Heroes In Uniform (49 page)

“Holy shit,” Thompson blurted as he realized what was happening, then started the truck and gunned it in reverse. His whole body tense, Wade stared through the windshield as the guards burst into a flurry of activity. Swinging them around in a hard J-turn, Thompson stomped on the accelerator and tore back the way they’d come, already on the radio to the lead vehicle, now trapped on the opposite side of the checkpoint. “They’re coming after us—getting us outta here.”

“Oh, shit,” he heard Erin breathe as she ducked down and put a hand on the weapon strapped to her thigh.

Looking back through the passenger window, Wade saw two black pickups tearing after them, a gunner in the back of each manning the mounted rifles there. He whipped around to check their six o’clock. Beyond the barricade, the soldiers in the rest of the convoy were all being hauled out at gunpoint and ordered onto their stomachs on the ground. Over the radio Wade could hear the shouts and confusion going on, and the message was clear: they were on their own.

Wade faced front and leaned forward a little to peer out the windshield as they tore down the two-lane highway. “Get us off this road,” he snapped at the driver.

“And go where?” Thompson demanded, jaw tight, fingers clenched around the wheel.

“Where they can’t follow. More of ‘em will be coming at us from the northern checkpoint now too.”

Swearing, Thompson glanced once in the rearview, saw the trucks coming at them, and veered off the main road. The big vehicle bounced and bucked as it tore across the dry, open plain. Over the radio, the response from Bagram came back.
Stand by
.
“Got any ideas?” Thompson demanded.

The only two options were left or right. “Head for those hills.” Wade pointed left, to the northwest.

“What about mines?” Erin said in a tight voice, her body tense. She had her weapon in her right hand, her left one gripping the door handle so hard her knuckles were white.

Wade took in her pinched expression, how pale she was. A foreign feeling of guilt settled in his chest. He’d done some fucked-up things in his time undercover, but knowing he’d put her in this potentially lethal situation because Rahim was targeting him made him feel badly. “Shouldn’t be a problem here.” Unless they ran over an IED buried in the ground.

“So, toward the hills. And then what?” Thompson jerked the truck to the side to avoid a clump of boulders.

“We see what happens.”

Erin cranked around in her seat, mouth thinned as she stared out the rear window. “I think they’re gaining on us.”

Wade swung around to look. Yeah, and at this speed, in another few minutes those gunners would have them within range. He turned back to search in the distance ahead of them, scanning the terrain for a better, faster route. There wasn’t one. The Humvee plunged and groaned as it hit a shallow gulley then heaved up the other side. Thompson steered them out at an angle. “Shit, there’re fucking rocks everywhere,” he grumbled. They bounced and rattled over the ground as he swerved them around rock clusters. “Hold on,” he warned.

Beside him, Erin grabbed the upper handle above the doorframe with her left hand and holstered her weapon to grip the edge of the seat with her right while Wade flattened a hand against the seat in front of him. A second later the Hummer slammed into something. The bone-jarring impact jerked them forward against their seatbelts amidst a loud bang and a groan of metal. When the vehicle evened out once more, a telltale thumping sound came from beneath it.

“Just blew out a tire, and maybe an axel,” Thompson said, face grim as he kept maneuvering them forward. Already the vehicle was beginning to lose speed.

“They’re still back there,” Erin reported, “but it looks like they’re not gaining on us now.”

Yeah, but it was only a matter of time before they blew more of the self-sealing tires on this terrain. Wade searched the base of the foothills for someplace they could go until backup arrived.

“What’s the story on our backup?” Thompson demanded over the radio.

“Unknown at this time. Stand by,” came the response.

“Yeah, I’ll fucking stand by,” he grumbled derisively under his breath before giving a terse acknowledgement.

“Over there,” Wade told him, pointing a little ways to the north where a trail cut up the hillside to where a small village lay nestled in the shelter of a ridge high up. “Get us to the base of that trail.”

“Why?” Thompson’s voice was laced with stress.

“Just get us there.”

