Drone Strike: A Joe Matthews Thriller

by David Austin

  Relatively safe, for the moment at least, Kevin leaned against the wall and slid down into a seated position. He glanced at his shoulder but couldn’t get a good look at the wound through his NVGs. Knowing the devastating affect a 7.62-millimeter bullet had on the human body, he was thankful he couldn’t see the extent of the damage.

  Wincing as he tucked his left hand between his body armor and his chest to stabilize the useless arm, he pressed his radio’s transit button with his good hand. “I’m hit.”

  Joe’s reply came back instantly. “How bad?”

  “Took a round in the shoulder,” Kevin said, the pain evident in his voice. Through gritted teeth, he added, “It must’ve just missed my plate.”

  Joe flicked his head and without a word, Chris, who doubled as the team’s combat medic, took off. “Hang in there, Kev,” Joe said. “Chris is on the way.”

  Seeing a Syrian soldier sneaking a peek over the hood of one of the trucks, Joe took advantage of the young man’s poor tactics and drilled two rounds through his forehead. As he searched for another target, Joe radioed instructions to his team. The first order of business was to put the remaining Dishka out of commission, then they would start picking off those fucking Russians. Without their leadership and direction, this fight would have been over a long time ago.

  John Roberts opened the breech on the left side of his H&K grenade launcher and dropped a high explosive round into the chamber. Keeping low to stay under the barrage, he crawled to a spot that would provide him with a good angle on the truck, but he needed something, or someone, to distract the gunner.

  John yelled into his mic to be heard over the clamor of the machine gun. “Mike! See if you can draw his fire.”

  Son of a bitch! Why do I get all the glamorous jobs? Mike McCredy thought as he broke cover and fired at the Dishka gunner. Sending controlled double-taps at the technical, he raced forward and approached a waist-high stone wall. Sliding to a stop, he took a knee to make himself a smaller target and continued firing.

  Mike’s incoming rounds startled the gunner and the man ducked behind the truck’s cab to avoid the salvo as it spiderwebbed the windshield and punched holes in the bodywork. Maintaining his crouch behind the cab, the soldier reached up and grabbed the machine gun’s twin handles. He swiveled the beast in the direction of his new attacker and thumbed the trigger.

  The Dishka’s assault disintegrated the wall Mike was using for cover with the destructive force of a massive jackhammer. The former linebacker dove to the ground, instinctively bringing his arms up to protect his head from the large chunks of stone knocked loose by the gun’s massive rounds. As the remnants of his protection rained down around him, Mike felt his right leg jerk violently. The sensation reminded him of a game in college when an offensive lineman blindsided him on a block that buckled his knee. The illegal hit tore two ligaments and brought his season to a premature end. A fraction of a second later the thought evaporated from his mind as a pain he never thought possible radiated up his leg and registered in his brain. Mike heard someone screaming in agony. He just didn’t realize it was the sound of his own voice.

  Even with the noise of a firefight raging all around him, John heard the cries and knew instantly that they were coming from his best friend. He cradled the grenade launcher and low-crawled under the withering fire to Mike’s position. Setting his weapon aside, John was about to perform a quick assessment to determine the extent of Mike’s injuries, but his attention was immediately drawn to his friend’s right leg, or what was left of it. Jagged fragments of bone entangled with tendrils of muscle and ligaments dangled out of the destroyed joint where one of the Dishka’s rounds had struck Mike just below the knee.

  Reaching for the combat application tourniquet attached to Mike’s plate carrier, John reassured his friend. “It’s alright brother. I’m here.”

  He then looped the tourniquet around Mike’s injured leg and maneuvered it up to the top of his thigh. Mike screamed again as John cinched the strap tight, then began turning the windlass rod to add additional pressure in hopes of stemming the flow of blood streaming from the gruesome wound. When he couldn’t crank the rod another spin, John secured it in the clip and pulled over the Velcro tab to keep it in place. With the bleeding staunched, at least for the time being, John reached for the grenade launcher and returned his attention to the Dishka gunner.

