Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Book 4): Walking In The Shadow Of Death (4 page)

Brad was close by and overhead
Sean’s words to the boy. “Chief, you’re full of shit if you think we’re leaving
you out here on your own!” Brad yelled over the gunfire. “Go boy, get out of
here, tell the others we’ll meet up with you later,” Brad yelled as the boy ran
back towards the aircraft.

“Suit yourself,” Sean said with a
grin as he raised his MP5 towards the closing mass.

4.

Brad watched as Chelsea and the
others lowered Kelli to the ground on the makeshift stretcher. From a distance,
Sean waved goodbye to the group, then ordered the rest of them to go loud with
their rifles. They watched the others move off to the northeast until they lost
sight of them. Brad removed his suppressor as did the others. Parker slung the
M203 over his back and lifted his SAW. At once they opened fire on the mass of
primals that were slowly moving down and out of the trees.

With the loud report of the rifles,
the entire mob put its focus on Sean and his team. They continued firing until
the last of the third wave had been put down. Then quickly they ran back
towards the aircraft.  As Sean had requested, all of their bags had been
dropped on the ground. Sean found his familiar ruck with his large scoped rifle
strapped to the top. Sean hoisted the bag onto his shoulders then turned to
help the others.

“Quickly! Let’s get ready to move.
As soon as the next wave breaks the trees we’ll lead them away and into the far
side of the clearing,” Sean instructed.

Brad found his bag, grabbed the
straps, and made some adjustments so that they would still fit his shoulders
over his heavy poncho. He removed the leggings and strapped those to the top of
the ruck. Cold wouldn’t be as much of a factor with them moving on the trail.
The bag was heavy with supplies. They had decided long ago to always keep their
rucks stuffed with rations and ammo in case they had to bug out in a hurry.
Brad lifted the bag up and onto his back. He looked and saw the rest of the men
appeared ready to move. He walked away from the plane and found Sean farther
out, facing the tree line where the waves had been appearing.

“We’re ready to roll,” Brad said.

Sean turned to face the men waiting
in the cold. “Daniel, I want you and your brother to run point. Let’s hold our fire
and avoid shooting unless we have to. The plan is to get them to follow us,
then we will try and lose them in the trees. Parker, you stay back by me with
that SAW. If things go sideways we will be counting on you to cut an exit
hole.”

“How far we got to go, Chief?”
asked Daniel.

“I figure if we move west for a
good few hours that should do it. Then we can break north and loop back around.
The boy showed me the location of a cabin, looks like maybe a day and a half’s
walk. There should be a river north of here, the map says if we follow it we
should see the cabin.”

“Day and a half? Shit, then we got
to spend another night outside?” Parker asked.

Daniel nodded and pointed at the
far tree line, “Here they come, Chief.”

“Okay. Devil dogs, lead the way.
Stay west until I say otherwise. As long as these things keep that slow pace we
should be able to stay ahead of them. Keep your eyes sharp boys; if we wander
into another mob and get surrounded, it could really mess up our day.”

“Ha!” Hahn laughed. “My day is
already ruined.”

The brothers moved out, slowly
scouting a path into the western tree line. Hahn walked behind them, then Brad,
with Sean and Parker taking up the rear. It was in their nature to move
quickly, but Sean had to remind them to slow their pace. They wanted to keep
the mob in sight to ensure they led them away from the other team.

As they entered the tall pine
forest the temperatures dropped even more. Most of the sunlight was blocked out
from reaching the ground by the tall canopy of pine trees. There was also less
snow. In several areas the ground was covered in large beds of pine needles and
broken branches. Brad could see the Villegases out ahead; they were walking on
line with each other about ten meters apart. Hahn was just ahead of him. Every
few minutes Hahn would turn and look back at Brad with a worried expression.

As they moved deeper into the
forest, they could hear the primals behind them, crashing through the trees.
There must have been hundreds of them now. Their moans carried over the wind
and they seemed to reverberate and echo back against the pines all around them.
Brad had to consciously will his legs not to run. He wanted nothing more than
to distance himself from the mob behind them.

