by Dalton Fury
He’d work it out with Admiral Mason later. He’d have to.
EIGHT
Isolation Cell Black—Black Ice
The sliding open of the six-inch window at the bottom of the box startled Hawk. She knew the routine. She could set her watch by it if she had one. The visit was too early for breakfast. It didn’t matter, though; she was too weak to resist anything by now. She tried to open her two black eyes as the Middle Eastern music stopped, but severe swelling had closed her left one completely.
“Rise and shine, little lady,” the rent-a-cop said. “Gonna tell us what your real unit in the military is today?”
No response.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, Miss Bird. Why has your boyfriend, Troy, been spreading a rumor all over downtown Fayetteville about you being in an organization called Delta Force?”
Bird had ignored this question a dozen times on day 1 and at least a half-dozen times on day 2. As far as she could tell anyway, she had long ago lost track of time and numbers. Not sure if it was Saturday or Monday, and only believed it may have been morning from the asshole’s greeting. This time she figured she’d answer the question. In fact, she’d do almost anything to get out of the box. But not to serve as a punching bag again for the cops—not that she believed they were real cops—but rather to stand up straight and stretch out. Short of that, Hawk prayed someone would put a stop to the incessant loud playing of jihad music or the blood-curdling cries of baby girls begging for their daddies.
“Troy is a dumbass,” Bird said. “He doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about.”
Or does he? She wondered if Troy might have spouted off to one of his buddies about her outfit. She knew for sure he had no idea that she was anything more than a garden-variety 74D, a chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear specialist by trade. She was certain she had not violated operational security about her true position in the slightest. In fact, as far as she knew, Troy thought all she did at the Unit was clean and issue gas masks.
But then again, Hawk knew Troy had a hard-on for anything Delta related, particularly after attending tryouts two years ago and being dropped on Bloody Thursday.
I’ll cut his balls off.
She couldn’t see her interrogator since her box was pitch-dark, and even trying to steal a peak through the spots where the plywood was fastened just revealed the powerful bright lights aimed at the box. But she knew the jerk talking was one of two dirtbags who had been doing the questioning, dishing out the beating, when they didn’t like her response.
Yes, this asshole was either the short dumpy guy who smacked her across the face with a closed fist outside Macy’s, ruining her Costas, or the taller bald guy who landed an upper cut to her rib cage the last time she didn’t answer the same question. Either way, Hawk had just stepped outside the circle. It was a major mistake. She admitted to knowing Troy, confirmed their relationship, and showed she still had some fire left in her to resist. It was the slip the interrogators were waiting for.
“Is that so?” the cop replied, knowing she had slipped up but still not buying it in the least. It was the tall bald cop. But he wasn’t alone. Hawk didn’t know that Webber was standing just outside her box.
Webber was surprised by Hawk’s tone and response. After three long and full days, this was the first sign of her willingness to play. So far, she had diverted into irrelevancy when under questioning or even feigned sickness and cowered away as if she was scared of being beaten or slapped anymore.
“Should we play the tape? Your Troy boy sounds pretty proud of you,” the interrogator asked.
“Bullshit!” Hawk said.
The cop laughed as he looked down to read from the three-by-five cards he held in his hand. It was all planned out by the unit psych and Colonel Webber. The protocol was simple: break detainees initially by having them reveal their affiliation with Delta Force, then turn to more personal issues to break their spirit.
The average time so far had been four and a half days in the box. Two of the male operators had actually held out for the duration, seven days and nights, before the exercise was called. The logic being that if you could hold out for a week in Black Ice, you stood a good chance of actually surviving a real hostile hostage situation. Hawk was just under the average.
The interrogator continued. “OK, OK, let’s shift focus for a minute, Miss Bird. What about your dad?”
My Dad? Hawk was utterly surprised. What the fuck do they know about my dad?
“Your dad was a military man, right?”
