Jake had the AW Mag sitting on a bipod that kept the rifle barrel aimed and steady. The stock was tight against his shoulder and cheek. They’d just missed Khogani riding into the cave after they’d scrambled up the slope behind them to locate the enemy horsemen. The drone, however, had identified him going into the cave earlier.
Jake watched through the scope, the rocks biting into his prone body, causing discomfort here and there along his hips and legs. He was used to it. The Kevlar actually protected his chest and torso from the rocks, which was good.
Morgan remained where she was. It appeared the Taliban were in for the night. Their cammie jackets blended in with the rocks and scree around them. She lowered the scope and studied the cave entrance. They had a high, angled shot, one chance, to kill Khogani. Her mouth turned down as she studied the surrounding area.
Khogani and his men had come up and over a goat path right where they lay now. The path was steep and vertical, and even the horses would have a hell of a time sliding down the winding trail to the cave below.
Darkness fell. The wind picked up, howling toward them, the temperature below freezing. Their voices would not carry down to the cave with the present wind direction. His eyes still trained on the cave, Jake whispered, “Exfil?”
Morgan grimaced. “We miss that shot this morning, and they’re going to come boiling up and over this goat path we’re lying on.”
“Not good,” Jake agreed. He moved the scope slowly, studying the rocky brown, black and cream-colored terrain around the cave. “Only one exit point out of that cave. And that’s back up this goat path we’re on.”
“Reza said that particular cave is big, but there are no connecting tunnels to it. Khogani has to come back up this scree slope tomorrow morning. He has no choice.”
They were in for a long, brutal night on the ridge. Reza was about a quarter of a mile down below them, in another, smaller cave. Tonight, he’d feed the horses, give them some water from the large five-gallon tins they carried on the supply horse and keep them saddled. Jake watched through the AW Mag’s scope. A sniper never left his target unobserved. One or the other of them would have to watch that cave like a hawk all night long.
Morgan gazed behind them on the scree slope. The goat path was a thousand feet long, and at the bottom, it split and went north and south. To the north part of the path was a wadi, or ravine. The wadi was shaped like a lightning bolt, a zigzag ravine, a good two thousand feet in length. She studied the scraggly trees eking out an existence in the wadi. There was a lot of six-to ten-foot-tall brush clogging the ravine, as well. It would be easy to hole up in the wadi and not be seen.
If Jake missed the shot or shots, and Khogani survived, the Taliban leader would be coming after them to kill them. Those hardy mountain horses could climb like goats, acclimatized to the high altitude. They wouldn’t have much time to escape. It was seventeen Taliban against the two of them.
Neither of them wanted Reza caught up in the melee if it happened. The man had already lost his family. That was enough. Jake had given Reza orders yesterday evening to leave at dawn, no matter what happened. To head north, back toward the valley and to the safety of Hamid’s village far below.
They settled on the ridge, the wind blowing toward them, well below freezing. Morgan had the spotter scope set up next to where Jake lay prone on his belly, the AW Mag’s barrel draped with camouflage netting and pointed down at the cave. The drone was somewhere overhead, watching. Always watching. It was on the western side of the mountain, circling, its eyes on the cave where Khogani and his men had holed up for the night. They lay next to one another, body warmth important for the long night ahead of them.
“Another thirty minutes and dawn will break,” Jake told Morgan quietly. The wind was raw, and he was glad for the thick jacket, hood and gloves. Still, he was freezing his ass off. No one could lie out on a rocky slope, motionless for hours, and not get numbingly cold.
Morgan nodded and lay nearby, her spotter scope on the cave below them. They’d traded off positions every hour. She’d take the rifle and he’d become her spotter. As dawn rose, it was Jake’s turn at the sniper rifle to make the shot.
Grimacing, Jake knew as a sniper, being cold and uncomfortable came with the territory. This wasn’t his first gig at hiding up on a mountain waiting for his HVT, high-value target, to appear at dawn. “I hope Reza is right about that cave where Khogani’s holed up.”
Morgan rubbed her hands, trying to warm them. She had on gloves, but the wind was sharp, gusting and sporadic. “What? That there are no tunnels to this side of the mountain?”
