Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Combat Ops (30 page)

“What was I supposed to do? Lie? I’ve done enough of that already. And there were witnesses.”

“Let me ask you. Do you think what you did solved anything?”

“The report tells me what you did. It doesn’t say how you feel about it.”

“How do you think I feel? Ready for a party? Why does that even matter?”

“Because I’m trying to see what kind of an emotional appeal I can make. Unless somebody decides to take a huge risk, to go out on a limb for you, then like I said, I don’t want you to have any unreasonable hope at this point.”

“Unreasonable hope? Jesus Christ, what do you peo ple expect from me?”

“Captain. Calm down. I’m still recording, and I’d like you to go back and finish the story. If there’s any thing you might’ve left out of the report, anything else you can remember that you think might help, you have to tell me right now . . .”

I served with a guy named Foyte, a good captain who wound up getting killed in the Philippines. I was his team sergeant, and he used to give me all kinds of advice about leadership. He was a really smart guy, best-read guy I’d ever met. He could rattle off quotes he’d memo rized about war and politics. He always had something good to say. When he talked, we listened. One thing he told me stuck: If you live by your decisions, then you have decided to really live.

So as I stood there, staring into the smug faces of the 
two Central Intelligence Assholes, and looking at Mul lah Mohammed Zahed, a bloated bastard who figured that in a few seconds I’d surrender to the futility of war, I thought of Beasley and Nolan; of my father’s funeral; and of all the little girls we’d just freed in the tunnel. I thought of Hila, lying there, bleeding, waiting for me, the only person she had left in the world. And I imagined all the other people who would be infected by Zahed’s touch, by the poison he would continue to spread through out the country, even as one of our own agencies sup ported him because they couldn’t see that the cure was worse than the poison.

How did I
feel
about that?

I desperately loved my country and my job. If I just turned my back on the situation because I was “little people,” then I was no better than them.

Lights from the first helicopter panned across the vil lage wall behind us, the whomping now louder, the reactionary gunfire lifting up from the ground.

My satellite phone kept ringing. I figured it was Brown or Ramirez, so I ignored it.

A roar came from the troops somewhere out there, and a half dozen RPGs screamed up toward the chopper, whose pilot banked suddenly away from the incoming.

Zahed began to smile. Even his teeth had been whit ened. The CIA had pampered his ass, all right.

Bronco was about to say something. Mike had his gaze on the helicopter.

The trigger came down more easily than I had antici
pated, and my round struck Zahed in the forehead, slightly off center. His head snapped back and he crashed back into the Mercedes and slid down to the ground, the blood spray glistening across the car’s roof.

Bronco and Mike reacted instantly, drawing their weapons.

I shot Bronco first, then Mike.

But I didn’t kill them. I shot them in the legs, knock ing them off their feet as I whirled and sprinted back toward the shattered window. My phone had stopped ringing.

“You’re going down for this, Joe! You have no idea what you’ve done! No idea!”

There was a lot of cursing involved—by both of us— but suffice it to say I ignored them and climbed back into the bedroom, where Hila lay motionless.

I was panting, shaking her hands, gently moving her head. I panicked, checked her neck for a carotid pulse. Thank God. She was alive but unconscious. I dug the Cross-Com out of my pocket, activated it, changed the magazine on my pistol. I gently scooped up Hila, slid her over my shoulder, then started out of the room, my gun hand trembling.

“Predator Control, this is Ghost Lead, over.”

A box opened in my HUD. “Where you been, Ghost Lead?”

“Busy.”

“CAS units moving into your area, over.” “Got ’em. Can you lock onto my location?

“Good. I need Hellfires right on my head. Every thing you got. There are no civilians here. I repeat, no civilians. We got a weapons and opium cache in the basement. I want it taken out, over.”

“Roger that, Ghost Lead. I still have no authoriza tion for fires at this time, over.”

“I understand, buddy. Tell you what. Give me ten min utes, and then you make your decision—and live by it . . .”

“Roger that, Ghost Lead.”

With a few hundred Taliban fighters to defend the village, I had a bad feeling that they’d manage to either move or simply secure all those weapons and opium. Better to take the cache out of the picture—blow it all back to Allah. I wasn’t sure how committed Harruck’s Close Air Support was, either.

I had considered for the better part of two seconds taking Hila straight outside and trying to link up with one of the choppers, but the place still swarmed with Taliban. I’d rather take them out one or two at a time in the tunnels. So I carried her back to the basement and descended the stairs.

“Ghost Lead, this is Predator Control. I’ve just received an override order. I have clearance to fire. But I will lose the target in four minutes, fifteen seconds, over.”

“Let the clock tick,” I told him. “But don’t miss your shot. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Roger that, Ghost Lead. Godspeed.”

I nearly fell down the staircase near the bottom, caught my balance, then turned toward the tunnel at 
the far end. Judging from the sounds above, most of the Taliban were engaging the choppers or putting fire on the mountainside. I didn’t expect to encounter much resistance in the tunnel, so when I cleared the rock sec tion and ducked a bit lower to enter the drainage pipe, I froze at the sound of voices.

I doused the penlight in my other hand.

Flashlights shone ahead. I set Hila down. I flicked the penlight back on.

Oh, no. There was a long line of guys, maybe twenty, maybe more, coming right at us.

I saw them. They saw me. They screamed.

I reached into my web gear and produced a grenade. They screamed again.

