CHAPTER 35

Chunk watched in horror as the rooftop lit up in orange and red.

Silhouetted in the light of the explosion, a body fell off the ledge.

“Move back! Move back!” he heard someone holler.

He watched the descender bite into the rope, flipping the limp body upright and slowing the man’s uncontrolled descent in midair. Theobald turned, the compulsion to go back for his injured DIA teammate obvious, but Chunk stopped him.

“Stay here,” he barked. “We’ll get him.”

Enemy gunfire was picking up, and Edwards was already surging forward, firing to the west where fresh Taliban fighters began to engage them. In less than a minute, the bulk of the enemy force in the front parking lot would swarm around the sides of the building. If the Taliban drove the truck with the technical around, they’d be royally screwed.

“Contact left!”

Spence’s call made Chunk turn, but his view was obstructed by the fence line. While Spence and Morales poured fire from the east, he advanced to rescue the fallen DIA man. He took a knee at the corner, sighting around the fence. He counted five Taliban fighters firing from cover behind a black sedan. In seconds, more would be coming from the front.

“Going for our wounded,” he called. “Cover the east hotel corner, Three.”

“Jackal, Eagle—covering fire, please,” came the nearly simultaneous request from the lone friendly on the roof who still needed to rope down. The paradoxical calm of the voice in his headset told him everything he needed to know. The DIA man on the roof was a blooded operator—a SEAL or a Green Beret, in all likelihood.

“Check,” came Riker’s clipped reply, and gunfire followed.

It was now or never.

Chunk surged forward, sprinting across the gap, and arrived at the motionless body in the dirt at the same time as Edwards, who vectored in from a perpendicular position. In his peripheral vision, Chunk saw a figure sliding swiftly down the rope from above. Fire from Spence and Morales drove the Taliban fighters behind their vehicles.

But that didn’t cover them from Chunk’s new position . . .

He swiveled and put his green dot on the right temple of a man hunched behind the truck and squeezed. The dead Tali slid down the side of the truck as the men behind him looked around frantically, trying to figure out where the kill shot had come from.

Trip joined the party and, together with Edwards, grabbed the other shoulder of the downed man’s kit, and they began dragging the body clear, while Chunk fired and moved, dropping another shithead. The second DIA man from the roof, touched down a heartbeat later and quickly unclipped his descender.

“You intact?” Chunk called, squeezing off a three-round burst that drove several Taliban back around the corner.

“I’m good,” the operator called, his own rifle up to help cover their retreat as Edwards and Trip dragged Andy back to the main group.

“Thanks, bro,” Theobald said as they fell in.

“Ain’t over yet,” Chunk said. “Jackal, time to haul ass. Everyone exfil to the van.”

Theobald squeezed his shoulder and took a knee beside him, sighting on the front corner of the hotel where undoubtedly the Taliban were regrouping.

“God has the entire lane once you clear the fence,” Saw announced in his ear. “Stay on the edges, and I’ll cover you all the way to the van.”

Chunk double-clicked then looked at Watts. She had taken a knee and was scanning over her rifle back toward the parking lot. Trip and Edwards were already halfway across the field stretching toward the road, south of the hotel.

“Follow Trip and Edwards and cover their six,” he told her, squeezing her arm.

She nodded. Her eyes said she had it together, but she was gonna have a lot of shit to unpack when the dust settled. He had never imagined being as impressed with her as he felt in this moment.

“Go now,” he said, and she took off with Yi in a sprint.

Chunk cleared the east corner through his sight and saw nothing.

“One, Two—we’ll cover, then follow,” Spence said from where he was dug in.

“Moving,” he said and squeezed Theobald’s left shoulder.

A few sporadic pops from Spence acted as a starter pistol, and he and Theobald sprinted—stride for stride—to the east side of the field. They caught up with Watts and Yi, who were trailing Trip and Edwards dragging Andy, the downed DIA operator.

“Two and Six are clear. Crossing to the west side. You got the lane, God.”

“Copy,” Saw came back.

Chunk glanced over his shoulder as Spence and Morales sprinted to catch up, bringing up the rear. They all cleared the fence and evacuated the field seconds later, leaving the now-
pursuing Taliban fighters with nothing but a wide-open, empty green space. He heard the angry shouts from behind him.

