Tactical Strike (15 page)

He nodded. “Let’s move.” He waited for her to exit the cockpit
before following her down the metal stairs.

The rear of the aircraft was filled with a thick haze of
bitter-smelling smoke that told her some of the electrical panels had caught
fire. Along with the stink of scorched metal, the chemical odors of melted
plastic and wiring burned her nostrils. She coughed as it singed her nose and
throat, pulling the collar of her jacket up over her lower face.

Through watering eyes, in the dim glow of the emergency
lighting she could see men scrambling about, the closed space filled with grunts
of pain mixed with curses and groans. The man nearest her was bent over, bracing
his hand on one of the equipment banks, as though he was having trouble
standing. Candace set her shoulder against his side to prop him up, steeling
herself against his cry of pain. Through the smoke she caught the unmistakable
metallic tang of blood and the stench of burned flesh. “We have to get out,” she
shouted over the noise, the muscles in her back and legs straining against his
weight. “Come on.”

Dover grabbed the man’s other arm and slung it over his
shoulders. They struggled to move him toward the tail where the ramp was open,
the opening a yawning hole of blackness.

The loadmaster was at the top of the ramp helping someone else
off when they got there. He turned to them and helped haul the wounded man out.
“You okay, Cap?” he asked her.

Standing on the ramp, a gust of icy wind slapped her in the
face, almost stealing her breath. “I’m fine. Is everyone accounted for?”

“Yeah. The ground team is helping evacuate the rest of the
wounded south.” He motioned one arm in the direction they’d gone.

“Let’s get moving,” Dover told them, handing off the wounded
man to the loadmaster before withdrawing his sidearm and chambering a round.

With Dover at their backs, Candace and the loadmaster turned
and headed down the ramp into the darkness beyond, practically carrying the
wounded crew member between them. Her heart slammed against her ribs and a sense
of unreality closed in like a fog, making it feel like this wasn’t happening to
her, but someone else. Like she was watching it all happen from the sidelines.
It felt wrong on so many levels to abandon the aircraft, but they didn’t have a
choice. It was nothing more than a hulking target now.

Gusts of wind tugged at their clothes with icy fingers. It was
so dark she couldn’t see the ground clearly. The beat-up asphalt of the old
runway gave way to rock-strewn terrain. She could already feel the effects of
the increased altitude. The strain on her muscles and the thin air was beginning
to tax her cardiovascular system. She panted as they moved the wounded man, her
lungs working overtime. On the wind she heard shouts rise up from the distance.
A bolt of terror shot through her as shots rang out, the sharp crack of the
reports slicing through the foggy air.

“Run!” Dover shouted, pushing her aside to grab the man from
her and pressing his pistol into her numb hand.

Fear flooding her body, Candace half turned in the direction
the shots had come from and raised her weapon in case she had to return fire,
even as she knew the chances of hitting anything at this distance were almost
nil. Moving blindly in the darkness, she ran after the others. She stumbled on a
rock and went down but didn’t release the pistol. As she shoved to her feet she
clearly heard men yelling from the other side of the runway. The bark of
automatic rifles broke the silence. Rounds arced toward them, their trajectory
lit by tracers.

“Move it, move it,” Dover yelled over his shoulder, though he
needn’t have bothered. She was already running flat out. It didn’t feel fast
enough.

Fear rose up like a dark wave, threatening to crash over her
and drag her down into the abyss. Was this how Devon had felt? Choking back the
fear as she ran for her life? She fought back the growing panic and ran, her
pulse a deafening tattoo in her skull. They were exposed and vulnerable. How far
until they reached some sort of cover? Where was the ground team? Was anybody
coming back for them?

A bullet impacted to her left, close enough for her to hear it
hit a nearby rock with a ping. Cold sweat bloomed across her skin as she risked
a glance behind her. She had no idea how far away the enemy was. If she fired
she’d no doubt miss, and the muzzle flash would give away her exact location.
Dover and the loadmaster continued to struggle ahead, their breathing labored.
More rounds thumped close by, hitting with distinctive thuds. A tingling started
up at the base of her spine, some sixth sense telling her someone had her in his
sights.

Just as the fear edged toward full-blown panic, an urgent,
familiar voice came out of the darkness ahead of them. “This way! Go right fifty
meters!”

