Dangerous Territory: An Alpha Ops novella (3 page)

“Oh sure. It will be loud, and dark, and dangerous, and we have no idea what we will be getting into. And the weather is supposed to get real bad soon. Probably pretty scary for all of us. But that’s why we picked you for the team. We know you can handle it. We’re relying on you to get us through this, and you can rely on us to do the same for you.” Josh stopped throwing the ball and held his fist out to the young man, who grinned and knocked his fist on top of it.

“Scramble! Scramble!” Commander Ransom gave them the order even though no details had come in on their mission. Information would be relayed to their helicopter en route. Josh ran past D.D., nudging him deliberately, getting him to run with him. He grinned, and they sprinted toward their aircraft.

All their gear was cleaned and stowed at the change of shift, so all Josh and the three others in his helo had to do was grab their Kevlar, their helmets and guns, and wait for more information.

As soon as they had donned their headsets, the order came that they were clear to take off. The lead Pave Hawk helo and Josh’s tailing helicopter took off together, dipped their noses, and sped into the dark.

Josh took the position of door gunner, eyes never wavering from the ground they were flying over. His job was to spot ground-to-air fire and either shoot back, or tell the pilot so he could evade. Unfortunately, every nut with a gun down there liked taking potshots at them.

The pilot came through on the earphones. “We’re thirty-five klicks from the hot zone. Our flight trajectory has us arriving in ten minutes.” The two parajumpers heard him relay the same information to the pilot of the lead helo.

D.D. examined his weapon’s magazine. Josh watched, bemused, as he took it out of his gun, looked at the rounds it held, pressed the top bullet down a bit, shoved the magazine back in the gun, and then no more than twenty seconds later, he went through the same process again.

“Stop! You’ve got this!” he said over the headphone mic. Josh was actually a little anxious about the mission. He always wanted to be a bit nervous, like his trainer at Combat Dive School had drummed into them: “A lack of nerves will get you killed. Feel the stress, but don’t react to it.” But this evening, there was a bad-weather warning on top of this rescue. Weather tended to fuck everything up in a totally new way each time. But he didn’t want to transmit his concern to D.D., and hopefully, the ground would not see their feet tonight. Hopefully, the lead PJs would get to everyone.

“I’m just double-checking, T.S.” D.D. addressed Josh by his parajumper acronym, which was a good sign. The first and last letter of a last name served as an identifier that wouldn’t give anything away to the enemy. That D.D. was in the job mind-set relaxed him a little.

“I trust that your weapon is loaded and that you can cover me. Don’t stress. Pulling the safety off that thing is a last resort. And we…”

D.D. joined in with their small team’s unofficial motto. “We
are
the last resort.”

“Grace,” Beth ground out between gritted teeth. “You have to go. There aren’t enough of us to protect you. Son of a bitch…”

James was trying to stanch the blood oozing from Beth’s leg. He worked in the light of his helmet torch. He turned briefly to Grace. “Look. The contact is about half a klick down there.” He nodded toward the sound of firecrackers.

Yeah, firecrackers. It was a regular Fourth of July party.

“The helos will land under close air support from two Strike Eagles. I want you to get up in the hill over there and take cover until you hear the second round of bombs drop. Then, when you see the helicopters land, walk toward them with a light shining on your press badge. Keep your hands visible, and stop about ten meters from the aircraft, so they can make sure you’re not wearing anything you shouldn’t.”

“What?” She looked down in the dark at her jeans and long sleeved T-shirt.

“They’ll be looking for explosives. They’re kind of sensitive about who they let on their birds.”

Oh. Okay. Fair enough.

He ripped off his helmet light and gave it to her. “Don’t trip and skin your knee, okay?”

“I’ll try not to.” She paused and shone the small light toward the ground. Her skin bristled with fear, which her brain was trying very hard not to acknowledge. She wasn’t supposed to be here. The commanders only sent her on “safe” missions and patrols.

“Safe.” A relative word in a war zone.

She really didn’t want to leave Beth, but that was another thing in her brain she was trying not to pay any attention to. Attachments hurt. Friendships hurt. Here especially.

Walker ran her to the cover of the rocks and pointed her in the direction of where he wanted her to hide. Then he returned to Beth.

