CHAPTER 35
IN Afghanistan, telling friend from foe was never easy. Fortunately, one of the armed men possessed something that unequivocally moved him into the foe category—an RPG.
Unfortunately, the tube-launched munition was pointed at Scott.
“Contact front!” Coleman yelled as he depressed the M249’s trigger.
The machine gun roared to life as the RPG tube belched flame.
Scott was no stranger to enemy fire. Though this unpleasantness normally came in the form of bullets, he had been on the wrong side of an RPG a time or two. Still, nothing in his previous experience had prepared him for this. Though the munition typically traveled faster than the human eye could track, today Coleman was head-to-head with the gunner. For an instant, the projectile seemed to hover just in front of Coleman, reminding him of the time he’d taken a fastball to the nose.
That collision had ended his baseball season.
This one had the potential to end quite a bit more.
The grenade screamed by, close enough that Coleman could feel the breeze generated by the projectile’s stubby stabilizing fins. Panning the M249 left, Coleman walked the stream of crimson tracers through the jihadis while trying to remember how to breathe. The scarlet fireflies sent at least two fighters tumbling to the ground while Will steered the MRZR into a third, crumpling the man with the ATV’s left front bumper.
Then they were past the patrol.
Or what was left of it anyway.
Coleman was about to order Charlie to engage when the .50-caliber clamored to life. The Ma Deuce had first made its debut in the 1930s, but the weapon was still a fearsome sight to behold. Though he couldn’t see the fireball emanating from the machine gun’s gaping maw, the concussive muzzle blast hammered Coleman’s shoulders and neck. The .50-cal sounded like a runaway jackhammer.
An angry runaway jackhammer.
Will wheeled the MRZR right, choosing to ramp over a shallow ravine rather than follow the gravel switchbacks. The ATV went airborne before landing on the far side with a lurch that slammed Coleman against his restraint harness.
The .50-cal fell silent.
“Don’t know if I got the last one,” Charlie said. “Our driver handles this beast like he’s steering a shopping cart.”
“If you wanna switch places let me know,” Will said. “I actually hit where I aim.”
“Quit your bitching,” Mas said. “We’re still alive. Though, I might have to clean out my britches.”
A series of dry chuckles echoed over the intercom as the men tried to dissipate the tension. But even the best one-liner wouldn’t have allowed Coleman to laugh away what had just happened. Gathering his thoughts, he keyed the transmit button.
“Chaos Main, this is Ghost 7,” Coleman said. “We ran into a patrol just short of the release point. We suppressed and bypassed. Still en route to WILLIS, over.”
“Ghost 7, Chaos Main copies all. Are you compromised, over?”
That was the million-dollar question. Coleman sighed as he tried to decide how to answer. Technically, they were compromised. He and Charlie had both opened up and neither of their machine guns was what anyone would term quiet.
That said, the man-made thunder was growing louder the closer the MRZR got to the cave complex. With the detonating artillery for cover, the jihadis might not have had heard the violent but brief firefight. The real question was whether a member of the patrol had a cell phone or walkie-talkie that they could use to alert the defenders.
Assuming that any members of the patrol were still capable of using either device.
Coleman knew he’d dropped at least two of the jihadis and that the man Will had run down was either dead or on his way to being so, which left the final shooter. Charlie might not have scored a direct hit, but the former SEAL Team 6 operator was no slouch with his weapon. The M2’s half-inch-diameter armor-piercing rounds would have ricocheted off the stone like shotgun pellets fired into a concrete floor. The patrol had probably been silenced before they could get off a warning.
Unless they hadn’t been.
“Chaos Main, Ghost 7,” Coleman said. “Our current heat state is unknown. We are still proceeding to WILLIS, over.”
“Roger all, Ghost 7. Recommend you expedite. We see thermal signatures on the north side of WILLIS.”
Of course they did.
CHAPTER 36
RAPP mentally reviewed his hike into the cave complex as he kept his right hand on the stone wall. He’d kept track of his pace count during the walk in and pegged the distance he’d traveled at just under four hundred meters.
No sweat.
Even a nonsprinter could cover a quarter of a mile in about two minutes. The darkness and the need to slow down for Saxton and the still-unconscious CYCLONE certainly put a cramp on Rapp’s pace, but he’d be out of the complex in five or six minutes. Eight minutes tops.
That was the good news.
The bad was that if the HIG thugs had invested in backup generators, they ought to get their money back. While Rapp wholly approved of the distraction offered by the rolling artillery barrage, navigating the cave system in the dark was a bitch. To make matters worse, the last pair of shots from his pursuers had nearly taken his head off. While it was always better to be lucky than good, the shot placement seemed too accurate to attribute solely to luck. At least one of the jihadis probably had a night-vision device of some sort. Classic light-intensifying goggles wouldn’t do much good this far underground, but if one of the mountain men had a thermal device, Rapp was a sitting duck.
Like the Russian thermal devices favored by the Iranians, for instance.
“How we doing up there?” Saxton said.
Excellent question.
“Need a rest?” Rapp said.
“I need to get the hell out of here.”
