by Trevor Scott
Jake quickly unbuckled and started to head down into the passenger area. Sirena followed him below.
They all geared up with desert-patterned camo and did a comm check. Then they hoisted packs to their backs and slung rifles over their shoulders. Each also had a semi-automatic handgun holstered, along with multiple extra magazines. Jake strapped a tactical knife to his right calf and then glanced about the inside of the helicopter at his colleagues.
“You boys ready for a little hike?” Jake asked.
All he got back was a couple of grumbles, like a father would get from his kid waking him up for school.
“Wonderful,” Jake said. “Let’s go then.” He pulled open the door and hopped out to the wet grass.
The three other men followed Jake out. Jake found his hand-held GPS and marked the location of the helo. Tucker did the same thing with his GPS.
Then Jake turned back to Sirena and said, “Remember, we’re going comm silent until we get in place. SAT phones are also turned off.”
“I gotcha,” she said. “Good hunting.” Then she closed herself into the chopper.
Jake caught up with his men and said, “We head up that crease for two miles. Then it should be another two miles toward the north before we break up.”
“Roger that,” Tucker said. “This isn’t as bad as I thought.” He adjusted the straps on the .50 cal Barrett, which was broken down into two pieces and carried in its own padded pack. Tucker had practiced assembling the rifle and could do so in just under a minute in total darkness.
The terrain quickly went from reasonable to something less than treacherous within a half mile. Wind whipped rain and dust into them relentlessly, making it almost impossible to see their way. At the same time the darkness from the clouds became the shadows of night.
Jake pulled down the night vision goggles and turned them on. His obscured vision turned to a familiar green. He tried to remember the specs on this model and realized he would have about 80 hours of battery life. But they also had extra AA batteries.
An hour later of heavy hiking, Jake stopped and flipped up his NVGs. He pulled out his hand-held GPS and marked a waypoint. Then he flipped back to track their target location—the terrorist camp.
“Two miles over the top of that ridge,” Jake said, pointing off to the north.
They all took in a little water from their Camelbacks and then started the hike up the steep grade.
As they climbed closer to the terrorist camp, Jake couldn’t help wondering what was going through the minds of his friends. Despite his own apprehension, he had to show strength and resolve. They could only see him as determined. Nothing else mattered. Leaders led.
•
Sirena was like a caged animal, moving about the inside of the helicopter from a comfortable chair in the back and up to the cockpit. She wished like hell she had fought Jake on this op. She should have gone with them. But Jake had reasoned properly and she knew it. It wasn’t a matter of if she could keep up with the men. She was the only one who could get everyone out of this wilderness area.
When the SAT phone suddenly buzzed, she startled for a second, thinking something must have gone wrong up in the mountains. She pulled the phone from her right cargo pocket and looked at the small screen. The number made no sense to her.
Regardless, Sirena answered the SAT phone. “Yeah.”
“This is Eagle One,” said a man’s voice.
“That’s nice,” Sirena said. “How’d you get this number?”
“This is an encrypted line, Sirena,” the man said. “General Graves put us in motion.”
She immediately hung up and punched in the number for General Graves.
The general answered on the second ring. “Sirena? Are you in place?”
“Yes. But I just got a call from some unknown guy saying you sent him. Is that legit?”
“Yes. Get back on the line with Eagle One.”
Now she was confused. But less so than a minute ago. She called the man back. “Okay, Eagle One. So, the good general sent you. Explain.”
“We’re the cavalry, ma’am. Two teams of seven coming to help.”
Sirena stood up. “Seriously?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Our people are already in motion,” she said.
“Aren’t you with them?”
“I was,” she said. “But I stayed back with the Choctaw.”
“Wow, you went old school.”
“Hey, it was available. What’s your ETA?”
“Approximately one hour.”
“The weather’s a bitch.”
“Here too,” the man said.
“What’s your plan for approach?”
There was static on the line for a second. Finally the man said, “The map shows only one way up the mountain to that camp, and it’s narrow to say the least. I hope your men don’t plan to hike up that road.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Good. That has to be guarded.”
“Then how will you get through?”
He hesitated. Then he said, “We’ll take care of that. But you need to let your people know we’re on our way to help.”
Sirena shook her head. “I can’t. They’re comm silent until they get into place.”
“When will that be?”
“Based on the five-mile climb they have to make in the dark and with this wind and rainy conditions, I’m guessing sometime in the middle of the night. But they don’t plan to strike until they’ve had a chance to assess the situation. Which means first light.”
“Outstanding,” the man said. “We can get up the mountain by then.”
She gave the man their communications channels and frequencies, reiterating the fact that Jake and his men wouldn’t have theirs turned on for a while. The only thing she didn’t give them was her actual GPS location. When she was done, they both hung up and she sat down again, the phone cradled in her hands. She had to contact Jake and give him the good news.
27
Jake had to admit that he was getting tired. At least to himself. But he did his best to control his breathing as the air got thinner with the elevation change. The cool rain was actually refreshing to him. He couldn’t imagine making this climb in the heat of summer.
