Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) (44 page)

Chapter 7

Nick Woods made his up
mind after less than two minutes of running through the options. None of the
possibilities looked good, but that’s how war goes. It doesn’t go your way.
Life doesn’t either, Nick remembered, briefly thinking of Anne, his late wife,
and wondering if he’d be reunited with her before this mission ended. He shook
away the thought and refocused on the present.

As Nick saw it, the team
had three major options.

Option one was hold in
place, hoping the Pakistani infantry battalion packed up, moved off the hill,
and departed the area. The problem with this option was there was no telling
how long the unit would be there, and Nick worried about their own rapidly
depleting food and water. Plus, the nearby Pakistanis could push toward them
and put them in some deep shit.

Option two involved trying
to slip through the middle of the Pakistani lines. Maybe attempt it at 0330,
when sleep and fatigue are at their greatest. But that seemed fraught with
serious risk, given that they’d be carrying heavy packs and water jugs. And
since they’d have their weapons at the ready, any guard or sleeping man who
woke would instantly recognize them as intruders, despite their similar weapons
and local attire.

Option three involved
moving down the hill, to the valley that was chock-full of travelers and homes.
Nick had a map of that area, but S3’s intel team hadn’t provided the kind of
detailed satellite photos that the team needed. So, they’d have no idea how
many homes were on that route, as it had been too far out of the planned
infiltration route.

Without climbing gear,
Nick knew a long and arduous trek to the top of the hill wasn’t a possibility.
Bottom line, it had to be one of the three options.

Nick believed waiting out
the Pakistani army was dangerous. It could take days for them to leave, and
Nick, Marcus, Truck, and Red weren’t getting any stronger under each day’s
unrelenting sun.

Infiltrating the Pakistani
army’s lines was undeniably their worst option. Maybe if just one of them spoke
the language and could talk their way out of being spotted, then maybe. But
none of them did, and with the moon nearly full -- a requirement for the
mission, so they could move well at night -- sneaking through so many Pakistani
troops was nothing short of suicide.

Thus, the men of Shield,
Safeguard, and Shelter were going down the hill.

Chapter 8

Nick lifted the poncho
liner and whispered for his team to pull it in. All four ducked below the
canopy of Nick’s outstretched arms.

Nick flipped his red-beam
flashlight on and oriented the team to their position. He then explained the
three options they had. Nick asked if there were any angles he had overlooked,
and he received nothing but headshakes.

“Since those are our
options,” he said, “we’ll go with option three and push down the hill. We’ll
cross the valley road and push up the opposite hill. We’ll move forward a
couple of miles and with luck, we’ll be beyond the Pakistani army at that
point. We’ll cross back to this side of the valley and continue on our planned
course.”

Marcus nodded his head and
said, “I like the idea of crossing back to this mountain range. We know from
our planning that this side of the valley is our best route in, and we have
better detailed satellite imagery of the terrain.”

“Yeah,” Truck agreed,
“we’ve practically got our infiltration route memorized, except for Red, who’s
too stupid to remember anything.”

“That’s why I carry a
map,” Red replied with a grin.

Truck stretched his right
leg out and groaned. “All right, but let’s make it quick so that my bum knee
doesn’t get any ideas and drop my ass down the hill,” he said.

Red reached over and
punched Truck hard in the calf of his straightened leg. Truck’s only response
was a grunt.

“So,” Red said, “I guess
since we’re down a leg thanks to gimp here, pushing forward and taking on those
Pakistani bastards is out of the question?”

Nick smiled and looked
over at Marcus, who was shaking his head and chuckling. The team could always
count on Red’s confidence.

“Marcus?” Nick asked. “Any
other thoughts?”

“It’s a solid plan,”
Marcus confirmed. “And it’s the best option we have under the circumstances.”

Chapter 9

The four men of Shield,
Safeguard, and Shelter descended the hill, picking their way around loose
gravel and crumbling dirt that gave way under the weight of their heavy
footsteps and gear. Red led the way, followed by Nick, then Truck with his RPK
machine gun, and finally Marcus, who pulled rear security.

Each man knew the next
part would prove pivotal. On one hand, they were dressed to fit in. Loose
pants,
turbans wrapped around
their heads,
Soviet-bloc weapons, and random green and black smocks. On
the other, their packs and assault gear, though of non-American variety, still
gave them away.
Rarely would
Afghans or Pakistani be carrying so much gear, and if it were necessary, they’d
use pack mules.

