Which was why Pepper knew that when their work was finished here, they needed to leave. This place literally was a crater, a chasm where they did not belong, where the loyalty of men waned and the fires of hatred had burned for thousands of years.
‘Pepper, am I clear?’ called 30K.
‘Hang tight … and … yes, you are! Go now!’
The plastic explosives procured for the team’s load out bags had come from the UK, so instead of being supplied with C-4, they were given bricks of PE4, an off-white colored solid whose explosive characteristics were nearly identical to C-4, although PE4 had a slightly greater velocity of detonation: 8,210 meters per second.
These technical attributes were largely unimportant to men like 30K, men with an affinity for blowing shit up. They didn’t do the math because they always overestimated the amount of explosives required for the job.
‘Kozak, you got me?’ he asked as he skulked along the wall outside the cemetery, his active camouflage on, the pack strapped to his shoulders feeling as though it’d been stuffed with bowling balls.
‘Roger, you’re marked. Two meters.’
30K dragged his elbow across the wall, keeping tight to the shadows –
‘Okay, okay, position one. Mark,’ said Kozak.
Panting now, 30K reached into his pack and produced the first of ten blocks of PE4 fitted inside a shaped charge casing and rigged with a remote detonator. The casings were cone-shaped, and 30K carefully placed the first one at the foot of the wall, then he jogged off, listening for Kozak’s next set of instructions:
‘Five meters … three … one … position two. Mark.’
30K continued placing each of the ten blocks where Kozak indicated so that when he was finished, the explosives all rested directly opposite the mortars, with only the wall standing between them.
Good old Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, would’ve been proud. He’d said that subduing the enemy without fighting was the acme of skill. Sure, they could’ve gone into the cemetery as 30K had suggested, letting him do his Rambo/Conan/Gladiator thing, running and gunning like a fire-breathing serial killer inhabited by the spirits of ancient warriors and movie stars, but the chances were high that once he took out the second crew, the others would cease fire and turn their small arms on him, drawing the rest of the team into a firefight that would waste valuable time and even more valuable ammunition.
And oh, yeah, he could die.
Besides, the Ghosts were much more cunning than that. Consequently, they’d gone back to the drawing board, or more accurately, gone back to their packs, where they always carried explosives. They relied upon shaped charges for taking out armor or structures like bridges, and they were always looking for any excuse to lighten their packs and satisfy their inner pyros.
Of course, there were some men like 30K who just wanted to see the world explode …
Ross had come up with the plan after analysing the positions of the mortars, and while it was half as glamorous as 30K’s run and governator maneuver, they needed to trade demigod status for deception.
However, if 30K was the designated pack mule, then he’d argued that he and only he got to push the button. Ross had been fine with that.
‘Ghost Lead, 30K here. I’m at the end of the wall. Charges set.’ The image displayed in 30K’s HUD showed each of his charges as flashing red triangles nestled tightly against the wall. Just on the other side were the mortar teams, and 30K literally shivered with anticipation. ‘On your mark,’ he told Ross.
‘Roger, on my mark. Pepper? What do you think?’
Silence.
‘Pepper, this is Ghost Lead. SITREP!’
‘Here, boss, sorry. We’re clear. Ready to blow.’
‘Okay, 30K. Mark.’
The remote detonators had all been set to the same frequency and would trigger the charges simultaneously. If for whatever reason a charge failed to go off, Pepper, 30K and Ross would take up the slack, moving in to finish off those crews.
30K had transferred detonation control to his Cross-Com, through which he could now issue a voice command. He took a long breath, braced himself, then opened his mouth to speak tersely into his boom mike.
‘Wait, wait, wait!’ cried Pepper. ‘We got dismounts coming up the street, heading right toward you, 30K.’
He couldn’t see them at first, but a squint and second look quickened his pulse. They were shifting between the parked cars — at least two squads in desert camouflage fatigues, either Harak or Yemeni Army, he just couldn’t tell, and there were no IDs appearing in his Cross-Com.
‘Pepper, I got ’em now. Ten, maybe twelve guys. Are they friendlies?’ 30K asked.
‘Dunno.’
‘I’m checking,’ said Kozak.
‘We got no choice,’ hollered Ross. ‘30K? Blow that wall right now!’
FORTY-FIVE
While Sun Tzu might’ve been proud of their plan, he would’ve also told 30K to get his most deceptive and cunning hide out of there because by the time 30K opened his mouth and gave the command, ‘Detonate charges,’ those squads up the road were sprinting toward him –
And suddenly he was wrenched back to Army boot camp, listening to some instructor shout in a sarcastic lilt how no plan ever survives the first enemy contact, and that plans B and C usually go to shit within the next five minutes.
These were not glib statements devised by operators trying to scare new recruits; they were annoying facts often accompanied by gunfire at your feet and your buddies clutching their necks while blood oozed through their fingers.
And so here they were. They’d planned to ambush the mortar teams in one fell swoop. A one-man op. Bada bing, bada boom, as Kozak might say. They had not planned on dismounts making a sweep right into the zone.
And so with an almost reckless abandon, 30K turned tail and ran — just as the ensemble of explosives resounded with a tune so catastrophically glorious that he found himself smiling from ear to ear.
What a rush!
Unable to stop himself, 30K hazarded a look back, and dear God, it was a rapturous sight that would’ve brought any firecracker-addicted kid to his knees, his eyes welling up with tears as he experienced a glimpse of fiery nirvana while Beethoven’s 9th Symphony played by a live five-hundred-piece orchestra floating in midair blared in the background:
Ten bricks of PE4 had lifted ten separate tornadoes of shrapnel and stone that blew through the cemetery toward the mortars. It was through one particular gaping hole in the wall that 30K watched as the explosions tore through men and launch tubes alike, silencing guns and mangling flesh, the blast waves sling-shotting bodies across the cemetery toward the first rows of gravestones, the men now like puppets, scarecrows, ragdolls with limbs torn off by sinister children, heads lolling to one side, helmets tumbling.
A data box from Kozak opened in 30K’s HUD and showed him the overhead view from the drone, every mortar taken out, the teams splayed across the cemetery in a breath-robbing canvas of carnage, every man dead or dying.
But their victory celebration would have to come later. Sorry, Bubba, return the kegs, tell the strippers to go home, DVR the game and we’ll catch it another day –
Because those dismounts were charging toward the cemetery like bees defending their nest, the swarm of red blips appearing in 30K’s HUD and gaining on him.
‘Ghosts, back to the van now!’ ordered Ross. ‘Do not engage those dismounts. Just get back to the van!’
At the moment the wall exploded at ten separate locations, the mortar team farthest away from Pepper had just loaded a round.
As the blast wave struck that mortar, knocking it sideways, the round burst from its launch tube, only it wasn’t headed skyward on its intended trajectory.