Hellfire- The Series, Volumes 1-3

by Leigh Barker

  “Yes, we do,” Mahdi said, and pointed to a house off a small, packed-earth square. “There.”

  Gunny stepped up in front of the rough warped door and prepared to bust it in.

  “Wait,” Mahdi said, and moved in front of him, looked up at the big sergeant and knocked the door gently.

  A few seconds later it opened a crack and a white-haired old man peered out, saw Mahdi and pulled it fully open, then waved them in.

  Gunny followed the translator into the house, his M16 moving slowly from side to side. Winter stepped off to the right and knelt behind a water trough, his eyes scanning the silent houses for any movement.

  The old man started to close the door, but Gunny put his boot in its way. “Tell him I like fresh air.”

  Mahdi spoke quietly and the old man gave Gunny a long, puzzled look, then left the door half open, crossed to the table and lit an oil lamp.

  “Tell him what we need to know,” Gunny said.

  Mahdi gave him a look too. “I’ve done this before, Gunny,” he said, and led the old man to a chair at the plain wooden table. There was fresh baked bread and butter, and the old man pointed at it, then at Gunny.

  “He wants you to join him for breakfast.”

  “Not hungry. Do your thing and let’s get out of here.”

  “He will be offended if you refuse.” Mahdi pointed at the bread. “Eat, if you want your questions answered.”

  Gunny took two paces to cross the small room, looked at the bread and nodded. It smelt great. “Let’s eat.” He sat down.

  The old man handed him a chunk of buttered bread sprinkled with sugar and he ate it, and realized he was hungry after all.

  Mahdi spoke softly to the old man as he made up a plate for Winter, which he took outside without speaking.

  “Doesn’t say much, does he?” Gunny said, helping himself to more bread.

  “He will, when he has observed our traditions.”

  “I hope it doesn’t take long, we have a bus to catch.”

  The old man came back and stood at the table opposite Mahdi. He nodded slowly and watched him, then spoke quickly.

  “He says he is happy to see me. It has been a long time.”

  “Right, tell him you love him too, and let’s go.”

  The interpreter spoke while the old man shook his head. Then he jumped in surprise and pointed at the wall.

  Mahdi frowned and spoke again. The old man shook his head and pointed at the wall again.

  “Well?” Gunny said, standing up and crossing to the door to check outside.

  “I don’t understand,” Mahdi said.

  “What?” Gunny said, turning back to the room. “He’s speaking Afghan, isn’t he?”

  “Dari,” Mahdi said, without thinking. “It’s not that.” He moved around the table and spoke to the old man, who bowed and smiled to show where he used to have teeth.

  “For Christ’s sake. Is Faraj here or not?”

  “Yes,” Mahdi said. “And no.”

  “That you translating? Because if it is, you should look for another fuckin’ job.”

  “What I am saying is he is here. But he is dead.”

  Gunny was silent for a moment while he processed it. “The missile attack that killed his family, it got him too?”

  Mahdi tilted his head. “I am impressed. But yes, Faraj, Mahmoud Faraj, was killed along with his whole family.” He took a slow breath. “Faraj was a sheep herder.” He looked at Gunny for several seconds. “And an old man.”

  “Time to go,” Gunny said.

  The radio on his webbing squawked and he pulled it up and pressed the button. “Receiving.”

  Loco’s voice came through, squeaky and broken, but just clear enough. “Boss, we’ve got company.”

  Gunny pressed the transmit button. “How many?”

  “All of them.” Loco was silent for a moment. “I see six taliwagons, mounted .50 cals and maybe six or seven fighters each.”

  “Shit,” He pressed transmit again and spoke quietly and calmly. “Has our exfil been compromised?” He caught Mahdi’s scared look.

  “Confirmed, they’re rolling right up the turnpike.”

  “Ask them to slow down,” Gunny said. “We’re coming to you.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Come on, we’re leaving,” he said to Mahdi.

  “No, I cannot leave.”

  “Shit, son, they’ll kill you six ways to Sunday.”

