Exposure (Jackson Chase Novella Book 1) (2 page)

A
few minutes
became nearly 30. But the extra time allowed me to get some imagery from my former commanding officer in New Zealand, along with approval to share the mission.

When I reentered the ready room, it was clear I had the floor. “Please, take a seat, gentlemen,” I began as I walked to the small podium. I knew Barr was wondering what I had to offer. But first I needed to give a little background.

“For those of you I haven’t been properly introduced to, I am Lieutenant Jackson Chase. While I am a US Naval aviator, I was previously a member of the New Zealand Special Air Service.”

The New Zealand SAS, like it’s commonwealth cousins, is among the elite of the elite in the special forces community, and this registered on a few of the surprised faces in the room.

Training in the NZSAS is considered some of the hardest in the world, and NZSAS soldiers are known to be capable in a much broader range of skills than those of many special forces units. While larger countries can afford to have special forces operators focus on certain types of warfare, the small size of the NZSAS requires a different approach. Each soldier needs to excel in a broad range of skills, from airborne insertion to amphibious landings, arctic and mountain warfare, multiple weapons platforms, languages, and especially combat tracking.

While the two NZSAS squadrons are cloaked deeply in secrecy, their skill, adaptability, and professionalism during joint operations have fostered a reputation for being some of the best operators in the world.

“A little over a year ago,” I continued, “my unit was tasked with taking out a high value target: Abbas Baraki.” At this, I noticed Barr glance quickly to the spook, seated at the back of the room.

“Can I assume you know Baraki as well, Mister ... ?” I prompted, hoping to get both an answer and a name.

“You can,” he answered, his voice low and gravelly, as if he had been smoking since birth. “We believe it was one of Baraki’s cells that captured our man. And the name is Slater. Caleb Slater.”

“Then you all know that Baraki is one of Mullah Zahir’s lieutenants, and one of the truly bad guys around here. He’s responsible for uniting a number of disparate Taliban groups, bringing them together for coordinated attacks on coalition forces and local tribes that don’t see things their way. Taking him out would disrupt the organizing of this new Taliban, and deal a sizable blow to Mullah Zahir’s organization.

“Intel, from both the Brits and Americans put him at the Molia House. We approached on foot, and took position on the ridge just to the west of the main building. We had eyes on the structures for two full days, waiting. Baraki wasn’t there. In fact, no one was there.

“Not wanting to leave empty handed, we decided to gain entry and poke around a bit.”

I pressed a couple of buttons to darken the room and project my first image. It showed a rough building made of concrete blocks. Patches were painted in a dull, lifeless white, but it was by-and-large chipped down to the raw material.

“There are three structures. The eastern-most is the main house. Single story, four rooms, wooden roof, two doors that open inwards.”

I clicked through three more pictures of the structure, one more of the outside and two of the inside, before moving on.

“The second structure, three meters off the northwest corner of the house, has only two rooms. One appeared to be used for storage judging by its size and these scrapes on the floor. The other was empty other than some old junk and musty hay. We called it the big shed.

“The small shed is the third structure, about 100 meters west.”

I changed the image on the screen to show a small shed, about three meters square. One of the walls had crumbled down to waist level, and the scrap of rusty, corrugated roof had bent down to try and bridge the gap.

“An old shepherd’s lay-up shed,” stated Barr.

“We thought so too,” I replied as I clicked to the next image. It showed a trap door lifted to reveal a narrow, wooden set of stairs leading down into a darkened space.

“It turns out, there is a tunnel between the main house and this shed. No offshoots, but there is a small room carved out at the midpoint.”

I flipped to the next image. Three of us could be seen in the tunnel. NZ Army Intelligence had determined that the operator’s identities should not be shared, so large black squares covered our faces.

“You?” asked one of the SEALs.

I nodded. “I’m the handsome one.”

He smiled, “What’s with the shoes?”

I looked up at the image and recalled that we all wore simple, Afghan leather sandals.

