Tangled Pursuit (25 page)

Hating war, but for now a part of it, Tal typed in her password as the sat phone linked up with some overhead, unseen satellite passing across this part of the globe. Waiting for the link to sync, she watched the rear of their hide. If they were exposed or discovered, they would have to leave in a heartbeat. They lived in their hide as if that could happen at any moment. Rucks were closed and prepared to be shrugged into swiftly.

She watched as Jay quietly began moving a few rocks, getting comfortable on his belly. They had a counter, and each person crossing into Afghanistan was another addition on the small handheld computer device.

She returned to her duties on the scope. Her radio glowed green, and she answered it. Sidiq Sharan was at the border! A drone overhead had identified him. Her heart raced. She quickly took the GPS info from the operator of the drone and traded places with Jay. Tal settled in on her belly, swung her Win-Mag in that direction. Sure enough, there was the bastard, on horseback, with ten other men. And it was a challenging one-mile shot.

Tal quickly told Jay and he came over, set up his spotter scope, located Sharan, and began giving her input. Tal swallowed hard, excitement thrumming through her. Ordinarily, she was calm, and her heart rate didn’t even rise. But now it did. Jay gave her vital information, and she adjusted the settings on her Win-Mag. She followed the Pakistani, who rode in the center of the group. She was sure the men with him were all his soldiers, surrounding him to keep him safe. Well, he wasn’t safe this time, and her mouth drew into a thin, grim line as got ready to fire the rifle.

Jay was on the radio now with Bagram black ops headquarters. They would have to be given permission to fire at Sidiq. Tal checked and rechecked that it was Sidiq Sharan. The drone operator sent the photo of him among his mounted riders. And then, the order was given.

Tal brushed the two-pound trigger on her .300 Win-Mag. The harsh bark of it filled the air. The power of the bullet rippled, literally, down through Tal’s entire body. She knew Jay would watch the bullet fly.

“Missed!” Jay said, “Wait . . . ”

Cursing silently, Tal reloaded. Snipers missed their targets sometimes. She wanted a second chance.

“I’ll be damned,” Jay growled as he listened closely to a radio transmission coming into his ear. He looked over at her, “a Delta Force team on the ground just killed him. He gave her a grin. “Head shot. He’s dead.”

Personal satisfaction flowed through her, but Tal kept it to herself. She got on the radio, on the same channel, speaking in a low, unruffled voice to the unit at Bagram. And she received verification from the drone far overhead, real-time pictures of Sidiq being ripped out of the saddle of his white Arabian stallion and hurled six feet to the ground, a crumpled and very dead man. She’d find out when she got back to Bagram, which Delta Team had taken him down. It could have been Matt’s team. She signed off.

“Well done,” she told Jay, who was grinning like a fool. Her spotter knew how important it was for her to kill this sick bastard. They did a high five. Inside, she was elated, wanting to whoop and do a victory dance, but under the circumstances, she couldn’t act on those feelings.

Jay eased up, gave her a gentle pat on her shoulder, and then went back to his position. “We’re going to have to move the hide,” he told her. The flash of the bullet would have instantly pointed out their location to the snipers across the border, who, Jay was sure, were already zeroing in on their position. In a few hours, a Taliban group could be climbing this mountain to locate them. And locate them they would. If Apaches were flying over, they’d hunker down and wait them out before exposing themselves across that plain. If seen, the combat helicopters would fire and take them out. Still, they needed to move their hide within an hour.

Tal’s radio beeped. She rolled to her side, settling the mic near her lips, and answered. It was a robot message telling her to receive a transmission on the handheld computer she carried in her pocket. There was a message waiting for her. Generally, that entailed a change of mission.
What the hell?
Pulling out the handheld computer, she hit a key and saw that their orders had changed. Mouth tightening, she began to read it and her heart caught. She pushed down her emotions as she read the words.

“Jay?” she called, gesturing for him to come over.

Jay quickly moved from his packing up duties, frowning. “What’s up?” he asked, kneeling opposite her.

“Change of orders.” Tal tried to keep the grimness out of her voice. “We’re getting a SEAL team of six men in here tonight at 2100. They’re being brought in by a Night Stalker helo.”

“What for?” he demanded, his voice mirroring his confusion.

