Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Combat Ops (9 page)

“Hume, bring back the drone,” I added. Then I switched channels to the command net. “Liberty Base, this is Ghost Lead, over.”

“Go ahead, Ghost Lead,” came the radio operator back at FOB Eisenhower.

“I want to talk to Liberty Six right now!” I could already see myself grabbing Harruck by the throat.

“I’m sorry, Ghost Lead, but Liberty Six is unavailable right now.”

I cursed and added, “I don’t care! Get him on the line!”

Meanwhile, Ramirez, who like all of us had received Air Force combat controller training, gave me the hand signal that he’d made contact with one of the chopper pilots, as both helicopters wheeled overhead, waking up the entire village. I listened to him speak with that guy while I waited.

“Repeat, we are the friendly team on the ground.

What is your mission, over?”

I leaned in closer to hear his radio. “Ground team, we were ordered to pick you up at these coordinates, over.”

Ramirez’s eyes bulged.

“Tell him to evac immediately,” I said. “We do not need the goddamned pickup.”

Ramirez opened his mouth as a flurry of gunfire cut across the jingle truck, and even more fire was directed up at the two Blackhawks, rounds sparking off the fuse lages.

With a gasp, I realized there had to be twenty, maybe thirty combatants laying down fire now.

I knew the choppers’ door gunners wouldn’t return fire. Close Air Support had become as rare as indoor plumbing in Afghanistan because of both friendly fire and civilian casualty incidents, so those pilots would just bug out. Which they did.

Leaving us to contend with the hornet’s nest
they
had stirred up.

“What do you think happened?” Ramirez cried over the booms and pops of AK-47s.

“Harruck figured out a way to abort our mission,” I said through my teeth. “He’ll call it a miscommunica tion, and he’ll remind me that I needed company sup port. But those birds had to come all the way from Kandahar—what a waste!”

“Well, he didn’t screw up our entire mission,” said Ramirez, then he flashed a reassuring grin. “Not yet!”

A breath-robbing whistle came from the right, and I couldn’t get the letters out of my mouth fast enough: “RPG!”

The rocket-propelled grenade lit up the night as it streaked across the wall and exploded at the foot of the concrete bricks near the rest of my team.

As the debris flew and the smoke and flames slowly dissipated, I led my group along the wall and back toward the brick pile, where we linked up with the 
others, who were stunned but all right. Nolan had found a hole in the wall, and we all passed through, reaching the first row of houses and rushing back toward them, where to our right the wall continued onward until it terminated in a big wooden gate. “We’ll get out that way,” I hollered, pointing.

We reached the first house, sprinted to the next, and then had to cross a much wider road, on the side of which stood a donkey cart with the donkey still attached but pulling at his straps. The moment I peered around the corner, a salvo ripped into the wall just above my head. I stole another quick glance and saw a guy duck ing back inside his house, using his open window and the thick brick walls as cover. We could fire all day at those walls, but our conventional rounds wouldn’t pen etrate.

Another glance showed a second gunman in the win dow next door. Two for one. Double your pleasure. Wonderful. We were pinned down.

I turned back to the group and gave Beasley a hand signal:
We can’t get across. Got two. You’re up.

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate advances in weapons technology for two reasons: One, as a member of an elite gun club called the Ghosts, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the instruments that kept me alive, and two, like everyone else in the Army, I enjoyed things that went BOOM!

The XM-25 launcher that Beasley was about to present to the enemy made one hell of a twenty-five-thousand dollar boom, which was the CPU or cost per unit.

I snorted and gave Beasley the all clear.

The team sergeant lifted the launcher, which was much thicker than a conventional rifle and came equipped with a pyramid-shaped scope.

With smooth, graceful movement, Beasley laser-des ignated his target, used the scope to set range, and then without ceremony fired.