Cursing under his breath, Thompson aimed for the base of the hill. They jostled and rattled over more rocks and the thumping sound became louder. At least one more tire was blown, but the big beast kept on rolling anyhow. When Wade checked behind them again, the pursuing trucks had slowed enough to buy them some time to ditch the vehicle and disappear before the enemy caught up.

He glanced around the interior for weapons. Thompson had an M4 up front with him, and a sidearm. Wade looked at Erin. “That your only weapon?” he indicated the holster on her thigh.

She hadn’t let go of the door handle. “Yes.”

“Any spare mags?”

“Two.”

Better than none, and with any luck they’d be up and out of range before the chasing force arrived. The Hummer limped its way over the last few klicks to the bottom of the hill Wade had indicated. “Kill the engine,” he said to Thompson. “We’ve gotta hump out of here on foot.” He didn’t need to tell them that staying with the truck would guarantee them getting killed.

“
Shit
,” the guy muttered, but did as Wade said, shoving the keys into one of the pockets on his web gear.

“Grab whatever water, weapons and ammo you’ve got, and let’s go,” Wade ordered as he slid out of the vehicle. He ran around back and hauled out his duffel while Erin and Thompson grabbed their rucks and hurriedly put them on. He looked up the trail that switch-backed up the hill. The village appeared to be a quarter mile or so up, but with the trail winding like that, the hike was going to be a hell of a lot longer. He glanced at Erin. She stood at the foot of the trail, helmet on and ready to go, watching him tensely. “Come on.”

He took point, leading them up the trail at a rapid clip. The air was cool, but the morning sunlight bounced off the hillside in waves. Between that and the relatively steep grade of the trail they climbed, he was sweating within minutes. They were only a few hundred yards up the loose dirt pathway when the sound of the approaching enemy engines reached him. Wade glanced upward, hoping to find a place where they could scale the hillside from one level of the trail to the next. They had to make headway, fast. “Up here.”

The others followed him to a short incline. He grabbed Erin by the arm and towed her to the spot he had in mind, then took her by the hips to push her upward as she scrambled her way up to the top. Soil and rocks slid down the side as she moved, but soon she was at the next level. She dropped to her knees and extended a hand down to Thompson, who ignored it and clambered up after her. Wade went last, clearing the lip just as a rifle round buried itself into the rocks about twenty feet below them, the report echoing in the air. Erin snatched his hand and dragged him to his feet, her eyes wide. Together they started running up the next leg of the trail, moving away from the shooters.

When Wade glanced over his shoulder a few seconds later he saw one of the pickups stalled too far away from them to be any threat, its occupants already moving out on foot. The other truck was only a few hundred yards from the Hummer. In the back of it the gunner opened fire with another short burst. Rounds impacted the hillside in an explosion of dust. Ahead of him, Erin was in the lead. She’d picked another spot to scale the hillside and was clawing her way up it when another burst rang out, this time close enough to their position to raise Wade’s heart rate.

“Gimme your rifle,” he shouted to Thompson, who glanced back at him for a second as if he thought Wade was crazy before handing it over. “Go. Stay with her.” Thompson ran to catch up with Erin as Wade dropped to one knee behind a boulder and took aim at the gunner in the back of that truck. The range on the weapon wasn’t the greatest but it was close enough so he fired and a high-pitched metal ping rang through the air a second later. He’d missed the gunner but hit the big mounted rifle in back, and for the moment the return fire stopped. To conserve what ammo he had, Wade slung the M4 and raced to catch up to the others. The enemy truck was almost at the Humvee now.

No sooner had he clambered up the incline Erin and Thompson had just scaled than the bark of more rifles broke the stillness. Ahead of him Erin ducked and instinctively threw her hands up to shield her face as a round plowed into the dirt a few yards in front of her. The enemy was well within range now. Wade whirled and took aim again, this time at the guy in the lead, and fired. The guy fell back with a cry, blood spurting from a wound high up in his shoulder. One of his buddies picked up the fallen rifle to return fire along with someone from the group farther back. Wade fired at the closest man at the bottom of the hill, winged him in the thigh.

Then he heard Erin’s shout. “Thompson’s down!”

