by Joshua Hood
It took a special kind of man to lie there and let someone shoot at you. To ignore the voice in the back of your head screaming at you to get up and run. At the time he’d thought self-preservation was the most powerful of all man’s instincts and the desire to live for just one more minute was the most compelling force in the world.
* * *
—
But lying there in the dirt, eighteen months after losing everything he’d ever cared about, Hayes realized the lesson he’d learned in Afghanistan was wrong. Vengeance was the most powerful instinct.
22
DECEPTION PASS, WASHINGTON
Crouched safely behind a tree one hundred yards north of the target building, Felix Black was well out of the blast zone. Black was staring at the cabin when the Hellfire flashed into view. He saw it for only a second, the brief flicker of the Hellfire’s rocket motor that looked yellow through his night-vision goggles.
Then the antitank missile hit the target and exploded, the flash of light flaring his night vision, leaving him temporarily blind. He rotated the goggles up and out of the way, blinked his eyes at the wall of orange and black smoke that washed over the scene. Despite the distance from the blast radius, he felt the concussion in his chest. A backhand of pressure across the front of his plate carrier.
“Keep your head down,” he yelled a moment before he heard the rush of shrapnel cutting through the trees.
No one could survive that, he thought, savoring the raging inferno with his naked eye.
But the satisfied smile had no sooner creased the corner of his lips than Black heard the staccato chatter of the belt-fed machine gun on his left chug to life.
There is no fucking way.
“I’ve got a runner!” the gunner yelled.
Black followed the orange tracers that marked every fourth round toward their target, but all he could see was the flicker of shadows in the flames. He was about to call cease-fire when the second gunner added a long burst that echoed through the darkness like a hammer against an anvil.
He knew the men were too well trained for sympathetic fire. If they were shooting, it meant they had a target.
Black’s hand closed around the hand mike strapped to his chest. “Air One, this is Alpha Six, we have a squirter on the south side of the building.”
“Roger that, Alpha Six, I am en route,” the pilot responded, his voice calm and distant over the radio.
“Keep his head down!” Black yelled as he got to his feet and ordered the rest of the Strike Team to get in line. He shouldered his H&K 416 and waited for them to form a skirmish line, lowered his night vision, and bounded forward.
He ducked behind a second tree three feet away and scanned for a target. “Set!” he yelled, letting the next man in the team know he was clear to move past him.
The next shooter came in from his left. He dropped behind a pile of rocks, his muzzle pointed toward the target. When Black saw the man’s mouth open, he knew he was yelling that he was “set,” but the word was drowned out by the whine of the AS350 Eurocopter turbines.
The helo thundered overhead, and the pilot activated the searchlight mounted beneath the tail. The high-intensity SX-16 Nightsun was well named, and with an output of 30,000 lumens, it easily cut through the smoke kicked up by helicopter rotors and turned the night into day.
If Hayes was down there, the helo would find him.
The pilot bent the helo into a tight orbit while the copilot worked the powerful light over the outbuilding.
In his peripheral vision, Black watched the third member of the Strike Team angling for position. The man was three feet short of the stump he was planning to use for cover when his head snapped back and he dropped like a stone.
“Man down!” someone yelled.
“Alpha Six, I’ve got eyes on the shooter.”
“Take him out,” Black ordered.
Instead of staying in his orbit, the pilot decided to give his shooter a more stable platform and settled into a hover. Black had warned them not to play around with Hayes and couldn’t believe it when he saw the sniper lean out of the helo and take his time lining up the shot. “Stand by for shot . . .” the pilot said.
Black keyed his hand mike, trying to tell the pilot that he needed to keep moving, but the radio bleated in his hand. The long tone told him that someone inside the helicopter had their thumb on the transmit button.
In the military they called it hot-miking, and not only could Black not get on the radio, but he and the rest of the team could hear everything being said in the cockpit.
“C’mon, take the shot,” the pilot said. “You got my ass hanging out in the breeze here.”
“Hold her steady,” a second voice replied.
There was a time in Special Operations when men thought that they were safe inside the helicopters that carried them into battle. That changed on October 3, 1993, in the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.
Black joined the Navy SEALs one year after Operation Gothic Serpent, when the scars from the battle known as Black Hawk Down were still fresh in everyone’s mind. The primary lesson learned during that twenty-four-hour firefight—where members from Team Ranger fought to recover the bodies from the two Black Hawks that had been shot down—was that a hovering helicopter was an inviting target.
But with someone inside the Eurocopter hot-miking, all Black could do was scream “Get the hell out of there!” and watch the two muzzle flashes blink from the shadows.
The first bullet hit the sniper and he tumbled from the helicopter, still connected by the retention line snapped to the ring inside the cargo hold. In the cockpit, the pilot increased the throttle and jerked the helo out of the line of fire. He overcorrected, pulling the helicopter backward and into the trees, dragging the suspended sniper through the flaming limbs.
“Air One is hit, Air One is hit!” the copilot screamed over the radio, and Black heard the beeping of the alarm bells going off inside the cockpit.
