Full Assault Mode (13 page)

No. There would be no mission failure here. Not on Kolt’s watch. There would be nobody moving to the alternative landing zone. Not yet, anyway. Not until they had what they came for in the first place.

All of it.

Kolt took his left hand from the push-to-talk button secured to the left breast area of his Crye body armor and reached down for the radio secured to his assault vest. He turned the multichannel radio knob one click counterclockwise to bring up Helo Common, the secure uplink to the helicopter pilots and air-mission commander Smitty, then regrabbed his push-to-talk.

“Smitty, how you guys doing with gas?” asked Kolt. “Can you give me a few more minutes. Over.”

“We are currently in CSAR mode, downed helo. We need to be off the ground in ten minutes, or we won’t make it all the way back to Afghanistan and the fuel blivets.”

“Got it. Thanks, partner. Out.”

Kolt turned the channel knob back to Green SAT. He could hear the admiral still on the frequency demanding the insubordinate troop commander come up on the net.

Kolt broke in. “Capital Zero-Six, we are headed for the old British fort—building six. All Eagles accounted for. Ghafour definitely went to the fort. I need five mikes.”

“Negative, negative, negative!” The admiral was adamant. “Abort the mission. You will load immediately. Do you understand, Major? Over.”

“Sir, we have enough fuel. I need five minutes,” Kolt pleaded.

“Major, the precious cargo is long gone. It’s a long shot that he is at the fort.” The admiral was surprisingly at ease now—most likely because he finally realized that everyone and their brother were listening in to the command frequency—which pissed Kolt off even more. It almost sounded as if the commanding general was the calm and collected one out there.

“Fine, sir. Take the helos out of the valley and back to Afghanistan. We’ll locate Ghafour and walk out as planned. Out.”

Kolt sounded convincing. So convincing he almost thought the admiral would actually buy it. If Mason couldn’t help him and Shaft, then Kolt wanted his space.

Kolt didn’t have to wait long for the answer. “Load your man immediately,” the admiral answered, a whole lot sterner than normal. “That’s a direct order! Acknowledge!”

Kolt knew every operator still inside the helo was listening to his radio transmissions with the admiral. It would have been stupid to fall on his sword in the middle of Pakistan. For Osama bin Laden? Maybe. For Ayman al-Zawahiri? Maybe. For Haji Mohammad Ghafour, who only a couple of weeks ago was dubbed low-hanging fruit even by Delta’s own intel analysts? No.

What about the good men who just went down in flames on the trail helo? Kolt didn’t know if any of the men on the struck helo had even survived, but he did know his men wouldn’t want to go home without this mission accomplished. Corralling Ghafour and dragging him home through the mountain pass certainly wouldn’t make their deaths worth it. Not at all. Stopping a potential attack on a nuclear power plant inside the United States wouldn’t bring his teammates back either.

Kolt felt even more strongly that he had to carry the mission through to the end. For it, a lot of men may very well have died, burning alive in a helo in a godforsaken valley. He was obligated to see this through. This was what Delta was all about.

Even if Delta was now only a pair.

NINE

Two miles south of Kolt Raynor, Smitty found a suitable landing spot to set the MH-47G down near the downed helo. He didn’t like the spot. He wasn’t even ordered to set her down, but he knew the game, and setting down to recover the crew and customers on a crashed helo was standard procedure. Smitty also knew the admiral and Kolt would be having words, some of which he was able to monitor over the radio, and even though it would be a tight fit with the addition of four 160th crew members and two dozen customers in the back of his heavy-lift Dark Horse, the little known nickname of the heavy-lift 47s, he wasn’t leaving fellow warriors under fire of his own accord. No, Smitty was all in. Mason would have to make the call. He’d have to force him to leave Americans behind in Pakistan.

“We can’t exfil. We have two men still out there. They need a few more minutes.” An operator code-named Train calmly transmitted over the assault radio. Train had obviously been monitoring Helo Common and heard Kolt’s radio transmissions.

“I know, Train,” Smitty said.

“Negative, stand down, stand down,” Mason said, cutting in. “We are RTB. I say again, we are returning to base.”