“We decided to leave the site as-is, in case we needed to return. The tunnels around here have dirt floors, and military boot prints would have been a giveaway. A few of us had taken to carrying sandals in our rucks for just this reason.”

“Sneaky,” he said, and thought a second. “That means you went in quiet and didn’t clear the tunnel with anything noisy first.”

I nodded.

“Sneaky and ballsy,” he replied, knowing that to go into a tunnel dark and silent, you had to have a certain amount of nerve. Or, more accurately, stupidity.

“But probably why he’s still using the facility,” added the CIA man, Slater. “If he thought the place was blown, he and his guys would never have used it again.”

With no one else praising our ingenuity, I continued. “The floor of this room was covered mostly with carpets. So it could have been for anything. Our guess was bunking, though it could have been used for meeting. But to me, it would be a great place to keep a hostage.”

“Agreed,” said Barr.

I flipped through two remaining images, showing the stairs up the other side of the tunnel, and the access trap door in the house.

Wrapping up, I said, “I wanted you to see the problem here. If you focus all of your force on breaching the house, the baddies squirt out the other end of the tunnel and shoot you in the back.”

“Which would ruin our day,” said Barr, resuming control of the conversation. “Thank you, Lieutenant. You’re not as big an asshole as I thought.”

I appreciated his contrition.

“You’re welcome. Jury’s still out on your asshole factor.” Whoops. Couldn’t help myself.

He ignored me and turned to his team, “Reaction?”

“I think we need to bring this guy,” said the Chief named Sterba.

His finger pointed directly at me.

Uh oh. I really didn’t like this suggestion.

“Absolutely not,” replied Barr.

I nodded. This was a bad idea.

“Sir, having someone on the team who’s been there gives us a huge advantage. And if we send a man to cover the tunnel’s back door, we’ll need another shooter for the house.”

“Sterbs, we train as a team. We don’t know if this guy can handle a real mission.”

Despite the fact that I wasn’t a fan of this idea, Barr’s derogatory tone stomped on my pride a bit.

“True. And that means I’m not sure that you’ll be able to handle yourself when things go to shit,” I shot back.

Doubt goes both ways, Asshole.

“Respectfully, sir, he’s an operator. I’ve heard some guys speak of the New Zealand SAS as better than the Brits or Australians,” the Chief said.

One of the other SEALs finally spoke. “I agree, sir. I was on a joint op with some of these guys up north. They were good. Real good.”

Barr’s face was turning red.

“He goes,” came the rumbling declaration from Slater. “End of discussion.”

And at that, my fate was sealed.

W
e spent
the next few hours revising the mission plan, going over every move and signal again and again.

I’d like to say Barr and I were bosom buddies by the end of it, but that wouldn’t be the truth. We did, though, reach a form of mutual respect, of détente, which would have to be good enough.

Slater remained on the periphery, observing as we went through the rituals of mission prep. The mission was to be executed by Barr’s SEAL team, and Slater would remain on one of the helos rather than participating in the ground operation. But still, it struck me as rather odd that he didn’t contribute to the mission planning.

The next evening, we arrived at Kandahar Airfield. I built out my kit from bits and pieces from the SEALs and the Kandahar armory. Due to the close quarters of a building and tunnel assault, the SEALs planned to use compact M4s, with which I was very familiar.

For sidearms, the SEALs seemed to favor .45 caliber. And while I appreciated the stopping power, my preference was a slightly smaller round. Thankfully, the armory had my old friend, a SIG P226 chambered in 9mm.

As we coordinated our rucks, Barr received the go order from Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The first phase of the mission was initiated, sending two of the SEALs off on a C130. They would parachute in five kilometers from the target and establish a position above and slightly east of the target. Their role would be reconnaissance until our arrival.

We would contact them, call signs Angel One and Angel Two, on insertion for updates on enemy positions. They would then transition to sniper overwatch, and have the responsibility of taking out any guards by the east door and monitoring the road up to the house. Angel Two would take the shots, using a MK11 fitted with a QD suppressor. Angel One was the spotter, working the radio and calling the shots.

