Читать книгу Running Fire - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 9

CHAPTER ONE

“READY, LEAH?” CAPTAIN Brian Larsen asked.

Chief Warrant Officer Leah Mackenzie picked up the mission information from the US Army 80th Shadow Squadron office. She looked outside, getting a bad feeling. It was raining at Camp Bravo, an FOB, or forward operating base, thirty miles from the Pakistani border. “This is a lousy night,” she told the MH-47 pilot. She saw Brian nod.

“It sucks,” he agreed. “But we gotta make this exfil.”

Leah followed him across Operations, helmet bag in one hand, kneeboard in the other. It was 2400, midnight, and they were to pick up a SEAL team one mile from the Af-Pak border. They had thirty minutes to meet the black ops team who had been out for a week hunting high-value-target Taliban leaders.

Her heart picked up its pace as they walked quickly from Operations onto the wet tarmac. Their MH-47, a specially equipped Chinook helicopter that could fly in any kind of weather conditions, had been prepped by the ground crew and ready for them to board.

The cold rain was slashing down and quickly soaked Leah’s one-piece desert-tan flight suit. It was June 1, and Brian had told her rain was unusual at this time of year in eastern Afghanistan.

Bravo sat at eight thousand feet in the Hindu Kush mountains. Leah had arrived three weeks ago, acclimating and learning the Shadow Squadron area that they operated within. She had replaced a pilot who had gotten appendicitis. Being the only woman in the 80th, she stood out whether she wanted to or not. It was time to take to the sky. Soon, they were in the air, heading toward their objective.

“This is a shitty area to pick anyone up in,” Brian muttered. “You remember? It’s that very narrow valley? With the mountains on the east side at fourteen thousand? And on the west side, at ten thousand?”

“Yes,” Leah answered. She’d worked hard to commit the terrain to memory. Black ops never picked up a team at the same spot twice—ever. It could be a trap or ambush the second time around. “What I don’t like is that we’re landing too close to a series of caves. The Taliban routinely hide in them.”

“Roger that one,” Brian agreed grimly, studying the all-terrain radar on his HUD, or heads-up display. “The SEALs said they couldn’t locate any tangos nearby, but that means squat. The Taliban hide in the caves and pop up with RPGs after we land. It’s a game of Whack-A-Mole.”

Leah nodded. Her adrenaline was already flooding into her bloodstream. Should she tell Brian she had a bad feeling? That when she did, things usually went to hell in a handbag? “Is there any way this team can meet us out in that narrow valley?”

“No. Then they become targets for any Taliban sitting up high in those caves.”

Mouth quirking, Leah felt her stomach tighten. She flew the Chinook in the long, flat stratus clouds, the rain slashing downward at four thousand feet. In ten minutes, they’d hit the last waypoint and start descending into the exfil area to pick up the awaiting SEAL team.

She heard Brian talking with Ted and Liam over the intercom. The two crew chiefs on board would have to lower the ramp once they began to descend into the pickup zone. Brian had made his authorization request with Bagram Airfield where the major part of the 80th Shadow Squadron was stationed. No mission went down unless authorization had been given by everyone in TOC, Tactical Operation Center. And it had just been approved. It was a go.

Leah listened to all transmissions while her gaze roved across the cockpit instrument panel. Everything felt good and solid to her. Since age sixteen, she’d flown by the seat of her pants, which was when her father, full-bird Colonel David Mackenzie, had taught her how to fly. The reason she’d gotten into the Shadow Squadron was because he was the commander of this particular battalion. She was the only woman in it and Leah hoped other deserving women pilots would be allowed to follow in her footsteps sooner rather than later.

“I’ll take the controls,” Brian said.

“You have the controls,” Leah said, releasing them. Brian was worried about this pickup area and she was happy to allow the more experienced pilot to fly them in and out. She busied herself with talking to the SEAL team on the ground and preparing the helo for the pickup with her crew chiefs.

At one thousand feet, she gave Ted the order to open the ramp. Instantly, a grinding sound began throughout the hollow fuselage. The closer they descended to the ground, the harder it rained.

The hairs on the back of Leah’s neck stood up. A sense of real danger washed through her. Compressing her full lips, she watched as the Chinook came out of the low-hanging cloud cover at three hundred feet. Looking to the east, she saw the caves, all black maws. Their exfil was down below them, on a gentle slope that would be easy to land upon. Her heart rate picked up and she felt a strong thrust of adrenaline burning through her.

