Renegade (2013) (32 page)

“Pike!” Hunkered down, Bekah was coming back for him as bullets chopped into the frozen ground around her.

Pike wanted to tell her that he was okay, that everything would be great if he could just breathe, and he wanted to tell her that he was sorry for the things he’d said when he’d been in lockup.

But he couldn’t.

She caught hold of his armor and started trying to haul him out of the way as tangos rushed toward them. She was only half Pike’s size, though, and pulling him was almost impossible. That size differential was one of the main reasons men didn’t want women serving in fire team capacities. Women didn’t have the same upper-body strength.

Bekah kept tugging Pike, though, refusing to let him go as the tangos swarmed their position and bullets plowed into the snow all around her.

Forcing himself to move, not quite back to optimum performance, Pike helped Bekah move him. He drove his legs, knocking her off-balance as he swung awkwardly from side to side. Together, they rounded the corner of the nearest wall and tumbled in a sprawl.

Bekah recovered first, hauling her M4A1 up and rising to a kneeling position. Pike finally managed to suck in air and tried to ignore the pounding in his head. He gripped the 870 and pulled it to his shoulder as he fought his way to his feet.

He rose from behind the stone wall. Four tangos stood before him. Two of them poured bullets into the barrier, maybe thinking they were going to get a lucky round through the pile of rocks and snow to the Marines on the other side.

Pike shot the first man in the chest, blowing him back into the
second. Before either of them recovered, he pumped two more rounds into them, killing both. The third man went down under Bekah’s fire, and the last man was caught in a cross fire from Cho and Zeke.

Bekah looked at Pike. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She was moving before he could say anything else, headed toward the caves. Other Marines were already swarming over the entrances, swapping fire with tangos still inside.

Pike didn’t look forward to entering the caves. Based on previous experience he’d had, there would be a rat’s nest inside the mountain, and all of it would be dangerous. Still, he followed Bekah as they plunged into one of the entrances.

Heat filled the interior of the cave, pressing in against Pike’s face. He stayed on Bekah’s flank, using his peripheral vision to scan the cave till his pupils adjusted to the change in light. Shadows draped the cave, making it hard to see, but the tangos’ movements made them stand out against the darkness. The bright splashes of muzzle flashes revealed the shooters in quick, jerky images.

Swiveling, Pike aimed at those muzzle flashes and fired again and again. A bullet flattened against his body armor, eliciting a shock wave of pain that was barely noticeable in the cocktail of throbbing soreness that vibrated through him.

The shotgun cycled dry, the last expended shell spinning loose and catching the firelight, before Pike stopped. He held the 870 in one hand and drew his M9 with the other as he searched the cave.

Nothing moved.

He crossed the room to the bodies lying against the far wall. He slung the shotgun and used his flashlight to verify that their opponents were down. All of them were dead.

Outside, the gunfire was slowing and the radio chatter confirmed that the Marines had gained control of the valley and the caves.

Heath called over the radio. “Does anyone have eyes on Yaqub?”

Pike kicked over two of the dead men at his feet. Neither of them was the tango leader. Nor were any of the other tangos lying on the stone floor.

A chorus of negatives rolled over the freq.

“Keep looking. The man’s got to be here somewhere.”

“Indigo Leader, I found the reporter dude.”

“Where?”

“Guy’s toast. Somebody put a round through his head.”

Pike wasn’t surprised. The window for getting those people out alive had been small.

Heath hesitated only a moment. “What about the CIA agents?”

“Not here.”

Pike put more rounds in the shotgun, filling it to capacity, and followed Bekah to the back of the cave. Another entrance barely stood out in the firelight. She advanced with her rifle at the ready.

“I got the CIA guys, Leader.” Another Marine cursed. “They’re over here. They’re dead. Looks like they’ve been dead for a couple days at least.”

A couple days?
The news didn’t sit well with Pike. That meant the whole operation was a suck, a setup designed to draw the Marines into the kill box. It hadn’t worked out that well for the tangos, so what had Yaqub hoped to achieve?

