Drone Strike: A Joe Matthews Thriller

by David Austin

  Once again, Mike screamed, “RPG!” vying to be heard over the wind noise and the constant cracks of enemy gunfire and his own MK 48.

  Chris increased his speed and swerved to the left, using every inch of the road to make them a harder target. Getting precariously close to the shoulder, the tires ground into the gravel, searching for traction to keep the truck from sliding sideways into a drainage ditch. He was bringing it back to the right when the warhead skipped off the pavement and detonated under the rear end of the Toyota. Everyone felt the truck shudder as the explosion sheared off the right-rear wheel and sent its remains bouncing off into the darkness. The shockwave blew out all the windows, sending tiny bits of glass flying through the cab. Illuminated by the troop transport’s headlights, they sparkled like fireflies.

  The force of the blast and the loss of a wheel caused the Toyota’s back end to lose traction. Chris worked the wheel for all he was worth, doing his best to regain control of the vehicle, but they were going too fast and his efforts only seemed to make the problem worse. The truck veered from ditch to ditch, whipping the men inside back and forth against one another.

  The Toyota careened back into the right lane and left the road, giving the men inside a weightless sensation as the pickup soared through the air, a feeling that ended abruptly when it fell back to earth with a jarring crunch of metal. Try as he might, Mike lost his battle to remain in the bed as the truck bounced through a small plot of farmland and was sent flying through the air like a cowboy thrown from the back of an angry bull.

  The Hi-Lux managed to travel about fifty meters on sheer momentum, digging a jagged groove in the plowed soil before it finally came to a halt. Except for the hiss of steam escaping from under the hood and the painful groaning of the engine, silence filled the cab. The lack of noise was almost deafening after the constant gunfire, revving engines, and the explosions from the RPGs.

  Each man took a moment to check himself for injuries. Finding nothing major, they exited the destroyed truck. Joe scanned the surroundings through his NVGs and settled on a rocky outcropping seventy-five meters away as their destination. It was the only cover in sight and a place where his small team of operators could make a stand. He just hoped it wasn’t a last stand like the men at the Alamo.

  Realizing his best friend was no longer in the truck’s bed, John keyed his radio. “Mike…where are you?”

  There was no answer at first. But after repeated tries, Mike’s voice finally sputtered, “Looking for my goddamned leg. It came off when I hit the ground and tumbled through the field like a fucking crash-test dummy.” The comment made everyone on the team laugh, despite the dire nature of their situation.

  John rushed over and helped Mike up. Throwing an arm over his friend’s shoulder, Mike fumed, “That’s two legs I’ve lost in this jacked-up country.”

  Joe wasn’t sure if the force of soldiers and mercenaries had lost sight of them when the truck left the road or if they were dismounting to conduct a frontal assault on the field. Regardless, he took advantage of the lull in the action and directed the team to the rocks. With their backs to the hillside, each man took up a position, using the boulders for cover.

  Joe moved from man to man, checking in with each member of the team. Other than Mike’s missing prosthetic and the ammo he had expended on the convoy, they were in surprisingly decent shape, given the circumstances. Returning to the spot he’d chosen to command their defense of this tiny spit of rocky ground, he checked his own ammo and equipment, then settled in for the chaos of combat that was sure to begin at any moment.

  CHAPTER 59

  The combined force of Syrian Arab Army regulars and Russian Wagner Group mercenaries advanced across the field. The chase had been long and hard, costing them friends and colleagues along the way. It was time to exact a measure of revenge and put this hunt to an end.

  Seeing the ghostly images displayed in his night vision, Kevin’s face twisted with concern. “I don’t think we have enough bullets.”

  Joe had to admit that seeing this many men coming to kill his team was a bit unnerving. He felt the need to say something profound like, “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes,” but nothing came to mind. Instead, he ordered, “Pick your targets and be disciplined with your fire. Help is on the way. We just have to hold out until it arrives.”

  He hadn’t heard back from Copenhaver and wanted desperately to check in and get a status update. But he held off, knowing it would be a distraction that would only serve to take the air liaison officer away from organizing the support that would save their lives. Joe instinctively ducked behind the boulder he was using for cover as an AK round snapped past his head. All thoughts of calling headquarters were pushed aside, at least for the time being.

