“Okay, I got it!” The president sat knocking the dried tobacco from the pipe into the crystal ashtray on the corner of his desk. “Most powerful man on earth, my ass,” he muttered in disgust. “Here I am at the mercy of a single lunatic running around over there against my direct orders, and if he succeeds, I have to treat him like a damn hero! But if he fails, I’m the one who ends up looking like the dumbass.”
“That’s why they say the buck stops here, Mr. President.”
“I never said that,” the president snapped. “That idiot remark belongs to Truman!” He tossed his pipe back into the drawer and slammed it closed, grabbing the telephone. “Get me the White House Chief of Staff,” he ordered. “Tell him I want to see him — now! And tell him I want to see the Joint Chiefs as well.”
He hung up the phone and rocked back in the chair, pointing his finger at Hagen. “Now, what you’re going to do, my young friend, is figure out a way for me to burn this fucking SEAL to the ground — no matter what happens. Is that clear?”
Hagen hesitated.
“What, Tim?”
“Well, sir, if the mission fails, burning him probably won’t even be an issue. He’ll likely be dead — he may be dead already. But if it succeeds, sir… well, sir, a photo of you putting the Medal of Honor around the neck of the hero who saved America’s new sweetheart will look fantastic in all the papers.”
The president’s gaze turned flinty. “That’s not burning him.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s exactly what it is. The entire modern world will know his face, and within a week, they’ll know everything else there is to know about him. For an operational US Navy SEAL, Mr. President, particularly one as gung-ho and private as this one… there’s nothing worse.”
A slow grin took shape on the president’s face. “That’s perfect. Hell, it’s perfect all the way around. Remind me so I never forget to send you a Christmas card, Tim. You’re a ruthless bastard. Now what about Pope? Wasn’t he supposed to be keeping these SOG people under control?”
Hagen stood tugging on his lower lip, taking the time to give his response some very serious consideration before finally saying, “Well, sir, to be frank, Pope’s a horse of a different color. He’s… well, we don’t want to mess with Pope. Nobody really knows what he’s capable of. My recommendation is to think of him in these terms: in four years — provided we win the election — he’s somebody else’s problem.”
“What happened to the buck stops here?”
“Well, like you said, sir… that’s an idiot remark.”
CHAPTER 56
Gil reined back on the stallion to slow him. The terrain had grown too rugged for a full gallop, and there were too many trees for someone with a rifle to hide behind. He knew the Spectre was watching from above, but there were ways for an infantryman to evade infrared temporarily, and Afghan mountain fighters knew them as well as anyone. He trotted the horse down into a dry arroyo and aimed for a gap in the trees.
“You’re going to have to keep yourself in the saddle,” he said to Sandra, letting go of her and switching the reins to his left hand to draw the 1911. He felt her arms tighten around him as he urged the stallion to pick up the pace where the ground began to smooth out across a natural paving of trap rock. He unscrewed the suppressor from the pistol and stuck it into his pocket. The hair on his neck had begun to stand up, and he didn’t need the extra eleven ounces of steel hanging off the front of the weapon if it came time to throw down.
There were plenty of HIK fighters in the mountains to the east, west, and south, many of them moving in their direction, but the gunners up in the Spectre were saving their ammunition for any targets that might pose an immediate threat.
“Key the radio for me,” he said.
Sandra lifted the PRC-112 that hung from a lanyard around his neck and keyed the mike.
“Big Ten, this is Track Star, do you have a visual on our friendlies to the north? Over?”
“Roger that, Track Star. Twelve hundred meters due north of your position. We count twenty-plus individuals arranged in a phalanx south of your designated EZ. We also count twenty-plus horses in the trees. Over.”
“Roger that, Big Ten.”
Farther on Gil rode the stallion up out of the arroyo into an almond orchard. The earth was dry and hard-beaten by the goats and sheep that trampled it day after day. The low limbs made it hard to ride, but it would be quicker than skirting the orchard. As they made their way through the trees, the air pressure seemed to increase suddenly around them. A pair of sonic booms clapped overhead, and the sky was filled with the brain-scrambling roar of two Pratt & Whitney afterburning turbofan jet engines. The horse reared up, and Gil nearly fell from the saddle as he fought the animal under control.
“Son of a bitch!” he hissed. “I guess that’s the goddamn cavalry.”
“Crazy flyboys,” Sandra said into his neck.
They could hear the distant explosions of ordinance being dropped on the mountain to the west, but they couldn’t see exactly where because of the trees.
“That should drive them back into their holes for a minute or two,” Gil said.
They cleared the orchard as the F-16 Vipers were completing their bomb run and turning back toward the south for Bagram Air Base. With just over a thousand yards to go before they linked up with Forogh’s people, a pair of spider holes opened up in the ground right in front of them, and out popped two young Hezbi fighters hoping to catch a glimpse of the jet fighters before they were gone. At first, they seemed every bit as surprised to see Gil as he was to see them. He reined the horse left to give himself a better shot with his right hand and popped off two quick shots, killing them both.
Four more spider holes instantly opened up, and this time the men inside them came out firing. Gil shot two and killed them outright, digging his heels into the horse to send it bolting toward the gap in the mountains. The two remaining gunners continued to fire wildly at them from behind. The horse was hit multiple times and whirled around, groaning in pain and terror. Gil fought to get him under control as the gunners stopped to reload. Sandra held onto him for dear life, but the centrifugal force of the horse whirling around broke her grip, and she flew from the saddle.
This is it, Gil thought, fighting to keep the horse from trampling her. This is how I go out — fuck.
A 105 mm howitzer shell impacted between the gunners and blew them both to atoms. A shell fragment struck the horse in the brain and killed it instantly, sending it toppling from its feet toward where Sandra lay on the ground. Instead of jumping clear, Gil stayed tight in the saddle trying to steer the animal away, not realizing that it was dead on its feet. It crashed down on its right side, pinning Gil’s leg beneath it.
He pulled with all of his force, trying to free the leg, but it wouldn’t budge an inch. “Sandra!” he said, grabbing her wrist.
She lifted her head and dragged herself up against him. “I’m okay.”
He jerked the M4 from his back and put it into her hands. “Keep under cover here behind the horse.” He unclipped the Remington from his harness and rested the bipod on the horse’s rib cage, putting his eye to the scope and searching the surrounding terrain. The enemy was moving toward them now from both the east and the west.