At the entrance at the rear of the cave, Pike peered over Bekah’s shoulder as she shone her flashlight into the chamber beyond. The sweet fragrance of rot clung to the area.

The flashlight beam settled on an old man in a bed. Even from the distance and in the poor lighting, Pike could see the man was missing an arm and a leg. His crippled body lay exposed on top of the bedding.

“Americans, I am Sabah al Hadith, and I am here to deliver your
moment of reckoning in the name of the one true God.” The old man raised his only hand, and Pike spotted the electronic device in it.

Reacting instantly, Pike pulled his shotgun up and fired. The double-aught blast tore through the old man’s forearm. His shriveled hand, still holding the remote control, flew backward and bounced off the wall behind him.

For a moment, Pike thought that everything was all right. Then he heard the explosions starting, reverberating throughout the mountain. The cave shuddered and shook, suddenly rolling like a ship’s deck on a storm-tossed sea. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling.

Pike grabbed Bekah and shoved her toward the cave mouth. “Move!
Move!
They mined the mountain!” He followed at her heels as a tumbling rush of rock filled the cavern where the old man had been, drowning out his final cries.

They barely cleared the door, sprinting across the shivering earth, as more and more explosions detonated.

Outside, Pike stared at the changing landscape of the valley. Rock and snow came down in powdery avalanches. He had only a moment to look at the hopelessness of it all before something slammed into his back and he was buried in a rush of moving earth and snow.

COUGHING, BATTERED AND BRUISED,
Pike shifted beneath the debris that covered him. Rocks and snow slid off him, and he managed with effort to get his head and shoulders above the rubble. His hearing was thick, like he had cotton in his ears, and blood wept down the side of his face. Snow had fallen inside his blouse, chilling him and turning to water within seconds.

He fisted the shotgun and brought it up with him. He didn’t know how many of the tangos were still alive, or if they’d weathered the blast any better than he did. Bracing the shotgun on its butt, he used the weapon to leverage himself to his feet.

Dust and powdered snow drifted over the valley. Dead men lay strewn across the countryside. Some of them were the tangos the Marines had killed to take the valley, but many of them were Marines.

Incredulous, Pike gazed out at the damage. Yaqub had set up the valley as a kill box, but the kill box was far more dangerous than Pike had surmised. Much of the architecture of the surrounding mountainside had changed. Landslides covered the valley in several places.

Pain throbbed through Pike’s head. He couldn’t quite connect with himself. How many of those dead Marines had he fought with and eaten with? How many of them did he know?

Then his mind snapped back to him, and he remembered he’d been with Bekah. Fear stabbed him in prickling bursts, somehow penetrating the daze that filled him to overflowing.

Pike looked around, searching for Bekah and Zeke and Cho. Only snow and rock and rubble met his gaze. In the distance, other Marines began searching for teammates as well.

“Corpsman!” The cry was ragged and barely snaked through Pike’s muffled hearing.
“Corpsman!”

Dropping to his knees, Pike tried to remember where everyone had been when he’d come out of the cave.

Suddenly the area in front of him heaved, creating a molehill. Abandoning the shotgun, Pike dug into the snow and rock, scooping it away with his hands, bruising his fingers in the process. Within seconds, he’d found Bekah and started clearing away the rubble covering her.

She came up wheezing and hacking. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut, and a large knot had formed along her eyebrow. She had her M4A1 in her hand. Covering her mouth with her elbow, she coughed several times and studied the nearby ground. “Zeke and Cho?”

Pike shook his head.

“They were right here. They’ve got to be under here somewhere.” Bekah started digging, clawing at the earth.

Renewing his efforts, Pike dug too. Cho should have been to his right. That was the best that he could recall.

“Here.” Bekah kept digging, revealing the boot she’d found.

Pike joined her. Together they uncovered Zeke. The young man was unconscious but breathing. They left him on the ground and continued the hunt for Cho.

A few minutes later, Pike found Cho’s hand. He’d had to move out five feet from where he’d expected to find Cho. Either the man had tried to throw himself out farther, or he’d been propelled by the blast.