Checking his watch, he saw that it was just past midnight, and they were still a mile from the point where they would split up, with Tucker and the priest moving to a high sniper’s precipice to the south, and he and Jean Paul vectoring toward the east, where Jake hoped to climb into a position to assess the location of the hostages. But then what? How could the four of them take on fifty armed Islamic terrorists? At this point Jake needed a miracle.
Three of them had taken turns to walk point, with Tucker always in the rear because of the bulky packs he carried. Now was Jean Paul’s turn, followed by the priest and then Jake.
The priest stumbled and went to his knees.
Jake went to him immediately, helping the smaller man to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” the priest said. “The Vatican is at sea level. I guess I’m not used to this elevation.”
“I understand, Padre,” Jake said. “It’s getting to me also. We need to take out time or we’ll have no energy to complete our mission up there. Let’s take a little break.”
All four of them sat in a tight circle against a backstop of low brush. Temperatures had dropped with the rain front, and it seemed to Jake as if that rain could turn to snow at any moment.
“We’re screwed if this turns to snow,” Jake said, keeping his voice down. He knew that voices carried far in the mountains. But the wind and rain would dampen their voices a great deal.
“Bloody right we are,” Tucker agreed. “We’d stick out against that white like an albino in Africa. Wait, more like an African in the Arctic. Whatever.”
“Make sure to hydrate,” Jake ordered, and then he took a long drink from his Camelback.
“How much farther?” Jean Paul asked.
Jake checked
his GPS and said, “About a mile to the point where we split up. Then you and I have about a mile more to get into position, and Tucker and Father Murici have a little less than that to reach their hide on the precipice. Unfortunately, most of that is damn near straight up the mountain.”
“That could be an hour per mile,” Tucker surmised.
“Maybe more,” Jake agreed. “The last mile could take longer, since we’ll need to be much more quiet and stealthy on our approach. We’ll need to be quiet from this point forward. We have no idea how far out they might have lookouts.”
“True,” Tucker said. “But the road has to be at least a mile to our west.”
“I know,” Jake said. “However, that road curves quite a bit, and in these canyons our voices can really travel. Our advantage at this point is our night vision. I’m guessing they don’t have that.”
After a few minutes, Jake got up. Although he was having a hard time with his lungs, his legs felt like he was still in his twenties.
“I’ll take point,” Jake said. “Try to keep up.”
“Asshole,” Tucker mumbled.
Jake took his time, though, making sure everyone would have plenty of energy at the top. He also hoped to get into place long enough for them to get a couple of hours of rest before morning light. The terrain here had gone from a goat trail to much more rocky. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Instead of the rain turning to snow, it was hitting the ground and icing over almost immediately, making for terrible footing.
An hour later and they had reached the next waypoint that Jake had punched into his GPS. Silently now, with hand signals, Jake and Jean Paul split up with Tucker and the priest. The other men drifted quietly up a north-facing ridge, their images appearing like ghosts in Jake’s green night vision.
Jake clicked through his GPS to their final location, which was one-point-one miles to the northeast. He continued to take the lead and the two of them moved slower now, making sure to maintain their footing and not make too much noise. For Jake it reminded him of still hunting for deer with bow and arrow, hoping to find the animals in their bed.
About a half mile into this last journey, Jake came to the top of a ridge and stopped dead in his tracks, stooping low to the ground behind some bushes. For the first time he could see the terrorist camp in the distance to the north, a sprawling set of large tents and a few lights brightly lit in his NVGs.
Jake held his hand for Jean Paul to wait. Then he flipped up the NVGs and raised his binoculars for a better view. The lights he had observed in the night vision goggles were much less visible through regular binoculars. Now he wished he could pick up heat signatures through infrared.
He scanned to the right and could see where he wanted to go now. It looked a little different from the map he had studied.
Turning to Jean Paul, Jake put his right index finger to his mouth, and then he signaled with his hand to where they would travel next.
Backing down slightly, Jake tracked around the ridge using the lower bushes and terrain for cover.
The going was much slower now, since Jake couldn’t afford for any noises to alert those in the camp, even though they were still at least a half a mile from them.
It was nearly zero three hundred when Jake and Jean Paul finally cut a path across the mountain and came up the other ridge on a precipice to the east of the terrorist camp. From this location they would have two advantages. First, they would be higher than the camp, and could not be flanked from the north, which was nearly a sheer cliff upward. And second, if the terrorists tried to come at them from the way they had just come, Tucker and the priest could pick them off with ease.
Jake found a circle of large boulders at the top of the hill, which would give them plenty of cover from gunfire. If they needed to escape, they could jump over the eastern side and rush down the mountain toward a creek. They could follow that creek down the mountain and then cut across to the helo. But that would only be a life or death maneuver.
They both sat down and quietly removed their backpacks. Jake finally turned on his radio, keeping the volume low in his headset.
Through his mic, Jake whispered, “In place.”
“About time,” Tucker said.
“Choctaw base, you read?” Jake inquired.
Nothing.
