Echo Six: Black Ops 7 - Tibetan Fury (3 page)

"Echo One, this is Jackson. We have a problem, Boss. The change of plans caught the Night Stalkers flat-footed. They're not even fueled-up ready to go. They didn't expect the call until much later in the night."

"Understood, we'll have to wait. In the meantime, tell them we'll need aerial support. These bastards will be all over us in a few minutes."

"Yeah, I told them we'd need something. Admiral Jacks is calling around to see what's available. Maybe a Predator?"

"That'd do the trick."

His earpiece went silent. He looked at Guy. There was a lull in the firing. The Brit nodded. He called Buchmann.

"Heinrich, you ready for us?"

"Ja."

"Let's go!"

They got to their feet and chanced a crouching run, zigzagging across the snow. Bullets hissed overhead to target the enemy as the men in back gave them covering fire, and Buchmann fired shower after shower of grenades. They dropped flat next to the big German, who was feverishly reloading the XM25. Further in the rear, more of the Echo Six troopers were still firing clip after clip, inflicting heavy casualties. But still they came.

"Wait for a lull," Talley croaked, almost out of breath in the thin, cold air.

They nodded, and when they came, poured more fire into the oncoming fighters. They were fanatics, driven by a crazed religious hatred, but human flesh can only take so much, and soon they lost heart for a second time.

"Go!"

Talley catapulted to his feet and made sure the other two men were running alongside him. They reached the irrigation ditches and dropped down next to his men in the shallow gullies. He looked around and couldn't see anyone missing. Rovere was nearby.

"Domenico, what's the situation?"

"Grim. A couple more wounded, but nothing serious."

"Understood. Drew, how about that help, how are they doing?"

Jackson finished talking and clicked off. "They have an AC-130 on the way. The gunship was crossing Pakistan with an escort of F/A 18s when they got the call and diverted. ETA is twenty-five minutes."

"Roger that. Guy, can we hold them?"

He grimaced. "Just about. It'll be close."

"Close is good enough."

It took the hostiles fifteen minutes to reposition and zero in their mortars. Each time they came nearer, Vince and Jesse picked them off with the long rifles, after they'd crawled back through the snow to reach a new firing position. Talley watched them and waited. Waiting for the barrage to start again, and waiting for the promised air support.

"They're like robots. They keep coming," Guy observed. For once, his voice sounded tired, "There must be a hundred of them out there, and Christ knows how many we've killed. Do these people never give up?"

"Not when their priests tell them about Paradise, and twenty odd virgins waiting for them to screw."

"I thought it was seventy-two virgins," Rovere interrupted.

"Maybe. Why don't you give it a try?"

He grinned. "As the bard once said, 'for in that sleep of death what dreams may come'. But I'll give it a miss for now.’"

"Shakespeare knew nothing," Guy snapped. Talley glanced at him. He was normally cool under fire.

What’s bugging him?

There was no time for him to answer. Yet another attack was coming in, another human wave, thirty or forty men racing across the churned up snow and eager to kill the infidels who'd dared to enter their sacred soil. Once more the night came alive with their loud cries of hate and anger, and then the screams of agony started as Echo Six returned fire. First, the ferocious 'crack' of the sniper rifles as they shot at long range. Then the machine guns and assault rifles joined in, and finally Buchmann fired, adding the steady drumbeat of his grenades to the inferno of fire and steel. They fired clip after clip, leaving the white snow dyed red with enemy blood. And once again, they faltered and then ran. Virgil, the wiry southerner, who combined the looks and build of a farm boy with a lethal skill with the Minimi, crawled over to Talley.

"I'm out. Do you have any spare mags?"

He looked in the canvas bag. "One, you can take it. Guy, see how the rest of them are doing."

He crawled back a couple of minutes later. "They're all low on ammo. Buchmann is down to his last four grenades, and there's about a clip apiece for the HK410s. How about you?"