Cho’s hand was loose, nonresponsive as Pike pulled on it. Working quickly, Pike uncovered the man. Cho had been lying on his back. When they had his head clear, Pike knew at once they’d gotten to him too late. Dirt filled Cho’s eyes, but Pike could see that the man’s pupils were dilated in death. More dirt filled his mouth.

Bekah yanked on Cho. “Help me, Pike! Help me! We’ve got to get CPR started!” She kept fighting, struggling to get Cho free.

“Bekah.” Feeling hollowed out, like he’d been gutted, Pike caught Bekah’s hands and tried to calm her. She was still half out of it herself, her coordination not quite back to normal. “Bekah.”

She fought against him, yanking and shoving. “Stop. Let me go. We can help him.”

“No.” Pike kept his voice gentle. “We can’t.”

“We just need to start CPR. Get him breathing again.” Bekah tried to pull away.

“Bekah, it’s too late. It’s too late.” Pike held her hands in his. “He’s gone.”

Bekah looked down, took a deep breath. “All right.” She wiped her face on her forearm, then got to her feet. “Let’s go see if anyone else needs help.”

The secondary team of Marines had arrived in the valley just in time to get caught up in the blast. They’d missed out on the gunfight, then lost nine men in the suicidal ambush.

Pike’s team had lost seventeen Marines, almost half. Three had been killed during the brief battle, and nine had lost their lives in the explosions and the ensuing avalanches. Five were still MIA, presumed buried in the debris or in the caves that had collapsed.

Pike helped pack the dead into body bags. He knelt, staring into the open bag that contained Johnny Cho. For a moment, as he gazed
at the man, it wasn’t Cho. It was Petey. And Pike felt like he was losing his best friend all over again.

That was the problem with caring about people outside his own skin. He couldn’t protect them, couldn’t be there for them the whole time. Just like he hadn’t been able to be there for Petey. Cho and those other Marines had slipped right through Pike’s fingers.

“Pike.”

Someone laid his hand on Pike’s shoulder. Pike swung around, pushing himself to his feet and bringing the 870 around, swinging the weapon for the man’s head.

Gunney Towers caught the shotgun barrel in one big hand and halted it only inches from his face. Towers stared into Pike’s face. “You okay, Marine?”

“Yeah.” Pike pulled his weapon away from Towers. “I’m peachy.” He turned back to Cho and zipped the bag, trying hard not to think about Petey or Cho or Hector, but all of them were mixed up in there and it was difficult to think of nothing at all when he was carrying dead men.

“Let me give you a hand.” Towers stepped in beside Pike.

“I can get it.”

“I can help you.”

Pike surrendered and stood there.

Towers searched Pike’s face. “Who’d you lose, Marine? Who you thinking about while you’re looking at this man?”

Pike didn’t speak.

“’Cause I know you’re thinking ’bout somebody. I seen that look before. Saw it the day we were cleaning them people up out of the street. So now, right this minute, you and me are gonna talk.”

“There’s plenty of other people for you to bother, Gunney.”

“I ’spect I’ll get around to bothering them soon enough. Got a lot of grief heaped on us today, and we still got to secure this area so the CIA
can go through everything, see what they can find out.” Towers locked eyes with Pike. “So you tell me who’s weighing so heavy on your mind.”

Pike considered refusing, using language graphic enough to land him back in the brig, but the old pain from Petey’s death, the fresh pain from Cho’s death, and the fear of what might happen to Hector swelled up like a balloon in him and felt like it was going to burst.

“Had a friend. We came up together in foster homes. Just the two of us, you know?”

“Had each other’s backs.” Towers nodded.

“Yeah. Always. Just me and Petey. We took care of each other the best we could. When we got the chance, we cut and ran. Then it was just him and me out on the streets.” Pike stared into Towers’s eyes, but he didn’t really see the man. He was back in the past. “We did things we shouldn’t have. We did
everything
we shouldn’t have, Gunney. We were hunted by bad people, and we were no friends to law enforcement.”

Towers didn’t say anything, just listened.

“Petey took chances. He always pushed a situation. Always figured he had an angle. Always figured he was smarter than everybody else.”

