off. He wouldn’t take one cent from his kid sister. He was happy he’d been in the position to help her since he just knew Nina was destined for great things, despite their crappy upbringing. He couldn’t wait to get back to the base because one of her care packages had just arrived and he hadn’t had time to open it yet. She was always sending the team all sorts of goodies, along with letters from her students, which always brightened their day. And after the past forty-eight hours, they could all use some love and cheer from the US of A.
As they scanned the new sector, behind Marco, looking out from the other side, Boomer shouted he saw a bunch of Iraqis. Their weapons were raised and they appeared to be firing at an unknown target. The pilot banked in that direction for a closer look. The Blackhawk helicopter Babs was flying with Dev, Brody, and Ian aboard followed on their tail. Suddenly a flare snaked up from the ground and illuminated the dimly lit sky in bright red. Marco couldn’t believe it. Holy fuck, that had to be them!
As they flew closer to where the flare had originated, they saw the tangos had obviously seen it, too, and were firing on the three individuals they were closing in on.
“Incoming!” their pilot yelled, pulling up fast and hard, while the rest of them held on tight, and the RPG flew harmlessly past them. Thank God for the onboard radar alerting him to the threat before anyone actually saw it. The pilot then quickly got them in range, and Marco and Boomer started laying down hot lead with the big guns. Brody and Dev were doing the same from the other Blackhawk as they took out the asshole with the rocket-propelled grenade launcher. In the doorway, next to Marco, Jake was using his sniper rifle to fire on the targets. The enemy started dropping left and right.
Marco saw one of the US soldiers go down after being hit in the leg, and he let loose a volley of ammo from the M60 at the bastard who’d climbed out of a ditch and fired the shot. The man’s body spun around as it was ripped apart, and Marco felt no remorse for sending him to Hell. “Fucking hooyah!”
When it appeared the insurgents were all either dead or dying, Ian ordered Babs to land the Blackhawk to pick up the trio. Now that the Marco’s helo was hovering over them, making sure no other tangos popped up from anywhere, he could see it was McCoy who had been hit and was lying on the ground. Anderson and Michaels were standing over him, back to back, watching each other’s six. They were covered in sand, dirt, and blood, but they were alive. How the fuck had this motley crew survived until now?
6
Darkness fell in the desert and with it came the cold. People always forget, it may be hot as the surface of the sun during the day in this barren wasteland, but at night there is nothing to hold the heat. While it didn’t get below freezing the drastic temperature change played hell with our bodies.
We had made good progress today, we were within ten klicks of the ambush site. If we weren’t picked up tonight or in the morning, we’d die. We were out of water—all of us had split and chapped lips from the wind and vicious sun. Our skin was blistered with sunburn, and gritty sand was in every crack and crevice of our bodies. I wanted to lay in a tub of cold water for a month.
I studied my ragtag team as we stayed low and hopefully out of sight. “We wait here. This is a decent, defensible position. I want watches rotated every two hours. If these fuckers pin us down, we’re toast.” There was a rocky outcrop behind us on an elevated slope. We had cover on one side and the high ground on the other. This was as good as it was going to get. Checking my personal locator beacon, I popped out the battery and touched it to my tongue. Nothing, no tingle, no slight buzz, dead. “Dammit. My PLB is toast.”
“I don’t even have mine, no fucking idea where I lost it.” McCoy was patting his pockets, looking to no avail.
“Mine is dead too.” Anderson weakly said. The fire and drive were seeping out of us with every step and drop of sweat.
“Keep your eyes open. If they send a search party, they should find us here. If you hear a chopper, wait until it’s close and set off a star-cluster flare. And don’t fuck it up, we only have one. Then stay fucking frosty, boys. If our rescue can see us, so can those hadji motherfuckers.”
“Copy that, Corporal.” McCoy raised his hand. “I’ll take first watch.” He’d kept his cover perfectly and let me take command, never letting on that he was a senior CIA interrogator, not that he had any more combat experience than me to begin with.
I’d just settled in for a quick nap, using my pack as a pillow, when the air was broken by the thumping of rotors. A few tense moments passed before we saw the unmistakable light formation of two choppers in the distance—one was an Apache attack helicopter, and the other was a Blackhawk.
“Friendlies incoming!” Anderson shouted in excitement, forgetting to keep his voice down.
“Pop the flare! Take up defensive positions! Make every fucking round count!” I barked the orders, instantly alert. McCoy smacked the bottom of the flare with his palm and it arched up in the sky, exploding into red light, just like fireworks only much brighter—highlighting our position.
Within seconds, we began taking fire from the south. The birds were on approach from the east. Anderson threw his last grenade toward a band of advancing tangos, the boom shaking the earth, and the flying shrapnel sending men screaming in pain. We stood close together but gave ourselves room to fight.
