“I said, GET YOUR PEOPLE OUT OF THERE,” Zack transmitted from his basement room. “He knows. They know.”
“Know what, exactly?”
“They know that YOU KNOW they’re coming. They know you’ve been tipped off.”
Brendan’s expression sagged. “How do they know?”
“I honestly have no idea. Maybe they’ve got their drone up at twenty-five thousand feet, while yours is at fifteen. Some other part of the sky. Something.”
“I thought you flew Godane’s drone.”
“Not me. And not right now. But you’ve got to trust me – I was just with Godane, and he knows you know they’re coming. And one other thing: it’s at least a hundred personnel. Repeat: one zero zero pax inbound your location.”
“Copy all. Wait out.” Brendan switched channels and hailed Jake.
A single squelch came back.
“Jake, Bren. Be advised, enemy patrol now knows you’re waiting for them. How copy?” No response. “Jake, how copy my last?”
Jake’s voice came back – barely even a whisper.
“Copy your last.”
Evidently that was it. Brendan lifted the desk mic. “Master Sergeant, you need to exfil and RTB, over.”
“Negative.”
“Jake, they know you’re waiting for them. You’re blown.”
Pause. “Enemy patrol is walking into our kill zone now, so they sure don’t look like they know. Anyway, I’ve got no choice but to execute now, or they’re going to walk right through our lines. Out.”
Brendan ranted into the mic. “Jake, you’re looking at a hundred pax, they might have split their force – they might be flanking you right now…”
But no one was listening.
Jake had switched over to his squad net.
And whatever was happening out there was going to happen – now.
* * *
Kwon sighted in, released half a breath, and took half the slack out of his trigger.
The rest of the team would execute on his signal – which would be when his first rounds cut into the enemy force. He could see them snaking up the forest path ahead and below, having appeared over a gentle rise, and resolved better as they got closer, coming out of the trees.
There were a lot of guys on foot.
And they were heavily encumbered with weapons and ammo.
They were also undisciplined, unarmored, and clearly ignorant of the lethal peril they were walking into – basically, totally helpless.
Just before going silent again, Jake had sent him one last slightly cryptic advisory: to watch his six. But there was nothing behind him but impenetrable foliage, thick tree trunks, and a few rocks. He was tucked in like Goldilocks.
He put his target reticle on the figure at the front of the group, the man’s bobbing white center of mass floating in the thermal-enhanced night vision, and he got ready to start sweeping his barrel from left to right.
He let the enemy patrol work even closer yet – until he couldn’t have missed if he were shooting spitballs from a straw.
Now.
Counter-Ambush
Western Edge of the Cal Madow Forest
Kwon got off a half a dozen rounds before it became the Todd Show.
There’s no such thing as a flash suppressor for a minigun, so a blazing horizontal candle lit up in front of his position in the forest and tore an electric hole through the sparking heart of the black night. Hundreds of giant slugs, another thirty-three every second, ripped into bodies, weapons, packs, trees, dirt – and turned it all into undifferentiated mulch in seconds.
Kwon also fired and traversed his weapon, mainly just to do it. And he could sense Jake and Kate doing the same from their positions. But they were pretty much just watching the minigun devastate the column. Within fifteen seconds, its thick cylinder of barrels was actually glowing red-hot and would be visible even to those without night-vision.
But none of the enemy ever got a shot off – at least not on purpose, and not at first. The incoming fire detonated at least three RPGs – two blew up in place, disintegrating what was left of the guys carrying them, and one auto-launched, screaming off into the forest and exploding on impact with a tree.
American military doctrine in an ambush is to drop to the dirt, throw all your grenades, then charge the ambushers. If you stay where you are, you’re dead. Going forward, fighting through the lines of the ambush, then attacking from the back, was the only chance you had. This doctrine had filtered out, and it had evidently filtered out even to these guys.
