Authors: Joshua Hood
“They came out of the spider hole,” T.J. gasped. “I fucked up, man . . .”
“You're fineâstay with me,” Blaine said, working to control the bleeding.
“Can he move?” Mason asked.
Blaine was one of the best medics he'd ever worked with, but Mason could tell immediately that even he couldn't save the man bleeding out on the floor.
“He's lost too much blood.”
“T.J., we're going to get you out of here,” Mason said, taking a knee next to the man.
A faint smile creased the dying man's face, and he tried to laugh.
“Yeah, okay, boss,” he whispered, a second before going into convulsions.
T.J. was choking on his own blood, and the spatter that came out of his mouth dripped thickly down his cheek before pooling on the floor.
Mason had seen dying men before, but when T.J.'s eyes rolled back into his head, and his body seized one final time, a shot of pain raced straight through Mason's heart. The bonds the five men had formed in their brief time together were stronger than most people would ever know.
Just then, the claymore mine attached to the door exploded as someone tried to force his way into the building. Gunfire erupted through a window to the east, sending the squad scattering.
Blaine dove onto his fallen comrade, covering him with his body as rounds snapped through the room, filling it with smoke and cordite. Outside the building, a man screamed in pain, his legs torn completely off from the blast of the claymore.
“Mason, make a decision,” Zeus yelled.
“We have to split up,” Mason instructed. “Zeus, you and me will go after Boland. You two, head to the crash site. I have no idea how many are out there, but if the Reaper is armed, we might be able to buy some time.”
“He's gone, bro. There's nothing you can do for him now.” Grinch said, pulling the medic off T.J., whose sightless eyes stared at the ceiling.
“We have to move, now,” Mason yelled.
Leaving T.J.'s body for the enemy was the hardest decision Mason Kane had ever been forced to make, and he knew that Blaine felt the same way. It went against everything they had been taught, but Grinch didn't hesitate. The sniper grabbed the medic by the arm, pulling him away from T.J.
“See you on the other side,” he shouted, pushing Blaine toward the spider hole.
R
enee opened her eyes, blinking at the beam of sunlight streaming in through the shattered window of the cargo compartment. The sun was warm inside the dim confines of the smoking helo, and it felt good on her face. She felt protectedâwhile outside everything was going to shit.
She could hear the deep snaps of the AK-47 and the lighter pops of the M4s returning fire as she stared up at the puffy white clouds drifting peacefully across the deep blue sky.
“Get the fuck up,” she told herself.
It took a huge effort to get to her feet, and, for a second, she just stood there, squinting against the stark brightness pouring in from the shattered ramp. Renee checked her rifle and grabbed the assault pack that had been ripped off her back. Carefully, she made her way to where the ramp lay crumpled against the back of the bird.
She hopped down, feeling a burning pain in her leg. Suddenly a black-clad fighter opened up on her from twenty meters away.
Her M4 snapped up, and she flipped the safety off before even realizing the rifle was moving. She fired twice, hitting the man in the chest; but instead of going down, he charged at her. Not backing off an inch, Renee settled the reticle of the EOTech holographic sight on his forehead and pulled the trigger firmly to the rear.
The round hit the man in the side of the head, blowing his brains out the back of his skull and pitching him forward onto the ground.
She scanned her sector before looking down at her leg. A twisted shard of metal, glistening with her blood, was sticking out of her thigh, and Renee winced as she grabbed hold of it. The pain came in a white-hot wave, slamming up through her stomach, forcing her to let go. Taking a deep breath, she closed her gloved fist around the metal and yanked it out.
“Fuuuck.”
Blood poured from the wound, puddling near her feet, where it mixed with the dirt of the crash site. Renee grimaced, twisting her torso to gain access to the trauma kit attached to the back of her kit. Needing to control the bleeding or risk being out of the fight, she quickly pulled out a roll of gauze.
“Tomahawk Base to Savage 7, request sitrep, over,” the radio squawked.