“Lay down suppressing fire! Only shoot at what you can fucking see!”
“I can’t see shit!” McCoy shouted in rage, firing back. Green and red tracers marked our lines of fire. I knew the birds would see us from the air.
We fought for what felt like hours, but I knew, in reality, it was only minutes. The bolt in my rifle clicked empty. I dropped the M16 and pulled my sidearm. I had two magazines for the M9, and I hoped like hell they lasted until our rescue arrived. I waited as the bastards got closer and into range. They were running towards us, screaming “Allahu ackbar!” I didn’t have time to be afraid, I just reacted; my training long since taking over any thought process my adrenaline saturated mind could fire up.
“Bring it, fuckers! Expressway to hell coming right up!” Anderson shouted back in response.
We were firing nearly nonstop, pausing only to reload. In the moonlight, I could see white-robed figures advancing in the darkness. They knew we were close to done. Pressing their advantage, they increased their rate of fire.
“Hold your positions! Neither of you moves, you hear me, you sons of bitches!”
“Hooah!” Their war cries barreled through the night.
I clicked empty, both magazines spent. Re-holstering my weapon, I pull
ed my KA-BAR, preparing to gut these fuckers with my bare hands if I needed to. “It’s a good, fucking day to die. It’s been an honor fighting by your side, gentlemen.” I didn’t want to die tonight, but the enemy was going to breach our defensive line before the birds got here.
Anderson was by my side, his own KA-BAR steady.
I could see the faces of the enemy as they crested the hill, screaming their own war cry, which we answered. I watched them as time slowed more, skipping a beat as their robes flapped behind them like wings.
More gunfire rang out, and McCoy fell to the ground screaming in pain, blood pouring from his knee where he’d been hit.
“McCoy is down!” With no time to see to his injuries, I stood in front of him, ready to fight to the death to protect him. Anderson closed the short distance to my side, we stood back to back over McCoy’s body as he struggled to stop the blood flowing from his leg. The al Qaeda fuckers had spread out, using the terrain to flank us.
Buurrr . . . the unmistakable sound of the M60 door-gun firing on the insurgents in front of us was sweet music. Their bodies were torn apart by the screaming lead.
In seconds, the men who had been chasing us for two days lay in a pile of tangled limbs and blood.
Anderson fell to his knees beside me, tears running down his dirty cheeks, washing a path clean. I considered joining him, but instead, I turned and watched our rescuers land and step off the Apache.
“About fucking time!” I slung an arm around McCoy, helping him limp over to the bird, where they pulled him inside and immediately began working on his leg. I turned to Lieutenant Sawyer. “I’d just about given up on you finding our asses.”
His nose wrinkled as he got a whiff of us. “Jesus fucking Christ, woman, you stink. I don’t know if I want you and your dirty ass crew in my chopper.”
“Just try and stop me. SEAL or not, I’m getting on that bird with my men, and I’m getting the fuck out of Iraq. I’m done with this shit.” Not waiting for his reply or expecting him to stop me, I ordered Anderson to board. I high-fived the man on the door gun, thanking him for saving us.
Sawyer climbed in after us. “Babs, get this can in the air before their stench ruins it for the rest of us.”
As the SEAL corpsman tended to McCoy, Sawyer handed me a bottle of water, and his grin and nod of respect lifted my spirits. I’d saved my men—it was a good end to a horrendous battle. We were wounded and banged up, but we’d made it out. I knew if Sawyer and his men hadn’t shown up we wouldn’t have survived the night. We owed them our lives.
Devon Sawyer dropped his mess tray on the table and sat between his brother and Boomer. “Someone pass the salt, pepper, hot sauce, ketchup, and anything else that’ll make these fucking eggs edible.”
It was 0800 hours, and already the heat index outside the air conditioned building in Camp Bucca was at a 113 degrees. It would be closer to 130 by the afternoon—hot enough to fry an egg on the ground and possibly the whole damn chicken. He glanced around the table. Prichard was reading a new letter from his wife, and next to him, his best friend, Elmer, was flipping through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated. Urkel and Archer had a backgammon game spread out between them as they sat across from each other. A few of the guys were talking about the new security business Ian and Dev were opening next year when they finally opted out of the Navy. Marco, Jake, and Brody had already made plans to come work for them after they finished up whatever time they had left before retirement. Boomer was interested in joining them, too, but he had about three more years to go before that happened.
“So you still haven’t decided on a name for the business yet, have you?” Jake asked.
Devon shook his head while he seasoned his eggs. “No. Whatever I like, big brother hates and vice versa.”
“What about Sawyer Security?”