“Yeah,” he muttered. Because if Reza had been wrong, a tunnel could lead to their location. They could be blindsided, surprised and have seventeen of those bastards climbing up after them to kill them.
“He doesn’t think there is.”
“Reza doesn’t know this area as well as north of Hamid’s village.”
“I hear you.” Morgan continued to watch through the spotter scope. Having used the laser scope earlier, she gave to Jake the closest distance estimation she could get on where Khogani would emerge. Jake set the dials and all they could do was wait. There was only one place where he had a shot.
Morgan saw light to the east, behind them. The dawn glowed behind the highest peaks, announcing the coming day. The drone would let them know if Khogani moved. They’d have time to set up a shot, albeit a very badly angled shot. It would be their only chance. Morgan had already received authorization from J-bad to take the shot. The exfil plan was to get an Apache in the air from Camp Bravo, as well as a medevac following it. Other than that, they’d ride their horses down the mountain and meet a Night Stalker MH-47 Chinook on the valley floor and fly away. That was if everything went according to plan. And like the SEALs always told Morgan, Murphy was always around: what could go wrong, would go wrong, and plan for plan B, C and D. Murphy’s Law was real to them. They’d seen it in action way too many times.
Jake’s mouth turned down. They were vulnerable. Up on a scree slope, just below the ridgeline, they had no cover whatsoever. The wadi was too far away to reach by foot. Reza had tied their two horses below, but that was a thousand feet down this slope in order to reach them. A very bad feeling washed through Jake. He’d gotten this feeling before, and it always came true. Dammit, he’d just reconnected with Morgan. Something pushed him to speak.
“Listen, when this is over, I want to stay connected with you, Morgan.” He waited, afraid that she might not have the same idea.
“I feel the same, Jake. We’re older.”
“I’ve matured a little bit….” Jake wanted to laugh but his focus was on the cave through the scope.
Morgan smiled, but Jake couldn’t see it. “We’ve been through so much together and individually.”
“Life is hard, babe.” His eyes narrowed as he watched the entrance to the cave, seeing nothing, but always on guard. “We’re getting it at both ends—personally and career-wise. There’s nothing easy about being a SEAL.”
“You’re right about that. Like you guys say, the only easy day was yesterday.”
“I’m so damn proud of you, Morgan. You’ve changed my mind about women in combat.”
“If you didn’t have to care for your chronically ill mother, I don’t think you’d have been so bullheaded about women being the weaker sex, Jake.”
“Yeah, after twenty-nine years, I finally realized that.”
“Where will you be sent after this op is completed?”
“I get PRODEV. I’ll be stateside with my new platoon in Coronado. Do you think General Stevenson will send you back over here?”
“No. I’ve petitioned her to let me take 18 Delta medical training.”
Jake was surprised. The U.S. Army medic course was the best in the world. Handpicked male medical corpsmen from every military branch spent eighteen months learning battlefield medicine that would save men’s and women’s lives when it counted: under fire. “Will you get the bille
t?”
“I’m hoping so. I’ve been a paramedic since Annapolis. General Stevenson has a lot of power. I’d be the second woman allowed to go through 18 Delta training. You know there aren’t any women field medics because that puts them directly into combat.”
He heard the derision in her husky tone. “Well, that would mean you’d be stateside if you get the school.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be on the West Coast. You’d be on the East Coast.” Jake took a deep breath. Sure, he wanted to reconnect permanently with Morgan, but he couldn’t. His life as a SEAL was one of constant danger. He could die. Jake wasn’t even sure Morgan would agree to have a relationship with him. She was gun-shy just like him.
“That’s the story of our lives.” Always on opposite sides with one another except when they made love.
Morgan thought about how she was going to tell Jake about Emma. If everything went right, as soon as they killed Khogani, they’d be sent home to Washington, D.C., for the debrief. And Morgan was sure they’d each get sixty days’ leave. That would be the perfect time to ask Jake to come home to Gunnison, Colorado, to meet his daughter for the first time. Provided that Jake forgave her. A deep love for him welled up in her. And then she took the biggest risk in her life. “You know, we’ve never said we loved one another, Jake. Not through all these years.” Morgan took a deep breath and whispered, “I’ve never not loved you, Jake. You need to know that. But our past scares the hell out of me, and I’m not sure of our future.”