I knew they’d be dug into the rubble and brush for 24 hours, eating cold food, peeing in a bottle, and generally freezing their asses off. I didn’t miss that part. Have fun, guys.

A
t morning chow
, Barr told us Angel had broadcast, “Armstrong”. SOCOM had issued musician names as the indicators of mission phases, and “Armstrong” meant that the Angel team was in place.

He then explained that we’d be doing some walk throughs to get used to the “new guy”. He’d rearranged some furniture and movable dividers in some offices tucked in the back of the hangar. It wasn’t pretty, but it did roughly match the layout of the house.

A unit breaching a building has to work flawlessly together. In such close quarters, entry looks a bit like a dance, with two partners tight together, turning and moving in such a way that all fields of fire are covered, but never crossed by a teammate.

In the NZSAS, like all special ops teams, we trained extensively in MOE (methods of entry) and CQB (close quarters battle). The SEAL team’s approach was nearly the same as my experience, with only slight adjustments to pre-entry stack and some of the communication terminology.

I ran some paired with Chief Sterba. Despite being twice the size of my mates in the NZSAS, the big man from Florida reminded me a lot of them. He had a quick wit, and lightning quick reflexes that belied his size.

He and Barr had me run through room clearing with each member of the team, giving us a chance to build rapport and a degree of comfort, despite the short amount of time.

We also spent some time at the range. And while I think it was a test to see if I knew how to handle a weapon, I appreciated the chance to freshen up. Smallest thing I had fired lately were the Hellfire missiles on a helo.

But it’s like riding a bike, right? I hoped so.

They had set up some targets at 25, 75, and 100 meters and had me start with the M4. The entire team suddenly appeared around me.

Seems I was going to be graded here.

“Let’s just start at 25 meters,” said Barr, like he was talking to a schoolboy.

Honestly, dickhead, there are soldiers that are as good or even a little better than the SEALs.

I drew the weapon to my shoulder, flipping the selector to automatic, and laid a far-too-long trigger pull high and right of not just the silhouette, but the entire target.

“Whoa, I must be a little out of practice,” I said as I lowered the weapon in failure.

“Fuck,” said Barr, his expectations realized.

I locked eyes with him and let the corners of my mouth turn up just a bit while my thumb toggled the selector from auto to semi, the single-shot setting.

I turned, shouldered the weapon again, and squeezed off two rounds at the 75 meter target. With a slight adjustment I sent two downrange to the 100 meter target.

Letting the weapon drop on its sling, I quickly drew the P226 and fired two rounds at the 25 meter target with the handgun.

I decocked and holstered the weapon. Without looking I knew that each target showed two perfect head shots.

Barr knew he’d been had, and I actually saw a tiny grin. “Sandbagger,” he accused. “I think you’ll do.”

T
he mission plan
called for us to be inserted six kilometers due south, and infill on foot. Helos are great, but they tend to make enough noise that the enemy has a chance to wake up, grab an AK and a quick sip of goat milk before ruining your day. A six-K hump wasn’t bad compared to being dead.

Five hundred meters out, Barr spoke quietly into his helmet mic, “Hammer Hendrix. Out.” This let the command element know that our insertion was complete. It was also the signal for Angel to give us an update.

Angel Two came on the inter-team net. “Welcome to the party, Hammer. We have one stationary tango at the east door and one roving around the two main buildings. No vehicles in or out in the past four hours. Thermal shows four bodies inside the house, none in the big shed, none in the small shed. Unknown if prisoner is one of the four.”

“Hammer Actual copies all. Will contact when in position,” Barr replied.

We used the call signs Hammer One through Five. Even though our comm gear was encrypted and hopped frequencies, some teams stick with their own mode of comms. Barr was Hammer One, though as the team commander, he was referred to as “Actual”.

Two clicks followed, meaning “message received”.

Barr didn’t verbally give the order to move out, but used his left hand, chopping down in the “go” signal. We split into two groups of two each, with Sterba on his own, and moved out.

