“So the momentum has turned, and everyone is now looking out for their own skin?”
“Basically. And some reports are coming in that there might even be some collaboration between the Taliban and the Afghan army.”
“Meaning working together? That kind of collaboration?” Nick asked.
“Yes.”
Now it was Nick’s turn to pause. He thought of his logistics and security folks at the warehouse, as well as his other support personnel at Bagram Airfield. If shit went completely downhill, they might have to rescue his folks from the warehouse and fight their way back to Bagram, which might prove the only safe sanctuary in Afghanistan.
“Nick?” Mr. Smith said.
“I’m here,” Nick muttered.
“Nick, we’re in unchartered waters here. This could be the fall of Saigon happening all over again. Although some of the Afghan units will remain loyal, others will disband, take their weapons, and return to their families and tribes. You need to be prepared for that happening.”
Nick tried to conceptualize S3 pulling off such a retreat with limited transportation, in addition to transporting serious casualties in danger of bleeding out. He recalled footage of the absolute chaos in Vietnam, as the capital fell. Thousands of people reaching through and pushing on the embassy gates, begging to be flown out. American personnel trying to hold them back, while also worried they might be left behind.
Nick could visualize the scene going down in his mind, only now the backdrop was Bagram. Anger welled up inside of him, and he ripped the image from his head. Not on his watch, damn it.
“That’s not going to happen,” he said with finality. He clicked the phone off and stepped out of the MRAP with his M4.
Chapter 92
Nick dropped out of the MRAP and jogged from position to position along the perimeter, checking on his men and informing them they needed to hold here for a while.
He knew he could have done this by radio, but there was nothing like having a leader come by to individually check on you. And sometimes as a leader, you’d pick up on some piece of intel that a shooter would share with you face-to-face, which might not have been shared by radio. Usually, the shooter would have no idea how much of an impact it would create when combined with something from the other side of the perimeter.
After Nick had “walked the line,” which in this case meant ducking and sprinting along it, he arrived back at his middle MRAP and realized he needed to study the situation further. He was confident the intermittent fire that continued to build was only a feeling-out process by the Taliban.
They had something up their sleeve, but until they revealed it, there wasn’t a lot Nick or S3 could do about it.
Nick decided to take the spare moment he had to do what he loved doing best. Shooting. Now granted, this was some short-range shooting, especially for a sniper, but he hadn’t fired his M4 today. Plus, he didn’t want any of these bastards sending any of his team to the morgue, so a little thinning of the herd was most certainly called for.
Nick propped open the heavily armored door of his MRAP and stepped up between it. It was too high to stand between from the ground, but standing on a large step provided a halfway-decent position.
He leaned his weapon through the opening created by the windshield and the door, searching for a target. This wasn’t very comfortable, but he’d endured worse positions to fire from. Rounds zipped and popped into their perimeter and he searched the building to his right for a target.
A bullet smacked the truck and he flinched, far more than he meant to. Half of his right leg was exposed below the armored door. But at least it was only a leg. Besides, on the bright side, if he took a round in the knee or lower leg he’d never have to worry about another forty-mile field trip anywhere by foot.
It’s all about perspective, he thought.
A muzzle flash caught his eye. It came from a darkened room in the four-story building to his right. Nick swung his M4 toward it, placing his Aimpoint sight where he’d seen it. Even with the magnification of the sight, he couldn’t see the shooter. But he knew the man was there, back in the shadows, so he fired three rounds at where he thought he was.
Nick had no idea if he hit his target. And that’s how real combat went. Confirmed kills were nearly impossible to verify and almost never happened. Usually it was a lot of people shooting from your side at a lot of people who were firing at you from their side, and eventually, their side scurried off, taking whoever might have been wounded or killed with them.
Most of the time the enemy ran right about the time your close air support arrived on station, but that wouldn’t be happening today, thanks to the Afghan president’s orders. Nick decided he’d knock the shit out of that dumbass if he ever got to meet him.
More muzzle flashes caught his eye to his left, coming from a shot-out window. He rotated toward it and fired four times on both sides of the window about knee high. Hopefully, the bastard was ducking behind the wall and caught them in the chest. Assuming the bullets penetrated the wall, which he’d never know.
He fired five rounds under the window about two feet above where he guessed the floor was, in case the guy had ducked below the window sill.
“Here they come,” he heard one of his members yell on the radio. “Contact right!”
Chapter 93
Nick knew he needed a full mag for whatever threat approached, so he reloaded his weapon with a fresh magazine and crammed his nearly empty one in his dump pouch. Weapon ready to go, he looked right and saw three Toyota trucks flying toward them.
“VBIEDs, nine o’clock!” he screamed into the radio. “Everyone engage! Open up with those fifties!”
The entire S3 perimeter that could see the trucks erupted, and this was no longer controlled sustained fire. This was what the Marine Corps called FPF, or Final Protective Fire. All weapons at near-cyclic rate. Automatic. Burst. Whatever the fastest rate of fire your weapon could achieve, you let it run.
The first truck exploded in a massive detonation, expelling flames, dust, and smoke into the air in an impressive fireball. A shockwave rocked S3’s perimeter, even from a hundred yards away.