  “If I go, they will kill everyone in the village for helping us.” He shook his head. “I will stay. They will only kill me.”

  Gunny took a slow breath, then stepped forward and put his hand on the Afghan’s shoulder. “You’re one brave kid for a raghe—” He shrugged. “You might not have to die. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  “There are five of you and many of them.” He took a deep breath through his nose, almost snorting. It wasn’t nice. “Forgive me… Gunny, if I do not raise my hopes too much.”

  “Where there’s life,” Gunny said, turned and strode out into the square and looked up at the sky streaked with the first light of dawn.

  “You hear that?”

  Winter stood up. “Yeah, I heard.”

  “Let’s go and say hello.”

  “We could call in air support,” Winter said, then chuckled and pointed at the ancient radios. “Though we’d be better using smoke signals.”

  “Wouldn’t come anyhow. You remember what Recon said?”

  “Yeah, tourists.” They started jogging out of the village. And Winter stopped. “You still got that satphone?”

  “Why, you thinking of calling your mom?” Gunny said.

  “Nah, maybe call for a flyboy to come rescue us.”

  Gunny shook his head. “That major…Larkin? Yeah, Larkin. He gets to say where the air support goes. And it ain’t here.”

  They started jogging again, and this time Gunny stopped and reached into his pack to retrieve the satphone.

  “Thought you said it wouldn’t do us any good?”

  “It won’t, but let’s complete our mission before we die.”

  “You gonna tell Top what the old guy said?”

  “I am.” He pressed the buttons. “Then I’m going to kill some bad men.”

  “You heard how many of those… bad men are comin’ on in?”

  “I did,” Gunny said, and put the phone to his ear. “I’ll try to leave some for you.”

  The Fugitive

  Ethan listened to Gunny talking as if he was in the next room, but only if he was running in the next room.

  “Slow down, Gunny,” he said, and sat up and looked at Kelsey driving the SUV. She mouthed a question and he held up his hand. “Say again.” He listened, staring straight ahead. “I can’t have heard that right.” He held the phone away from his ear for a moment then put it back. “Jesus. Copy that.” He frowned at the cell, as if it could see him. “What the hell are you up to, Gunny? You’re panting like a sailor in a hooker’s boudoir.”

  His jaw clenched tight and he glanced at Kelsey without seeing her. “Have you called for air support?”

  He listened.

  “Stupid fucks. You stay alive and leave the rest to me.” He put his cell back into his pocket.

  “Problem?” Kelsey said.

  “A whole mess of Taliban are closing in on the squad,” he said.

  “What about air support?”

  No go. Some fuck is going to get my men all chewed up.” He looked around at the passing buildings as if for inspiration.

  “What are you going to do? They’re in Afghanistan.”

  He put his hand on his mouth, then gave a little start as an idea hit him. “Take me to SecNav’s office. Fast.”

  She got the idea, floored the pedal and practically bulldozed her way through the traffic to the sound of blaring horns.

  Fifteen minutes later he ran up the Pentagon steps and burst into the main entrance hall. And stopped. Two things that’ll get you shot for certain: wearing a US
flag in Baghdad, and running into a government building with a weapon on your belt. He’d chosen door number two.

  The Pentagon police showed more restraint than most officers he’d encountered and just shouted at him and pointed their Glocks at him. He did as they requested and put his hands on his head and knelt down.

  And while all this bullshit was going down, Gunny and the rest of the squad were getting shot to hell by the Taliban.

  Outstanding.

  Gunny and Winter stopped at the edge of the village and Gunny checked the road through the foothills with his binoculars. He let them drop onto the strap around his neck. “Loco wasn’t kidding. There’s enough jihadis down there to get the job done. And some.”

  “They still coming?” Winter said.

  “Slow, but yeah.”

  “Then where the hell is Loco?”

  Smokey didn’t need to act as spotter on this gig. The six Toyota pickups were crawling up the long, narrow track towards the village no more than three hundred yards away. Loco could hit them with a rock at that range. He moved off to the right along the ridge to cover him with his MP5, if he needed it, and he’d take money that he would.