* * *

NAVY SEAL CHIEF Kell Ballard lay in his hide, fourteen hundred yards west of where he saw the Shadow helicopter dropping below the low cloud cover. He was hidden and dry, his .300 Win-Mag sniper rifle covered with fabric to camouflage it from enemy eyes. He’d been watching through his Night Force scope for any thermal activity other than his two SEAL brothers on the opposite side of the narrow valley who were about to be picked up. The problem was that the rain was so heavy that Kell knew Taliban could be in those caves and even he wouldn’t be able to spot them.

The whumping sounds of the twin-engine MH-47 Chinook vibrated the air throughout the narrow-necked valley. He panned his rifle slowly, looking through his infrared scope at the helicopter descending.

Then, he moved his scope farther down and to his left. He saw two thermal images of the SEALs, hiding behind brush, waiting for exfil. They’d been in contact with one another all week, although Kell’s single-sniper mission was different from theirs. He’d already been out here three weeks, waiting for an HVT to slip into Afghanistan. He was sitting on the mountain to intercept the bastard when it happened. So far, he’d just waited and watched.

He’d been in touch with one of the pilots on board the Chinook, a Captain Larsen. Having the daily code word and radio contact channel for any Shadow helo, Kell had warned him earlier that Taliban could be hidden in those caves. He had no way to find them unless one of them rose up and fired an RPG at the helo. He turned his scope toward those caves once more, trying to protect the helo, just in case.

Kell watched the Chinook swing over the valley, staying as far away from those caves as possible. But the valley was exceedingly tapered in shape and the huge rotor circumference on this transport helo forced it to make a long, wide turn.

The Chinook was at one hundred feet, descending rapidly. Shadow pilots got in and out as swiftly as possible, knowing they were always vulnerable when landing and taking off.

Kell inhaled deeply, the night air moist and the rain punctured by the heavy echo of thumping blades. His heart rate slowed and he focused on the caves, watching the helo cautiously approach the exfil point.

His intense focus was primarily on the caves. He panned his rifle scope slowly, right to left and then back again. No heat signatures so far. His finger was on the two-pound trigger. He had a bullet in the chamber and two more in the magazine. The wind gusted and whipped around his hide. The rain thickened, making his visual blurry. Kell’s heart suddenly plunged. He saw three heat signatures suddenly pop up from a cave.

Son of a bitch!

All three Taliban had RPGs on their shoulders, ready to fire! There was no time for a radio warning as the first enemy fired his RPG at the helo. Kell pulled the trigger, taking out the second Taliban. Moving swiftly, he scoped the third one, firing.

Too late!

* * *

LEAH SAW A FLASH off to the right, out of the corner of her eye, as Brian brought the Chinook down onto the slope.

“RPG!” she yelled. And then, the entire center of the helicopter exploded, shrapnel, fire and pressure-wave concussions slamming Leah forward. She felt the deep bite of the harness into her shoulders. Brian screamed as the fire roared forward. Leah ducked to the left, toward the fuselage at her elbow, feeling the burning heat and the precious oxygen stolen from their lungs.

A second RPG struck the rear of the helicopter. The thunderous explosion ripped off the rear rotor assembly, the blades flying razors shrieking out into the night.

Leah’s head got yanked to the right by the second RPG hit. The entire cockpit plexiglass blew outward. Thousands of shards shattered and rained around her, glittering sparkles catching the fire within the bird. She heard Brian screaming, fire enveloping the entire cockpit. She smelled her hair burning.

The fire was so intense, Leah couldn’t reach out and get to Brian’s harness. With shaking hands, she found the release on her own. The whole helo was tearing in two. Metal screeched. She heard the rotor, just behind and above her head, rip off. A loose blade sailed through the cockpit. Because she was out of her harness, she avoided most of the slicing blade’s action. It cut the other pilot’s seat in half. Sobbing, Leah knew it had killed Brian instantly.

Escape! Egress!

Choking on the smoke, Leah felt her fire-retardant uniform was going to burst into flames any second now. Fire roared through the inside of the broken bird. Gasping, she crawled to the blown-out window to her left. Shoving her boots up onto the seat, she launched herself out the window. Leah felt immediate pain in her right arm, slashed by a jagged piece of plexiglass left in the aluminum window frame.

She fell ten feet, hitting the rocks and mud below, tumbling end over end. Dazed, blood running down the right side of her head, she tried to get up. Her hands and legs wouldn’t work. The black clouds of smoke enveloped her. The rain slashed at Leah’s eyes—part of her helmet visor was broken, exposing her face to the violent weather. Coughing, gagging, she felt smoke smother her. She got on all fours and moved away as fast as she could. Air! She had to get air or she’d die of smoke inhalation!