The helo torqued left, the spotlight blinding the Strike Team on the ground. For the second time in five minutes, his night vision was useless, and he flipped the goggles out of the way. Black raised his hand to shade his eyes against the powerful glare, and when his vision returned, the flames from the burning trees fell across the glass of the cockpit, revealing a single hole in the center of the windshield.
Pumped up by adrenaline, the copilot overcorrected and yanked the stick to the rear, and Black watched the tail rotor sideswipe a limb. The helicopter shuddered, veering to the right, the fear in his voice evident over the radio.
“I’m putting her down.”
“Negative!” Black roared into the radio. “Get that bird back in the fucking air and finish the job.”
But the man wasn’t listening.
The hell with this, Black thought, leaving his position.
“Everyone up,” he yelled, grabbing the closest shooter by the backstrap of his plate carrier and yanking him to his feet. “Get a perimeter around that bird,” he ordered, shoving the man toward the settling helicopter. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
“On it,” a second shooter yelled, as he rolled out of his position on the left flank and started toward the Eurocopter.
Black forced his tired legs into a sprint and ducked his head at the snap of a bullet passing close by. That fucking Hayes.
23
DECEPTION PASS, WASHINGTON
The voice in his head screamed for him to get down, but Hayes was no longer in control of his body. Something had broken loose and all of the rage and anger he’d stuffed deep inside of him for the past eighteen months came rushing free.
It rolled out of the depths of his soul and into his veins. A river of fire that tumbled and churned its way to his heart. Turning it into a war drum that beat with one resounding note. A single word that echoed with every beat.
Kill . . . kill .
. . kill.
The rage consumed him, left him wanting to eat fire, breathe smoke. Devour the men who’d killed his friend and his wife and tried to destroy his life. Hayes lifted the SOCOM 16 to his shoulder and pressed his eye to the Trijicon MK II mounted to the rail. The thermal scope displayed the world in shades of black and white. Objects with ambient temperatures such as rocks and trees showed up dull gray, while the man in full kit, running toward cover, was bright white.
Hayes twisted the knob to max power and the man’s face leapt into view. At that moment he ceased to be a human being. He was now a target, an object to be dispatched as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Target: one hundred meters. Wind negligible at this range. Steady sight picture, safety off. Breathe . . . wait for it . . .
Crack.
The rifle bucked against his shoulder, the recoil from the 168-grain Hornady hollow-point leaving the barrel at 2,650 feet per second, driving the muzzle skyward. Hayes shoved his shoulder into the butt stock and slammed the rifle back onto target, ready for a follow-up shot.
But there was no need.
His target was down.
Hayes rolled onto his back and pointed the rifle toward the Eurocopter hovering above him. He was about to put a bullet in the spotlight when he saw a shadow of movement at the open troop door. Sniper. Hayes arced the rifle onto the target—target: twenty-five meters. No time, just put the warhead on the forehead.
Hayes centered up on the man, fully expecting to feel the burn of a bullet at any moment. He could see the sniper’s barrel pointing back at him through the glass. There was no time for fear, or thought, just the action—the one constant that separated the quick from the dead.
Crack.
The bullet dropped the sniper like a lead weight. He dropped the rifle and tumbled headfirst from the troop door. The retention line tethering him to the helo snapped taut, leaving him swinging beneath the Eurocopter like a stone on a string.
Go now, the voice ordered, trying to regain control.
But Hayes wasn’t finished, and he shifted the reticle onto the cockpit, his mind working through the challenges of the shot.
If he’d been engaging the pilot in command, or PIC, of an airplane, what the military referred to as a fixed-winged aircraft, Hayes would have targeted the man in the left seat. But as a pilot himself, he knew that in a helo, the PIC sat on the right.
The reason for the change came from the fact that unlike a plane, a helicopter didn’t actually fly—it beat the air into submission. To keep a helo steady, especially in hover operations, was a balancing act. One that Hayes’s flight instructor at Treadstone compared to “juggling while riding a unicycle on the ice.” It required constant adjustments to the cyclic, the stick that controlled the altitude and direction of the helicopter.
Due to the fact that a helo was inherently unstable, a good pilot was trained to keep his right hand on the stick anytime the bird was in flight.
Hayes shifted his aim to the right, the thick glass of the Eurocopter’s windscreen distorting his target’s heat signature. Giving it a fuzzy, spectral quality that reminded Hayes of a cartoon ghost. Drop the magnification. His non-firing hand twisted the knob, backing the scope’s power to normal.
The sight picture cleared and he placed the reticle on the top of the target sternum. Lower, in case the glass deflects the bullet. The entire sequence happened in the blink of an eye, and after Hayes made the minute adjustment to his point of aim, he was ready to fire.
Crack.
The round punched through the windscreen and the glass stripped the copper jacket from the lead core. Hayes kept his eye in the scope, watched the spray of white that marked the moment the lead core slammed into the target’s chest. He knew that the lead core had mushroomed on impact, expanded to twice its size, and slowed from 2,500 feet per second to a dead stop in the blink of an eye.