Talley looked down at his webbing. "Two clips for the MP7. Then we'll be using handguns." He keyed his mic. "Drew, any update on the air support?"

"Give me a few seconds." They watched, and waited. The darkness seemed to press in on them, colder, blacker, despite the brilliant white that covered the ground. The shooting had stopped, and the night was still. "Four minutes," he came back, "They want us in a tight bunch, no more than a five-meter radius. I've given them the satcom coordinates, and they'll triangulate a fire zone way outside our position."

"Roger that. Okay, men, you heard it, so keep tight around this position. We've all seen an AC-130 in action. I don't want any mistakes."

"Amen to that," Guy murmured.

They packed in close to each other, and Talley took over the satcom handset. Almost immediately, the gunship pilot called in; his voice as clear as if he was making a local rate phone call.

"This is Spooky, incoming Alpha Charlie One Three Zero. One minute to target, confirm your location and clearance to open fire."

Talley looked around. They were all squashed in tight like Eskimos huddled together during an Arctic storm. That was a good simile; the storm that was about to hit would resemble the forces of hell, as if they were conjured up by a demon. At least, it would seem that way to the people on the receiving end.

"This is Echo One, Alpha Charlie One Three Zero, location confirmed. You're clear to open fire. Repeat, clear to open fire."

"Roger that, Echo One. Hold on to your hats, and say a prayer for the other guys."

Like hell!

 
The Lockheed AC-130 gunship was a heavily armed ground-attack aircraft variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane. What singled this aircraft out from its cargo-carrying sister ships was the devastating armament, a single General Dynamics GAU-12/U Equalizer, a five-barrel 25mm Gatling-type rotary cannon. Powered by a pneumatic system, the rate of fire was almost two thousand heavy 25mm cannon rounds per minute.

The electric Gatling cannon was mounted to fire from the port side of the aircraft. Typically, the gunship performed a pylon turn, flying in a large circle around the target while keeping the gun fixed on the target, which allowed it to fire for much longer than a conventional attack aircraft. The result was devastating.

The night was lit by bright pinpricks of light, sparkling fireflies that danced toward the ground. Above the AC-130, a pair of F/A 18s patrolled ceaselessly, watching for any sign of interference. The Kashmiris below never knew what hit them. The heavy cannon rounds descended like a solid curtain of satanic rain, smashing into the target and turning flesh and bone into bloody ruin. The thunder of the massive cannon, added to the roar of the four straining turboprops, was awesome. The death toll was even more awesome.

"Jesus Christ," Roy exclaimed, still clutching his wounded shoulder, "I've seen it before, but I still don't believe it."

Instinctively, they pulled tighter into the circle, as far away from that terrible rain of death as possible, from the mechanized terror that came to a small corner of the Kashmiri highlands.

Some men tried to run, but they may as well have tried to avoid droplets of rain in a monsoon. The cannon fire sought them out, tracked them, and tore them apart. And then there were no more targets left to kill. The gunship circled for a few minutes more, seeking another target but without success.

"Echo One, this is Alpha Charlie One Three Zero. You guys okay down there?"

"This is Echo One. We're good. That's a big thank you, guys. We owe you one."

"You're welcome. I just picked up some traffic over the radio. The Night Stalkers are on the way, about a half hour before they arrive. They've instructed us to stay on station in case we're needed."

"Roger that. Be advised, two of our own guys out there, they were killed in the firefight before you arrived. We'll be going to retrieve their bodies."

A pause. "I'm sorry to hear that. We'll hold our fire."

Talley climbed to his feet. "Let's go find our men. They're coming home. Roy, you're hurt, so stay here. Vince, stay with him, you too, Virgil. The rest of you, let's go find them. We're taking them home."

