Stand Fast (DEA FAST Series Book 3)

by Kaylea Cross

  The timing of this was critical. The pressure was on him, the eyes and ears of a half dozen international intelligence agencies looking for clues that would lead them to The Jackal. Fahim had to secure this shipment and make it across the border where allies linked to the Veneno cartel would smuggle him down to Karachi and fly him to Veracruz.

  But first he had to deal with the members of FAST Bravo and the men from his unit who weren’t loyal to him. Then he could move the drugs and make his way across the border.

  The advantage lay in knowing that no one but the men aboard this aircraft knew what was coming. And that the Americans thought Shah was The Jackal. That stroke of luck might give Fahim the edge he needed.

  He closed his eyes and leaned back against the helo’s wall, letting the vibrations calm him, and thought of his family. It gave him strength. And courage. Just a few more hours and he would melt into obscurity in the Mexican desert, far away from all the prying eyes searching for him.

  ****

  Jaliya entered the TOC at Bagram to find Commander Taggart and some of the other key players on the taskforce riveted to the video monitors showing a live feed of the helicopters’ progress across Afghan airspace, headed north of the Khyber Pass. Zaid and the rest of FAST Bravo were on one of them, the NIU members on the other.

  They had about twenty-five minutes until they reached the insertion point. The most recent intelligence said that The Jackal’s latest shipment was being smuggled across the border within the next few hours, in trucks carrying medical supplies.

  “How’s everything look?” she asked the room in general.

  “Everything’s on target,” Taggart answered without looking at her as he watched the screen, feet planted apart, arms folded across his broad chest.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out, and when she saw one of her analyst’s numbers, she answered. “This is Rabani.”

  “Your young informant was brought into Joint Craig Hospital ten minutes ago with serious gunshot wounds.”

  Her lungs seized. “Barakat?”

  “Yes. They’re getting a trauma team ready right now.”

  God. “I’m on my way.”

  “What’s wrong?” David asked, putting a hand on her arm.

  “Barakat’s been shot. They’re prepping him for surgery. I have to get there before they put him under.” Without waiting for a response she rushed out the door and ran over to the hospital.

  By the time she got there and explained who she was, two nurses were already wheeling his bed toward the O.R. at the end of the hall. “Wait!”

  They stopped and she flashed her badge at them as she raced over. Panting, she grabbed the rail of the bed and stared down into Barakat’s pale, pain-pinched face. He had an oxygen mask over his face and dressings covering his belly, soaked with fresh blood. The sight and smell of it made her stomach pitch.

  “Barakat. Who did this to you?” she demanded in Dari.

  His dark eyes fluttered open and focused on her blearily. “Hurts,” he moaned.

  She reached for his hand, wrapped her fingers around his. “I know it does. They’re taking you into the operating room. The doctors here are excellent. They’ll fix you up.” She squeezed his hand. “Who shot you?”

  “Jackal’s…men,” he rasped.

  “Ma’am, we need to get him into the operating room now. You’ll have to wait until after he’s out of recovery.”

  Jaliya nodded but otherwise ignored the woman, keeping up with them as they wheeled him toward the doors at the end of the hall. “Did you see their faces?”

  Barakat shook his head, grimacing.

  “Where did it happen?”

  He cried out in agony, sweat beading his forehead.

  “They found him on the side of the road a few miles from base,” one of the nurses said.

  She felt badly for him, hated to see him suffering, but there was far too much at stake here to let this go. “Barakat. Were you coming here to find me? Did you need to tell me something?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, managed a slight nod.

  Jaliya leaned over him, heart pounding. “Barakat. I know it hurts, but before they take you into the operating room, I need to know what you came to tell me.”

  His eyes cracked open, and when they focused on her, the fear in his gaze sent a shiver ripping down her spine. “I know…who he is,” he said.

  The nurses slowed and one of them put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay, ma’am. You’ll have to stay here—”

  “No, wait.” She pushed the woman’s restraining hand off and bent over to place her free hand on Barakat’s scruffy cheek, bringing that pain-glazed gaze back to hers. “It’s Shah. Remember? We already talked about it this morning.”