“Give us fifteen more seconds before you pull off and join us, God.”

Saw answered with a double click, and then Chunk heard the satisfying sound of the suppressed sniper rifle going to work, followed by panicked screams from the field.

They sprinted down the dark street, the DIA man’s body now in a four-point carry, Spence and Theobald each holding a leg at the knee and Edwards and Trip at each shoulder. Chunk noted the black, shiny trail of blood that chased behind them on the pavement. Watts jogged beside them, her rifle slung and her hands in the same awkward, half-closed fists as when they’d done the PT run back home.

“God is now Five. I’m off. At the rendezvous in thirty seconds,” Saw said in Chunk’s ear.

The oversized van waited at idle, slider doors open, and Chunk and Morales took a knee at the front and rear bumpers, scanning every direction for movement as the team piled in, hefting the body behind them. Then Saw appeared in a fast combat jog, coming up the street. Chunk resisted the urge to wave him on.

Pretty sure he knows to get here as fast as he can.

Seconds later the SEAL sniper leaped into the van, then Morales rose, scanned back and forth one more time, and scurried inside.

Chunk followed, and the van pulled away.

The SEALs lined the dark windows on both sides of the van, ready to engage targets. The van, McAllister at the wheel, maneuvered with disciplined slowness through the streets, headed west, back toward where they would cross the Swat River again.

“How’s Andy?” McAllister asked from the driver’s seat. When no one answered, he called out louder. “Stan . . . Bobby . . . How’s Andy?”

“It’s bad, bro,” Stan said in a tight voice.

“He’s dead, Earl,” Theobald said gently. “He didn’t make it, man.”

“Without him, we’d all be dead,” Brusk said, his voice cracking.

Chunk became aware of a rhythmic sobbing from Watts, who sat, face in hands, beside Yi toward the rear of the van.

“I’m telling CIA to stand down from moving in, and it sounds like KPP’s SCU is pulling onto the scene, which gives even more cover to our exfil,” Theobald said. As if to offer a punctuation mark, Chunk heard sudden, intense gunfire in the distance. “I offered CIA to meet up and exfil with us, but they don’t believe they’re compromised.”

“They’ll have their own contingency in place,” Watts said, shaking her head and gaining control. “Are we gonna be able to get out of here?”

“Calling up the flight guys right now,” Theobald said.

“Backup plan is to head west on the N-95 and we’ll do a pickup with air from J-bad.” Chunk looked over his shoulder. Watts was now five by, because she was up on a knee, her rifle gripped and pointed up, scanning out the windows. “Yi, contact the air out of J-bad and tell them to loiter at the border for now and stand by. No sense in having a border incursion unless we need it.”

“On it, boss.”

The van turned north, heading up New Road toward the bridge. Chunk tensed. They would cross Fizagat Bypass, only a few hundred yards west of the hotel. There was a chance the Taliban would have the bridge blocked.

But they didn’t.

As they crossed, Chunk started to feel like they might actually pull this off.

“The aircrew is in the Beech,” Theobald said softly. “I told them not to fire anything up until we arrive. No sense raising an alarm.”

“Check,” Chunk said. “If there’s an issue, they should abandon the plane and clear the airport—I mean, like, any sign of trouble at all. We’ll find ’em and pick ’em up.”

“Agreed,” the DIA man replied. “I’ll let them know.”

They crossed the bridge at a casual pace—an early morning delivery truck oblivious to what had just gone down a few blocks away, perhaps.

“How’s our six?” he asked, and Riker moved to the rear of the van.

“Got nothing,” he called. “We’re clear for now.”

They passed not a single vehicle on the access road as they circled the airfield. The main gate stood open, and they entered without being stopped, the unlit security building apparently unmanned at this hour.

“Never anyone at this gate,” McAllister said and drove the van right up to the waiting Beech 1900. “I’d worry more if there was.”

Before they’d even gotten Andy out of the van, the Beech’s engines began to whine and the propellers started turning. The team loaded quickly and silently—the process of licking their proverbial wounds already underway. Chunk watched it all, standing sentry by the airstair, feeling more than a little numb.

“You coming, boss?” Riker called, his head popping out of the aircraft door.

Chunk nodded and, with a final backward glance at the city lights of Mingora, trudged up the airstair.