Retribution

The evacuation attempt

Whap, whap, whap.

The bullets popped, ricocheting off the rocks that surrounded Furlong, Frix, and Parker. The enemy had now climbed above them, firing down in the morning light.

Seemingly from nowhere came a familiar voice: “Well, how long will this take?”

The trio turned in surprise to find an exhausted Gunny Moncrief crouching next to them, holding the antibiotic solution bag that he had retrieved from the tent.

“It takes what it takes.” Frix sounded more like the physician who had finished medical school. “Hey, Gunny.”

“You did good!”

“There are two on that south ridge that have us zeroed in.” Furlong took a brief glimpse around the rock. “But several more are moving up.”

“Colonel, how are you doing?” Frix felt Parker’s pulse. It was rapid.

“Ready to get out of here.” Parker’s voice sounded slightly stronger.

“Okay. Just five more minutes.” Frix laughed. “You look like shit!”

Parker had a twisted little grin on his face.

“We have to hump it up that hillside.” Furlong peered over the rock and then ducked down again. “Now!”

“The way they’re zeroing in on us, we don’t have more than fifteen minutes. After that you won’t have to worry about blood poisoning,” Moncrief told Furlong. “You’ll have lead poisoning.”

“There you go.” Furlong liked the deeper sound of the .338 Lapua high-velocity round from Villegas. It meant a fair fight.

“Frix, can you carry Parker while Burgey and I do cover?” Furlong checked the magazines. One was empty. He threw it on the ground and put the two loaded magazines in his front pouches so that they could easily be reached.

“I’ve got it.” Parker started to stand up. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Fifty meters up this hill and then we can run this IV.” Frix was being optimistic. “I’ll save the rest of this in case you make it to the top.”

“I’ll lead,” said Furlong, “and then Parker will follow. That way, if the pace gets out of whack, you others can help out.” Furlong was suggesting that he knew the route but that Parker needed to be near the front or risk being left behind. “Gunny, you have the box.”

“Great. So if a stray bullet hits my box, I’m the one that gets vaporized.”

“You, us, and all of western Pakistan.”

“No problem.”

Parker was using his one arm and the pistol with the silencer.

Furlong waited for another wham from the Windrunner. It meant one less gun to worry about and the enemy would keep their heads down for a few seconds. He disappeared around the rock.

Parker inhaled, and started to move out. At first he felt the blood rush to his head. Then the adrenaline took over. He followed Furlong’s moves, cutting up the goat path that crisscrossed the rocky hillside. Furlong stopped and then Parker stopped. He heard the whap, whap of bullets increase as the hostiles detected his team moving up the hill line.

God, I’m thirsty.

Parker felt like his tongue had been glued to the roof of his mouth. He tried to breathe through his nose, stopping only briefly, and then moving, trying to keep his pace irregular so a sniper’s aim would be off. For what seemed an eternity, Parker moved up the hillside.

Come on, Clark. Run me into the ground.

The miles and miles they had run through the summer in the sweltering heat, up hills, exhausted, with the muscles in their legs burning—all of the miles were now keeping Parker alive. He actually moved closer to Furlong, using short, choppy steps like a long-distance runner to work his way up the steep hill.

The small object flashed across his vision in the dawn’s light. The rocket-propelled grenade missed Furlong and him narrowly, detonating ten to fifteen meters away. Though Parker hunched and knelt instinctively, the blast knocked him to the ground. Matter-of-factly, he managed to stand and begin moving again. He heard Moncrief’s rifle firing behind him, the silencer making a thud, thud sound with each round. Furlong, a few feet ahead, was down on his face, bleeding from the back and stunned but clearly alive.

A glance across the ridgeline and Parker saw two of the enemy stand with another RPG aimed at Furlong’s position. Moncrief was busy reloading. Parker couldn’t see Frix or Burgey. He lifted his pistol and took aim. The two-hundred-meter shot would be nearly impossible for a .45-caliber pistol. It took more than aim. It took a sense of the drop of the bullet, like a golf shot being cut around a tree. And the slope. Still, he had to try.

Pop, pop. Parker’s silenced pistol fired. The two men with the RPG disappeared.

Parker grabbed Furlong by the belt under his pay-raan tumbaan shirt and lifted him to his feet. Furlong whipped his head around, stunned. Parker put Furlong’s arm around his shoulder and both moved up the hill with one dragging the other.

“We need some help if we’re going to make it.” Parker spoke the words just before the flash.

The Predator’s Hellfire struck the other ridgeline.

Another flash and boom echoed across the valley, more missiles dropping in rapid succession now, one after another.

Parker crossed over the edge of the plateau just as a powerful gush of warm wind nearly knocked Furlong and him back over the rocks. Moncrief braced them from behind, keeping them from falling as the air filled with the sulfur-tinged smell of cordite.

The sky before them wavered with heat vapor, then split as the Osprey aircraft rose above the ridge. Its blades, in full tilt, caused the hybrid aircraft to stop in midair and hover directly over Parker’s head as the machine gun in its tail sprayed the hillside across the valley with bullets. The hot, small brass casings rained on their heads as they dropped to their knees.

Within what seemed like mere seconds, Parker was surrounded by the Marine Special Op Team setting up a perimeter. He heard their silenced rifles pick off targets rapidly, one by one, as well as the continued boom of the Windrunners firing as he collapsed in the cargo hold of the aircraft.

“Let’s get that going again.” Frix was already kneeling over Parker, pulling up his sleeve and starting an IV with the remaining bag of antibiotics.

“Don’t lose this.” Moncrief handed the nuclear-device box like a football to a fast-recovering Captain Mark Furlong.

Parker felt the aircraft become light as it began to rise. He looked out of the open ramp on the end, seeing rocks and smoke and then blue sky.

And then the exhaustion took over.