by Dalton Fury
“What?” said Shaft, a little confused. “You guys roped?”
“Yes,” said Kolt.
“I didn’t think you guys were gonna make it.”
“We didn’t, Shaft,” Kolt said.
“Come again, Racer?” Shaft asked.
“I’m it, brother,” said Kolt. “I got out.”
“You are it?” questioned Shaft. “You are alone?”
Kolt didn’t have time to explain things to Shaft. He was also hoping he didn’t ask. He knew Shaft would be pissed if he knew the details about Admiral Mason’s abort call. Better to save those details for the hot wash.
Kolt just said, “Afraid so partner.”
“Holy shit. We’re screwed, boss.”
“Not yet, brother. Let’s get the PC and book it out of the valley.”
“Book it?” asked Shaft. “Where’s our exfil birds?”
“Admiral Mason was on my bird. Don’t expect him to turn her around to get us. They’re about out of gas.”
Before Shaft could answer, the unmistakable sound of AK-47 fire interrupted the frigid air.
Kolt put his gloved index finger up in front of his lips to tell Shaft he was receiving a radio call. Kolt then motioned with his left hand for Shaft to take a knee. Kolt did the same, dropping his right Crye Precision kneepad into the soft snow.
“Major Raynor, situation report. Over!” It was Admiral Mason. Kolt was surprised Mason had thought he’d be able to reach Kolt directly on Green SAT. But more alarming, Kolt was aggravated to hear his true name over the joint-command radio net instead of his official designated alphanumeric Mike One-One call sign.
But this situation was anything but normal.
Kolt figured the commanding general was either so pissed that he ignored his abort call or, more likely, had no idea what Kolt’s actual call sign was. Either way, given the current shit sandwich Kolt bit into, hearing the CG over any radio channel was actually good news.
Kolt couldn’t hear the MH-47G engines or the distinctive-sounding rotor blades whipping in the distance anymore. He assumed Smitty and the rest of his Delta assault troop were either following the lame-duck 47 back to the border or, worse, were still in the area looking to execute a search and rescue mission.
Screw it. It was too late to change Mason’s mind, anyway. The admiral wasn’t going to reconsider aborting the mission. This Kolt was certain of. He was also certain that the bird was critically low on fuel, already likely flying on fumes, so even if Mason desired to turn the helo around to help Kolt, the gas gauge had a vote.
No, the helos weren’t turning around. They would be focused solely on CSARing the downed helo and recovering all crew and operators. Kolt knew he and Shaft were on their own.
Kolt keyed his radio mike to transmit back to the admiral in the helo. He played it like it was any other op, ignoring the fact that he decided to rope on target all by himself. It would have been nice if some of his men thought to hit the rope behind Kolt and fast rope down to the target. But Kolt never really expected anyone to follow him. It was a split-second decision to help Shaft. He didn’t have time to argue with Mason about it, or even let his men know what he was doing. With one helo struck by an RPG and limping out of the valley, he really couldn’t blame Mason too much for making the call. It was just Mason. The risk-averse JSOC commanding general. Someone who had no business, at least in Kolt’s mind, of even being on the helo. No, Kolt thought, the CG should be back in the JOC at J-bad, watching the mission on a flat screen, sipping coffee, and preparing to give a secure-victory call to the SECDEF about the successful cross-border mission and the capture of Mohammad Ghafour.
No, at the moment, Kolt knew the stark reality of things. There was nothing else to do but operate now. To do his thing. Turn a shit sandwich into a five hour meal at Gramercy Tavern. Recover Shaft first, yes. But somehow Kolt knew he wouldn’t settle for just that. Ghafour was on the target list. Not only was the terrorist the golden nugget to finally finding the al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, but every Western intelligence agency was marking Ghafour as the mastermind behind attacks on America’s critical infrastructure. The fact that POTUS wanted any attacks on the homeland stopped before it was too late wasn’t lost on Kolt’s decision-making process.
Kolt pressed the push-to-talk button, paused, and spoke into his mouthpiece very calmly, as if it was just another day on target. “This is Mike One-One. Negative PC. Still clearing the area. Over.”