But this couldn’t be changed, and taking on some villagers certainly
beat duking it out with the heavily-armed Pakistani army.

The team soundlessly descended further and further, attempting to stay
in dark shadows. It took almost two hours as they were trying to be patient on
Truck and his knee, but they soon neared the road at the bottom of the valley.

Nick was surprised that they had avoided any mud homes to this point.
Though the border regions were sparsely populated, luck seemed to be on their
side thus far.

Red halted the team and signaled for them to spread out on line -- or in
a straight line. Each team member found good positions that were either low to
the ground or behind something. They all dropped their packs and aimed in on
the “road,” which could hardly be considered such by Western standards. More
like a gravel driveway barely wide enough for a single truck.

Nick could feel his heart speed up, as the tension mounted. Now, they
were committed. Any contact and it was on. An attempt to retreat up the hill
with their heavy packs would surely end in failure. And they couldn’t ditch
their packs and try to ascend either, because that meant certain eventual death,
given they’d be without any supplies.

No, any contact and they’d attack forward, killing whoever was in the
way, as well as those who responded to the gunfire. Nick and Red, the only two
with NVGs, scanned the road ahead, which could just be made out with the
natural light.

Between the men and the road, Nick estimated about four hundred yards of
field. It was mostly flat and planted with some kind of knee-high crop.

Nick looked twice over the ground, but saw nothing. He looked toward
Red, and the small point man signaled all clear.

Nick swallowed down some water and reached over to lift his
hundred-pound pack. He whirled it around, swinging it into place -- it was too
heavy to simply lift -- and tightened up the straps. He bounced up and down,
allowed it to shift, and adjusted the straps one last time. Unfortunately when
you weren’t using up ammo, it made it harder to lighten your load.

The team was ready. Each man was standing, or truthfully, slightly
leaning forward under their packs. The team would push together across the
road, despite the unconventional nature of such a move.

Typically, a unit would leave half of its men in place to provide a base
of fire from cover, while the forward element moved across a dangerous sector.
But S3 was too small to split up, and Nick wanted to rely on speed and keeping
his men together. That way, if the shit hit the fan, they could fight together
or work their way back.

Thankfully, they crossed the field and the rocky path without incident.
The four men pushed up the steep hill on the opposite side of their insertion
route without difficulty, other than hauling up all their heavy gear. But they
soon started running into compounds, which presumably had mud homes behind
their walls. Red shifted their course left and right to dodge them, and they
progressed further up the hill without detection.

Soon, their legs and backs were shaky and weak with fatigue, but they’d
done it. Now they were back to where there were no trails, no wandering
villagers, not even a single pile of dog droppings.

And it was a good thing. Dawn was approaching, and it was time for them
to hunker down.

Chapter 10

It had been less than
twenty-four hours since their near run-in with the Pakistani army, and despite
the detour having cost them an entire night, Nick was filled with relief. After
crossing back over to their original infiltration route, they had not seen a
single sign of troops lurking anywhere in their vicinity.

Still it had been
unsettling to go from marching night after night in the wilderness with little
to no trace of human existence, and then to nearly run smack dab into the
middle of an army campground. Back on their route, the men of S3 remained on
edge. Phantom patrols seemed to be hiding behind every rock and bend, wearing
on the ragged nerves of the already fatigued shooters. Eventually, after a few
hours of no visible threat, the men began to settle down, and their original
routine continued.

Remaining faithful to the
routine, the S3 team suffered through another night of painful, arduous hiking.
Nick looked and felt like shit. He reeked from nine days of no bathing, and his
clothes could be heralded as “the next big thing in fashion,” that is if
Bum’s
Wear Quarterly
were an actual publication. He was also now sporting a
throbbing ankle and sharp lower back pains from some kind of wrenched nerve or
muscle spasm.

He could tell that the others were silently pushing through various
dings, twists, and injuries, as well. They knew their target was close.
Computer geek Ahmud al-Habshi sat in his compound just eight miles away, and in
two nights, they’d bag his ass, seize his computer gear, and drop any idiots
who were stupid enough to tangle with them.

Nick and his team were
ready to do the job they’d been hired to do. They’d walked too many miles and
slept far too little; they not only itched for some action, they needed it.
After all, al-Habshi’s compound was just the first step in this whole mission.
They still had Deraz, the terrorist masquerading as a spiritual leader, to hunt
and take down.

