Black Site (6 page)

Rocky replied to Raynor’s comment with one of his own. “It’s dead down there.”

Jet asked, “If the Reaper comes back during daylight and clears to the next waypoint, are we going forward?”

Raynor shook his head though the men could not see one another in the brush. “I doubt it.”

“So we just hang out here all dang day,” Rocky said, and followed the comment with an audible spit.

Raynor hesitated. Then said, “I don’t like this place as an ROD. What do you think, Musket?”

The oldest of the team at thirty-eight, Mike Overstreet was also the ranking NCO of the troop. He had nearly twice the time in Delta as his major. His voice was low and gravelly. “Could be better. These bushes aren’t much cover.”

“Yeah,” agreed Racer. “Did you see a better spot anywhere behind us?”

“Not that we can get to before sunup.”

Kolt nodded. “What about those trees on the crest ahead. That would be a better ROD.”

Overstreet did not respond.

“Musket?”

“You askin’ me or tellin’ me, boss?”

“Asking.”

Racer heard the man shrug. “It’s a better spot than here. But Eagle 01 said to sit tight.”

“Yeah, he did, but that
is
a safer spot up ahead. We don’t need a UAV to tell us that this ravine is clear. We can cross, summit to that little saddle on the hill, and lay up there. If we should happen to get an overlook position—well, I’m not going to cry about it.”

Musket had been silent but now he spoke. “What’s Eagle 01 going to say about that?”

“Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission,” said Raynor.

Rocky’s and Jet’s chuckles permeated the hide.

For another thirty minutes they lay there, searching the nothingness of the gorge as it slowly filled with enough clear morning light for them to stow their night vision equipment. Kolt Raynor scratched his short black beard and rubbed his gloved fingers into his temples, briefly flattening the deep creases formed by sun and wind and austere living, most of it spent outdoors. Like a coiled spring his pent-up energy refused to dissipate until released.

Kolt Raynor was known in the Unit for making the most of his abilities. He wasn’t the fastest, the strongest, the smartest, or the most disciplined, but he was always there, always getting the job done by hook or by crook. The knock on him was that his confidence had gotten him a lot farther than his talent would ever have taken him. He was a risk taker, but even though he liked to do things his own way he was by no means a cowboy. Delta operators were team players and Kolt knew the strength in the Unit was the experience and skill of its cadre of NCOs. All in all it had served him well. That said, it certainly didn’t hurt that his friend T.J. was one of the most brilliant and dedicated officers in the Unit, and T.J. trusted and appreciated Raynor enough to run interference for him when his mouth or his exploits pushed the envelope of Delta standards and norms.

By 6 a.m. nothing had disturbed the stillness of the gorge. White rocks, thin pines and firs, patchy snow that rose into the air and then resettled with the comings and goings of a light breeze. Raynor thought of waiting another eighteen hours for just the
potential
of ID’ing the target location, only a few minutes’ hump away. At any time the al Qaeda HVT could leave the area, move deeper into Pakistan or cross into Afghanistan by any one of a number of routes. U.S. military outposts just over the border had been taking a beating recently, most likely due to improved training and tactics of the Taliban fighters in the area. Fighters trained by assholes like the HVT who, according to the intel reports, was close by, but just out of reach.

Kolt knew that if he and his men sat right here, at any moment the recall order could come, forcing him and his team back and ending what was likely to be his last incursion over the border before rotating back to Fort Bragg in a few weeks.

No. That would not be acceptable.

Raynor spoke into his mike. “Musket, what do you think?”

“About?”

“Can we make it across this little basin without being compromised?”

“I reckon.” Musket’s minimal small talk was typical of the man from the backwoods of Tennessee. More often than not his answers were punctuated with a spit of tobacco juice.

“You think we can find a hide in the trees on the crest of that hill that might get us overwatch on the target?”

A slight pause. “Don’t see why not.”

“You know that Chechen HVT could split at any time.”

“I reckon he could do just that.”

“I’m thinking the risk would be worth the reward.”

A considered pause now. “Your call, boss.”

Raynor hesitated a long time, weighing his options. Finally his chin rose slightly in the tall grass. “To hell with this. Let’s go take a peek.”

