“If you would, it would be much appreciated.”
Gunfire slammed into the far side of his rock, which ended the conversation.
He looked over at Dom. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
“OK, now,” he shouted into his mic. He waited for the fire to start up. One rifle opened up to the left of them, where the younger rancher, Grant, had gone to ground. It wasn’t the cover fire that he had expected. Dom had come up in a crouch on his feet, waiting for his signal.
Jeff keyed his mic again. “Go!”
The brothers started firing a second later, and he clapped his hand down on Dom’s shoulder before breaking around his side of the boulder. They both ran as fast as they could, covering the twenty yards to the rock face. He stepped on a rock that rolled underneath him and he went down hard, his momentum carrying him to a stop at the base of the rock.
Dom slammed into the side of the rock next to him a second later.
“You hit?”
“Just embarrassed.” He ignored the pain in his left arm, where he’d landed on something hard and sharp. “OK, slow and steady, work forward. I’ll keep eyes uphill; you front.”
Dom hugged the rock closely as he scanned the area in front of them with his NODs. Jeff was forced to move a step or two away from the rock to get an angle at the myriad of crevices and boulders above them, any one of which would make a perfect hiding spot.
A stitch of fire raked across the rocks to their right, filling the air with ricochets. He leaped back up against the rock in reflex and realized Dom was face down at his feet and not moving. The rest of his erstwhile fire team, the rodeo brothers and the rancher, responded in kind and opened up on an unseen position a lot closer to him than he liked.
“I got him,” somebody yelled. “I nailed that son of a bitch.”
“The hell you did!”
He keyed his mic. “You two shut the hell up, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
He surged forward, rolled Dom over. There was a lot of blood, covering one side of his face and neck. He checked for a wound, the crack in Dom’s helmet giving him a clue of where to look. The back lip of his helmet had caught a ricochet. He ran a finger into the wound, and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt solid bone underneath the mess of the torn-up scalp. He knew it could very easily be a lot worse than that on the inside of that hard, Polish skull, but his friend was breathing.
He was alone now, at least on this side of the rock. He keyed his mic—“Tom, Hans? You still in the game?”
All he got back was two single clicks in the affirmative. Thinking about what he had to work with on this side of the hill, he held onto the fact that the former Green Beret above them was alive. He went to work getting a bandage tight to Dom’s head, doing his best to work one-handed and keeping his gun, one eye, and both ears focused on the dark void hanging in front of and above him.
Automatic gunfire exploded on the far side of the hill, two quick bursts and then nothing. It had sounded like a one-sided affair to him, and he prayed Tom had gotten a drop on someone. He waited for a count of twenty.
“Tom? Still with us?”
One click came back in the affirmative.
“Tango’s dropped?” Jeff asked.
Again, just one click came back. He did some quick mental math; there were still between one and three enemy out there. It depended on how many Kyle had managed to take out, or how many were up on that hillside right now, targeting them after taking out Kyle.
“Tom, I count possible one to three tangos. You have eyes on?”
This time, Tom responded with two clicks.
“Shit . . .” He couldn’t help talking to himself. If Kyle was out of the picture, it was just a matter of time before guns on the hillside across the river would have them boxed in.
Dom groaned, and started moving his feet as if he were standing. Kneeling next to him, he leaned over and put his weight on the man. “Easy, Dom, you’re good.”
He could see Dom blinking in confusion, rubbing at the sticky blood on his face.
“Easy—quiet, buddy,” he whispered. “Bad guys have gone quiet.”
Former Master Sergeant Ed Simmons was fighting the guilt from losing his team like this, and failing in his mission. Christ, these people were supposed to have been soft suburbanites, half of them soccer moms, with an old man in tow. Starret must have been right; TF Chrome was tied into the resistance somehow. They’d had a sniper waiting for them who had taken out his team’s connection to the drone, and subsequently their uplink to the only people read in on his hunting expedition.