She gave one last look at Beth and started to scramble up the hill, trying to avoid the scree that trickled down the slope at the slightest of wrong steps. A wind blew from her right, the side of the valley they hadn’t reached, and the gusts muffled the sound of gunfire to where she had to strain to hear it. A cave entrance appeared in her peripheral vision, and she changed course to take shelter in it. It was perfectly placed so that she would be able to see the helicopters landing. She struggled to find a path to it, but eventually made it up there.

It was strangely silent in the cave. Tall enough to stand up in and deep enough to house a football team. In the middle of the night, with the hillside alive with insurgents, she didn’t explore. She pressed herself against the rock, about a foot in from the entrance, and watched.

An aircraft screamed up the valley, sounding as if it were mere feet away from her. She cowered, plugged her fingers in her ears, and waited for the first wave of explosions.

The booms brought trickles of small rocks running past her hiding place.

Was this really what her life had come to? Crouched in an Afghan cave in the middle of the night without anyone to interview? Shit.

She heard a loud thrumming noise and looked to see if the helos had arrived… Thank God. She could get back to base and shower off this unholy mess. Make sure everyone made it back okay, especially Beth.

But as the noise got closer, she didn’t recognize the sound as an aircraft. It was more like a train, but not a consistent tone. Wind blew her hair off her face, and as it did, splatters of sand peppered her skin. Billowing clouds were coming up the valley like a slow-moving tsunami. Sandstorm. Not good. So not good.

She dived into her backpack and brought out the traditional Afghan head covering she used when interviewing locals. She wrapped it around her face and head, tucking the ends in so that no part of her was uncovered. She stuck her hands in her pockets and sat on the backpack to keep it safe.

A few minutes later, she had to retreat farther into the dark cave. No helicopter could land in this.

All she could do was take cover and wait. And wait…

*     *     *

As Josh’s team neared the landing zone, the primary helo had pulled up and alerted them that a huge sandstorm was blowing up the valley.

“Okay. Circle until we have confirmation of new LZ,” Josh’s pilot ordered the other pilot.

A crackle came from a radio on the ground. “This is Playboy. I have cleared LZ to the north, repeat, north of the road. You have about five minutes before the storm hits. Six before the Strike Eagles open their doors.”

Josh smiled. He knew that meant that they had six minutes before the Strike Eagle aircraft dropped five hundred pounds of explosives on the Taliban position.

The pilot radioed back. “Copy that, Playboy. Any enemy combatants?”

“Affirmative. There are five of us holding them off on the west side of the LZ. They are entrenched in the hill there. We’re on level ground, covering the LZ.”

“Good job, Playboy. We’re overhead. Can you light it up?”

“Copy that.”

Josh peered outside the door, and in thirty seconds, four lit green flares were thrown to four corners of their landing zone.

As the primary helo landed, Josh took the aircraft-mounted machine gun and opened fire into the hill to the west of the LZ. He could see the muzzle flashes of the insurgents and just aimed right there. His pilot made half-circle sweeps so that Josh could pin the shooters down. It worked.

The primary picked up two wounded, one dead, and five survivors. As rescues go, it wasn’t optimal, but he had seen a lot worse. With the cabin door open, he hung out, watching the progress of the sandstorm.

He checked the perimeter of the LZ as the other helo took off and banked sharply back toward base. Josh’s pilot followed suit, and soon they were thrumming over the desert, back to base. In seconds they heard the roar of aircraft over the valley behind them. Josh took one last moment to hang out the door and watch as the hillside blew up like it was Armageddon. God bless the air force.

“Charlie to Echo?”

Josh’s pilot responded, “Echo, Charlie?”

“Yeah, we have a problem. We’ve left one behind.”

Josh’s blood ran cold. Everyone in their cabin looked at one another with the same expression of dread. The pilot automatically pulled back on the throttle until they were virtually hovering.

“It’s their embedded reporter. No one realized that they weren’t with them until we were able to put the lights on in the cabin. I’ve got a critical here. We’ve got permission to split. The TACP has their last coordinates.”

Fuck. A reporter? They were going to risk their lives for a fucking reporter?

Josh found it hard to justify the team’s lives for a reporter no one believed should be in a freaking war zone. He’d lost count of the number of international coalition forces who had died trying to rescue kidnapped reporters. Man. Talk about walking through the fire for someone who wouldn’t think twice about stabbing you in the back. Leeches. All of them.

He turned to D.D. “I’ll rope down first and secure our LZ. When you get the okay, come join me.” He grinned. “And try not to leave me hanging, okay?”

D.D. nodded, but he didn’t smile. He was checking Josh’s harness and then his own. Waves of anxiety rolled off him. Josh let him internalize his fear and left him be.

