Clear by Fire (28 page)

Mason quickly ran through the test program while trying to shut Renee out of his mind.

•  •  •

Harden had watched the men file into their rally point and waited patiently to spring the ambush. Hoyt had carefully emplaced a handful of Italian antipersonnel mines in a shallow arc around the south side of the boulders, and he watched a soldier step on one as a squad left their perimeter. They were moving toward the high ground, just like he’d planned.

Boz had found the mines in Pakistan, and after careful inspection he’d assured Harden that they were serviceable. Apparently he’d been wrong.

“Those pieces of shit,” he said to himself. Looking over his shoulder, he could barely make out Jones hunkered beneath a poncho liner. He was using the makeshift hide site to conceal the light from his computer while monitoring two radios. He used the computer to track any air assets coming on station while scanning the radios in case he needed to jam a particular frequency.

Harden was about to spring the ambush when one of the mines finally went off, and Hoyt opened up his 240 Bravo. The long burst echoed angrily off the rock face and sent fifteen rounds screaming into the valley. Holding the buttstock tight to his shoulder, Hoyt raked the rounds over the strike team caught in the open.

He had taken all the tracer rounds out of the ammo belt and instead of night vision, he was using a thermal optic to engage targets. The thermals picked up heat signatures and displayed them in shades of gray. Natural objects, depending on how much heat they retained, were gray, and people appeared dark black.

Boz had stacked a pile of forty-millimeter high-explosive rounds next to his position. He raised the M79 grenade launcher into the air and arced a round toward its target. The launcher looked like a fat sawed-off shotgun, and after firing, he broke open the breech, picked out the empty casing, and quickly slid in another round. It was an old weapon but still as effective as it had been in Vietnam. Boz liked it because it was light and didn’t weigh down his rifle. He focused on getting the second round into the dead space behind the rocks, but a bullet snapped over his head and he ducked down as he fired, sending the grenade short.

Harden ignored the rounds buzzing around him, and shouted at his men. “Shift fire onto those dudes in the open. You aren’t hitting shit. Hoyt, keep their heads down, I don’t want them moving on us.” He paused to lift up his radio and said, “Scottie, are you going to kill anybody today?”

“Stand by, Anvil 7. I’m just waiting for a shot,” Scottie replied.

“Look harder. I don’t want to be here all night.” He paused and yelled back at Jones, “Is anybody trying to crash the party?”

“There is a Predator in the area, and someone down there is calling for air support, but I’ve got the lines all jammed up.”

“Keep it up. I don’t want any surprises.”

•  •  •

Renee scrambled for a way down the mountain. Her team was taking heavy fire and she needed to get into the fight. The machine-gun fire and random explosions bounced off the rocks like the strikes of a blacksmith’s hammer. She was overwhelmed by her impotence and felt a wave of guilt slipping into her mind. Renee tried to adjust her NODs to get a better view, but her foot clipped a rock and she tumbled face-first into a small depression.

Twisting in midair, she managed to land on her back, and the fall knocked the wind out of her lungs. Renee stared up at the sky, then realized that she must have knocked her night vision off its mount, because she couldn’t see anything. Trying to catch her breath, she felt a sharp pain in her back. The screams of the dying rose like an invisible fog and drifted up to her ears. A brief hush fell over the mountain as she forced herself onto her side. Using her hands, she swept the dark earth for her lost NODs.

“Damn it,” she yelled in frustration as the automatic fire picked up again.

•  •  •

“Hey, that dude is moving down there,” Harden said without taking the thermals from his eyes. Hoyt was changing the belt on the 240, and after slamming the feed tray cover closed, he yanked back on the charging handle and slid it forward before pivoting to acquire the target.

The man was about to dive into cover when Hoyt stitched a quick burst across his back.

“He’s down now,” he said as he shifted onto another target. The men caught in the open were sitting ducks, and he was surprised that some of them were still alive.

“Boz, why aren’t you shooting?” Harden demanded.

“I’m out of rounds,” he replied.

“You’re totally out of ammo? Way to be a burden.”

Boz shrugged in the darkness and Harden was about to cuss him out when Jones interrupted over the radio.

