Combat Ops gr-2

by Tom Clancy

  Ramirez and I wore the two Cross-Coms so we could easily detect friend from foe, but the others were blind because of the last HERF gun blast, so our Alpha and Bravo teams would need to stick together. Treehorn, our one-man Charlie “team” and sniper, would be posted outside the main exit tunnel we’d chosen, ready to pick off anyone who pursued us. We chose not to wear body armor to move more swiftly through the tunnels. Again, my plan was to avoid all enemy contact.

  Yes, that was the plan. Would it survive the first enemy contact? Of course not.

  A remarkably cool breeze tugged at our turbans and shemaghs, and if you spotted us hiking along the ridges, you would swear we were drug smugglers or Taliban.

  Ramirez was more quiet than usual, but I think he appreciated my business-as-usual attitude, even if it was a disguise. The mission took priority. We both knew that.

  But I would still keep a sharp eye on him. He led Jenkins, Hume, and Brown, and I’d told Brown in private that because Joey wasn’t feeling good I wanted him to look after the sergeant. He said he would.

  I kept Smith and Nolan close, and as we approached the first cave entrance after about sixty minutes of rugged and slow climbing, I sent off Bravo team to the second entrance, about a quarter kilometer west of ours and located about two hundred meters higher up the mountain. The caves and adjoining tunnels were roughly shaped like two letter Ys attached at their bases, with pairs of entrances on either side of the mountain. When my team got into the first tunnel and reached the cave area where Warris had been cut off, our lights revealed a fresh passage dug through the debris.

  “Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn. I’m in position, over.”

  “Roger that. What do you got out there?”

  “Nothing. Not even any guards. Weird.”

  “All right, hang on.”

  I gestured for Smith and Nolan to start planting the first set of charges, while I crept off farther down the tunnel, toward the starlight at the end of the jagged seam in the rock. I paused at the edge and stole a look into the valley below. Sangsar lay in the distance, a few lights flickering, the majority of the homes blanketed in deep shadows.

  Warris was down there, somewhere, perhaps in some dank basement, being questioned, having battery cables attached to his genitalia, having insects shoved in his ears. Was he man enough to keep his mouth shut? Was he willing to die for his country? Had I taught him enough?

  I grinned over a strange thought. Maybe his hatred for me would help keep him alive. He’d tell himself, I need to survive this so I can burn the bastard responsible. I accepted that. And even wondered, were I to rescue him, if he would change his mind, keep quiet, tell me that was his thank-you for pulling him out of hell. But no, the world was hardly that simple, and Warris’s moral high ground was pretty damned high. Rescue or not, he’d want to hang me.

  “Ghost Lead, this is Blue Six, in position, over.”

  “Roger that, Blue Six, stand by,” I told the Bradley commander. Harruck had come through and our ride home was waiting.

  I slipped just outside the cave and pulled up the satellite imagery in my HUD. The monocle covering one of my eyes flashed as the data came through.

  Glowing yellow lines that represented the series of caves and tunnels moved through a wireframe image of the mountain chain. The diamonds indicating Bravo team flickered on and off, and the signal grew weaker the deeper they moved. That I even got some signal was surprising. So far, no red diamonds within the mountain or outside.

  Had Zahed just called back all of his guards? Were they all just tired? Why had they left the tunnels completely unprotected?

  My hackles began to rise, and that smell I detected was not the dampness of the tunnel but an ambush.

  “Ghost Team, this is Ghost Lead. I don’t like this. No defenses here. Plant your charges and let’s get the hell out as fast as we can.”

  “Roger that,” said Ramirez.

  I was beginning to lose my breath. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I ran down the tunnel, back to where Smith and Nolan were working.

  “Are we set?”

  Nolan looked up at me. “Remotes good to go. Need to finish up at the entrance where you just were.”

  “All right, let’s go,” I said.

  “Ghost Lead, this is Ramirez! I just got out of my tunnel. Scanning the village now. They got mortar teams setting up just outside the wall. They got tipped off again!”

