“You get back to me,” Erin said, her expression serious.
“I am on you like a rat on Cheetos. I’m never going away.”
“You better be serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“I love you.”
“And, I don’t want to live without you,” Stryker replied, his expression as serious as she had ever seen it.
“Then get back to me.”
They again stood in the communications center, with Thomas and the technicians. Stryker stared impassively the drone feed, and noted the terrorists were now spaced across the screen in a peculiar way. They now moved in groups of six and seemed to be around 500 meters apart and evenly spaced. They advanced in triangular formations, with two men ahead flanked by two on either side of them, following behind. There appeared to be a total of thirty groups and they were approaching in two waves, with the second echelon around two clicks behind the first. Stryker wondered briefly how they maintained even spacing and advanced at what seemed to be the same rate of travel.
“GPS and radios,” Stryker sighed. “They still have command and control. The formation lets them probe forward with supporting elements behind that can react to anything the probe encounters.”
“What does that mean?” Erin asked, staring at the screen.
“It’s not going to be easy to break contact once we engage them,” Stryker replied. He looked at Edwards, “ideas?”
Edwards studied the screen for a long moment, then said, “We helo in, hunker down and let them pass, split up, and we each take the two trailing elements alone. When the point comes to respond, we have the helos land in front of them so they have to deal with that threat. Then, we take them out from behind.”
“I like it.” Stryker paused before he spoke again. “We need to get as many as we can while their out in the open. We both know it’s only going to get harder once they are in town, so we need to make hay while we can.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Erin said, her voice troubled. “But how do you get out every day?”
“We don’t,” Stryker answered. “We keep going for three nights, and then we exfil with the helos from a point that is well behind where the terrorists will be by that time. We sleep and eat during the day and catch up with them at night. The drones can tell us where they are, and direct us to them each evening.”
“What if they start moving during the day?”
“Then, we go with little or no sleep and catch up to them. I don’t think they’ll do that though.”
“Why not?” Erin insisted.
“They are still afraid of our air power.”
“That’s going to be a lot of walking if they keep moving,” Erin replied.
“It’s going to be a lot of jogging.” Stryker looked at Edwards as if the ask if he was up for this mission.
Edwards grinned and just nodded in the affirmative. Stryker shook his head, again wondering what mutant gene created a man who apparently relished the idea of combat with such eagerness and zeal.
“Why don’t you just drive to the insertion point, and let them pass?” Thomas asked.
“Because helos attract attention and they are more likely to rush by us. Helos in the sandbox were a terrorist magnet, and I want them in a hurry to kill infidels,” Stryker replied.
“Well, okay, I can get them to take you in. But, what about all the landings you want them to do? That’s going to risk the few flight crews I have left.” Thomas wore an expression of concern mixed with reluctance.
“You want to save the base or not?” Erin growled, her voice hard and low. “You want these men to risk their lives in a far more dangerous mission then your pilots could face, and you’re worried about it? Seriously?”
“She’s right,” Edwards added. “We are going to be outnumbered and we need the distraction to have a decent chance of being able to break contact when we have to.”
Thomas thought it over briefly, and then replied, “Okay, we’ll do what they need us to do. But, you don’t veto anything from now on.
“I veto anything that looks sketchy from now on, or no deal,” Erin replied.
Thomas looked at Stryker, who shrugged and replied, “What she said.”
CHAPTER NINE
Stryker and Edwards sat in the Sikorsky HH-60H Seahawk, although in the Navy it's frequently called the "Rescue Hawk," and is a variant of the Blackhawk helicopter, made famous to the American public by the movie, “Blackhawk Down.”
They both wore headphones and throat mics.
“We are two miles from the LZ,” The pilot droned in his earphones.
Stryker removed his headset and motioned for Edwards to do the same.
“Earbuds for the radio and sat phones to vibrate,” he yelled over the noise of the rotors chopping through the air and the vibration of the air frame.
Edwards nodded.
Stryker again counted spare mags for his M-4 and XD. He had two of each on his tactical vest, and another eight for the M-4 in the messenger bag mixed in with loose ammo, grenades and a sandwich. His assault pack contained the rest of the water, two more sandwiches, NVG monocles and more loose ammo. Both their M-4s were topped with PVS 14 thermal scopes.
Edwards did the same.
Both men unbuckled their seat belts and Stryker tapped the pilot on the shoulder. He nodded his head without looking away from the landing site and the helo settled on the ground with a rocking motion.
Stryker again touched the pilots shoulder, both men unassed the aircraft, and moved away a safe distance as the helo lifted off.
They were in a clearing that was bisected by a hiking trail and surrounded by dense vegetation. Both men glanced around, selecting their hide sites without discussion.
“Talk to me.” Stryker whispered after depressing the throat mic.
