This was Mark’s way of politely asking his boss what Brandon expected him to do with the turd he’d just dropped in Mark’s punch bowl. OGA stood for Other Government Agency, a catch-all term for many of the three-letter agencies that provided intelligence to the JSOC, or Joint Special Operations Command, planners. These were the men and women who supplied Mark’s Rangers with the intelligence briefings for many of their missions.
“Havok 6, this is Talon 6. You’re the man on the ground. Your call, over.”
Mark could have guessed Cate’s response. Like most battalion commanders in the storied 75th Ranger Regiment, Brandon had served as a company commander and platoon leader in the organization before eventually returning to command a battalion. He’d earned his spurs during the initial invasion of Afghanistan a decade earlier. Like the good leader that he was, Brandon was deferring the decision to the person with the best situation awareness—Mark.
Mark scoped the compound a final time. The men who wore the regiment’s coveted tan beret were three-time volunteers. They did not endure the harrowing selection process because they coveted safety. Since their inception, Rangers had garnered a reputation for going where others wouldn’t to do what they couldn’t. IRON FIST had required months to approve, weeks to plan, and countless hours to rehearse. The compound’s high-value target was not just another Taliban commander. He was a high-ranking HIG member and an integral player in the flow of matériel and men across the porous border.
A second opportunity to capture or kill him might take years to materialize.
If ever.
OGA’s assessment that the mission might be compromised was just that. An assessment. In combat as in life, there were few absolutes. If Mark waited for a 100 percent concurrence from the intelligence community before pursuing a target, he’d spend his entire Afghanistan rotation sitting on his thumbs. There was a time to play it safe and a time to be audacious.
This operation fell into the latter category.
“Talon 6, this is Havok 6,” Mark said. “We are proceeding to HENLEY, over.”
Once again, Greg was listening to Mark with one ear and the assault force with the other. Mark could see his RTO’s lips moving as he parroted Mark’s instructions to the assault force. Besides serving as the last name for one of the greatest singer/songwriters of his generation, HENLEY also designated the release point, or RP. This was where the two helicopters carrying the Rangers would break formation. The Chinook would deposit the blocking force on the south side of the compound while the trailing Black Hawk would fast-rope the assaulters onto the main residence’s roof.
HENLEY was the point of no return.
“Roger that, Havok 6. Good hunting. Talon 6, out.”
Mark passed the handset back to Greg in favor of the one that connected him to his platoon leader. He considered passing a warning to Havok 16 but didn’t. The assaulters were less than thirty seconds from the objective. Jeff Mishler already had enough to worry about.
Instead, Mark switched to his command internal frequency.
“Stay frosty,” Mark said to the Rangers gathered on the hilltop with him. “We just received some concerning intel. If you see anything that looks hinky, don’t wait for clearance from me to deal with the threat.”
Mark switched frequencies back to the assault net even as his headquarters element acknowledged his instructions. He could hear Chris Jancosko whispering into his lip mike as the fire support officer made final coordination with the Air Force gunship. Two-hundred-pound men kicking in doors looked sexy on TV, but there was a reason why artillery was called the King of Battle. If push came to shove, the AC-130’s 105mm howitzer could kill a shit ton of bad guys real quick.
“Havok 6, this is Havok 16, we are HENLEY. I say again, Havok 16 is HENLEY.”
Jeff’s voice sounded crystal clear in Mark’s Peltor headset, but the thundering whump from the approaching helicopters made the update extraneous. Aviation was great for speed and covering long distances, but there was nothing covert about a pair of helicopters barreling down a draw toward a box canyon. The rotor noise seemed to be coming from everywhere as the whump, whump, whump from the blades reflected off the rock face.
“One Six, this is 6,” Mark said, “you are cleared to YUENGLING. I say again, cleared to YUENGLING.”
“This is 16, roger all.”
Mark zoomed in on the compound. This was the moment of truth. As if on cue, a spherical thermal signature materialized on the southern tower. A human head. The guard tower had been occupied after all. The sentry must have been sleeping out of sight on the tower’s floor. The sentry reached for the DShK and Mark was in the middle of calling out a warning when the man’s head exploded.
Ranger snipers were on the job.
Mark keyed his radio, preparing to transmit a warning to Jeff, when a bright flash demanded his attention. It took Mark a moment to realize he’d seen the burst of light from his left, unaided eye, not through his scope. The flash had originated from the hillside behind the compound and was now a tiny orange firefly streaking skyward.
No, that wasn’t quite true.
The pinprick of light wasn’t arcing toward the heavens like a tracer round. It pirouetted midflight, changing from a course aimed at the stars to something much more worrisome.
The helicopters.
CHAPTER 10
MARK mashed down the radio transmit button.
“Havok 16, you are taking fire. Abort, abort, abort.”
The garbled reply was cut off midsentence.
One moment the Chinook was thundering down the valley. The next, the pinprick of light detonated just below its number one engine. The bright flash reached Mark an instant before the accompanying thunderclap. The helicopter began a ponderous turn to the left as flames shot the length of the fuselage. Mark’s thermal sight rendered the dense, thick smoke pouring from the cabin into harmless shades of white, but he knew the truth.
His Rangers were in trouble.
A second flash erupted from the hillside. The pinprick clawed its way skyward, this time angling toward the Black Hawk. The targeted helicopter dumped flares in an incandescent waterfall while banking to the right, searching for a way out of the kill zone formed by the narrow valley.
Mark slapped Chris Jancosko on the shoulder.
“Suppress that hillside,” Mark said.
The fire support officer responded with a thumbs-up since the Marine was already speaking into his lip mike. A heartbeat later, a string of flashbulbs engulfed the hillside as the orbiting AC-130 went to work with its howitzer. The explosions echoed across the valley, uprooting trees and rendering the hillside a series of smoking holes. The Black Hawk thundered untouched over the ridgeline, still trailing flares like a comet’s sparkling tail.
The Chinook was a different matter.
The school bus–size helicopter nosed toward the valley floor. Flames engulfed the fuselage, but the aircraft continued its ponderous descent, suggesting that someone was still piloting the bird. Against all odds, the 160th aviators at the controls were bringing the aircraft down in one piece.
Then it slammed into the hillside.
CHAPTER 11