But they had stopped the truck thanks to the fact that the sight distance down the roads on both flanks in front of the presidential palace far exceeded their short sight line to the apartments to their front.
This distance down the roads gave them more space to engage VBIEDs and hopefully survive their deadly explosions. But the second truck darted through the smoke and dust, accelerating toward them with immense speed.
Again the .50s and most of the M4s on the line tore into the truck. It exploded, as well, shaking the ground and rattling every man on S3’s line. But at probably seventy yards away, Nick felt confident his team had again escaped serious harm.
It was the third one that Nick worried about the most. They would have very little time to see it and engage it since the second truck’s blast and smoke had been still closer than the first.
“Fire into the smoke on the road!” Nick yelled, since everyone was waiting for a target to emerge. They had forgotten that their bullets could still reach what they couldn’t see.
The perimeter resumed firing, focusing on the road and sweeping across the dust-filled cloud of gray and black.
An explosion roared behind the cloud, and Nick felt relief sweep through his body. And as he reloaded again, he realized the fire on S3 from the buildings to their front and sides had picked up tremendously while their attention had been diverted.
Nick pivoted his rifle to their front and engaged a muzzle flash with three rounds. Nearby, a machine gun of some type -- RPD or RPK? -- roared unabated from a window three rooms down. He, and at least two other people, poured bullets into it, cutting down whoever that had been.
But the bullets flying at them increased heavily. At least seventy Taliban fighters were pouring fire at them.
“Man down!” someone screamed into their radio.
Nick knew it w
ouldn’t be their first.
Nick pressed his radio transmit button. “Get him to our middle MRAP. Medics are our location, over.”
Nick resumed his attention to the front. Before he could line up a target, an RPG zipped into the line. Nick ducked the blast, as did everyone else. It slammed to the right of him. He heard screams coming from someone. Maybe two someones.
“Squad leaders,” Nick said into the mic, “check your men. Give me a status report.”
Nick fired at an idiot who silhouetted himself on an apartment building across from him, and the man jerked back in pain and fell. Rounds pinged off the MRAP’s door and window, and Nick ducked down beneath its armor.
He saw a target in a doorway that had opened and raised up to engage it. But before he could acquire the man in the scope, a torrent of rounds pounded the MRAP’s door. The bullets were so thick that he slinked back into the cab and shut the door.
His thirty-five men were being overpowered by the Taliban, and it didn’t require much imagination to see every one of them dying on this small perimeter.
Nick depressed the mic button, “All squads, use your fifties to engage targets. Gunners, limit to two- or three-round bursts to conserve your ammunition, over.”
The .50s opened up, firing against the Taliban and dominating the firefight. They were so much louder and more powerful than all the other weapons engaged in the clash. Plus, the .50s added five more outgoing weapons to S3’s side, and it was a game of numbers right now.
As more bullets slammed into the MRAP’s bullet-proof windshield, Nick also remembered that the .50s were behind armor, as well, so it would be harder to suppress their gunners. Perhaps they could help turn the tide of the battle.
Nick checked his gear and counted his remaining magazines still loaded. He had gone through almost half of them, and he wasn’t firing nearly as much as the rest of his squads.
He grabbed his encrypted phone and dialed Mr. Smith.
“Any change?”
“Nick, there’s been no change. It hasn’t even been that long since we last talked.”
Nick recalled the three VBIEDs and bullets hitting his MRAP, mere inches from his head.
“It’s been a lifetime since we last talked. We’re taking casualties, running through our ammunition, and you need to know there’s a chance we won’t be able to hold.”
Nick cut the phone off before Mr. Smith could answer him, and he radioed his logistics man back at Bagram Airfield. He quickly informed him that they were running low on ammunition and that they needed to load up several dozen boxes of ammo into some trucks.
“Grab some of the security guys and start off for the warehouse.”
“Roger that,” the man said.
Nick radioed the warehouse and got his primary security man on the line. He briefed him on the situation, informed him they were heavily outnumbered, and he’d need to prepare to bring most of his security guys to link up with them.
“Leave only three or four men there to guard our gear at the warehouse. We literally need every person we can spare.”
Nick opened the MRAP’s door again and stepped back to his firing position. The fire was as intense as it had been before. Nick saw movement in a window and saw the front of an RPG catch the glint of the afternoon sunlight. Nick engaged him, and Rocket Man fell back into the room.
The only advantage S3 had were scoped weapons and far-more accurate shooters since American troops spent literally weeks and weeks honing their accuracy and shooting skills.
Nick depressed his mic button and transmitted to his S3 troops in the perimeter. “Just as a heads up, guys, I’ve got more ammunition headed to the warehouse for us to resupply with later. But we need to be careful with what we have on us right now. Sustained fire only, unless we see another VBIED.”
Nick cleared his throat and continued. “I’ve also alerted our security element at the warehouse to form up and move out to link up with us. So, we’ll have twelve or fifteen more men with us soon, and they’ll be bringing more ammunition, as well.”
Nick heard someone say, “Fuck yeah.”
And another say, “Thank God.” He couldn’t make out their voices, and neither were authorized transmissions. But both summed up the situation nicely.