As the front ranks went down involuntarily, Kwon saw those in the rear do so on purpose. He then saw three or four arms cock back – but Todd saw it too, and down they went. A couple of grenades got thrown, exploding harmlessly around the dug-in American positions. A couple more blew up beside their former owners. And then the survivors in the rear got up and charged.
Kwon was impressed. These guys were surprisingly well-trained and disciplined. Then again, getting surprised by jihadi sophistication had been a regular feature of the last years of the war on terror. A couple of them even made it as far as the line of claymores Kwon had emplaced out in front of their lines. With a twist of his wrist, he detonated them. The hard-chargers out front went down, like wheat before a scythe.
But the real scythe was the minigun, and Todd was aiming it into the last corners of active resistance. Those a-S guys who had lived this long had mostly found some cover behind stumps of trees, or full-grown ones, or mounds of moss and dirt. The minigun dug them out and uncovered them, or the other three ambushers shot around.
In thirty seconds it was all over.
Todd had the good sense to stop firing when there was no target left vertical, or prone but still firing. There was only so much ammo for that beast left in the world, and no one was making any more. A number of al-Shabaab guys were still crawling or trying to drag themselves off the trail, their motion obvious in NVG-view. Kwon put short, aimed bursts into them, until they stopped crawling.
From his position, he’d put the death toll at about fifty. That had to be a fair little chunk of Godane’s total strength. And as far as Kwon knew it was the entire complement of his assault force. They were all down, all out, and mostly shredded into body parts too mixed up to even bury as individuals. Not that Kwon cared to.
The threat to Camp Price was over.
* * *
They had no plans to move in or around the remains of the patrol. They didn’t need any of their weapons or equipment, if any remained intact. They didn’t want prisoners for interrogation, if any were still alive. And they didn’t care that much about leaving any wounded on the field.
They’d be dead soon enough.
And the walking dead would be here before long.
No, it was just going to be a matter of withdrawing quickly and quietly – packing up, mounting up, and hitting the road. It had taken some off-roading to wrestle the truck up on that ridge and it would take a little more to get it off, after they dug it out from under all its boughs of camouflage. Then, once they got back to the road, they’d have to do a big loop to return to the dirt track that led back to their camp on the other side of the forest, on the western slopes of the mountain.
They were all exhausted – from the sleep deprivation of back-to-back night missions, but also from the aftermath of the adrenaline of this fight. And they still had a long night ahead of them.
Kwon was just folding up the bipod legs under his 240 when the first RPG came in – directly from his rear.
Luckily he was fairly well covered up from the rear, and generally hunkered down. Unfortunately, he was totally out of position to fire in that direction or defend himself. He had to scramble. As he did so, heavy small-arms fire started up from the same direction – thick swarms of 7.62 rounds zipping through the foliage and banging into dirt and wood – and a second RPG streaked in, impacting in nearly the same point as the first. Unfortunately, this spot happened to be the base of a gnarled, twist
ed, and absolutely huge juniper tree.
And it started to fall over – right across Kwon’s fighting hole.
Oh, shit.
Sometimes the universe dictates tactics. He hefted his weapon and half-climbed half-rolled out. He could hear the wood shrieking as it split and twisted and heard the leaves and branches scraping and crashing through other trees on its way down. It looked like it was going in hard and Kwon needed to get well clear. But junipers can be wider than they are tall and this one landed on one of its big horizontal lower branches, which stopped its fall.
Now it rested on that branch, like an elbow, forming a triangle over Kwon’s hole.
So he hopped back in, getting out of the way of the incoming AK and RPG storm, then got his weapon emplaced to the rear and back in the fight. Whatever was coming for them from their six, Kwon was going to sling lead in that direction while he still had breath.
The squad net was going manic now. Jake was trying to paint a tactical picture, informed by Elijah’s drone view and Brendan’s radio traffic, and it was basically this: there was a whole second assault force, which had been traveling well apart from the first one, behind and beside it – and was now maneuvering in on them. Evidently, when the ambush was sprung, the second force had immediately swung around their flank, and was now attacking balls-out from their rear.
