by Joshua Hood
“Too late for that,” Warchild yelled back, not bothering with the radio while getting to his feet and checking his rifle. “We all know Mason Kane is chickenshit.”
Renee knew there was nothing else she could do. She tried one more time to get hold of Mason before slipping her left arm through the strap of her assault pack.
“Hey, stop fucking with the radio and pay attention,” Warchild yelled the moment she let go of the push-to-talk button and slung her rifle.
“Two minutes out,” the pilot said calmly as he dropped the helo closer to the ground. He cut the nose north and pushed the throttle forward.
The two door gunners leaned out of the bird to get a better look at the ground. Meanwhile, the crew chief lowered the ramp before taking his seat behind the 240 Bravo machine gun mounted to the floor.
The helo came in so low that the heavy prop wash blew laid-out clothes and sleeping mats off the roofs of the houses, casting them high into the air as it passed over. Renee saw armed men running out onto the roofs, their rifles aimed up at the bird as the pilot twisted it back and forth across the sky.
The city definitely wasn’t empty.
Renee looked anxiously toward the cockpit. Through the dirty windscreen, tracers flashed past the lead Mi-17.
“Put us on the ground,” she begged half aloud.
The 240 Bravo chattered behind her, and she snapped her head back to the ramp in time to see tracer fire bending up toward the bird like a whip cracking toward flesh. The gunner fired another long burst, sweeping the machine gun across a rooftop just as enemy tracers curled into a half moon and cut across the bottom of the helicopter.
The rounds hitting the thin skin of the helo sounded like hail beating on a tin roof. The electric motors of the door gunners’ GAU-17 miniguns spooled up with a buzz. A split second later, they came to life with a waaaaamp as the gunners returned fire.
Even though they held down the trigger for only a dozen seconds, Renee knew that they had fired almost a thousand rounds apiece. The ground fire stopped immediately, but the knot in her stomach did not unclench.
“One minute,” the pilot said, checking his air speed.
The Mi-17 slowed, dropping the ass end toward the ground as it flared for a landing. The engine strained and the rotors angrily beat the air, washing a brown cloud of sand and dirt over the bird as it hovered.
Before she lost visibility, Renee caught a flash of light erupt from a rooftop just below the lead helo. In that instant, everything went wrong.
The unmistakable trail of the surface-to-air missile arced toward the defenseless Mi-17. It disappeared in the dust cloud, but the heat-seeking missile didn’t need to see to find its target. It was locked onto the heat pouring from the engine, and Renee knew it would cover the hundred yards in the blink of an eye.
The dust cloud parted suddenly, giving her a clear view of the missile as it slammed into the engine cowling of the lead helo. It exploded in a ball of flame. The rotors, sheared off at the base, peeled back the top section of the Russian bird like a can opener. The tail veered violently to the right, and as the Mi-17 lost lift, it pitched forward and slammed into the ground.
Renee heard the door gunner yell, “RPG, right side.” The flame spouting from the minigun reflected off his helmet as he twisted it toward where the missile had been fired.
The pilot jerked the bird to the left, throwing Renee hard against the skin of the helicopter. The copilot rushed to apply power. The bird sluggishly tried to respond, but the opened ramp caught the side of a building.
The nose of the chopper was abruptly forced down. Renee felt her feet slip out from under her, and she grabbed hold of the nylon bench as the bird began to yaw. The pilot was trying to get the nose up, and she slipped toward the open ramp, her rifle banging against her knees. With a panicked cry, the crew chief tumbled off the ramp.
He disappeared, and the safety line attached to his back jerked taut as he fell toward the ground.
She heard herself yelling over the screaming rotors, amid dinging warning bells. Then a bright ball of flame erupted near the tail rotor, spewing flame and hot gasses into the troop compartment.
As the helo slipped hard to the left, the rotors clipped the side of a building. They disintegrated in a shrieking jumble of metallic shards, carving off concrete chunks. The Mi-17 hovered weightless for a split second, and then everything went black and it dropped toward the hard ground below.
