The Perfect Candidate: A Lance Priest / Preacher Thriller (No. 1) (35 page)

Lance rounded the corner hot on Fuchs’ heels. Up ahead, the Delta Force teams had done a number on the Iraqi security personnel around the office building. He glanced up at the smoldering hole blown out of the building and hoped it had hit its target. From inside the building they could hear lots of gunfire. Glass blew out of a window on the third floor. A woman screamed. More shots.

Three Iraqi soldiers came around a corner in front of Fuchs. He shot all three without slowing his pace. Lance was amazed at Fuchs’ skill. He was a machine and Lance was basically riding his wake. As they reached the intersection, they saw other soldiers coming at them from a side street. Both men dropped to one knee and took out the group of five soldiers. Their screams now filled the street along with their blood. Fuchs was back up in a flash and heading for the building.

“Sit rev for building.” He shouted into his mic.

“Perimeter secure at the moment, but more shit is on the way less than two minutes out.” A Delta sergeant replied from beside the transport truck.

“Do we have eyes in the sky?” Fuchs replied.

Another Delta member replied. “I’m on the rooftop next to the target. I can see soldiers moving this way from the warehouse. Maybe 40.”

“Foxy and Preacher are entering target location now. Update me on any signs of Yellow 1.” Seibel cut in.

Lance and Fuchs made it to the building, ran into the lobby and to the stairs. Bullet holes pockmarked walls everywhere. Saddam’s security personnel had been shredded, blown away by the Deltas. They passed a Delta Teamer manning the stairwell and keeping an eye on the lobby. They nodded to him as they ran up the stairs. Their target, Yellow 1 - Saddam Hussein couldn’t have made it out of the building. His security team was likely holed up on the fourth floor still recovering from the RPG explosion. If they were alive.

“Third floor clear,” Captain Hubbard spoke into his mic. “Multiple enemy casualties, no sign of Yellow 1.”

Fuchs stopped on the second floor landing beside a Delta lieutenant stationed there. “Increase casualty count. No prisoners, no sanction.” Lance watched Fuchs and his control of the situation in a completely new light. Fuchs was no back-bencher. He was a low-key, no-nonsense and lethally efficient killing machine. He turned to Lance and smiled. “Sorry to keep you in the dark on this little side mission, but how do you feel about killing the main asshole?”

“I’d love to.” Preacher replied.

Fuchs stepped aside and Lance headed up the next flight to the third floor. Another Delta was posted there. He had been shot in the shoulder but gave no indication it caused him any pain. “Where is Hubbard?” Lance asked the sergeant.

“Other end of the hall. About to go up.” He replied.

Lance turned back to Fuchs. “I’ll go to the other end. You go up here.”

“Not supposed to let you out of my sight.”

“Got to let me spread my wings sometime,” and Lance started down the hall. He looked back and smiled, “First one to put a hole in Yellow 1 gets a gold star on their forehead.”

“Just keep your head down.” Fuchs started up the stairwell.

Sledding up to this point had been a little too easy. The Delta Force teams had more than done their jobs and killed dozens. Only one Delta had been lost and a couple injured. But every perfect mission must face reality eventually. In this case, reality came in the form of the reverberating sound of helicopter blades beating the air.

As Lance made it to Hubbard heading up the stairwell at the far end of the hall, the unmistakable sound of choppers overhead made them both think the same thing – “
the roof
” they said in unison.

“Eyes, give me eyes on the birds coming in.” Hubbard demanded an update.

“Four I can see. Moving fast. Three spreading out, one heading for the rooftop.” The sentry on the roof next door reported back.

“Godammit. I need those birds taken down.” Hubbard shouted.

“On it.” The sergeant stationed at the closest truck, Mushroom, jumped into the back to procure a SAM – surface to air shoulder-fired missile launcher. But unfortunately, at the same time, a dozen Iraqi soldiers came around the corner and spotted him raising the SAM to take aim at the incoming birds. Before he could lock on any of the helicopters, he was blown away in a hail of bullets. As he fell, he pulled the trigger and the missile fired directly into a storefront across the street. The structure exploded and a fireball went up into the darkening evening sky. Abdullah had tried to cover the sergeant, but also fell in the barrage of bullets.

“SAM is down. Mushroom is out.” The rooftop sentry now turned his attention to the soldiers filing into the street. He took aim and took down four of them. Unfortunately, the helicopters and gunners coming on scene could see the muzzle flashes from his M-16 plain as day on the rooftop. He was nearly cut in half by a 50-caliber machine gun. A third Delta Team member was gone.

Just over 800 yards away, Seibel watched the choppers come in and the fireball go up. He knew the mission was over. He just knew it.

He watched the chopper land on the roof of the office building and he knew Saddam was still among the living. A call had gone out, a rescue mission had been launched to save the Iraqi leader. Seibel had listened to the Delta radio traffic and knew the situation his men faced. He spoke into the radio with a voice significantly calmer than his demeanor.

“Pepperoni, Sausage, prepare for departure. Now.” Papa ordered the two remaining trucks to get ready to evacuate.

Lance and Hubbard heard the words and shook their heads. Tarwanah and Jamaani jumped into the cabs of their trucks and moved to the east and north sides of the building. The Delta Teamers in and near the lobby stepped out to the perimeter to take aim at the approaching Iraqi soldiers.

Lance felt the tug at his shoulder and turned to look at Hubbard. The mission’s lead captain started down the stairs. Preacher should have followed. Should have been right on his tail. But instead, he turned to the door knowing full well someone with a loaded gun stood on the other side. Hubbard turned back up to him.

