Full Assault Mode (11 page)

“What the fuck, Smitty?” he yelled, knowing he couldn’t be heard over the engine roar. “Is your crew chief gonna drop the ropes or…?”

Kolt couldn’t finish the sentence before he overheard Admiral Mason’s voice break into the radio net.

“Ghost Two-One actual, this is Capital Zero-Six. Heavy enemy resistance. Abort the infil. RTB immediately. Over.”

Kolt then noticed the helicopter crew chief giving the abort signal with his knifed hand, moving it quickly as if he was cutting his own throat. Kolt turned back quickly toward Admiral Mason. He was still under the radio headset but now making the same abort motion as the crew chief.

“Shit!”

Kolt knew the enemies’ green tracer fire seen out the side windows through the whiteout and off the back ramp made folks nervous. But after twelve years of war, the world-class crews and pilots from the 160th had learned to fly with ice in their veins

Kolt was only a few feet from the hinge side of the ramp. He thought about simply reaching up and out and pulling the damn cotter pin that kept the gathered fast rope connected to the helicopter. A quick yank, and gravity would do the rest. In a second, the end of the nylon rope would be lying in the snow-covered valley and ready for ropers.

No way he could pull that off, though. He knew that would be the craziest thing he’d ever done. If the admiral says abort, then that’s what they would do. And in a normal situation, if this could be called normal, the decision would stand. But what about Shaft?

Kolt hoped his mate had maintained his cover as the two Dark Horses made the hour-plus flight to the target area. He hoped he hadn’t done anything stupid. Nothing to be a hero. But there was no way to confirm his safety. Not from a hovering helo that was about to abort the mission and fly away. And not even over the cell phone. Shaft’s batteries were dead.

But if Shaft maintained his cover as a medicine man and went with the flow, Kolt figured he could safely work his way out of the situation. If the helos left the area, sure, things would be in full frenzy for a while with the locals on the ground, but Shaft was there to help them, not kill them.

Quickly, Kolt looked down at the Toughbook laptop screen. Seeing the liquid crystal display had gone into sleep mode, he reached down with his gloved firing hand to swipe the pressure pad to bring the screen back to life.

Where the hell is the blue icon?

Kolt slapped the Toughbook’s magnesium-alloy case slightly in the side, hoping it was a simple glitch and the blue icon would flash back on the screen in all its brilliance. Nothing. Kolt knew immediately that was too much of a coincidence to be, well, a simple coincidence. No. The blue icon had been strong and steady the entire time Shaft had been in Pakistan. Raptor X had been spot-on this entire rotation to the box. No. Something was definitely jacked up on the ground.

From underneath his headset, Kolt heard Smitty’s response to Mason’s order.

“Abort! Abort! Abort!” Smitty had made the net call, confirming to everyone listening in from Jalalabad to Tampa to Fort Bragg that the mission was aborted.

Kolt couldn’t blame Smitty. The order had been given. Maybe if Admiral Mason was hours away back at the JOC watching things unfold on screen from a Predator B drone feed, Smitty could ignore the order. Maybe Kolt could maintain some control of the situation and keep Smitty focused. Enough focus, at least to get Kolt and his Delta operators on the ground.

But Mason wasn’t warm and safe in the circus tent listening to the radio traffic. He was front and center. And, as such, was in as much danger as anyone else in the back of the helicopters.

And then the black sky lit up like a rock concert stage. A massive fireball erupted only ninety feet to their four o’clock. Kolt instinctively turned away from the trail helo and lifted his arm to shield his face from any flying debris tearing through the sky at treacherous speeds.

Kolt’s helicopter shook violently for a second before it bounced back to level. Everyone standing had been thrown to the floor and toppled over those that had maintained a knee. Kolt turned back. He watched the flaming trail helo counter-rotate slowly, drop its tail uncharacteristically but then correct and level off as it struggled to move south down the valley on the front end of a massive smoke trail.

Kolt had no choice. The decision had been made. The mission to grab Ghafour had to go now. A downed helo full of operators? The blue icon of Shaft’s iPad 4 beacon gone? The admiral had pushed him at every turn.