  Just as we reached our exit, a shell hit the mountain just above us, the roar deafening, a landslide of rock and dirt beginning to plummet. “Back inside! Ghost Team! Fall back! Fall back!”

  Two more shells struck the mountainside, the ground quaking beneath our feet, the ceiling cracking here and there. The bastards would seal up the caves for us — but their plan was, of course, to bury us alive.

  “Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn! The Bradley has come under attack. I don’t know where they came from! They might’ve been buried in the sand the entire time! They got at least twenty guys down there! More in the mountains coming down. Should I engage?”

  “Negative, negative! Don’t give up your position yet!” I cried.

  He’d said more were coming down from the mountains. Why hadn’t the satellite picked them up and fed that data into my Cross-Com? Was it just interference from the terrain?

  I gritted my teeth and led Nolan and Smith back to the main tunnel and exit. As we neared the intersection where the cave-in had occurred, shouting echoed, and I threw myself against the side wall, with the guys just behind me, then rolled to the left, my rifle at the ready, as two Taliban fighters came through the newly dug passage through the cave-in. I gunned both of them down before I could finish taking a breath.

  They hit the ground — and so did a grenade tossed at us from their comrades on the other side.

  As I turned back, I raised my palm, screaming for the guys to hit the deck. We all started toward the floor as the grenade exploded behind us, the concussion echoing, and what sounded like a million tiny rock fragments pelted my clothes—

  Just as I crashed onto my belly.

  The terrible and expected ringing in my ears came on suddenly, and when I looked up, I couldn’t see anything. I lost my breath. I thought maybe I’d died, but then I realized my turban had fallen down across my face. I shoved it up, rose, and found hands pulling me to my feet.

  “You okay?” Smith asked, his angular face creased deeply with worry. I couldn’t hear him; I’d just read his lips.

  I indicated that my ears were ringing. He nodded and mouthed the same thing. Nolan was next to him, waving us onward as he drew a grenade from the web gear hidden beneath his shirt. He tossed the grenade down the intersecting hall, and we all bolted ahead as the seconds ticked by and the grenade exploded, just as we neared the more narrow exit.

  And two Taliban fighters rolled toward us, rushing in from outside.

  Nolan was on point and opened up on them, but they’d started firing as well, their rounds ricocheting off the ceiling just past us. Smith and I, caught in the back, had no choice but to drop away. We couldn’t fire with Nolan in our way.

  The gunfire was strangely muffled but growing louder as my hearing began to return.

  With arms flailing, the two fighters fell on top of each other.

  Nolan turned back to me, his eyes wide.

  Then he just collapsed himself.

  “Cover us!” I shouted to Smith, then rose and rushed to Nolan. I slowly rolled him over onto his back. He looked okay. I began to pull back his shirt, and then I spotted them, one near his shoulder, and one much lower, near his heart. Nolan’s trademark spectacles had been knocked to the side of his head, and he was blinking hard, trying to see.

  The blood was gushing now as he struggled for breath, and I struggled to get past his web gear.

  “In my pack, I got some big four-by-four gauze,” he said between gasps.

  I ripped off my shemagh and shoved it beneath the web gear and applied pressure. My fir
st instinct was to get on the Cross-Com and shout, “Nolan, got a man down!”

  “Captain, tell John not to feel bad. Tell ’em we’re buddies forever. Okay?”

  “I will, Alex,” I said, applying more pressure as he began to shiver violently.

  Nolan was referring to John Hume; they’d become best friends, fighting hard and playing hard. Guys would tease them about being “too close,” but they were more like brothers. I knew losing Nolan would crush Hume. Crush him.

  Smith, who was up near the exit, suddenly ducked back inside as gunfire ripped across the stone where he’d been standing. “We are so pinned down here.”

  I was about to answer when another mortar round struck far down the tunnel, and the ground shook. Somewhere back there, another cave-in was happening, the rocks and dirt streaming and hissing, and not five seconds later a wall of thick dust rolled through the tunnel toward us.

  When I looked down again, Nolan was not moving. I checked his neck for a pulse. That round had, indeed, struck his heart, and when I checked the side of his shirt, it was soaked thick with blood.