The perfectly planned ambush had been counter-ambushed.
Kwon guessed the main force must have split in two. And because they waited until they were under cover of the forest canopy before splitting off, and because the second force waited until it was in position before firing, it had all been invisible to the overhead drone.
There’d be time later for agonizing about how this had happened – how al-Shabaab had known to split their force, and be ready to counter-assault an ambush – if any of them lived.
Right now, it was balls to the wall – a wall of lead, smashing through the forest like a barrage of axes, over and all around Kwon’s position, as well as more streaking RPGs, lighting up the night. Dirt and half-rotted wood geysered into the sky, raining down heavily in every direction, like a kind of hot mulch rain in some earthy forest hell. Every explosion whited out his NVGs. It faded quickly as the goggles dynamically adjusted their light level, but it kept happening. And from the constellation of muzzle flashes out there, Kwon guessed they were looking at another fifty attackers.
Fifty on four. With surprise and superior position on the other foot this time.
Kwon only hoped the others had reacted as well as he had, getting their positions flipped around to defend and engage. And he was also lucky, he thought, sparing a look up at the arboretum now arching over his head. Not only had the falling tree not killed him – it was now providing additional cover and concealment.
Until a few seconds later, when one of the incoming RPGs made a direct hit on the branch holding the tree up in place – and it crashed down again, all the way this time. Reacting instantly, Kwon made another bid to roll out ahead of the impact. But the tree had less far to fall now and no surrounding trees to slow it down. It basically crashed down on his head.
Amazingly, he got his body clear. But he was still hauling his weapon after him and the tree got that, snapping the light-weight titanium machine gun in half.
And also crushing his arm – and pinning it in place underneath.
Now Kwon had lost the protection of the fighting hole – and, much worse, he couldn’t get to another position of cover. He was trapped beside this one, his ass hanging out in the wind of the crushing incoming fires. He hauled for everything he was worth. The arm hurt like hell – but it stayed put.
Well, he thought, as glass and plastic shattered directly in front of his face, at least I don’t have to worry about explosions whiting out my vision anymore. Incoming AK rounds had smashed into his NVGs from the side, and he pulled them clear with his free hand. He had no night vision now, and couldn’t see a damned thing but the incoming tracers. He knew the NVGs were shredded. They were also irreplaceable.
He’d worry about that if he lived through the next minute.
Right now, he tried to get to his side arm with his left hand. And he got on the radio, to do something very unfamiliar.
Call for help.
You Always Were An Asshole, Gorman
Ambush Site - Todd’s Position at the Gun Truck
There was absolutely no way for Todd to traverse the minigun around to get it on the attackers. Normally, that was exactly what the turret ring in the roof was for. But they had basically built a creature that was half gun truck and half tree. And sticking up out of the turret hatch Todd was wedged in with foliage, his only field of fire down into the kill box. He could have cleared it away given enough time, or help, but he had neither.
All he could do was drop down inside the vehicle, grab his personal weapon, crawl out one of the doors, scramble under the truck, and start shooting out through the tires. That he got this far without being shot initially surprised the shit out of him. The forest out there was going crazy.
But he was actually relieved only a few seconds later when he heard the call from Kwon – and then from Jake, providing details a few seconds after that. Kwon was trapped in his fighting hole and Jake had maneuvered there to support and defend him. And now Todd and Kate needed to move there themselves, to try and get Kwon unfucked.
Todd was relieved not because he couldn’t hold this position.
But because he couldn’t get a shot from there.
After the apocalypse of firing and explosions kicked off from their rear, it took him a while to realize – none of it was coming in his direction, at least not intentionally. It was all on Kwon and Jake – all of it. From the sound and fury of the attackers, and from radio traffic, Todd worked out that the counter-ambush force must have come around their own left flank – the side that didn’t have Todd and Kate’s dog-leg sticking out of it. That was how they’d been able to get into position so quickly.