  Loco let them come another hundred yards, then tracked the first pickup, focused his scope on the grille and fired. The effect was comic and scary all at the same time. The engine block exploded under the impact of the huge round and steam belched out in all directions. The Taliban dived, jumped and fell out of the pickups, scattering in all directions like cockroaches in sudden daylight.

  The driver of the second pickup was maneuvering around the totaled lead truck, using the rocks as an impromptu road. Loco saw the guy’s face in his scope and for a moment he thought about it, but the .50 cal would’ve blown the driver apart like a frog in a liquidizer, and the pickup would still be drivable, messy but drivable. He shifted his aim and put a fist-sized hole in the engine. The road was now going nowhere.

  Despite his Barrett being primarily an anti-material weapon, he decided to use it for a little… what was it they called it in Iraq? He picked the Taliban fighter waving the others on. Shock and awe, yeah, shock and awe. He blew the fighter’s head off at the neck and for what seemed like minutes, the headless body just stood there spraying blood like a busted faucet. The fighters who’d been following his lead froze and stared at the horror in front of them. That was shock and awe alright.

  Loco set about them as fast as he could, blowing great chunks of flesh off them with every shot. The M70 could fire for every squeeze of the trigger, but he’d settled for steady, rhythmic accuracy with a kill every shot, and by the time they realised what was happening and dived behind the rocks, he’d dropped three more.

  Gunny’s orders had been to slow them down, and that was just what he was going to do. Every time one of them showed even a bit of himself, Loco shot it off. He reloaded when his ten-round mag was spent. And five more Taliban were missing bits of their bodies. Not that they cared.

  But there was still a lot of them, around forty, less the ones gone to find the virgins. There was no way a single sniper was going to suppress that many enemy combatants, even one as good as Loco, and the moment he broke off to reload, they came on, swarming over the road and uphill towards him. Then Smokey opened up with his MP5.

  On full auto the MP5 could fire eight hundred rounds a minute, but he’d stayed with the three-round burst setting, instead of the one where he just jammed the trigger and screamed like some juiced-up movie hero wasting all his ammo. He worked left to right, dropping them as efficiently as a machine, but it was just a case of doing the math. They were going to overrun him and Loco way before they’d killed enough of them.

  He looked to his left and saw Loco firing, shifting, firing again, and grinning. Some things didn’t change, even when everything was going to hell. He snapped in another thirty-round mag and went back to work.

  Kelsey strode up behind Ethan kneeling on the hard floor on his gammy knee, and tutted. She held out her ID. “NCIS,” she said loudly, in case the five police officers couldn’t hear her above all the noise they were making. “Shoot him if you like,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “God knows he deserves it.” She ignored his look. “But he’ll just bleed all over your…” She bent and looked at the floor. “What is that? Terrazzo? Nice.”

  The police officers had stopped shouting, but were still holding their guns and looked as though they might shoot both of them anyway, just in case.

  “This idiot,” Kelsey said, patting Ethan’s shoulder again, “is a decorated US Marine.” She shook her head slowly. “Hey, I know, I didn’t believe it either, looking at him. But he is, and how will it look if a decorated marine gets shot to death in his own master’s house?”

  Ethan hid his smile. Master’s house? That was a good touch, a bit, well, Hollywood, but it worked for him.

  The police officers approached the decorated marine slowly and the one in charge waved him up. “You a marine?”

  Ethan climbed to his feet with a groan as his knee straightened, then nodded.

  “Then you should have more fuckin’ sense than to run into a government building, the Pentagon for fuck’s sake, like you’re some kinda whack-job on a fatwa.”

  “Fatwa’s just the order, you’re thinking jihad,” Ethan said, and dusted his knees.

  “I’m thinking of throwing your ass in a cell until your ass rots,” the officer said through clenched teeth.

  “Sorry…” Ethan leaned forward and checked the officer’s badge. “Sergeant.” He smiled his best smile. It didn’t help. “I should’ve got my head out of my ass, but my squad is pinned down in a shithole in Afghanistan and I need to get SecNav to send the cavalry.”