Each twenty-five-millimeter round packed two war heads that were more powerful than the conventional forty-millimeter grenade launchers. Next came the moment when gun freaks like me got our jollies: The round didn’t have to burrow through the wall and kill the guy on the other side, no. The round passed through the open win dow and detonated in midair, sending a cloud of fragmen tation inside that would shred anyone, most particularly Taliban fighters attempting to play Whac-A-Mole with Ghost units.

The moment his first round detonated, Beasley turned his attention to window number two, got his laser on target, set his distance for detonation, and boom, by the time the echo struck the back wall, we were already en route toward the wooden gate, even as that donkey broke his straps and clattered past us.

“This one’s a keeper,” Beasley told me, patting the XM-25 like a puppy.

Before Ramirez could try the lock, Jenkins put his size thirteen boot to the wooden gate panel and smashed 
it open. We rushed through and ran to the right, work ing back along the wall while Treehorn lingered behind, throwing smoke grenades into the street to create a little chaos and diversion.

The choppers were still whomping somewhere over the mountains, out of range now, as we charged toward the foothills, only drawing fire once we reached the first ravine. There, we dove for cover, rolled and came back up, on our bellies, ready to return fire—

But I told everyone to hold. Wait. Keep low. And watch. Treehorn’s smoke grenades kept hissing and cast ing thick clouds over the village.

Many of the Taliban were running from the front gate, and two went over to the jingle trucks and fired them up. “They’re going to chase us in those?” Ramirez asked. “Looks like it,” I said. “Let’s fall back. Up the moun
tain, back to the pickup trucks.”

We broke from cover and ran, working our way along the mountainside and keeping as many of the jagged outcroppings between us and the village as possible. I wish I could say it was a highly planned and skillful withdrawal performed by some of the most elite soldiers in the world.

But all I can really say is . . . we got the hell out of there.

Up near the mountaintop road, we climbed breath lessly into the pickup trucks as down below, headlights shone across the dirt road. My binoculars showed the pair of jingle trucks and two more pickups with fifty-caliber guns mounted on their flatbeds. I breathed a curse.

Since Harruck had already sabotaged my mission, I decided not to throw any more gasoline on the fire. We wouldn’t engage those guys unless absolutely necessary. Treehorn took us down the mountain road at a breakneck pace, and I was more frightened by his driv ing than by the Taliban on our tails. The pickup literally came up on two wheels as we cut around a narrow cliff side turn, and that drew swearing from everyone as the

road seemed to give way in at least two spots.

“This thing’s got some power,” Treehorn said evenly. We came down the last few slopes and turned onto the dirt road leading up to the bridge. With our head lights out, Smith and Brown were watching us with their NVGs and gave us a flash signal. We found them at the foot of the bridge, and Brown climbed in the back of 
our truck.

“Good to go, Captain,” he said. “Just give me the word.”

“Soon as we cross,” I told him.

“You don’t want to wait and take them out, too?” he asked, cocking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Nah, it’s okay. This’ll be enough.”

A double thud worked its way up into the seats, and we left the bridge and crossed back onto the sand.

“All right,” I cried back to Brown. “Blow that son of a bitch!”

He worked his remote, and the C-4 that he and Smith had expertly planted along the bridge’s pylons detonated in a rapid sequence of thunderclaps that shook both the ground and the pickups themselves. Magnesium-bright 
flashes came from beneath all that concrete, and just as the smoke clouds began to rise, the center section of the bridge simply broke off and belly flopped into the ink-black water, sending waves rushing toward both shorelines.

The drivers of the jingle trucks must have seen the explosions and bridge collapse, but the guy in the lead truck braked too hard, and the truck behind him plowed into his rear bumper, sending him over the edge where the concrete had sheared off. He did a swan dive toward the river, while the second guy attempted to turn away, but he rolled onto his side and slid off the edge. Three, two, boom, he hit the water.

Behind them, the two pickups with machine gunners came to brake-squealing halts and paused at the edge so that the drivers and gunners could stare down in awe at the sinking trucks—

As we raced off toward Senjaray in the distance.