The rocks bit into her hands and bruised her knees. Disoriented, Leah heard gunfire from her right and left. Collapsing to the ground, she crawled on her belly, so damned dizzy she wasn’t sure where she was at or where she was headed. There was another explosion behind her. The Chinook ripped in half, the aviation fuel exploded. The pressure wave struck her, smashing her helmet into the rocks. It was the last thing Leah remembered.

* * *

KELL CURSED RICHLY, leaping out of his hide and leaving his sniper rifle behind. He pulled the SIG pistol from his drop holster, crouching, then sprinted down the slope. He had fourteen hundred yards to run before he would reach that pilot he’d seen fall out of the Chinook’s starboard-side window near the cockpit.

Slipping and sliding, the rain so heavy he could barely see even with his NVGs on, Ballard watched for more trouble. The two SEALs waiting for extract had immediately broken contact and were already on the run toward the cave where the RPGs had been shot from. They’d have to contact the platoon at Bravo for another pickup at a later date.

Kell breathed hard. The slippery soil slowed him down. He had dispatched all three Taliban. But were there more of them around that he hadn’t seen through his scope? He flipped up his NVGs because the roaring flames around the destroyed helo blinded his night-vision capability.

The last he’d seen through his scope, the pilot was about a hundred feet west of the wreckage. He’d disappeared beneath the roiling, thick smoke. Where the hell could he be?

Circling the helo, staying well away from it, Kell entered the heavy smoke. Immediately, he started choking and gagging. Crouching low, moving swiftly, Kell began a hunt for the pilot. He had no idea if the man was dead or not. He was amazed even one of them had managed to get out of that flaming helo alive.

Kell almost stumbled over the body. He fell to his knees. The pilot was on his belly, arms stretched out in front of him, thrown forward by the second, bigger blast. Gasping, unable to see except by feel as more smoke poured into the area, Kell grabbed the man and threw him into a fireman’s carry across his shoulders. Only, to his shock, he felt breasts resting against his shoulders.

What the hell? A woman? Not in the Shadow Squadron! That was a men-only combat slot.

It didn’t matter. Kell heaved to his feet, holding on to the woman pilot, crouched, angling to get the hell out from beneath the toxic fumes and smoke. She weighed a lot less than a man, he realized, as he trotted out from beneath the cloud.

Halting, he pulled his NVGs down so he could see into the night. Keeping his hearing keyed, Ballard slowed his pace once he was across the narrow, flat area. Ahead of him was the slope.

As he began the climb, the rain lessened. The wind gusted fiercely, gut punching him, throwing him off balance. Cursing softly, panting from the exertion up the steep, rocky slope, he moved toward his hide. And then, Kell heard a snap and pop nearby. Damn! The Taliban had spotted him! Now his hide was useless!

Kell leaned into the hide, grabbing his rifle and his ruck. More bullets snapped by his head. Others struck the rocks around him, sending off sparks and ricocheting. Grunting, he was now weighed down with not only the unconscious pilot, but an eighty-pound ruck and a twenty-five-pound sniper rifle.

And the Taliban had him in their sights.

Angling up through the wadi, or ravine, Kell knew the Taliban were shooting wildly because they didn’t have thermal-imaging capability. They couldn’t see what was out there in the night and rain. But even they got lucky sometimes. As he hoofed up the slope, weaving between straggling trees and thick bushes, he headed higher.

His lungs were burning. His legs felt tortured and were starting to cramp. The bullets were going wide of them now. Moving deeper down into the wadi, Kell knew no Taliban were there because this had been his home for three weeks. He knew every bush, tree and rock.

The rain eased, the wind gusting less as he popped out of the top of the wadi, a thousand feet higher. He was rasping for breath, his calves knotting painfully with fist-size cramps in each. Clenching his teeth, he pushed through the pain, knowing he had to get to a certain chain of caves and tunnels or they’d both eventually be found and killed. Slipping, sometimes falling to his knees, Ballard scrambled like a damned mountain goat and kept fighting the slope with his three heavy loads.

Finally, he reached a small cave about ten feet high and six feet wide. Carefully slipping inside, Kell dropped his ruck on the dirt floor, set the sniper rifle against the wall and then knelt down, easing the unconscious pilot off his shoulders. The wall of the cave hid them. Breathing hard, sucking oxygen that wasn’t easily available at nine thousand feet, Kell steadied himself. He pushed two fingers against the pilot’s neck. She was a woman. That still stunned the hell out of him. He saw dark blood down the entire left side of her face. Her lips were slack.