Her throat tightened at the sound of Ryan’s voice. She turned
right instantly, rushing past Ryan in the darkness as he moved out to cover
their rear, returning fire at the advancing enemy.

Chapter Ten

Weapon raised, stock butted against his right shoulder,
Ryan swept past Candace and the others as he returned fire on the fuckers on the
other side of the runway. His NGVs lit up his targets in green, while the enemy
was forced to shoot blind. In some ways that made them even more dangerous.

Two men sprung up behind a group of boulders. He swung the
barrel of his rifle around and fired. They crumpled to the ground and didn’t
move, though he couldn’t be sure if they were dead. He kept them in his sights
as he started forward again.

Baker, one of the team’s engineering sergeants, came up on his
right and fired a double tap. “Tango down.”

Ryan did a quick scan of the area. “Clear.” For now, anyway.
With no eyes above them at the moment and no reports from the Afghan soldiers in
the vicinity, he had no way of knowing how many of the enemy were still out
there.

The cold had long since seeped through his gloves, making his
fingers stiff. He looked out at the Spooky, lying there like a giant beached
whale in the middle of the runway. “Ready?” he said to Baker.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go.” They had a plane to blow up.

With Baker covering his back, Ryan sprinted for the wreck. The
wind was picking up now, the gusts closer together, making it harder to listen
for danger. Reaching the rear of the aircraft without further enemy contact,
Ryan pulled out a frag grenade from his web gear. As an engineering sergeant
Baker was a demo expert, but Ryan’s training made him able to hold his own.
Shame they didn’t have time to rig the whole aircraft and do a proper
sanitization of the scene. Grenades would have to do until he could call in an
air strike.

Baker slung his rifle and took two grenades from his gear.

“Phosphorus?”

“Yeah. Should do the trick for now. I’ll get the flight deck.”
Baker hurried forward to the base of the steps leading to the cockpit, pulled
the pin, tossed it and ran back. “Fire in the hole.”

They both crouched down behind the tail ramp. Seconds later the
grenade exploded, the phosphorus burning hot enough to melt through the controls
and equipment up front.

Ryan rose and stepped up onto the end of the tail ramp. “You do
the electronics bank and I’ll do the weapons systems. On three.” He pulled the
pin from his grenade while Baker did the same to his, and gave the countdown.
“Three.” Together they lobbed their weapons into the belly of the aircraft, then
hauled ass to a safe position. The grenades detonated with a fairly decent
thump, and Ryan stole a quick glance over his shoulder to verify the damage.
Already flames licked from the windows of the cockpit, and smoke roiled from the
open tail ramp.

No insurgents were getting in there anytime soon. Everything
inside was on fire and hopefully full of enough holes to make everything
useless.

“Let’s move out before we draw a crowd,” Ryan said, pushing to
his feet and getting into the ready position. Mini explosions rocked the night
as the burning ammo inside the aircraft began to go off.

They’d just started running when Baker called out, “Contact,
one hundred meters, two o’clock.”

Ryan instantly swung around and dropped to one knee to fire,
but the other sergeant was already squeezing off two more rounds. “Tango down.
Clear.”

Distant shouts rose up from the bottom of the hill, men no
doubt alerted to their presence by the burning aircraft. The farther away they
got from the wreckage, the better.

Ryan said, “Let’s go.”

They ran back toward their line along a different route,
melting into the darkness. The back of his neck tingled, telling him more enemy
fighters were still out there.

The rest of the team had fallen back to a safer position, but
one of them remained near their last location. Kawaleski, peering through his
binos, rose from his crouch next to cover as Ryan and Baker approached and waved
them over.

“How many?” Ryan asked.

“Eight. That fire’s bringing more down from the hillside
though. I count four more coming along a trail at two o’clock.”

“I’ll take another look once we link up with the others. Let’s
go.” Moving in a bounding overwatch pattern, they hustled through a small ravine
before reaching the bottom of the hill, where two more A-Team members met
them.

“They’ve relocated everybody a few hundred meters up,” one of
them said over the wind, gesturing behind him.

Ryan and the others followed them, every man on alert for more
enemy contacts.