I pulled the pin and pitched the grenade far down the pipe, then threw myself over Hila as three, two—

My satellite phone started ringing again. One.

I cupped my ears as the grenade went off with a blind ing flash and rush of air, as the men shrieked now, and I suddenly rose, damning my ringing phone to hell, and unleashed salvo after salvo through the smoke and gleam ing debris.

Then I screamed ahead, told them to run away or die, I think. Something pretty close.

The pipe grew very quiet, save for my ringing phone. I cursed, pulled it from my pocket, and realized it’d been General Keating on the line.

I reached up with my finger to check the stability of the ceiling, and that was when the entire section of earth came down on top of me. It all happened so fast that I didn’t realize how much dirt had fallen until I tried to move my legs. Trapped. I managed to bring up one arm and brush it from my face. I spit dirt, then glanced up . . . and there it was about a meter above, an open hole and the stars beyond. The gunfire popped and cracked, and two mortars exploded somewhere beyond.

I started writhing back and forth, trying to free myself, when I heard more voices. I wasn’t sure which side of the tunnel they were coming from. I began to panic, shoving my arm more violently and trying to kick. The earth to my right began to give away, and sud denly I fell sideways and out of the pile, sliding down a hill of dirt that was spreading to Hila.

“Ghost Lead, this is Predator Control. Thirty sec onds, and you are still too close to the drop zone, over.” “Roger that,” I said, then coughed. “I’m moving

out. You just do your job!”

“Mitchell, this is Keating,” called the general as another video box opened in my HUD. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, son! Your orders have changed!”

The passage through the pipe was completely blocked. I thought if I could get us up on top of the pile, I might be able to push Hila through the hole and up top.

But I had no idea what we’d find up there. I needed to chance a look for myself. I climbed back up, pushing back into the dirt, and up through the hole until my head jutted out. I was facing the mountainside, muzzle flashes dancing across the ridgelines. I turned around to face the village and saw at least forty Taliban fighters racing directly toward me running behind a pair of pickup trucks with fifty-calibers mounted on the back, the guns spewing rounds.

But then, from somewhere behind me came the hiss of rockets, and just as I turned my head, I saw an Apache roar overhead and the pickup trucks explode in great fireballs not thirty meters from my head.

I ducked back into the hole. The Predator controller was about to drop his bombs. I hustled down and grabbed Hila. I moved her higher across the dirt mound and toward our escape hole. I shifted around to try to shield her from the blast, then took two long breaths and listened for the first impact.

I tucked in as tightly as I could, and the next few sec onds felt like a lifetime.

For a moment, I thought the controller had changed his mind or been ordered to abort.

But then, just as my doubts were beginning to take root, twin detonations, somewhat muffled at first, origi nated from behind us, well off into the basement. Not three heartbeats later came a roar unlike anything I’d ever heard, followed by a massive tremor ripping through the ground.

As the earthquake continued, a wave of intense heat pushed through the tunnel behind me, and I gasped and started dragging Hila higher toward the hole, fearing that all the air would be consumed before we escaped.

There was screaming, but I couldn’t identify anyone above the cracking and booming from below, as well as more booming from the village as I was suddenly hoisted out of the hole and plopped down in the sand.

I blinked hard, saw Brown and Smith there, with Brown digging back into the hole and pulling out Hila. He was wearing the Cross-Com I’d given to Ramirez.

Behind us, the helicopters were still engaging the Taliban fighters on the ground, but most of them were retreating back toward the walls.

However, at least one machine gunner set up behind a jingle truck opened fire, and we all hit the deck a moment before the Apache gunship whirled around and directed a massive barrage of fire that not only tore through the gunner but began to shred the truck itself. “I’ve got her,” yelled Smith, scooping up Hila and gesturing toward the mountainside. “The tunnel’s up 
there! Let’s go!”

Brown pulled me back up. “We locked onto your chip as soon as you got close to the top. You okay?”

“More than okay. I got Zahed.”

The three of us ran back toward the hills, with the choppers covering our exit. Brown was in direct contact with them, and he said that he’d sent the others off toward two rifle squads that had come up through the defile. They were bringing back one Bradley to pick up the girls. We took a tunnel I hadn’t seen before, which Brown said led up to one of the mountain passes.

As we neared the exit and emerged onto the dirt road, we looked down toward Senjaray and saw the Bradley pulling away. The girls we’d rescued were, I later learned, safely onboard.

We were almost home.

“Hold up,” I said, as we crossed around some boul ders. We squatted down. “We need to get her out of here faster than this.” I looked to Brown. “Can we get a Blackhawk to pick her up?”

“I’m on it. But we’ll still have to get down to the val ley over there.”

“All right.” I dug into my pocket, switched on my satellite phone, and saw there was a message from Gen eral Keating. I took a deep breath, dialed, and listened.

And my heart sank.

“I repeat, son, we need to pull you off this mission.

Abort. Abort. Stand down . . .”

He’d said a lot more than that, but those were the only words that meant anything. Bronco hadn’t been bluffing.

I wondered.

I’d like to think that my experience and honor would’ve led me to make the right decision. But the politics and grim reality were far too powerful to ignore.

“Captain, you don’t look so good,” said Smith. “The order to stand down came in, but I, uh, I guess

I missed it. Zahed’s dead anyway.” “Good work,” said Brown. “Ghost Lead, this is Hume, over.” “Go ahead, John.”