The Renegades

by Tom Young

  On the screen, an image of the target zone streamed from the sensors of the Predator orbiting on station. Two figures, ghostlike on infrared, moved about the ruins and masonry structures outside the bunker complex. With nothing for size comparison, Parson couldn’t determine their height with any accuracy, but he took them for grown men. They moved like adults, held their rifles in a manner that suggested long practice. Sentries, maybe. If those sentries stayed put, Parson imagined, they probably had about an hour to live.

  Blount studied them without comment. His eyes betrayed no emotion as he watched the feed, but Parson could guess what he was thinking. The big Marine had made clear how he felt about Black Crescent and its abductions.

  I’d hate to have this guy coming after me, Parson thought.

  The sound of jet engines rose from the flight line, drowned out the routine chatter on the Predator feed. From the throaty rumble of the turbines, Parson figured it was the pair of A-10 Warthogs supporting this mission. The relatively slow ground attack planes had a sound distinct from the higher scream of supersonic fighters. Parson wondered what they’d sound like from the ground if they strafed you. He was glad they were on his side. A lucky break that repairs by civil engineers had opened enough runway for Warthogs to land and take off at Mazar.

  “There goes our air support package,” Parson said.

  “Yes, sir,” Blount said. “But I doubt they’ll do us any good.”

  “Maybe not,” Parson said. In truth, almost certainly not. This mission’s entire concept turned on minimizing casualties. Otherwise, the Reaper could have done the job the other night. But it made Parson feel a little better to hear the A-10s take off on time. All the parts were clicking into place.

  When the twin roar of the attack jets died away, the Predator crew and their mission commander were talking again:

  “Give me a wider angle, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The lens zoomed out to show a broader view of the target area. Slewed left and right. Parson thought he saw something. Apparently, so did the sensor operator. The camera slewed again. It revealed a pickup truck heading for the bunker complex.

  “What have we here?” Parson said to no one in particular.

  “At least we’ll know they’re home,” Blount said.

  Another vehicle followed the pickup. A bigger, commercial truck, maybe. Parson wondered if it was one of the jingle trucks he’d seen all over Afghanistan’s roads.

  Another truck appeared, the same size. Then another, and another. Now Parson was worried. Jingle trucks didn’t usually run in convoys. But military-style vehicles did. Especially if they were carrying arms or reinforcements.

  “What the hell are they doing?” Parson asked. “Did somebody warn them we were coming?”

  “Unlikely, sir,” the Marine captain said.

  “If they knew we were coming, they’d just move,” Blount said. “I’ve seen insurgents do that three times at least. Tipped off by the Pakistani ISI or some traitor on the take in the Afghan government.”

  “Just bad timing, then?” Parson said.

  “Just timing,” Blount said. He didn’t seem fazed at the prospect of hitting a stronger target than expected. But Parson didn’t like it at all. What were Sophia and the others jumping into?

  “The weather’s great tonight,” the Marine captain said. “If the conditions are good for us to run an operation, conditions are good for them to move around.”

  To move around four extra truckloads of… what? Kids? Rocket-propelled grenades? Battle-hardened jihadists? Sophia and the Special Tactics Team would be over the drop zone pretty soon. But it wasn’t too late to abort.

  “Let’s see what JSOC wants us to do,” Parson said. Please let them call it off, he thought. He’d never shied from a tough mission, but Sophia wasn’t supposed to be in the middle of a damned firefight to begin with. Let alone one where the odds had suddenly gone south. She was a linguist, for God’s sake.

  “I’m on it,” the captain said. Dialed a secure phone.

  He began to explain the situation, but then stopped, as if the officer on the other end had cut him off. Apparently the mission commander was watching the same feed and already knew what was happening.

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said. He glanced at the screen, at Parson and Blount. Parson followed the end of the conversation he could hear: “I think so, Colonel… Affirmative… So we’re still go?… Thank you, sir.” The captain hung up the phone and said, “Boss says we know where they are tonight. We might not get this chance again.”