Jake was about to reply when he spotted something through the scope. His radio beeped a warning that the drone saw movement in the cave. “They’re moving.”
Instantly, Morgan focused on the cave through the spotting scope. There was just enough gray light now to see the cave opening. Her heart rate remained slow. Snipers could control their breathing and remain calm. Tension amped up as she analyzed all of the data. The wind was inconstant. The other problem was their position would be given away, regardless. Adrenaline began burning into her bloodstream.
Jake settled in, the fiberglass stock pressed to his cheek. There was a natural still point to the breath. And to the body. He lay with his legs spread. In this kind of light, his head would look like one of a thousand rocks peppering the ridgeline. The sniper scope was draped with material so that the barrel wouldn’t shine or glint and catch the Taliban’s sharp-sighted attention. He felt confident in his position.
“First rider out,” Morgan spoke quietly. “Not Khogani.”
Jake realized he had a second to fire. His mind was running over a thousand variables on the shot. The bullet, when fired, would actually arc up at supersonic speed and then down toward the target, slowing as it went. He got a clear view of the first rider coming out of the maw. The other problem was riders and horses. They were both unpredictable. It wasn’t something a spotter could call or control. Wind and animals. His mouth tightened.
Morgan would have a millisecond to identify Khogani. And he’d have a millisecond to fire. He might not get down to that still point between the inhale and exhale. That was ideal as to when to squeeze the trigger. But he wouldn’t have that luxury. And it made them damn vulnerable as a result.
“Khogani!” Morgan whispered.
Jake caught the Taliban leader riding his horse in the crosshairs of his scope. He fired.
Chapter Seventeen
The sniper rifle bucked hard against Jake’s shoulder, the power of it rippling through his entire body. The harsh bark of the bullet echoed around the area after it left the barrel. It had no muzzle suppressor, and the Taliban would see the flash and easily locate them. Jake held his breath.
There was a rider coming out of the cave at the same moment Khogani did. He trotted his horse right in front of the leader. And he was knocked off his horse by the bullet, dead before he hit the ground.
Morgan gasped softly. “No good! You hit the guy next to Khogani.”
“Dammit!” Jake seethed. The echoing sound of the bullet sent Khogani wheeling his horse around and escaping back into the cave. There would be no second chance. “Exfil!” he snapped, shouldering the rifle across his back. Jake quickly slid back down off the ridge.
Morgan grabbed the spotter scope. She leaped down, boulders and smaller rocks loosening on either side of her boots as she slid, causing minor landslides. She jammed the scope into her jacket while moving. They were going to need help. And fast. Morgan grabbed the radio, made the urgent call to Vero at J-bad. He would launch two Apache combat helos and a medevac from Camp Bravo. Her call was acknowledged.
Already, as Morgan slid, fell, bruised her backside, she could hear angry screams, yells and orders erupting from the other side of the ridge. They’d just stirred up a hornet’s nest, and now seventeen Taliban were going to romp up over that ridge and come after them.
Jake slid down on his butt, feeling the rocks biting into his legs. It was Morgan’s job as the spotter to protect him. She had the M-4 rifle and would initiate rearguard action if they were attacked. Jake was vulnerable as the sniper because the rifle had only three shots to a magazine. And a sniper rifle wasn’t good in a close-quarters fight like this. All he had was his SIG Sauer pistol, his second line of defense.
His breath tore out of him as he fell again, rolled headlong, slamming the rifle into the rocks. Cursing, Jake realized there was nothing he could do about it. He would never leave the rifle behind. Not ever.
When he heard Morgan sliding above him, he twisted around, watching her skidding to a stop, her gaze fixed on the ridge, the M-4 rifle jammed into her right shoulder, ready to fire. Thank God there were five grenades in that grenade launcher on a slide beneath the barrel. They were going to need them to get out of this alive. Jake saw one of the horses rip its reins free of the bush they’d tied them to. Panicked, the animal ran off down the goat trail, reins trailing in the wind.