  The sergeant eyed him suspiciously, then looked to Kelsey. “He for real?”

  “He is. There’s a bunch of our boys getting shot to death by a swarm of jihadis while we’re here chatting away.”

  The sergeant straightened up. “Follow me.” He looked back. “I was in Operation Enduring Freedom back in ’02.” He turned and marched across the entrance hall with Ethan and Kelsey close behind. He led the way through the building and stopped outside SecNav’s office. “SecNav’s office,” he said, unnecessarily, pointing at the name on the door. “Won’t do you any good, though. He’s out.”

  Ethan’s good sense roared at him not to flatten the man.

  “When will he be back?” Kelsey said, her voice strained as she fought to keep it under control.

  “Need to know, and I don’t need—”

  “Is SecAF in the building?” Ethan said.

  “She is.”

  “Take me there… Sergeant.” Ethan’s urge to flatten him had subsided to a loud nag.

  “You said you wanted to see SecNav. Now you want to see SecAF?” the sergeant said, his eyes narrowed. “What the fuck’s going on here?”

  “It’s like we said,” Kelsey said quickly. “We need to get some dumb fuck over in Baghdad to get his hand off his dick and order an air strike for our marines risking their lives for Uncle Sam.”

  That was a lot of words to say just fuckin’ do it, you prick! but sometimes you have to show respect for a man’s position. Ethan could hit him later.

  The sergeant nodded. “Follow me.” He set off again.

  Ethan raised his fists and growled, but followed the police officer. Kicking his oversized butt would accomplish nothing and would probably get his boys killed.

  SecAF’s PA shook his head. “Madam Secretary is in a meeting.”

  Ethan smiled, but it was hard. “You’re here.” The statement received a nod of confirmation. “So SecAF’s meeting is here, right?”

  Another nod.

  Ethan strode past the immaculately dressed kid and pushed open the SecAF’s door. The PA started to follow, but Kelsey caught his arm and shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t, son.” She pointed at the open door. “It will just cause upset.”

  He was confused and looked from the door to her.
>
  “When he throws your ass out of the window.” She shrugged. “Make you look bad, wouldn’t it? And it’ll surely hurt like hell.”

  The PA stepped back away from the door.

  SecAF looked up as Ethan burst in. She waved the two airforce generals quiet and tilted her head questioningly, but didn’t speak. That was awesome.

  “Madam Secretary,” Ethan said, and stepped up to her desk, “I am Ethan Gill, and I need your help.”

  “Then, Ethan Gill, you shall have it.”

  That shut him up and he blinked hard. He’d expected a refusal, a demand to know what he was doing, and maybe security, but not this.

  “You’re the Master Sergeant Ethan Gill who intervened on my behalf at the hotel?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

  “You can drop the ma’am, I’m not your schoolteacher.” She was smiling. “What can I do for you?”

  “I have some boys in a village in Afghanistan who’d just love to see some airplanes with US insignia right now.”

  She picked up the phone. “I’ll get you the man who can make it happen. You tell him what he needs to know.” She pushed a button and waited a moment. “Richard, I have a marine with me. Give him what he needs, will you?” She handed Ethan the phone.

  Ethan gave the voice the coordinates of the village north of the Panjshir River and told him what was happening, thanked him and handed the phone back to SecAF, who was still watching him. And ignoring the two generals who were also watching, but less friendly.

  “These boys?” she said. “They yours?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiled. “Yes, Madam Secretary, they are.”

  “And they can’t get air support from Bagram?”

  He could see where this was going. Somebody’s head was going to roll for this. He helped sharpen the axe. “Politics.” He shrugged. “My boys are ex-marines, so don’t count as real fighting men.”

  “Once a marine, always a marine, right?”

  “Oorah.”

  “I’ll look into this… poor judgement,” she said in a tone that told him he was done.

  “Thank you,” Ethan said, turned and stopped. “For that, and for saving my men.”