Both sides continued to exchange fire, but it seemed almost miles away compared to how loud and violent it had seemed by the compound’s gate. Nick stopped twenty yards from the wall and dropped in the prone to see further in the dark.
Nick hastily searched his three sectors. Clear. He pushed himself up and again darted forward, staying as low as his back and knees would allow.
At fifty yards from the wall, he saw his first target. A man lay to his left, firing toward the compound’s gate. Nick checked his right one more time to make sure there were no flankers. He didn’t expect any, but these boys might be better than he’d figured. Apparently, they weren’t though.
Nick turned and made his way toward his target. He was in stalking mode now, and silence mattered more than anything else. He eased forward, crouched and ready.
But it was unnecessary. The man on the end of the line never saw or heard a thing. Nick came up behind him and fired two rounds from his silenced .45 into the man’s back.
Nick dropped to the prone immediately after firing, not moving at all. After a few seconds, he raised his head and checked behind the man to confirm he wouldn’t be blindsided by some rear or flanking element. Still he saw no one.
He pushed himself up and moved on to the next man, who lay ten yards further ahead. He dropped that man, too, but by then the Pakistanis were grouped tighter, so he stayed in the prone, crawling and sliding down the entire line.
He never saw the leader behind the line, or anyone else, so he assumed the man had either been gunned down or joined the line. As he progressed, a few of the men sensed or heard something, but as each turned, Nick poured .45 calibers rounds into them with barely a sound. TSK. TSK. TSK.
It was too dark to use sights, so he’d point the pistol and trust his intuition. The closest he came to dying were a few rounds that snapped by from his own team members when he first started, but they quickly realized what he was doing and raised their fire to well above standing height.
Nick slithered, located a target, and downed him. Nick rushed forward, saw another one reloading, and shot him in the back without hesitation. Over and over, Nick knifed through the line of unsuspecting fighters, none of whom grasped that they were being flanked by a man with a silenced weapon.
Nick burned through four and a half mags before he was done, and when he finished, he dropped to the ground. He tried to stand, but he couldn’t catch his breath. And it wasn’t just from exertion. The insanity of what he had just done gripped him. Panic sent his heartrate rocketing, and he couldn’t catch his breath. He gasped on the ground, holding his chest. He got the shakes and looked down the hill, expecting to see some fighter coming up to shoot the helpless American. Nick put his pistol on the ground and slapped himself in the face.
Get ahold of yourself, he thought. He breathed in as deeply as he could, but couldn’t pull off taking a deep breath. He couldn’t regain control of himself, and there was no point in hiding it and dying because of his stubborn pride.
He swallowed and bellowed out, “All clear. Now get out here and fucking cover me!”
It took several tries, but eventually his men ceased firing and left the compound in a wedge formation, their weapons lifted and ready. Nick tried to stand, staggered a bit, but finally found his legs. He wasn’t sure if it was fatigue from the two-week mission, the fading effects of adrenaline, or about the worst case of the shakes that he’d ever had, but his body felt weak and unresponsive.
Regardless of the cause, he didn’t care. He wanted to get to the truck and get the hell out of there.
Chapter 35
The team advanced toward him in a wedge formation, weapons up and on edge.
Nick heard Marcus say, “Stay alert, guys. You see movement, or even if you think you do, engage it.”
The team kept ten yards between themselves and stayed focused on their sectors. Nick stood, shoved the pistol and its long silencer into his gear, and knocked the dust from his chest, knees, and elbows.
The heat from the silencer was uncomfortably warm through his Afghan clothes. Nick glanced behind him to see the littered trail of bodies.
The team arrived, and Marcus studied Nick’s face. Nick stood upright and tried to look more in control than he was, but Marcus noticed.
“You all right, boss?” he asked. “You look a little pale.”
Nick didn’t even argue.
“Not sure that was one of my wisest moves ever,” Nick said. Had he really just gone after nearly thirty men armed only with a pistol? Not many of his mentors would approve of such stupidity, but he didn’t have time to reflect on it. What was done was done, and he seriously needed to get control of himself. And keep his men from worrying about him.