The carnage was incredible, human flesh and bone torn into small pieces, mixed up with snowflakes, and then minced into little pieces. Churned up with broken metal parts of AK-47s and bent brass cartridge cases into a bloody mess. They waded through the bloody field of death until they reached the two fallen men. Claude Vartan, whose remains would be buried back in France, and Ludwig Fromm, who recently moved into a new apartment outside Brussels with his wife and young son.

* * *

The helo crews watched as they lifted the two bodies aboard and then helped Roy Reynolds inside. Blood dripped through the battlefield dressing, and a crewman came forward to put on a fresh bandage and administer a shot. There was no need to say anything. No words could mitigate the events that had overtaken them. It had been a disaster.

The journey back to Bagram was mostly completed in silence. They were escorted by two new arrivals, another pair of F/A 18s circled like anxious sheepdogs around a flock of sheep. It was a long journey, with only the bitter taste of failure to keep them company. Even Rovere, always buoyed up and optimistic, wore a scowl. Thirty minutes out from Bagram, he moved up next to Talley and Guy Welland.

"That Air Force colonel, if the Taliban hadn't got him, I'd have gone after him myself," he muttered.

"Take it easy," Talley said gently, "We'll never know what went wrong. It's not the first intelligence failing in the world, and it won't be the last."

He realized Buchmann had joined them and was listening.

"This time you're wrong, Boss," Guy interrupted, "With a major al Qaeda operation going down, someone should have looked it over much closer. It wasn't a failure. It was criminal neglect."

Buchmann nodded his head slowly. His big, brutal face was stretched into a tight mask of anger. Talley shuddered.

If that Air Force officer hadn't taken the sniper bullet, Heinrich would have gone looking for him, and God help him.

Guy struggled hard to contain his anger. His last words were, "Someone's going down for this one. Heads are gonna roll."

* * *

"Heads are gonna roll!"

Vice Admiral Brooks stared at them as they filed into the briefing room. He'd only said those four words and nothing more when they landed. They'd watched in silence as the bodies were unloaded and carried away on a base ambulance. He followed up with another four words.

"Briefing room, ten minutes."

They filed in, unchanged in their Arctic camos and helmets, the weapons still covered in strips of white cloth. He nodded to Talley and then waited until they were all inside. Buchmann stood at one side apart from the rest of the men, his face dark with fury. Talley had never seen him so angry, and reflected that the intel officer had almost been lucky the sniper got him. Buchmann's justice would have been long and painful.

Brooks stared at them for a few moments before he spoke.

"Sit down, men. First, three USAF personnel are under arrest. It seems they recycled old intel reports because they were too busy running some Afghan aid scam in Kabul. The Air Force went crazy when I told them about the fuckup in Kashmir, and it took them about ten minutes for find out what was happening. Those men, a captain, a lieutenant, and a master-sergeant, can expect to serve long terms if they're found guilty."

"They should be taken out and shot!" Guy murmured but loud enough for him to hear, "As if we don't have enough problems with these Islamic scum, we have our own people to contend with."

Talley stared at the SAS man, surprised at the strength of his anger.

"You're angry, I know that. We all are," Brooks soothed.

"When your people get killed unnecessarily, it makes you that way. Sir."

Brooks grimaced. "I know that, Sergeant Welland. But this affair is now officially in the past as far as we're concerned. It's out of our hands. We're NATO not USAF. We need to get back to what we do best."

"We were going on leave, Admiral," Talley reminded him.

"Yeah, that's true, but things have changed. Besides, Echo Six took a hard fall back in Kashmir. We all know when you fall off a horse, you get right back in the saddle. I'm damned sorry it went down that way, but we're moving on."

"We lost two men," Talley persisted, "They're not moving on. Nor their families."

"I'm sorry, but we'll have to mourn them later."

"And what about Wasim Aziz? He's still on the scene and killing our people."

Brooks looked at his watch. "A few minutes ago the Brit Astute class submarine Aggressive, out in the Indian Ocean, launched a Tomahawk cruise missile. It took out the residence of Wasim Aziz." He held up a hand as the room buzzed with anger.