  Footfalls resounded up the tunnel, and suddenly through the dust came a figure. I snatched up my rifle, took aim, and held my breath.

  “Hold fire!” came a familiar voice. The figure tugged down his shemagh. Ramirez. He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on! We’ve linked up with the Captain!”

  As the others rushed up behind him, Hume spotted Nolan lying at my side and rushed to him.

  “Alex!”

  “He’s gone,” I said evenly.

  “Aw, no,” Hume cried. “No, no, no.”

  For just a moment — perhaps only three seconds — we all stood there, frozen, staring down at Hume and Nolan, no sound, no movement, just the burning image of our fallen brother, and then—

  “Ghost Lead, this is Treehorn, they got RPGs moving in on the Bradley. Permission to open fire!”

  I shuddered back to reality. “Negative, hold fire! Do not give up your position.” I switched channels to speak to the Bradley commander. “Blue Six, this is Ghost Lead, over.”

  I waited, called again, nothing. Couldn’t even warn the guy and his squad. The vehicle’s big machine gun was already drumming as several more booms struck and silenced it.

  “They got the gunner!” shouted Treehorn. “They got the gunner! They’re swarming the Bradley. Swarming it now!”

  Two more shells struck the mountain, and the ceiling began to crack right near my head.

  “I’m taking him out of here,” said Hume, his eyes already burning.

  “You got it,” I answered. “Treehorn? Get set! We’re coming out!”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Alex Nolan was a smart-aleck kid from the streets of Boston who’d become a senior medical sergeant with the Ghosts. He often looked like a geek, but when he opened his mouth, wow, he was all attitude fueled by an insatiable curiosity and great intellect. He was even a Mensa member. Still, there were times when he could throw a switch and be the most caring and sympathetic operator on our team. The last time we were in Afghanistan, I’d seen him spend hours with sick villagers. He’d always ask the same question: “Are your animals sick, too?” When you operated in third-world countries and people became ill, you could sometimes trace the problem back to their livestock.

  With the letter to Matt Beasley’s family still fresh on my mind, I couldn’t believe I had to write another one. I wasn’t used to losing operators, especially two on a single mission.

  We’d been all over the world, working on operations far more taxing than this one. And while they kept telling me this situation was complicated, on the surface it seemed much safer when compared to the operation I’d run in China, penetrating deep into the heart of the country to take out a cabal of rogue generals. Hell, we’d had a hundred chances to be captured or killed and had slipped past every one of them.

  Now we’d been charged with nabbing one fat-ass terrorist, and I’d already lost two good men, some of the most valuable personnel in the U.S. Army. I was already feeling burned out, like a has-been operator who’d gotten his men killed.

  With my own eyes burning, we rushed outside the tunnel and I ordered the guys to set off the charges. Thumbs went down on wireless detonators, and the multiple booms echoed, as though someone were kicking over a massive drum set that clattered and crashed off a giant stage. I could only hope our charges had swallowed some of the insurgents inside.

  I led Alpha team along a rocky path that descended sharply to our left. Ramirez and his team would take the path to the right. I didn’t want us together in case the guys on this side of the mountains had mortars, too. And to be perfectly honest, it was convenient to have Ramirez away so I didn’t need to watch my back.

  RPG fire arced like fleeing fireflies, and two cone-shaped denotations rose skyward as though the Taliban had ignited a massive bonfire to celebrate their victory over the infidels.

  “All right, Treehorn, cut it loose!” I ordered.

  The sniper’s gun boomed, and his rounds came down like God’s hammer, decisive, deadly, dismembering all in their path.

  But the Taliban were quick to answer.

  Gunfire cut a line so close to Hume that he tripped and fell forward with Nolan’s body draped over his back.

  We rushed to help him back to his feet, and that was when muzzles flashed from the ridgeline about fifty meters above.

  I raised my rifle as the red diamonds appeared in my HUD to help me lock onto the four targets.

  The camera automatically zoomed in on one fighter raising a HERF gun toward me — and that was when my HUD went dead.