“You figure that out all by yourself?” Bird asked. Beating on Hawk was one thing, but bringing up her dad was somewhere they better not go.
“Your dad liked to spend a lot of time alone with you, didn’t he?”
Hawk started to shake. She couldn’t believe the nerve of this asshole. Even if this was a training exercise, of which she wasn’t entirely convinced yet, where in the hell did this dickhead come up with these questions?
“Your dad also was cited in a 2003 after-action report for cowardliness under fire during the initial invasion into Iraq,” the cop said before quietly moving to the exit door. Before exiting, he turned back, raising his voice to ensure Cindy Bird could hear him. “That’s a damn shame for a Special Forces man. Must be pretty embarrassing.”
Colonel Webber motioned the interrogator to step out of the room. He had taken it all in. He was now alone with Hawk and her box.
“It’s Colonel Webber, Sergeant Bird. It’s time to go.”
The voice was familiar to her. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it might be the Delta commander. She played coy, though. Even after three days—or maybe it had been four or five—of utter hell, her natural defenses kicked in. Who else could be standing outside her box? Without knowing for sure, though, she couldn’t risk compromising herself to other folks not read on to Delta. Any more than she might already have.
Or maybe she was just so pissed off at the world right now that she wasn’t in the mood to be cordial to anyone. No, not maybe. Cindy Bird was pissed. The comments about Troy were bad enough, but the comments about her dad were over the top. Hawk was so pissed that she had had enough of this army-game bullshit. In fact, now her toughest environmental engineering classes in college seemed like paradise, and Fort Riley, Kansas, didn’t seem like such a bad place to be stationed after all.
Thirty more seconds of silence passed. She still hadn’t responded to Webber.
Webber hadn’t anticipated this. But the Delta psychs had. They warned Webber that a female would likely crack. They warned she would be a shell of the woman she was before she was scarfed up in a mall parking lot. Even after just a few days of no sleep, her mental capacity would be at its minimum. A few small cups of soup would ensure her survival, but little more. Even one of the first seven male operators had completely caved in by now, so why would it surprise anyone that a woman would break? Hawk would be at an all-time low.
But if Hawk was serious about what she had told the Delta Force psych Doc Johnson during her half-dozen assessment interviews two years earlier, then now was the time to prove it. The female pilot program had been briefed to the highest levels of the administration with mixed support along the way. Some were all for it, particularly the liberal left supporters of the president, but the more traditionally minded were dead set against using females in any capacity to protect a male operator on target.
If she came out of Black Ice, a culmination exercise of sorts, still committed to doing what was necessary for the security of her country, then Delta knew they had a winner. Moreover, Hawk’s success would certainly create opportunities for other females to serve in the unit ranks.
That’s what brought Colonel Webber all the way to Atlanta, immediately after he finished up the Commander’s Board interviews at Delta tryouts. Where he should have been, however, was overseas in Afghanistan helping Kolt Raynor and the boys acquire launch authority from the JSOC commanding general to go after HVI num
ber 2, Mohammad Ghafour, in the Goshai Valley. Not only was Hawk’s success important to Webber, since he had been teammates with her father in Delta years ago, but the pilot program was his baby. He wanted her to succeed for herself as much as he did to validate the program, but even Webber wouldn’t cut corners. It had to be done right. It had to be legit, which is why Webber approved the hot-button comments about his old boss, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Leland Bird. LTC Bird, or MLB, short for “major league ballplayer,” was a legend in Delta. Anyone in the know knew this as fact. Doc Johnson insisted that if Webber wanted the pilot program to succeed and be recognized as not throwing softballs to the females, then MLB was fair game. Webber agreed. He didn’t necessarily like it, but he knew the importance. And Webber knew that if the Delta psychs knew Cindy “Hawk” Bird’s file, he knew the woman.
“Sergeant Bird, I’m here to take you home,” Webber said with as much sincerity as he could muster. “It’s over. We’ve seen enough,” he added.