Boyd had been one hell of a technical officer, but with the drone uplink in place and able to relay the signal from their tactical radios, his communications officer had been packing the backup satellite phone inside the drone controller case. The sniper who had destroyed the case had almost done for him as well. As best as he could tell, the guy had been shooting from the back of beyond, farther up the valley.
He’d sent two men, Ricky and Trey, across the creek and up the opposing hill after the sniper. There’d been an engagement up there; they’d all heard it. Since then, there’d been nothing. No report from his men, and no more sniper rounds zipping in on them.
Beside Trey and Ricky, whom he had to assume were gone, he’d lost four more men at the hands of these people, who suddenly had a lot more firepower than he had been briefed about. Two at the edge of the outcropping, one in the river, and somehow, they now had a gun between him and the crash site, that had just taken out Tomayev. He was all that was left, and he was mentally kicking himself for the fact that he hadn’t packed an extra sat-phone himself.
For Christ’s sake! This was Idaho, not Anatolia, and he’d had dedicated drone support and a handpicked team. They’d been tasked to terminate three married couples and an old man. He’d read their files; there were only two of them that whom he considered a genuine threat, the Soares couple. The others were pilots and Silicon Valley-type geeks. And . . . you’re all that’s left.
He’d been directing his men, and had yet to fire a shot. There was no way the enemy could see him. He’d climbed atop the rock ridgeline that marched down the hillside to the creek. From his perch above them, he could see one of the enemy hunkered down in a depression, next to a body that wasn’t moving. He had an easy kill shot, but if he fired, they’d know where he was.
His only play was to work his way uphill and get out of the kill zone. Get to safety, and report. He came to his feet, paying close attention with his night vision to where he placed his boots. One rolling rock clattering its way beneath him, and he’d be cooked. He’d gone fifteen feet when he came to a shoulder-high wall that he’d have to climb. Before starting up, he turned back to make sure he didn’t have a line of sight on the tangos beneath him. If he couldn’t see them . . . He was dead before the report of the large-caliber sniper round reached him and reverberated back and forth between the canyon walls. He had one last fleeting sensation of falling . . .
Kyle let the rifle slide out of his hands and almost passed out, again. He hopped over on his best leg, the one that had caught a grazer in the calf, to where he had shed the ghillie suit and his pack. He collapsed on his bag, his brain trying to figure out what hurt more, his bruised chest, the hole through the meatiest part of his thigh or the one in his shoulder.
“Jeff, Kyle . . . that was the last one. I count eight KIA. They killed their civilian.”
“Good to hear your voice, brother. You good?”
It was too dark to see shit without night vision. He could feel his vision clouding over, narrowing, like soft pillows pressing in on his eyes. He prayed it was the effects of the nano-stab. He managed to press the transmit button.
“Not so much . . .”
*
Chapter 21
It had taken almost two hours to find Kyle and get him down off the hillside, across the creek, and back into the mine’s primary chamber that had been their home for far too long. Right now, the
place looked like a forward aid station.
Danny Carlisle had been hit, in his brother’s words - ‘in the brain.’ The wounded cowboy was laid out on the floor, on his stomach to protect the hole in his ass cheek, while humming some stupid song under the effect of painkillers from a nano-stab. Jeff wanted to tell him to shut up. It would have killed him to admit it, but the guy could hold a tune.
Dom was next to him, laid out on his back. His nano-stab had put the man out cold. He was certain Dom had a concussion, and was praying it wasn’t a contusion. They’d brought a lot of gear with them, but nothing that looked like an emergency room trauma doctor. Jeff was trying to think of their next move as he sewed up the last of Kyle’s new scars. It was clear they weren’t in any sort of condition to go anywhere.
“I fucked up.”
“Here I was, thinking you’d passed out again.” He looked up from his needlework at Kyle’s face. His color looked better. The second saline drip bag that he’d put into Kyle was almost gone.
“They split up on me, and I parked right in between them.”
“Those weren’t rental cops, Kyle. They get a vote, too. You won, so quit bitchin’ like Army.”
“Where’s everybody else?”
