by Glynn James
The others in CIC were staring at him, waiting.
He tried to imagine Ali’s reaction if he forbade her. She was a pro, and she’d get over it. But how would Alpha be regarded around the carrier, if they put their own lives above those of the crew? And what if they all ended up dying later in the African interior, because their best pilot, the CAG, wasn’t there to give them close air support? Christ, he could go round and round with this, and still not get it right.
If he couldn’t trust himself, then maybe he just had to trust Ali – if she got stuck into this mission, she’d find a way to get herself out. She always did.
“Go,” Handon said.
Drake nodded his agreement – but then he grabbed Ali’s arm as she turned to leave. He looked her dead in the eye and said, “You cannot lose this helicopter, or we can’t do Somalia. You bring that bird back. The CAG if you can. The crew, ideally. But, no matter what, the goddamned helicopter. Got it?”
Ali nodded once, the whites of her eyes shining brilliantly in the dark.
And then she was gone.
IED Alley
SAS Saldanha - Main Warehouse
Withering fire was still coming in on Juice and the Marines – totally merciless, and increasingly accurate.
Much worse than this was the fact that, while Juice had forbade his Marines to maneuver, the badass Spetsnaz killers were happily maneuvering in on them, and working around their flanks. They moved, shot, and communicated with daunting skill, and flawless small-unit cohesion. It was like fighting the Borg.
Soon they’d have the Marines’ position enveloped.
And not long after that, they’d all be dead.
Ordering a static defense as Juice had done was preventing them from being shredded by more of those IEDs, or from overreaching themselves and being cut down by superior shooters. And it would probably keep them alive for a few minutes longer.
But staying static was also a one-way ticket to defeat.
And, ultimately, being wiped out – to the last man.
Juice’s SIG went dry again. Instead of doing an immediate mag change, he ducked down, switched from his primary to secondary weapon, then leaned around the right side of the pallet he hid behind and triggered off a full pistol mag. As he fired, he heard something explode to the right of his head, and his cheek was lacerated with pain.
Withdrawing under cover again, he grunted in satisfaction. He had definitely tagged a guy there, though he was pretty sure it hit his damned body armor. But possibly an extremity. Though that wouldn’t bother a Spetsnaz guy much, and probably wouldn’t slow him down. It certainly wouldn’t make him any less lethal.
He put his hand to his cheek. It came back bloody. He looked down at his shoulder. The sonofabitching Russians shot my shoulder cam off. Oh, well. Not only was that a great spot to get shot in, all things considered, it was also a pretty negligible loss on the kind of day they were having.
The specter of Raible – still out there in no-man’s-land in the middle of the firefight, bleeding out on the cold bare floor – tore at Juice’s soul. A huge part of his training and operational experience told him to push out a salient, put out final protective fire, or a grenade volley – something, anything, to create the space needed to go out and bring him back in.
But he also knew it just wasn’t going to happen.
And the fate of Corporal Raible was not nearly his biggest problem right now.
As he considered all this, he heard a bellow of pain, and turned to see one of the Marines further down the line throw his hands to his face and hit the deck like a sack of writhing cement. The man next to him scrambled over and started doing combat-lifesaver medicine on him.
It looked to Juice like the man had been shot in the face. He was still alive. You could tell because he was kicking wildly with both legs, coughing piteously, and trying to breathe through blood.
Juice looked away. And as he reloaded both his weapons under cover, he thought:
We’re getting our lunch money taken here.
Against his will, he found himself trying to take his own emotional temperature, to query that fear of mortality that had been gnawing at him for so long.
The mind does very funny things in combat.
* * *
Am I really ready to check out? Juice wondered.
He’d felt ready enough a few minutes earlier, sitting with that ticking IED just above and behind him. Now he was looking at the possibility of a nice clean bullet to the head. Followed by what would probably be a very pleasant permanent nap. There were much worse ways to go, especially in the ZA.
But just then, as he was pondering this, Juice was jostled in the shoulder by Sergeant Lovell, as the Marine dropped down under cover to reload.
And in the middle of this whole frozen, perilous, unfixable shit-show, Juice remembered that there was actually something much scarier than getting killed. And that was: getting the people he was responsible for killed.
And even scarier than that, a whole lot scarier, was this: letting down the people he was doing all this for.
Letting down his brothers.
And that was unthinkable. A no-go.
Finally, Juice remembered that this, all of it, everything they were doing and suffering, was all about completing the goddamned mission. And the mission, ultimately, was this: saving what remained of humanity. And now there was simply no more slack in the system, no more room for failure or half-measures. This one was do or die.
And Juice had to get it done.
For his brothers in Alpha, of course, who were depending on him to get them ammo to shoot and food to eat, as was everyone else on the USS John F. Kennedy.
But also for all of humanity.
Everyone who lived was Juice’s brother – as much as that old man in the Panjshir Valley, who had lost all his children to an errant bomb. As were those two heroic special-operations pilots who had died saving Juice’s life in that plane crash in Somalia. As were these young Marines, who were now fighting and dying beside him.