While I was blowing up bridges and trying to hunt down my target, the president of Afghanistan was in the United States, making speeches about how his govern ment and the United States needed to build bridges in order to unite his people. He argued that not all Taliban were linked to terrorist groups like al Qaeda and that many Taliban wanted to lay down their arms and reach reconciliation with the national government.

That may have been true. But I wanted to know how you sorted out the friendly Taliban from the ones wiring themselves with explosives, even as the Afghan president allied himself with his neighbors: Iran and Pakistan, nations that served as training grounds and safe havens for those wanting to destroy the United States.

But that was all politics, right? None of my business. I just needed to capture a Taliban commander. One of the first things I learned after joining the military was to focus on my mission and leave the debates to the fat boys back home. I talked to my colleagues, and it was the same old story: Officers who got too caught up in the politics of their missions were, in most cases, not as successful as those who did not. Success was judged on whether the mission goals had been achieved and at what cost.

Lest we be accused of theft instead of borrowing, we dropped off the pickup trucks at the edge of town and were met by a driver and Hummer for the ride back to the FOB.

En route, I made a satellite phone call to Lieutenant Colonel Gordon, who suggested I speak directly with General Keating. I tried to restrain myself from explod ing as I described the situation to the general. He told me Harruck had contacted him already. “Sir, the bot- tom line is, I want the guy’s head on a platter.”

“You guys were very well liked and made a great team during that Robin Sage.”

“Yes, sir. But I don’t think the captain is playing on our team anymore.”

“I know you feel that way, but you need to under stand something. First, I can’t stop you from lopping off 
his head. If you put it in writing, I’ll have to forward the charge.”

“I’ll have it to you right away.”

“Slow down, son. Our situation is complicated, and Captain Harruck’s mission further complicates matters. But that can and should work to our advantage.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Mitchell, we can use his mission as a distraction to keep everyone busy while you hunt down our boy. The COIN mission is our screen. Harruck’s attempts to win over the locals will keep the Taliban busy.”

“Sir, how about the same plan, only we let the XO take over. Lose Harruck.”

The general sighed deeply. “Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t, Mitchell.”

“Sir, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Son, this has already become a huge task manage ment problem. We don’t need to make it more difficult. Go talk to Harruck. Work it out. I know you can.”

I could barely answer. “Yes, sir.” “I’m counting on you, Mitchell.” I ended the call before cursing.

Harruck was waiting for me outside his office when the Hummer pulled up. “You were wrong about Keating,” he said to me abruptly.

“Oh, yeah?”

“He’s not a soldier. He’s a politician, just like the rest of them.”

He shook his head. “Come inside.”

I raised an index finger, deciding I was going to make this bastard suffer a little more for what he’d done. “At this point, I advise you to speak very carefully, because you’ve just committed a court-martial offense, and even worse, an immoral and ethical offense. You’ve not only disobeyed an order from a superior, you’ve broken the code of honor by endangering me and my Ghosts.”

“Scott, this is the part where I say I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look, buddy, I won’t even ask what kind of proof you have or how you tried to orchestrate this thing to get yourself off. Point is, without authorization you called in those birds to abort my mission. And you know, if word of this gets out, it’ll spread like wildfire. No one will trust you.”

“I got two merchants who said people tied them up and stole their trucks. I got chopper pilots telling me you blew the bridge over the river. Hell, we heard the thing go up. And now you’re playing angel? Jesus Christ, Scott . . . you can’t walk in here and take over. I told you I got eight months in here! EIGHT GODDAMNED MONTHS!”

As he raised his voice, I grew more calm and para phrased regulations, which I knew would spike his pulse. “By law, you were required to carry out the last order given to you by your superior officer and only afterward were you to question that order by going up the chain of command to my superiors. I’m sure neither Gordon nor Keating gave you the okay to abort my mission.”