“Yes, sir,” Cage said solemnly.
CHAPTER 16
Renee sat in the hangar, staring at the flat-screen attached to the plywood wall with two metal hooks. Everyone not performing mission-essential duties was crowded in front of the TV, watching the story unfold on CNN.
A reporter was standing on the roof of the Kabul Hotel as dark columns of smoke billowed up from the whitewashed city behind him. An explosion went off in the distance, shaking the camera and causing the reporter to duck and cover his head.
A few moments later, he regained his composure, and he began talking into the camera. “With the death of President Karzai, US military troops are flooding into the city. We have received footage of an American soldier taking credit for the assassination, and right now, as you can see, the city is awash in violence.”
The camera panned away from the gray-haired reporter as another car bomb exploded near the center of the city, followed by a long burst of gunfire. Renee could hear the faint screams of rockets as they arced in from the hills surrounding the capital.
“It is the largest uprising we have seen since the invasion, and things are only going to get worse, as world leaders rush to an emergency meeting at Camp David. Sources close to the president tell us that this could be the last nail in the coalition’s coffin. In the wake of the Arab Spring, it appears that America will soon be supporting the war effort on its own.”
“Shit,” Renee swore as Kevin walked in and stared up at the giant television.
“The bird’s ready, but we have to go now. They are diverting all the flights.”
She nodded and grabbed her gear before heading out to the flight line. Renee had wanted to talk to General Swift before heading out, but the man had gotten on a flight to Bagram before she had a chance. Things were moving quickly now, and without the general there, they could get out of control fast.
Renee sat inside the UH-60 Black Hawk and let her feet dangle out the open door as the pilot lifted off. The wind whipping into the troop compartment caused her pant legs to snap and pop as the bird picked up speed.
The crew chief and the gunner rotated their 240 Bravo machine guns up and out, ensuring they had unobstructed fields of fire. Renee rested her hand on the black rubber case that held her level-three gas masks and wondered what lay ahead.
Two dual-rotored CH-47 Chinooks pulled up alongside the Black Hawk before the pilot pushed the throttles forward and thundered off toward Kamdesh. The pilot kept the bird low and fast, and as the landscape raced beneath them, she could make out the oblong shadow of the Black Hawk on the brown earth. Reaching an open spot on the outskirts of the city, the gunners test-fired the 240s by sending two short bursts into the ground before putting them back on safe.
Kevin sat to her right and looked relaxed as the pilot rolled and dipped the bird, changing speed and altitude in an attempt to confuse any asshole on the ground with a gun.
Renee swallowed hard as her stomach knotted up. The locals loved to shoot at low-flying helicopters, and she knew it only took one lucky shot to ruin a perfectly good day. One of the lessons taken from Somalia and reinforced in Iraq was the fact that a slow-flying helicopter was a hard target to resist.
She could hear the pitch of the rotors change as the helicopter fought to gain altitude. The hilly ground gave way to the foothills of the mountain range and the blades struggled for purchase in the thinner air.
“Ma’am, I’m looking at the grid you gave me and there’s no FOB on the map,” the pilot said over the internal channel.
“Trust me, it’s there,” she said confidently.
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said with a shrug.
Renee ignored the pilot and switched over to the team channel. It was too loud to talk inside the helicopter and even if she yelled, they wouldn’t hear her.
“I know that Kevin already briefed you, but I’m going to go over it again. General Swift doesn’t want us to go to the village until it has been cleared by the bio team. There is a Special Forces team already on site at the FOB. We are going to link up with them while the other team secures the convoy. I don’t think Barnes is still in the area, but if anyone sees anything, let me know.”
“Roger,” the team repeated in unison.
“Guys, we need to stay frosty.”
“Renee, we’ve got this, don’t worry,” Kevin said as the rest of the team nodded.
She knew they were the best at what they did, but at the same time, she was beginning to realize that going after Barnes was not going to be an easy day.
Forty-five minutes later, the pilot decreased his altitude as he searched for the objective. The door gunners began actively scanning for threats as the trail helicopter lifted above them to provide cover. Renee could see the small FOB through the cockpit windscreen. It appeared as a tiny brown square among the gray mountains.
AH-64 Apaches circled the FOB like angry hornets. She knew from the quick briefing that there were attack aircraft loitering out of sight, just in case. In a matter of two hours all available assets had been allocated to cover the FOB and the wreckage of Karzai’s convoy. For the time being, the military was bringing its full weight to bear.
Despite the air cover, the gunners and the pilot called out possible threats as they thundered toward the gravel-covered pad. The pilot brought the Black Hawk low over the stone-filled Hesco barriers before dropping the bird down for a soft landing.
Renee hung the headphones back on their hook and, keeping her head low, scooted out of the helo, her feet crunching into the gravel. The rotors kicked up a cloud of brown dust, obscuring the area as the engines went to full power. The nose of the Black Hawk dipped forward as the tail came up and the helicopter leapt into the sky.
Kevin yelled to catch her attention and pointed with an outstretched arm toward two bearded Americans standing at the edge of the landing zone. Renee walked over to them, cleaning the grit out of her mouth with a drink from her CamelBak.
“Ma’am, I’m Sergeant First Class Miles and this is Captain Westin with the Third Special Forces Group. We had no idea you were coming out until we got the call from your pilot.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sergeant Miles, and you too, Captain. How long have you been on site?”
“We received a call from the FOB late last night. It came over a satellite phone and said the base was under attack,” the captain began as they walked off the pad and into the perimeter of the small FOB. “Someone back at headquarters made contact with us over the radio and for some reason, our commo guy waited thirty or forty minutes before sending it up the chain.”
Renee counted ten men moving around the perimeter and an additional seven-man gun team pulling security from the apex of the low mountain peak. The FOB was perched on the flat edge of the mountain face. It had an excellent field of view of the valley floor below, and she could barely make out the quarantined village off in the distance. Renee could see plumes of dust rising like clouds from the valley floor where the heavy Chinooks were landing.
Evidence of the attack was inescapable and the stench of death rose above the FOB like the aftertaste of violence. Blast marks from grenades scorched the gravel where they had exploded, and bullet holes stared like eyeless sockets from the exterior of many of the buildings. The sun glinted off the shiny spent brass and gave the momentary illusion of something valuable.
So this is what a crime scene feels like.
“How many casualties were there?” she asked as she surveyed the carnage. It felt wrong to be here.
“There was an eight-man element here, with one commo guy; all of them were KIA. We have no reports of enemy casualties and no blood trails, but we haven’t cleared anything besides the perimeter. It looks like they hit them while they were still in their racks. The last stand was around the commo shed. We found a lot of brass outside, but we haven’t located the phone anywhere.” Captain Westin spoke like he was ordering dinner. There was no emotion in his voice and absolutely zero empathy. It was obvious he didn’t care for the outsiders interfering in what he considered a Special Forces matter.