Before the blood had cooled in the air, all of the bullet’s kinetic energy had been transferred into a bulging wave of hydrostatic pressure that tore through the pilot’s internal organs like a hand grenade dropped into a pool.
Killing was the easy part.
The 240 Bravo machine gun anchoring the attackers’ right flank fell silent and Hayes keyed in on the gunner’s curse, knowing what had happened without having to be told. He pivoted toward the sound, and through the thermals saw the man up on his knees, trying to clear the jam.
Hayes shot him above the vest, low in the neck, the gushing spray of blood from the carotid telling him that the man had seconds left on this earth. When there were no more targets, Hayes took his eye from the scope and glanced left, toward the fence line where he’d left the Volvo.
The gunner on the left flank was still firing in short, steady bursts. He was firing high, the bullets passing harmlessly above Hayes’s head, but the man still had a solid base of fire.
Hayes needed to slip the ambush but knew the moment he moved out of the low ground and made a break for the fence line, the gunner would cut him down.
Shit, where do I go?
The revving turbine of the helo drew his attention skyward, and Hayes looked up in time to see the Eurocopter’s tail rotor clip a limb and veer hard to the right. He grasped the situation in an instant, knowing that the copilot had been fighting to regain control of the helo after the pilot was shot and had overcorrected.
Hayes knew the man had two options. He could increase the throttle and try to clear the obstacle or pitch the nose down and land.
But he doesn’t know if he damaged the tail rotor or not.
Hayes knew there was only one way the copilot could tell.
He’s going to put it down.
It was just a hunch, but right now it was all Hayes had.
24
DECEPTION PASS, WASHINGTON
Hayes burst from cover, angling for the helicopter settling to the ground ten feet in front of him. He knew the bird wouldn’t be on the ground long; once the copilot regained control and checked the control surfaces, he would learn what Hayes already knew—the helo was undamaged.
He was five feet from the helicopter when the sniper, still suspended by the retention line, settled to the ground. The man pushed himself to his knees, tore the plate carrier that saved his life from his shoulders, and rubbed both of his hands over his chest.
Hayes knew that without night vision the only way that man could tell if he’d been shot was by smelling the blood on his hands.
Wrong time for a blood sweep, Hayes thought, putting a single round through the side of his head before ducking beneath the spinning rotors.
He was about to jump inside the cargo hold when three silhouettes came running out of the darkness, heading for the open door on the other side. Because of the angle, Hayes’s only shot was the man on his far left.
The fact that he was running took a headshot out of the equation, and Hayes knew from the sniper that the Springfield wouldn’t punch through his body armor. His only option was to aim low, try for the crease at the bottom of the body armor.
Hayes fired until the bolt locked back; he dumped the Springfield and climbed inside the helo. Without the thermal scope, he knew he’d be firing blind, so instead of engaging, Hayes slipped into the cockpit.
Despite the gunfire, the copilot sat vapor-locked behind the controls, eyes glued to the instrument panel, blood from the dead pilot’s chest wound spattered across the right side of his face.
By the time he realized Hayes was inside the helicopter, it was too late. He tried to make a play for the pistol in his shoulder holster, but Hayes grabbed him by the helmet and slammed his head into the metal post, knocking him unconscious. He was trying to strip the copilot from his harness when a pair of rough hands grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him off-balance.
There was no time to think, only to react. Hayes grabbed for the copilot’s pistol and then
he was jerked off his feet and slammed backward onto the deck of the cargo hold.
“I’ve got you now,” his attacker yelled, raising his boot and aiming it at Hayes’s face.
“Don’t think so,” he said, leveling the pistol and firing a round through the bottom of the man’s boot.
Boom.
The man screamed in pain, his mouth a gaping black O, but Hayes wasn’t listening. He twisted onto his side, shoved the barrel against his attacker’s left knee, and fired. The bullet pulverized the man’s kneecap, sending a spray of tendon and bone spewing from the exit wound.
He dropped like a stone and Hayes scrambled to his knee and ended him with a kill shot to the center of the forehead.
One left.
Hayes was already behind the eight ball when he pivoted to his left, eyes squinting against the darkness. Searching for the man he knew was there but couldn’t see.
“Haaaayes!” the man screamed.
At the sound of the voice, Hayes was back on the ferry, watching Deputy Powell beg for his life, unable to stop the man with the goatee from putting a bullet in the police officer’s brain.
He managed to get off one shot, knowing that he’d missed the moment the bullet left the barrel, and then the man was all over him.
“Miss me, motherfucker?” he demanded, slamming his helmet down on the bridge of Hayes’s nose.
The blow sparked stars in his vision and a flash of blood across his face and into his eyes. “You,” Hayes managed, before the man grabbed him by the front of the shirt and blasted the air from his lungs with a knee to the gut.
“The name’s Felix Black,” the man said, jerking Hayes upright, stretching him out before landing a hammer blow to the face. He caught Hayes square and sent him sprawling into the cockpit.
Hayes bounced off the control panel and fell across the dead pilot, his left arm hooking the stick backward and his hip hitting the throttle at the end of the collective, twisting it to full power.