Sean had allowed the primals to
close to within two hundred yards. Every time Brad looked back he could see the
expanse of the mob. Occasionally one would break out of the mass and move at
them quicker than the others. The first time this happened, Parker let out a
frightened yelp. They all stopped to look back. A previously young male had
broken away from the pack. He still wasn’t running but his stagger was less
pronounced and was definitely faster than the others.

Sean watched the thing with concern
for a moment or two before raising his scoped rifle and knocking it down with a
single shot.

“Nothing to worry about guys, fast
ones seem to be the exception today and not the rule. But keep an eye on our
six, Parker,” Sean said as he slapped the young soldier on the back.

They had moved a good five miles
into the woods when the terrain began to change. The ground got rougher and
started to slope up. As they struggled to work their way up the incline their
pace began to slow. Brad noticed that the primals didn’t seem to be bothered as
much by the extra effort in moving uphill. Even though they were clumsy and
awkward they didn’t tire out, and the mass had an efficient fluid motion. The
things in the back would push the others forward. Yes, they would sometimes
fall, but they would get right back to their feet, or another would replace its
spot in the formation. It was like a wall closing on them at a constant speed.

Brad started to worry about what
would happen if they couldn’t lose the pursuing mob. He thought back to his
time in the desert, when the nearly mile-wide mob had surprised them on the
Hairatan road. That time they’d taken shelter and hid in the MRAP until they
had passed. That wouldn’t work today. There was no MRAP, and they would have to
break contact with them before their pace fell below what they needed to keep
their distance.

The men were growing tired. The
pace was slow but it was still a long time to constantly keep moving, not being
able to stop for more than a few moments before the mob would close on them.
They had to eat and drink on their feet, always moving forward, even finding it
necessary to relieve themselves on the move. They were all professional
military men and long ruck marches were nothing new, but combined with the
stress of the closing enemy they began to quickly feel the fatigue.

Sean finally decided enough was
enough. He ordered them all to get ready to make a break at the next natural
opportunity they came across. It didn’t take long. Soon the terrain turned to
broken shale and began to quickly slope away from them. The trees thinned out
and they saw a long gravel road at the bottom of the hill.  Sean
instructed the Villegas to quicken their pace.

They moved down the slope at a fast
walk, losing visual on the mob behind them. They moved as quickly as they dared
without risking a fall on the loose ground. When they reached the road, Sean
ordered them to follow it north and move up to a jog.  They ran down the
road, moving parallel to the face of the mass. Brad looked to his right up into
the forest where he knew they would be. He couldn’t see them but the sounds of
the primals crashing through the woods was frightening. 

They continued their jog down the
road until it began to curve back towards where they knew the mob would be.
Again Sean directed them back into the woods on the left side of the road. They
continued the quick pace for another mile or so until they could no longer hear
the mob. Sean signaled for the Villegases to move northwest and at an angle away
from where he projected the primals to be.  They continued to move until
they started to lose the light.

Brad checked his watch. It was
approaching 1700, or was it? He didn’t really know what time zone they were in,
but 1700 still felt correct. Either way, they had been on the move for over
eight hours. He couldn’t locate the sun. When they could see the sky through
the thick canopy of trees it was dark and overcast. Brad’s legs were heavy and
the wound on his quad burned with every step.

The forest grew thicker with
underbrush and it became more difficult to navigate. Further to the north, Sean
pointed out some high ground. They could see were the trees climbed up and away
from the forest floor. Sean directed them to the higher elevation and told the brothers
to look for a suitable campsite. They came upon a slow moving stream that was
flowing down from the high ground.  The men turned to follow it up towards
its source, finding where it disappeared into a large formation of rocks.

Even though the road and stream had
not been on William’s roughly drawn map, this rock face was. Sean guided them
along it until they found a game trail that led to a spot that was reasonable
to climb. He moved them up the trail and to a large, step-type ledge. As they
turned to walk along the step, the ground widened enough to where they could
make a camp. Quickly they dropped their bags and collapsed onto the ground. All
of them were breathing heavily and were well beaten from the day’s march.