  That one shot had the effect of a starter’s gun at a track meet. Syrian soldiers charged the American position, some firing from the hip as they ran. As Joe instructed, the small team of operators controlled their fire, and he could hear the ones and twos of their aimed shots, supplemented by short bursts from Mike’s machine gun, as he watched men fall on the field below.

  Rounds from the advancing force pelted the rocks, spraying the men with fragments of lead and stone. Moments later, an RPG steaked overhead and slammed into a rocky overhang that directed the shrapnel down into the Americans’ position. None of the men was seriously injured by the explosion, but none was spared, either. John bled from a nasty cut across his cheek, and Chris’s left pant leg was dotted with blood spots where dozens of tiny metal slivers had entered his thigh. Mike, Kevin, and even Joe were all bleeding from one body part or another.

  A flash of movement to Joe’s right caught his eye as he was checking on his men’s injuries. With their attention focused on the Syrian soldiers’ frontal assault, three of the Wagner men had worked their way around the rocks and were sneaking up on the team’s flank. One of the men fired a burst, raking the rocks mere inches from Joe’s head. Dropping to a knee, Joe raised his rifle and put two rounds into the man’s chest. The impact to his body armor knocked him off balance but didn’t put him down. Joe remedied the situation by double-tapping two more through the bridge of the Russian’s nose.

  Sweeping to his left, Joe settled the optic’s red dot on the second Wagner man’s head and pressed the trigger. Two down. Where’d the third guy go? He tried to listen for sounds of movement, but the almost-constant automatic weapons fire and the ear-splitting blasts of RPG and grenade explosions made it next to impossible. Crouching to stay out of the main force’s line of fire, Joe moved toward the spot where he had last seen the three men together. As he approached a large rectangular rock that looked as if it has been precision cut for a landscaping project, a three-round burst from the mercenary’s AK-74 stitched across his chest. Joe’s trauma plate caught the first two 5.45-millimter rounds, but the third passed through the meaty muscle just above his collarbone. The impact buckled Joe’s knees and he stumbled like a drunk on the uneven ground before falling flat on his back.

  Pleased with himself, the Russian left his position of cover and walked toward Joe with a triumphant grin spreading across his face. Surely, he would receive a special bonus for killing the American.

  Joe’s left shoulder was on fire. Feeling as if he’d been stuck with a hot poker, the pain radiated up the side of his neck and ran all the way down his arm to his fingertips. He took the fact that he could feel the pain as a good sign, even though he couldn’t make his left arm or hand work. His brain was sending the signals, telling it what to do, but the arm would not respond.

  Looking up, Joe saw the Russian approaching, and even through his night vision goggles could see the shit-eating grin on the guy’s face. It reminded him of a trophy hunter walking up on his prey. Joe groped around with his good hand, determined to turn the tables on this scenario. Keep coming, buddy, Joe silently encouraged the Wagner man as his fingers brushed against the H&K. I’ve got a little something in store for you.

  When the man c
losed to within five meters, clearly relishing the impending kill, the fingers of Joe’s right hand wrapped tightly around his rifle’s pistol grip, and he thumbed the selector switch from Semi to Auto. In one fluid motion, he raised the weapon and pressed the trigger, the recoil taking the muzzle up and to the right across the man’s torso.

  The Russian’s eyes were as big as saucers at the sight of a steady stream of rounds erupting from the business end of Joe’s rifle. He let out a guttural scream as the first bullets entered his groin. With his shattered pelvis unable to support his weight, the man began to drop as rounds continued to walk their way up the man’s chest, peppering the spare magazines and other equipment attached to his plate carrier. Most were absorbed by his body armor, but as the muzzle continued its rise, two rounds tore through the left side of the mercenary’s neck. The Wagner man collapsed on his side, gasping like a goldfish out of water while feebly attempting to halt the flow of bright arterial blood surging from the wound with every beat of his heart. Moments later, he stopped moving altogether. His fight over.

