How did I feel about that?
I desperately loved my country and my job. If I just turned my back on the situation because I was “little people,” then I was no better than them.
Lights from the first helicopter panned across the village wall behind us, the whomping now louder, the reactionary gunfire lifting up from the ground.
My satellite phone kept ringing. I figured it was Brown or Ramirez, so I ignored it.
A roar came from the troops somewhere out there, and a half dozen RPGs screamed up toward the chopper, whose pilot banked suddenly away from the incoming.
Zahed began to smile. Even his teeth had been whitened. The CIA had pampered his ass, all right.
Bronco was about to say something. Mike had his gaze on the helicopter.
The trigger came down more easily than I had anticipated, and my round struck Zahed in the forehead, slightly off center. His head snapped back and he crashed back into the Mercedes and slid down to the ground, the blood spray glistening across the car’s roof.
Bronco and Mike reacted instantly, drawing their weapons.
I shot Bronco first, then Mike.
But I didn’t kill them. I shot them in the legs, knocking them off their feet as I whirled and sprinted back toward the shattered window. My phone had stopped ringing.
“You’re going down for this, Joe! You have no idea what you’ve done! No idea!”
There was a lot of cursing involved — by both of us — but suffice it to say I ignored them and climbed back into the bedroom, where Hila lay motionless.
I was panting, shaking her hands, gently moving her head. I panicked, checked her neck for a carotid pulse. Thank God. She was alive but unconscious. I dug the Cross-Com out of my pocket, activated it, changed the magazine on my pistol. I gently scooped up Hila, slid her over my shoulder, then started out of the room, my gun hand trembling.
“Predator Control, this is Ghost Lead, over.”
A box opened in my HUD. “Where you been, Ghost Lead?”
“Busy.”
“CAS units moving into your area, over.”
“Got ’em. Can you lock onto my location?
“I’ve got it.”
“Good. I need Hellfires right on my head. Everything you got. There are no civilians here. I repeat, no civilians. We got a weapons and opium cache in the basement. I want it taken out, over.”
“Roger that, Ghost Lead. I still have no authorization for fires at this time, over.”
“I understand, buddy. Tell you what. Give me ten minutes, and then you make your decision — and live by it…”
“Roger that, Ghost Lead.”
With a few hundred Taliban fighters to defend the village, I had a bad feeling that they’d manage to either move or simply secure all those weapons and opium. Better to take the cache out of the picture — blow it all back to Allah. I wasn’t sure how committed Harruck’s Close Air Support was, either.
I had considered for the better part of two seconds taking Hila straight outside and trying to link up with one of the choppers, but the place still swarmed with Taliban. I’d rather take them out one or two at a time in the tunnels. So I carried her back to the basement and descended the stairs.
“Ghost Lead, this is Predator Control. I’ve just received an override order. I have clearance to fire. But I will lose the target in four minutes, fifteen seconds, over.”
“Let the clock tick,” I told him. “But don’t miss your shot. I’m getting the hell out of here.”
“Roger that, Ghost Lead. Godspeed.”
I nearly fell down the staircase near the bottom, caught my balance, then turned toward the tunnel at the far end. Judging from the sounds above, most of the Taliban were engaging the choppers or putting fire on the mountainside. I didn’t expect to encounter much resistance in the tunnel, so when I cleared the rock section and ducked a bit lower to enter the drainage pipe, I froze at the sound of voices.
I doused the penlight in my other hand.
Flashlights shone ahead. I set Hila down. I flicked the penlight back on.
Oh, no. There was a long line of guys, maybe twenty, maybe more, coming right at us.
I saw them.
They saw me.
They screamed.
I reached into my web gear and produced a grenade.
They screamed again.
I pulled the pin and pitched the grenade far down the pipe, then threw myself over Hila as three, two—
My satellite phone started ringing again.
One.
I cupped my ears as the grenade went off with a blinding flash and rush of air, as the men shrieked now, and I suddenly rose, damning my ringing phone to hell, and unleashed salvo after salvo through the smoke and gleaming debris.
Then I screamed ahead, told them to run away or die, I think. Something pretty close.
The pipe grew very quiet, save for my ringing phone. I cursed, pulled it from my pocket, and realized it’d been General Keating on the line.
Aw, damn. I’d get with the old man later. I switched off the phone, picked up Hila, and eased my way forward as far ahead, footfalls sounded, though no flashlights lifted my way. I neared the area of the explosion, saw how the concrete had been blasted apart, then realized the earth above had nothing to support it. Below were a half dozen men shredded into bloody heaps.
I reached up with my finger to check the stability of the ceiling, and that was when the entire section of earth came down on top of me. It all happened so fast that I didn’t realize how much dirt had fallen until I tried to move my legs. Trapped. I managed to bring up one arm and brush it from my face. I spit dirt, then glanced up… and there it was about a meter above, an open hole and the stars beyond. The gunfire popped and cracked, and two mortars exploded somewhere beyond.
I started writhing back and forth, trying to free myself, when I heard more voices. I wasn’t sure which side of the tunnel they were coming from. I began to panic, shoving my arm more violently and trying to kick. The earth to my right began to give away, and suddenly I fell sideways and out of the pile, sliding down a hill of dirt that was spreading to Hila.
“Ghost Lead, this is Predator Control. Thirty seconds, and you are still too close to the drop zone, over.”
“Roger that,” I said, then coughed. “I’m moving out. You just do your job!”
“Mitchell, this is Keating,” called the general as another video box opened in my HUD. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, son! Your orders have changed!”
So I ripped the Cross-com off my head and turned it off. It was a little late for that shit.
The passage through the pipe was completely blocked. I thought if I could get us up on top of the pile, I might be able to push Hila through the hole and up top.
But I had no idea what we’d find up there. I needed to chance a look for myself. I climbed back up, pushing back into the dirt, and up through the hole until my head jutted out. I was facing the mountainside, muzzle flashes dancing across the ridgelines. I turned around to face the village and saw at least forty Taliban fighters racing directly toward me running behind a pair of pickup trucks with fifty-calibers mounted on the back, the guns spewing rounds.
But then, from somewhere behind me came the hiss of rockets, and just as I turned my head, I saw an Apache roar overhead and the pickup trucks explode in great fireballs not thirty meters from my head.