Sudanese Islamic Front Compound
Kuraymah Barkal, Sudan
March 24, 3:20 a.m.
McCoy quickstepped around the corner of the warehouse toward where two of Cameron’s SEALs had the secretary of state pressed behind a large, brown metal dumpster, just as the tongues of tracer fire from two heavy machine guns strafed the warehouse’s corrugated metal roof and cinder-block façade. Immediately after the first barrage, small arms fire rang out and muzzle flashes lit up the night, followed by the sound of the SEALs returning fire.
“They’ll try and retake the secretary for a few minutes, but eventually they’ll cut us to shreds,” he called, joining the SEALs behind the dumpster, crouching low.
“We need to pull back to the east side of the compound and change our exfil,” Cameron said.
“Mother, did you copy?” McCoy said, when no response came from Junior.
“Yes, but you’ve got a new problem,” came Junior’s tense voice in his ear. “You have more tangos arriving to the north edge of the compound, where Mako Two breached, and several circling to the south. And believe it or not, there’s a fucking fishing boat pulling up beyond the east perimeter fence line on the river, with not one but two mounted machine guns and . . . holy shit . . . they have rocket launchers on the boat.”
“We’re fucking surrounded,” Bubba called in his ear.
“Air is seven mikes out,” Junior called, referencing the inbound attack helos.
It would be too late.
They needed out, and that meant west, picking up Mako Eight on their way to a dust-off in the MH-60s. McCoy scanned right, tracing up north along the fence. It was a full hundred and fifty yards to the north perimeter where the new trucks were arriving. Clearly the SIF had a robust QRF in place—damn near the entire community around the compound from the look of things. The gap between the left truck and shooters there and the approaching force from the north was nowhere near enough to move their entire team of ten guys and the secretary.
But one quiet and competent Marine Raider . . .
McCoy turned to the SEAL beside him.
“Keep the secretary here until I clear a path,” he said.
The SEAL looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“Clear a path where?”
McCoy didn’t answer, just squeezed the SEAL’s shoulder and headed northeast along the wall of the warehouse in a low crouch, sticking to the shadows.
“Mako Three is moving north and then cutting west. I need two minutes, and then I’ll have us a path out of here to the west.”
“Three, Four,” came an irritated grunt from Castillo. “Wait up. I’m with you.”
“Negative, Four,” McCoy replied, his voice a soft whisper picked up in the ultrasensitive mic of his comms gear. “Stay with the secretary, boss. I’ll see you outside the fence.”
“Damn it,” Castillo barked in protest, but another burst of sustained machine-gun fire drove him behind cover.
McCoy seized the opportunity and sprinted for the fence line sixty yards north to flank the terrorists in cover behind the northernmost pickup, while its bed-mounted machine gun spit flames and tracers like special effects from a Star Wars movie. Rifle up, he reached the fence and took a knee, watching the seven fighters huddled behind the truck as the machine gun rattled out its tongues of death. He retrieved a pair of wire cutters from his kit and quickly snipped a hole in the fence big enough to crawl through. As he slipped through the opening, the machine guns quieted, and after a beat a loudspeaker started broadcasting from one of the pickup trucks.
“American Special Forces,” the voice said in perfect, albeit heavily accented, English. “There is no reason for you to die here tonight.”
Ducking low, McCoy sprinted across the dirt street that ran along the perimeter of the compound and dropped into a drainage culvert. He belly-crawled south, his arms burning as the lactic acid built up from the exertion as his elbows relentlessly pounded the gravel.
“We have you completely surrounded. We have overwhelming force with more than a hundred fighters and machine guns on all sides of you. Negotiations were near completion for the release of your secretary of state when you attacked us. Either you surrender now or I kill you and parade your bodies on CNN as proof of American military operations inside Sudan without authority or government permission. Let us be reasonable.”
While the terrorist talked, McCoy peered over the edge of the drainage ditch at the closest pickup. Seven fighters armed with AK-47s were sighting on the compound with their backs to him. The heavy machine gunner in the truck bed stood with his arm draped over the butt, waiting for the barrel to cool after his last prolonged engagement. McCoy worried that the next barrage would be meant to kill, rather than to demonstrate their overwhelming fire advantage. While the leader undoubtedly would prefer to take the SEALs and secretary alive, he was also smart enough to know that his own death—dealt from above—was inevitable if he waited too long.
It’s now or never.
McCoy slowly pressed to his feet—letting his rifle hang from the sling on his chest—and grabbed two grenades from his kit. With one in each hand, he pulled the pins with gloved thumbs and stepped up out of the ditch.
“Three, this is God,” came Mako Eight, the sniper holding overwatch a few blocks away, in his ear. “I see your play, bro. Let me get you a few steps closer.”
He didn’t hear the shot, but heard the screams from the next truck over, the one directly at the main gate, as the SEAL sniper behind him unleashed deadly covering fire.
The terrorist fighters sprang to life, some turning south in confusion, others ducking for cover.
McCoy threw both grenades—the one in his left hand he tossed underhand, rolling it into the cluster of jihadis behind the truck closest to him, and the other he lobbed overhand into the bed of the next truck over.