All were his brothers.
And failing them just could not be an option for him.
And, suddenly, and very unexpectedly, Juice’s fear of death faded away into nothing. And his longing for death, just to get the damned thing over with, also melted away, evanescing into the bullet-torn air around him.
And now, even with rifle reports and grenade blasts savaging the air around him, and fat rounds snapping the air inches over his head, somehow he felt… totally at peace.
And mainly, with those emotional encumbrances lifted, he suddenly found he was able to “observe everything, admire nothing.” That is, he could assess their situation coolly, rationally, and effectively – without the emotional baggage, which always clouded and clogged up thinking, decision, and action.
And which was the great killer of combat effectiveness.
In his mind’s eye, Juice flashed back to the last thing his micro-UAV had seen before being blasted out of the air, by a bullet that might have actually been bigger than it. And that was the other unexploded IED, which he had seen emplaced on the periphery of the open central area. And based on the position of that one, plus the one that had taken down Raible, he seemed to see, by pure extrapolation, the whole pattern of them, the shape of the network, and where the others were likely to be positioned. At the very least, he knew where he would have put them.
And he felt one additional certainty: those other IEDs out there would not be victim-operated.
No, the Russians wouldn’t risk not being able to maneuver freely, as the fight required – couldn’t take the chance of tripping the devices themselves. No, those charges would be remote-operated, and triggered manually. And the control mechanism would either be line-of-sight, control-wire – or, much more likely, by radio remote.
Juice dropped his rifle in his lap, unslung his assault pack, yanked the main compartment open, and came out with his hand-held digital radio frequency (RF) scanner. It was the same device
he and Pred had used to track Homer and Ali’s RFID ship’s security cards – about a hundred lifetimes ago, back when they’d first started this caper.
Some would say – some had told him very pointedly – that it was a stupid and pointlessly heavy piece of gear to hump around on combat ops. But he never listened. Juice not only liked his toys – he believed in them. Moreover, he knew which side his bread was buttered on. He knew where his strengths lay.
The clue was in the name.
He telescoped out the antenna on the RF scanner, and powered up the device.
Now – he just had to get these assholes to detonate another one of those things, so he could pick up the signal, and decode it. He looked around at his dwindling team.
And tried to decide who to send to their death.
* * *
Some part of Juice, and not a small one, knew it should be him. But that was impossible. He had to stay alive – to complete a dozen tasks that only he could do, to lead the team, to complete the mission. To keep the whole thing from falling apart. And he simply couldn’t think of any way to venture out into the death zone of IED Alley without the near certainty of becoming a casualty himself.
No. He was in the wretched position of thousands of combatant commanders before him – of having to spend the life of one of his men in order to complete the mission. His foremost job was always mission accomplishment – even more important than his sacred duty to the men under his command.
He’d avoid doing this if there were any other way. But there wasn’t, and it was do-or-die now – for all of them. There was no time for anything else. And there wasn’t anything else anyway. They were out of time, and down to one option.
He took a look down the right side of their skirmish line. And he touched his radio PTT button.
“Lawton!”
“Here, Sarge!”
“I need you to break out and push the right flank. Get a base of fire from your battle buddy, then haul ass fifteen meters forward and right. How copy?”
“Roger that, solid copy!”
“Go!”
And then it was happening. Juice couldn’t see from his position in the line, but he could feel the covering fire ramping up – and then somehow sensed Lawton making it to his next covered position intact.
And then the terrible explosion.
Juice couldn’t have seen it even if he’d wanted to – because he was head-down in his RF scanner.
Got it.
In a few seconds more, he had the signal analyzed, as well as located precisely on the electromagnetic spectrum.
He dumped the scanner back in his pack and pulled out a micro-Tuffbook, more like a thick palmtop. It was up in a few seconds, booting its minimal OS from a solid-state drive, taking just long enough for Juice to tear his friend-or-foe (FOF) ID active transponder from its velcroed-down pouch on the back of his plate carrier.
This was the device that transmitted his precise location back to CIC on the Kennedy. It wasn’t intended for what he was about to use it for – and he had never actually tried this. But, on the other hand, the FOFID transponder transmitted digital radio signals, and that’s all he needed it to do. It also had a USB port, and his Tuffbook had software that could access and configure the damned thing.
Plus, Juice really did know his shit. He suddenly felt like a jazz soloist, riffing on top of chord progressions he knew perfectly, from many years of practice and performance. In a half a minute, he had the transponder reconfigured – and his symphony composed. Now on to the performance.
He powered down the transponder – somewhere just off the coast, his signal would be disappearing on a very big map – yanked it free of the USB port, then slammed shut the palmtop and stowed it. Then he got up into a squat, ready to move, with his weapon ready. But, mainly, he had that FOFID transponder clutched in his left hand, his thumb on the rubberized power toggle. With his right hand, he keyed his radio and got on the squad net.
“All Biltong elements! Prepare for tactical withdrawal on my signal. I want a modified center peel, making maximal use of cover. And I want us to haul ass two-five meters to the rear in the first movement, then twenty-five more on the second. Everyone steps off when I pop smoke.”