  Joe wasted no time. Raising himself to a sitting position, he pressed the mag release to dump the empty magazine and grabbed a spare from his chest rig. Performing the reload one-handed took a couple of extra seconds, but it was a maneuver he had practiced countless times on the range. He was starting to regain feeling in the fingers of his damaged left arm and it reminded him of the pins and needles sensation when his arm had gone to sleep. Unsure if he would be able to use it any time soon and not wanting it to flop around, he slid his left hand into the front pocket of his cargo pants.

  Satisfied with his makeshift sling, he grimaced as he got to his knees, then stood and moved in a crouch along the team’s defensive line to check on his men. Rounds snapped overhead and cracked against the rocks, showering him with bits of stone and lead. Hundreds of spent shell casings littered the ground and crunched underfoot with each step. Realizing the team must be running low on ammo, Joe distributed his spare magazines as he went from man to man. Looking at his friends, it wasn’t lost on him that every one of them was bleeding from multiple wounds. The injuries hadn’t dampened their fighting spirit, but Joe was getting the sinking feeling that they might have pushed their luck one too many times with this most recent trip to Syria. He had promised himself prior to the mission that if there were any casualties, they would all be taken by the other side. But that wasn’t turning out to be the case. His men were fighting valiantly, but there were just too many of the Syrian and Russian soldiers. Feeling very much like Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Joe knelt next to Chris and offered him a thirty-round mag.

  “Keep it,” Chris yelled to be heard over the din of combat. “I’ve got one or two left.”

  Joe nodded and turned to move back to his fighting position when he felt his friend’s hand on his shoulder.

  With a look of concern that was unusual for the habitual smartass, Chris took on a serious tone. “If there was ever a time when you were going to pull a miracle out of your ass, it should be now.”

  Fuck! Frank! Joe thought, chastising himself for not checking in sooner. He pressed the transmit button on his MBITR and raised the operations center at Langley.

  Copenhaver’s voice betrayed the calm tone one comes to expect from a career pilot. “Jesus! Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get you on the line for the last ten minutes.”

  “Yeah, I’ve, uh, been a little busy,” Joe said, resting the fore-end of his rifle on a large rock for support. He centered the optic’s reticle on a soldier’s chest and pressed the trigger. Watching the man drop, he searched for another target. “Please tell me you have some good news. We’re low on ammo and are about to be overrun. I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.”

  “In that case, let me introduce you to a friend of mine. He’s aware of your situation and is going to take good care of you. Stand by. I’m patching him in now.”

  A new voice came through Joe’s earpiece. “Good evening, Spartan. Dragon Three Four here. I’m orbiting over your current position. What can I do for you?”

  “That depends. What are you flying?”

  In a slightly sarcastic tone, the pilot replied, “I happen to have a Ghostrider strapped to my ass. Will that do?”

  The AC-130J was a state-of-the-art gunship based on the time-tested airframe of the famed C-130 Hercules cargo plane. Modified with the Precision Strike Package, the J, or Ghostrider version, was designed as a direct-fire platform to support troops in contact, escort convoys, or generally kill anything and everything in its sights.

  Joe’s heart skipped a beat at hearing the news that an AC-130 was on station, preparing to deal death and destruction from the sky in support of his team. We just might survive this thing after all, he thought, as a slight grin spread across his face. “Yes, sir. That’ll do nicely.”

  Next, he ordered everyone to activate the infra-red strobes secured to the tops of their helmets. Getting a thumbs up from each man, he said, “Dragon, please confirm IR strobes.”

  “Stand by,” the pilot said as he checked with his sensor operator. “Spartan, we count five. Repeat, five strobes.”

  “Good copy. Now, you see all those other guys? The ones without strobes?”

  “Yep. There’s a bunch of them, alright. Looks like you kicked over an anthill down there.”

  “Do me a favor and kill ‘em all.”

  “Can do, Spartan. That order fits nicely into our job description. Tell your boys to keep their heads down. This fire mission is gonna be the definition of danger close.”