Brad laid back against his pack and
stretched out his legs. He could see the steam rising from the sweat around his
calves. He was hot now, but he knew they would soon chill as their activity
levels dropped. Their clothing was soaked with sweat and they would be at risk
for hypothermia as they cooled off. As the men made camp they removed the
sweat-soaked clothing and changed into dry layers from their packs. Parker set
up the SAW across a downed tree trunk that covered the approach up to where
they were positioned.

Brad and Hahn used their tomahawks
to dig a deep hole in the frozen earth a few feet away from the rock face, then
they circled the hole with stones. They positioned pieces of timber into the
shape of a lean-to and finally covering that with broken lengths of pine
boughs. When they were confident they had sufficiently concealed the shelter,
Brad gathered wood for a fire. Normally they would never build a fire out in
such close proximity to the enemy, but in the artic conditions they didn’t have
a choice.

Splitting small logs with their
tomahawks, they were able to get to the dry bits inside. Just enough to start a
fire. Brad used a small chunk of the C4 to get the kindling going and slowly he
added more wood until they had a warm glowing bed of coals. As darkness came
the snow again began to fall. They used the fresh snow to patch any light leaks
in the shelter and to build more walls around them. Soon they were all huddled
under the shelter of the lean-to.

Sean had decided on a thirty
percent watch; two of them would be awake at all times. One would tend the fire
while the other remained outside listening and watching for anything that
intended to cause them harm. Brad and Sean elected to take the last watch, with
Daniel and Joseph taking the first. Brad moved against the rock face and let
the radiant heat of the fire warm him. He pulled his legs up and wrapped the
blanket around him. After the long day’s march, sleep was easy to find.

Brad felt the cold on his face.
A hole had formed in the canopy above him. He lifted his hand to plug the gap
but it only got worse. More snow fell in, landing on him. He rolled out of the
way as more and more snow filled the shelter. Brad kicked and pushed at the
snow. His attempt to avoid the dropping snow caused him to kick his foot into
the fire, inadvertently kicking glowing embers amongst the pine boughs.

Soon the entire shelter was
engulfed in flames. Brad tried to look around him to warn the others to escape,
but he couldn’t find them. He dropped to his belly and low crawled out of the
shelter, coughing and gagging on the smoke. Once he was clear, he rolled to his
back before lifting himself to a sitting position. Brad looked around. The fire
was already out, the shelter gone. “Where are the others?” he thought to
himself before seeing a lifeless form in the snow next to him.

Brad rolled and crawled close to
the uniformed soldier. He grabbed at his shirt and pulled him closer. The body
was warm; he was alive. Brad grabbed him and rolled his head into his lap,
yelling for him to wake up, shaking the man’s shoulders. “Ryan, Ryan wake up!”
Brad screamed, no longer worried about being quiet.

Private First Class Ryan opened
his eyes. They were milky and glassy. Ryan’s lips rolled back, exposing bloody
and broken teeth. He screamed and moaned before lunging up at Brad, snapping
his jaws as he attacked. Brad kicked his feet and pushed down on the man’s
face, forcing himself back, pushing away. Brad fell to his side face down in
the snow.

Startled by the cold, Brad sat
straight up. He was awake now, his heart still pounding from the dream. He
looked around the shelter. He could see the brothers at the far end sleeping
soundly. He pulled the blanket up around his shoulders and leaned back against
the rock face.

5.

“Psst,” Parker whispered.

“Huh?” Brad murmured as he looked
around the enclosure. The fire had died down but the coals were still glowing
and putting out a bit of radiant warmth. The Villegases were asleep at the far
end of the lean-to; Hahn and Sean were missing. Parker was at the entrance
leaning low on a knee.

“Come on Sergeant, get with it,
something’s happening,” Parker said in a low voice.

Brad reached beyond him and slapped
Joey’s boot. The Marine looked out from the blanket that was tightly wrapped around
his head. He stared at Brad, confused, then saw Parker in the entrance and his
eyes went to alert. He reached over and gently shook his brother awake.