*   *   *

It only took a few seconds for Shaft to point out the British fort to Kolt. Kolt quickly picked up Shaft’s IR sparkle on the east side of the eighteenth-century fort’s twelve-foot walls made of hard mud and a combination of silver fir and spruce logs. Sitting roughly seventy-five meters across the partially iced-over creek, built somewhat into the face of the valley’s high western wall, it looked like a Hallmark Christmas card under the half-moon hovering above and well beyond the east ridge. But as pretty as the view was, Kolt was in no mood for caroling or eggnog.

“What do you recommend, Shaft?” Kolt asked as they remained on a knee in nearly a foot of fresh snow. “We gotta make it quick, though.”

“Shit! No doubt. I’m freezing in these wet clothes,” Shaft said. “I was inside the fort the other day giving out Ranger candy to the kids. There are at least two dozen women and children sleeping in there.”

“I doubt they’re sleeping now,” Kolt said.

“No, but the noncombatants haven’t gone anywhere. Makes sense that Ghafour would hide among the kids and women.”

“Perfect sense,” Kolt said.

“What are we looking at once inside?” Kolt asked if for no other reason than to confirm what he already believed after a week of studying two-dimensional imagery with the analysts at J-bad.

“Standard shit, really—green metal gate that locks with a fat stick, single story, rooms built into the outer wall, large well in the middle, goat and chicken shit everywhere,” Shaft said.

“OK, frags are out, too many kids. How many FAMs?” Kolt asked, confirming to him and Shaft that they were only interested in hurting the fighting-age males, not the women and kids.

“Let’s keep it simple,” Shaft said. “Let’s climb!”

“On point, you follow,” Kolt said.

Kolt lowered his helmet-mounted NVGs and led the way toward the east side of the fort. Shaft, holding his monocular NVGs to his nonfiring eye and with an AK in his right hand and tucked under his right shoulder, followed at ten meters’ distance.

After trudging through foot-deep snow that covered uneven and rocky terrain for thirty meters or so, they successfully negotiated the narrow fifteen-foot log bridge spanning the iced-over creek. Kolt was concerned about the double set of footprints they were leaving behind, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. After slipping between a short fence made out of narrow tree branches and a short but thick mud wall, they reached the base of the fort before taking a breather and going to a knee. The windswept snowdrift had accumulated near the fort’s outer walls, making them appear shorter than they really were. Kolt and Shaft, pushing their backs to the wall, faced out and scanned the area behind them, making sure they weren’t being followed.

“What now?” Shaft asked.

“I thought you said we were climbing?” Kolt asked, taking his eyes away from the part of the village where all the commotion with the helicopters happened earlier to look at Shaft.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s too damn quiet, though,” Shaft said.

“They have no idea it’s just the two of us. They probably think a hundred American commandos jumped out of the two helos,” Kolt offered.

“Yeah, probably,” Shaft said. “I’m sure they lock the gate at night, though.”

“Standard,” Kolt said. “Look, boost me over the wall. I’ll see what’s up.”

“OK,” Shaft said, as if to say,
And then what?

“I’ll take a look. If it is quiet, we’ll both drop in and clear counterclockwise until we find Ghafour.”

“And if not?” Shaft asked.

“Well, if I see trouble, I’ll take them with my suppressed HK416,” Kolt said, not entirely sure of what he was saying.

“And?”

“And then we’ll drop in,” Kolt said.

“Dude, that’s fucking suicide,” Shaft said, trying to maintain a whisper. “Look, I know you came a long way for me, but is this ass clown worth it?” Shaft said.

Kolt could feel the apprehension in Shaft’s voice. Hell, he wasn’t so fired up anymore himself to hang it out in this godforsaken frozen shithole of a valley floor. No backup, no gunship support, and no armed Predator B’s orbiting overhead. Nobody would blame them if they simply melted into the shadows and beat feet away from the village. Far enough away to mark a black landing zone and safely call in an exfil helo. And then, entirely unexplainably, his thoughts reverted back to his first tour in Afghanistan, weeks on the heels of 9/11.

“There is a lot at stake here, Shaft. This guy is tied to Z-man and planned attacks back home.”

“Yeah, I know all that shit,” Shaft said as he shivered underneath the wet clothing. “But screw that drop-in nonsense.”

“I’m listening,” Kolt said, happy that Shaft had agreed to complete the mission or go down trying.

“I’ll boost you up the wall, but hold for a minute and let me get to the front gate. I’ll bang on the door and fire off some AK rounds. They’ll think I’m a tribesman, shooting at an American or something, and likely move all their guns inside to cover the gate as they open it to investigate the commotion.”