“Soldier, move now. We are out of here in 30 seconds.”

“Sorry sir, we’re too close. If he is through that door, then we need to take him down. Papa did not put all this together to have it fall apart when we’re this close. I’m going in.”

And with that, Lance fired a dozen shots through the door leading into the fourth-floor hallway. He kicked the door open and rolled inside. As he rolled, he fired into the hallway killing three security guards. Pretty good stuff. But a fourth guard fired his machine gun in Lance’s direction striking him twice, in the right thigh and hip. Lance winced but returned fire blasting the man backward with four rounds center chest.
Getting better with a gun all the time.

He rose to one knee in firing position and realized in an instant he was back at Harvey Point working his way through a training mission completed several dozen times. Preacher noted that he’d never been shot in those training sessions, but what the hell. First time for everything.

With the hall clear, he got up on his wounded leg and advanced to the other stairwell with roof access. As he approached, he heard gunfire at close range behind the door. Suddenly, Hubbard passed him. With a wounded leg, Lance was slower than normal. As they reached the door, they silently coordinated their entrance and burst through.

He and Hubbard stepped through the doorway and annihilated two of Saddam’s remaining security guards positioned above on the stairs firing down the stairwell at Fuchs below. With these men down, Hubbard ran up the stairs leading to the roof with Lance limping behind. Fuchs and Marsh, a Delta Sergeant, came up quickly behind them.

Hubbard looked back at them and signaled a four-direction entry onto the rooftop. He threw open the door and all four of them spilled out onto the roof firing in all directions. Just over 40 yards away stood two security guards firing back at them. Ten yards behind the two guards, the helicopter revved up its whirling blades. Getting onto the chopper were two men, one seriously wounded, bloody and limping badly. It was Saddam.

Injured but not dead.

All four of them fired on the security guards. They went down in the hail of shots. But behind them, a gunner firing a 50-caliber gun took aim on them. They had to spread, jumping, rolling, twisting in all directions. In this precious succession of seconds, the pilot put the chopper to full throttle and lifted off the rooftop. Hubbard regained composure and expertly put three bullets into the gunner’s head, but the chopper began to lift and bank away.

All four took aim at the bird and in just a few seconds fired hundreds of shots into glass and metal and hopefully flesh. The pilot expertly turned away from the barrage and dropped the bird off the edge of the 50-foot tall building.

The bullets fired into the helicopter were all that the team could do. A few moments later, the whirling helicopter rose back into their view. They raised their weapons to take aim again, but at the same time one of the three other helicopters moved in from the west and opened fire. Hubbard was struck in the back and hurled forward by the 50-caliber round. Fuchs turned his aim at this new chopper. Lance and Marsh moved to grab up Hubbard and pull him inside the protection of the stairwell.

Once they were all back inside, Lance and Marsh put Hubbard’s arms over their shoulders to carry him down.

“We are coming down. The bird got away. We will be at rendezvous in 30. Hubbard is hit.” Fuchs reported.

“Pepperoni in position and ready.” It was Tarwanah.

“Sausage ready,” Jamaani added from the cab of his truck.

The remaining Delta Teamers gathered in the lobby of the building laying down suppression fire against the Iraqi soldiers gathering at the end of the block. Everyone in the team knew the next steps. Evacuation was as important as entry exercises for Deltas. The exit route required the two working trucks to transport team members to the rally point where the two choppers that dropped them off this morning would retrieve them and hightail it back to the desert and across to Saudi Arabia.

That all looked a whole lot better when there weren’t helicopters buzzing overhead. To a man, they knew the prospect of getting out of here in those trucks without getting the hell blown out of them by the guns mounted on those choppers was none, not even slim. They needed a miracle.

As if on cue, Seibel’s miracle came through. The ground shook beneath their feet and a fireball lit up the sky less than a mile away. High overhead, US aircraft had unleashed a little hell on essential command-and-control targets in Baghdad. Lance knew from his memorization of city that the explosion was a refinery. As he, Fuchs, Marsh and a badly wounded Captain Hubbard reached the first floor lobby, a second ground-shaking explosion went up. This time to the east.

“Power plant.” Lance whispered. Moments later all lights went out. With the sky mostly dark now, the loss of electricity would make it more difficult for the helicopters to make out what was happening below. Getting away might just be merely impossible now.

Fuchs assumed mission control with Hubbard injured and barely hanging on. His demeanor was complete command. Fuchs spoke into the open radio, “Everyone. We exit east and north ends of the building and board the vehicles. Put down fire in all directions. No delays, no one left behind. Go.” As they split into two groups and made their way to the trucks, another explosion rocked the evening sky. This one was closer. It shook the building and knocked out a few windows. Glass shattered all around as they made their way to the waiting trucks.

Before the last man was on board, the vehicles were rolling toward the pick up spot just less than two miles away. Each man reloaded weapons and took up positions with their sights set on either the surrounding landscape or up at the sky.

It took the choppers only seconds to begin their assault on the moving vehicles. The first one swooped in with the gunner opening fire. Usually, a helicopter with a 50-caliber weapon sweeping in from above has a significant strategic and tactical advantage over those below. But usually those below are not Delta Force teams and trained CIA killers. As the gunner opened fire, two team members returned fire and literally blew the gunner’s head off. It exploded as it was struck by a dozen rounds. The pilot’s vision was obscured by multiple shots striking the glass in front of him. He pulled up and made room for the next attacking chopper. One down.