  “No,” he protested, growing agitated. “No. Not…him.”

  Cold spread through her gut. “What?”

  He bared his teeth, the muscles in his throat standing out as he fought the agony.

  “Barakat. Are you saying it’s not Shah?”

  He shook his head. “Help,” he begged. “Make it stop.”

  She clenched his hand tight, desperate to get through to him. “Who is it?”

  Endless seconds passed while she awaited his answer.

  “Barakat. Tell me who it is. Who is The Jackal?”

  He focused on her slowly, his throat moving as he swallowed. “Nasar.”

  Ice splintered throughout her body. “What?” she whispered.

  “Nasar,” he repeated, then his face twisted and he bared his teeth as a terrible cry of pain echoed off the walls.

  “Let go, now,” one of the nurses snapped, and shoved Jaliya backward. They pushed through the double doors leading to the operating room.

  Shock kept her rooted to the floor for a moment as her mind struggled to compute what Barakat had just said.

  General Nasar was The Jackal. And he had coordinated tonight’s op with FAST Bravo.

  Stricken, she yanked out her phone and dialed Taggart as she spun and ran for the door. It rang and rang in her ear, but he didn’t answer.

  “Shit,” she whispered, hanging up and trying David. “Come on, pick up. Pick up.”

  He didn’t.

  She swallowed back a scream of frustration and helplessness and ran as fast as she could, trying other numbers, with the same result. By the time she reached the building the TOC was located in she was gasping and light-headed, sweating despite the icy cold air.

  She flung the exterior door open, her boots thudding on the linoleum floor as she ran for the second door on the left. Everything was brighter. Louder. Including the thud of her heart in her ears. Zaid was out there, and his team. They didn’t know. Didn’t realize the danger they faced.

  Wrenching the TOC door open, the distinctive sound of gunfire from the live feed hit her and she stopped dead.

  Her blood pressure took a nosedive as six pairs of eyes jerked to her. She looked at Taggart, the terrible news she had to deliver frozen on her tongue as he stared at her and shook his head, face grim as he muttered, “All hell’s breaking loose down there.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  What the fuck was happening?

  “Contact, ten o’clock!” Freeman shouted.

  Zaid scrambled after Rodriguez over the rocks and dove behind the cover of a group of boulders on the hill above the road. “What the hell?”

  “You guys see anything?” Rodriguez shouted to Kai and Prentiss, pinned down a dozen yards or so from them in a shallow gulley.

  “Negative,” Prentiss yelled back.

  The rest of the team was scattered in two remaining groups nearby. Cover here was scarce, so they had to make the best use of what they could find.

  Zaid kept his head down and waited for a break in the firing to steal a peek at what was happening below near the road. Shit had gone sideways in a matter of seconds. They’d walked into an ambush moments ago, but he had no clue who was firing at them, as there hadn’t been any enemy reported in the area. Was t
here a tunnel system nearby where the enemy had hidden?

  “Fall back,” Hamilton ordered, his voice tense.

  Oh, shit. They had to be badly outnumbered or outgunned for their team leader to give that order. He snuck a peek through a gap in the boulders, his chin brushing the ground.

  “How bad?” Rodriguez asked, sprawled out next to Zaid on his belly with his weapon to his shoulder.

  There was enough ambient light for him to make out the shapes of the men moving around by the convoy through his NVGs. More men than they had with them. “Bad.” His pulse drummed hard and fast in his throat.

  “Khan and Rodriguez, fall back on my command to the north behind the ridge. The rest of us will provide cover fire,” Hamilton ordered.

  “Roger,” Zaid replied, then clamped his jaw tight and maneuvered his weapon into position.

  “Go.”

  Though every one of his instincts told him to stay put, Zaid obeyed his team leader, shoved to his feet, and ran like hell for the ridge above. The volume of fire picked up immediately.

  Light from the tracer rounds streaked past him in the darkness, thudding into the rocks and ground, kicking up sprays of dirt.