CHAPTER 7
* * *
Washington, DC
Lieutenant General Patrick Vann had finally managed to drift off to sleep when his work phone erupted from the bedside table. Turning onto his side, he reached for the phone vibrating defiantly on the overpriced nightstand his wife had bought during one of her famous shopping sprees at Restoration Hardware.
The general had no idea why she would pay so much for a piece of furniture that had been purposely distressed, but right now his only concern was to answer the phone before it woke her up.
By the time he grabbed it, ripping the charger from the jack at the bottom, he felt her begin to stir beside him.
“Patrick, Jesus, it’s two in the morning,” she moaned, yanking on the covers.
“Go back to bed, baby; I’m sorry,” he said as he climbed out of bed.
“This better be good,” he grumbled to himself.
“Sir, it’s Anderson. We have a situation.”
“Goddamn it, what now?”
“It’s Ronin 6. He called for an abort, and now the situation is going to hell.”
General Vann fumbled in the dark, trying to get to the bathroom, when he jammed his toe against the side of the bed.
“Shit,” he swore.
“Patrick.” His wife’s muffled voice chastised him from the depths of her pillows.
“Sorry, baby,” he said, covering the phone as he stepped into the bathroom. The cold tiles at least soothed the bottom of his throbbing foot.
“Say that again.”
“Sir, Ronin 6 called for an abort. Next thing we know, the strike team choppers are attacked. What do you want to do?”
“Did he say why?” the general demanded, closing the door behind him as he ran his hands up the wall in search of the light switch.
The lights came on in a blaze, burning his eyes. He caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked like a haggard and pissed-off old man.
“No sir, and we can’t get him back on the net.”
“Screw him. What about Boland?” he demanded, knowing that was all his boss cared about.
Mason Kane was a pain in his ass, and the only reason that he and his Libyan flunky were on the mission was because he was the only asset close enough to get there before the air assault.
“Yes sir, he and the source are en route to the objective. But the strike team took heavy fire before they landed, and one of the choppers took what we think was a surface-to-air missile.”
Vann ran his hand through his thick black hair as he mentally walked through the hastily set-up operation. He had advised against launching so soon, but Simmons had said this came directly from the SecDef. There was too much risk involved, and despite his boss’s promise that they could trust the source, Vann had his doubts all along.
“Do we have a Predator over the crash site?” he asked, referring to the drones.
“Roger that, sir,” Anderson replied curtly.
“Is it armed?”
“Negative.”
“Damn it. Okay—get a Reaper diverted with some ass. We might be able to pull this off, but I need assets overhead.”
“What about Mason?”
“Keep him out of this.”
“I know, sir, but it was my understanding that the boss was trying to kill two birds with one stone.”
“Just keep me informed, and I’ll get back to you.”
Hurrying into the bedroom, the general opened the closet, where a fresh uniform was waiting. He was on the road five minutes later. Since the operation was being r
un through Simmons, Vann couldn’t call Secretary of Defense Cage directly, and Simmons was too experienced to come out and say that he wanted an American asset terminated. Vann was good at reading between the lines, but he wanted to be sure before he killed Ronin 6.
Typing Simmons’s number from memory, he ran his hand over his face and realized he’d forgotten to shave.
It wasn’t even a quarter to three yet, and the day had already gone to hell. Still, with just a little bit of luck, he might just be able to pull this one off.
CHAPTER 8
* * *
Mason was halfway down the stairs when he heard the choppers coming in, followed by a loud explosion. He pushed past Zeus, making his way back to the roof in time to see the second Mi-17 lose lift and rotate drunkenly toward the ground. He watched the nose dip and then lost the bird as it disappeared below the cityscape.
The sound of metal slamming into brick screeched over the buildings like a passenger train derailing. A mushroom of dust rose slowly from the crash site and hovered over the shattered skyline, followed by a moment of stark silence. It was as if the city were holding its breath, waiting to see what was next.