After swallowing his last piece of burnt toast, Ian answered, “We thought of that, but decided with Dad being the big real estate mogul he is, we don’t want people thinking we’re trying to ride on his coat-tails—” He stopped abruptly, then raised his booming voice. “Michaels!”
Looking where his brother’s gaze was aimed, Devon saw Corporal Michaels walking toward an empty table with her breakfast. She paused, trying to figure out who had called her name, and Ian waved her over. Even though she’d slept almost twenty-four of the last thirty-six hours, she still seemed beat—not that anyone could blame her. Her sunburned skin had to be painful, and Dev didn’t know how she was up and walking around after her ordeal. It had probably taken her a good thirty minutes in the shower to scrub the dirt, sand, and blood from her body after the doctors had cleaned her bullet wound and rehydrated her with IV fluids. They knew she’d been debriefed yesterday and would probably be going through more today. Last they checked, Anderson was recovering here on the base, while McCoy had been flown to Germany where the doctors were going to try and save his leg.
She approached, her sharp gaze on Ian. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
Using his foot, Ian pushed out the empty chair across from him. “Sit.”
“Sit, sir?” Her eyes narrowed in uncertainty, and a few smiles appeared around the table. They knew what was probably going through her head. It was almost unheard of for an Army grunt to be invited to sit with the elite Navy SEALs. It was like being back in high school, and the nerd was being invited to hang out at the jock table.
Ian pointed to the chair. “Yes, Michaels. Sitting is something you should have been taught how to do as a rug rat. You know, do a squat and stop when your ass hits the chair.”
“Um, yes, sir.” She took the seat between Prichard and Marco, then scanned everyone’s faces. “I want to thank you again for coming through for us. I don’t think we would have survived the night.”
Ian crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Thanks aren’t necessary, Michaels. I’m just glad we found you when we did. I spoke to Anderson in the infirmary yesterday. He told me how you stepped up and did what needed to be done. Says they may not have made it out of there alive without you.”
“I don’t know about that, sir.”
“Well, I do. So do the men you were with and a lot of other people around here. And the name is Ian or Sawyer during downtime, Michaels.”
He went around the table and introduced her to everyone. She nodded at each man and eyed them as if she were committing their names, call signs, and faces to her memory banks. “Everyone calls me ‘Mic.’”
Dev studied her, and she stared back in confusion. “Something wrong?”
He shook his head. Ian was the only one who’d witnessed what had gone down in Azizi’s hut during the interrogation, and no one on the team had questioned him about it. They knew better. But they’d still heard the Iraqi’s screams of pain, then his begging to die, and had wondered how the petite woman in front of him now had been able to do whatever she’d done. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mic, but you’re a tiny, little thing. I guess I’m just having a hard time imagining you anywhere out of high school. You impressed a hell of a lot of people, and that’s not because you’re a woman or anything. It’s because you and your men survived for two days out there with only a few supplies and no comms. How the hell did you know what to do out there without any real combat experience? From what we were told, up until a few months ago, you were sitting behind a desk.”
“You’re not the first person to say that in the past twenty-four hours. Just remember, dynamite comes in small packages. I pay attention and learn fast, and I’ve been following a lot of the activity.” She shrugged. “Learned a lot from listening to you all and the other units. That, and I’ve been reading a bunch of officer training books. I know I have a few ranks to go, but my recruiter told me it was never too soon to start studying.”
“Smart man. I wouldn’t be surprised if you started flying up the ranks over the next few years.”
As she reached for the salt, Devon slid the rest of the condiments her way; she would need them. “Thanks. By the wa
y, I forgot to find out. Did you get Khatib?”
“Yeah, but not alive. Went down shooting. Five of his faithful followers went down, too.”
Mic fell silent, and he knew she was thinking about the good men who’d been killed during the convoy’s ambush and how it had been for nothing. If Khatib had been captured, the information they could have tortured out of him would have been invaluable to the US and allied troops. Knowing she was going to be living with that for a long time, Dev changed the subject. “Well, if you ever need a job when you opt out, you can come work for Ian and me. We’re going to be opening a security agency in Tampa next year, if we can ever think of a fucking name for it.”
A few more names were tossed around the table, but none of them sounded right, and the group fell silent as everyone wracked their brains. Mic took a swig of her water. “What about—” When they all looked at her, she shook her head. “Never mind. It’s a stupid suggestion.”
“Tell us,” Ian said. When she hesitated, he added, “Come on, it can’t be any worse than Egghead’s suggestion of ‘Spank Me Security.’”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s definitely not worse than that. Well, you’re all SEALs—why not call it Trident Security?” As the men all silently glanced at each other, she shrugged her shoulders. “Told you it was stupid.”
No Way In Hell: A Steel Corps/Trident Security Crossover Novel Page 5