He was almost at the door when Eric said, “Snipers. Send it.”
He saw the four men on the roof collapse in the overhead drone feed and he hit the door just as the reports from the sniper rifles echoed from the rocks. He slowed long enough to kick the door with his boot, and with his forward momentum, the door blasted inward.
He had time to register the men, some sleeping on mats, some still awake in chairs, as they jerked awake from his sudden intrusion. He pulled the trigger on the AG36 grenade launcher mounted under the barrel of his HK, but instead of grenades, he launched two screamers, each the size of a tennis ball. The screamers hit the far wall and began their intense shrieking, the LED’s flashing like strobe lights. The VISOR was barely able to dampen the noise and filter out the glare. He could only imagine what it was like for the scraggly men.
Stunned, they struggled to move, but he unleashed the HK, cutting down three men sitting on low wooden stools. He didn’t even have time to notice their faces before he swung his rifle across and let loose on the four men still laying on sleeping mats.
The men jerked and flopped like fish out of water, but he was already on to the remaining men. The smallest one, barely out of his teens, was desperately trying to grab his AK-47, but John’s HK unloaded and bullets struck the boy’s face, tearing holes in his cheek, snapping the boy’s head back. He fell to the floor, unmoving.
Two men remained. They had finally found their AK-47’s, and they fumbled to get them into firing position, but the light and the sound from the screamers blinded and deafened them. They finally managed to fire on full automatic, spraying gunfire blindly, trying to kill him.
Bullets were whizzing around, and he finally noticed the wooden crate in the center of the room. It was as tall as a man, and as round as a small refrigerator.
“Don’t let them hit the bomb,” Eric shouted.
Probably a good idea. He dove to the floor and dropped the magazine from his HK, inserted a new one, all in a matter of seconds, then got busy putting some holes in each man.
They dropped where they stood, their guns going silent. He hit the trigger on the AG36 and the screamers stopped their wailing. In the sudden quiet, he heard a noise behind him, the crunch of boots on rock.
He turned to see Deion taking in the carnage with a look of awe.
“Christ, that was amazing,” Deion breathed.
John nodded, then turned back to the room. The dead and dying littered the floor, along with dirty plates from their evening meal. A few ragged blankets lay next to the men who had been sleeping, now absorbing the blood from their wounds like a sponge. In the quiet, he heard choking breaths slow and stop as the living joined the dead.
He tried not to look at their faces. Most were no older than him. The youngest appeared to stare at him with wide, glassy eyes.
It wasn’t the first time the dead had stared accusingly, but it still made him sick. He glanced at the crate in the center of the room and consoled himself that he wasn’t the reason they were dead.
He heard gunfire outside, amplified by the VISOR. He switched to an overhead view and saw villagers approaching from the south, firing wildly. The Operators returned fire, and he saw one of the approaching villagers fall.
Half a dozen Operators rushed inside the building and Deion pointed to the crate. “Lift!”
John joined them and they lifted as one, picking the crate up and carrying it out the door. The sounds of battle were everywhere.
“Fast movers inbound,” Eric said, right before a massive pair of explosions rocked the ground. John shook his head as he saw the giant plumes of light in his VISOR. The bombs detonated at the edge of a dusty street not far south of them, and the resulting wave of dust and debris temporarily blocked them from the rest of Ely.
He tried not to think of how many innocents might have died in that blast, wives and children who knew nothing of the terrorists using Ely as a way point. He had a mission and there was no time to dally.
They carried the crate to the north, dozens of yards. A pair of Operators had spread a nylon net on the ground and they placed the crate in the center of it. He watched as the Operator to his right cinched up the rope, then took a metal canister the size of a beachball from a duffel bag and attached a hose. His partner unloaded another duffel bag and quickly did the same. Together, they attached the hoses to a third bag and when they flipped the valves on the tanks, the bag burst at the seams and quickly inflated into a giant balloon.
John knew about the Fulton recovery system, but it was the first time he had seen it in use. There was a bright blinking from the bottom of the balloon, a laser strobe that — combined with a GPS signal — would guide the Hercules for pickup.
He watched the RADAR signature as the Hercules closed in. It had been in a holding pattern over the Gulf of Aden, and as soon as they dropped, had started its approach. It was moving slowly, right above its stall speed, and he turned to the east and saw the ghostly outline of the plane hugging the horizon.
“Prepare for pickup,” the pilot said over coms.
“The helicopters are almost there,” Eric said.
“Roger that,” Deion said, then raised his arms and pointed to the north. The Operators ran, heading for their exfiltration point. Sporadic gunfire echoed from the south, but the villagers offered no serious threat as Deion led them to the LZ.
John turned back to the south as the Hercules flew overhead, so low he thought he could reach out and touch it, then there was a whoosh as the hooks on the front of the plane caught the cable and snatched the wooden crate from the ground.
A whump-whump began to thrum through his chest as the pair of CH-46 Sea Knights came rumbling through the sky. It was only moments after the Hercules scooped up the bomb before the helicopters wake turned the LZ into a dirty hurricane of dust. They quickly scrambled aboard, filling both helicopters.
The pilots had the Sea Knights in the air just seconds after the last Operators climbed in. They headed east, then banked and headed back over the Gulf toward the USS Peleliu.
He leaned back in his seat and felt a tremor in his arm. No matter how fantastic the drugs in the Implant, it couldn’t overcome basic human anatomy. He needed downtime, to rest, to let his wounded arm and leg heal. More importantly, and something he would never admit to Deion or Eric, he needed time to mentally process the battle, both in Ely and in Aleppo.
“Good work, gentleman,” Eric said. “We have the package.”
John sighed. Not a single Operator was lost, and they had recovered a nuclear bomb. The crew-members in the Hercules would be winching the crate onboard, heading north east to Yemen and then back to Prince Sultan Air Base.
There was a collective whoop as the Operators finally let out their pent-up emotions. He watched as Deion high-fived Redman. Redman broke into a big grin, and turned to slap Stratello and Young on the back.
John felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hell of a job,” Taylor yelled over the sound of the rotors.
He allowed himself a rare smile. “Thanks, TM.”
Mark reached over and lightly slapped him on the back of the VISOR. “What he said.”
He took a deep breath. It’s over.
It was his last thought before the VISOR’s display went crazy and they lost power, the back of the helicopter plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER NINE
The Sea Knight plummeted toward the Gulf of Aden. John heard Operators yelling, telling each other to prepare for impact, and his stomach lurched, trying to rise into his throat. An emergency light flickered to life as the Sea Knight’s engines went silent, but there was still a whoosh-whoosh as the blades continued to spin.