Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga (23 page)

“Tangos, seven o’clock high, the rooftop!
 
Light ‘em up!”
 
Cooper called out.
 
He pulled his MP5 to his side and fired a burst in the general direction of the figures on the roof of the apartment building they roared past.
 
He had little hope of hitting anything with the pilot jerking the aircraft as if he were flying drunk, but at least it gave the enemy something to think about.
 
Three more weapons spat fire and bullets from his helicopter.
 
He could see flashes coming from behind them and knew Charlie’s fireteam was shooting back as well.
 
The broad starburst of Jax’s M60 shredded windows where someone had taken a few pot-shots at their aircraft.

The pilot came to an intersection and dove for the street.
 
Cooper felt sick to his stomach.
 
That
had never happened to him before.
 
Making a hard bank to port, the pilot hugged the street and Cooper and Mike were almost low enough to touch the cars below.
 
Cars, delivery trucks, motorcycles, and scooters were squealing out of the way of the little black helicopter as it cruised through the intersection doing 80 miles an hour only ten feet off the deck.
 

Cooper got a blurred glimpse of windows exploding and more muzzle flashes.
 
“
They’re everywhere!
” someone called out.
 
Loud metallic pings and pops echoed around Cooper.

“
We’re taking damage
,” grunted the pilot.
 
“
Losing hydraulics…hang on!
”
 
The helicopter was smoking now, leaving a curling black trail in the air about ten feet above street level.
 
Cooper could see people running for cover.

“
There’s a parking garage, dead-ahead.
 
Hit the roof, Viper Two!
”

“
I’m right on your six…”

“
Ten seconds
,” warned the pilot.

As the Little Bird flared out over the upper level of the garage, dirt, gravel, and thick acrid smoke flew up into the faces of the four SEALs.
 
Cooper ignored the stinging from his face and was thankful he had his clear goggles on.
 
Ten feet, five…

“Now!” he called out.
 
Safety straps were ripped clear and his SEALs leapt from the still moving helicopter and rolled clear. In a heartbeat, the pilot hit the throttle and powered the aircraft up and away, engine whining, heading north in a cloud of smoke.

As the Killer Egg lifted out of his line of sight, he could see the last remaining helicopter perform a similar maneuver on the building across the alley.
 
It was a five-story medical building with a few large air-conditioner units and heli-pad on the roof.

In seconds, the helicopters had passed from sight and slipped in between taller buildings, effectively leaving the remaining SEALs in silence.
 

“Cover,
now!
” hissed Cooper.
 
His black-clad squad crouch-walked to the edge of the roof and ducked down below the short facade.
 
They were in near-darkness – there was only one light on the roof, glaring balefully above the single roof-access door.
 

“Ell-Tee?”
 
Cooper said.
 
He checked the frequency on his radio.
 
“Echo?
 
Stumpy, Little John—
anyone
, come in…”

“
What the fuck was that?
” called out Charlie’s voice over the net.

“Head count,” said Cooper, angrily pulling his clear eye-shield off his helmet.
 
He looked at his fireteam.
   

Swede was finishing up a field patch on Jax’s left arm.
 
On his other side, Mike was peeking over the edge of the building with his next-gen night-vision goggles already in place.
 

“Team 1, good to go,” Cooper said, satisfied that his squad was combat-ready.

“
Team 2 good to go.
 
I think we lost both birds,
” said Charlie from the next building’s rooftop.

“I know,” Cooper said through gritted teeth.
 
“Those assholes were waiting for us –“

“On our whole flight path
?” said Charlie’s voice in disbelief.
 
“
That’s not possible
…”

 
“Someone
 
must have
gave
them our flight path.
 
It was a Goddamn
trap
. In
Los Angeles
.”
 
He punched the graveled roof by his side in frustration, but calmed himself after a second and called out, “Nest, this is Striker One, Actual, do you read me?”

He got no response.

“Hey Coop, I see some of ‘em on the building across the block to the south.
 
I count six,” whispered Mike.
 
“They’re right between us and the hospital.”

“Nest, Striker One, Actual,
do you read me?
” Cooper called out again.
 
Static was the response.
 
“Tank, keep trying to raise fleet.”

“On it
,” came the deep reply.

Cooper closed his eyes tight for one deep breath.
 
Get a hold of your emotions, Master Chief
.
 
There will be time to mourn later.
 
You have a mission to perform.
 
And you
will
exact retribution.
 

With two bright fireballs, he had lost half his Team, including his commanding officer and close personal friend.
 
He was now in command of what was left of SEAL Team 9.
 

Two days…they were going to retire my ass in two fucking days…

“
Sparky what you got?” asked Cooper.

“
Got a dozen more on the two buildings east of the hospital.
 
Damn it…there’s a lot of them
,” reported the deep bass voice from Petty Officer First Class John Sparks, the platoon sniper.
 
“
They look like they’re setting up some comms.
 
Some kind of mast array.
 
Industrious little bastards
.”
 

Cooper leaned around Jax and Swede and could see the Nebraska native on the other building with his Mark 12 5.56mm SPR sniper rifle perched on the edge of the building, scanning for targets almost half a mile away. Cooper closed his eyes again, leaning back against the facade.
 
He needed three heartbeats.