Our positions had been determined in our various planning sessions. I was Hammer Four, positioned about 50 meters from the north door of the house. Tucked in behind the rubble of an old stone wall with me was Hammer Three, Petty Officer “Monkey” Moss.

Barr and Hammer Two were staged about 20 meters from the main door of the house on its east side.

Sterba was Hammer Five, positioned a little over five meters from the small shed. His role was to cover the tunnel exit in the event some of the baddies tried to do a runner.

“Hammer, Angel,” came a call over the net from the spotter. “No shot on the tango at the East door. Noisy angle.”

The plan called for Angel, in their elevated hide, to take out the guard at the main door on the east side of the house. But the angles weren’t working out. The guard was seated, half-asleep, against the wall. There was a risk that a shot would penetrate his head and enter the building, giving away the assault.

Barr or Hammer Two would have to take him. I remember one of them packing a suppressed .22 target pistol for this purpose.

“Angel, Hammer Actual. Take the rover, we have the east door tango.”

Two clicks came in reply as Angel adjusted aim to the rover, who was just crossing our position. Small adjustments like this were common, and not a problem to handle. Everyone was in position and ready to go.

“Angel, Hammer Actual. Go in one minute.”

Once the exterior guards were taken care of, Barr’s team and mine would breach the doors, clear the house, and enter the tunnel.

“Hammer, Angel,” came a reply from the Angel spotter. “I have a technical coming up the road to the house.” A technical is a small, four-door pickup — often with some form of home-grown gun mount in the bed. It’s the number one vehicle choice of baddies in the sandbox.

The truck posed two problems. First, it meant more tangos. Second, despite the fact that Angel was using a suppressed weapon, the baddies didn’t use suppressors. It was therefore going to get noisy sooner than we wanted.

A technical holds up to five in the cab and however many care to squeeze in the back with the gun mount and the goats. After the first one goes down, all of his buddies were going to light off their AKs, and we were going to lose one layer of surprise.

Best choice would be to take the guards first, and hit the truck when we went loud inside, since the jig would be up at that point. I knew Barr would be running through this shift in the tactical situation and would come to the same conclusion.

“Angel, Hammer Actual. Stay on the rover. When we breach, take the truck. On my go.”

We waited only a few seconds for him to begin his countdown, “Three, two, one. Go.”

The rover had passed our position and was proceeding west in a lazy walk with his AK slung over his back. A second after the “go” he folded like a rag doll. Angel had taken him with a head shot. The only noise I heard was his body hitting the ground.

“North door clear,” I said on the net.

“East clear,” Barr returned, indicating he had taken his target as well. This was followed by, “Doors,” which reminded us to approach the doors.

I really needed that reminder, since I thought we were all supposed to go to the ice cream shop.

Monkey and I approached the north door in a tactical crouch, weapons ready. The door opened on the left side, so I positioned myself there, and Monkey took station on the right side, as we had rehearsed.

“In position,” I broadcast.

“Three, two, one. Go!” came over the net. I struck the old wooden door hard with the heel of my boot just above the knob.

It slammed hard ajar, and several things happened in a matter of less than four seconds.

First, Monkey crossed in front of me and took the center to left cone of responsibility. Two phfft sounds came immediately out of his suppressed M4 as he took down one tango standing in the center of the room.

“Tango One down,” he clipped over the net, resuming his swivel.

I heard a thump from the room next door, followed by “Two,” over the net.

My slice of the room was center to right, so I held my weapon left-handed for entry. On the right-side wall, two bearded men sat at a small table having tea. One froze, his eyes wide with fear. The other turned to grab his weapon leaning against the wall. I took him out first with one shot to the temple, pivoted a few degrees and took out the second.

“Three and four down,” I added, still scanning.

There was one room left. Monkey crossed the center of the room moving to the next doorway. We went through the threshold simultaneously, him low and left while I took the right. Empty.

“Clear,” I said over the radio.

Barr echoed the same over the net, indicating that all threats had been taken out in the two rooms on his side of the house.

We each took a breath, and then heard the noise outside.