He glanced up the trail to see her kneeling over Thompson, who had his hands pressed low over his belly, his teeth bared and his eyes squeezed shut in an agonized expression. Erin already had his ruck off, was trying to drag the much larger man by his web gear toward safety, behind the cover of some nearby boulders.

Wade swore under his breath in Pashto. There was no way they could make a run for it and escape now. They’d have to stay and fight.

Danger Close: Chapter Four

Erin was focused solely on getting Thompson behind cover. He was bleeding badly from the wound in his lower belly. She had to get them both to safety before they had more GSWs to deal with. She gritted her teeth and hauled him along the path, the muscles in her arms, legs and back burning. Rounds pinged off the rocks below them. Sweat trickled down her face and under her arms.

Thompson let out a throttled growl as she towed him behind the nearby hip-high boulders. She squeezed behind the pitiful shelter with him and dropped her ruck to rummage through it.

“Why the fuck are they attacking us?” Thompson muttered, already shaking from shock.

“No idea.” Though she was fairly certain it had something to do with Sandberg. He’d picked up on the threat before she and Thompson had even realized what was happening. Before that he’d seemed on edge, like he’d been expecting trouble.

Sandberg hurried over, lowered his rifle slightly and spoke to her without turning around. “Let’s go.”

He bent to put Thompson across his shoulders, his grunt drowned out by the wounded man’s raw cry of pain as he hoisted him into the air and set off. Erin grabbed what ammo and water she could find in Thompson’s ruck, stuffed it into her own, and tipped it onto her back before rushing to catch up with Sandberg. He moved at a steady pace despite the heavy burden he carried. Erin cast a nervous glance back down the hill, the quiet unnerving after the initial firefight. The wounded were being evacuated in the one functional truck, but she knew they’d bring more reinforcements at any time, and who knew when the backup Thompson had requested would arrive. Or if they even would.

“What’s the plan?” she panted as she caught up to Sandberg.

“Get to the village.”

“That’s the first place they’ll look for us!”

He just grunted and kept going.

There had to be something better. She glimpsed a trail winding up the hillside from the village, leading God knew where, but surely heading up that was better than sitting in a potentially hostile village when the enemy came hunting again. “What about there?” she asked, pointing at it. “We could—”

“The village,” he snapped and she glowered at him. He wasn’t her CO—he wasn’t even freaking military—so who the hell did he think he was, deciding their fate for them?

“Why are they after us?”

He didn’t respond and his silence put the match to her temper.

“Hey.” She quickened her stride to come abreast of him, would have grabbed his arm to force him to look at her except he was clearly struggling under Thompson’s weight and the grade of the incline. “What happened at the checkpoint? Were they looking for you?”

“Stop talking and walk faster,” he growled without looking at her.

Thinning her lips, she shut up and picked up the pace, expecting to hear another engine or volley of shots at any moment. They covered the remaining distance to the village in about fifteen minutes, but by the time they arrived she and Sandberg were out of breath and sweating heavily. She was about to insist they keep going on the trail she’d seen fifteen minutes ago when a group of male villagers crested the rise. They were all armed with rifles, their expressions hard and distrusting. She faltered and reached for her weapon but Sandberg stayed her with another grunt and a terse shake of his head. Her whole body tense, she dropped her hand and waited. She never could have predicted what happened next.

Sandberg shocked her by calling out to the men in what had to be Pashto. They blinked at him in astonishment for a moment, then urged him forward. Erin followed closely in his wake, aware of her pulse thudding in her ears and a sick feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She watched the men’s hands carefully, afraid to take her eyes off them.

They passed several mud brick homes and were approaching a slightly larger one in the center of the village when a man stepped out of the doorway. He was in late middle age, his thick beard liberally streaked with gray. His gaze swept over them with a cursory glance before he spoke to his men. One of them replied and the old man’s eyes snapped to Sandberg in surprise. He said something, and Sandberg replied in turn. The hint of a smile warmed the old man’s face, then he nodded and motioned for them to enter his home. Erin was right at Sandberg’s back, all too aware of the curious and disdainful looks she was receiving. There were no other women in sight, all probably having been sequestered into their homes at the first sign of visitors approaching, as custom dictated.