“Right on,” said Rocky. All four rose to their feet.

“I’ll straighten it out with T.J.” Raynor winked at Musket.

“You always do, Racer,” replied the master sergeant as he turned to lead down the hill.

“Fortune favors the brave,” declared Raynor, and then, “Rock, you and me first. Musket and Jet cover.”

The major and the sergeant descended the hill carefully. Under the watchful glass of their two teammates they crossed the low thick foliage on the western bank of the stream bed, negotiated the sharp shale and quartz of the bed itself, and ascended the steep rise on the other side of the ravine. Ten minutes later they dropped low in the hill scrub near the summit and scanned the little gorge behind them while Jet and Musket followed in their tracks. When the element rejoined on the eastern hillside they spread out and ascended to within a few yards of the crest. They moved in a crouch now near the summit. Raynor spoke into the mike of his MBITR inter/intra team radio. “Sit tight. I’m going over to find a spot in the trees where I can get glass on the area.”

Musket said, “How ’bout I go grab us an overwatch, Racer? You can come over when I call you.”

“No worries. Low and slow, I’ve got it.” Raynor doffed his pack, scooted forward on his belly with his rifle slung tight across his back and his spotter’s scope in his left hand.

Musket’s calm southern voice came over the MBITR. “Don’t get too far ahead, boss.”

“Yes, Mother.”

At the crest itself Raynor found the snowy brush too tall, so he turned to the right and lowered back behind the saddle, came back up at the small grove of pines. Here he could not get eyes on the valley either, because the high trees ran down the hill in front of him. So he advanced a few meters more and went prone again. He began moving west on the hillside. “Drop rucks and wait at the top of the ridge. As soon as I get an overwatch I’ll update you.”

Raynor scooted forward. He estimated he was twenty meters below the crest now, farther away from the relative safety of the saddle than he would have liked, but the shrubs were lower with each meter of his descent, providing more opportunity for a clean view of the valley. He knew he was pushing his luck a bit, but his concerns about the HVT slipping through their grasp and slipping into Afghanistan to kill Americans drove him forward. When he finally did get line of sight ahead he realized the hillside had a military crest a little lower. Only from the military crest could he see the entire floor of the valley. He began crawling down, but Musket spoke again into his ear, his tone more emphatic now.

“That’s far enough, Racer. I can’t see you. Come on back and we’ll try again farther south.”

“I’m almost there. Ten meters and I’ll have the entire gorge in sight.”

Forty meters from the ridge and his team, Raynor found a good spot in a tuft of snowy brush on the edge of a small outcrop of feldspar that hung over the valley. He settled in and brought his scope to his eye.

The 40 mm aperture did not provide a wide field of view, but its variable 10- to 20-power zoom gave him all the enhancement he needed. He studied the canyon floor, saw it to be nothing but a continuation of the winding dry stream bed that he’d crossed back on the other side of the hill, though now it widened to the width of a small river.

“This isn’t right. This looks like it fills with runoff during the rainy season. I don’t see how there could be an enemy fortification on the floor here.”

On the far bank the terrain rose sharply, nearly vertically in some places, to fully twice the height of the hill he was now on. Searching through the narrow glass he saw ledges and defilades on the hill, scanned them carefully though they were still well covered in shadows. He looked up at the glowing sunrise to the east—it would be an hour before he’d get a good look at that hillside.

“Could be something on the far wall. We’ll have to wait on the light.”

“Boss, how bout you exfil and we get back to the first ROD? We can make it work. We’ll come back tonight and look for a better overwatch, hit it from another angle. Shouldn’t have any problem finding enemy signatures with NODs.”

Raynor could hear the agitation in the master sergeant’s voice. Musket didn’t like it that his officer was so far ahead of the element over the target area. Raynor felt sure he wouldn’t be compromised here in his hide, but he also didn’t want to create any friction between himself and Musket.

“Roger that, Musket. I’m heading back.”

