“Hush, Red,” he said, kissing her forehead before wrapping his left arm against her back, his hand pressed against the back of her head, wedging it under his chin, forcing her face against his chest. His right arm went lower, below her waist, securing her firmly against him. “On three, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered, her lungs filling with his scent and that of her own urine as he nearly lifted her off the ground while keeping her right foot anchored over the mine.
Vaccaro let it all go, arms wrapped around him, allowing him to do as he pleased, surrendering to this most intimate of bear hugs.
He counted and they jumped together, as one, and Aaron further surprised her by shifting in midair with agility, placing his body between the Russian mine and her.
The PMN-4 detonated with deafening force, the shock wave nearly flipping them in midair as the forest lit up with a blinding white light.
She felt the heat, felt the shrapnel peppering the vest as he tightened his grip on her while shifting once more to land on his back, cushioning her fall with his own body.
They remained in an embrace for a few moments, the smell of cordite overpowering all others, his breath on her reminiscent of when she had tackled him hours earlier.
“You okay, Red?”
She flexed her ankles, rubbing her boots against his. “I think so. But the question is, are you okay?”
“Never been better,” he said, a hand suddenly grabbing one of her cheeks, over her pants, squeezing gently.
“I bet you are, mister,” she said, grinning.
“So what’s the answer?”
“To what?”
“Do you love this John Wright?”
“Aaron?”
“Yes?”
“I think it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“To let go of my ass.”
81
Bloody Winch
SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
They continued along a narrow footpath carved right into a vertical section of rock. Gorman didn’t fear heights, but there was something about a thousand-foot drop just an inch from his feet that had a way of screwing with his mind. But at least the path was relatively flat, allowing him to recharge.
Martin was point, followed by Maryam, then Ryan and him. Stark followed a dozen feet back, then Hagen, and Larson at the rear.
The trail widened as it reached the other side of the tight mountain pass. Maryam and Martin paused to inspect a number of broken branches along a rocky track leading into a wooded valley at almost ten thousand feet, surrounded by rising terrain. They had reached a plateau buried deep in the range. Snowcapped ridges rose up beyond the canopy of stone pines, stabbing a layer of gray clouds blowing in from the west.
And that’s when it happened.
Gorman watched Stark and his men suddenly dispersing, as if on cue, though not a word was spoken. One second they stood by him and the next they had vanished. Ryan was already scrambling halfway up a hill, Hagen and Martin rushed for the cover of a cluster of pine trees thirty feet away, and Stark and Larson disappeared behind a clump of boulders twenty feet in the other direction.
What the—
The first shot rang out from across the narrow meadow before he could complete the thought.
Gorman too had reacted, jumping in front of Maryam as the forest exploded in stroboscopic muzzle flashes—as sharp stabs pierced his shoulder and abdomen.
He landed next to her while a barrage of automatic fire mowed down the forest, zooming overhead, shattering bark, ricocheting off rocks, echoing off the surrounding mountains.
Trembling, Gorman put a hand over his vest, feeling the punctures right over the pain on his right shoulder and left abdomen. Bloody fingers confirmed it. The bastards had used a large enough caliber to punch through the Kevlar—
“Bill!”
He looked at Maryam as the world around them seem to catch fire—as explosions shook the ground and the thunder of Larson’s Browning overwhelmed all other reports.
But it was Maryam’s face that filled his world, and it was her hands that he felt on him, unfastening his vest before ripping his shirt with a knife, exposing the wounds.
“Stay with me, Bill!” She rolled him on his side for a moment before opening his individual first aid kit and slapping patches of gauze impregnated with zeolite powder on each wound.
He cringed and then screamed, tensing as the zeolite absorbed the water from the blood flowing out of the bullet holes, bringing platelets and other clotting factors together through an intense exothermic reaction that felt as if he was on fire.
“Suck on this!” she shouted, shoving a fentanyl lollipop from his IFAK into his mouth. In an instant, the blood vessels in his mouth absorbed the powerful opioid, and Gorman felt his body relax as the berry-flavored drug killed the pain.
Grasping the tails of a field dressing, Maryam pressed it against the lower right side of his torso, over the zeolite patch, and wrapped it tightly before applying a second one to his shoulder.
Breathing rapidly, suddenly feeling cold, Gorman rolled on his side and vomited, arms trembling as the firefight raged around them.
His vision rapidly blurring, Gorman saw Maryam reach for her encrypted CIA radio, screaming over the noise of the gunfight a call for a “bloody winch.”
82
Bloody Fool
SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Stark moved quickly across the enemy’s right flank while Larson did his thing, tearing everything in sight, forcing the rebels to the ground through sheer brute force. He spotted the insurgents off to his left, huddled behind tree trunks and boulders while .50-caliber bullets singed the air around them.
“In position, Colonel,” reported Ryan from his perch.
“Ditto,” said Martin, which also meant that Hagen was poised to strike from the left flank.
“We’re good, Chief,” Stark said into his MBITR. An instant later the Browning went silent and, as expected, the rebels rose from their hideouts to return fire.