  CHAPTER 60

  All of Joe’s men did their best to make themselves very small. They flattened out and tucked in tight next to the boulders they hoped would protect them from the steel rain about to fall from the sky. Even though they knew it was coming, the impact of the first artillery round shocked even the most battle-hardened members of the team.

  Successive explosions drowned out the screams of the Syrian soldiers and Russian mercenaries eviscerated by shrapnel or blown apart by the concussive force of the shockwaves. The ear-splitting explosions seemed to merge into one giant rumble and the ground shook as if they were in the middle of a catastrophic earthquake. Syrian soldiers and Russian mercenaries ran in every direction, attempting to find someplace to hide from the savagery unleashed by the Ghostrider orbiting the field. But there was nowhere they could run, nowhere they could hide from the sensors directing the precision fire on their positions. When the shelling from the AC-130’s canons finally stopped shaking the earth, the field that had been the scene of a raging battle fell silent. A layer of pale gray smoke drifted across the ground, adding an eerie quality to the silence.

  Shrugging an inch or two of dirt and debris off his back, Joe reached up and lifted the Peltor hearing protection off his ear. He listened for thirty seconds or so, straining to pick up any sounds of movement, or life. Hearing none, he rose to his knees and eased his head around the boulder that had shielded him from enemy fire and the aerial bombardment. The only way he could describe the spectacle laid out before him was that the apocalypse had been visited upon the men who had occupied the field. Craters pockmarked the landscape. Men and machines that weren’t blown apart by the Ghostrider’s 105-millimeter artillery rounds were shredded by its 30-millimeter canons. Body parts littered the ground, mixed among broken weapons and burning vehicles. Not a soul, except for the five CIA operatives, was left alive on the killing ground.

  As Joe’s hearing gradually returned, he heard the pilot’s voice hailing him on the radio. “Go ahead, Dragon.”

  The pilot’s relief at finally getting a response was evident over the transmission. “You guys okay down there?”

  After taking a moment to check on his team, Joe said, “Yeah. We’re good.”

  Relieved that he hadn’t annihilated the good guys along with the bad, the pilot’s voice returned to the mundane tone of a dad dropping the kids at school. “We’re showing the area clear o
f any activity. You’re free to begin your exfiltration. We’ll remain on station as top cover until you’re out of the AO, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Roger that.” Joe paused, still fixated on the devastation displayed on the field below his position. “Thanks for the assist. There are five guys down here who their lives to you and your crew.”

  “No worries, Spartan. Just doin’ what we do. Glad we were able to get here in time. Now get ready to move. Your exfil is inbound.”

  My exfil? Joe thought. What exfil? The plan had been to make their way to the coast where a team from the Agency’s Maritime Branch would meet them with a boat for the quick run across the Med to Cyprus. But with both of their vehicles destroyed, Joe and his team were going nowhere fast.

  That’s when he heard Chuck Jamison’s familiar voice over his radio. “I’ll be wheels down in five. Be ready. We’re gonna make this quick.”

  “What are you doing here?” Joe asked, confused but thankful to hear his friend’s voice.

  “When Frank ordered up your aerial support, he figured you might be needing a ride, so he called me.”

  As thankful as Joe was to have a way out of this hellhole, he was worried about his friend’s safety. The Syrians and Russians weren’t likely to let this go down without a response. “Are you sure about this? What if some fighters are scrambled to come after you?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” Jamison replied nonchalantly. “Frank arranged a little escort for me. There’s a pair of F-35s in the neighborhood, salivating at the thought of a couple of Syrian or Russian pilots taking to the sky to come after me. Truth be told, I think the fighter jocks will be a little disappointed if they have to return to base without firing a shot.”

  Joe couldn’t do anything but stand there and shake his head. With the help of Frank Copenhaver, the full resources of the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Air Force had been mobilized to rescue his tiny five-man team of operators. The act only served to reinforce what he already knew, that despite all its technology and expensive weapons systems, what America truly valued most were its people. They, the men and women serving the country in every capacity, were America’s most valuable resource. A tear leaked out of the corner of his eye and ran down his cheek, carving a path through the dirt and dried blood caked on his face.