Tiny snowflakes drifted on the wind, informing Ryan that the
storm front had come in faster than predicted. Murphy’s Law was hard at work
again. “Fucking Murphy,” he muttered, climbing over rocks behind the others to
get to the RV point. The deteriorating conditions had already screwed with
communications. A blizzard would blow them to hell. They had an unknown number
of wounded needing emergency evac and a whole fourteen-man air crew unequipped
for the conditions to take care of until headquarters could send someone in to
extract them. Moving with a group that size would slow them to a crawl and make
them an even bigger target. But his team couldn’t just leave them here
undefended. Especially Candace. The protective male in him was vividly aware
that she was in danger out here. He would do everything he could to ensure her
safety.

When they reached a ledge partway up the first hill on the
valley wall, Diamond Dave stepped out from behind cover. “You got anyone else
stacked up there?” He jerked his chin toward the sky. “Because we’ve got over a
dozen angry militants swarming all over that crash site toward the fire.”

He’d had a B-52 in the area, but there was no telling if he’d
reach them with the interference from the storm. “Gimme a sec.” He shrugged off
his pack and set up the sat radio to call up the bomber crew. To his relief, he
got through. While others maintained careful watch over the edge of the valley,
Ryan got busy with his Plugger GPS coordinates, double-checking them before
relaying them to the crew. A JDAM hit would sanitize the area nicely and
hopefully buy them more time to regroup and figure out what the hell to do
next.

Dave crouched down next to him, staring out over the runway and
the burning wreckage below.

The crew gave the correct callback, and Ryan stared at the
target through his SOFLAM. “Roger,” he confirmed. “Cleared hot.”

“Weapon away,” the crew member replied.

He and Dave hunkered together in the wind as the GPS-guided
warhead slammed into the ground and detonated with enough force to send a
shockwave rippling up the mountainside. It took a minute for Ryan to be able to
see the impact site through all the fire and debris, but finally the wind
cleared it enough for him to see the damage. The wreckage site was nothing more
than a giant burning crater in the middle of the valley floor.

“Good hit,” he told the bomber crew. “Cease fire.”

Next to him, Dave scanned the far hillside. “Shit, there’s
still more of the fuckers over there.”

“Want me to call in another strike?” He could clear off the
entire far side of the valley wall with a 2000-pound JDAM. Not precision CAS,
but the amount of firepower would make up for it.

“Negative. We’ve got to find better shelter. Any word from the
ANA team?”

“Nothing.”

Dave tipped his head back. “Storm’s not helping comms any. Have
to get everyone squared away before the snow starts to stick, or our tracks
might as well be lit up with neon lights for those assholes to follow us.” He
clapped Ryan on the shoulder. “Come on. You can help triage.”

Ryan hurriedly packed his gear and shouldered his ruck before
following Dave around a natural rock wall, where the wounded and air crew were
gathered. Both A-Team medics were already working on their patients. Ryan’s gaze
shot around the natural enclosure that kept out the worst of the wind, searching
for one face in particular. Someone was kneeling next to one of the wounded at
the far end, bent over them. When he saw the strands of long, blond hair
emerging from her black knit cap, he closed his eyes for a moment at the acute
wave of relief that swept over him. She was okay. And he’d make sure she stayed
that way.

He picked his way through the group past the other wounded and
kneeled beside her, resisting the urge to touch her. “Hey.”

Candace turned her head in surprise and met his gaze, relief
overtaking her features. “Hey.” Her voice was quiet, a little husky, but she was
holding it together despite the intense situation. Considering she had to be
scared shitless right now, he admired the show of courage even more.

His fingers itched to cradle the side of her face. “You all
right?”

“Yeah.” She looked down at where she was applying pressure to
the wounded man’s belly. “I can’t really see much. Can you help me keep the
pressure in the right spot? One of the medics is coming over here next.”

“Sure.” He shuffled close enough that their arms touched and
reached down to take over with one hand. With the other he pulled a pen light
from one of the vest pockets and handed it to her. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Her gloved fingers shook slightly as she took it, but
whether from cold or shock, he couldn’t be sure. She turned it on and put it in
her mouth, aiming the tiny spotlight on the pressure bandage they held to the
man’s abdomen. The scent of blood was strong in the little enclosure, telling
Ryan just how much of it their patient had lost. This guy was in bad
trouble.