“That sat phone call where you put in the intel on the caves did it.” She rubbed her brow. “Major Dickenson has approved this change in our mission priority now that Sidiq has been taken out. The SEALs are going to be the ones to carry out recon on any other camel caravans possibly coming across, starting tonight.”

“What? Once the caravans come across again and follow their ratlines, are the SEALs going to shadow their progress into the country?”

Shrugging, Tal said, “I don’t know. I would think so, but the orders aren’t spelling out the details of the SEAL op with us.”

“Where are they making their base of operation?”

“I would think in one of those caves you discovered. They sure as hell can’t sit in our hide with us because we’re moving. Sidiq is dead, but we still have a lot to do here after we get another hide location.”

Jay said, “During the spring buildup, the CIA throws every available black ops group they can get their hands on into this area to stop the border crossings. Thirty-five hundred men coming across in daylight hours probably made everyone back at Bagram hit the panic button. But it’s the caravans coming across in the night hours they’re really after.” He shot her a grin.

But Tal didn’t smile back. Her gaze had fallen on the end of the change of orders. For some reason, she wasn’t surprised to see that the leader of the SEAL team was going to be Chief Wyatt Lockwood.

CHAPTER 14

W
YATT COULD BARELY
contain his relief when he met Tal in her hide. She’d sent Jay through the tunnel in the upper cave to meet the MH-47 that off-loaded his SEAL team during the night. Wyatt had asked Jay to help get his men settled in by showing them the cave system. Everyone was congratulating the spotter on helping to take out Sidiq Sharan. He was a big fish in the little pond. Jogging down the tunnel, his infrared goggles making it easy to see his way, he switched his radio frequency to the one Tal used and clicked it once. That meant that he was coming to her hide and not to shoot him by mistake, thinking he was Taliban sneaking up on her. Jay and her had moved their hide to another area near an entrance/exit point of a cave about half a mile from where the original one had been.

Wyatt received one click back—Tal’s acknowledgment that he was coming. It was near 2330, and the freezing night winds roared as he made his way out of the cave, keeping low to avoid enemy eyes from across the valley. Wyatt had worked in this region many times before and knew there were al-Qaeda snipers a mile away with infrared telescopes. They were aimed at picking up body heat on this side of the mountain.

Wyatt had crouched near a rocky cliff and the overhang. For the last hundred feet, he crawled on his belly until he made it to the rear entrance of Tal’s hide. Now, seeing her on the scope of her Win-Mag, slowly panning and watching the active border, he wanted to grab her and hold her tight. Even in the dark, with her bulky clothes, she was beautiful.
Damn it
, he thought, surprised that he was finding it so tough to put his emotions on hold.

Soundlessly, he made his way to her, six inches separating them, keeping his head below the lip of their newly situated hide. He kept his voice low but didn’t have to worry. With the winds howling around them, no one was going to hear them talking.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked amiably.

Whipping around, she glared at him. “What the hell are you doing here, Wyatt?”

He grinned. “I suspected I’d get that sort of welcome from you, darlin’. And don’t worry, we’re alone. I asked Jay to get my men settled in, show them around in that upper cave, and then we’ll set up for the night.”

Tal was bristly, and he figured she probably thought he was taking over her turf. Settling in on his belly, he said, “Thought you might like to know that your brother, Matt, killed Sidiq. Good piece of shooting by him. His team was your backup in case the sniper shot didn’t go down as planned. There’s a party being planned at Bagram, celebrating what your brother did.” He saw some of her tense expression dissolve. He knew how much this meant to Tal. She deserved to know it was her brother who took the infamous bastard to his grave.

“Thanks. I’m still in shock over it. I didn’t know Matt and his team were in place at the border crossing.” She frowned, studying Wyatt darkly. “I figure us taking out Sharan’s two sons will put other things in motion, like your team being up here.”

“Look, they’re getting record numbers flowing over the border, and the CIA wanted more than just the two of you out here. I’d have made the same call. And we were in transit to your mountain when we found out Matt nailed your HVT.”

“I first thought you were trying to protect me out here.”