Where the hell was Sirena? he wondered. Something wasn’t right. She should have been waiting for his call. With the cold rain hitting him, a chill streaked through his body.
•
Sirena couldn’t sleep. She’d tried everything, including doing some pushups. But she was concerned and anxious. She had also hydrated too much, so she was forced to rush out of the helicopter for a potty break.
As she opened the side door to get into the chopper, she thought she heard something. But that was impossible. Not yet.
Closing the door behind her, she sat back down into her chair and checked the SAT phone for possible missed calls. Nothing.
She needed to contact Jake and tell him that help was on its way. Fourteen more men would be great, but she still wasn’t sure that would be enough to overcome the massive force collected at the terrorist camp. They could sure use air support, she thought.
Why hadn’t she also heard from those men sent by General Graves? They should have been closing in on the camp by truck, she thought.
Then she remembered walking out to take a leak. The ground was either glazed over with ice from freezing rain, or a slippery mess from mud that resembled goose crap.
28
Jake huddled against the rocks on the side of the mountain with what would be a great overlook at the terrorist camp, Jean Paul across from him shivering in the cold, damp conditions. At least the rain had stopped a couple of hours ago, Jake thought. But the wind was still a problem.
They had heard nothing over the radio in over an hour, and Jake was a little concerned about that as first light attempted to make an appearance.
Pulling his binoculars to his eyes, Jake could now make out movement over a hundred yards below his position. He scanned the tents trying to see which one might hold the fifteen hostages, and only one fit what he was looking for—a large tent against a sheer mountain wall with two men out front holding AK-47s. None of the other tents had guards. Should they attack now in the darkness? They would have the advantage of night vision and surprise. But Jake wasn’t sure of the situation. No, they had to wait to get more information.
Jake got on his radio and pointed out the tent to Tucker and the priest, his voice a quiet whisper into the mic.
“Roger that,” Tucker said. “My assessment as well.”
And then something out of the ordinary happened. Another voice broke in. “Choctaw One, Eagle One, over.”
Shrugging, Jake glanced at Jean Paul, who was equally confused.
“Eagle One, identify,” Jake said softly.
“A general friend sent us,” Eagle One said. “A Grave situation.”
Smiling, Jake shook his head and said, “Roger that. Identify approach, what you’re wearing, and strength.”
“Main road, desert camo and fourteen. In place now. We got your status from Choctaw Base and will proceed on your command.”
Jake glanced back at the camp below. That would make for easy identification, Jake thought, since everyone he had seen so far wore black in the terrorist camp. He told Eagle One about the suspected hostage tent and status of what else they could see. By now more men were up and about, most of whom were wandering out to find morning relief.
“I need to verify hostages,” Jake said.
“What’s your plan for that?” It was Tucker now.
Good point, Jake thought. He could sneak down to the camp along the edge of the ridge and pop up near the outer tent to the northeast. But then he’d have to avoid detection. That would have been a better plan in the dark with the night vision goggles. But now darkness was clearly lifting.
“All right,” Jake said, checking his watch. “We go in ten.” He clicked his watch
timer and watched the numbers start to flip away.
“Roger that,” Eagle One said. “We’ve taken out the road guards. Shift change could come any minute. We’ll start our move up the road.”
“Choctaw Two, you’ve got first green light,” Jake said. “Anyone with a rifle in ten.”
Tucker keyed his mic twice to confirm.
Then Jake sat back down and stared at Jean Paul. “Ready?” Jake mouthed softly.
Jean Paul nodded his head. But Jake could see the Frenchman’s hands shaking slightly. Yet, that could have been the cold.
The time ticked away, with Jake checking his watch constantly and keeping an eye on the terrorist compound. Ten minutes couldn’t come fast enough. What he also observed was more terrorists coming from their tents. They were like ants popping out of a hill in search of food. The Agency had been right. There had to be at least fifty men in this camp. Then in the back of Jake’s mind he kept hearing the words. . .just kill them all. Save as many hostages as possible and kill every last terrorist in camp.
When Jake’s timer hit ten minutes, he whispered into his mic, “Now.”
Looking through the scope of his gun, Jake saw a man with a rifle fall. Then he heard the resounding shot from the Barrett rifle.
Jake pressed off a round, dropping one of the guards in front of the probable hostage tent.
Jean Paul took out the second guard.
Then all hell broke loose. Terrorists started spraying bullets in Jake’s direction, but he and Jean Paul had settled behind the massive boulders. Jake guessed the men really had no idea where the shots had come from, but were simply speculating. While they fired at Jake’s position, Tucker slowly picked his targets, dropping one man after the next. Some turned their guns on Tucker’s position eventually, but he was so far away the terrorists had no real chance of hitting Tucker or the priest. If everything went as planned, the priest would be simply sitting back and reloading the Barrett magazines for Tucker.
Within a few minutes, the terrorists must have realized that they were in some trouble. Especially when they started taking fire from the fourteen men that General Graves had sent to help. Now the terrorists were not only surrounded—they had no way to escape. Their perch on the side of the mountain had been tactically flawed with no way off the side of that ridge.