One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel

by Dalton Fury

  Seamstress appeared calm, his head turned toward Slapshot and Digger, staring blankly out the starboard side of the helo.

  “Just be careful, Kolt,” Hawk said.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Bingo, Bingo, Bingo!” Weeks reported.

  Shit!

  Kolt tensed and shoved the cell back in his cargo pocket, knowing their Little Bird was now flying on fumes, and wondered where pilot Chief Weeks’s head was at.

  “We need to put her down?” Kolt asked over helo common. For Kolt, he’d rather set her down and wait on gas or hump it across the DMZ to the safety of South Korea. Ten times out of ten, it beat another water landing.

  “Not yet,” Weeks answered after a short pause. “I’ll know when it’s time. Still RTB.”

  Kolt didn’t like the answer, not one bit, but he understood the pecking order. On target, on the ground, it was the Kolt Raynor show. In the air, inside a heavier-than-specs Night Stalker Little Bird struggling to reach a safe area, it was the pilot in command’s show.

  Kolt resisted the urge to look down at the water as Weeks maneuvered into the current like he was easing a hot rod off an on-ramp into rush-hour traffic. The air was different above the brackish river, moist and laced with the sulky odor of fish and salt.

  Single-ship formation Breaker Four-One tooled along at roughly one hundred feet above the water level and holding to a tight 120 knots max air speed. Kolt looked at his communicator, JoJo. He was relaxed and focused on the coast buzzing by below them, certainly looking to spot trouble before a Red Guard paramilitary dished it out.

  Be careful, Kolt.

  Kolt thought again about Hawk’s last words, half grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Besides the fuel problem, he was confident their shit was tight.

  Suddenly, Kolt felt pressure on his left shoulder. For a moment, he assumed it was JoJo trying to get his attention and turned around. As soon as he did, a blur of color flew past him, with something semi-soft slapping him in his face.

  Momentarily stunned, Kolt shook off the surprise impact, and leaned over to catch a glimpse of what had just fallen from the helo.

  Holy shit!

  The weight of Gangster’s helmet and vest driving his naked and frail body to the dark blue waters below, Seamstress had jumped! As the North Korean impacted the surface like a man who no longer cared, Kolt realized Hawk was right. Seamstress had lost his marbles and was suicidal indeed.

  Kolt watched Seamstress go subsurface, the impact jarring Gangster’s helmet off, and reached for his push-to-talk.

  “Stew, turn around,” Kolt transmitted. “The PC jumped ship!”

  “Roger,” Weeks said, “we’re pushing it, though.”

  Kolt knew Weeks had to be staring at the fuel gauge needle, likely pegged all the way to the left.

  Damn it!

  Kolt felt Gangster’s presence behind him and to his left as Weeks banked a hard 180. Along with JoJo, the three were straining to get a look at the spot where Seamstress had gone in.

  Kolt wanted to get on the radio and give Gangster shit for letting the precious cargo bail out. As the ground force commander, Kolt was responsible for Seamstress, but he’d figured he could count on Gangster to at least keep the guy from shooting himself with the Glock or swan diving from the Little Bird.

  “Here’s good,” Kolt transmitted. “He went in directly below.”

  Kolt felt Weeks slow to a steady hover, then wobble more than usual, likely due to the weight of the load and the last drops of fuel running through the Rolls-Royce.

  “I don’t see him,” JoJo said.

  Kolt didn’t respond, just kept looking at the river below, trying to determine the current and if the floating helmet was a good indication of exactly where Seamstress might be.

  What Kolt saw next freaked him out.

  Launching off the pod as if he was on a cliff-jumping vacation in Curaçao while Weeks fought the aircraft’s wobble, Gangster’s kitless body, light and athletic, arced upward toward the deadly spinning main rotor blades. Instantly, a red mist of blood and brains impacted Kolt’s face, covering the clear lenses of his safety goggles and speckling his face.

  Gangster!

  Kolt frantically wiped the crimson-colored blood spatter from his lenses, smearing them enough to just watch the ball of Multicam fall free to the river below, impacting only a few feet from the still-floating helmet. Fighting the shock of what just happened, Kolt clung to the Little Bird pod as if he was afraid of being pulled into the river next. That, he knew, wasn’t going to happen. Subconsciously, Kolt reached over to grab JoJo, the way a father reaches over to the passenger seat to protect a child when he has to suddenly slam on the brakes.

