CHAPTER 31

improvised toc

relax hilton palace hotel

mingora, pakistan

0358 local time

Watts looked at the live video streaming on the laptop’s upper left screen and leaned in close, her heart beating with excitement.

“Here,” Yi said and moved the cursor, converting it to full screen.

The gloved hand—Chunk’s hand, she assumed—held the control stick up to the light, rotating it slowly. It looked like it could have come out of a military fighter jet, appearing heavy and sturdy rather than plastic like a video-game controller. It projected out of a blocky black base perhaps six by six inches, one corner bent and a chunk of charred wood dangling from the screw still in place in that corner.

She felt Theobald lean over her shoulder for a closer look. “Looks like an aviation control stick to me,” he said, his voice full of contagious excitement. “Or a remote controller for a drone?”

“They had it secured to a tabletop,” Chunk said over her comms. “The inside of their little operations center looked like it had multiple monitors and chairs—pretty sophisticated, I guess—but it was hard to tell because of the explosion. We got as many pictures for you as we could, but I can tell you this, Heels—you were right about this one. That was some sort of drone-flying center, or else the jihadists are entering one helluva video game competition. Nice work, Watts.”

She couldn’t help the grin that spread over her face. She felt Yi looking up at her from her seat at the desk and squeezed the woman’s shoulder warmly.

“It was a team effort,” she said and winked at Yi, who smiled back. Then Watts jerked, like someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water in her face. “Jackal—what about the drone?”

“What do you mean?” Chunk came back.

“I mean where is it?”

“No idea.”

“It’s got a forty-five-foot wingspan. You can’t miss it.”

“Uh, the drone’s definitely not here,” Chunk said, the tenor of his voice changing from celebratory to something else. “I thought you said these dipshits crashed it in the Hindu Kush.”

“That was before we figured out the LOS hand-off protocol,” Watts said, her heart starting to race. “There’s a very good chance they recovered it after the first attack.”

“Well, it’s not here, sister,” he said. “Shit . . . do you think they got it airborne in the time between when we hit the safe house and this hangar?”

“Maybe,” she said, running her fingers through her hair.

“Well, the pilot just blew himself up, so if it’s up there, ain’t nobody at the controls. It’s either already crashed, or it’ll turn donuts on autopilot until it runs out of fuel.”

“All right, I’ll inform Bowman. We’re gonna need to sweep the skies for this thing—a dedicated ground-based radar and satellite search,” she said.

“Agreed, but our work here is done. That explosion just drew a lot of attention to this site, and we need to exfil before the Pakistani police show up. RTB in twenty so be prepared to pack up and head back before sunrise if possible. Jackal out.”

“Copy all.”

She turned to Yi and was about to ask her to patch a call through to Bowman when Theobald’s mobile phone vibrated on the conference table. He picked it up, looked at the caller ID, and took the call.

“What? When?” he said, popping to his feet. He shuffled around the table to the row of windows and opened a gap in the heavy gold drapes for a look outside. “How many? Oh, shit . . . Okay, calm down, Ahmed. No, you did real good, man. Real good. Deri, deri manana. Thank you, my friend. There is a case in the trunk of your car—yes, that one. One-three-one-three opens the lock. Cash and a passport for you inside. No, no, Pakistani papers, but a different name. Get your wife and kids, get in the car, and head south to Mardan. There’s a phone in the case and a number to call. My friends will help you.”

Theobald snapped the phone closed and turned to face her, his skin ashen.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Enemy fighters headed this way,” he said. “We’re blown. My most trusted local asset says they’re Taliban—a lot of them. We need to pack up and go.”

“Too late,” Brusk said, coming in from the hallway. “They just arrived.”

Watts felt her heart almost explode with terror, and she squeezed Yi’s shoulder tighter than she meant to.

Theobald whirled and peeked between the gap in the curtain panels again. “Oh fuck,” he said. “Kill the lights. Move out of the conference room—hurry.”

Yi snapped the laptop closed, but slipped her headset back on as she led Watts from the room.

“Where are we going?” Watts asked, her voice cracking.