“OK. I’ll pop a red-pen gun flare when I’m in position and ready for you to bang on the gate,” Kolt said. “I’ll thin the herd of FAMs with my suppressor as they post on the inside of the gate. Watch the false cover with the gate; use the walls.”

“Give me one of your door charges. I’ll need to get in the gate if you can’t get down there to unlock it,” Shaft said.

“Rog.”

After taking the tightly rolled eighty-four-inch-long linear-shaped charge and M60 fuse igniter from Kolt, Shaft crossed his fingers to cup Kolt’s right combat boot and vigorously pulled upward to let Kolt reach up high enough to secure a fingertip hold on the lip of the high wall. Shaft then put a hand under each boot and stood up as tall as he could, maintaining upward pressure, to help Kolt scale the wall as quietly as possible. With Kolt now out of sight, he moved clockwise around the square fort to the front green metal gate.

Kolt slipped over the lip of the wall, keeping his silhouette as low as possible, and onto the roof of the corner room. A wooden ladder made of logs and twine was to his left, offering roof access from the ground. To his right, the roof continued to the far corner. Kolt picked up the smell of a wood-burning stove and noticed smoke coming out of two of the three separate smokestacks protruding from the long dried-mud-covered L-shaped roof that hugged the inner side of the fort’s wall. He lay down on his stomach and inched his body closer to the edge to look down into the compound.

Spotting the straight-edged top of the metal gate in the moonlight, Kolt leaned on his left side to reach his pen-gun flares with his gloved right hand. He pulled out the black thumb-spring device and screwed in a red flare the size of a Chapstick container. He rotated the toggle with his thumb, aimed the flare over the open courtyard of the fort and the front gate, and released the firing pin.

The red pen flare lit up the snowflake-filled sky as it sped high into the air, reaching about four hundred feet before impacting with the valley wall.

Kolt waited to hear Shaft fire off a few AK rounds and bang on the metal gate.

Right on time, AK-47 fire opened up. Kolt assumed it was from Shaft and fingered his IR laser and floodlight on top of his HK to steady on. He had a perfect position, easily the tactical advantage inside the fort, and a direct view of the front gate. The moon had settled behind the high ridgeline, protecting Kolt’s silhouette from the danger of being backlit and thus easily discernible from the ground. Seconds later, he heard the banging on the gate.

Kolt’s finger rested on the trigger. He had his NVGs down, holding his goggles just above his rifle so he could see the IR signature and engage at will. Nothing. Nobody moved.

Shit, what now?

Kolt was dumbfounded. He couldn’t radio Shaft to execute the ruse a second time. Hell, if they didn’t bite the first time, they surely wouldn’t fall for it a second time.

Kolt startled at an abrupt noise twenty feet to his left. He turned quickly to see the ladder moving. Someone was climbing to the roof. Instinctively, he rolled to his back, brought his rifle to his chest, and aimed the IR laser and floodlight at the top of the ladder.

Fuck! I don’t need company now.

It was a male. A fighting-age male, for sure. This much Kolt could easily tell. But he could also tell he wasn’t your normal fighting-age jihadist. He was carrying something in his left hand, maybe a light of some sort or even a pistol. He also moved slowly, as if he either couldn’t see where he was going in the darkness or was too frail or too injured to be negotiating obstacles.

Kolt studied the man closely, the large turban high on his forehead, the white dishdasha and dark-brown outer garment. The beard. Yes, the long, white, thick beard. He’d seen it before in a picture Shaft had sent the day before. It had to be him.

Fucking Ghafour!

The elderly man took two steps from the ladder and turned back around. He gingerly squatted into a ball, keeping his rear off the roof and wrapping his arms around his knees to keep warm, obviously unaware of his present company.

Kolt slowly stood to a low crouch. He delicately slid his HK around to his left side to free both hands and then raised his NVGs on his helmet. He pretty much knew this was going to be the easiest jackpot he ever participated in, but he needed every bit of stealth to prevent Ghafour from yelling out and alerting the others to his trouble. He couldn’t believe his luck.

Kolt took three long steps to gain forward momentum and leaped toward the old man. He slapped a tight, rear, naked chokehold around the man’s neck, cutting off Ghafour’s carotid artery and instantly putting him to sleep. It was that simple. Not really a challenge. Certainly nothing to brag about given the skill and age difference between the two.