  The deafening roar ceased as the heavy machine gun ran dry. In his haste to eliminate the attackers, the gunner had blown through the rounds in the ammo can and was scrambling to load a fresh belt.

  Fueled by equal parts guilt for putting his friend in a position to be wounded and a fury at the man who inflicted the damage, John took advantage of the pause in the action and rose to a knee. He centered the grenade launcher’s sights on the truck, disengaged the safety, and pressed the trigger. The audible thump and the weapon’s recoil in his shoulder felt righteous as the 40-millimeter high-explosive round left the tube. The grenade’s explosion blew the gunner off the back of the truck, killing him before he was able to complete the reloading process.

  CHAPTER 5

  With both heavy machine guns out of commission, it seemed to Joe like things were starting to look up – until he heard the radio traffic.

  “Kev’s wound is packed and sealed. The round broke his shoulder blade and may have nicked his collarbone. He’s in a lot of pain but is mobile and can still fight.”

  When Chris was finished, John followed up with an update of his own. “Mike was hit in the leg and has lost a lot of blood. The tourniquet has stopped the bleeding but he’s critical and needs immediate evac.”

  Hearing that two of his men were seriously wounded hit Joe like a sucker punch to the gut. Their safety and well-being were his responsibility. And right now, he was failing them miserably. Mike and Kevin weren’t just a couple of guys. They were his teammates. His friends.

  A searing pain snapped Joe’s attention back to the task at hand. While he was mentally scolding himself for his men’s injuries, an AK round took a chunk out of the wall he was using for cover. A piece of the bullet’s jacket had broken off and opened a gash above Joe’s right eye. Blood streamed along the edge of his eyebrow and ran down the side of his face. He didn’t think the wound was serious, knowing cuts to the forehead tended to be shallow but bled a lot. It was a reminder, however, that there were still bad guys out there trying to kill them and one had almost succeeded.

  He wiped his brow with his sleeve, then applied pressure on the gash with the palm of his hand. With his free hand, Joe activated his radio and ordered the team to consolidate on his position.

  Chris and Kevin were the first to arrive. Kevin propped his rifle on a low wall and began sending rounds downrange toward their attackers. Chris pulled up on Joe’s right and was about to begin firing as well when he noticed the blood coursing out of the wound above his team leader’s eye. “You okay? Want me to take a look at it?”

  In between trigger presses, Joe said, “It’s just a scratch. Probably looks worse than it is.”

  John paused behind one of the ruins and shouted, “Blue! Blue! Blue!” to let the team know he was coming up behind them. Joe turned just in time to see his man round the corner with Mike in a fireman’s carry across his shoulders, his gait somewhere between a fast walk and a slow jog. John’s face glistened with sweat even though it was a cool night as he struggled under his muscular friend’s weight. Joe helped him ease Mike to the ground, then the exhausted operator collapsed next to his team.

  Kevin stole a glance at his wounded teammate while performing a one-handed reload of his rifle and recoiled at the grisly sight. “Dude! His leg…it’s…gone.”

  “Yeah,” was about all the response John could muster between gasps of air.

  Joe looked at each member of his team. Mike and Kevin were the most severely injured but none of them had made it to this point unscathed. The rest of the guys, Joe included, were bleeding from at least one open wound somewhere on their bo
dies. They would be running low on ammo soon, and it was highly likely the Syrians, or the Russians, had called for reinforcements. If additional troops, or even worse, air support showed up, it would only be a matter of time until Joe and his small team of operators would be decimated. They had to get off this hill.

  Joe raised the drone pilot. “Warrior One Seven, is your bird armed?”

  The MQ-9 Reaper’s seven external mounts allowed it to carry an assortment of Hellfire missiles, laser-guided bombs, and JDAMS. Joint Direct Attack Munitions were GPS-enabled guidance kits that could be attached to conventional bombs and used to direct them to designated targets.

  “That’s affirmative, Spartan. She’s carrying four Hellfires and two GBU-12s.” The Reaper’s seventh mount was carrying an external fuel tank to extend its time over target.