Ryan took out three in rapid succession from his spot on the hill as Stark closed the gap, firing headshots while running. His MP5A1’s silent rounds, in sharp contrast with Larson’s racket, dropped them before they realized what had happened.
“Clear,” he said, before Martin reported from the other side of the narrow forest that the insurgents were neutralized.
Stark ran back to the spot where he had seen Gorman and Maryam diving for cover, and he was surprised to see Gorman on his back, with bandages on his shoulder and lower abdomen. Maryam hovered over him, working an IV into his left forearm. She had tears in her eyes.
“What happened?”
The CIA man seemed out of it as he sucked on a fentanyl lollipop.
Raising her wet gaze to Stark before placing a hand on Gorman’s cheek, Maryam said, “Bloody fool. He had to be the hero … My bloody, bloody fool!”
“Chief!” Stark shouted. “Need immediate exfil for two!”
Maryam looked up. “For two?”
“Yes,” he said. “You’re going with him.”
“But—”
“No argument,” he said. “Things are about to get nastier, and I operate better with just my team.”
“But I can handle myself,” she said.
“And I noticed that,” Stark replied. “But you’re in intelligence. Go do what you do best and collaborate with Harwich at KAF. See if you can help us from over there … And look after him. He’s one of the good guys.”
Maryam dropped her gaze to Gorman. “He is,” she finally said. “Even if he’s a bloody fool.”
83
Following Orders
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Monica leaped inside the Royal Canadian Air Force Black Hawk helicopter, dressed for violence, which included an MP5A1 as her primary weapon and a SIG P220 in .45 ACP for backup. She also carried her McMillan TAC-338 sniper rifle slung behind her back, her eve
r-present SOG knife strapped to her right thigh, plenty of extra magazines for all weapons, and a half dozen assorted grenades.
The call from the field had arrived just a minute ago. Someone in Stark’s team had gotten shot and needed immediate evac.
That had been her cue. Grabbing her gear, she had hauled ass to the tarmac in time to join the rescue crew, while hoping like hell the wounded wasn’t Ryan. The bastard hadn’t called her since Scottsdale, but she still felt something for the asshole—certainly far more than for any other asshole she had ever dated.
“You can’t be here, ma’am!” the operator behind the port M240 machine gun shouted over the noise of the rotor, his visor reflecting Monica’s distorted features.
“I’m here by orders of General Lévesque!” she retorted. “Call him!”
The gunner shook his head and said, “Screw it! We’re short a crew member! Know how to fire that, eh?” He pointed at the starboard M240.
“You bet!”
Monica secured a David Clark headset, already jacked into the intercom system, and settled behind the gas-operated weapon anchored to the floor of the cabin. The noise-cancellation system immediately dampened the rotor noise.
She tensed as the Black Hawk took to the skies like a damn elevator on steroids, something civilians never experienced when flying commercial or private helicopters, whose pilots were trained to be gentle with their passengers.
Kandahar Airfield rushed beneath them at a crazy speed, a blur of metal and canvas roofs, pavement, and shipping containers soon replaced by desert, and then hills, leading to the foot of the Sulaiman Mountains.
They flew west for ten miles along the southern face of the range while climbing, reaching nine thousand feet as the terrain transitioned from bare rocks to light vegetation and finally to woods so thick it made her think of places like West Virginia or North Carolina.
Monica enjoyed the cold mountain air while keeping watch through the sights of the M240, shooting finger resting on the gun’s trigger guard, ready to engage anyone crazy or gutsy enough to fire at—
“Are you Agent Cruz?”
Monica turned around when she heard the gunner through the headset.
“Yeah. Why?” she asked.
“Because there is a Glenn Harwich on the radio asking for you, eh?”
That didn’t take long, she thought, before saying, “Patch him through.”
Static, followed by, “Cruz?”
“Hey, boss.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What I’m supposed to be doing, boss.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m following Lévesque’s orders. I’m getting the fuck off his base.”
84
Visions
SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Gorman felt as if he were falling, swallowed by a deep and endless abyss. But he no longer felt any pain—no longer felt the stabbing wounds or the burns from the coagulant patches as a strange sense of peace descended over him.
It might have been the fentanyl, or just his body shutting down, but whatever it was it enveloped him, taking him from the madness of his profession while projecting brief images, flashes of his life flickering in the twilight of this surreal world. The visions were gone as fast as they appeared, mixed with the reality of the moment. He saw Jeannie in one instance, her face radiant on their wedding day. But her eyes suddenly widened in fear as she jumped from the North Tower, as she fell into the same void that was swallowing him. He felt the intense fire, as dust and debris shrouded him, as screams and explosions overwhelmed him.
But her hands … they held him tight, shaking him, dragging him out of his drug-induced trance as her face hovered over him. But it wasn’t Jeannie’s. Her hazel eyes, replaced by large brown ones under thick brows crowning the face of an angel, glared down at him as her lips moved in haste.
Maryam was screaming at him. But Gorman could not hear her—not over the noise of the helicopter hovering over them.
