“Umph…” Arielle instinctively exhaled as the next round hit her squarely in the chest with her body armor completely absorbing the impact. “Yeah, I think I see him,” she said as she crouched behind the turret looking for the sniper. “I gotcha,” she whispered to herself as she peered through the infrared scope on her HK 417 assault rifle and squeezed the trigger. “That’s one less bastard we need to worry about,” she assured Monty. “Okay, let’s get a couple tourniquets on those legs of yours and then get you out of here. You ready?” she asked as she pulled him towards the edge of the vehicle.
“Moose, you got ‘em?” Arielle yelled to the SEAL she recognized from the Latakia raid.
“Yeah, I have him. Go ahead and let go.”
“Okay, let’s get him out of here,” Arielle said to Moose as she jumped off the LAV. They each grabbed one of Monty’s arms and carried him under his shoulders as they ran towards the two story house where the rest of the team hunkered down.
“Nightwatch, how we situated for CAS?” Stonewall radioed.
“Ghostrider’s still on station. We’ve also got a few Apaches, Hogs and some Bones.”
“Okay, Nightwatch, we’re about seven hundred meters from you. We’re on the corner of Highway 6 and The 23rd of February Street. We’re in a two story house with bandits in the rest of the buildings around us. There’s a seven story apartment building northwest of us which you can probably see, then there’s a three story building immediately to our west and a two story complex immediately north of us. We’re taking fire from all three buildings — the RPGs are coming in thick has hail!”
“How far are you from these buildings?”
“Thirty meters, give or take. Go with five hundred pound JDAMs. Attack from the northwest. My initials are T J—Tango Juliet — if needed.”
“Roger that, be right back,” Nightwatch replied.
“Arielle, how’s Monty?”
“Not good. The RPG almost took off both of his legs. I’ve got tourniquets on each and we’ll need to carry him. Needs a doc, pronto.”
“Okay, we’ve got inbound air support that’ll be taking down the buildings in front and beside us across the street. That should eliminate the immediate threat. We need to hunker down.”
“What are they using?” Arielle asked.
“Mark 82s.”
“Got a couple extra helmets?” Colonel Marshall asked when she heard this.
“What’s this?” Secretary Johnson asked.
“We’ve got an ISIS force between us and the rest of our team back at the hotel you were at,” Arielle began. “Rather than fight our way through, we’re going to drop a number of five hundred pound bombs on them but we’re a little too close to the target.”
“How close is ‘too close’?”
“Couple hundred yards,” Arielle replied.
“And we’re how close?” Johnson asked.
“About thirty,” Stonewall said as he handed them both the helmets, ear protection and the flak jackets the deceased SEALs had been wearing. “We’re behind a concrete-walled building so as long as the bombs are on target, we should be fine.”
“Chaos, Nightwatch. The Bone pilot wants confirmation from you. Her call sign is Bengal Six.”
“Roger that, Nightwatch.”
“Bengal Six, Chaos.”
“Chaos, Bengal Six. Please confirm your fire mission. Six JDAM Mark 82s, Danger Close,” the commanding officer of the 37th Bomb Squadron replied. She didn’t make the customary request for the commanding officer’s initials as she fully recognized her brother’s voice over the radio.
“Bengal Six, that’s confirmed.”
“Very well, Chaos. Bombs away. Keep your head down.”
“Everybody down!” Chaos ordered as everyone crawled under the nearest solid object, many of them crouching right up against the stone walls on the near side of where the bombs would be dropped. Seconds later, the entire world erupted around them. The ground shook as if a major earth quake had just struck. Debris from the destroyed buildings rained down on the house collapsing the roof and ceiling of the structure, completely burying several of them. Once the noise of the falling debris subsided, the cries of help could be heard, some clearly in pain.
“Everybody okay?” Stonewall asked as he began digging through the debris from the collapsed ceiling. Arielle had been with Secretary Johnson and Colonel Marshall and a beam from the ceiling lay on top of them.
“Stonewall, can you help get this stuff off of us?” Arielle asked as she tried lifting it off of them by herself.
“Just a sec. I need to clear some of this stuff away. Okay, here we go.”
“Aw, Jeez, that hurts,” Secretary Johnson cried out as they lifted the beam off of her. “I think I’ve got a broken leg.”
Once they had the beam completely removed the fracture to her lower right leg was readily apparent. Arielle and Moose quickly placed a SAM splint on her leg and hit her up with a dose of ketamine.
“Arielle, do you have any water?” Secretary Johnson asked.
“Here ya go, ma’am,” Moose replied.
“Thanks, Moose,” Johnson replied as she took a long swig from the canteen and then dumped most of the rest of it over her face and head.
“Anybody else hurt?” Chaos asked.
“Nothing but a few bruises over here,” Falcon said.
“Okay, Madam Secretary, we need to move as soon as you’re able.”
“We’re going to have to carry her,” Arielle said to Stonewall. “We don’t have a litter.”
“Madam Secretary, we need to get out of here. I’m going to carry you on my back until we meet up with the truck.”
“You mean you’re giving me a piggyback ride,” she asked with a bit of a grin “with my bare ass hanging out for all to see?”
“That’s about the size of it, ma’am.”
“Okay, Colonel, just trying to get the mental picture of it. Let’s do this. This leg really hurts and I’ve already lost all sense of modesty as it is. I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Bengal Six, Chaos, nice work! We’re on the move.”
“Happy to oblige, Chaos.”
“Viking Two-Six, Chaos. We’re on foot crawling over the rubble. Send the last truck this way to pick us up. Take the rest of the team and head up towards the air strip. We’ll pick up everyone that won’t fit in LAVs as we meet up with them.”
“Truck’s on the way. One minute out.”
“Cougar, Chaos. Time to get your team out of here. We’ll be out’a here real soon, ourselves.”
“Roger that, Chaos. Shouldn’t take us too long. We’ve made sure that no one’s crossing the river so we should be okay.”
“Very good, Cougar. Thanks for the assist with this.”
XLI
“Mahdi flight, execute turn.” And with that, the entire flight took a new heading of two-nine-six degrees.
“Mahdis. Fuel check. Let’s get all of you topped off.”
“Roger that,” came the eight replies. And with that, the F-16s loaded with the B-61 nuclear bombs topped off their fuel tanks. The remaining fuel in the tankers went to their fighter escort. Once the refueling had been completed, the entire fleet climbed to an altitude of 43,000’ and increased their speed to Mach one.
“Ma’am, we just received another transmission from this ‘Mahdi’ flight. Sounds like they’re making their final refueling for the flight.”
“Any idea where they’re at?”
“Negative, we’ve got nothing on radar but their communications are coming in loud and clear. We first herd them twenty-five minutes ago when we were up here,” the communications sergeant pointed to his plot on the map. “Now, we’ve been on a heading of two-two-zero for close to fifteen minutes — heading away from that previous comm intercept and they’re still coming in five by five. We’re on the right track, ma’am. Archangel wanted us southwest of Baghdad. We might want to step on it.”