  Dear God, Parson thought, why did I ever let Sophia get involved in this? Why did I ask her to come back here at all? She’s already done more than her share. Selfish of me. I sent for her because it would make my job easier.

  He wanted to call the Talon crew and tell her not to jump. Let the shooters go without her. But now she was chopped—Change of Operational Control—to JSOC. For the purpose of this mission, she was no longer his to command. Parson had helped set these events into motion, and now he’d have to see them through and live with the results.

  “Let’s saddle up,” Blount said.

  It was nearly launch time for the main assault force—Blount’s Marines and the Afghans. By the time they got there, Gold and the Special Tactics Team would be observing from the knoll just to the north of the target area. Blount’s team would arrive in their Osprey and hit the bunker complex, while the Afghan troops from Rashid’s chopper would set up a blocking force. The idea, Parson knew, was to keep bad guys from getting in or out of the area during the attack. More of them were in the area now, though. Nothing for it at this point but to strike them hard and fast.

  Parson gathered up his gear. He buckled on his body armor, slid his survival vest over that. Hung his NVGs around his neck. He already had his Beretta in a thigh holster, and he’d signed out an M4 carbine. He lifted the carbine and headed for the flight line.

  A dozen Afghan soldiers were already seated in the Mi-17. Rashid and his crew briefed in Pashto. When they finished, Parson told Rashid what he’d seen on the Predator feed.

  “This thing just got a little harder,” Parson said. “Might as well tell them what they’re up against.” No changes to the orders. Just changes to the hazards.

  Rashid spoke in his own language again. Some of the troops looked scared; others looked resigned. Three began to pray.

  Down the tarmac, the Osprey already had its rotors turning. Rashid and his crew strapped into the Mi-17, and Parson took a seat at the front of the helicopter’s cargo compartment. Plugged in his headset and listened to the crew’s chatter.

  Though he couldn’t understand the words, he recognized the call and response cadence of starting up an aircraft. So their checklist discipline was getting better. And they probably knew tonight, of all nights, was not the time to make a mistake.

  The rhythmic whomping of the Osprey’s rotors deepened, vibrated inside Parson’s rib cage. He looked outside and saw the Marine Corps bird lift off. Raised his NVGs and watched through them.

  Sparkles swirled at the tips of the rotors, the corona effect of blades striking dust particles. The phenomenon appeared first as double circles. But as the Osprey climbed and entered translational lift, the glow spread down the length of the blades. On night vision, it gave the image of stars caught in a whirlwind, as if the aircraft had stirred a galaxy.

  With his own rotors on speed now, Rashid eased up on the collective and twisted its grip throttle. The more time Parson spent around rotorheads, the more he appreciated their hand-eye coordination. Simultaneously, Rashid had to adjust power, change blade angle, and feed in a little torque pedal to keep the nose straight. It took both hands and both feet to keep this contraption pointed in the right direction.

  Rashid nearly always flew well, and Parson hoped he could count on his Afghan friend again. Above all, Parson wanted to get to the target as quickly as possible. Gold was somewhere out in that night, maybe over the drop zone by now. And
ultimately, he had put her there.

  25

  When her ears quit popping, Gold knew the MC-130 had leveled at drop altitude. She swallowed one more time just to make sure everything was clear. You couldn’t do this kind of work if you were congested at all. Good way to rupture an eardrum from the inside.

  Gold didn’t have that problem now, so she wondered why she felt anxious. The open ducts of the unpressurized plane at high altitude let in cold air, but despite the cold, she was sweating. Then it dawned on her she was sweating because of the cold.

  Cold was one of her triggers. The worst pain, the deepest fear she’d ever felt had happened during that blizzard when she was shot down with Parson.

  Not now, she told herself. Deal with it later. She had to push through anxiety the way a marathon runner pushed through the hurt to reach the finish.

  Reyes stood up. From this point on, she’d get her cues from his hand signals. With the rushing wind, roaring engines, and oxygen masks, talking was impossible, shouting pointless. He placed both hands at waist level, then extended his arms to his sides: Unfasten seat belts. Time to go.