“We’ll set up in the corner room,” Theobald said. “Peter, grab Stan and Andy and get the boxes. I want Andy and Stan on the roof. Have them set up comms and a sniper nest. And alert KPP. They need to send SCU immediately. Tell them there’s a terror attack on Americans here. And call Virginia. We’re gonna be in deep shit in a minute and we’re gonna need some help.”

“How many incoming?” Brusk called over his shoulder as he sprinted down the hall, then banged on a door halfway down.

“At least thirty,” Theobald called.

Watts stood beside Theobald, who took two pelican cases from Brusk at the door, then hurried down the hallway.

“What’s KPP?” she asked.

“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police,” Theobald answered. “Grab anything sensitive out of the rooms you guys are in and haul ass to the last room on the left.”

She couldn’t get her key into the lock with her hand shaking. Yi put her steadier hand on top. Together, they somehow slipped the key in and opened the door.

“Leave your personal shit,” Theobald called from down the hall. “Sensitive material and weapons only.”

Watts stood in the doorway of their room and watched Yi grab two backpacks and a pelican case. Her brain refused to cooperate and tell her what she should grab. Behind her she heard feet pounding and looked over her shoulder to see two men in cargo pants and T-shirts sprinting down the hall, each with an assault rifle on their chests and longer rifles over their shoulders. They wrestled a big black box between them. Peter Brusk was headed toward them, pulling a combat vest over his head, rifles over both shoulders, and a pelican case in each hand, waddling down the hall under the weight.

“Shut down the elevators and bar that fire escape,” Theobald hollered.

“On it, boss,” a man she assumed to be Stan or Andy shouted. Then they were through the door at the far end of the hall.

“Here,” Yi said with a trembling voice. “Take these.”

Whitney slung a backpack over her left shoulder, then took the heavy, short-barreled Sig Sauer Rattler in her right. She had rolled her eyes when Chunk had picked it out for her, but now her life might depend on it.

“Vests and extra magazines are in the backpack,” Yi said. “I’ve got the comms gear from the conference room and the pelican case with our other weapons and satellite gear.” She squeezed past Whitney. “Let’s go.”

She followed Yi down the hall, shaking off the dreamlike feeling. If she could just wake up, right? Only this wasn’t a nightmare, was it?

It’s just like Benghazi. We’re going to die and get dragged through the streets. Or we’ll get captured and suffer far more. I’ll be raped. I’ll have my head sawed off for an internet video.

She clenched her jaw and jogged behind Yi. There was no way in hell that was happening. She pulled back the charging plunger and checked to see there was a 5.56 round in the chamber, then she slipped the rifle sling over her head, onto her right shoulder and across her chest, just like Saw had shown her on her one day of firearms training at MacDill during indoc. The terrorists might kill her, but not without a fight.

And they will not ever take me.

She felt a strange paradoxical calm come over her as she followed Yi into the corner room.

“We need the lights out,” Theobald said into the boom mike that now stretched from the earpiece in his right ear. “I need it black, guys.”

She stood still, her right hand already sweaty on the grip of the assault rifle. Yi elbowed her and she looked over.

“Night vision,” Yi said, handing her the helmet with ear holes cut out to accommodate headphones, and NVGs locked into the stowage position above the brim. Watts slipped the helmet on just as her entire world went dark. Her finger fumbled to secure the chin strap, then find the release to the goggles, and she dropped the night vision into place.

And saw the same black through the goggles.

A green glow appeared beside her and she saw Yi’s pretty eyes lit and magnified in two soft circles of green light, hovering in the black, looking at her.

“Here, let me help you,” the petty officer said.

She felt Yi’s hand on her helmet and a moment later she could see, the world now bright and clear in gray-green monochrome. She turned her head and saw Theobald kneeling by the two windows that formed the corner of the room across from twin beds.

“There’s thirty fighters massing out front. They have the road closed and—of course—they have a technical.”

“A technical?” she asked, her voice calm but far away. It felt more like a dream than ever.

“A truck with a really big fucking gun on it. Better tell your guys. It’s dead center by the entrance.”

My guys? Oh shit, Chunk doesn’t know!