Raynor kept low, turned around on his knees, and began climbing off the shelf of rock. He’d gotten no more than five feet when his right boot broke off a thin plank of stone. The loud crack echoed in the wide gorge. Raynor tried to hook his boot onto the broken shale to keep it from falling away, but it slipped, slid lower across the outcropping, and fell off, into the gorge. The flat rock cracked and crunched against others as it smashed its way down. The noise was unrelenting for several seconds.

“Damn it.”

“You okay?” asked Musket. “You want me over there?”

“Negative, stand fast. I’m heading back.”

Raynor started to climb once again, but a faint noise caught his attention. He looked back over his shoulder at the canyon. There it was again.

Thump. Thump.
Major Raynor cocked his head. It came from far away, but it almost sounded like—

Musket shouted over the MBITR. He recognized the noise. “Mortars!”

A brief whistling and the hillside just below Raynor erupted in flash, smoke, and blasted debris. Rock and clumps of frozen dirt rained down on him.

“What the—”

More
thump thumps,
right before the second salvo landed on top of the first. Raynor knew a third was in the air, though he had no idea from where they were being fired. He rose to his feet and, crouching, climbed the hill toward the pine trees. A few meters to his left a sizable chunk of bark snapped off a thick trunk. Echoes of a high-powered rifle’s report followed. Kolt sprinted up the steep hill now, ran for the protection of the saddle as he shouted into his mike, “I got snipers!”

More crashes of mortar impacts behind. Directly on the overwatch Raynor had just vacated. As he climbed he saw his three-man team rise from the snow on the saddle above and to his right, scanning for targets through their weapons. Musket fired off a couple of rounds—whether he was shooting at an actual enemy or was just trying to keep heads down on the opposite hillside, Kolt had no idea.

“Bug out!” Raynor shouted to his men. Their fire was meant to cover his escape, but he wanted them to get the hell off the saddle and clear of the hornets’ nest he’d just stumbled into.

He reached his team as their rifles spat fire. He felt the overpressure of their rounds as they whizzed inches from his head toward some unseen enemy behind him. He passed Rocky at a sprint, crossed the threshold of the ridgeline, and started down the other side. He slowed and turned to provide covering fire for his team’s egress, unslung his short-barreled HK416 from his back and faced the valley. He lost his footing on the steep frozen earth and brittle shale and stumbled, just raised himself and his weapon back up when a mortar’s thunderclap slammed into his chest. Light and heat enveloped him and he saw his boots leave the hill, his legs rise out in front of him, and he felt his head spin backward. He had a notion of just missing one of his team members’ dropped rucksacks on the ground as he spun, crashed into the steep gradient and then bounced up, twisted sideways now and slammed onto his shoulder, rolled end over end down the hill, just missing boulders the height of automobiles and dragging down with him rocks the size of bowling balls.

Downward he rolled, no control as his arms and legs flailed in the air, the centrifugal force of his spin more powerful than his own muscles. His rifle twirled away from him and continued on its own descent, gear flung off his load-bearing vest and bounced along beside him, the rifle magazines and grenades that remained in their Velcro pouches buried themselves in his rib cage with each strike of the earth as he picked up more and more speed.

Close to the floor of the gorge now he suffered through one more whipping forward revolution, bounced awkwardly off his legs this time, and went completely airborne for several meters. He rotated through the air toward his back to try and cushion the impending blow.

His lower back and tailbone slammed into a massive stone, taking the full weight of his body and the full force of his motion.

He skidded off the side of the boulder and dropped four feet down to the cold earth, ending up on his back and staring at the sky.

Raynor heard the cracking of bones in his back and hip with the first impact, felt the continued crunching inside him as he came to rest.

Disoriented for several seconds, it took him a while to realize it, but as he tried to get up he found he could not feel his legs.

EIGHT

Kolt Raynor opened his eyes. He’d lost consciousness, he was sure, though he had no idea for how long. Frantically he reached out with his gloved hands in all directions. His fingers dug at the frozen dirt, wrenched brown grass out by the roots, slapped the sun-blanched boulder on his left hard while searching for his HK.

His rifle was gone, lost somewhere up the hillside.

His boots pointed toward the hill he’d just tumbled from. He lifted his head with a wince and scanned for his men. Tried to speak into his MBITR, but his microphone had been torn from his head in the fall.