  Time to focus.

  She switched on the light in her altimeter, mentally congratulated herself for not forgetting that step. Though Gold planned to use her night vision goggles later in the mission, she could not wear them in free fall. The manual specifically warned against it because NVGs could restrict a parachutist’s ability to find the rip cord and cutaway handle.

  Gold released her seat belt and kept her eyes on Reyes. The two Marines and the combat controller did the same.

  Reyes placed his right thumb on his right cheek, rotated his palm and fingers over his oxygen mask, across where his nose and mouth would be. Normally, the signal for Don your mask. But since everyone was already prebreathing through the pressure-demand masks, this time it meant Disconnect from the prebreather and go to bailout bottles.

  Gold took a deep breath, held it. Unseated her hose receptacle, snapped it into the bottle connection. Exhaled, drew another breath. No resistance, no leaks. She gave a thumbs-up to Reyes and the phys techs.

  Please don’t let me screw this up, she thought. The government had spent a tremendous amount of money, and she had spent a great deal of time and effort, all to prepare her for a moment like this. The lives of her teammates—and of Fatima’s brother and Aamir’s son—could depend on how she acquitted herself.

  At the back of the cargo compartment, a red light blinked on. The aircrew was running their pre-slowdown checklist. Reyes tapped his left wrist with his right index finger. Held up ten fingers.

  Ten minutes.

  Somewhere on the ground beneath her existed the result of some of man’s worst impulses. Gold was about to head straight for it at terminal velocity. She just hoped training and instinct would take over, that her own impulses would lead the right way when she didn’t have time to think.

  The luminous hands on her watch seemed to accelerate. Ten minutes melted away in seconds. Reyes extended his arm straight out to his side, then bent his arm to touch his helmet: Move to the rear.

  Gold stood, shuffled with the other jumpers toward the back of the aircraft, awkward with her drop bag and other gear. The Talon’s engines seemed to sigh as the flight crew reduced power, slowed to airdrop speed. So now the crew was in their slowdown checklist. The whine of a hydraulic pump started again, shrill enough to pierce all the other noise. The ramp dropped open to wind and blackness.

  Reyes moved his fist in an arc over his head: Stand by. Fifteen seconds.

  The jumpers stood in a line on the ramp, Reyes in the lead, Gold next. No light shone on the ground, no stars overhead. Gold couldn’t tell if high cloud cover had moved in or if her eyes simply weren’t adjusted. Either way, she saw only darkness. As if nothing remained in the universe except the back of this aircraft. And the cold.

  Gold tried to clear her mind. No outside thoughts. Just concentration, pure as innocence.

  Green light.

  Reyes disappeared. Gold made a diving exit behind him. Caught her boot on the lip of the ramp. Dropped into the void, tumbling.

  She rolled, spun, with no sense of up or down. Her inner ears’ natural gyroscopes, useless. Wind whipped at her as she plunged through an abyss. In this out-of-control plummet, she could not open her parachute.

  Gold spread her arms, arched her back. Rolled. Arched harder.

  Her body steadied, seemed to fly. Though she could see little, she knew she’d entered a stable free fall. Her spatial references returned. The wind yet lashed at her, but from directions that made sense. Now Gold felt she dropped not through a limitless abyss, but through the atmosphere of the earth.

  She relaxed the arch a bit, thankful the emergency procedure came to her when she’d needed it. No conscious thought intruded, just muscle memory. In the arch position, she’d managed to control her center of gravity and thus stop the tumbling.

  Clumsy of her to make such a lousy exit. No doubt caused by bumping her foot. Better now.

  Her altimeter needle swept through fifteen thousand feet. She could not see the other jumpers. The terrain below loomed as dark nothingness.

  With her stable body position sustained for a few seconds, Gold seemed to float, cushioned by air. She checked the altimeter again, dropped past ten thousand feet. Shapes appeared in the corner of her eye, just a thickening of the night. Her teammates, falling with her.