He didn’t ask or wait for acknowledgement from the five dudes still standing. They’d either heard him or they hadn’t, and any who hadn’t would probably get the drift when everyone else started bugging out.
Now Juice felt a very strong and insistent hand on his left bicep. He turned and saw that it was Sergeant Lovell. He locked eyes with what was clearly a very agitated and unhappy Marine NCO. Lovell pressed his helmet up against Juice’s, and shouted over the roar of the battle.
“Negative, Sarge! We do not leave Marines behind!” He seemed to think Juice had forgotten about the two men who were down to their front. But, in fact, they were nearly at the forefront of his mind.
At the forefront of Lovell’s was: Who is this asshole?
Juice nodded, spat, and shouted back: “You’re just going to have to trust me, man!”
Lovell increased his dig into Juice’s bicep. “I don’t trust you! I don’t fucking know you!”
Juice knew the Marine had a point – he just didn’t care. And he definitely didn’t have time for a nuanced debate on the topic. He pried the fingers of his right hand under Lovell’s, and removed the vise-like grip from his arm. “Then just obey the fucking order. Sergeant.”
And with that, Juice pulled a white smoke grenade from a pouch, popped it, and gave it a toss over the row of crates to their front, out into the no-man’s-land beyond. Within seconds, thick billows of white smoke gushed forth, and began to fill the palletized canyons.
Maybe it would keep them all alive for another minute.
The Fight of Their Lives
JFK - Flight Deck
Commander Drake’s admonition to Bring that goddamned helicopter back echoed in Ali’s ears as she and Handon emerged from the island, the two of them jogging across the flight deck toward the idling CSAR bird. The Seahawk’s rotors were now going batshit, screaming and whining about two RPMs short of dust-off, as if it were straining against its leash.
Ali heaved herself aboard and then turned around, as Handon grabbed the back of her head and stuck his own up to it. “Helicopters are replaceable!” he shouted. “You’re not! You bring YOURSELF back!”
Ali knew he was right. If they really needed another goddamned helo, they’d go out and find one. It wasn’t like their owners needed them anymore, or cared.
“Roger that!” she shouted back. “No dramas, boss.”
And with that, the sleek aircraft powered up and blasted off into the sky – and into a desperate race with the Russians, to see who would get to their downed pilot first.
And maybe to see who would be left standing at the end.
* * *
“Well,” Predator rumbled, hands on hips, “Homer might have taken a few personal days. But when the man’s back on the job, he’s on the job.”
“Aye,” Henno agreed.
This was only seconds after the SEAL had backflipped into open water, as if he’d be enjoying a pleasure dive around some coral reef. In fact, he had no idea what would be waiting for him down in those dark depths, beneath the gigantic hull of the supercarrier. And neither did Predator or Henno. They only knew he was down there completely on his own. And they didn’t like it.
Going in without a dive buddy was dodgy at the best of times. Doing it in water that might be crawling with lethally skilled Spetsnaz combat swimmers was little short of madness.
Then again, it was the kind of madness that Tier-1 operators called a day at the office.
Pred kicked the CRRC to check that it was fully inflated. "Okay,” he said. “Let’s take this thing out, see if it floats – and try to support our guy."
Henno just grunted, then hefted one end of the bulky boat as Pred got the other. Together, they gave it a swing off the dock and into the water, where it landed with a
splash.
“May as well get on with it,” Henno said, picking his rifle up off the deck. The two big ground-pounders clambered into the unsteady boat – because they knew it would get them a little closer to their frogman brother.
And if Homer’s fears turned out to be correct, and limpet mines had already been laid by Spetsnaz divers, and actually did sink the Kennedy before he got to them… well, at least these two were already in their goddamned lifeboat.
But they also knew that Homer might be in the fight of his life.
* * *
Handon stood out on the flight deck, head down and hands in pockets against the dissipating rotor wash, and watched the Seahawk shrink to a gray speck in the sky to the south.
And in that moment, something came back to him.
He remembered the question Ali had asked him so forcefully in the dark solitude of her cabin, in the middle of the night, two nights ago. “What’s the difference?” she’d said. “Between us and the pirates? What’s the difference?”
And he thought: Maybe, for her, this is it – volunteering to go out and put her neck on the chopping block, to try and rescue a man she’s never even met.
Maybe this was the difference for Handon, too – letting her go off and try it.
He suddenly hoped he wasn’t going to have defend this decision to Henno – or to anyone, really. He knew what the pragmatic Brit would say: that the CAG was gone. And putting more of them at risk – which meant hurting the chances for survival of the other fifty million – was folly of the highest order.
Handon closed his eyes.
It was getting harder and harder to make these calls. And impossible to know how the results were going to play out. He thought again about the terrible possibility of pointlessly throwing away the lives of his people. The whole damned ZA was without point, or meaning. All this destruction and waste, all of it for nothing. He remembered Juice saying something like that – that it all might have been headed off by a few guys quicker with shotguns or axes, or even just some decent public hygiene in Africa.
