Clear by Fire (7 page)

The rifle was equipped with an Aimpoint micro battle optic, which looked like a toy but was rugged and extremely light. It could
run forever on a single battery, but Renee checked it anyway. She turned the knob all the way up, and after ensuring the bright red dot didn’t flicker, she shut it off.

The strike team was loading up and she needed to hurry or they would leave her.

“Is the supply room open?” she asked, knowing she was pushing it.

Renee hated using her feminine wiles to get men to do what she wanted, but there was no way she was sitting this one out. She stuffed the mags into the plate carrier’s pouches, which Matt had given her, and then with a look that was a mix between a pout and a promise said, “I need to get a flight suit and a radio too.”

“Whatever you need, pretty lady.”

“Thanks. If you’re still around when I get back, I’ll let you buy me a beer.”

He blushed and handed over her helmet.

Renee jogged over to the last van and opened the passenger door. Before getting in, she jammed a magazine into the rifle’s mag well and racked a round into the chamber. The driver arched his eyebrow as she pulled herself into the seat. “Rough morning?”

Slamming the door closed, she settled her bulky gear into the seat. The driver’s name was Steve, and he’d been Joseph’s friend and partner for a long time. Renee was glad to be riding with him. “What makes you say that?”

Steve had put in more than his share of “work” for the DoD and truly didn’t give a shit anymore. He had three years until retirement and was the most laid-back man at the office.

The cargo door slid open as a squad of agents piled into the back of the van. He gave her a playful nudge on the shoulder as she put the helmet on her head and adjusted her ponytail.

“Don’t worry about it. No one worth a shit blames you for what went down.”

“Your boss does.”

“Like I said, no one
worth a shit
.”

He laughed and put the van in drive as Renee turned on her radio. The men in the back were psyching themselves up and basically dicking around as the convoy pulled out of the underground garage and headed for the street.

Renee had been on more operations than she could count, but they had always been with a team she knew and trusted. Nervousness crept coldly up her spine and into her stomach. She didn’t know these guys, but she could tell they weren’t switched on. If things got bad, Renee knew she would be on her own, with no one to watch her back.

She took a deep breath but couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was just over the horizon. Renee prayed that she was wrong but had learned long ago to trust her gut. She had to be ready for the worst.

S
ergeant First Class Jericho Harden was breathing hard by the time he made it to the ridgeline. The air in the Afghan mountains was thin, and the steep terrain made the five-kilometer movement seem like a marathon. He took a knee five meters short of the summit and adjusted his pack. The wide straps were cutting into his shoulders and a familiar tightness was forming at the small of his back.

Sliding the strap off his right shoulder, he dropped the heavy rucksack to the ground and pulled a Nalgene bottle out of the top flap, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the view.

The Hindu Kush Mountains of northeastern Afghanistan were awe-inspiring. As the cool mountain air rushed down from the snowcapped peaks above him and swirled against his sweat-soaked body, he wondered how many men had experienced this view.

He was sweating now but was well aware that his body temperature could drop very quickly out in the open. Replacing the bottle in his pack, he slipped a black fleece skullcap over his head before grabbing his radio and laser range finder. Looking behind him, he ensured that the rest of his men were pulling security before continuing up to the summit.

The night before, the colonel had received the green light on the operation, sending the team into a flurry of action. All the planning and time spent masking their movements had led to this moment,
and Harden knew that they were about to show the world that the war was far from over.

The Kunar province lay protected in the shadows of the Hindu Kush Mountains, like a lush jewel nestled in the craggy embrace of some prehistoric god. Harden had listened to his boss, Colonel Barnes, tell of ancient armies broken against its treacherous peaks and impenetrable caves. Many men had lost their lives here, and he had great respect for this sacred place.

The mujahideen had broken the Russians in these mountains and had damn near done the same to the Americans. As Harden crept closer to the flat plateau, his eyes were drawn upward to the indifferent snowcapped peaks that marked the gateway into Pakistan. The treacherous mix of shale and granite crunched beneath his chest and elbows as he crawled closer to the edge and began setting up his equipment.