“Let’s go,” he said, as he marched back toward the compound without looking back at his men or the bodies.
They made it back to the truck without taking any more fire. Back behind the compound wall, they loaded back up as they had. Truck jumped in the driver’s seat of the four-wheel-drive Toyota and handed his AK-47, which was technically Red’s, to Nick in the passenger's seat. Nick kept the silenced Glock .45 stuffed in his web gear in case he needed to silently dispatch anyone, and accepted the AK from Truck. He placed it barrel down between his knees and performed a brass check. He then removed the mag and confirmed by its weight that it was crammed full.
A screech of metal-on-metal told him Red was ready, having plunked the RPK machine gun’s bipod legs on the roof of the cab. Nick glanced behind him to make sure Marcus was loaded and saw the muscle-bound, prior drill instructor tending to Ahmud al-Habshi.
Truck looked at Nick and asked, “Lights or no lights?”
“Let’s go no lights, at least down the hill,” Nick said. “Might be that some of those assholes are still alive.”
Truck eased the 4x4 off the wall.
“Nice park job,” he said, trying to bring some levity to the situation.
Nick didn’t know what to say and said nothing. His hands still shook and he gripped the AK to keep it from being obvious.
Truck drove toward the gate. Visibility should have been still roughly thirty yards, but their eyesight had been shot by the flares and bright muzzle flashes of their own weapons. Bottom line, they could barely see, so they wouldn’t be going anywhere in a hurry.
Truck kept his foot on the brake, and the truck crept forward at less than five miles per hour. No sounds could be heard, but Nick didn’t trust his ears, which still rang from all the firing. He finally remembered the NVGs hanging from his neck.
As the Toyota continued around the corner of the compound’s gate, Nick pulled the NVGs up and searched the terrain below them. Through the green shades, he could see approximately one hundred yards down the hill.
“Hold up a sec,” he said.
He scanned from left to right and back across the front, slowly checking pieces of cover and depressions. Nick saw nothing. Perhaps everyone that was available to attack had rushed the compound and been killed or seriously injured in the action.
“I think it’s safe to flip the lights on,” he said, pulling the NVGs back down.
“You won’t have to tell me twice,” Truck replied. “I’m ready to get the hell out of here.”
He flipped the lights on and guided the vehicle into a rough truck path that curved its way down the hill. As they descended down the steep hill, the truck bounced side-to-side, and he navigated the rough spots with care.
Nick checked his watch. It read 0448.
“We gonna make it back to the border before dawn?” Truck asked.
Just as he said it, the right tire slammed into a hole on the right side, slinging Nick to his right and into the door.
“It’ll be close,” he said, as he recovered. “Depends on what the road is like below in the valley.”
Chapter 36
But their escape via the road below was soon forgotten as the Toyota’s headlights revealed a worsening driveway directly ahead. They had not gotten more than a h
undred and fifty yards from the compound’s entrance when the trail suddenly went from rough yet passable to something more like a location sought out by professional 4x4 enthusiasts.
“Damn it,” Nick growled, glancing down at his watch again and looking up at the sky for signs of dawn around the corner.
“Nothing to do but try it,” Truck said.
The path had two deep channels for vehicle tires, but rain and lack of maintenance through the years had washed out the ruts to dangerously deep levels. The severe grooves were made more treacherous by the higher ridge between them that hadn’t been worn by heavy, spinning tires or rushing water racing down the hill.
Avoiding the driveway wasn’t an option as big boulders and basketball-sized rocks covered what little ground there was on both sides of the trail. They were, after all, on the finger -- or apex -- of the ridge heading down to the road below. Both sides of the finger were steep enough to threaten to overturn the truck.
“Bring it, bitches,” Red said from behind them, his voice ringing through the cab’s roof. “Ain’t nothing on this mission been easy yet, so why start now?”