“We need to get out of here,” Admiral Mason said with obvious urgency in his voice. “We are about out of fuel. Get you and your man out of there and over to the alternate pickup zone immediately. Over.”
Kolt couldn’t believe his ears. Well, he could a little, considering the circumstances, but what about the mission? What about capturing the guy who has vowed to attack America? What about the effort by everyone back at J-bad to develop this hit? What about the risk so many took to get all the way to the Goshai Valley? Are we really going to tell the president that we went into Pakistan and gave it the good ole college try but came up empty-handed? Sorry, Mr. President, but no word on Zawahiri or on the potential radiological sabotage that just might happen in the United States. Never mind the contingency of staying after the helos departed and walking out of the valley.
No. There would be no mission failure here. Not on Kolt’s watch. There would be nobody moving to the alternative landing zone. Not yet, anyway. Not until they had what they came for in the first place.
All of it.
Kolt took his left hand from the push-to-talk button secured to the left breast area of his Crye body armor and reached down for the radio secured to his assault vest. He turned the multichannel radio knob one click counterclockwise to bring up Helo Common, the secure uplink to the helicopter pilots and air-mission commander Smitty, then regrabbed his push-to-talk.
“Smitty, how you guys doing with gas?” asked Kolt. “Can you give me a few more minutes. Over.”
“We are currently in CSAR mode, downed helo. We need to be off the ground in ten minutes, or we won’t make it all the way back to Afghanistan and the fuel blivets.”
“Got it. Thanks, partner. Out.”
Kolt turned the channel knob back to Green SAT. He could hear the admiral still on the frequency demanding the insubordinate troop commander come up on the net.
Kolt broke in. “Capital Zero-Six, we are headed for the old British fort—building six. All Eagles accounted for. Ghafour definitely went to the fort. I need five mikes.”
“Negative, negative, negative!” The admiral was adamant. “Abort the mission. You will load immediately. Do you understand, Major? Over.”
“Sir, we have enough fuel. I need five minutes,” Kolt pleaded.
“Major, the precious cargo is long gone. It’s a long shot that he is at the fort.” The admiral was surprisingly at ease now—most likely because he finally realized that everyone and their brother were listening in to the command frequency—which pissed Kolt off even more. It almost sounded as if the commanding general was the calm and collected one out there.
“Fine, sir. Take the helos out of the valley and back to Afghanistan. We’ll locate Ghafour and walk out as planned. Out.”
Kolt sounded convincing. So convincing he almost thought the admiral would actually buy it. If Mason couldn’t help him and Shaft, then Kolt wanted his space.
Kolt didn’t have to wait long for the answer. “Load your man immediately,” the admiral answered, a whole lot sterner than normal. “That’s a direct order! Acknowledge!”
Kolt knew every operator still inside the helo was listening to his radio transmissions with the admiral. It would have been stupid to fall on his sword in the middle of Pakistan. For Osama bin Laden? Maybe. For Ayman al-Zawahiri? Maybe. For Haji Mohammad Ghafour, who only a couple of weeks ago was dubbed low-hanging fruit even by Delta’s own intel analysts? No.
What about the good men who just went down in flames on the trail helo? Kolt didn’t know if any of th
e men on the struck helo had even survived, but he did know his men wouldn’t want to go home without this mission accomplished. Corralling Ghafour and dragging him home through the mountain pass certainly wouldn’t make their deaths worth it. Not at all. Stopping a potential attack on a nuclear power plant inside the United States wouldn’t bring his teammates back either.
Kolt felt even more strongly that he had to carry the mission through to the end. For it, a lot of men may very well have died, burning alive in a helo in a godforsaken valley. He was obligated to see this through. This was what Delta was all about.
Even if Delta was now only a pair.
NINE
Two miles south of Kolt Raynor, Smitty found a suitable landing spot to set the MH-47G down near the downed helo. He didn’t like the spot. He wasn’t even ordered to set her down, but he knew the game, and setting down to recover the crew and customers on a crashed helo was standard procedure. Smitty also knew the admiral and Kolt would be having words, some of which he was able to monitor over the radio, and even though it would be a tight fit with the addition of four 160th crew members and two dozen customers in the back of his heavy-lift Dark Horse, the little known nickname of the heavy-lift 47s, he wasn’t leaving fellow warriors under fire of his own accord. No, Smitty was all in. Mason would have to make the call. He’d have to force him to leave Americans behind in Pakistan.