Moments passed where neither spoke a word. Hawk finally spoke.
“Fuck you, fuck this place, and fuck Delta!”
Webber ignored the profanity but couldn’t hold back a slight grin. He didn’t blame her for the intensity of her words. Hell, Webber knew he couldn’t handle three hours in a place like Black Ice, much less three days. Still, for the pilot program to be fully accepted, the test parameters had to be more stringent on Hawk. If for no other reason than to quiet the critics of Webber’s baby, many who had vehemently argued that women are shackled with emotional and psychological limits at birth.
Mohammad Ghafour Village, Goshai, Pakistan
Kolt squeezed the nylon fast rope as tight as he could to control his descent. He struggled to lock the insteps of his black and tan Salomon XA Pro assault boots onto the rope as gravity, coupled with the downward whipping of ice-cold rotor wash, propelled him to the snow-covered valley floor. Friction heat penetrated his thin Oakley assault gloves after only ten feet of descent.
The impact with the snow-covered ground knocked Kolt on his ass. The rope was pulled from his hands as the helo drifted forward and the tail rose, nosing down to gain speed from the two-minute hover. The fast rope still hung out the back like a giant thread whipping in the wind.
Instinctively, Kolt rolled out of the way. He knew better than to flounder on the ground after roping since the next operator would land on top of him. When that happened, things became a total clusterfuck.
But this time there were no other ropers.
Kolt stood to a crouch as the helo noise faded in the distance. Enemy gunfire, green tracers, and dozens of unseen 7.62 mm bullets chased the bird as it raced to escape the valley. Kolt wasn’t sure where to start. Singleton missions weren’t designed to come off the back of a MH-47G into the center of the enemy target. He’d have a chance if the rest of the troop was on the ground with him. They would methodically clear each building, killing every adult-aged male that stood in the way, until they found the precious cargo.
The assaulters would do the heavy lifting as per standard operating procedure. Kolt always made it a point to stay out of the way. If they needed him, or if it was time to flex off the original plan, then they would call. Normally, though, they just needed the troop commander to put his gun somewhere on the perimeter and stand by.
But now, as he crouched low in Ghafour’s snow-covered backyard, he was not only unsure which building he was looking at but also had no idea where Shaft was. This was anything but normal. Time to develop the situation.
Snow completely engulfed Kolt’s kneepads as he knelt behind the corner of a mud and stone building. He pressed the tiny button on his NavELite wrist compass to activate the blue Indiglo-type background. The pointed compass needle floated slightly, turning to true north and providing bearings. No time to be heading the wrong way out of the blocks. He peered through his NODs, searching for movement, searching for his man Shaft.
Kolt knew Admiral Mason wouldn’t stop the helo from aborting the infil. He wouldn’t risk everyone on board by turning it around to recover Kolt. Kolt figured he might not even know yet that he exited the back of the helicopter. Just in case, Kolt turned his radio knob two clicks clockwise to the Green SAT secure command frequency.
He feared more that maybe the admiral had watched him reach up and pull the cotter pin to release the fast rope. And maybe he watched as the nut-job Delta officer slid his HK416 assault rifle around to his left side before reaching for the near vertical rope with both gloved hands. And if he saw that, then he wouldn’t dare take his eyes off Kolt. He had to have seen Major Kolt fucking Raynor step into the cold dark sky, short hop off the edge of the ramp, and in an instant, disappear below the bird’s tail ramp.
But as much as Kolt wanted to say “eat it, sir!” he quickly turned his attention to his mission. One, safely recover Shaft. Two, get both of them out of the valley safe. And three, so the mission wouldn’t be viewed as an entire failure by the naysayers back in the rear on the admiral’s staff, secure the intel haul that most expected would lead to the al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri or that might just foil a plot to attack America’s commercial nuclear power industry. Kolt would settle for the first two, but he wanted it all.