  His lungs strained in the thin air, the muscles in his thighs burning as he pushed himself to run as fast as he could, with Rodriguez pounding over the terrain a few strides behind him. After what seemed like an endless amount of time they reached the ridge and dove over the edge of it.

  Panting, Zaid rolled over the far side and crawled back to the lip to peer down at the winding road below so he could find out what the hell was going on. The NIU was retreating in chaos. Several of its members were down, lying strewn across the road and the bottom of the slope.

  Then he saw the shooters and his blood ran cold.

  “Khan, what do you see from up there?” Hamilton demanded, still pinned behind cover down the slope with the others.

  What the fuck? He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at. “The NIU. They’re shooting at each other—and us.” No goddamn wonder they hadn’t been able to figure out where the attack was coming from.

  “Say again?”

  “They’re fucking shooting at us!”

  “Motherfuckers,” Rodriguez muttered, taking aim and firing a few rounds downrange at the men shooting at them from below.

  Out of nowhere, Jaliya’s face flashed through Zaid’s mind. She was probably back at the TOC, watching and seeing all this live via satellite or Hamilton’s helmet cam. He thought of his parents back in New Jersey, waiting for his next call or text to tell them he was okay.

  This was bullshit. He was not dying out here. And neither were any of his guys.

  “Maka and Prentiss, you’re up next,” Hamilton said via comms. “On my command. And…go.”

  Zaid and Rodriguez opened up on the NIU members firing at them from behind the military trucks as Maka and Prentiss broke from behind cover and raced up the slope. Zaid tagged one guy as he stepped around the back of the last truck. The traitor fell to his knees and keeled over on the road, his weapon still in his hands.

  Another target appeared to the left. Zaid aimed and squeezed the trigger just as a round hit the top of the ridge a foot from him. Bits of sand and gravel peppered his right shoulder.

  Moments later, Maka and Prentiss made it to the ridge and slid down the far side before scrambling up to join him and Rodriguez.

  Freeman and Lockhart darted over the open ground after that, leaving Hamilton, Freeman and Granger still down below.

  “You boys got us covered up there?” Hamilton asked, voice tense.

  “You know it,” Zaid answered, looking for another target. Until they figured out what the fuck was going on and exactly who the enemy was down there, it was a total shit show.

  “Okay, on three,” Hamilton said. “Two. One. Go.”

  Their three remaining teammates bolted from their concealed position and scattered as they raced up the hill. Zaid and the others opened up on the trucks from behind the relative safety of the ridge. In his peripheral vision he tracked Freeman rushing toward them.

  Two thirds of the way up, Freeman fell.

  Shit.

  “Freeman’s down.” Zaid’s heart slammed against his ribs as the former SEAL struggled to his feet. Had he been hit?

  “I’m not hit,” Freeman said. “But I’m pinned down and can’t move without getting my ass shot off.”

  Freeman was totally exposed out there, easy pickings for the fucktards firing from behind the trucks. And Hamilton and Granger were too far away to help him.

  Zaid was getting him out of there.

  “Cover me,” he yelled over the gunfire, and darted behind the others to the left, angling for the closest concealed position to Freeman.

  He could hear someone else moving behind him but didn’t stop to look back. Granger and Hamilton made it to the ridge and jumped over the edge to safety. Zaid kept running, paused only a moment when he reached the spot he’d chosen, and risked a look down the slope with his weapon up, ready to fire. Freeman had found a medium-sized boulder to crouch behind, but he was taking heavy fire.

  “You guys ready?” Zaid asked his teammates, loading a fresh mag into his rifle. They were all poised behind the lip of the ridge, weapons aimed downrange.

  “Roger that,” Maka replied without looking up from his M4. At the far right of their line, Hamilton was on the radio, hopefully requesting air support.

  Zaid looked back down at Freeman, who hadn’t moved, still returning suppressive fire from his spot. Now the NIU survivors were racing up the slope toward FAST Bravo’s position. But how the hell were they supposed to tell friend from foe?

  “What a fucking nightmare,” he muttered under his breath.