Unfortunately
for the men of S3, their luck ran out again. On the very next night, Red called
a halt and pointed out more Pakistani army troops ahead.

Nick nearly
screamed with rage. For more than ten years, America had asked Pakistan to deal
with the mutinous tribes along their lawless border. President Bush had pleaded
with the country and supposed ally, and President Obama had followed, trying to
convince them, as well.

But Pakistan
had tried and learned its lesson. The area was officially called, “the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas,” and the inhabitants were almost all
Pashtuns. They were fierce fighters, who were practically impossible to control.

The area’s
ferocious independence went back to the 19th Century, during the British
colonial period. The British failed to ever gain full control of the tribes and
settled on allowing the dangerous region to serve as an effective buffer to
Afghanistan. Pakistan itself failed to control the area once the British left.
In the ’70s, those passing through the Khyber Pass were warned by the Pakistani
government to stay close to the road for their safety.

Things were
dangerous then, but they grew far worse after 2001 when the Americans with the
help of the Northern Alliance drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.
Those Taliban members who survived the onslaught of the world’s greatest
military power fled to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

They quickly
gained influence there, and the cross-border attacks into Afghanistan grew so
bad that America convinced Pakistan to do something. (Probably with billions in
aid packages.) Pakistan deployed 80,000 troops into the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas in 2004, but even that sizable force failed to tame the area.

Pakistan was
forced to sign a truce with the Pakistani Taliban, and though it deployed
troops into the area eight more times between 2004 and 2006, control had never
been established. The final treaty had stated the Taliban wouldn’t attack
either Pakistan or Afghanistan from the tribal areas, while granting them the
privilege of carrying weapons and basically ruling the place as they pleased.

Nick knew
these details by heart as he and his team had studied the area extensively
prior to the mission. And what pissed him off the most was that just ten days
ago, when they were planning their mission and studying the satellite and drone
imagery, there’d been no Pakistani army units in the area. Somehow, these
troops had moved in during the past several days.

The cynical
part of Nick was sure these troops were here to hunt them down. But their
actions hinted the opposite. This newest set of troops were once again
completely unprofessional. They weren’t looking for men, and they certainly
weren’t looking for a fight. Fires blazed, laughing men sang, a few even
danced.

It truly
seemed this was merely another fake incursion into the tribal regions by the
federal government, meant to appease America and release a few billion dollars
more in aid. Nick assumed that the Pakistani army had most likely warned the
tribes they’d be coming, giving the belligerent locals plenty of time to
prepare and hide ammunition and pro-Taliban banners and flags.

The team
pulled back, huddled, and talked out their options. In this case, going down
the hill was a no go. Numerous homes dotted the hillside and valley on the
lower slopes. (They’d have to go above the troops, where there were fewer
homes. Still, there were homes up there, too, according to their maps.)

“We’ll just
have to be careful,” Nick told the team.

And careful
they were as they approached the first set of homes. They slipped along walls,
through alleys, and even in front of huts themselves. And somehow, even
carrying all their gear and water jugs, they managed to infiltrate through the
small enclave of homes.

The men of
S3 had also pulled off some masterful teamwork. Covering danger areas, using
hand signals, and moving like shadows through the dark.

But just
when they thought they were in the clear and a good hundred yards from the last
compound, they saw movement followed by the sound of a dog growling.

“I got him,”
Red whispered.

Red dropped
his AK, allowing it to hang across his body in its tactical sling, while he
pulled a Glock .45 pistol. Red pulled a suppressor from his pocket and twisted
it on as quickly as he could, then moved away from the group toward the threat.

The dog
approached closer, his growl growing louder as his eyes now saw what only his
nose had smelled. Nick noticed the hair on the large dog raise and knew it was
seconds from barking or charging them.

“Shoot,
Red,” Nick said.

Pfft. Pfft.
Pfft.

The beast
dropped, hit by three subsonic bullets from Red’s pistol.

“Let’s go,”
Nick said.

Although
they were on the outskirts of the enclave, Nick signaled the team forward,
anxious to get away in case some villager unable to sleep investigated. Red was
digging around in the dirt, picking up his shell casings.

“Come on,”
Nick hissed. “We gotta move.”

They stepped
out quickly, wanting to get as far away as possible from the enclave, as they’d
just left their first potential clue since entering Pakistan.