Then a solitary gunshot broke the spell, spilling jihadists onto the street.
Mason was torn between racing to save Boland and the men he knew were trapped in the back of the crashed helo. He’d once been in a Chinook downed by ground fire in Afghanistan and knew firsthand that it took a minute before you were able to defend yourself. Mason had to do something to give them the time they needed to get into the fight, and as soon as he saw the two Technicals—Toyota pickups with crew-served weapons mounted to their beds—bouncing across the road that snaked in front of the downed helo, he knew he couldn’t leave.
One of the pilots managed to drag himself out the window of the crippled Mi-17—just as the truck slammed on its brakes and the fighters jammed into the bed of the truck began leaping to the ground.
Mason could see blood staining the soldier’s tan flight suit as he struggled out of the shattered cockpit and immediately came under point-blank fire. The first rounds hit him low in the back, and he tried to crawl for cover, but halfway there his head snapped forward, and he lay still.
Mason moved to the DShK mounted behind the sandbags at the edge of the roof and yanked the charging handle to the rear before shouting into his radio, “We have two birds down. Get ready to move to the crash site.”
“Roger that, boss,” Grinch replied a second later.
He swung the heavy gun onto the men rushing the helo and grimly depressed the butterfly trigger. The .51 caliber rounds rocked the gun on its tripod as he fired a short burst at the lead vehicle. Mason was trying to hit the gunner, who was perched precariously on the bed, but the first rounds fell short. Raising the muzzle, he felt his body shake from the recoil as he walked the armor-piercing rounds up the side of the technical, blowing the jihadist off the gun.
As Mason smoothly worked the rounds over the cab, the expended brass tinkled against the concrete roof like fat drops of rain. Suddenly the vehicle exploded, showering the ground with shards of debris, and Mason felt he’d bought the strike team enough time.
Now it was time to go after Boland.
He could hear someone yelling behind him, and let off the trigger long enough to see Zeus pointing at his radio.
Mason lowered his head to the hand mike, straining to hear what was coming over the net.
“Ronin 6, Tomahawk Base, we need you to secure the objective and stand by for follow-on troops,” the voice commanded.
Mason knew there weren’t any more troops coming, but if he followed orders, it meant leaving Boland to fend for himself. Remembering the photo they had found downstairs, he knew that his friend was walking into a trap.
He’d pulled some strings to get Boland a spot on the Defense Intelligence Agency’s short list after Mick found out that his wife had zeroed out their bank account and skipped town. When his old friend had reached out for help, Mason thought he was doing him a favor, getting him a job with the DOD.
Stepping out into the room, Mason turned to face Zeus. “It’s not open for discussion,” he said tersely. “He’s in this position because of me, and you know that.”
“You are the patron saint of lost causes, you know that?” the Libyan yelled back, refusing to back down. “You got him a job, and that’s it. He’s the one who got picked up by al Nusra.”
Zeus wasn’t about to let Mason cloud the issue. They both knew that something had happened to Boland two weeks before the mission launched, and it was now blatantly obvious that the mission was not what it appeared to be.
“They knew we were coming, and we need to get the fuck out of here while we still can.”
Grinch entered the room, cutting the conversation short.
“You guys need to check this out,” the sniper said, holding up a handful of documents he’d found downstairs.
“What is it?” Mason demanded, more forcibly than he’d intended.
“First, calm the fuck down,” Grinch said, holding out the pages. “It’s a copy of the operation plan, in Farsi.”
“I told you, we need to get out of here,” Zeus said wearily, taking the pages.
There was a sudden exchange of gunfire downstairs, followed by Blaine shouting over the radio.
“You guys need to get down here. T.J.’s been hit bad.”
“Fuck,” Mason yelled, sprinting out of the room.
The first thing they saw when they made it to the ground floor was T.J. lying next to a window, his kit covered in blood. Empty shells littered the floor, and two dead jihadists were sprawled on the far side of the room. To Mason’s left, a tattered couch sat at an odd angle near a wall that had been blown open.