“Two thousand meters behind you, still flanked. They are running toward the landing site,” the disembodied voice from the comms center replied. “They are closing fast. It appears to be a group of six. The rest are maintaining their course to the west.”
“Do you have our location?”
“Roger that. We followed you from the helo landing and we will continue to mark your trail throughout the night.”
Stryker squelched once, signaling they were going dark and, from that point forward, any communications that took place would be between him and Edwards. Then he motioned Edwards to the south. The men separated and hid in bushes on either side of the intended ambush.
“On me,” Stryker whispered. “Two grenades each, then we open up. When you hear my fire, you do the same if they’re not all down.”
His earbud squelched.
Stryker raised his NVG monocle, and sighted through the thermal scope on his carbine. The approaching men began to come into focus. The images sharpened until he could clearly make them out in the dim light and he smiled grimly.
They held their formation, but the trailing four terrorists had narrowed the spacing and were almost on top of the lead element. The men slowed as they entered the clearing and a few of them began looking around them for potential threats as they grew nearer. They slowed and walked forward cautiously. Then slowly moved toward the landing site.
Stryker’s eyes followed the first two further into the clearing where the helo touched down and then set two grenades out next to him. When the next four showed up and were standing with the lead element examining the ground, Stryker placed one grenade in each hand, pulled both pins with opposite forefingers, and stood.
They arced out almost at the same time and Stryker fell to his stomach and waited for the explosions. When the shock wave passed, he waited for Edward’s grenades and, when he heard another twin explosion, he rose to one knee and lowered the monocular over his eye.
A few men were writhing on the ground but the rest were motionless. Stryker raised the NVG monocular and again sighted through his rifles scope. Both men emptied a mag into the survivors, and saw that the terrorists were all motionless.
His sat phone vibrated. He plucked it from his vest and read the message. It was from Erin.
“There’s a group to your south. Looks like four klicks. Be careful.”
Stryker thought for a moment and wondered why Thomas and his men hadn’t mentioned that, and then replaced his mag with a new one.
He heard a squelch and pressed his throat mike.”
“Sierra?” Edwards said.
“Go ahead,” Stryker replied.
“We going after the next group?”
“Wait one.”
“Base.” Stryker said.
“Go.”
“Any other groups near us?”
“Nearest group is to the east at around two klicks out and closing on you.”
“How many?” Stryker whispered.
“Looks to be six more.”
“Out, we’re dark again.”
“Roger that.”
Stryker texted Erin back and said “Thanks, keep watching our backs.”
He got a smiley face back.
“Echo.” he said into the mic.
“Sierra,”
“Move to me.”
Edwards approached soundlessly and took a knee to Stryker’s side.
“What’s the plan?” he whispered.
“I want to see if they have radios and GPSs and then we bug the hell out. I’m guessing that they do because of the evenness of their spacing.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but let’s check it out.”
Stryker moved into the clearing, with Edwards behind him and covering his six, and knelt down next to the man who led the way into the open area. He turned him over, letting him settle on his back, and then pulled a radio and GPS unit from the front pouches of his tactical vest.
“Okay, let’s blow this pop stand,” Stryker whispered.
“Plan?” Edwards whispered back.
“We move toward them, let them pass, and take them from the back. I’ll have the helo land here again and we can catch them on their way to this location. They won’t be expecting us further up the path.”
“They must have heard the grenades, and I doubt they will rush into anything like the last group.” Edwards stared at Stryker
“You’re probably right,” Stryker allowed. “But the closer we are to them the less cautious they will be. They will expect us to be around the landing site.”
Edwards nodded his agreement and the two men began a slow jog up the trail. Stryker called in the touch-and-go as the men settled into the bushes, a klick up the trail, on the east side of another clearing, checked their weapons, and waited for the next group to pass. In the distance, they could hear the helo land, linger for a moment, and then the whine of the turbine filled the air again as it lifted off.
Stryker heard the group approaching before they came into sight in his NVGs. He knew that Edwards was aware they were moving down the trail and remained silent until he spotted them approaching toward the clearing. He squelched his radio once, heard the reply, and settled into his hiding site, bringing his M-4 to his shoulder and watched the group slow to a crawl.
The lead element, consisting of two men, moved forward while the flankers remained motionless for a moment and then followed.
They carried their AKs at the low ready position and moved forward at a crawl, each taking a cautious few steps, glancing around, and then again moving forward. Stryker could make out the robes they wore and the weapons they carried, but did not see anything else in the dim light. He wondered if they knew they were passing through an ambush site, and then discarded the notion.
Stryker peered through his rifle sight, and did not like what he saw. They were exercising extreme caution and moving at a snail’s pace. There would be no slaughter this time.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
They moved by him slowly and he reduced his respiration to quiet the sound of his breathing, and then ducked his head as they moved to his position and then seemed to take forever to move into the clearing. The odor of unwashed bodies that baked in dirty clothing rolled over him as they passed and be found he fighting a bout of nausea from the stench.