“We got tanks moving in on the left,” someone said.
Nick glanced down the road to his nine o’clock and saw three hulking tanks rumbling toward them. They were M60A1s, American tanks used by the Marines all the way up until the ’90s when the newer M1 Abrams took over. Nick remembered hearing that the U.S. had transferred five or so of them to the Afghan government.
“About time we caught a break,” he said into the radio. Marcus was on the left side of the perimeter, having remained with the rear squad and MRAP that he had traveled in on.
“Marcus, step out, wave them down, and point out where the enemy fire is coming from. All other members prepare to pick up your rate of fire when I give you the signal to cover for Marcus. And I’ll want those .50s rocking when he does.”
Chapter 94
The tanks lumbered toward the S3 position. When they were fifty yards away, Marcus said over the radio, “I’m ready. Cover me, everyone.”
Nick brought his weapon up and fired twenty rounds of single fire at the apartment building to his right. Others did the same, and the increased fire from S3 overwhelmed the Taliban who slinked down or back from their positions. The .50s alone were like five massive fire hoses spraying the buildings.
With the enemy suppressed, Nick pulled his eyes from the scope and watched Marcus as he jogged out in the middle of the street. He was jumping up and down, waving his arms with the M4 dangling across his chest in its sling.
M60A1 tanks were notorious for having small vision slits that were difficult to see out. And since no crew members rode outside the tank, he had to get their attention through the vision slits to be seen.
The turret turned toward him, and Nick felt grateful they had seen him so he wouldn’t have to stand out in the open street any longer. He was also glad they had worn their Afghan police uniforms, so there’d be no confusion that resulted in any friendly fire incidents.
Marcus was waving the tanks forward with his left hand and pointing to the buildings the enemy hid in across from them with his right. Now the tanks would know precisely where the Taliban positions were, and a few shots from the tanks 105 mm main guns would go miles toward convincing the Taliban to fall back.
It didn’t matter how many troops you had. When tanks started targeting your position, it was impossible not to want to run for cover and retire from the battlefield for the day. No different than when air cover arrived.
Nick spun back around and fired more shots at the building to his left. He didn’t see any targets -- S3 had dominated the firefight the past fifteen to twenty seconds -- so he fired a couple rounds into a window, spun further right, fired two more rounds into another window, and rotated to still another.
He heard someone scream, “No!” and turned back to his left.
The front tank had continued rolling forward, but its turret was aimed directly at Marcus. What the fuck? Nick thought.
And then the colossal, main gun bellowed. Marcus vanished in an explosion of blazing fire and smoke.
Nick screamed in terror! “NOOOOO!!!!!!”
It had to have been a mistake. Surely they just hadn’t noticed his helmet and uniform. Nick composed himself as best he could and said into his radio, “3rd Squad! Pull your MRAP into the road so they can see we’re friendlies!”
Nick jumped from his firing position on the MRAP and ran behind it. He realized he’d need help carrying Marcus, so he ran back up the driver’s side and dove next to Preacher. The Army Special Forces member was in the prone and completely focused on whatever he was shooting at.
Nick slapped Preacher’s helmet twice.
“Preacher, come with me! We have to get Marcus!”
Preacher stopped firing and jumped to his feet, but it wa
s clear from his face that he hadn’t heard what Nick had said about Marcus. Rather, he had only seen Nick’s gesture of “follow me.”
The two sprinted back to the rear of the MRAP and ran down the line toward the left side of the perimeter. They stayed behind all the shooters so no one had to stop firing (or accidentally shot them).
The MRAP on the left flank had followed Nick’s orders and charged forward to reveal itself and warn off the tanks. Nick and Preacher cleared the end of perimeter and were about to run into the street when the second tank’s main gun spewed another round.
The MRAP in the street exploded, erupting and nearly bursting in half. Nick and Preacher screamed in horror and raced back to the perimeter.
“SHIT!!!!” Nick shrieked.
“Those aren’t friendlies!” Preacher yelled.
Nick couldn't believe it, but two shots ruled out the possibility of it being an accident. These were either Taliban-driven tanks or Afghan soldiers who had defected to the enemy.
S3 had only one advantage. With luck, the gunners would be unfamiliar with the beasts and would take a while to reload the main guns. Even the Afghan soldiers hadn’t received much training on the tanks, and being competent tankers who reloaded fast was something that took weeks and weeks of drilling. And drilling wasn’t something Afghan soldiers excelled at.
“2nd Squad,” Nick screamed into his radio. “Grab two fire extinguishers and get to the left flank immediately!”
They came running up several moments later. Nick pointed to three of them. “You three, provide a base of fire and cover us. Aim for the vision ports. The rest of you, come with me.”
The three designated cover men scurried forward and selected firing positions. As they opened up on the tanks, Nick hoped they could at least crack and damage the bullet-proof glass vision ports, temporarily blinding the tankers.
Nick, Preacher, and the other three members of 2nd Squad sprinted into the street. The MRAP burned and smoked. They ran into the cloud, coughing and straining to see through it. The two men with the fire extinguishers doused the flames with foam chemicals, and the flames retreated quickly.
Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Page 27