  Kolt struggled to process the data points of the problem before him. In less than a minute, both Seamstress and Gangster had left the cabin of the helo, and neither appeared to be okay. Gangster was floating facedown but Kolt couldn’t be sure if he was dead, just unconscious, or what. And the reason they had come to North Korea—the first American troops, armed to the teeth, to set foot inside the isolated nation in sixty years—was nowhere to be seen.

  A hard-won mission, one that cost Delta numerous wounded and the sacrifice of several high-tech helicopters, and potentially threatened a third world war, had vanished.

  Kolt felt the helo steady out, certainly due to jettisoning two bodies from the cabin, as he studied the water below. Kolt ran the options as Weeks descended a little toward the water. Slapshot and Digger were both wounded; neither of them would survive a jump to help Gangster. Kolt turned to JoJo, the youngest of the Delta guys on Breaker Four-One. JoJo had a family, two kids not yet in grade school. Seamstress was just another mission, not someone to sacrifice your life for. It wasn’t personal like September 11th was. That had worn off the day we stepped on Iraqi soil back in 2003. And now, just like with chasing Saddam, it was just business.

  Kolt realized Slapshot might have been right, back on the porch of the Notri. Maybe Kolt did have a death wish. Maybe he had always wanted to go down in a blaze of glory, assaulting an enemy bunker and trenchline singlehandedly, all Audie Murphy–like. He realized the only thing holding him back now was that debilitating fear of the water he had psychologically battled since he had drowned in the spent-fuel pool back at Yellow Creek Nuclear Power Plant.

  C’mon, Kolt, deal with it!

  Kolt looked back down to the water, saw Gangster still floating, then back to JoJo. They both locked eyes, sending unspoken signals that neither could understand. Kolt knew JoJo wasn’t expected to follow the circus act into the river, and he also figured JoJo wouldn’t expect his new squadron commander to take a dip either.

  Fuck it!

  Kolt yanked his HK416 rifle over his head and shoved it into the cabin. He pulled his Peltors off and unhooked the coiled cable to clear them from his vest before laying the headset near his rifle. Pulling the quick-release tabs to his assault vest, he controlled both the chest and back pieces as they separated, pushing them both into the cabin.

  JoJo grabbed Kolt’s fatigue sleeve. The grip was hard, telling Kolt his partner on the pod thought what he was doing was stupid.

  “Boss, don’t, man!” JoJo yelled, barely heard over the buzzing blades above them.

  Kolt looked at JoJo, grabbed his communicator’s gloved hand, and lifted it from his arm.

  “I’m good!”

  Kolt pushed off the black aluminum pod and, from about sixty feet, dropped feet-first with his arms spread out to the sides to limit the distance he would sink on impact. He hit like a sack of wet shit on concrete. A vicious jolt ran up the length of his body as half a gallon of water shot up his nose. He surfaced a few seconds later, gasping for air. He immediately looked for Gangster, figuring Seamstress was gone. He needed to get Gangster the life-saving attention he needed or, barring that, recover his body so that he wasn’t left behind in enemy territory.

  As he swam toward his Delta mate, something bumped Kolt from below.

  Shark!r />
  Kolt flailed at the air, trying to climb out of the river on an invisible staircase before he realized he was panicking. As he calmed down he realized it must be Seamstress.

  Kolt dove to investigate, feeling left, then right, and then spreading his hands out to increase his chances. Kolt felt skin and rolled his hand over a bony forearm, dragging his grip up to a hand that seemed larger than life. With both hands, Kolt pulled on the arm, trying to prevent the current from pulling Seamstress deeper.

  Kolt made some headway, and after a few seconds, was able to pop Seamstress’s head out of the water. The man looked like a train wreck, almost certainly dead by now.

  Holding Seamstress from behind, arm over the right shoulder and grasping the left side of his chest, Kolt reached around with his left hand and felt for the quick releases to Gangster’s vest. They weren’t easy to find by feel, and Kolt could only find one. He yanked it, pulling the flexible cotter pin from its housing, separating the left side of the vest. Kolt fumbled with the vest, eventually pushing it off Seamstress’s body and letting it float away.