Stryker again squelched his radio and heard Edward’s reply almost immediately.
His sat phone vibrated and he plucked it from his vest and read the text.
“The front two terrorists are doubling back and moving to your position. They are both to your north and moving through undergrowth. The rear element is at the front now and still moving west.”
“How close?” He texted back.
“In your back pocket.” She answered.
No smiley face this time.
Stryker squelched once to convey his reception of the message.
He drew his combat knife from its sheath and stabbed it into the dirt, and then turned to the north.
He could only hope that Edwards would respond appropriately as he heard the tread of quiet footsteps heading toward him over the forest floor. Two men came into view, both holding AKs at the low ready and walking heel to toe as they approached.
Stryker let them pass, hoping Edwards had seen them, and then surged out of the underbrush with the knife in his right hand and drove it through the skull of the man closest to him from the back, and then grabbed the second man by the throat when he turned toward the noise, and slammed him to the ground, his body following him down and again pushing him further into the dirt. Stryker tightened his grip on the man’s throat and leaned his weight into it.
He struggled briefly, his arms flailing around and then trying to remove the hand at his throat, but Stryker wrapped his other hand around his neck and slowly squeezed the life out of him. He punched at him several times, his blows growing weaker, and then wheezed once and his head lolled to one side.
Stryker felt a pain in his rib cage from the blows, but ignored them and finished the terrorist by snapping his neck from behind. He got up and took several deep breaths.
“What the fuck just happened?” Edward’s asked in a whisper as he approached.
“Erin warned me the front element was doubling back toward us and I saw them pass. I had no way of contacting you, so I just had to handle it and hope you saw what was happening.”
“You didn’t get word from Thomas’ men?”
“No.”
“That is really screwed up.”
“Tell me about it. Right now, we got to get the other four guys and hunker down for the night. Did you hear anything from the fight I just had?”
“No.”
“Then the flankers didn’t either. Let’s go take them out and see what comes next.”
“I don’t want to continue this if we can’t rely on Thomas’ people,” Edwards whispered.
“We’ll sort that out later. Right now, we need to kill the rest of them,” Stryker replied.
Edwards nodded his agreement and the two men separated and headed down the trail on either side of the path, moving slowly and careful to not make any noise as they walked over the forest floor.
They walked for around five minutes, and then Stryker heard his earbud squeal at him and stopped. He looked over at Edwards, who emerged from the side of the trail and pointed to south of their position. Stryker looked over and saw four men silhouetted by the moonlight. They sat squatted down just inside the clearing.
Edwards pulled two grenades from his messenger bag and motioned Stryker to him.
Stryker grabbed two of his grenades and joined Edwards, who nodded at him and made a throwing motion with his left hand. Stryker nodded back, and both men threw their grenades and hunkered down behind trees.
The explosion was almost immediate and they glanced at each other, pulled their M-4s off their shoulders and emptied two mags at the fighters before Stryker turned and began running up the trail, heading east.
After a klick of running up the path, Stryker stopped on the north side of the trail and pressed his throat mike.
“You ne
ed come to me and find we have to find a hide for the night.”
“We could get some more visitors.”
“They are four klicks ahead of us and not moving fast; at least if we can believe Thomas’ men.”
“I’m coming to you.”
The two men were sitting in the forest to the side of a small meadow outside of Alpine, California. Stryker had laid out the meal for the night. MREs coupled with main dishes from the freeze dried food they found earlier made their dinner, and Stryker used heat tabs to warm the main dish.
Stryker had called Erin and knew that the terrorist were well ahead of them and down for the night. He was vexed by the failure of Thomas’ men to keep them advised of movements by the fanatics, but really had no idea what to do about it.
“We going at them again tomorrow?” Edwards asked. “Even if we can’t rely on the navy to keep us informed?”
“Of course, we are going after them until they’re all gone.”
“Not likely we’ll get them all if we don’t have good intel and I am not at all certain we can trust them to keep us current on what is going on around us.”
“We can only try.”
“Stryker, you have to understand, at some point, that you don’t get everything you want. You have to be reasonable. We are fighting two hundred terrorists and we have a faulty intel system that can’t even give us good info this is totally screwed up.”
“Well, no I don’t have to accept that at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because, we just don’t have to accept anything. We learned how to do that when it became fashionable to accept half-way measures. The fact is that we don’t have any limitations; that’s the bullshit that everyone wants to sell, but I don’t accept it. If you buy that theory, why are you even here?”
“Only reason I am here is to help you. We could have stayed in Portland and not have to deal with any of this shit. We probably would be a happier couple if we made that decision.”
“We can get you out on the next helo. I can deal with the incompetence and the rest of the shit as long as I have Erin covering my back. The fact is somebody has to kill these assholes, and if it’s not both of us, then I’ll do it alone.”
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