“Ironman has the precious cargo plus one. I am mobile but need immediate evac. Can you localize my position?”
SIGINT, or signals intelligence, had matured by leaps and bounds over the course of the near decade America had been fighting the Global War on Terror. Many of the commonplace digital intelligence-gathering methods employed by the NSA and other less well-known three-letter agencies would have been regarded as science fiction and not science fact only a handful of years ago.
Cell phone exploitation techniques were a perfect example.
Primarily driven by the need to feed actionable intelligence to the special mission units tasked with hunting down high-value targets in Iraq, the NSA’s ability to glean information from a mobile device was astounding. But even the cyber ninjas who called Fort Meade home weren’t omniscient.
“Okay, Ironman, I have you locked down to a five-kilometer radius. Your signal appears to be routing through several repeaters to mask the origin. Can you confirm your location?”
NSA analysts hadn’t been the only ones learning about digital warfare.
The longer he waged war against terrorists, the less Rapp was surprised at the growing technological proficiency of his enemies. During the initial invasion of Afghanistan, Americans thought of the Taliban as barely literate cavemen. This had never really been true, and it was certainly not the case today. While the jihadi foot soldiers still counted a number of poorly educated fighters within their ranks, the upper echelons had begun to attract talent from across the Islamic Crescent. Since most jihadi communication was routed through encrypted message sites on the dark web, terrorist organizations heavily recruited computer scientists and IT specialists. The type of people able to employ a multitude of digital tricks.
Like masking a cell phone’s location.
“I’m in a cave complex in the Spin Ghar mountains,” Rapp said. “I entered through a southward opening elevation. I’m working my way back there now.”
“Roger that, Ironman. QRF is en route. Are you still wearing your threads, over?”
As with the tablets he’d swallowed to taint his urine, Rapp had been skeptical about the purported effectiveness of his new wardrobe. While the eggheads who staffed the agency’s Science and Technology, or S&T, department meant well, the contraptions they tested in a laboratory’s sterile confines often proved less than ideal in the real world.
“Affirmative,” Rapp said.
“Good—the shirt showed up great on thermal. We were able to track you most of the way to the cave complex. The assault team will be on station in approximately five mikes, but we still have persistent ISR assets overhead. If you can self-rescue, do so. We’ll vector you to safety once you’re out of the cave.”
That was good news, because even if he still had radioactive isotopes bouncing around in his bloodstream, Rapp’s bladder was empty and not likely to be refilled anytime soon. While he wasn’t normally part of full-up military operations, Rapp understood the fog of war especially as it pertained to a rescue operation with multiple moving pieces. His shirt would go a long way toward ensuring that he and Saxton weren’t victims of friendly fire.
Which brought to mind a question he should have asked earlier.
“Is there a time limit on the effectiveness of my shirt?” Rapp said.
“Negative, Ironman. The treatment is woven into the fabric. As long as the cloth stays dry, it will work.”
Even more good news. As part of his pre-mission planning, Rapp had received a brief from one of the Air Force weather specialists on loan to the agency. As per the norm in Jalalabad, the chance of rain over the next twenty-four hours was less than 5 percent.
He and Saxton had it made in the shade.
“Got it,” Rapp said. “We are moving time now.”
Saxton yelled something, but Rapp couldn’t make out the Ranger’s words over the sudden ringing in his ears.
Flashbangs were kind of loud.
CHAPTER 33
WHEN it came to displays of firepower, Scott Coleman was not easily impressed.
First as a SEAL, and then as the owner of a salvage/demolition company, he was well versed in the effects of high explosives. More than once, he’d had occasion to marvel at the way in which a well-placed breaching charge could turn even the most sturdy barrier into a gaping hole. In the same manner, Coleman had watched a twenty-thousand-ton steel monstrosity slide into the ocean’s depths after he’d detonated the charges he and his team had carefully emplaced on the oil platform’s undersea girders.
When it came to pyrotechnics, Coleman had seen it all.
Or so he’d thought.
But after watching the ridgeline a kilometer distant erupt under the combined effects of 155mm high-explosive artillery shells, he wasn’t so sure. While he’d participated in more than his fair share of joking at his Army brethren’s expense, one thing was for certain. When it came to putting indirect fire on target, Army Rangers had no equal.
Or at least their fire support officers didn’t.
“Thirty seconds.”
The shout came from the crew chief standing to Coleman’s right. The update came verbally rather than through the Chinook’s intercom because Scott had abandoned his headset and the snaking cable that went with it at the one-minute mark. The MH-47’s internal communication system belonged with the helicopter.
Coleman did not.
After acknowledging the crew chief with an upraised thumb, Coleman keyed the transmit button on his radio and repeated the update for the benefit of his team. Will, seated in the driver’s seat to Coleman’s left, nodded his head to signify that he was tracking rather than respond via the radio like Charlie and Mas, who were in the passenger seats behind him. With less than thirty seconds until things went loud, there was no way Will was taking his hands off the steering wheel.
Coleman appreciated his teammate’s singularity of focus. Working as a paramilitary officer required an attention to detail that rivaled a brain surgeon’s, but the plan Scott had cooked up with Rapp was truly pushing things to the limit. Rather than dwell on the difficulty of the looming operation or the team’s slim-to-nonexistent margin for error, Coleman dedicated his brainpower to something he could control.
Himself.
Coleman double-checked his restraint harness and cinched the belt as tight as it would go across his chest. Then he completed a final visual inspection of the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon machine gun mounted to his right. As the TC, or truck commander, Coleman was responsible for navigation as well as maintaining radio communication with the rest of the assault element. But when the shooting inevitably started, everyone had an offensive role to play. Mas had the M240 machine gun that fired the heavier 7.62mm round while Charlie was manning the top-mounted .50-caliber machine gun. Coleman’s machine gun wasn’t as sexy or hard-hitting as either of the other weapons systems, but his SAW could still put plenty of steel on target in a short amount of time.
Sometimes that could be the difference between life and death.
“Five seconds.”
Coleman appreciated the warning, but he didn’t need it. He could feel the Chinook flaring as it came to a hover, but more than that, he could see the mountaintop landing zone he’d selected materialize just beyond the helicopter’s open ramp. With a dexterity Coleman would be hard-pressed to believe were he not witnessing it, the Chinook’s pilots balanced the aircraft’s extended ramp on the mountaintop even though the helicopter itself was still hovering in open air.
“Go! Go! Go!”