“We can’t exfil. We have two men still out there. They need a few more minutes.” An operator code-named Train calmly transmitted over the assault radio. Train had obviously been monitoring Helo Common and heard Kolt’s radio transmissions.
“I know, Train,” Smitty said.
“Negative, stand down, stand down,” Mason said, cutting in. “We are RTB. I say again, we are returning to base.”
* * *
It only took a few seconds for Shaft to point out the British fort to Kolt. Kolt quickly picked up Shaft’s IR sparkle on the east side of the eighteenth-century fort’s twelve-foot walls made of hard mud and a combination of silver fir and spruce logs. Sitting roughly seventy-five meters across the partially iced-over creek, built somewhat into the face of the valley’s high western wall, it looked like a Hallmark Christmas card under the half-moon hovering above and well beyond the east ridge. But as pretty as the view was, Kolt was in no mood for caroling or eggnog.
“What do you recommend, Shaft?” Kolt asked as they remained on a knee in nearly a foot of fresh snow. “We gotta make it quick, though.”
“Shit! No doubt. I’m freezing in these wet clothes,” Shaft said. “I was inside the fort the other day giving out Ranger candy to the kids. There are at least two dozen women and children sleeping in there.”
“I doubt they’re sleeping now,” Kolt said.
“No, but the noncombatants haven’t gone anywhere. Makes sense that Ghafour would hide among the kids and women.”
“Perfect sense,” Kolt said.
“What are we looking at once inside?” Kolt asked if for no other reason than to confirm what he already believed after a week of studying two-dimensional imagery with the analysts at J-bad.
“Standard shit, really—green metal gate that locks with a fat stick, single story, rooms built into the outer wall, large well in the middle, goat and chicken shit everywhere,” Shaft said.
“OK, frags are out, too many kids. How many FAMs?” Kolt asked, confirming to him and Shaft that they were only interested in hurting the fighting-age males, not the women and kids.
“Let’s keep it simple,” Shaft said. “Let’s climb!”
“On point, you follow,” Kolt said.
Kolt lowered his helmet-mounted NVGs and led the way toward the east side of the fort. Shaft, holding his monocular NVGs to his nonfiring eye and with an AK in his right hand and tucked under his right shoulder, followed at ten meters’ distance.
After trudging through foot-deep snow that covered uneven and rocky terrain for thirty meters or so, they successfully negotiated the narrow fifteen-foot log bridge spanning the iced-over creek. Kolt was concerned about the double set of footprints they were leaving behind, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. After slipping between a short fence made out of narrow tree branches and a short but thick mud wall, they reached the base of the fort before taking a breather and going to a knee. The windswept snowdrift had accumulated near the fort’s outer walls, making them appear shorter than they really were. Kolt and Shaft, pushing their backs to the wall, faced out and scanned the area behind them, making sure they weren’t being followed.
“What now?” Shaft asked.
“I thought you said we were climbing?” Kolt asked, taking his eyes away from the part of the village where all the commotion with the helicopters happened earlier to look at Shaft.
“Yeah, I guess. It’s too damn quiet, though,” Shaft said.
“They have no idea it’s just the two of us. They probably think a hundred American commandos jumped out of the two helos,” Kolt offered.
“Yeah, probably,” Shaft said. “I’m sure they lock the gate at night, though.”
“Standard,” Kolt said. “Look, boost me over the wall. I’ll see what’s up.”
“OK,” Shaft said, as if to say, And then what?
“I’ll take a look. If it is quiet, we’ll both drop in and clear counterclockwise until we find Ghafour.”
“And if not?” Shaft asked.
“Well, if I see trouble, I’ll take them with my suppressed HK416,” Kolt said, not entirely sure of what he was saying.
“And?”
“And then we’ll drop in,” Kolt said.