The simultaneous explosions cued him like a bark from a starter’s pistol, and he sprinted toward the carnage. Sighting over his Sig 716, he fired at the heavy gunner in the bed of the truck. His round hit the man in the right side of the face, spinning the fighter completely around and dropping him like a pile of garbage in the bed next to the tripod. In his peripheral vision, he saw movement at his ten o’clock. He swiveled left to find a wounded fighter staggering toward him—one hand clutching his bloody hip, his other bringing up an AK-47. McCoy squeezed off two 7.62 rounds, the first tearing open the terrorist’s throat and the second raising a puff of blood and gore as it took off the right side of his head.
McCoy leaped into the bed of the truck, quickly strafed the row of grenade-felled bodies on the ground behind him—just in case—before stepping up to man the heavy machine gun.
“Return fire, Mako!” he hollered, grabbing the stock of the heavy machine gun and spinning the weapon to his right on the tripod. “Three is manning the gun in the truck to the north, so don’t fucking shoot me.”
He squeezed the trigger as he turned the weapon on the tripod toward a cluster of fighters to the south. A tongue of flame and tracers lashed out across the confused fighters, tearing them to ribbons in seconds. He swept his line of death away from the compound back toward the fence line, cutting down three terrorists who’d charged into no-man’s-land, then he unloaded on the second truck he’d fragged with a grenade, shredding the cab, the machine-gun nest, and several fighters trying to take cover behind the tailgate. The machine gun cycled dry a heartbeat later, and McCoy— fueled by battle and adrenaline—leaped over the siderail and landed in the dirt. His rifle was up a split second later, scanning for targets when his gaze found the third pickup—where the megaphone talker had been.
McCoy sprinted toward the target, scanning fallen bodies as he ran—most mutilated from either his grenade or his strafing with the 7.62 machine gun. Not wanting to get shot in the back, he delivered only a final kill shot to a squirming shooter, en route to his objective. Covering fire from the SEAL sniper, Mako Eight, cleared the path for him and he almost didn’t see the well-dressed man crouched beside the rear fender of the truck he closed on. He spun left, dropping his red dot onto the man’s forehead as he talked into his hot mike.
“Clear through the front gate now, but move fast and watch for shooters who might have squirted.”
“Mako, Greyhound en route dust-off at the primary LZ in under three,” Junior said in his ear. The primary landing zone was four blocks west in a large open lot behind another, much smaller industrial compound—this one free of a fence. “Plan for hot LZ, get moving, Mako.”
The bearded terrorist in suit clothes stood, defiantly, an AK-47 still clutched in his right hand and his eyes glowing with malice. “Who are you?” the man asked, in clipped, clean English.
“I’m the Presidential Agent,” McCoy growled, “and the last face on this earth you’re ever going to see.”
He squeezed the trigger and the terrorist leader pitched backward into the dirt, dead.
McCoy took a knee beside the truck, aiming now at one of the two fighters struggling to decide whether he would be safer in front of the truck, where the rest of Mako’s team now poured fire onto his position, or behind the truck, where Mako Eight was thinning the herd with his sniper rifle. McCoy settled the terrorist’s indecision with a 7.62 round to his head. A single remaining terrorist now made his own decision, dropping his rifle and sprinting south, but Mako Eight ended his sprint three strides later.
“Holy shit, dude,” a voice said behind him. McCoy turned to see the tall SEAL who’d breached Secretary Malone’s cell by his side now standing over him, scanning the carnage everywhere around them. “How did you?”
“Well done, Three,” Cameron said as he jogged by and gave McCoy’s shoulder a squeeze as he passed. “Haul ass to the LZ, Mako.”
McCoy waved the quickstepping formation of SEALs protecting Secretary Malone toward the gate. “Two minutes. I’ll hold here for a second in case any stragglers try to engage.”
“You didn’t leave stragglers alive, from the looks of it,” Cameron said, chopping a hand forward to move everyone out. “Eight, fall in on us as we pass.”
“I’ll hold with you,” the SEAL called Bubba said, scanning the massacre site and then shaking his head and shooting him a wry smile. “Probably safer here with you,” he added with a chuckle. “Apparently you’re that guy.”
“I thought we agreed no more Captain America bullshit,” Castillo said, jogging up to McCoy, but he was grinning. Then the former Green Beret stuck a finger through the bullet hole in McCoy’s shirt, just below his armpit on the left and outside his body armor. “Talk about one charmed son of a bitch.”
“You’re welcome,” McCoy came back, but held his gaze over his rifle.
Castillo slapped his back and took off running west with the rest of the team.
“Your boss is a strange dude,” Bubba said, still scanning over his rifle. “And he ain’t no leader if he doesn’t put you in for the Medal of Honor for this one.”
McCoy laughed. “No medals on this op for me. I just did what any operator would do, bro, you included.”
The SEAL shook his head. “Yeah, right.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. My team’s not eligible for medals.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because we don’t exist,” he said, flashing the SEAL a crooked grin.
Fifteen seconds later, they were up, moving swiftly to the west, scanning over their rifles to the thrum of the MH-60s on approach and the beautiful sound of the MH-6 Little Birds going to work with their miniguns—clearing the enemy QRF boat and fighters on the river.
Better late than never.
McCoy could scarcely keep his grin contained.
Somehow they had done it. Rescued the secretary without a single casualty.
As he ran to the hovering helo, he suddenly found himself thinking, Maybe this Presidential Agent gig isn’t so bad after all.