Taking a small GPS out of his pocket, he hit the power key and waited while it tracked the satellites orbiting in the exosphere. Putting his eye up to the optic, he looked down the steep ledge and into the valley below.

The fuzzy brown squares of the mud compounds came into focus as he twisted the knob on the back of the optic, and a moment later, he could make out the individual bricks of the target house. Two black and white goats tugged at the leaves of a small bush, while smoke rose lazily from the metal chimney.

His enemy had no idea.

Adieb Hakin stepped out of his house, his white headdress blowing in the light breeze. Walking over to the large woodpile stacked against the eastern wall, he grabbed an ancient ax and began splitting logs to feed into his
bukhari
stove. The stove was his family’s only source of heat, and for centuries the Kunar region of Afghanistan had supplied the rest of the country with wood for the winter. Smuggling timber was illegal, but like everything else in the country there were ways around that.

He raised the ax high in the air and brought the iron head down on the log, neatly splitting it into two ragged sections. Harden hit a
button on the top of the range finder, and the laser quickly calculated the distance.

“Seven hundred meters,” he read off the digital display.

Harden lifted the hand mike and depressed the rectangular button on the side.

“Anvil 6, this is Anvil 7, target acquired.” He lowered his eyes back to the range finder and gazed across the village, which had been at the base of these mountains for hundreds of years.

Adieb was a Taliban facilitator whose close connection with President Karzai had protected him while he helped kill hundreds of Americans. He was one of the president’s untouchables, but Harden’s mentor, Colonel Barnes, was about to change all of that. Harden had spent his career hoping for a commander like Barnes, someone who didn’t give a shit about the brass and just wanted to win. He knew that his boss could make general one day, if he cared about rank, but Barnes had much higher ambitions.

“Anvil 7, this is Anvil 6, good copy. Stand by.” The colonel’s voice came across the radio net and Harden unconsciously let his gaze sweep to the far side of the village, where his boss was lying in wait.

Harden read off the coordinates from his GPS before pulling a protein bar out of his cargo pocket. He ripped open the brightly colored wrapper, took a bite, and chewed contentedly as he watched Adieb cut wood. Harden’s only complaint was that he wished he hadn’t left his water back with his gear. The protein bar tasted like dirt and was sticking to the top of his mouth.

A small cloud of dust appeared out of the east as he used his tongue to unstick the bits of chewed protein from his teeth. Spitting a bit of the bar on the ground, he fiddled with the focus knob, trying to make out the convoy that was speeding along the road.

He waited patiently as the cloud grew, until they were close enough to make out the first Toyota Hilux speeding along the unimproved dirt road. He counted four vehicles in all. Each one had five heavily armed men in the back. As always, the colonel was right.

As the second in command, he was the eyes and ears of the team, and it was a position he swore he’d never give up. He had learned a lot when Mason was Anvil 7, but the man had turned out to be a pussy, and Decklin, well, his time was cut short because he was a fucking psycho. Harden had waited, making the most of his time by learning what not to do from his predecessors. His only goal was to not screw up.

“Anvil 6, Anvil 7, the guests have arrived,” he said, stuffing the wrapper back into his pocket.

“Anvil 6, roger that.”

The trucks sped into the village and pulled up to the target house. Seven men jumped out and formed a tight perimeter around the first truck. They waited while the short thick man stepped out of the cab, with his famous black head scarf wrapped tight against the cold.

Children appeared out of nowhere and rushed the perimeter. The men stepped forward to stop them, but the squat Taliban commander raised his arms like a benevolent uncle and they stepped out of the way. The children ran to the man and grabbed on to his legs. They didn’t care that he was a murderer; in fact, they probably relished it.

The commander made a big show of searching his pockets for something to give them as Adieb slammed his ax into the wizened stump and stepped outside the compound to greet his guests.