“Till one day he found out he wasn’t.”

Pike nodded. “Yeah. Guys he went up against killed him. I wasn’t there. He didn’t tell me he was going. Just lit out on his own. By the time I found out about it, it was too late. I got to him just in time to watch him die.”

“You’re still carrying that hurt around with you.”

Pike’s voice got tight and he had to force the words out. “It won’t go away.”

“Never lost nobody close to you before.”

“Never
had
nobody close to me.”

Towers was quiet for a minute. “You’re gonna lose people every now and again, Pike. That’s how this life is. Ain’t nobody forever. And
it hurts ’cause it’s supposed to. The pain reminds you how much you loved them.”

Blinking his eyes, Pike had to look away. “I’m not gonna feel like that, Gunney.”

“Kinda hard to decide that.”

“Not so hard. All I need to do is go back to living life the way I used to.”

“Just be you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You can do that, maybe, but it would be a hard thing to do, and in my opinion, the life you’d live would be a lot harder than what you’re trying to get away from. God put us here on this earth to take care of each other. Made it so we care about each other so we ain’t alone. And that means sometimes losing somebody’s gonna hurt ’cause that’s just how it is.”

Pike didn’t say anything.

“You think about that some, Pike, before you start walling yourself off from people. You think about what you’d be giving up. You ask me, that pain just makes having them people in your life worth even more.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“I see you don’t, and I think that’s a shame.” Towers wiped his face with his hand. “I’m sorry about your friend. The one you lost then and the one you lost today.” He glanced at the body bag that contained Cho. “Now, come on. I’ll give you a hand.”

Together, they bent and picked up Cho’s body.

Trying not to dwell on the dead Marines who littered the snow-covered battleground, Heath tramped through the area again, picturing it in his mind the way it had been before the attack and the
way it was now. He skirted a mortar crater that had blown black earth over the pristine whiteness and headed into one of the caves his scouts had discovered. That man’s report about his findings had intrigued Heath.

The cave was small and deep. Hay covered the floor and animal dung spotted it in places. He knelt beside a pile of it and waved to Bekah, who was overseeing more investigation nearby.

She trotted over, breath fogging out in patches before her. “Something wrong?”

Heath pointed at the pile of dung. “Do you know what that is?”

Bekah frowned in confusion and answered without getting any closer. “You can stand off a ways from it and know what it is. You don’t have to be right up on top of it.”

“Yeah, I got that. But where did it come from?”

“The other end of the animal than the one you feed. This isn’t hard.”

Heath shook his head. “Not the point. What animal would you say this came from?”

“Big apples like that, probably a horse. A cow would have left a pie behind, and sheep would leave small pellets.”

“And goats?”

“Pellets. Same as a sheep or a rabbit. Granny calls them goat berries.”

Heath ran a hand over his chin, knowing something was wrong. “They had goats up here. We found some of those in caves, along with a few chickens. But I haven’t seen any horses.”

Bekah’s gaze grew more interested. “They don’t care for horses much up on the mountain. Caravans through here use donkeys.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Kneeling, Bekah used a strand of straw to push the poop around. “This is fairly fresh. Hasn’t been here long. With the altitude and the cold, it would be either dehydrated or frozen. It’s neither.” She tossed
the straw away and stood. “This reminds me of that old joke. The one about the little girl who got a box of horse poop for her birthday and kept digging around inside because she was sure there was a pony in there somewhere.”

Heath stood as well, surveying the cave and the animal spoor. “There were a lot of donkeys in here at one time. So where are they now?” He looked at Bekah and shook his head. “Yaqub’s not here. We’re wasting our time trying to find him.”

“We haven’t cleared out all the caves. We don’t know that.”

Heath shook his head and strode from the cave. “
I
know that. Yaqub drew us in here, gave his father one last chance to play the unconquerable hero and become a martyr for the cause, and hoped to kill as many of us as he could. He’s thinking we’re going to spend our time focused on this place, looking for a body we’ll never find to confirm the kill, while he’s off doing . . . what?”