“They came out of the spider hole,” T.J. gasped. “I fucked up, man . . .”
“You’re fine—stay with me,” Blaine said, working to control the bleeding.
“Can he move?” Mason asked.
Blaine was one of the best medics he’d ever worked with, but Mason could tell immediately that even he couldn’t save the man bleeding out on the floor.
“He’s lost too much blood.”
“T.J., we’re going to get you out of here,” Mason said, taking a knee next to the man.
A faint smile creased the dying man’s face, and he tried to laugh.
“Yeah, okay, boss,” he whispered, a second before going into convulsions.
T.J. was choking on his own blood, and the spatter that came out of his mouth dripped thickly down his cheek before pooling on the floor.
Mason had seen dying men before, but when T.J.’s eyes rolled back into his head, and his body seized one final time, a shot of pain raced straight through Mason’s heart. The bonds the five men had formed in their brief time together were stronger than most people would ever know.
Just then, the claymore mine attached to the door exploded as someone tried to force his way into the building. Gunfire erupted through a window to the east, sending the squad scattering.
Blaine dove onto his fallen comrade, covering him with his body as rounds snapped through the room, filling it with smoke and cordite. Outside the building, a man screamed in pain, his legs torn completely off from the blast of the claymore.
“Mason, make a decision,” Zeus yelled.
“We have to split up,” Mason instructed. “Zeus, you and me will go after Boland. You two, head to the crash site. I have no idea how many are out there, but if the Reaper is armed, we might be able to buy some time.”
“He’s gone, bro. There’s nothing you can do for him now.” Grinch said, pulling the medic off T.J., whose sightless eyes stared at the ceiling.
“We have to move, now,” Mason yelled.
Leaving T.J.’s body for the enemy was the hardest decision Mason Kane had ever been forced to make, and he knew that Blaine felt the same way. It went against everything they had been taught, but Grinch didn’t hesitate. The sniper grabbed the medic by the arm, pu
lling him away from T.J.
“See you on the other side,” he shouted, pushing Blaine toward the spider hole.
CHAPTER 9
* * *
Renee opened her eyes, blinking at the beam of sunlight streaming in through the shattered window of the cargo compartment. The sun was warm inside the dim confines of the smoking helo, and it felt good on her face. She felt protected—while outside everything was going to shit.
She could hear the deep snaps of the AK-47 and the lighter pops of the M4s returning fire as she stared up at the puffy white clouds drifting peacefully across the deep blue sky.
“Get the fuck up,” she told herself.
It took a huge effort to get to her feet, and, for a second, she just stood there, squinting against the stark brightness pouring in from the shattered ramp. Renee checked her rifle and grabbed the assault pack that had been ripped off her back. Carefully, she made her way to where the ramp lay crumpled against the back of the bird.
She hopped down, feeling a burning pain in her leg. Suddenly a black-clad fighter opened up on her from twenty meters away.
Her M4 snapped up, and she flipped the safety off before even realizing the rifle was moving. She fired twice, hitting the man in the chest; but instead of going down, he charged at her. Not backing off an inch, Renee settled the reticle of the EOTech holographic sight on his forehead and pulled the trigger firmly to the rear.
The round hit the man in the side of the head, blowing his brains out the back of his skull and pitching him forward onto the ground.
She scanned her sector before looking down at her leg. A twisted shard of metal, glistening with her blood, was sticking out of her thigh, and Renee winced as she grabbed hold of it. The pain came in a white-hot wave, slamming up through her stomach, forcing her to let go. Taking a deep breath, she closed her gloved fist around the metal and yanked it out.
“Fuuuck.”
Blood poured from the wound, puddling near her feet, where it mixed with the dirt of the crash site. Renee grimaced, twisting her torso to gain access to the trauma kit attached to the back of her kit. Needing to control the bleeding or risk being out of the fight, she quickly pulled out a roll of gauze.