It sounded like AKs firing. The Angels had heard our “clear” and knew Barr would want an update.

“Hammer, Angel Two. Three in the technical are down, two are dug in. Angel One is flanking. We have this covered.” He was as cool as ice, and knew that we still had a mission to pursue. Splitting up was their best tactical approach.

I led our four into the second room we had cleared. It looked like a bedroom, with carpets and two small mattresses. It was no different than when I had been here more than a year before.

I moved to the left corner, away from the small window. Pointing to Barr and then the mattress, I signaled for him to grab one side and help me toss it out of the way. Monkey and Hammer Two, or “Dutch” as he was known, stayed ready covering our six and the floor.

Moving the mattress revealed the trap door in the floor. Barr pulled a flash-bang off his vest and signaled me to open the door.

I did, and Barr tossed in the flash bang. I let the door lower slightly to protect our night vision. As soon as it went off, delivering a flash of light and noise meant to temporarily disable the enemy, I pulled the door back open. Monkey flew down the steps, followed by Barr. There was a short rip of AK fire, followed by two soft pops of suppressed fire.

A grunting, “Five,” came over the net.

Dutch stayed in place to mind the house and I went through the trap door.

Barr was lying on his side in the dirt below the rickety steps. There was blood on his lower body seeping through his NWU. He looked at me and made the ok signal with his right hand.

I knew at this point with an uncleared tunnel, I had to proceed. So did he.

“Actual is hit. Stable but down. Proceeding to clear the tunnel,” I put quietly over the net.

I stepped over him and forward into the tunnel.

No threats. But no Monkey either.

Suddenly, I heard some shouting.

At the opening of the larger tunnel room, I saw Monkey, weapon at his shoulder, pointing forward. I swept from left to right. No threats other than the one he was focused on: a screaming tango holding a beat to hell white guy in front of him, pistol to the side of his head.

“I will kill him! Back off! Back off!” he was screaming.

Monkey could have a shot, but it was a low percentage one from his angle. I was behind him.

Some movements are automatic. So when I saw that the tango held the hostage to what was my right, I stepped slightly left.

I needed the baddie to pivot just a little more.

“Right,” I barely whispered.

Monkey’s feet shifted ever so slowly to the right as he spoke to the screaming tango, “Well, partner, how about you let him go? I will be happy to back off then.”

“No! I do not like shot in the back! Back off!”

The tango had moved just enough, and the sight picture was good. I let half a breath out and squeezed the trigger. His right eye socket exploded, and he immediately fell back.

“Six,” I said into the radio, followed by, “not in the back, as requested.”

Monkey stepped forward to the hostage, who was weak to the point of collapse. He pulled out his canteen.

“Sir, we’re here to get you out.”

Boone looked a bit worse for wear. His eyes were puffy, and there were streaks of dried blood beneath his hairline and around his nose and mouth.

“Thank you,” he mumbled.

“I have to ask for your recognition code,” continued Monkey. We had seen his picture in the briefing, but this was a necessary step.

The man took a large swig from the canteen, coughed it up, and tried again with a smaller sip. He made an effort to smile and said, “Whistling pines.”

Monkey looked at me and nodded. Recognition code was good, subject not under duress.

I spoke into my helmet mic, “Hammer, Presley,” letting everyone know that the hostage was secure. I followed this with, “Break. Hammer Four is clearing the tunnel.”

I received two clicks in reply. This would be Sterba, letting me know he received the comm and hopefully wouldn’t shoot me. The last thirty meters were clear. I popped the hatch on the other side to see his smiling face.

“Tunnel clear. Angel, status?” I asked over the radio, ignoring Sterba for the moment.

“Road is clear. Five hostiles down.”

“Hammer copies all,” I replied. “Keep a lookout.”

Two clicks came in reply.

I returned Sterba’s smile. “Evening, Chief,” I said. “If you’re done taking a nap up here, how about coming down to find out how your LT managed to get himself shot in the ass!”

“Outstanding!” he chuckled, and leapt down.