The pilot took coordinates over the radio and positioned them directly over the last place the reporter had been seen. Josh attached himself to the rappelling rope and gave D.D. the okay sign.

Attached to his descender, he silently slid thirty feet down the rope. He pointed a small pencil light at the ground to estimate his distance. As soon as he lit it up, muzzle flashes came from the opposite side of the valley. And a split second after, he heard bullets ricocheting off the helicopter fuselage. He hit his release button and dropped the remaining eight feet to the ground.

He landed on a sharp rock and turned his ankle. Staying down, he caught his breath and assessed his injuries, then watched the helo bank away from the drop zone, with D.D. still on board. Pain shot through his leg.

“This is T.S. Come in,” he whispered into his mic. Crickets. Not even static buzzed in reply. Shit. He must have pulled a wire loose when he fell. He lay in the dark silently, formulating a plan that wouldn’t get him killed in the next ten minutes.

As Grace peered out of the cave, she heard the screaming of the second fighter jet overhead. The deafening sound that echoed around the valley brought a smile to her face. She couldn’t see them, so she figured they must have been above the sandstorm. Then, as the sound faded north up the valley, the crashing thunder of explosions rocked the ground. Bright light lit up the sand-saturated sky. God bless the United States Air Force, she thought, allowing herself a small smile.

Minutes later, Grace heard the familiar
whop-whop
of the rotor blades. She peeked out of the cave and saw a soft green glow hovering above the hillside. She knew it was the low lighting of the cockpit of a blacked-out helicopter. She’d seen them before, traversing hostile areas to the north of the base. She tightened her scarf around her head and made a decision.

Knowing stealth was her only weapon, she crept out of the cave, trying to see where it was going to land. And then she heard bullets hit metal, making her whip back into the cave to shelter. Shit. Fuck. Goddamn. From inside the cave, she heard a whizzing sound and then a
thump
. She grabbed her camera with its night-vision lens still on and looked outside. The helo dipped its rotors and left, high and fast.

No! Come back!

In an instant there was silence again. No sandstorm, no helo—just Grace, on her own. Again.

Then all she could hear was the sound of scrambling rock echoing around the valley, as if the rotor had dislodged all the scree she had struggled over. In the now fresh moonlight, a lot more was visible. Of course, that meant she was also visible. She took off her boots and tiptoed close to the rock formations where she’d heard the stone sprinkling.

She squinted. Was that…? She swore there was a man-shaped rock where there hadn’t been rocks before. Was it a man? Was he hurt? Even more important, was he friendly?

She paused a moment to consider her options. It had to be someone from the helicopter. Otherwise, there’d be more than one. She took a deep breath. If it was someone who’d come for her, there was no way she was leaving him for the Taliban. She had to help.

As quietly as she could, she began to make her way closer. Soon she could see he was definitely wearing an American uniform. “Hello?” she whispered. Maybe she was too far away for him to hear her. Creeping closer, she tried again. “Hello? Are you hurt?” She knelt by his side and put her fingers against his neck to find a pulse.

She held her breath as she felt for his carotid.
Oh God. Please, let him not be de—
Before she could finish the thought, his hand moved in a lightning-fast grab, grasping her arm and pulling him over his body so she was lying flat across him.

“Shit” was all she could breathe out.

“Yes, kind of. Are you the reporter?” His voice didn’t conceal his distaste.

Grace picked up her head to look at him, but he yanked her back down again.

“I find when people are shooting at us, it’s best to keep a lower profile. Do you have another strategy?”

She shook her head against his armor-clad stomach.

“Good. My name is T.S., and I will be your rescuer today.”

Despite everything going on in her head, she snorted against him, worrying for an instant that she may have actually snotted on him.

His hand slid between them as if searching for something.

“That’s my breast,” Grace hissed, turning her head in the dark to where she assumed his was.

“Great. If you could maybe get off my sidearm for a second…”

Ahhh.

That’s what was hurting her. She eased her torso off his chest, and he took out his gun and held it against his collarbone as he looked around from his prone position.

To win back a tiny semblance of sanity, she internally started composing the piece she would write, if she wrote about this kind of thing.

“Can you slide off me and keep your head down?”

A flurry of gunfire erupted as she moved, but it was so far away, it couldn’t have been aimed at them.