  Thank God. Joe thought. “Do you have authorization to engage if we’re in hostile contact?”

  “I do, but not at your current location. Orders from Langley say damaging or destroying a historical site is a no-go. My boss is on the horn with HQ as we speak trying to get the restriction lifted.”

  You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! We’re getting shot to pieces and Langley is worried about damaging a crumbling pile of rocks? Joe’s temper was raging on the inside, but he managed to remain professional on the radio. “Copy that. Do me a favor and ask him to be persuasive.”

  When Joe ended the transmission with the drone pilot, Chris channeled his inner Laurel and Hardy. “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

  Ignoring his friend’s attempt at comedy, Joe eyed their trucks and said, “With the convoy blocking the road, we obviously can’t get out of here the way we came in. And if our request for the Reaper is denied, that leaves us with only one option.”

  “Well?” Chris said. “Spit it out. The suspense is killing me.”

  “Think we can make it down the side of the hill in one of the trucks?”

  Chris took a few seconds to consider the question before responding. “The slope looked pretty steep on the overhead shots we studied back in Amman. And it’s so dark, I couldn’t get a good sense of the angle when we drove in. But if I had to bet a significant amount of your money on the prospect, I’d wager we should be able to make it. The key will be to keep the truck from getting sideways. If that happens, we’ll probably flip and roll all the way to the bottom.”

  Joe felt better about the idea after discussing it, so he gathered the team and laid out his plan. He and Jacobs would make a break for one of the Toyotas while Chris and John kept the soldiers busy. When he pulled the truck around, the two operators would help Kevin and Mike into the truck. Once everyone was loaded, they would go over the side and head down the hill. If they were pursued, Joe would find a lonely stretch of road where the drone pilot could fire his missiles without causing any collateral damage.

  With everyone clear on the plan, Joe said, “Greg, on me!” and the two men sprinted in a crouch toward the nearest truck while the rest of the team provided covering fire. Jacobs climbed into the back seat and began rearranging gear to make room for the guys.

  The key was pre-positioned in the ignition, so Joe turned it with his right hand as his left hit the transmit button on his radio. “Any update on the request for the fire mission?”

  Before the pilot could respond, Joe heard someone call out, “RPG!” His head snapped to the left, just in time see the projectile scream by within a foot of the truck’s hood. He was about to thank his lucky stars for the near-miss when it penetrated the driver’s side door of Tariq’s Mercedes beater and exploded. Joe hoped the Syrian had chosen someplace other than his car to hunker down just as the fuel in its tank ignited. The twin shockwaves of the back-to-back explosions slammed the side of the Toyota like a freight train, lifting it off the ground and flipping it onto its roof. Joe’s head bounced off the door frame and his world went dark.

  CHAPTER 6

  One of the first things Joe noticed when his eyes finally opened was the faint light of the sun’s rays cresting the eastern horizon. Even in his dazed and disoriented state, semiconscious and hanging upside down, he knew that was a bad sign. Ideally, the mission was to be carried out under the cover of darkness and the team would have been in and out before the sun came up, the citizens of Salkhad blissfully unaware that they had been visited in the night by a team of the CIA’s best. But things obviously had not gone as planned.

  Joe took a couple of deep breaths and forced himself to relax. The cobwebs began to clear, and as they did, the events of the last few hours came rushing back. The drive across the desert, the clandestine meeting near the summit of the Citadel, the firefight with the Syrian and Russian troops, his men being severely wounded, and the RPG blast that flipped his Toyota on its roof. He remembered it all.

  “How long have I been out?” Joe asked.

  “Not sure,” Jacobs replied. “I only came around a minute ago myself.”

  Using his left arm, Joe pressed on the ceiling of the truck’s cab to support his weight while he retrieved a folding knife from his pants pocket with his right hand. He flicked the spring-loaded blade open with his thumb, slipped it under the seatbelt, and began cutting himself free. “Are you injured?”