“Tom and Hans are outside with the two eggheads, checking the KIAs for sat-phones. Grant . . . is out there burying his dad; Josh is helping him. Danny is behind you, playing the jukebox. He took a round in the ass.” He couldn’t help but smile as he said that.
“Dom caught a ricochet in the head. His helmet caught most of it.”
“He going to be OK?”
“I think so, but you know how it is. I’m watching him.”
He saw the look in Kyle’s eyes; anger. Guys like him always thought they controlled everything, and took it the hardest when it was shown they didn’t.
“We lost both the pilots, the Bowdens.” Jeff finished dressing his handiwork on Kyle’s calf, before sitting back on his own very tired ass.
“They were fast, got to cover at the bend in the canyon before we did. She ran right into them; her husband followed her. Pete, the old man, was gassed by the time we went to ground. He was slow finding cover, but managed to drop one before they got him. After that, they had us pinned down until Tom got around them, up on top and dropped behind them. That last guy, you did for. We didn’t even know he was up there.”
He could almost hear Kyle’s teeth grinding. He scooted up to the supply pallet near Kyle’s head, from which he’d hung the IV bags. He had another small bag, already piped into Kyle’s IV. He opened the valve and gave it a soft squeeze to get it flowing.
“I know you don’t want to hear how it’s not your fault, how you’re lucky to be alive.” Jeff smiled down at his friend and shook his head. “So . . . you’re going to sleep.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, thanks to me. I hope I got this mixture right. I know there’s enough antibiotics in it for you to have a carefree weekend in Tijuana. It’s the sedation drug I’m worried about.”
“Can’t . . . we have . . . to move.” Kyle slurred the words.
Kyle was right, but they weren’t going anywhere at the moment.
“Sleep. We’ll figure it out.”
It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Kyle’s eyes to slam shut. Jeff made sure both his patients were breathing regularly, before scooting around to where he could lean against the wall of the cavern and shut his own eyes. Just for a bit.
When he awoke, he could tell immediately that Tom and Hans had let him sleep a lot longer than they should have. He rubbed at his eyes and visually checked his patients. Danny was snoring soundly; even out cold, the guy could not find a way to be quiet. Dom was awake and sipping out of a Mylar bag of water, the straw being held to his lips by the Spanish physicist, Augusto . . . Augustino, something like that.
Kyle was still sleeping; as far as he was concerned, that was a good thing. His friend had lost a good bit of blood. The longer he could rest up, the better. They all had a long hike ahead of them. The site he had picked out and given Jensen had been chosen for its defensibility, not ease of access. Hindsight was a bitch; they’d have to rig up something to carry Kyle for a good portion of the trek.
He let his eyes wander around the cavern. The heavy silence was almost physical in nature. He’d felt it before; Tom, Hans, Kyle, and Dom would have recognized it just as quickly. They’d lost three people, and had another three laid out with wounds. He mentally shook his head in wonder that the bill hadn’t been much higher. That sentiment wouldn’t be shared by Grant, who had lost his father. Not by Tom, since the Bowdens had been teammates of his; but he knew they’d been lucky. The ISS team had been cocky and clearly hadn’t expected the number of guns they had found opposing them. If they hadn’t had to split their team to deal with Kyle, the hit team would have cut them apart. They’d been lucky in a way the nonmilitary survivors wouldn’t want to hear.
He spotted the other technician, Jeremy, leaned up against the opposite wall, staring at his hands as he wiped at them with a rag. The bodies of Pete and both the Bowdens, which the scientists had helped Grant bury, had probably been the first the scientists had ever seen up close. He couldn’t see Grant, Tom, or Josh Carlisle.
“I smell coffee,” he managed with a voice that felt scratchy, a reminder of how much yelling he’d done the night before.
The Spanish physicist was too young to have the whole mad-scientist look, but he was pulling it off at the moment. “We have some; give me a moment.”
Jeff shook his head, waving him off as he gained his feet. “Where is it?”