And that was also why they were hammering the shit out of Kwon and Jake, while leaving him and Kate relatively untouched.
Now they had to motate – and they had to light a damned fire.
Todd reached back into the truck for a bandolier of 40mm grenades for the enhanced grenade launcher module (EGLM) under his SCAR, dropped back down, and shouted across the radio, “Kate, Todd, moving to you!” Then he speed-crawled to Kate’s hole, which was one position closer to their beleaguered brothers. He did this, as the citations say, “without regard to his personal safety and heedless of enemy fire.” The bastards weren’t shooting at him. But there was still a shitload of lead in the air, much of it coming their way.
He found Kate turned ninety degrees in her hole and half out of it, selectively engaging muzzle flashes to their rear. And she was hitting them. Todd grabbed her by the scruff of her neck – the collar of her plate carrier – and bodily hauled her out onto the ground. She went into a low crouch, weapon up, and facing the dangerous direction.
“We gotta move!” Todd shouted.
Kate’s NVG-extended face nodded. “Go! Right behind you!”
* * *
Maneuvering to Kwon’s position was not a cakewalk. But it was like death on a stick when they got there. Jake was pushed out ten meters, moving back and forth among several positions of cover to keep the bad guys from zeroing him – while also singlehandedly keeping them from overrunning the whole position, at least for a few more seconds.
It was perhaps forty on one – and Jake was holding his own.
He came in on the squad net, shouting to be heard over the gunfire and explosions: “Be advised, some of these motherfuckers are wearing NVGs!”
Big surprise there, Kate thought, as he and Todd neared Kwon’s position. Even before the fall, jihadis had been showing up with better equipment all the time. Now the world was theirs to scavenge.
Kwon clicked on the net: “Can you kill them, please?”
“I am. But then their buddies scavenge th
e goggles from the bodies.”
Reaching the tree-covered hole, Todd saw now that Kwon’s NVGs had been shot off. “Hilarious!” he shouted. “They’ve got night vision and you don’t! Ha ha ha!”
Kate came piling in beside him, just in time to see Kwon flick Todd the bird with his non-trapped hand.
Todd raised his rifle to put out some rounds. “What a fine pass things have come to!” he shouted, triggering off.
When the sound of shooting to the rear made it clear to Jake the two-person cavalry had arrived, he fell back to coordinate. There wasn’t much cover, particularly where Kwon was, and everybody was trying to melt into micro-features of the terrain. Jake had seen guys caught in the open trying to crawl up into their own helmets before. And this was that.
Somehow they had gone from occupying a perfect network of covered positions with the enemy caught in the open and being slaughtered – to being bunched up in the open with the enemy on the verge of overrunning them.
Sometimes in combat things go to shit with breathtaking speed.
“You two have gotta lift this tree!” Jake shouted. He didn’t need to add that he would do the fighting while they did the lifting. Kate slung her weapon and got into position. Todd hit Jake and swapped weapons with him, then passed him the bandolier of grenades. Effective fire was raking across everything. A round banged into Todd’s plate carrier, jarring him, but not stopping him. Jake threw himself down a few feet ahead of the hole and started walking 40-mil HE rounds out across the enemy front. The heavy whumping explosions were precisely placed.
And it was heavier firepower. But it wasn’t enough.
Todd and Kate exchanged a single nod, meaning, One… then both heaved for all they were worth. The tree didn’t budge. One… and they went again. It rolled slightly, but in the wrong direction – back over Kwon. Kate looked down to the trapped man, who had just had his arm additionally crushed. His lips were a tight line. He was visibly not making a sound.
Brendan busted in over the squad net from Camp Price.
“Triple Nickel, be advised most urgently. We’ve got visibility on your attacking force in the forest, from the muzzle flashes and rocket back-blast. And they are not only maneuvering around your flank – they are sending a breakaway force, which is moving STRAIGHT toward your vehicle. How copy?”
Arisen : Nemesis Page 24