T.S. took a small instrument from his thigh pocket and put it to his eye. The lens glowed green. A tiny night-vision scope. He rolled onto his front and steadily made a full inspection of the valley floor and the hills alongside them. “There’s activity to the southeast, but no one’s looking at us. I need to find us a hiding place until I can make contact with base.”

“I was in a cave up to the right until I saw you. Do you want to go back there?”

“You inviting me back to your place? Sure.”

*     *     *

This was not good. The wire had definitely come out of his radio when he landed, and he had probably sprained his ankle when he jumped the remaining eight feet or so. And of course the journalist was a woman. Of course.

Fuck.

What a fuckup. So because this reporter just had to make her name by writing about war, here he was, risking his life to rescue her. Putting his life on the line for his fellow troops, for innocent victims of war, that was his job, one he was proud to do. But babysitting a freaking journalist. Not so much.

His mind flashed back to the international coalition troops who were killed while trying to rescue another reporter who had walked into a war zone so she could write a story about it and make a name for herself. He hoped she slept well at night.

She better not give him any fucking trouble. If she did anything to endanger anyone coming back for them, he’d kill her himself. Probably get a medal for it, too.

First rule of pararescue? Don’t be the one who needs rescuing. Shit. The first five minutes of this mission had been the worst cluster he had ever experienced in all six of his deployments. He didn’t even know if the helo made it back to base after it had been shot at, or if anyone on board was hurt—or worse. He was alone. With her.

“Okay. I’ll follow you up there.”

She scrambled up, sliding her body against his and leaving him mentally rolling his eyes, but physically stiffening, in every sense.

Shit.

She moved gracefully across the scree, trying instinctively, it seemed, to make as little noise as possible. He jumped up after her and hesitated when pain shot through his ankle and up his leg. Pausing for a second, he gritted his teeth and followed her, trying not to limp. He’d have to bandage it up when they reached the cave. Wouldn’t do to be lame right now. God, he hoped he wouldn’t have to carry her anywhere.

He shook his head and followed her up the side of the hill. He grabbed his night-vision scope and identified their destination. Good. The entrance faced down the valley, giving them good visibility, but away from the direction of the wind that was still blowing sand around sporadically. It was a decent hideout. He took one fraction of a second to look at her through his scope. She seemed to be on the slender side, tall, and had curves that brought to mind a night a long, long time ago.

He dropped the scope back in his pocket. Back to business.

As he reached the cave’s entrance thirty seconds or so behind her, he checked the valley again, then eased inside. He flipped on a small light on his Kevlar vest that cast a deliberately dim, green glow around the cave.

He caught a small reflection of white as she unwrapped a scarf from around her face.

“My name is Grace. Grace Grainger.” Light fingertips explored the dark between them as she reached out her hand, he guessed to shake his.

He turned away. To set his gear down. “My name is T.S.…”

“I know. And you’ll be my rescuer tonight, right? So what’s the plan?”

“Right now it’s just to sit tight and see what’s what when dawn comes. It comes early here.” He felt, not saw, her as she sat down. Just a shadow and slight change in the direction of her voice told him she was sitting against the cave wall. “How long were you in here before you saw me?”

“Just a few minutes,” she replied, yawning. Not good. She might be exhibiting signs of shock.

Suddenly realizing he couldn’t see the back wall of the cave, his voice dropped to a lower whisper. “How far does the cave go?”

“I have no idea.” Fear laced her words.

“Stay put.” He flipped a clasp and slipped his sidearm from its holster. He took the small light off his vest and attached it to the end of the gun and started clearing the cave as far as he could. The caves in this province sometimes went on for miles in hills and mountains. People could hide out in them for months.

Thankfully, this one was shallow. It tipped back deep into the hill and came to an abrupt stop at a dogleg corner. Perfect for sleeping without being seen by the outside world.

“Grace?”

“Uh-huh?”

“It’s safe. Come toward my voice and we’ll settle here. When you go as far as you can go, there’s a short turn to the left. I’m just there.” He got out his regular pencil light and tucked it on a ledge in the rock so that it would illuminate the area.

She slipped around the corner, holding the pack that he’d dropped at the entrance to the cave.

Holy shit.

He shook his head and looked away. It was the tension of his situation. This was not the place to hallucinate.

He looked back. It was her, because she was looking at him as if she had seen a ghost.

“You,” she whispered, looking thoroughly astounded.

“I guess so… Sally?”

She winced, closed her eyes, and looked at the ground. When she raised her head, her chin was high and her eyes pinned him in position.