“Hey, boss, that Predator’s loitering just out of range. He’s not getting close enough for me to lasso.”

“What’s it doing, just hanging out?”

“I can’t tell you, but someone learned their lesson.”

“All right, let’s wrap this shit up,” he said over the radio. The drone was making him nervous and up till now they’d been lucky.

A single rifle shot rang out, distinctive from the rest of the gunfire, and Scottie keyed up on the net: “You have a tango moving up to your three o’clock, I have no shot.”

“Boz, go take care of that.” Harden heard him grunt as he slid back a few feet and moved out with his rifle.

On the ground there was a heavy burst of fire as Barnes’s team broke cover and began maneuvering on Kevin’s pinned-down unit. The colonel directed his gunner to lay down a base of fire and waited to advance his team. He’d heard Harden’s call and something in his voice was unsettling. Barnes had no intention of being caught out in the open and began to urge his men forward.

Hoyt heard the machine gun in the valley go into action and waited for it to stop firing before he fired another burst. The technique was called “talking,” and as soon as one gunner ceased fire, the next would start shooting. The method conserved ammo and ensured that the defenders were pinned down.

Harden felt the thump of a grenade going off and Boz keyed up on the radio. “This guy’s done. I’ll stay over here and clean up.” Anvil 7 stretched his cramped back as he watched the lethal dance unfold below him. He knew it would be over soon.

•  •  •

Renee had given up her fruitless search and clawed her way out of the hole she’d fallen into. Her nails were cracked and her fingertips were bleeding from the jagged rocks, but she didn’t care. Focusing on the muzzle flashes from the high ground, she could barely make out another group of men firing from a second position. She had to do something.

Renee was surprised to feel warm tears sliding down her cheeks. No longer worried about her own safety, she moved closer to the edge and peered over the cliff. She was trying to judge the distance to the floor when the sole of her hiking boot lost traction and she slipped off the side of the mountain.

T
yler yelled out, “Another mag,” his voice barely carrying over the rifle fire. Somehow Kevin heard him, though, and stopped shooting long enough to pull a fresh magazine from his kit. He waved the mag at Tyler, who motioned for him to throw it.

Kevin tossed the magazine and realized he’d underthrown it as soon as it left his hand. Tyler, seeing that it was going to fall short, took a step out of cover. Just as he was about to snatch it out of the air, Tyler’s head snapped violently to the side, and he tumbled to the ground.

“Man down, man down,” Bones yelled as Kevin stared in horror.

“Shiiit,” Kevin yelled as an unseen grenade tumbled into the perimeter and exploded in a rush of pressure and dark smoke.

Kevin felt the shrapnel pepper his face and arms as he was blown off his feet. Fragmentation grenades are designed to explode up and out, and he’d been in just the right position to avoid the brunt of the jagged metal housing, which sliced through the air.

Sitting up, he could feel the warmth of his blood as it seeped down the front of his face. His right eye had already swollen shut and his eardrums whined from the pressure. Everything slowed down as his brain tried to process the scene.

He watched Rico toss out a canister of smoke and saw the spoon
separate from the canister body as it arced through the air. Bullets poured into their position and threw up tiny puffs of dirt as they impacted all around him. It was as if the near-death experience had given him a second sight that allowed him to pierce the darkness and chaos around him.

As he struggled to his feet, his hearing slowly returned and he could hear Major Toms yelling for air support over the radio. Bones was waving at him to get down, and Kevin realized that he was walking toward Tyler’s body. The horror on Bones’s face was clearly outlined against the dark surroundings, and Kevin wanted to tell him that it was going to be all right.

He was just raising his hand to tell his friend that he was okay when something smacked into his leg with the force of a sledgehammer. Kevin was confused. He felt no pain but was falling as his leg buckled underneath him. In his mind, he was falling through a pool of molasses. It took forever for his head to hit the ground, and he felt his helmet strike something hard as it bounced off the ground. His leg was numb, but looking down he saw that his pants were soaked with his own blood.

“Am I hit?” he asked in disbelief.