  “My head hurts like hell where I banged it when the truck rolled. But other than that, I think I’m fine.”

  Joe held himself in place as the knife sliced through the last of the seatbelt’s fabric. He collapsed the blade and returned it to his pocket, then he eased out of the seat, rotating his body until he was in a kneeling position on the ceiling of the overturned vehicle. Pausing a moment to regain his equilibrium as the blood drained from his head, he used the time to put together a quick mental checklist of the tasks he needed to accomplish in the next few seconds.

  While he was checking items off his to-do list, multiple rounds impacted the side of the truck. Their metallic thuds sounded like someone was beating on the bodywork with a hammer. The enemy must have seen Joe’s movement inside the truck and adjusted their fire to engage the new target. It was time to get the hell out.

  Joe called out over the radio, “Give me a status update.”

  The first voice to come through his earpiece belonged to Chris. “Welcome back to the land of the living. You had me worried there for a minute.” Then, with his sense of humor still intact, he continued, “If you and Greg are done with nap time, we’ve got a helluva gunfight going on out here. You’re welcome to join us anytime.”

  “Yeah…sorry about that,” Joe replied, annoyed that his plan to evacuate his men had been derailed by the RPG blast.

  “It’s about time to get off this fucking hill, boss. We’re running real low on ammo.”

  “Greg and I are going to link up with you in a minute, then we’ll move on to Plan B.”

  “Plan B? I’d say we’ve got to be down to about Plan E, F, or G, by now. But just for argument’s sake, what exactly is Plan B?”

  “I’m working on it,” Joe replied before addressing Jacobs. “Look around and grab anything sensitive or that you might need to survive the next few minutes. Give me an up when you’re ready and we’ll move on my command.”

  Reaching up into the truck’s inverted floor well, Joe grabbed his H&K rifle from where it was wedged between the seat and center console. He dropped the magazine to make sure it was full and to confirm there was a round chambered. Satisfied with the condition of his rifle, he slipped the sling over his head, then drew his Glock from the holster on his right hip and press-checked the handgun. Seeing the glint of brass through the ejection port, he holstered the pistol, then slid his arms through the shoulder straps of his ruck.

  “About ready, Greg?”

  Jacobs performed one last sweep of the cab to make sure they weren’t leaving anything behind that could be exploited, then answered, “All set.”

  They crawled out the driver’s side window and knelt by the front of the truck. Eying the open ground between their position and the Alam
o-like structure the guys were defending, Joe chose the route he was going to take to rejoin his team. “Alright, Greg. Stay on my heels.”

  Jacobs took a couple of deep breaths, psyching himself up for the dash to safety, and said,

  “Ready when you are.”

  Joe keyed his radio, “Moving!”

  Chris replied, “Move!” and the increased volume of covering fire let Joe know it was time to go.

  Rising to a position like a runner in the starting blocks, Joe said, “Now!”

  The soldiers saw the movement and shifted their fire in the direction of the two Americans breaking from cover at a full sprint. As they ran, bullets snapped and whizzed by their heads while others kicked up rocks and chunks of packed dirt around their feet.

  They had just passed the imaginary point of no return, that half-way point where it was faster to continue forward than turn back, when Jacobs let out a cry and Joe heard the sound of his body crashing to the ground. With lead flying in both directions, Joe slid to a stop, and ran back to the fallen case officer.

  Jacobs screamed in agony as he cradled his injured leg, waiting for shock or a dump of adrenaline to set in and dull the pain. A horrified look, as if he was wearing a Halloween mask, spread across his face when he saw, then comprehended the extent of the damage. He had taken an AK round just above the ankle and the powerful bullet had splintered both bones in his lower leg. Held on only by a few strands of muscle and tendon, his foot dangled grotesquely in its boot.

  Joe slowed his momentum then reached down and grabbed the drag handle on Jacobs’ vest. He turned, and with the wounded case officer in tow, began running for the cover of the ruins. Rounds cracked past the men and kicked up debris as Joe summoned every ounce of strength and speed he could muster to get them out of the line of fire.