  Kolt looked downstream, surprised to see he was still close to Gangster. He had a better view of his mate’s head now, the top of which was missing several inches at least, sliced clean off, and swathes of his long brown hair matted to the edge of the scalped wound and floating in the water.

  Kolt dragged Seamstress toward Gangster, pulling long strokes with his left arm while scissor-kicking below the surface. Kolt struggled to stay above water, knowing his natural buoyancy wouldn’t be enough to keep all three of them above the surface. Kolt reached his right ankle first, and a few seconds later reached his head. Kolt worked to turn Gangster over, checked for a pulse. Nothing.

  Something hit the water a few feet away. It was a black life vest, obviously thrown from the helo hovering above him, the rotor wash sending giant concentric ripples of water. Kolt reached long for the vest, retrieving it with two fingers, just as a second vest hit the water inches from him.

  With one hand, Kolt shoved one of the vests underneath Gangster’s chest, then simply held the second one under his left armpit. For the moment, they were able to stay afloat, giving Kolt a spell of relief.

  With Gangster’s fate decided, Kolt rolled Seamstress’s head back a few inches. He placed two fingers on his neck, feeling for a pulse. With the downward beating of the rotors, Kolt couldn’t be sure if he felt a pulse or not. If there was one, it was faint and weak.

  Kolt turned Seamstress’s face toward him, pinched the North Korean’s nose and locked lips, giving the old man two long rescue breaths. Kolt reached under the man’s ribcage, balled his right fist below his chest, and gave a hard upward thrust. Seamstress didn’t respond.

  Kolt scissor-kicked to keep his body upright, spitting river water out as fast as it entered his mouth. Kolt gave another thrust, then another, and another.

  Suddenly, Seamstress coughed. Water spurted from deep in his lungs, exiting his mouth like an ice-bucket challenge.

  Kolt looked at Seamstress, then up at the hovering Little Bird, and gave a raised thumbs-up, signaling he was alive.

  Kolt turned back toward his mate Gangster, and in an instant, Kolt felt the weight of the world come crumbling down on him.

  He wept and he wept as only a man who has lost a brother in arms can.

  CONCLUSION

  “Chill out, Hawk,” Kolt said as he wedged his backside against the heavy steel door before pulling Hawk’s wheelchair into the spine of the Unit hallway, “you crushed it.”

  “Bullshit, Racer!” Hawk said. “The board members ripped me a new one in there.”

  Happy Hawk couldn’t see his face, Kolt didn’t answer right away. He knew Cindy Bird was right. The Commander’s Board had been especially hard on her for the past three-plus hours, even taking a piss break halfway through the soft interrogation.

  Kolt knew nothing was off-limits at a Commander’s Board when selecting operators for the Unit. Sure, outside the compound, they were total gentlemen, opening car doors for their wives, handling honey-do lists with patience after returning from long deployments, and never forgetting anniversary dates or Valentine’s Day. But the graybeards weren’t going to let Hawk become the first female Delta operator without taking some skin first.

  Kolt had sat poker-faced as they had opened old wounds about the circumstances of her father’s death in Fallujah, swarmed her with technical questions about this and that piece of operator kit, and had the skeletons in her closet either tap-dancing or looking to run for the hills. Yes, Kolt knew Cindy “Hawk” Bird had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was fully capable of entering the ranks as a Delta operator. After turning numerous holy-shit targets with Hawk, she had his vote. But Kolt was easy; it was the other board members she had to convince. The graybeards of the Unit were charged with ensuring the right guy, not necessarily the best guy, was knighted, and they had pushed more of her buttons than a cosmonaut attempting reentry. Their votes were still being debated.

  “You’ll know before close of business today,” Kolt said, pushing her down the large hallway toward the Unit memorial garden. “Let’s go pay our respects to your father.”

  “Do you think POTUS will do it?” Hawk asked, changing the subject. “Stealth bomb the mini nuke sites?”

  “I don’t know. The North Koreans know we have Seamstress, which means they know everything he knew, we know, too. It’s mutually assured destruction all over again.”

  Kolt pushed Hawk through the threshold of the double glass doors, held open by Slapshot, who gave Kolt the stink eye for being late. Kolt smiled. It was beyond joy to see Slap there to scold him, and know that the rest of Noble Squadron and the crews of the Little Birds had made it back alive.