Three…two…one…

When Cooper Braaten opened his eyes, he was the cold, hard, killing machine that the Iranians had feared for nearly a decade.
 
All his storm-tossed emotions—the anger at the breach in operational security, the upwelling of grief over the catastrophic loss of half his Team—
everything
not essential to mission completion were locked securely in the sea chest of his heart.
 
He would deal with that post-op.
 

“
Yo, Coop, I got Nest
,” whispered Tank over the net.

Cooper switched channels on his radio.
 
“Striker One, Actual, to Nest.”

“
Go ahead, Striker One, Actual.
”

“We made a hard landing with Bravo platoon only, grid Poppa-Bravo-Niner. Repeat: Alpha Platoon is down.
 
Assuming command and proceeding to objective, approaching from north.
 
Multiple tangos on rooftops to north and east of original LZ, there’s a shit-ton of civvies in between us and the objective, please advise, over.”

After the briefest of pauses, he heard the reply: “
Nest copies all, Striker One, Actual.
 
You walked into a real sierra-sierra.
 
We’re getting some interference on—”
 
Static broke up the transmission.

“Nest!
 
Nest, come in…” Cooper said.
He looked at Swede who shook his head sadly.
 
Sierra-Sierra. Hmph
, thought Cooper.
 
Shit-storm doesn’t begin to describe it.
 

“—eat: proceed to your objective post-haste.
 
No contact with Slipknot.
 
Repeat: WE HAVE LOST CONTACT WITH SLIPKNOT.
 
You are weapons-free to engage any enemy encountered.
 
Just get to that hospital!
”
 

“Copy that, Nest.
 
Striker One, Actual, out.”
 
Cooper switched back to his command frequency.
 

“Let’s get down to the street.
 
Go, go, go!” he said, pumping his arm for the men on the adjacent building to see.

“
I got a fire escape, east side
,” said Mike, already running across the roof.

Once on the ground, Cooper’s squad took a knee, weapons up and covering all sectors as he consulted the map attached his arm guard.
 
“All right, we’re two blocks south of the objective.
 
Charlie—”

“Yeah
.”

“Get set up. We’ll leapfrog to the annex building across the alley from the objective, south side.”

“Hooyah,
” was Charlie’s whispered reply from the opposite side of the building.

“Let’s go,” Cooper said.
 
He flashed a hand gesture and led his fireteam across the dark alley.
 
He noticed the absence of normal civilian traffic.
 
There were a few cars, driving by, but nothing like what he had expected for Los Angeles at sunset.
 
It should be packed with civvies.
 
It looked liked the general population was heeding the government’s call to stay home and avoid contact with people to try and stem the spread of the flu.
 
Or maybe the reports that people were starting to die weren’t just media hype.
 
Either way, Cooper didn’t like what he saw.
 

“Awful quiet
,” Charlie whispered from a block away.

“
Where the hell is everybody?
” asked Tank.

“
Coop, I got a body in the street.
 
Civvie,
” whispered Tank.
 
A second later,
“No wounds.
 
He’s cold.
 
Think it was the flu?”

“Damn if I know.
 
Just keep your eyes open and try not to touch anything.
 
No one gets infected.
 
Team 1 moving.”
 
Cooper paused at the corner of a building, covering the forward advance of the rest of his fireteam.
 
In the distance, he could hear an ambulance siren echo.
 
He checked his frequency.
 
“Striker One to Slipknot Support, do you read me?”

Static.

Switching back to his command frequency, he whispered, “Still can’t raise the Secret Service.
 
Something ain’t right, boys.
 
Stay frosty,” he warned.

“
Team 2 in position
,” Charlie reported in a whisper.

Cooper waited until he could see Mike, Jax, and Swede at the emergency exit of the parking garage across the street—three shadows waiting for him.
 
Suddenly the world around him was plunged into darkness.
 

“Wait one,” he hissed.
 
The ground started to rumble, then a dull, deep
booooom
echoed between the buildings around them.
 
Car alarms went off and in the distance he heard glass shattering from what must have been dozens of plate glass windows.

“
The hell was that?
” hissed Charlie.

“
Earthquake?”
asked Jax.

“Go dark!” whispered Cooper.
 
Now that the street lights and shop signs were extinguished, he flipped down the state-of-the art wide-view night-vision goggles attached to his helmet and turned them on.
 
The world went black, then glowed green and came into clear focus.
 
The six tube design gave him the widest possible view with the best clarity and definition available.
 
He could see the blinking IR markers on his team across the street as they crouched, weapons out, scanning for threats.
 
Textbook.
 
He grinned.

“Nest, Striker One, Actual, how copy?” he whispered.
 
Getting no response he gritted his teeth and sprinted across the street.
 
As he took his place next to Mike, he tried again.
 
“I say again, Nest, come in.
 
This is Striker One, Actual.”

Static.

“
I got a bad feeling about this
,” whispered Charlie’s voice.
 
“
All clear from our side.
 
Comm net totally deserted.
”

“Well, if that was a ‘quake, our job just got a little harder.
 
Hey, I got a visual on the main entrance.
 
We’re a hundred yards out.
 
Moving now,” warned Cooper.
 
He used hand signals to direct his squad.
 
One by one they filed out and ran for the annex building, staying as close to walls as they could.