Marcus and Red shared a laugh, while Nick stared at the terrain ahead and grabbed onto his seat a little tighter. Nick ventured a look over at Truck as the Toyota’s axle caught violently on the middle hump of dirt. The big man was in his zone focused determinedly ahead. Nick would have guessed that based on Truck's overall body language and his frequent, and seemingly casual, glance at the rearview mirror -- most likely a habit of having years behind the wheel since the only thing that could be seen out this particular back window was crotches -- that the man was practically relaxed. The only wrench in that illusion was the telltale flutter of a flexed jaw as he gritted his teeth.
Nick also would have guessed that considering Truck’s set expression that he had completely blocked out Red’s earlier remarks. But as the truck again snagged on the ground beneath them, slinging them to the right, a hopping-skitter sound of tripod legs tapped its way across the cab’s roof in an arc.
A look of irritation flickered over Truck’s face as the big man reached his arm out the driver side window, pounding his meaty hand on the cab’s roof, and barked at Red.
“Hey, Tiny! Take a chill pill, will ya? And get my gun down off that damned roof! This ain’t gonna get any prettier, and any scratches you put on her, I plan to take out on your ass!”
Red complied, pulling the RPK down with him, leaving Marcus standing over the cab, while he and the big gun settled down into a lower position in the truck bed.
“Most vehicles coming up the hill probably don’t have so much weight in them,” Truck said, once they had rammed through another piece of ground.
“We do have five men, four heavy packs, and quite a bit of computer equipment,” Nick said.
The truck’s weight and downward momentum served them well, tearing through most of the snags until suddenly the vehicle slammed into something in the middle that didn’t give. Everyone was slung forward, and the packs and gear careened ahead with impressive force.
“Ahh!” Marcus yelled as packs hit him in the back of the knees and dropped him ass over backwards. Nick had been looking out the window and banged his elbow and head into the dash.
After that incident, with both his buttocks and his pride a bit bruised, Marcus decided to join Red down lower in the truck bed. Similarly, Nick decided from that point on that having both hands pressed against the dash for support was not at all unmanly or overly cautious. Hell, he thought, I’ve got these ruggedly handsome good looks to protect, after all. Besides there ain’t nothing less manly than having to eat mashed potatoes the rest of your life, because this one time a damned dashboard kicked all your teeth down your throat.
Once everyone stabilized and stopped cursing, Truck shifted the Toyota into reverse.
“I had been worried about whether the truck would make it all the way to the border,” Nick said, “but with how rough this driveway is, I’m now worried on whether it’ll even make it down the hill.”
“No kidding,” Truck said, attempting to coax the vehicle backward.
The vehicle’s motor strained, but the ground was dry and its tires caught hold. Truck backed them up about ten feet and rolled forward again. This time, he angled the wheels left and caught just enough higher ground on the side of the ruts to clear the obstacle before the truck slid back down into the grooves.
“Probably a buried rock in there,” Nick said.
“Agreed,” Truck said, his hands straining on the wheel. “And I don’t know why I’m even bothering to try to drive. As deep as these ruts are, the truck is driving itself.”
They picked up speed again, returning to their pace of three miles per hour almost instantly, the truck yanking and jerking and banging inside the deep trail ruts. Nick wanted to punch his fist through the dash, he was so angry.
It was frustrating to think that the truck was going so slow that they could have matched its speed on foot. Not that he wanted to carry those damn heavy packs again.
They maintained this pace for thirty feet until their headlights revealed a massive boulder in the right rut. It was just a tad smaller than a bathtub and extended from the right bank through the right rut and into the middle groove. Moving the truck left to avoid it wasn’t a possibility as a boulder the size of a Volkswagen Beetle sat up on the left bank.
“Damn it,” Truck said as he stopped the truck.
“Fucking lazy-ass Taliban don’t know how to do a damn thing,” Red shouted. “All they do is sleep all day and wouldn’t know what to do with a shovel if it was handed to them.”
The boulder in the rut wasn’t some smooth stone like you might find in a river. It was jagged and hard edged. It looked as if it had destroyed many a good 4x4 tire.