Green tracers, fired from a distant rooftop, whizzed past Kolt’s tan and black Opscor ballistic helmet. He needed to move. He slugged through the foot-deep fresh snow and found a short set of wood and mud stairs leading to the second floor of the building to his front. He reached up with his nonfiring hand and dropped his NVGs to just in front of his eyes. A second later, he front-kicked the door open and entered, wondering if he should have led with a nine-banger first.
Kolt quickly cleared the doorway threshold. As he moved forward, he scanned left to right for immediate threats, and then turned hard left to continue deeper into the room.
Dry hole. What next?
Kolt stopped for a second to gain his bearings. Using the moonlight, he looked at the small GTG satellite map on his left forearm the same way a quarterback studies the next play in the huddle. Kolt’s target picture had the buildings marked by numbers with a small passport-size photo of Ghafour’s white-bearded face taped to the upper right corner.
Often it takes twenty to thirty minutes to locate the PC. But the averages were against success the longer the clock ticked, even for an entire assault troop. For a one-man show like Kolt, there was no empirical data.
An explosion grabbed Kolt’s attention. He moved to a back patio on the second floor opposite the helo. His Peltor-radio headgear came alive.
“RPGs at nine o’clock!”
It was Smitty making a net call on the command radio channel. From the far edge of the patio, Kolt observed another rocket launched from the ridgeline at the departing and now out-of-range MH-47G.
Kolt peered through his night-vision goggles at two green halos created by the double-rotor blades’ static electricity and panned to the north to the spot where he figured the rocket came from. Nothing. They couldn’t afford to lose the last helo out there. Kolt didn’t expect Admiral Mason to send Smitty back to get him and Shaft. No, that would be stupid. Moreover, Kolt didn’t want to be responsible if the last airworthy helo was blown out of the sky.
He had no way to contact Shaft short of screaming out. He’d have to get lucky and run into him.
He left the patio and hit the internal stairs before descending to the bottom floor. He quickly cleared the room. Another dry hole. Kolt moved past livestock, chickens squawking and flailing up against the far living room wall, and paused at the open back door.
Through his night-vision goggles Kolt scanned the area. He hoped to see Shaft, but knew that was a long shot. But Kolt knew Shaft had brought a PVS-14 handheld NVG monocular. If Kolt activated his infrared laser on his HK416 and aimed it out into the snow-covered grounds between the mud homes and buildings in the valley, then maybe Shaft would see it. It was all he had at the moment.
Before he could get his rifle up to activate the infrare
d laser, Kolt’s peripheral vision hit on movement out of the side of his goggles. He turned. Instinctively he raised his assault rifle chest high and thumbed the safety selector switch from safe to fire. His trigger finger was just about to begin the muscle-memory motor skills of engaging a hostile threat until something looked odd. Kolt hesitated. He quickly noticed Shaft’s characteristic build. The narrow shoulders and five-foot-seven frame he had seen a thousand times before.
“Shaft?”
“Hey man, don’t shoot!” he answered in his characteristically dry humor while shivering heavily. “Seen any bad guys around here?”
“You son of a bitch!” Kolt responded while slapping him on the shoulder, happy to see him again. “I almost stitched your ass. What happened to you? We lost your beacon.”
Shaft was covered in snow. He quickly explained to Kolt how he accidentally shot his iPad 4 and then had held the green laser on the center of the landing zone until the prop blast from the hovering helo had knocked him down. Then, he said that he slipped trying to right himself and rolled about ten meters into a washbasin. As soon as he was able to right himself, the exploding rocket impacting the trail helo knocked him back into the basin.
Kolt could see Shaft’s clothes were soaking wet. Kolt noticed Shaft’s thick dark beard was covered with frozen snow and ice particles. His wool Afghan hat was iced over. He looked like the abominable snowman.
“You guys almost got stuck with an RPG before landing,” Shaft said as he shivered in the dark.
“We didn’t land,” answered Kolt.