“Risk 1, Anvil 6, how copy?” The colonel’s voice came over the radio as Harden stared at the most wanted Taliban commander in Afghanistan. The man didn’t look like a terrorist as he lifted handfuls of candy out of his pocket and held them just out of reach of the squealing children. Harden didn’t give a fuck about these people and shared the common belief that they were all terrorists in one fashion or another.

“Risk 1, go ahead, Anvil 6.” The pilot’s voice was thin and mechanical as it came over the radio.

Harden knew that the attack aircraft was somewhere in the area even though he couldn’t hear it. He kept his eyes glued to the optic and the fat man showering the children with candy.

“Risk 1, I have a priority target at grid.” The colonel read off the coordinates Harden had given him and waited for the pilot’s reply.

“Good copy, Anvil 6, I’m two minutes out.”

Harden knew the pilot had no idea what he was about to bomb, but the colonel had the correct identification codes and the pilot would prosecute the target under the assumption that it had been authorized. Procedure made the military predictable and all too easy to utilize, if you knew how to exploit the inherent technological weaknesses of the “green machine.”

“Anvil 7, stand by,” the colonel ordered.

He imagined the pilot punching the target grid into the onboard computer that fed the data to the thousand-pound joint direct attack munition attached to the aircraft’s wing. The bomb’s GPS guidance system would steer the munition down on the target from whatever altitude it was dropped at.

“Anvil 6, Risk 1, bombs away,” the pilot said.

“Good copy, Risk 1.”

The Taliban commander smiled as the children ripped the wrappers off the candies and stuffed them greedily into their mouths. He was recruiting the next crop of jihadists with a dollar’s worth of melted sugar.

Adieb opened his arms wide for the customary embrace as the commander tousled the hair of a young boy and stepped free of the knot of young beggars. They knew he had more candy and ignored the bodyguards who tried to move them out of the way. He was just within reach of his trusted friend when the bomb hit.

The force of the explosion evaporated any evidence of the meeting in a huge flash. A geyser of black smoke and brown earth erupted from the massive crater, and a second later the sound rolled up the mountains until it reached Harden.

Wuuuummphhh.

“Anvil 6, Anvil 7, good bomb,” he said over the radio as the inky black cloud rose high in the air.

“Risk 1 copies good bomb. I’m clearing the area, thanks for the work.”

“That’s what you think,” Harden muttered to himself as he looked through the scope at the wreckage below.

“Roger, Risk 1, Anvil Out,” Harden said over the radio.

There was nothing left of the trucks or the gate. A dull gray pall of smoke hung over the twisted remains of the compound as the women of the village rushed out to gaze upon the horror. For a brief second, before their plaintive cries rose heavenward, it was perfectly still.

From his perch on the side of the mountain the villagers looked like ants milling around an inverted anthill. While the mothers of the dead children looked for any remains with which they could enshrine their grief, the men gathered in militant knots just a stone’s throw away.

Harden turned off the GPS unit and slipped it back into his pocket. Gravel crunched behind him as one of his men moved up to the edge with an M240 Bravo machine gun. At seven hundred meters, the village was well within its range. Swinging the range finder to the north, he saw Colonel Barnes and the rest of the team creeping out of the low ground.

Five minutes later, the colonel came over the radio as Harden forced a pair of earplugs into his ears.

“All Anvil elements, engage,” he said simply.

Harden’s gunner pulled the M240 onto his shoulder and squeezed off a short burst of 7.62s down into the village. The rounds slammed into the group of men just as a long burst erupted from Barnes’s position.

The villagers were caught out in the open as the two gunners took their time raining fire into the village. Every few seconds a single shot from one of their snipers rang out, ensuring that no one made it out of the kill zone.

The rate of fire from the two guns slowed as the last of the villagers crumpled to the ground. A moment after that, the valley lay silent, as if nothing had ever happened.

M
ason took the precautions of a hunted man as he walked to the Internet café. He was pushing his luck by staying in the city, but crossing the border wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Certain arrangements had to be made before he cleared out.