“There is a truck coming this way,” Zeus said from the backseat, and Renee glanced to her left to see another black Suburban racing toward them.
“Doesn’t look like they are going to stop,” Mason said as she gunned the engine and clenched the wheel.
A man leaned out of the window and waved his arm at their vehicle as the driver tried to close the distance.
“Put your seat belts on,” she said, ignoring Mason.
They were a hundred meters from the gate that led to the flight line when their pursuers fired a warning shot over the front of the truck. Mason couldn’t hear the rifle go off, but he saw the flame spitting from the muzzle.
“Uhhh, they’re shooting at us.”
“Relax, it’s just a warning shot.”
Mason opened the glove box, hoping to find a pistol, but there was nothing inside but an owner’s manual and an air gauge.
“I hope you have a plan,” he said, slamming the glove box shut.
“Just enjoy the ride,” she replied as a burst hit the hood of the truck and bounced off with a spark.
A white Gulfstream sat on the tarmac barely two hundred meters away. Renee shot through the open gate, knocking the side mirror off the truck as she did, and Mason turned to look at the truck trying to catch them.
Three men with rifles ran out of a metal shed near the small control tower and fired at them as Renee cut the wheel and ducked behind a row of cargo trucks. The engine roared as she mashed hard on the gas and barely missed a ground crew loading a small prop plane.
“Holy shit, you’re going to kill someone,” Mason said, grabbing the dashboard.
“Will you shut up and let me drive?”
Slamming her foot on the brakes, she skidded the truck to a halt beside the waiting plane and jammed it into park. Hopping out, she made her way toward the stairs and waited for Zeus and Mason.
“Can you two hurry the fuck up?” she asked, pulling her pistol from her waistband and aiming it at the rapidly approaching SUV. Mason and Zeus sprinted, and she followed, her pistol at the ready. She stuck her head into the cockpit and was about to tell the pilot to go when she felt a barrel push against her neck.
CHAPTER 23
It had been almost eight hours since Harden had used the unsecure phone to place a call, and according to their sources on base, an operation was in the works to take the bait.
It was a waiting game now. Jones had just called their final grid up to the colonel, and the rest of the team was resting in the shade of their security position, double-checking their weapons.
The valley was more of a long depression than anything else and lacked the well-defined attributes of similar terrain in Afghanistan. A river had once flowed out of the mountains to the north, and its course had cut a shallow trough through the rich landscape. Dark green grass and multicolored wildflowers flourished in the rich sediment deposited by its waters, and the majestic pines dotting the high ground provided much-appreciated shade.
Interspersed among the lush vegetation were sporadic patches of smooth stones and stoic gray boulders, carried down from the mountain peaks. At first glance, the granite rocks appeared to offer ideal cover and concealment, and that was exactly what Harden wanted them to think.
The only usable landing zone was to the southeast of his position, where the wide, grassy plain could accommodate the heavy helicopters. Harden had studied the same satellite imagery that they would be using, and he knew that the valley was invisible until you were actually on the ground. Whoever was coming would naturally be funneled into his kill zone, with nowhere to run.
Kevin stood in the center of the unoccupied tent, holding a black laser pointer. Studying the terrain model on the floor, he waited patiently for the pilots to finish up their briefing. His stomach twisted in knots, but he did his best to hide the nerves.
The model was basically a large rectangular sandbox that he’d set up to replicate the topographical features of the team’s objective. The primary infiltration route was a length of red string that snaked from the helicopter landing zone, or HLZ, all the way up to the target location. Every alternate landing zone, rally point, and phase line was represented with its own symbol so that every member of the team had a visual understanding of the mission.
He had done his best to be as thorough as possible, but he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he had missed something.
Five hours earlier, an NSA signal-intercept bird had “pinged” a satellite phone in northeast Pakistan. The sophisticated aircraft had recorded a conversation in English and, after running it through voice-recognition software, the analysts felt sure that the phone belonged to Anvil 7. An hour after the intercept, there was a satellite photo of a small house nestled in the shadows of the wooded mountain peaks.
Finally, they had actionable intel, but Kevin wasn’t buying it. It looked staged, but with General Swift in Bagram, his executive officer told Kevin to get his team ready. All available assets were tasked to the operation, including a joint CIA/Special Operations strike team, which had just arrived in country.
Major Toms, the XO, listened in silence as the pilots finished up their brief. He had no real idea as to what was going on and that was why he wanted Kevin to brief the infiltration and assault plan.
Kevin had never worked with the major before. He’d always been more than happy to let Renee deal with the brass, but she had fallen off the grid, and her phone kept going straight to voice mail. When he and Bones had suggested pushing the operation twenty-four hours, they were ignored, and all they could do now was pray for a miracle.
The lead pilot finished up his part and turned the floor over to the major.
“Kevin, it’s on you,” he said.
Aiming the red dot on the terrain model, he took a deep breath and dove in.
“Teams one and two will infil via CH-47 to HLZ Barney, and as soon as we are secure we will be moving out along the primary infil route until we reach phase line one.” The red dot traced the route along the edge of the valley until it came to the phase line, which was marked with black string and a Post-it note with the number 1 written in black ink.
“At phase line one the strike team, call sign Striker 6, will break off and move to the high ground, while my blocking team will continue to the rally point, which is about a kilometer from the target. We will hold here until Striker 6 has set up overwatch at phase line two.”
“What happens if we take contact before making it to our overwatch site?” a bearded operator on the Striker team asked, looking up from his notepad.
“The birds will need to clear the airspace to refuel, but we will have an AC-130 loitering across the border if we need it. Flight time will be ten minutes, and the major will establish comms with the pilot prior to departing phase line one. We’re going to have a Predator on station with Hellfires if we need it, but intelligence is pointing to a clean infil.”
“So if we get hit, we’re on our own for ten minutes?”
“Look, I know it sounds like we’re going in naked, but the mission dictates a high degree of stealth. These guys have shown a very sophisticated ability to use our air against us. To mitigate this we are keeping all aircraft outside the operations box until we need them. Trust me when I tell you that if we need the air, it will be there.”
“What if they’ve already left when we get there?” Bones asked.
“We’re using satellite and a high-altitude Global Hawk to keep an eye on the situation. If anything changes we’ll know. If there aren’t any more questions, I’ll continue with the brief.”