Nick wished there were four more feet of width on the top of either bank alongside the boulders. That would provide just enough ground for them to flank it, but no such luck. Both sides had steep cliffs that were sheer drops of more than thirty feet. Erosion and time had not been kind to this finger coming off the ridge. Probably in another year or two, the road would be completely washed out, and they’d be hiking to the compound by foot or ATV.
“That rock has a great chance of blowing a tire,” Truck said, stating the abundantly obvious.
“We’ve got no choice,” Nick said. “Let’s go. We’ll deal with the consequences afterward.”
Truck guided the Toyota toward the obstacle and angled the wheels to the left. The tires gripped the surface and pulled the truck up higher from the ruts, but the Volkswagen to the left prevented further height away from the obstacle. As if on cue, the right bumper collided with the bath-tub that jutted into the rut.
Even with the lack of speed, the hit was hard, rocking the truck. The boulder hadn’t even budged, but without question the bumper had.
“There’s no way we can climb that if the bumper won’t even clear it,” Truck said.
“Don’t any of these lazy fuckers ever fill in any of the roads here?” Red cursed again from behind them.
Nick yanked his door open and stepped out. He slung his rifle across his body and looked at Red, “Jump down and help me pile some rocks in front of this. Marcus, you jog down the hill a piece and see if it gets any better.”
Truck backed the Toyota up, and Nick and Red piled smaller rocks in front of the bathtub boulder in the right rut. It wasn’t hard to do as rocks of all sizes lay about in abundance.
“Why doesn’t anyone open up a damn rock quarry over here?” Red asked.
“They’re too busy building mosques and bombs to see the opportunity,” Nick said as he dropped a particularly heavy rock in front of the obstacle.
“Wonder if us repairing this driveway would qualify as giving aid and comfort to the enemy?” Red asked.
“Probably,” Nick said, wiping some sweat from his forehead. “But we’ve got to get al-Habshi back, so we can find out where that bastard Rasool Deraz hides at. And once we
do that, we’ll show them some real ‘aid and comfort to the enemy.’”
“That might just make all the hell we’ve been through worth it,” Red replied. “But as of right now, I’m leaning toward a transfer back down to Mexico.”
Red groaned as he hefted a nearly eighty pound rock and stumbled toward their growing pile. He dropped it, and it bounced once and smashed to a halt.
“S3 still have a bureau open in Mexico?” Red asked, panting. “I might not mind seeing Isabella while I’m down there.”
“Easy,” Nick growled, as he added another rock on the pile. His voice had carried more anger than he had meant.
Guys were supposed to be able to joke about ex’s. Why couldn’t he? It’s just because she was the first after Anne, Nick told himself. He shook the thought of her from his mind and selected an even larger rock to pick up. Nothing like hard work to help you forget about a woman.
The two of them constructed a half-decent ramp of rocks leading up to the jagged boulder, and Nick surveyed the work, deeming it acceptable.
He stepped out of the deep rut and waved Truck forward.
The Toyota’s motor groaned as its front right wheel searched for traction among the pile of stones. The ramp shifted some but remained remarkably stable. And with the aid of their makeshift ramp, the 4x4 fought its way over the boulder and dropped off hard on the other side.
Marcus came jogging up and shook his head with disgust.
“It doesn’t get any better,” he reported to Nick. “If anything, it’s worse. Lots of big rocks just like that one blocking the ruts on both sides all the way down. And no way around them -- same as here.”
Nick wanted to break the AK over his knee. At the rate they were progressing, they might as well apply for citizenship in Pakistan.
“We’re not going to make it back before dawn,” he muttered, glancing down at his watch. “Which means we’re probably in for a lot more fighting.”
Nick scanned beyond Marcus’s shoulder down the rocky, shitty driveway. The road did look worse, and the hill dropped down even steeper. It even looked quite dangerous in places. And this is why you can’t count fully on drones and satellite imagery, Nick grumbled to himself in anger. He knew he was thinking like an old veteran who hated technology, but none of the men had expected the driveway to be this difficult.
Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Page 10