There! He felt a pulse. That was good news. Unable to do much here, he pushed his wet fingers beneath the fabric of her soaked flight collar. He fumbled and finally located her dog tags. Angling his head, he read, “Mackenzie, L., CWO, US Army.” Dropping them against her chest, he keyed his radio mic close to his mouth.

“Redbud Main, this is Redbud Actual. Over.” Ballard gulped for breath, waiting. Sometimes, being in a cave stopped transmission.

“Redbud Main. Over.”

That would be Ax, Master Chief Tom Axton, who ran their Delta platoon. Quickly, Kell explained what had happened. The Taliban were on their trail, following them. It would be impossible for a helo pickup. He was going into the cave system and would try to lose them. Kell told the master chief about the woman pilot, L. Mackenzie.

“Roger Redbud Actual. Egress. We’ve already been in touch with Raven Actual. There are two Apaches underway to the crash site as I speak. Take evasive action. Out.”

Kell signed off and raised his head, listening intently. He’d murmured in a quiet tone. A whisper would have carried even farther. Looking out, he spotted five Taliban climbing toward the cave. Damn! Turning, he saw the woman pilot had remained unconscious. She was still wearing her helmet. He almost pulled it off, but thought better of it because if the Taliban searched the cave and found it, they’d know she was nearby.

Not good.

Kell strapped the sniper rifle onto the outside of the ruck. Pulling the pilot over his shoulders again, he picked up the strap of the heavy ruck in his left hand. He kept his right hand on the woman’s slack wrist over his chest so she wouldn’t slip off. After getting a few minutes of rest, he swiftly moved to the rear of the cave. In a minute more, his NVGs would be useless. He knew this tunnel and jogged down it, blind in the pitch darkness, but knowing exactly where he was going.

Kell continued the swift pace, his calves knotting up in excruciating protest. He needed water, dehydrated from the long burst of speed to get this pilot to safety. But water could wait. He sped past two more caves, locating a fork and then moving up a steep tunnel.

His breath came out in explosions, sweat running off him as he pushed hard, forcing his tired, burning legs to perform. As a black ops SEAL, he knew he could ignore pain and keep on going. There wasn’t a choice, anyway. Luckily the Taliban wouldn’t know which way he’d chosen to go in this system. The dolomite-rock tunnels didn’t reveal boot tracks, thank God.

His heart was pounding like it was going to tear out of his chest as he climbed toward the ten-thousand-foot level. He was going into a cave that had probably never been used by anyone. Yet.

The reason Ballard knew about it was that he’d accidentally discovered it three weeks ago. There were no animal or human prints in the soft, fine dirt of the cave floor where he was headed. It was hidden well enough that he felt it was the right place to hide for now. Even better, there was another exit tunnel out of it, so if his hiding spot was compromised he could egress to freedom with the injured pilot.

Kell was soon operating in pitch darkness. At a juncture, he halted, leaned forward so the pilot wouldn’t fall and grabbed a small penlight out of his cammie pocket. Shifting it to his left hand that was now numb, the light would enable him to traverse the caves. He pulled his NVG goggles down around his neck. They were of no use now. Breathing out of his mouth to quiet his jagged rasps, he turned, his hand on the pilot’s shoulder to steady her position on him, listening. There were no Taliban voices in either Arabic or Pashto floating up toward him in the complex tunnel system. Kell knew his enemy well enough to assume that they’d probably given up, more interested in hiding because they figured Apache combat helicopters were coming to find them. They couldn’t be discovered in a nearby cave where they might be seen, so they’d hunker down in a wadi and wait it out. That was fine by him.

He reached the small cave chamber. Luckily, it contained a small pool. As Kell entered it, he heard the rush of water. Figuring the rain from far above was leaking down through the fissured limestone, he pushed toward the rear of the cave. There was an alcove, a thin wing of dolomite rock that acted like a wall, hiding the mouth of the cave from where he was standing. It would also hide the pilot and his gear from Taliban eyes. That was a small advantage.

Breathing hard, Kell dropped the ruck, making sure the sniper rifle sat on top of it. He couldn’t afford to have the Win-Mag damaged. Grunting, he slowly crouched, his sore knees settling onto the fine but gritty surface. Easing the pilot off his shoulders, he kept his hand beneath her neck and head as he got her straightened out, laying her down.

Placing the light at an angle against the rock wall, he shifted into combat-medic mode. Opening the ruck, he grabbed his sleeping bag, rolling it out. He picked her up and placed her on it. Next, he located a pair of gloves in his ruck and he pulled them on. Kell unstrapped her helmet and gently lifted it off her head. Putting it aside, he got a look at her for the first time. Her ginger-colored hair was in a ponytail and he saw thick, welling blood on the left side of her skull. Studying the helmet, Kell realized it had been cut open by something. Maybe a flying blade? Whatever it had been, it had created a one-inch gash in her scalp, the blood still leaking out of it and down the left side of her temple, cheek and neck.

