Slade and Kincaid covered the egress of the Delta Force squads. When they were all gathered they hot footed it from the ridge where Slade set up his sniper station and headed southeast.
“You set up the booby traps?” Kincaid asked the Alpha team.
“Couldn’t,” he said. “There were kids in the house; we could hear them.”
“Damned terrorists hiding behind civilians!”
They jogged out of the engagement area. The French hostage wasn’t in the same kind of shape as the Deltas so they purloined a bicycle and stuck him on top, trotting on either side of him. It was ninety minutes before they reached the little road. A hundred yards further on was the abandoned village.
“Boss, there’s a dust cloud coming from the direction of the target village,” one of the men warned.
Slade scrambled up the shoulder of the ridge and turned his scope north. “Killer we’ve got company!” Slade announced. “Four vehicles heading our way; they are a two thousand yards and closing. It looks like we’re compromised!”
“Bravo plant me some Claymores along the road! Slade, give me the Light Fifty!”
Slade unslung the Barret and handed it to Killer.
“Get the bird warmed up. We’ll be hot on your heels!” Kincaid said, taking the sniper rifle and steadying it atop a boulder. “Alpha, escort the package. Bravo you’re with me!”
Killer and his two man team set up shop at the edge of the ridge where the road turned to the right. As they hunkered down behind the available cover the convoy of trucks appeared at the far point of a shallow valley five hundred yards away. They gunned their motors in a cloud of dust.
As the men set up a few rows of Claymores to cover their egress Killer began sending fifty caliber rounds at the drivers. Finished with their mine-laying, the other Deltas joined their commander and let loose with their SCARS, sending a hail of 7.62 mm rounds at the enemy.
Killer hit one driver in the throat. He took his hands off the wheel and flung them instinctively over his wound. The shell nearly decapitated the terrorist; his head lolled grotesquely to the side as he slumped over the wheel. The terrorist next to him tried to grab the steering wheel, but the dead driver’s arm caught in the spokes as he slumped over. The truck turned hard left, spilling the dozens of terrorists crowded in the back onto the desert road. Many of those were run over by the following trucks, who avoided hitting the tumbling truck but not the men scattered across the road.
“Grenades!” Killer shouted.
Two volleys of three grenades flew through the air. The remaining trucks made it through the hail of bullets only to endure the explosions of the grenades and claymores. One truck veered off in flames. Terrorists leapt from the back, some were on fire. Two trucks made it through.
A growing roar behind them caught Killer’s attention. “Time to go boys, bug out!”
Slade sprinted around the corner and headed toward the parked aircraft. Between the buildings underneath a camouflage net sat the OV-10 Bronco. He didn’t need to tell the Deltas what to do. As he clambered into the forward cockpit they cut loose the netting so that it wouldn’t foul the props. Then they loaded up the hostage and took their places in the rear, weapons pointed out the open back of the aircraft.
He primed the engines and hit the cartridges; the motors coughed to life amidst two black clouds of gritty, acrid smoke.
Checking to either side, Slade cleared his path, making sure he wasn’t going to chop up a friendly Delta; seeing nothing he pushed the throttles up. He didn’t worry about checking with the Deltas in the back; those guys could take care of themselves.
The Bronco started forward at a brisk pace, heading out of the narrow opening between the two dilapidated buildings and out into the street. He stopped, keying the mike and transmitting, “Killer are you ready to mount up?”
“Coming up behind you!” replied the testy voice of Killer. “They’re hot on our tail!”
Looking in his rear view mirror, Slade saw Killer hustle his men to the Bronco. As they closed Slade shoved the throttles up, moving the twin turboprop ahead at a brisk walk. Dust spiraled out from behind the OV-10, providing effective cover, but the first tracers were coming out of the growing cloud.
The Deltas piled in. As their fields of fire cleared the Deltas already on board began pouring fire behind them. They couldn’t see their targets, but unlike the terrorists they weren’t firing blind. The tracers gave them a good idea where the firing was coming from. The bark of the SCARS and the ripping fire of the light machine gun made the Bronco shudder.
“All right go, go, go!” Killer yelled through his mike.
For Slade that meant everyone was secure, and he jammed the throttles up to the firewall. The Bronco leapt forward, spitting dust and gravel behind it. The aircraft bucked like its namesake. Slade kept the stick forward, keeping the pressure on the nosegear to give him better steering over the rough terrain.
Twenty-five, thirty, forty knots; the airspeed climbed quickly. All he needed was another forty knots and they’d be able to get airborne. Tracers flashed around the aircraft but Slade hadn’t felt any impacts. A blur of movement on his left caught his peripheral vision. One of the trucks was careening over the field, closing in on him and trying to cut him off. They were only forty yards to his left and the truck had a head of steam. The back of the truck carried about a dozen rag tag terrorists, swathed in loose fitting clothing and black schmaugs. One even carried a black flag with “spaghetti noodles” in dirty white.
The terrorists on the truck were firing, or rather they were trying to fire at Slade. In his determination to cut Slade off, the driver floored the gas pedal without regard to the terrain or his cargo. Every furrow, every hole, every hillock caused the truck to bounce and rock wildly.
The terrorists in the back should have been able to draw a bead on the Bronco as it accelerated, but the truck’s passage threw them around so violently they fired everywhere but at the aircraft.
One terrorist tried to steady himself with one hand on the plank rail of the bed and fire his AK-47 with the other. He almost had the automatic rifle steadied on the cockpit — Slade prepared to swerve — but the truck’s front right tire disappeared halfway down a hollow and then popped back up again, driving the front right quarter of the truck airborne. It came down with a crash, bottoming out the tire and digging the fender into the sandy soil.
All the while the terrorist squeezed the trigger of the AK on full auto. He sprayed his entire clip into the sky and even behind his shoulder as the truck bottomed out. He caught the flag bearer, shooting off the terrorist’s right arm at the middle of the forearm. The flag tumbled from the truck and into the dirt with the hand still attached to it.
The impact bounced two terrorists right out of the truck — it would have bounced a third — but he was manning the fifty caliber machine gun mounted on the bed of the truck. He held onto the gun for dear life, flying like a pennant in a violent wind. When the truck bottomed out he hit the deck hard. The force ripped his hands from the gun and he inadvertently fired off another burst straight up into the sky.
“What I wouldn’t give for a couple of JATOs right now!” Slade swore, meaning the old, old school way of getting an aircraft off the ground through disposable rocket assist engines.
“What?” shouted Killer, who was climbing into the back seat and was now on interphone.
It didn’t matter. The terrorist driver’s heavy handed tactics slowed the big truck down enough for Slade to pull the surging Bronco ahead of him. He watched the terrorist yank the wheel to the right, driving the truck through a line of shrubs and a shallow ditch next to the road.
“A present coming your way gentlemen,” Slade barked.