  Freeman was still holding on.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Zaid glanced behind him to find Prentiss crouched there. He nodded. “Cap?” he asked Hamilton.

  “Ready. Freeman, Khan and Prentiss are coming to you. Get ready. Rest of you, concentrate your fire on those trucks,” their team leader said.

  “Copy,” Freeman answered, the foreign note of stress in his voice sending a surge of adrenaline through Zaid’s body.

  He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, his muscles tensing, weight poised on the balls of his feet. Now.

  He charged over the lip of the ridge, firing at the targets moving below on the road while his teammates opened up with suppressive fire. Prentiss was right behind him.

  “Move, Freeman,” Zaid ordered, rushing to his teammate as he fired, the retreating NIU members coming up the slope adding to the confusion.

  Freeman bolted from behind cover and hauled ass up the slope. The moment he reached them, Zaid and Prentiss began their retreat, firing as they moved. Rounds whizzed around them, the tracers streaking past in the darkness. Zaid’s heart pounded against his sternum as he raced back to the safety of the ridge and jumped over the lip.

  Panting, he closed his eyes for a moment and said a prayer of thanks before looking over at Hamilton, who was still on the radio but watching the situation below with a sharp eye. Using hand motions, the team leader ordered them to move east, staying behind the ridge. All nine of them got up and moved single file toward a rise that would give them a good vantage point so they could see what was happening below.

  “Gunship should be on station within the next six minutes,” Hamilton reported as they ran in a crouch to their new position. “Khan, see if you can find out what the hell’s going on from those guys,” he said, meaning the NIU members racing for the safety of the ridge.

  Zaid didn’t know what kind of aircraft Hamilton had requested, and he didn’t care so long as it showed up in a hurry to clear off those traitorous assholes below. He searched the faces of the NIU members scrambling up the hill.

  He recognized one as the man slid over the edge of the ridge and ran toward the guy, weapon up. “Drop your weapon!” he yelled in Dari.

  The man whirled, his eyes wide, a
nd quickly lowered his weapon before holding his hands up.

  “Why are you shooting at us?”

  “Not us! Them!” He waved an arm toward the chaos unfolding below them. “Our own members opened fire on us before turning on you.”

  “Where’s General Nasar?” He was supposed to be here directing his men. Had he been hit?

  “I have not seen him,” the man panted.

  This was so fucked up. FAST Bravo had worked with this same NIU unit for three consecutive deployments now, and FAST Alpha longer than that. And Nasar couldn’t just have disappeared into thin air. Zaid had seen the guy getting onto another Blackhawk back at base. “How many attacked you?”

  “At least half of our force.”

  Half their own force had turned on the other? “Why?” Why the fuck would they do this? Were they hoping to capture the shipment themselves, then get it across the border and sell it to make a profit?

  “I don’t know! I swear I don’t know what’s—” The man broke off and hunched over, his expression twisting as he dragged his hands down his face with a choked sound.

  Zaid reported his findings to Hamilton as he hurried back to his own team. Until they knew who they could trust on the NIU, that unit was on their own.

  Hamilton was on the radio again. “Copy that.” He cursed and grabbed for his weapon. “You’re not gonna fucking believe this,” he said, and Zaid’s stomach dropped. Every man on the team was watching Hamilton now. “It’s Nasar. He’s The Jackal.”

  Zaid reeled at the announcement. But it made so much sense all of a sudden.

  Nasar had been at all the briefings. He had the training and knowhow to pull something like this off. He knew the mission inside and out. How many men would be here, the timing, everything.

  Rage built inside Zaid, a hot pressure expanding beneath his ribs. That fucker. That fucker had set them all up to die here so he could get his dope across the border.

  The sound of approaching aircraft filled the air. Zaid glanced to his left just as the two Apaches appeared out of nowhere, rising into view from where they’d been hidden behind a hill in the distance.

  A roar of approval rang out from the team. Zaid rolled to his belly and put the stock of his weapon to his shoulder, peering over the edge of the ridge as the attack helicopters unleashed a stream of withering fire on the enemy from their 30 mm cannons.