Night-vision goggles: they used to give US Special Forces the edge. Now they were available over the internet and in half the shops on Main Street…
When the journalist — the very man they had rescued — had written about the Lebanon raid, he had warned that America was relying on its reputation. The things which used to make it the supreme fighting country were slipping away, he said. Its technology had spread to its enemies. Worst of all, it had lost its fighting spirit — a generation brought up on TV and hamburgers was no match for jihadists and radicals.
Captain Morton hadn’t liked the skinny Canadian: instead of being grateful for his release, the first thing he had done was complain. In particular, Morton remembered how the journalist had mocked America’s capacity to take casualties — ‘casualty aversion’, the generals called it. In the Second World War, the US had lost 300,000 men without blinking. In Vietnam, it had lost 68,000 and been humbled. In Iraq, according to the Canadian journalist, it had lost just 4,000 and been humiliated.
Casualty aversion was why they were sending only two Chinooks-worth of Navy Seals to rescue Senator Roosevelt. Morton had argued for more — and lost.
For all his lack of gratitude, perhaps the journalist had been right: casualty aversion was crippling the American armed forces.
‘Two minutes,’ called the flight controller.
The words were inaudible over the noise of the helicopter, but it didn’t matter. The assault team were watching for his signal, and responded when they saw it.
Backpacks were buckled on, body armour tightened and helmets checked. Captain Morton took a final sip of water from the pipe attached to his shoulder. He remembered his pre-mission briefing session. He was glad to learn that parts of the mission had been planned by Sam Roosevelt himself before he left. Morton had queried why Juma had taken the Senator away from the city. After all, a hostage rescue in a city would be far harder. His commanding officer replied bluntly. ‘Because they’re dumb, that’s why.’ As he sucked on the water tube, Morton knew he would soon find out if his commanding officer was right.
‘One minute…’
The helicopter manoeuvred down, and angled forward as it began to dive. The men held their seat-straps, ready to unbuckle them the moment the wheels touched the ground.
A blast of air rushed into the body of the Chinook, filling the interior with dust. Captain Morton could just hear the voice of the flight controller shouting, ‘Go! Go! Go!’
With the front wheels still off the ground, the men ran down the centre of the machine, out into the downdraught from the rotor blades. Into the midnight desert. There they fanned out, running from the wind behind them, until they lay on the ground. Within seconds, the Chinook had risen off again and was gone. Captain Morton and his men were alone.
Morton’s SOPs — his Standard Operating Procedures — dictated a five-minute ‘soak’ period: time when the men were meant to remain still and tune in to their surroundings. Five minutes was easy to wait during training, but this was the real thing. They were too anxious. This time they were rescuing a Senator, no less. Five minutes was far too long for them to wait. Most were twitching after two or three.
A large insect crawled onto Morton’s neck. He couldn’t see it but only feel it as it climbed onto his face. Frozen still, he tried to ignore it, but it moved towards his nose. He had no choice: in one quick motion he brushed it off, and kept at it until his face was clear. He had to jump up as he did so. Instantly the men stood up with him. Three-and-a-half minutes, and they were all eager to move. No point waiting any longer. It was time to go.
Morton’s team had been dropped off four miles from the Senator’s mobile signal. Those four miles were enough to hide the noise of the Chinooks: their arrival would be a surprise to Juma’s gang. But it meant Morton and his men had to do a little light exercise before battle.
Four miles: a thirty-minute run. They set out, careful not to run too fast.
Morton wondered what his commanding officers were making of the feed from their helmet cams — the little cameras attached to the head of every one of his team. Hope you’re enjoying the pictures, folks…
Perhaps one day he’d be able to enjoy war from a sofa, watching helmet cam pictures as he sipped a latte somewhere on the East Coast.
Something flipped Morton’s mind back to the present. He was worried about the operation. Something wasn’t right.
As he and his men ran along the single track road, he felt eyes watch him from the shacks and scrub which dotted the desert on either side. He swung round in his night-vision goggles: nothing. His team kept on running.
One of the Navy Seals tapped his GPS. The monitor glowed in the dark to show they were halfway along the track. Just two miles to go.
They passed old concrete farm shacks, one on each side of the road.
Morton’s senses were screaming at him: something was very wrong.
He looked at the buildings: why make farm shacks out of concrete? And why build farm shacks in a desert? There was no farmland here.
There were two more of the concrete huts ahead, and more in the distance. Morton and his men were surrounded by them. In the dark he could just make out slits beneath the roofs.
He held up his fist, ordering his men to stop. They obeyed instantly, and the slap of boots on the dry mud stopped with them. Silence.
The silence enabled Captain Morton to make out the unmistakeable scratching noise of a gun barrel being repositioned on concrete. Others heard it too. Instinctively, they ducked down onto the ground, readying their weapons as they did so.
But it was far too late: they were already trapped.
With heavily protected firing positions on all sides, Morton’s men were caught on flat and very open terrain. Their efforts to shoot back into the concrete huts were useless. Juma’s men — Morton knew that was who it must be — were too well guarded. Bullets whizzed over Morton’s head. He heard the muffled sound of fast metal penetrating flesh. The soldier beside him took a chest wound. His men were too professional to scream when they were hit, but it didn’t stop them dying. The blast of gunfire came from all directions. When one of the men at the back tried to escape he was cut down.
Captain Morton didn’t have time to think about how disastrously the mission had turned out, or how Juma had been able to set such a perfect ambush. His fears that the Navy Seals were living on their reputation alone were proved correct.
Then he saw a chance to escape….
Twenty-Four
The live feed from the helmet cams was streaming back to the US, and to the secure computer suite within JFK airport where Myles and Susan were watching.
It was tragic: within seconds, most of the helmet cams became still, indicating the Seal who was wearing it had ceased to move. Some of them stopped showing pictures at all, because the cameras themselves had been hit.
Susan leant forward, peering at the screens. She couldn’t believe it.
Myles watched the few screens still moving. One showed tracer rounds of outgoing fire: the Seal was firing straight into one of the concrete huts. Then he had to turn, probably to cope with fire from behind.
Another showed a Seal trying to crawl through the bodies of his comrades, looking for cover. He managed to escape the main group, into a desert bush. But some of the foliage had been set alight by tracer rounds. The Seal had to move faster to avoid the flames, which probably meant he was seen. Soon a tall Somali pirate with an AK-47 was running towards him. The Seal raised his rifle to shoot the African, but the pictures from his helmet cam tumbled until they too were still. Myles and Susan knew that this man had become another casualty.