  I might’ve cursed. Either way, the HERF blast was my cue to open fire, and Smith joined me. We drilled those bastards back toward the wall, while Hume got Nolan down onto the lower portion of the path. I wasn’t sure if we’d hit any of them, but we’d bought some time.

  Smith ceased fire, tugged free a smoke grenade, then tossed it up there a second before we both double-timed after Hume.

  Treehorn’s gun spoke again. And then again. He was the reaper. His words were thunder.

  About twenty meters east of the now-burning Bradley, an insurgent lay on his belly, directing machine gun fire up near Treehorn, who returned fire, hitting the guy. The gun went silent — but only for a few seconds as that fighter was replaced by another, who quickly resumed showering Treehorn.

  “Cover Hume. Get down the rocks and hold there,” I ordered Smith. He nodded and hustled off.

  I jogged back up the path toward Treehorn’s perch much higher along the ridge.

  He took one last shot, then bolted up and joined me. I waved him back along the path, and then… off to my left, about twenty meters up… a curious sight: another tunnel entrance. It must’ve been covered up by the Taliban because the rocks nearby appeared freshly shaken free by the mortars and our C-4 charges.

  As we came under a vicious wave of gunfire that seemed certain to hit us, I rushed up toward the tunnel and practically threw myself inside.

  Treehorn was a second behind me, breathless, cursing, literally foaming at the mouth with exertion.

  AK-47 and machine gun fire stitched along the entrance, daring us to sneak back out and return fire. That was one dare I would not take. The machine gunner seemed to be chiseling his initials on the rock face.

  I got on the regular radio, found it dead, and realized that maybe this time the HERF gun had managed to fry it, too. But then I also noticed the microphone had taken a hit. I was one lucky man — very close call. That bullet would’ve caught my side, perhaps even penetrated my spine.

  Treehorn directed his light to the tunnel behind us. “Whoa…”

  His surprise was not unwarranted.

  The uneven intestine of rock swept outward and curved slowly down. It appeared to go much longer and deeper than any of the others we’d seen, and I was suddenly torn between venturing down to see where it went and making a break back outside to link up with the others. The machine gun f
ire had just died off. The second rally point would be just past the Bradley’s position, along an old dried-up riverbed. Everyone knew it. I assumed Ramirez would be taking Bravo team there.

  But I’d left Smith to look after Hume, who was carrying Nolan on his back, and those guys would need help.

  “What do you want to do, Captain?”

  I pulled out a brick of C-4 from my pack. “Man, we need to see where this goes, but we can’t do it right now. Let’s seal it up behind us and get back outside.”

  “Wait a second. Listen,” he said.

  Faint cries echoed up toward us.

  I pricked up my ears again. “Sounds like… a kid…”

  “I know. What the hell?”

  I remembered the girl we’d found during our first night raid. And though I couldn’t bear the thought of more children being tortured, we had to leave.

  Something flashed behind us, and as I turned, my arm went up reflexively against the blast. The air whooshed past us, and only then did I realize I was being catapulted back into the tunnel. The entrance had been struck dead-on by an RPG. The starlight shining beyond went black, and I slammed into the floor, shielding my face from the rocks and dirt dropping all around me. Then, a strange silence, the sifting of sand, my breathing, the dull echo in my head—

  Suddenly the cave roof a few meters ahead came down, as though a massive boot had stomped on us. I scrambled backward like a crab and bumped into Treehorn, who had just turned on his penlight, the beam struggling to penetrate the thick cloud of dust. I winced and blinked.

  “You okay, boss?” cried Treehorn.

  “I’m good.”

  “They blew the goddamned exit!”

  “Plan B,” I finally gasped out. “Back on our feet. Come on, buddy…” I began choking and coughing on the dust.

  We got to our feet, his light shining down the tunnel, mine joining his a few seconds later.

  I stole a look back. The tunnel behind us had completely collapsed. It would take a half a day or more for us to dig ourselves out.

  I tried to stifle my coughing and gestured for Treehorn to keep his light low and to move slowly, quietly.