He placed his fingers on the inside of her wrist after pulling off her Nomex flight gloves. She was medium boned, her skin ivory colored. Her pulse was strong and steady, a hopeful sign. Kell began to breathe a little easier.

He put a small blanket he kept rolled up in his ruck beneath her head and tilted her neck back slightly to open her airway. Quickly and expertly, he examined her for other injuries, burns, bullet wounds or broken bones. She was unconscious and he was fairly sure it was due to her head wound.

Still, Kell missed nothing. Rolling her toward him, the front of her body resting against his knees, he checked her back and legs for exit wounds and injuries. There were none. Turning her back over, he concentrated on her left lower arm. Her flight-suit sleeve had been ripped open from her wrist to her elbow. There was a three-inch gash that she’d probably gotten egressing out of the cockpit window, Kell guessed. It was deep and oozing blood, but it was not life threatening. It would need a lot of stitches, though.

He placed another blanket beneath her knees, bringing the blood back to the center of her body to halt the devastating shock. He then went to work on her head wound. In a cave, Kell wouldn’t be able to use his radio or his satellite phone to reach help. They were cut off from everyone due to the thick rock. For now, Kell was all right with that, so long as the pilot hadn’t sustained a life-threatening concussion. If she had, then it became a very dicey situation because the Taliban were actively hunting them.

Pulling a bottle of water out of his ruck, he drank deeply, replenishing badly needed fluids lost in the run for safety. Taking a washcloth he always carried in a plastic storage bag, he poured sterilized water from another bottle onto it and began to carefully wash the blood away from her head wound. He had to see how deep it was and if her skull had been fractured.

To his relief, it was merely a flesh wound, but these types often bled like a stuck hog. It took him several minutes to clean it up. Getting out a surgical needle and thread, he carefully stitched the wound closed. Most important was sterilizing the area before and after. Brushing antibiotic cream over the sewn area, Kell placed a battle dressing across it. In minutes he had the wound protected, the white gauze around her head. He noticed it damned near matched the color of her flesh right now.

Hauling the ruck closer, he pulled out a syringe and a bottle of antibiotics, giving her a maximum dose in her upper arm, wanting to stave off any bacterial infection. That was the last thing she needed.

All the while he worked over her, his hearing was keyed to outside the cave. The tunnel systems within the mountain were both a labyrinth and an echo chamber. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was 0200. He was exhausted, but pushed through it.

Trying to ignore how attractive Chief Mackenzie was, Kell went to work on the gash on her arm. It was then that she groaned.

He stopped, watching her shadowed face. Her softly arched brows moved down. Her mouth—and God, what a mouth she had—closed, and then she licked her lower lip. Any moment now, Kell knew she’d start to become conscious. Her right arm lifted toward her head. He caught her hand.

“Chief Mackenzie? You’re safe. You need to lie still. Do you hear me?” Kell leaned down, a little closer, watching her thick lashes quiver. Another groan tore out of her and her nostrils flared. Kell knew she was in pain. Probably from the wound on her arm.

And then his breath jammed in his throat as her lashes drifted upward. She had incredibly green eyes, although Kell couldn’t tell much more than that with the deep shadows in the cavern. Her gaze wandered. They were glazed over with shock. Finally, they wandered in his direction and stopped. Kell could see her trying to think, to remember what had happened.

Her pupils were dilated and he checked them closely. Both were of equal size and responded. Relief moved through him. If one pupil was fixed, larger or smaller than the other, it meant she’d sustained serious head trauma.

She had beautiful eyes, the kind a man could get lost in. They reminded him of the summer-green color of the trees in Sandy Hook, Kentucky, where he had been born. Pushing his personal reaction to her aside, he said quietly, “Can you hear me, ma’am? I’m Navy Chief Kelly Ballard. You’re safe here with me.”

Leah heard the man’s soft, Southern drawl, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Her head throbbed with pain and her vision was blurred. She felt white-hot heat throbbing through her left arm. The pain was overwhelming and she struggled, feeling as if trapped in a netherworld. Her vision cleared for a second. She was staring up at a man with a deeply tanned, craggy face, whose intense, narrowed gray eyes studied her. Oddly, she wasn’t frightened of him. He was dressed in SEAL cammies. Her vision blurred again. Leah shut her eyes, struggling to remain conscious. Where was she? Where was Brian? What had happened?