Coleman gave a thumbs-up to the crew chief with one hand and he reached for Will’s arm with the other. Wrapping his fingers around the Marine’s meaty biceps, Coleman squeezed. The all-terrain vehicle’s turbo-diesel engine roared, launching it out of the Chinook’s cabin and down the ramp. For a stomach-churning second, Coleman found himself wondering if the Night Stalker pilots had mistakenly allowed the dump truck of a helicopter to drift off the mountain.
Then the ATV’s knobby front tires found purchase on the rocky soil.
The Chinook accelerated away from the ridgeline with a roar. The downdraft from the massive rotors rocked the ATV with hurricane-force winds, but Coleman scarcely noticed. His attention was focused on the moving map depicted on the tablet strapped to his thigh.
The tablet, as with the ATV, came courtesy of Justin Garza.
Though SEAL Team 6 was not currently in theater, several metal storage Conexes full of DEVGRU’s equipment were already forward-deployed to J-Bad. Justin had allowed Coleman and his team to pick through the offerings, which included a prototype off-road tactical vehicle known as the MRZR, manufactured by Polaris. Small enough to fit in a Chinook but large enough to carry four armed assaulters with room for two or three more on a bench seat located at the vehicle’s rear, the MRZR was fast, agile, and rugged. Most importantly, its powerful engine and reinforced suspension made the ATV ideal for navigating Afghanistan’s treacherous mountainous terrain.
Coleman was in love.
“Turbine 33, this is Ghost 7,” Coleman said after adjusting his boom mike. “We are clear of the LZ and proceeding to objective WILLIS, over.”
“Roger that, Ghost. Turbine 33 is breaking station. Good hunting, over.”
Coleman clicked the transmit button twice in response to the Chinook pilot’s transmission before changing channels on his secondary radio from the air-to-ground frequency to the one monitored by the CIA personnel located at J-Bad airfield, thirty miles to the north. The distance was much too great for the Persistent Systems Wave Relay radio strapped to his tactical vest, but Coleman’s transmission didn’t have to reach anywhere near that far.
In addition to providing ISR coverage with its onboard suite of sensors, the Reaper UAV overhead served as a communications relay between Coleman and the operation’s participants. As one of only four Americans on the ground, Coleman was glad to know that he and his men weren’t alone, even though the departing MH-47’s fleeing shadow suggested otherwise.
“Chaos Main, this is Ghost 7,” Coleman said after toggling the transmit button. “We are one zero mikes from objective WILLIS. Request SITREP, over.”
Coleman reflexively grabbed the MRZR’s rollbar as Will spun the wheel to the left, nosing the vehicle down a boulder-strewn draw. The Marine was an excellent wheelman, but Coleman was still anxious about the route they’d chosen. Will had pronounced the path passable after hurriedly studying the satellite imagery of the terrain surrounding the landing zone, but Coleman wasn’t quite as confident.
There was a reason why the locals still traveled these mountain passes on foot even in the era of modern transportation, but Scott had okayed the plan despite his misgivings. Special operators dealt with the world as it was, not as they wished it could be. Sometimes the plan had to work because there was no good alternative.
This was shaping up to be one of those times.
“Ghost 7, this is Chaos Main, read you loud and clear. We show ingress route BEARCAT clear of thermal signatures all the way to objective WILLIS. Fire mission will shift to smoke in five mikes. Assault force is orbiting vicinity GIBSON waiting for your go, over.”
Coleman paused in order to visualize the tactical picture before replying.
Rapp’s irradiated urine signaled that he’d located Sergeant Saxton, but the rescuers still knew nothing about the potential surface-to-air missile threat. Fortunately, Rapp’s presence on the ground had been the catalyst needed to move the JSOC chain of command over their self-imposed speed bump. Or, knowing Rapp, this change of heart might have originated with their commander in chief.
Either way, just like Coleman had settled on a less-than-ideal route to objective WILLIS, the JSOC planners had figured out how to make lemonade out of lemons. Judging by the amount of artillery raining down from on high, the Ranger battalion staff had more than earned their keep. When confronted by the challenge represented by potential missileers guarding the cave complex, Captain Chris Jancosko, the battalion fires planner, had come up with an elegant solution worthy of the Ranger Regiment—give the bad guys something else to look at.
With this in mind, 155mm shells were currently pulverizing an unpopulated ridgeline just east of objective WILLIS. The same objective that Coleman was hurtling toward from the north and Garner’s helicopter-borne Rangers would approach from the west. When Coleman reached the release point approximately one kilometer from the objective, the artillery barrage would transition from high-explosive shells to white phosphorus smoke.
In theory, the fireworks would allow Coleman to approach the cave complex unseen and unheard. If possible, they would spirit Rapp and the newly freed Ranger away to a clearing located due south of the cave complex where the 160th pilots would be waiting to evac them. If that didn’t work, Coleman and his crew would become the reconnaissance element for the Rangers by providing real-time updates and suppressive fire as the helicopters disgorged the assaulters.
In theory.
In practice, operations seldom went exactly according to plan.
Judging by the collection of armed men just ahead, this operation was no different.
CHAPTER 34
RAPP was facing away from the pyrotechnic device when it detonated.
This bit of luck saved his life and a portion of his eyesight.
It did nothing to protect his hearing.
One moment Rapp was standing with the phone to his ear, deep in conversation. The next, unseen bells gonged and splashes of light danced across his vision. Dropping the phone, Rapp gripped his AK with both hands and crouched. Thumbing the selector switch to fully automatic, Rapp fired a long burst into the darkness, panning the rifle from right to left as he burned through a magazine. The muzzle flash illuminated stretches of the cavern, but between the all-encompassing darkness and his flash-blind eyes, Rapp couldn’t see much.
What he did see wasn’t encouraging.
A collection of bodies was entering from the far passageway. The figures were only visible for a millisecond, but the strobelike image lasted long enough for Rapp to form an impression—a tactical stack of at least six men.
Not good.
Rapp swapped magazines as a muzzle flash to his left announced that Saxton was still in the fight. Like Rapp, the Ranger hammered through his magazine in one continuous burst. This was not because the men lacked trigger discipline. This was their only chance to thwart the assault force. The stone walls meant that the entire cave was one big shooting gallery, and in tight quarters where every surface presented an opportunity for a ricochet, sometimes quantity really was a quality all its own. Like a pool player sinking balls during the break, Rapp was hoping that filling the air with a large volume of lead would knock down a few shooters and halt the assault’s momentum.
If not, he was done for.
Rapp chambered a round as Saxton ran dry but didn’t fire. He was down to his final thirty rounds and still shooting blind. The longer he lingered, the greater the odds that one of the attackers would score a lucky hit.
“We’re leaving,” Rapp said, grabbing Saxton by the ankle.
To his credit, the Ranger didn’t argue. Saxton grunted as he hefted CYCLONE, then the soldier grabbed a fistful of Rapp’s shirt.
“Go!”
Trailing his right hand on the cave’s wall, Rapp moved forward as he clung to his AK-47 with his left. A series of pops provided mood music for their retreat as the assaulters filled the sudden silence with shots of their own. Shards of stone stung Rapp’s face from a near miss, but a quick turn to the right cleared him from the line of fire. As the ringing in his ears slowly began to fade, Rapp almost began to smile. They might just make it out alive after all.
Then, Rapp realized he was missing something.
The phone.