  Kolt maneuvered Hawk toward the front of the crowd, careful not to bump her bandaged and elevated left leg on any of the guests’ chair legs. A small army of attendees—current and former operators, family members, and specially invited friends of the Unit—were on hand for the unveiling of the latest Eagles to be immortalized into the growing list.

  “And the Unit and Six?”

  “After enduring a million questions, now you’re full of them,” Kolt said. He wondered about that, too. Everyone did. Delta had performed miracles with Six not far behind. Unless POTUS had an aneurism he had to see that America needed both.

  Kolt looked toward the far right of the wall, at the black cloth tarp still hiding the true names of former Delta squadron commander Gangster, and the two snipers killed in action in the Ukraine, Philly and Max. He knew their names, like so many before them, had been patiently and professionally hammer-and-chiseled into the giant triangle-shaped black marble wall by a world-renowned craftsman.

  Kolt swallowed hard, self-consciously hoping nobody would notice his unmanageable discomfort with the entire situation. He scanned the other names on the wall, and realized that the names had more than doubled since he had joined Delta.

  Great Americans and warriors. Kolt saw each of their grizzled faces crystal clear, and would swear he could hear TJ’s last words again, see his last breath after saving POTUS on Marine One, even seeing in the deep recesses of his consciousness the marble headstones in Arlington’s Section 60 for Musket, Rocky, and Jet. Kolt could see the reflection off the wall of the gathered crowd, who seemed to be staring him down with accusing eyes as if he were responsible for all of them. If they weren’t launching blame darts, the graybeards certainly would.

  Farther to the left, Kolt noticed “Michael Leland Bird” inscribed, Hawk’s dad, and figured she was looking at the same. Some on the wall had died in training, most in hard-fought battle, even some who sacrificed it all pulling a gig with the CIA abroad.

  Kolt eased Hawk into a slot of chairs, most taken by family members of the deceased, but next to Colonel Webber’s wife. The board had caused them to be fashionably late, and Kolt instantly realized the spot next to the commander’s eccentric and meddlesome wife probably wasn’t the best, given H
awk’s situation.

  Kolt looked toward the podium for Colonel Webber but didn’t see him. He did notice the Unit chaplain standing tall and confident in his military dress blue uniform over perfectly glossed jump boots. Kolt knew the chaplain hated this part of his job, had struggled personally at times with the finality of it all, but his demeanor and personality were perfect for these dark occasions.

  Kolt noticed the three triangle-folded American flags held by three Unit members. All close friends and mates of the fallen, who had the unenviable task of soon presenting the colors to the dead’s next of kin. They had drawn the short straws.

  Kolt moved his eyes back across the wall, stopping on the chiseled quote credited to former army secretary John O. Marsh Jr. during a visit to the compound twenty-five years earlier. Kolt read silently.

  IN DELTA’S RANKS IS A SPECIAL BREED. THEY HEAR AND MARCH TO A DISTANT DRUMMER. SECRECY PROTECTS THEIR MISSION AND CONCEALS THEIR PERSONAL DEEDS. UNSUNG, THEY ARE DARING CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONALS. COMMITTED, DEDICATED, ANONYMOUS—THEY BELONG TO A TINY FRATERNITY WHOSE COMMON BOND IS UNCOMMON VALOR.

  Kolt finished reading just when he heard Mrs. Webber address Hawk.

  “Oh my God, Sergeant Bird, every time I see you it’s as if you just survived a train wreck.”

  “Uhh, yes ma’am,” Hawk said. “I’ve always been a little accident prone.”

  Mrs. Webber leaned closer to Hawk and cupped her hand near her mouth. “Honey, you must have given your mother fits.”

  “I inherited it.”

  “What was it this time?” Webber’s wife asked. “Another car accident?”

  “Vacation booboo, actually,” Hawk said.

  Kolt caught some movement behind him and he turned. Webber and several of the graybeards had entered the garden and were moving to their designated places for the ceremony to commence. They hadn’t changed clothes, still wearing the same Multicam fatigues they wore at Hawk’s board. That told Kolt—and in a few seconds, as soon as they came around the crowd and into Hawk’s view, she’d assume the same—that they must have debated her acceptance until they were forced to break for the ceremony. The jury was likely still out.