If Kolt lived, what he was about to do would certainly get him booted out of the special-ops community for the second time in his life. Or, worse yet, it might come with a stay in Leavenworth federal penitentiary. Either would be worse than death to Kolt. But Shaft would never make it out alive now without help, and losing the lead on Zawahiri would push back years of effort.

“Fortune favors the bold,” whispered Kolt.

He dropped the radio headset, stepped over the legs of several kneeling teammates, and reached for the silver cotter pin. He yanked it out and watched the dark nylon rope fall freely toward the snow-covered ground. He didn’t bother to wait and ensure the infrared chemlite taped to the free-running end of the rope had stopped moving. The sign that the rope was actually on the ground. No, Kolt Raynor simply grabbed the rope with his two gloved hands and jumped out into the darkness before the ninety-foot fast rope had time to fully extend.

He’d work it out with Admiral Mason later. He’d have to.

EIGHT

Isolation Cell Black—Black Ice

The sliding open of the six-inch window at the bottom of the box startled Hawk. She knew the routine. She could set her watch by it if she had one. The visit was too early for breakfast. It didn’t matter, though; she was too weak to resist anything by now. She tried to open her two black eyes as the Middle Eastern music stopped, but severe swelling had closed her left one completely.

“Rise and shine, little lady,” the rent-a-cop said. “Gonna tell us what your real unit in the military is today?”

No response.

“I’m going to ask you one more time, Miss Bird. Why has your boyfriend, Troy, been spreading a rumor all over downtown Fayetteville about you being in an organization called Delta Force?”

Bird had ignored this question a dozen times on day 1 and at least a half-dozen times on day 2. As far as she could tell anyway, she had long ago lost track of time and numbers. Not sure if it was Saturday or Monday, and only believed it may have been morning from the asshole’s greeting. This time she figured she’d answer the question. In fact, she’d do almost anything to get out of the box. But not to serve as a punching bag again for the cops—not that she believed they were real cops—but rather to stand up straight and stretch out. Short of that, Hawk prayed someone would put a stop to the incessant loud playing of jihad music or the blood-curdling cries of baby girls begging for their daddies.

“Troy is a dumbass,” Bird said. “He doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about.”

Or does he? She wondered if Troy might have spouted off to one of his buddies about her outfit. She knew for sure he had no idea that she was anything more than a garden-variety 74D, a chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear specialist by trade. She was certain she had not violated operational security about her true position in the slightest. In fact, as far as she knew, Troy thought all she did at the Unit was clean and issue gas masks.

But then again, Hawk knew Troy had a hard-on for anything Delta related, particularly after attending tryouts two years ago and being dropped on Bloody Thursday.

I’ll cut his balls off.

She couldn’t see her interrogator since her box was pitch-dark, and even trying to steal a peak through the spots where the plywood was fastened just revealed the powerful bright lights aimed at the box. But she knew the jerk talking was one of two dirtbags who had been doing the questioning, dishing out the beating, when they didn’t like her response.

Yes, this asshole was either the short dumpy guy who smacked her across the face with a closed fist outside Macy’s, ruining her Costas, or the taller bald guy who landed an upper cut to her rib cage the last time she didn’t answer the same question. Either way, Hawk had just stepped outside the circle. It was a major mistake. She admitted to knowing Troy, confirmed their relationship, and showed she still had some fire left in her to resist. It was the slip the interrogators were waiting for.

“Is that so?” the cop replied, knowing she had slipped up but still not buying it in the least. It was the tall bald cop. But he wasn’t alone. Hawk didn’t know that Webber was standing just outside her box.

Webber was surprised by Hawk’s tone and response. After three long and full days, this was the first sign of her willingness to play. So far, she had diverted into irrelevancy when under questioning or even feigned sickness and cowered away as if she was scared of being beaten or slapped anymore.

“Should we play the tape? Your Troy boy sounds pretty proud of you,” the interrogator asked.

“Bullshit!” Hawk said.

The cop laughed as he looked down to read from the three-by-five cards he held in his hand. It was all planned out by the unit psych and Colonel Webber. The protocol was simple: break detainees initially by having them reveal their affiliation with Delta Force, then turn to more personal issues to break their spirit.

