SEAL Team Bravo: Black Ops IV (2 page)

“Belay that! I say again, belay that. Hit those men in the center trucks. Dan, are you clear to take them on?”

“I’m good. Vince is finishing off a couple of stragglers. We can hit the rearmost target from here, Chief. Our line of sight to the second truck is not so good.”

“Copy that. Will, you got it covered?”

He looked across at Will Bryce, the unit PO1. He was immensely strong and always dependable, the unit rock. He’d had a difficult start in life and had been forced to fight his way out of the Detroit ghettoes, slogging through the lower deck to achieve his reputation as one of the most respected in the Seals, if not the entire Navy. Will was one of the finest soldiers Nolan had served with. The African American had a strong, crag-like profile, with big bones and a jutting chin under a powerful, almost regal countenance. His huge body was clad with slabs of hard muscle, the result of constant physical training to keep him at the very peak of physical fitness and skill. Strangely for a black man, he had gray eyes, undoubtedly a throwback to some long forgotten mixed ancestry. Will stared out at the world from under thick, bushy eyebrows topped by wiry black hair. When people stared at him, they saw a man of massive strength and authority, a man who carried his inner confidence and power like an aura. Already, he was something of a legend in the service, and Nolan couldn’t even consider how things would get done without him. Bryce looked across at him and replied.

“We’re shooting up the truck, but the men in the back were out of sight. They bailed out and took cover on the other side of the road. We’ll have to go in and finish ‘em the hard way.”

“Copy that. I’ll ask Dan to deploy the SAW to cover you as soon as he’s secured his target.”

“That would be useful, Chief.”

Nolan looked up startled as Lieutenant Boswell abruptly got to his feet, along with Lucas Grant. He heard the officer bellowing orders on the commo.

“Will, bring your men here and form up behind me and Lucas. The rest of you, stay off the commo and remain clear. We’re going in to finish those bastards.”

Nolan spoke urgently. “Lt, no! They’re behind cover over there, it’s not…”

“I said stay off the commo, Chief.”

He watched as the rest of Bravo ran to Boswell’s position and formed up. He cursed under his breath. Ever since Lucas Grant had been transferred to the Platoon, Boswell had seemed to acquire a reckless courage, spurred on no doubt by the heroic tales of the bin Laden raid. It wasn’t Grant’s fault, but whatever the reason, he was heading toward getting men killed. Nolan jumped to his feet, ducked as a stray round whistled past his head, and ran back to where Vince and Dan were deployed. They were still laying down suppressive fire, but there were no return shots. The men in the rearmost truck were dead or dying, maybe one or two were running like hares for the hills, or maybe hiding. The two Seals looked around as he slithered to the ground next them.

“The Lieutenant said to stay off the commo, so I had to come on over. Our guys won’t make it in a head-on attack. We need to flank the enemy and hit them in enfilade if we’re to give our men a chance. It looks like you’re done here. Let’s go!”

He didn’t wait for a reply, just ran across the road, past the wrecked truck, and charged across the broken ground, fifty meters, until he was abreast of the Taliban survivors, one hundred meters away. Sporadic shots whistled around him, but they didn’t seem to be aimed. The hostiles were hunkered down on the reverse slope of a crease in the ground, waiting for Boswell’s charge which they knew was coming. They were wise enough to hold their fire, as the Seals were still out of sight behind the vehicles, and there was little chance of hitting anything. But they were waiting, and as soon as the Seals appeared, it would be a slaughter.

“Dan, get that Minimi set up and working. We need to shake their aim. Vince, we have to thin them out some. Let’s get to work!”

Merano grinned, relishing the fight. “You got it, Chief.”

They lay down on the dusty ground and put their sights on the hostiles. They opened fire, and within seconds, three of the enemy were down. But the others, seven fighters, had seen them and dived for cover, preparing to hit back. Nolan saw a familiar shape poke out from behind a pile of rocks.

“RPG, down!”