“In the translation chamber, with the new soldier.”
Jeff nudged Dom’s foot with his boot. “How’s the head?”
Dom tried to sit up, but was pushed back down by the physicist.
“Like a hangover. I’m ready,” Dom said.
He didn’t look ready, but he was awake and talking, all better than the alternatives.
Glancing at his watch, he wished Tom hadn’t let him sleep so long. “It’s daylight out there; get some more rest. We won’t be moving till dark.”
Tom had a map spread out on the floor of the translation chamber and was down on one knee, holding a cup of coffee. Josh Carlisle was a few feet away, kneeling over a small cooking stove and stirring something that smelled, more or less, like caffeinated lifeblood.
“Found just one sat-phone,” Tom said as soon as he saw him. “It was fried inside the RC case. We looked all over; they only had the one. I think we’re good for the short term. I let you sleep, because you’re about to return the favor.”
“Sounds like a deal.” He breathed a sigh of relief at Tom’s report as he knelt down over the map. The odds were good the ISS squad hadn’t been able to get a message out to whomever they reported to.
“Kyle’s going to be fine,” Jeff said. “The longer he has to rest, the better. I’d planned on a four-day movement to get to the extraction point from here; we’ll need at least two extra days managing him.” He jerked his chin towards Josh. “And maybe this one’s brother.”
“Don’t worry about Danny; he’ll just bitch. He doesn’t know how to quit.” Josh snorted in laughter. “Any more than he knows to get his ass down when he’s being shot at.”
Tom handed over the cup of coffee he’d been holding as he rolled his eyes at Josh’s comment. “Tough to know how long their drone has before it heads for the barn, or who may be waiting for it when it does.”
Jeff had almost forgotten about the drone. “Is there any chance they were controlling the bird locally?”
“No idea.” Tom shook his head. “Kyle plastered the RC case. There wasn’t enough left inside to tell anything, other than the fact that they’d been carrying the sat-phone in it. You thinking it will wipe, on its own?”
“They killed their own pilots.” Jeff shrugged in response. “I’d guess their commo plan wasn’t tied into big Army; might hold for the drone as well.”
�
�Might . . .” Tom answered.
“We’ll leave tonight,” Jeff decided, and then remembered Tom was every bit as qualified for this type of thing as he was. “You good with that?”
“Give him the bad news,” Josh said.
“What?”
Tom just shook his head. The big Green Beret had the look on his face that said he’d spent the last eight hours with a Carlisle tied to his hip.
“I forgot to mention,” Tom said. “The rain turned to snow around sunup.”
“Of course it did.”
“Well,” Josh broke in. “If their drone isn’t talking to anybody else, maybe the snow will cover up the crash site, right?”
He exchanged a look with Tom that may have held a little bit of respect. “The rodeo clown might have a point.”
“I was a bull rider.”
By Jeff’s way of thinking, that factoid didn’t strengthen his opinion of Josh’s intelligence. But the man was right about the snow. Of course, the other side of that coin was that it was damned easy to track people in the snow.
He took a sip of the coffee and almost gagged. “What the hell?”
Tom gave a short laugh. “You think I’d have given it up, if I could drink it?”
Jeff looked over at Josh. The cowboy shrugged once in response. “Do I look like a chef?”
“Do I want to ask?”
“No.” Tom shook his head. “No, you do not.”
*
The ISS drone hadn’t received any commands from its controller in over twelve hours. Its onboard programming, which monitored its fuel reserve, went active and took over when the reserve hit 5 percent. Without a care, it turned the propeller-driven craft south towards the base in Utah from where it had launched nearly thirty hours earlier. The last commands it had been given had pulled it a long way off its original programmed course. It had followed the orders of the team controlling it and wandered far to the north to monitor the border with Canada, and then subsequently back down south to the Idaho-Montana border. There, it had circled, fifteen thousand feet above the last known point of contact, recording everything it heard in an electronic sense and saw with its powerful optics.
New Shores: The Eden Chronicles - Book Three Page 29