The average time so far had been four and a half days in the box. Two of the male operators had actually held out for the duration, seven days and nights, before the exercise was called. The logic being that if you could hold out for a week in Black Ice, you stood a good chance of actually surviving a real hostile hostage situation. Hawk was just under the average.

The interrogator continued. “OK, OK, let’s shift focus for a minute, Miss Bird. What about your dad?”

My Dad?
Hawk was utterly surprised.
What the fuck do they know about my dad?

“Your dad was a military man, right?”

“You figure that out all by yourself?” Bird asked. Beating on Hawk was one thing, but bringing up her dad was somewhere they better not go.

“Your dad liked to spend a lot of time alone with you, didn’t he?”

Hawk started to shake. She couldn’t believe the nerve of this asshole. Even if this was a training exercise, of which she wasn’t entirely convinced yet, where in the hell did this dickhead come up with these questions?

“Your dad also was cited in a 2003 after-action report for cowardliness under fire during the initial invasion into Iraq,” the cop said before quietly moving to the exit door. Before exiting, he turned back, raising his voice to ensure Cindy Bird could hear him. “That’s a damn shame for a Special Forces man. Must be pretty embarrassing.”

Colonel Webber motioned the interrogator to step out of the room. He had taken it all in. He was now alone with Hawk and her box.

“It’s Colonel Webber, Sergeant Bird. It’s time to go.”

The voice was familiar to her. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it might be the Delta commander. She played coy, though. Even after three days—or maybe it had been four or five—of utter hell, her natural defenses kicked in. Who else could be standing outside her box? Without knowing for sure, though, she couldn’t risk compromising herself to other folks not read on to Delta. Any more than she might already have.

Or maybe she was just so pissed off at the world right now that she wasn’t in the mood to be cordial to anyone. No, not maybe. Cindy Bird was pissed. The comments about Troy were bad enough, but the comments about her dad were over the top. Hawk was so pissed that she had had enough of this army-game bullshit. In fact, now her toughest environmental engineering classes in college seemed like paradise, and Fort Riley, Kansas, didn’t seem like such a bad place to be stationed after all.

Thirty more seconds of silence passed. She still hadn’t responded to Webber.

Webber hadn’t anticipated this. But the Delta psychs had. They warned Webber that a female would likely crack. They warned she would be a shell of the woman she was before she was scarfed up in a mall parking lot. Even after just a few days of no sleep, her mental capacity would be at its minimum. A few small cups of soup would ensure her survival, but little more. Even one of the first seven male operators had completely caved in by now, so why would it surprise anyone that a woman would break? Hawk would be at an all-time low.

But if Hawk was serious about what she had told the Delta Force psych Doc Johnson during her half-dozen assessment interviews two years earlier, then now was the time to prove it. The female pilot program had been briefed to the highest levels of the administration with mixed support along the way. Some were all for it, particularly the liberal left supporters of the president, but the more traditionally minded were dead set against using females in any capacity to protect a male operator on target.

If she came out of Black Ice, a culmination exercise of sorts, still committed to doing what was necessary for the security of her country, then Delta knew they had a winner. Moreover, Hawk’s success would certainly create opportunities for other females to serve in the unit ranks.

That’s what brought Colonel Webber all the way to Atlanta, immediately after he finished up the Commander’s Board interviews at Delta tryouts. Where he should have been, however, was overseas in Afghanistan helping Kolt Raynor and the boys acquire launch authority from the JSOC commanding general to go after HVI number 2, Mohammad Ghafour, in the Goshai Valley. Not only was Hawk’s success important to Webber, since he had been teammates with her father in Delta years ago, but the pilot program was his baby. He wanted her to succeed for herself as much as he did to validate the program, but even Webber wouldn’t cut corners. It had to be done right. It had to be legit, which is why Webber approved the hot-button comments about his old boss, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Leland Bird. LTC Bird, or MLB, short for “major league ballplayer,” was a legend in Delta. Anyone in the know knew this as fact. Doc Johnson insisted that if Webber wanted the pilot program to succeed and be recognized as not throwing softballs to the females, then MLB was fair game. Webber agreed. He didn’t necessarily like it, but he knew the importance. And Webber knew that if the Delta psychs knew Cindy “Hawk” Bird’s file, he knew the woman.