“I’ve got it, Whitney,” Yi said. “Jackal, this is Mother. Urgent message.”

“Jackal One,” Chunk came back. His voice sounded calm—because it always sounded calm.

We could be in a helicopter without engine power, plummeting toward the earth, and he’d pack a dip, shrug, and say, “Well, this sucks.”

“Jackal, Home Plate is under attack. I say again. We’re under attack. Copy?”

“Copy, Mother. Say force and give me a SITREP.”

Theobald’s voice came on next. Whitney didn’t even know they could share frequencies.

“Jackal, Home Plate. We have thirty heavily armed fighters outside the front of the building, assembling for an attack. They have at least one technical across from us dead center—looks like a DShK in the back—blocking the road. They’ll counter any approach by vehicle on the N-95. I have a team of two up top—let’s call them Eagle One and Two.”

She knew what a DShK was—a Soviet heavy machine gun that could fire more than five hundred 12.7-mm rounds a minute. She’d watched videos of the thing cutting a car in half.

“Jackal, Eagle One—Confirming that report to the north. Looks like our tangos are arguing with two uniformed KPP who just pulled up in a police cruiser, but don’t expect them to lay it down for us. Tali owns this town. SCU is supposedly en route, but we’re not holding our breath.”

“What’s SCU?” Watts asked before she could stop herself.

“Special Combat Unit—it’s like the SWAT team of the Pakistani KPP, but counter-terror experts,” Theobald said from the window. “They’ll come, but not until it’s too late to matter. Eagle Two, you checking south?”

“Yeah, boss,” came a thick southern drawl Whitney didn’t recognize. For some reason, she found herself wondering which voice was Stan and which was Andy. It didn’t matter, she supposed, but she almost desperately wanted to know. “We got two pickups at the corners, bunch of Talis in both, just watching the rear. Probably covering a rear exit on our part, but looks like the fight’s coming inside.”

“Home Plate, Jackal One—We’re fifteen mikes out, ten to get in the area, then we’ll have to move in on foot from the west. I’ll have Uber loiter west and a block south. If we can clear the rear for an exfil, he can move in.”

“Eagle One, you got Virginia?”

“They’re working it. Trying to link me to the OGA guys to the south.”

“Any air nearby for dust-off?” Chunk was still in complete control—calm AF.

“Just the Beech 1900, but she ain’t landing on the roof,” came the southern drawl from the roof. Watts randomly decided that was Andy. “OGA has nothing in town.”

“OGA is working on an asset from KPP to get us off the roof, but them fuckers ain’t coming to us if it’s hot. We need some real-ass American shit.”

“Mother, Jackal—get the Head Shed at A-bad and spin up air from there.”

“Got it boss,” Yi answered. “That’s an hour probably.”

“Forty-five if they have something on short fuse on the pad. We can turn ’em if we don’t need ’em, but brief Bowman and get ’em up.”

“Roger.”

Watts took two long, slow breaths, just like Saw had shown her at the range. It was gonna be okay. Chunk and his team would save them. He’d beat the Taliban on the mountain; he would do it again here.

But they had attack helos for fire support on that mountain, a voice rebutted in her head.

Shut up. He’s going to get here and everything’s going to be okay.

A gunshot echoed, followed by a scream.

She realized the scream might have been her, but she really wasn’t sure.

There was a second gunshot and she began to shake.

“Oh, shit. Home Plate, Eagle One—the Tali leader just executed both of the KPP cops right in front of the crowd. They’re coming, boss.”

Theobald turned to look at her in the gray-green nightmare she was trapped in.

“Stay away from the windows if I start shooting, okay?”

She nodded. Bile burned her throat.

“And push that dresser near the door. Crouch behind it and cover the hall. Anything moving down that hall, you shoot it unless I tell you to stand down. Clear?”

“Clear,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

“Clear,” Yi added beside her.

“Thin the herd, Eagle One,” Theobald said.

Rifle shots erupted above her—at least half a dozen—in rapid succession from the roof, followed immediately by a barrage of gunfire from the parking lot as the Taliban returned fire.

Then, without warning, the entire universe exploded into noise and light and screams—only some of which were hers.