“Sniper at our ten o’clock,” Rico yelled as Kevin’s mind suddenly cleared, and he realized he was lying out in the open.

“Oh God,” he moaned as the pain rushed past the endorphins and pierced his body like a hot knife. He didn’t want to die, not here, not like this.

Using his hands, he clawed his way out of the kill zone. Another round hit him in the back, forcing him forward as the ballistic plate absorbed the damage. Inch by inch he dragged himself to cover, and once he was safe, he snatched the tourniquet off his chest. Forcing himself up into a seated position, he wrapped the sturdy nylon just below his knee and began tightening the windlass until the blood stopped.

He was out of breath and weak from blood loss when he finally
secured the tourniquet and rested his head against the rock. Unbuckling his helmet, he laid it on the ground and began pulling his gloves off. Kevin wanted to rest and figured if he could catch his breath he’d be okay. As the firefight unfolded around him, he began pulling magazines and his final grenades out of his kit and laying them next to the upturned helmet. Taking a drink from his CamelBak, he looked around.

A man he recognized from the briefing had a bandage tied tightly around his leg. He was so close that Kevin could see the blood staining the white gauze as he fired at an unseen target. The expended brass tumbled from the ejection port and landed in a shiny pile to Kevin’s right. A high-pitched scream announced an incoming RPG, which hit the man’s position and exploded.

Kevin turned his head as shards of rock and bone filled the air, and when he looked back, the man was gone.

Bones was cursing as he engaged the unseen enemy, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rico beating the butt of his rifle against the ground. A casing was jammed against the bolt face, and his friend savagely slammed the rifle in an attempt to break it free.

“Get back in the fight,” he told himself.

Using his rifle as a crutch, Kevin forced himself to his feet. His right leg tried to buckle under the weight, and he was forced to lean his body against the rock to get a steady position.

Bones tossed a frag and yelled for Tyler. When he didn’t get a response, he ducked down and began searching for his friend. Kevin could see his shoulders sag when he saw the man lying facedown in the dirt. There was no time to mourn the dead as the remaining men fought for their lives.

Another RPG screamed in from the darkness. It skipped off the ground and detonated in the air above their perimeter. Bones went down and Rico sprinted from cover to help his friend.

As he moved, he was hit in the side, but he kept moving until he was hit again, this time above the knee. Rico’s leg shot back, and
he hit the ground hard, just as another grenade dropped into the perimeter.

Shadowy figures appeared out of the darkness, forcing Kevin to twist himself around to cover Rico. Using his thumb, he flipped the selector switch to full auto and fired without bothering to aim. Just as the bolt locked to the rear, he was hit in the chest, and he let himself fall to the ground. Grabbing a fresh magazine from the pile next to his helmet, he slammed it into the magazine well and released the bolt forward.

Firing one-handed, he was reaching for his final frag when a figure appeared above Rico. Kevin tried to swing his rifle around, but it was too late, and the man put two rounds into Rico’s face.

“Fuuuck yooou,” he yelled, sweeping the rifle across the attacker in a wild arc. The bullets went high, and Kevin watched the man’s rifle snap onto him and fire.

R
enee was falling forward, away from the mountain. She could see the black expanse of the valley below her, and a jolt of adrenaline shot up her spine. The rifle swung wildly on its sling as she tumbled downward. With a sharp jolt, she was suddenly left dangling in thin air.

It took her a second to realize she wasn’t falling, and when she finally looked up, she saw Mason hanging out over the ledge. One of his hands held on to a protruding rock, while the other was stretched over the edge and locked on to the drag strap sewn into the top of her kit.

Mason yelled to Zeus, “Hold my feet.”

He could feel himself slipping, but he refused to let go of Renee. The Libyan grabbed his ankles and struggled against the combined weight.

The American had wanted to do nothing more than to set up the laser designator and call in the strike, but he knew he’d never be able to live with himself. Zeus had shrugged when he stowed the designator in his pack and set off to find Renee. It was a matter of blind luck that they had seen her fall into the shallow depression. Luckily, they had found a way down, and just as he was about to get her attention, he saw her stumble and pitch off the cliff.