  Just a few seconds to go. Watching for four thousand AGL…

  Look. Reach. Pull. Clear.

  Time—which had rushed ahead of itself inside the Talon—now seemed nearly to stop. Gold sensed every step in the sequence as her canopy deployed. She noted just a small tug when the pilot chute inflated. As she fell through the night, the pilot chute lifted the main canopy’s bag and lines. Ruffling noise as the canopy emerged from the bag. More pull now, as the slider controlled the canopy’s rate of opening. And finally, a rapid deceleration as the canopy cells inflated.

  The wind blast hushed into silence. Gold felt nothing but the pressure of her own weight against the harness. Heard nothing but the faint luff of other canopies. A moment of peace above a war zone.

  She looked up, inspected her chute. A dark rectangle. It held an even shape—no twists or line-overs. Good canopy. Thank God.

  Dim outlines of her teammates and their chutes took form in the darkness. All the men were above her. She must have opened just a bit lower than the others.

  Indistinct patterns on the ground hinted of a bald knoll with scattered trees east and west. The Talon’s navigator had done his job; he’d put her out right over the DIP, the Desired Impact Point. Parson would appreciate the precision. The target area to the south showed no activity Gold could see with the naked eye—just a deep, black pool.

  She pulled a steering toggle to set up a downwind leg toward the drop zone. Her free-fall rig was more than a piece of nylon with lines attached. The ram air parachute generated lift like an aircraft wing; the chute was actually a high-performance glider, and learning to use it had taught her some of Parson’s language.

  With the canopy’s full-forward speed of about thirty miles per hour, Gold flew alongside the knoll. Glanced at her altimeter, though now she was going more on feel than anything else. Pulled a toggle to turn onto a base leg. Pulled once more to set up a final approach.

  She popped a quick-release snap hook to lower her kit bag. Felt the line run out beneath her. With the bag hanging several feet below her now, she wouldn’t slam into it if she landed hard.

  Gold did not land hard. As the ground rushed at her, she drew both toggles down toward her waist, went to full brakes. Stepped onto the earth like stepping off a curb. The canopy collapsed around her. Dull thuds to her right and left as the rest of the team touched down.

  She’d always spent most of her time and thought on the big picture, the long-term and the eternal. But she took a little pride in a good HALO landing—about the only instant gratification she allowed herself. That s
he’d pulled it off in a combat zone, after a rough exit, made the glow that much warmer.

  She let herself feel it just long enough to shrug out of her harness and remove her mask and flight helmet. Then she locked her oxygen switch in the OFF position, daisy-chained her suspension lines, rolled up her canopy. Opened her drop bag, dug out body armor, Kevlar helmet, night vision goggles. Unstowed her M4.

  “Everybody all right?” Reyes whispered.

  “I’m good,” Gold said.

  The other jumpers made affirmative noises. Gold donned her ground equipment and switched on her NVGs. But what she could hear was more important than what she could see. She plugged an earpiece into the Icom handheld, turned on the radio, and listened to the enemy frequency. Nothing. She also turned on her MBITR so she could talk to the friendlies, positioned the hands-free mike over her mouth.

  The rest of her team began to unpack their gear. One of the Marines assembled his rifle. As the weapon came together, Gold saw it was a Barrett M82—a .50 caliber monster with an effective range of nearly two thousand yards. The combat controller switched on some kind of radio she’d never seen, worked with other electronic gear unfamiliar to her.

  Gold moved to the edge of the knoll and found a place where she could look down the hill on the bunker area. The Marine sniper and his partner set up next to her.

  She trained her NVGs on the target. Gold saw four trucks parked among the ruins of what might have been a fort or stronghold since antiquity. Ancient warriors would have liked the spot for its remoteness and adjoining caves, just as the mujahideen did in the 1980s and Black Crescent did now. A narrow valley dropped away behind the ruins, appearing on night vision as a deep green cleft in the landscape.