Patiently, he drawled, “That has
nothing
to do with what’s going on right now, Tal. Major Dickenson, along with me, our three SEAL officers, and Delta Force/CAG, was ordered to show up at a last-minute meeting called by the CIA yesterday afternoon. Jay’s conference call yesterday made everyone jump. They’re freaking out at the number of men and materials that came across the border.” Secretly? Yeah, he damn well had engineered part of the overarching mission to be in the vicinity of Tal and Jay. They were in one of the most dangerous places for a sniper pair to be. And he wasn’t about to apologize for manipulating the mission. But there was no way Wyatt was ever going to admit it to Tal. He had no wish to demean her or give her the impression he saw her as less than the competent sniper she was. Wyatt loved Tal; he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and he knew he would if he admitted the truth. This was one of those white lies that would go to the grave with him.

“Well, there’s more going on tonight,” she warned him, holding up her clicker in her right hand, constantly pressing it, counting the enemy. “They’re pouring across right now and I’m keeping count.”

He inhaled her musky scent and had to hand it to her. When she knew she was going out on an op, she washed her hair with Afghan lye soap, scrubbed her skin with it, and never wore makeup of any kind. If passing Taliban smelled lye soap on the wind, they would think nothing of it. But if Tal used any other soap, scented or not, the Taliban would instantly know an enemy was in the immediate area. And they’d ruthlessly hunt them all down based on that scent alone.

Tal was still upset, and the energy was radiating off her big-time. She didn’t like her op being changed when she was out in the field, and Wyatt completely understood. Snipers always worked alone or as a team of two.

“Look,” he said evenly, “if it makes you feel any better, they were going to send out a Delta/CAG unit to hang around here with you.” He saw her snap her head toward him, her eyes blazing like glittering obsidian. He knew when she had more information that her fire would be reduced from boil to simmer.

“I stepped up to the plate and volunteered my SEAL team instead,” he admitted. “I reasoned with them that the Marines are part of the Navy, and it’s our right to ask for this mission, not give it to the doggy Army.” Her mouth relaxed a little and he saw a hint of a smile. He grinned as he got his hoped-for response. “The SEAL Officer In Charge wanted to head it up, but I pulled rank on him,” he chuckled softly.

“Yeah, a chief always runs the platoon,” Tal muttered, shaking her head, hiding her smile. She would never admit to him that she was honestly glad to see him. She just didn’t want Wyatt here as a big, overprotective guard dog to her and Jay.

She appeared less tense after the explanation, and Wyatt breathed a partial sigh of relief. “It was me or the OIC. Which do you prefer?” he asked softly.

She heard something in his tone. “You, of course. But why are you here, Wyatt? I just took out my HVT. That muzzle flash of mine is going to draw the attention of those al-Qaeda snipers out there trying to locate us on this slope. And I’m sure they will. We moved this hide.”

“Relax,” he whispered, reaching out, sliding his hand gently across her tight, bunched shoulder. “My men know you have a hide over here. They aren’t going to come waltzing into that cave, just to be picked up on an enemy’s infrared scope. We’re better than that.”

“I guess you’re right,” she admitted wearily.

“Hey,” he said, taking advantage of her mood shift, “you’re kind of tightly wound.” He began to knead her neck, feeling her muscles grudgingly respond.

Tal groaned. “That feels so good . . .”

Wyatt said soothingly, “Hey, darlin’, we’re not messing with your op. In fact, in a few minutes, I’ll be leaving your hide and joining my team up in that cave. If you and Jay spot a caravan coming across, radio us, give us a GPS reading, and we’ll be in that tunnel heading to the opposite side from where you are. The ratlines and goat paths are on that side, and that’s where they’ll go and we’ll be waiting on them.”

“And then what?”

“The CIA is changing tactics,” he told her. “They want us to follow one of these caravans, see where they stop, and take photos of whoever receives the fertilizer.”

“Last night, three caravans came across, Wyatt. You only have a small team and can’t possibly follow them all.”

“No, we’ll take the first one. And if there are others who come across, they’ll fly other black ops units out here to follow them. The CIA will send us more drones with video to follow each one of them. Once we follow our caravan to the stops they’ll make, we’ll get the intel back to CIA HQ. We’ll take photos and then other black ops units will be assigned to make a visit to the villages and capture the bomb makers.”