The shooter was shaken up, or he was a rookie, maybe both. The missile impacted the ground ten meters in front of them, but the blast was enough to lift them physically a couple of feet into the air. Nolan felt the breath ‘whoosh’ out of his lungs as he smashed into the ground with a bone-jarring crunch. He brushed dust and debris out of his eyes and swept his gaze around the immediate area. Vince and Dan had been tossed aside by the force of the explosion, and they were picking themselves back up and checking their weapons. He ducked as a volley of shots cracked overhead, and when he looked again at the enemy position, they were shouting to each other, readying to press home the advantage the missile had given them. The RPG shooter stared at Nolan’s position and saw that he hadn’t completely destroyed the target. He shouted to a nearby fighter who was clutching a spare missile. They began to load ready for a second shot, and two more hostiles began firing short bursts in the direction of the Minimi. The other three men were staring in a different direction at the wrecked vehicles, waiting for Boswell’s charge to materialize. He felt a chill in his guts as he recognized what they were doing. They were setting up a Russian Degtyarev DP light machine gun, the model with the distinctive pancake magazine. An old weapon, developed for the Second World War, and exported all over the Third World ever since; a heavy weapon, slow and not always reliable. But the vintage machine gun was still devastating, and able to spew out a hail of 7.62mm rounds.

 
More than enough to destroy Boswell’s lunatic charge, or was it Lucas Grant’s idea? Either way, they should have heeded the lessons of the valiant but ill-advised General Pickett at Gettysburg. Some lesson about not charging into the teeth of enemy guns, something about firing from behind cover whenever possible.

He had to do something. He leapt up, snapping out orders to the two Seals.

“I’ll vector in from the far side to try and divert them, so pour it on, and give ‘em everything you have. Keep trying to get through to Boswell. Tell him the enemy is dug in and just waiting for them. They have to stay behind cover until we have them boxed in.”

As he ran, dodging from side to side, and keeping low to put the enemy gunners off their aim, a vicious burst from an AK-47 kicked up the dirt close to his boots, and he almost burst his lungs getting to his new position before they corrected their aim. He heard Vince passing on his order to Boswell, and it wasn’t well received.
 

“We’ve got them on the run, Merano!” the Lieutenant shouted back, his voice filled with the excitement of the chase. “We aren’t stopping on Nolan’s say so. Keep moving!”

All of them could hear the emotion in his voice as the Lieutenant raced forward, panting and gulping in deep breaths of air, ignoring the deadly danger that faced him. Lucas Grant’s voice came on the commo.

“We’re good to go. If we don’t hit them hard and fast now, they’ll get away. That’s the way we did it in Seal Team Six.”

“You heard that, men, keep going,” Boswell shouted. “Let’s finish off these fuckers.”

There was a short silence in his earpiece. They were surprised to hear him swear, as it was known that he considered himself above that kind of language, but it was a measure of his excitement. Nolan threw himself down just before a renewed burst of firing from more than one AK-47 tore past him. Vince had begun to shoot back, keeping up a steady rate of fire. He couldn’t see the hostiles, but the way he laid down the pattern of bullets left them in no doubt that if they poked their heads up, he’d blow them off. Dan had moved to a new position with a better field of fire, and he’d begun spitting out long bursts of fire to keep up the pressure on the enemy. Then his box mag ran out of ammo. Nolan stared across at him, willing him to hurry while Dan wrenched the empty mag out of the breech and rammed home a replacement. He took aim and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed. There was a stunned silence, and Boswell’s voice sounded in their earpieces.
 

“Drop it, man, both of you get over here.”

Dan’s frustration boiled over, and he exploded in anger as he finally lost patience with Boswell. He kept low and ran over to where the platoon leader was waiting to launch his idiotic charge.

“The fuck you say, Lieutenant! Listen to me, get your stupid fucking head down. Chief Nolan is out there drawing fire to try and save your stupid ass, and if the hostiles don’t blow your stupid head off, I will!”

His voice was loud, ringing around the battlefield. Nolan nearly choked. If he hadn’t been trying to stay alive, he’d have had a good belly laugh. But it stopped Boswell who muttered, “Okay, we’ll do it his way. Nolan had better be right.”

They all knew he’d deal with Dan later, but at least there’d be more of them alive. Nolan crawled forward, following a shallow depression in the ground, and finally reached a position where he could see the hostiles. Seven black-turbaned men, one armed with the Degtyarev, another with an RPG, reloaded and ready to fire again, and the rest of the enemy with AK-47s. One of the men, he assumed it was their leader, was shouting orders and pointing at the Seals’ positions, giving them some kind of a pep talk. As far as he knew, they didn’t realize he’d got in so far behind them. He keyed his mic.