“One of your crew?”

“Electronics Warfare Officer. Name’s Gillespie. Has two
brothers and a fiancée back home.”

Ryan leaned his body weight onto the dressing to help slow the
bleeding as he stripped off one glove with his teeth to slide two fingers
beneath the man’s jaw. Against his cold skin the pulse was fast and thready, the
skin cool and clammy. “Need a medic here,” he called out.

“I’m gonna be a few minutes,” Park answered. “Start a line for
me, will ya?”

Ryan glanced at Ace. Her expression was pinched as she kept her
lips clamped around the pen light. “Can you hold this while I get the
supplies?’

She gave a stiff nod and mumbled around the mini-flashlight,
“Hurry. Can’t feel my fingers.”

“Be right back.” He came back with the supplies and got to work
putting the line in, while Ace aimed the light for him. Ryan held the bag of
Ringer’s fluid in his teeth and started the drip then nudged Ace’s hands and
took over the pressure. “Check his pulse for me?” he managed around the IV
bag.

Ace shook out her hands, took off a glove and reached up for
the man’s neck. Squinting, she stared at the dial of her watch, counting as the
seconds passed. “It’s erratic. Somewhere around one-ten, I think.”

He nodded. “I got this. Why don’t you see if there’s anyone
else you can help?” Keeping her occupied would stave off the worst of the shock
and keep her from feeling totally helpless. Small victories like those were
important right now.

She raised her head, those bottomless brown eyes staring into
his for a moment. “Okay. You want the light?” She held it out for him.

“Nah, keep it.”

“Don’t forget, he’s Gillespie. Scott Gillespie, from
California.”

She wanted him to see him as a valued individual, not just a
wounded body. He respected that. “Got it.”

Apparently satisfied that he understood, she rose and went to
help someone else.

Ryan wasn’t sure how much time passed before Park finally made
it over to have a look at Gillespie. The medic did a quick check of the vitals
and opened the valve to flow a little faster, pushing more fluid into him.
“Seven wounded now. Four critical and three ambulatory. Don’t think Hawking’s
gonna make it more than another thirty minutes, tops. Not too hopeful about this
guy, either,” he added quietly.

Shit. “Any word on what the plan is?” They couldn’t possibly
carry four critically wounded or dead and shepherd the others to a safer place
through this terrain in the middle of a blizzard.

“Not yet. Dave said there’s still more of ’em coming down from
the hill.”

“Hey.” One of the other team members squatted down and tapped
Ryan’s shoulder. “Get your patient on a stretcher and get ready to move. ANA
team just reported another element moving up toward us from the south. We gotta
move.”

“Aw, shit,” Park muttered, shoving to his feet to gather
supplies.

Ryan heartily agreed. With the enemy moving at them from below
on two sides, that left only one option for escape, and it was the last place
any of them wanted to go.

Up the fucking mountain.

* * *

“I’ll take that.”

Dover looked up at Candace as she reached for the rucksack
loaded with spare batteries and medical supplies and raised a brow. “Gonna be
heavy going up the mountain.”

“Everyone else will be busy either carrying wounded or guarding
our asses. Hand it over.” With the exception of chain of command, all pretenses
of rank were long gone in a situation like this. Not that Dover would rebuke her
for lack of formality. She opened and closed her fingers impatiently, anxious to
get moving and do what she could to help. The ruck was heavy, the straps digging
into the tops of her shoulders when she managed to get it on. She was acutely
conscious of being the lone female here. She’d be damned if she’d become a
walking cliché of “the weaker sex” and another impediment for the ground
team.

Shouldering the ruck, she searched around the enclosure as
everyone else coordinated the transport of the wounded. Ryan had handed off care
of Gillespie to one of the medics and was going over a map with the team leader
and another man. Deciding what route they’d take, most likely. Inhaling a deep
breath, she made her way to the rest of the crew, checking on them individually.
Gillespie looked bad. Really bad. He hadn’t regained consciousness and she was
starting to think he might not. How would they ever keep him alive out there,
climbing up the mountain in these conditions? Since worrying wouldn’t do any
good at this point, she pushed aside the sickening thought of losing another
crew member and focused on the task at hand.