“You want a situation report now?” Renee muttered, limping to cover. With shaking hands, she ripped open the sterile package and packed the gauze into the wound. The pain was intense, but she bit down on her lip and finished the job.
Taking a cravat from her kit, Renee wrapped it as tight as she could around her leg and stoically tied a knot over the wound just as Sergeant Major Mitchell came around the corner.
“Fuck you,” he yelled while firing into a jihadist who was creeping toward the downed helo.
“Are you good?”
Renee gingerly got to her feet and hobbled over to Mitchell. She could see that the rest of the team had already set up a defensive perimeter near the front of the bird, and despite some scrapes and bruises, everyone was ready to fight.
“Tomahawk Base, Savage 7 Romeo, stand by,” she said into the radio as Warchild began barking orders.
“Parker, I need you and your team to set up overwatch while we hit the objective. I need you,” he said, pointing at Renee, “to get CAS on station and get us a ride out of here.”
The man might be an asshole, but in combat he was as cold as ice, and right now it was all that mattered.
“Tomahawk Base, Savage 7 Romeo. Be advised we are moving to target location time now. Request immediate close air support and extraction at LZ Bravo. How copy?”
“Roger that, 7 Romeo. Be advised you have multiple hostiles moving in from your northeast and west.”
“Shit. Hey, they're moving on us,” she said to Parker as the team moved out.
The bird had gone down less than five hundred meters from the target location, but a warren of narrow streets separated the two points and funneled the team down a natural choke point. The tight alleys, recessed doorways, and windows made it a perfect kill zone; and worst of all, it was the only way out.
Parker and his team sprinted ahead of the squad and set up security. Mitchell was just getting posted up when a burst of gunfire erupted from a building off to his right. A bullet slammed into the side of his helmet, knocking him off balance, and when he turned to engage the shooter, a round cut through his arm. The sergeant major tumbled to the ground in a cloud of dust. Instinctively, Renee snapped her muzzle toward the threat and fired three quick shots, hitting the jihadist in the chest before rushing to Mitchell's side.
“Help me up,” he bellowed.
Renee reached down and tried to lift him off the ground, but his imposing bulk was too much for her.
“Warchild,” she yelled. Her team leader stepped into the street, firing as he moved. Three fighters rushed around the corner, firing on full auto, their AKs blazing as they charged him. Warchild stopped and, like a gunfighter from the wild west, calmly took aim and engagedâit was suddently clear how he'd earned his nickname.
He was born for combat, and once his bloodlust was up, there was no stopping him. His finger danced across the trigger and cut the men down in the street.
“Warchild, fucking help me,” she yelled again.
The team knew what it was doing, fighting its way to the objective without the need to communicate. While the enemy fire picked up all around them, they flowed off one another like water searching for cracks in a dam.
Her team leader forcibly removed himself from the battle, and he glared angrily at her before reaching down and grabbing Mitchell's left arm.
“What the fuck are you good for?” Warchild demanded as they struggled to get the sergeant major to his feet.
“You're such an asshole,” she yelled back, bracing herself against Mitchell's weight.
“This is no place for a womanâ”
“Behind you,” she shouted just as two men appeared on a roof three feet over their heads and fired down on the team.
Renee stepped forward, placing herself in front of Mitchell. She felt the rounds pound into her chest, knocking the breath out of her and slamming her into the sergeant major. Her momentum knocked Mitchell out of the line of fire while her finger closed around the trigger.
The rifle bucked in her hands as one of the men pointed his AK at Warchild. Her chest was on fire, but she managed to gather up the last bit of energy and shove her team leader out of the way.
The expended brass glinted in the sun as it cartwheeled from her rifle, and the fighter went down, a reddish mist flowering out from his leg. Renee gasped for breath, brought the rifle up to her shoulder, and put two rounds center mass of the second jihadist before dropping to her knee.
Warchild grabbed Renee by the back of her kit, pulling her to her feet while she checked herself for holes.
“Get off me,” she managed, pulling herself free in order to help Mitchell.