Dammit!
The second horse was rearing, whinnying and trying to get loose to run after the other fleeing horse. Jake leaped and jumped over larger rocks, trying to steady himself down the slope. Above, he could hear Morgan coming down behind him. Small rocks pelted him as she continued to slow her descent, playing rearguard action.
By the time Jake hit the bottom of the slope and grabbed the reins of the frightened horse, he heard Morgan fire the M-4 above him. Jerking a look over his shoulder, he felt his heart slam into his ribs. Three Taliban were riding hard up and over the ridge. The echoing shots of bullets being fired rang throughout the area.
Morgan knelt, fired systematically at the three horsemen who rode over the top toward her. All three men fell. The horses, wild-eyed, scattered, barely missing her. Her bravery, her courage to hold the position, to protect her sniper partner, was what a spotter was supposed to do. Jake feared for her life.
“Exfil!” he roared into his mic. Leaping up on the horse, he landed in the Western saddle Morgan had been riding. Jake yanked the animal around, then swiftly reached for his SIG and brought it up. Morgan turned, leaped and slid down the last three hundred feet.
Another rider crested, firing wildly down at them with an AK-47. Jake snapped off one, two, three shots. The bullets landed in the Taliban rider’s horse instead. The animal’s legs collapsed beneath him, the rider thrown over his head. Jake watched as the man cartwheeled through the air, his head striking a huge boulder. He collapsed on the ground, dead.
“Come on!” Jake yelled, hauling back on the reins to stop the horse from leaping around.
Morgan threw the M-4 strap across her back. She grabbed Jake’s extended hand, and he hauled her upward in one single motion. She landed hard onto the back of the horse, behind the saddle.
“Exfil!” she gasped, sliding her arms around Jake’s waist.
Jake whirled the frantic horse around once again. Above, they heard more cries. Glancing upward as he sank his heels into the frenzied horse, Jake noticed two more Taliban riders cresting the ridge. They began firing wildly. The bullets screamed by them.
Mouth tight, Jake leaned forward. There was just enough light to see the goat path leading down toward the wadi. It was their only chance!
Breathing hard, his breath coming in gasps, Jake felt Morgan’s arms tighten around his waist as they galloped toward the wadi. The wind tore past him, his eyes watering as the horse ran hard, his hooves pounding along the narrow, rocky goat path. Jake’s mind was clicking over the variables. It would take the Apaches fifteen minutes to arrive on station. It would be way too late! They’d have to make a stand. He estimated how much ammo they had between them. The sniper rifle would be useless in a close-quarters gunfight. They had an M-4 grenade launcher and two SIGs and plenty of mags for both. Maybe…just maybe, they could fight and hold them off. Maybe….
The wadi appeared around the curve of the mountain. Jake hauled back on the horse’s reins. The animal grunted, slid to a stop, panting, its sides heaving.
Morgan slid off, jerking the M-4 off her back.
Jake slapped the horse’s rump. It went galloping panic-stricken down the goat path. What he hoped was that as the Taliban rounded the corner, they’d see the horse in the distance and follow it. He wasn’t that sure he could fool them.
“Come on!” he said, pointing toward the wadi. He held the SIG in his hand, watching the corner of the goat path above them. “We’ve got to get in deep and as high as possible.”
Breathing unevenly, the high altitude making her lungs burn, Morgan nodded. She ducked into the cover where the brush was thick, tall and poked savagely at her body. The boulders were large and small, making climbing hard and slippery. They were in trouble. As she scrambled, Morgan radioed the coming combat helos with their present GPS position. But their position would continually change as they climbed.
Brush swatted at Morgan as she turned aside, allowing Jake to move past her. His face was gleaming with sweat, his gray eyes nearly colorless. This was going to be a fight to the end. There would be no survivors, one way or another.
Down Range (Mills & Boon M&B) (Shadow Warriors - Book 2) Page 16