“Dude, that’s fucking suicide,” Shaft said, trying to maintain a whisper. “Look, I know you came a long way for me, but is this ass clown worth it?” Shaft said.
Kolt could feel the apprehension in Shaft’s voice. Hell, he wasn’t so fired up anymore himself to hang it out in this godforsaken frozen shithole of a valley floor. No backup, no gunship support, and no armed Predator B’s orbiting overhead. Nobody would blame them if they simply melted into the shadows and beat feet away from the village. Far enough away to mark a black landing zone and safely call in an exfil helo. And then, entirely unexplainably, his thoughts reverted back to his first tour in Afghanistan, weeks on the heels of 9/11.
“There is a lot at stake here, Shaft. This guy is tied to Z-man and planned attacks back home.”
“Yeah, I know all that shit,” Shaft said as he shivered underneath the wet clothing. “But screw that drop-in nonsense.”
“I’m listening,” Kolt said, happy that Shaft had agreed to complete the mission or go down trying.
“I’ll boost you up the wall, but hold for a minute and let me get to the front gate. I’ll bang on the door and fire off some AK rounds. They’ll think I’m a tribesman, shooting at an American or something, and likely move all their guns inside to cover the gate as they open it to investigate the commotion.”
“OK. I’ll pop a red-pen gun flare when I’m in position and ready for you to bang on the gate,” Kolt said. “I’ll thin the herd of FAMs with my suppressor as they post on the inside of the gate. Watch the false cover with the gate; use the walls.”
“Give me one of your door charges. I’ll need to get in the gate if you can’t get down there to unlock it,” Shaft said.
“Rog.”
After taking the tightly rolled eighty-four-inch-long linear-shaped charge and M60 fuse igniter from Kolt, Shaft crossed his fingers to cup Kolt’s right combat boot and vigorously pulled upward to let Kolt reach up high enough to secure a fingertip hold on the lip of the high wall. Shaft then put a hand under each boot and stood up as tall as he could, maintaining upward pressure, to help Kolt scale the wall as quietly as possible. With Kolt now out of sight, he moved clockwise around the square fort to the front green metal gate.
Kolt slipped over the lip of the wall, keeping his silhouette as low as possible, and onto the roof of the corner room. A wooden ladder made of logs and twine was to his left, offeri
ng roof access from the ground. To his right, the roof continued to the far corner. Kolt picked up the smell of a wood-burning stove and noticed smoke coming out of two of the three separate smokestacks protruding from the long dried-mud-covered L-shaped roof that hugged the inner side of the fort’s wall. He lay down on his stomach and inched his body closer to the edge to look down into the compound.
Spotting the straight-edged top of the metal gate in the moonlight, Kolt leaned on his left side to reach his pen-gun flares with his gloved right hand. He pulled out the black thumb-spring device and screwed in a red flare the size of a Chapstick container. He rotated the toggle with his thumb, aimed the flare over the open courtyard of the fort and the front gate, and released the firing pin.
The red pen flare lit up the snowflake-filled sky as it sped high into the air, reaching about four hundred feet before impacting with the valley wall.
Kolt waited to hear Shaft fire off a few AK rounds and bang on the metal gate.
Right on time, AK-47 fire opened up. Kolt assumed it was from Shaft and fingered his IR laser and floodlight on top of his HK to steady on. He had a perfect position, easily the tactical advantage inside the fort, and a direct view of the front gate. The moon had settled behind the high ridgeline, protecting Kolt’s silhouette from the danger of being backlit and thus easily discernible from the ground. Seconds later, he heard the banging on the gate.
Kolt’s finger rested on the trigger. He had his NVGs down, holding his goggles just above his rifle so he could see the IR signature and engage at will. Nothing. Nobody moved.
Shit, what now?
Kolt was dumbfounded. He couldn’t radio Shaft to execute the ruse a second time. Hell, if they didn’t bite the first time, they surely wouldn’t fall for it a second time.
Kolt startled at an abrupt noise twenty feet to his left. He turned quickly to see the ladder moving. Someone was climbing to the roof. Instinctively, he rolled to his back, brought his rifle to his chest, and aimed the IR laser and floodlight at the top of the ladder.
Fuck! I don’t need company now.