She noticed the strange expression in her team leader's eyes as he realized she'd just saved his life.
“You're a beast,” Mitchell praised, ignoring Warchild, who moved, unbidden, to her side and helped move him to cover.
A
l Qatar had been holding on to his revenge for so long that he could barely believe all his plans were finally coming to fruition. As he led Boland deeper into the building, he was hard-pressed to hide the smile that threatened to creep across his face.
Just like the men he was going to meet, the American had no idea that he was a pawn in a much larger game, one where al Qatar was finally the master. He'd grown tired of the baseless rhetoric the imams used to convince their impressionable fighters to die for their dogma. The only way he could strike a blow the Americans would never forget was to take his destiny upon himself.
“Did you hear that?” Boland asked, straining against the large duffel bag he was carrying.
Al Qatar had hoped the thick walls would muffle the sounds of the chaos unfolding outside, but that was obviously not possible any longer.
“We must hurry, Latif is waiting,” al Qatar said, his heart pounding in his chest.
“Something's going on.”
“The fighting never stops, you know that,” the Iraqi said, coming to a set of rickety wooden stairs.
The building had been a bank before the war, but instead of a vault, what little money was stored here had been put in the reinforced basement. The stairs might have seen better days, but the subterranean chamber was modern, with a generator-powered lighting system and large metal safes lining one wall.
In the middle of the room, the two most wanted men in Syria stood side by side, watching al Qatar make his way over.
“I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me, Abu,” Latif said, blowing a jet of smoke up toward the low ceiling.
“I apologize for making you wait. We were held up by one of your checkpoints,” al Qatar said.
“Well, at least you brought my money. Who is this?” Latif asked.
“It is the man I told you about: Hamid. He was sent by the emir.”
“It is a pleasure,” the Syrian said, turning to Khalid, who eyed Boland silently.
Al Qatar knew the American had activated his GPS beacon the moment he got out of the car, but he was confident that the heavy walls would interfere with the transmission. He had no intention of falling prey to a drone strike, and if his men were doing their jobâwatching the feed he had spent so long setting upâit shouldn't be a problem.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Boland began. “The emir Baghdadi sends his warmest regards. He prays that you will accept this humble token of his appreciation.”
Latif smiled broadly, and when he took the duffel bag full of money, three other men materialized from the shadows.
One of them was carrying a black Pelican case. Right away al Qatar noticed that Boland was unable to take his eyes off it. The American moved his hand slowly to his pistol, while Latif knelt down and began digging through the pile of neatly banded stacks of cash, unaware of Boland's furtive movements.
But Khalid never took his eyes off the American, and as Boland took a step to the side, a thin smile played across his face.
The American's pistol flashed from its holster in a compact draw borne from countless repetitions. He almost had the front sight on his target when al Qatar took a sudden step forward and cracked Boland on the back of the neck with the leather sap he'd hidden in his pocket.
The American fell to his knees, the pistol clattering across the floor. Shouting in anger, Khalid's men raised their rifles. Boland's face showed a mixture of surprise and confusion; it was obvious that he hadn't planned for the betrayal.
Al Qatar scooped the pistol from the floor and stepped out of his reach before turning his attention to Latif.
“Step away from the money, brother,” he said.
“What is this?” the Syrian asked, slowly getting to his feet.
“Business,” al Qatar replied before shooting the man in the face.
The shot echoed loudly in the confines of the basement, reverberating off the walls in a deafening roar. The bullet snapped the Syrian's head back and blew his brains out the back of his skull.
“He was a savage man. Very stupid,” the Iranian chuckled, looking down at Boland with a savage grin.
“It seems that you have had nothing but bad luck since you lost this,” Khalid said, motioning to the Pelican case, which held the equipment Boland had lost a few weeks earlier. “I would have thought you learned your lesson the last time we met, but alas, I was wrong.”
“Fuck you,” Boland groaned.
“Did you tell your American masters that you lost it, or did you lie to them as well?”