“This is Bravo Two. I’m in behind them, to the south of your position. They look like they’re about to launch an attack, so if you stay there, they’ll fall on your guns, but that RPG could be a problem. I suggest we leave Vince and Dan to take him out, and the rest of you deal with the AKs. Is that Minimi clear, Dan?”

“Sure, it was nothing, just a bad piece of shell casing. I’m ready.”

“I hope you got it right this time,” Boswell cut in. “We’ll try it your way, Chief, but if you’re wrong again, there’ll be fucking hell to pay when we get back.”

Jesus Christ, I’d like to kick the little snot’s ass.

“Copy that, Lt. Vince, I want you and Dan in position right now. I figure they’ll show themselves anytime. I’ll target the RPG before it does any real damage. Make sure you thin them out some before they get to Boswell’s position.”

“We’re on it,” he heard Dan reply.

It was one of those times when men on both sides for some reason stop shooting all at once. Usually, it was just before one or other side was about to launch an attack. Nolan could hear the sighing of the wind, sweeping across the open plain surrounding the town of Parachinar. He stared around him. It was a desolate place, just dust, dirt and scrub, with patches of rock scattered in a random pattern. In the distance, he could just make out the roofs of Parachinar, a piss-poor heap of rubble and misery.

There’ll be fighters in there. We need to finish up here before the Taliban defenders come out to help their buddies.

His mind had been wandering, and the shouts tore his attention back. And then they came, five Taliban fighters. They charged in a wedge, directly at where they believed their greatest threat lay, Boswell’s unit, sheltering under cover behind the wrecked truck. They were firing single shots from their assault rifles to conserve ammunition. Their sole intention was to keep the Seals’ heads down until they reached them, and then get in close and kill. But Dan Moseley and Vince Merano were not in front as they supposed, and the two men opened fire immediately. Nolan waited for his target, but the missile shooter was in the center, making him the most difficult man to hit. Two of the fighters went straight down, but the survivors made it to the drainage ditch and disappeared into the gully. Nolan jumped to his feet and began to run, shouting, “Hold your fire. I’m going in after them.”

He heard Boswell shouting, but the blood pounded in his ears, adrenaline coursed through his veins, and the only thought in his brain was to reach the fighters before they were ready to start shooting; before they realized there was a crazy American sprinting toward them from behind, bringing death a little nearer with every stride. He was almost at the ditch. He dragged out his Sig Sauer, held it in a firm grip, and then leapt down and kept running along the floor of the gully. The ditch was narrow, very narrow. He tossed his sniper rifle out onto the earth above; this was no place for a long gun. With his free hand, he unclipped a grenade from his webbing and primed it ready. Then he came face to face with a fighter, a grizzled, older man with a huge beard, black turban, and teeth that were every bit as black as his headgear. The man snarled as he saw Nolan hurtling toward him, and he tried to deploy his weapon, the Degtyarev DP machine gun. But the Russian gun was no more practical for this kind of fight than a sniper rifle; the two men’s battle had become no more sophisticated than the most basic, brutal trench fighting. The barrel snagged in the dirt of the gully wall, and the man cursed. Nolan shot him twice. The two rounds punched the man back, and then he ran on, searching out the next target. A burst of gunfire from an AK-47 streaked past him and buried a half-dozen rounds in the dirt, barely missing his chest. A piece of stone was chipped from a rock, and he felt the sting as it buried itself in the back of his neck. He jerked out of the line of fire, tossed the grenade, threw himself down, and put his head in the dirt. The grenade detonated, and the force of the explosion slammed into him, a pressure wave that compressed his rib cage and drove the air from his body. He gasped and sucked in more oxygen, got to his feet, and wiped his eyes clear of dust and dirt. As he vaulted over the dead Degtyarev gunner, still clutching the weapon in his lifeless hands, he glimpsed another fighter only a few feet away. The guy was badly wounded, but he still held on grimly to his assault rifle. The man turned painfully to look at the American, his enemy, and snarled a challenge. He tried to raise his rifle to shoot the hated foe, but Nolan got there first. He shot him with another double tap, and the two 9mm bullets buried themselves into the man’s body, one in the chest and the other in the head. He ran on, only to find the gully had emptied. Then he heard more shooting.