Helicopter?
He saw it through the tunnel that was his narrowing field of view, high above her, and also noticed the object descending from the hovering craft, at the end of a winch.
Stretcher.
It spun slowly in the rotor downwash. A rescuer hung off a secondary cable next to the stretcher as it sank through a break in the canopy.
That’s when Gorman noticed the oddest thing: the rescuer wore tactical gear, including a sound-suppressed MP5A1 strapped to the chest and a sniper rifle secured across the back.
And it was a woman.
85
Miss Cruz
SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Monica approached the ground, gloved hands gripping the side of the stretcher as debris swirled up in a funnel around the wounded man, whom she could now clearly see wasn’t Ryan or anyone else from the contractor team.
The moment her boots sank into a layer of pine needles, Monica disconnected the heavy-duty latches of her harness and helped the woman kneeling next to the wounded man move him into the stretcher, with the assistance of Chief Larson.
“Hey, Miss Cruz!” he said with a grin, over the noise of the helicopter.
“Hey to you!” she replied. “Where’s everybody?”
“Busy! Somewhere up that ridge!”
“I’ve been ordered to go back to KAF with him!” the woman said in a British accent. She looked a few years older than Monica, though it was hard to tell with her camouflage cream.
“Fine by me!” Monica replied, pointing at the harness swinging next to the stretcher.
“What about you?” the woman asked.
“I’ve been ordered to get the hell out of KAF!”
Larson did a double take on Monica, and she ignored him while securing the wounded man inside the stretcher. The moment the woman put on the harness, clicking it tight, Monica signaled the gunner, and the two went airborne.
“You cleared this with the colonel?” Larson asked, looking up as the pair cleared the upper branches and were pulled aboard.
Monica reached for the MP5A1, verifying a chambered round while glaring up at the giant man. “Cleared it with Lévesque.”
“Good for you,” he said, extending a hand toward the woods. “Your boyfriend is up on a hill somewhere.”
“Not my boyfriend!”
“Of course not,” he said with a laugh while walking away.
Monica shook her head and followed him as the Black Hawk vanished from view.
86
Edge
SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Colonel Stark kept watch on top of a ridge as the Black Hawk disappeared to the east, the rotor noise echoing in the range before fading altogether.
He sighed, regretting the decision to allow Gorman and Maryam to accompany his team on this job. Although they were both quite capable, considering their chosen profession, they lacked that extra edge developed by operators in the Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta or the Navy SEALs. And in the case of Stark and his team, their experience went well beyond the years spent in those elite military units. Through collaboration with other nations’ special forces, like the British SAS, the Russian GRU Spetsnaz, or the German KSK and GSG 9, they had picked up unique skills, gleaned from each style of special warfare operations.
At the end of the day, his team played at the Super Bowl level while intelligence officers never got past college football. And it wasn’t really due to ability or lack of it. It was simply …
Practice. Practice. Practice.
As much as Stark regretted a talented guy like Gorman getting shot, and while he hoped the man made it and went on to continue his field ops, the colonel was glad that he and that woman were out of his hair.
Let operators do what operators do and let God sort out the rest.
In his mind, everyone had a seat on the bus. And as long as everyone knew their place, things just had a way of working out, especially
when the shit hit the fan, as no plan ever survived the first shot.
Right now the seats on his bus were clearly assigned and occupied: Martin was somewhere west, picking up the trail of the hags trying to get the weapon deep into the mountains, while Ryan kept watch overhead. Hagen worked the other side of this ridge while Stark covered this end and Larson wrapped up the exfiltration of Gorman and Maryam.
And speaking of the chief … Stark spotted his silhouette approaching in the woods, the Browning held in front, left hand under the massive muzzle, right hand on the pistol grip, the .50-caliber belt fed into the side of the weapon, ready for business, and—
Someone accompanied Larson.
Did Maryam disobey my direct order and not go with Gorman?
But it wasn’t the Pakistani operative. This woman was a bit shorter and built thinner than …
Stark squinted, recognizing FBI agent Monica Cruz, armed to the teeth, hauling not just an MP5A1 but also a TAC-338 sniper rifle.
For the love of …
He stomped over to meet them halfway.
* * *
“Boy, that man looks really pissed,” mumbled Monica, as she walked side by side with Larson.
“Choose your words carefully, kiddo,” the chief whispered, stepping aside to clear the way for his incoming boss.
Monica wasn’t easily intimidated, but there was something about Colonel Hunter Stark that made every cell in her body want to jump at attention. And it wasn’t his size. The man was shorter than the chief and not nearly as bulked. Maybe it was his stare of ice-cold blue eyes on a face hidden with camouflage cream. Or perhaps it was his posture, his overall commanding presence oozing with natural confidence and strength as he held his MP5A1 in front of him, always at the ready, as if expecting an attack at any moment.
And that impressive authoritative stance was now being aimed squarely at her as he said, in his equally imposing voice, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cruz?”
“Couldn’t take those NATO assholes for another second, Colonel,” she replied.
Without Fear Page 36
