One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (38 page)

Digger unclipped the chinstrap to his Kevlar brain bucket and slipped it off his head. Rushing wind grabbed his matted dirty-blond California-cool hair and threatened to pull out every strand. Digger lifted Hawk’s calf and slid the helmet underneath the dressing, elevating the wound the best he could. Kolt saw it wasn’t high enough, her wound still below the heart, and wasn’t surprised to see Digger grab his titanium prosthetic from behind the pilot’s seat and slide it under the helmet.

Digger reached underneath his vest and delicately pulled out the green parachute cord holding his meds around his neck. Holding up a red-capped syringe capsule, he placed it a few inches from Hawk’s eyes, offering her an escape from reality.

Kolt knew if she was responsive, Digger wouldn’t waste his morphine, but if not, he wouldn’t hesitate to stick her.

Hawk shook her head side to side a couple of times, saving her from the needle, prompting Digger to retract the offer and put the capsule away.

Kolt smiled and keyed his mike on helo common. “Breaker Four-One, casualty is responsive and stable, over.” Hawk would need some more medical attention, no doubt, but she was coherent and alert, at least for the time being.

“Roger,” Weeks answered before slowing the aircraft’s speed to save fuel, now knowing he wasn’t carrying an Eagle inside the golden hour.

Hawk reached up with her right hand to clear her bangs from her eyes and placed her trigger finger on her nose, closing one nostril at a time and blowing a snot monster from each onto her chest. She wiped her nose with the back of her forearm, looked at Kolt, and mouthed a quick
Thank you
.

Just as Kolt offered her a thumbs-up his Peltor came to life. It was Gangster, transmitting over the assault frequency.

“Noble Zero-One, acknowledge, over.”

“Go for Zero-One.”

“Red Squadron is in contact, I say again, hard compromised at Objective Beaver,” Gangster said with an obvious tone of distress.

Holy fuck!

Kolt was shocked, uncertain as to how to respond. He knew he should be taking this call from the secluded Notri at Camp Greaves. His task was to serve as the quick reaction force for Kleinsmith and his SEAL mates, but now, having had to recover Hawk at Panmunjom, they weren’t postured appropriately to perform their primary mission.

“Roger, orders?”

Kolt knew that response sounded lame. He braced for an ass wound over the net. He’d had no choice but to respond to Hawk’s problem, and now needed to get her on the ground under a medic’s care soon.

Kolt waited for what seemed like eternity for Gangster to respond. Nothing.

“This is Zero-One, send it.”

“I need you to break out the Little Birds and launch the QRF to support the SEALs,” Gangster said.

What the hell?
In an instant, Kolt realized he hadn’t notified Gangster that they had already serviced Hawk, had already deployed from Camp Greaves, had already created one international incident, and were not prepared to enter into a second one. Kolt had forgotten he was a squadron commander now, not a troop commander, and his focus should have been on notifying his higher command first, and acting second.

Aw shit!

“We are inbound your location, one wounded Eagle, litter but stable,” Kolt transmitted, bracing for the response.

Again, a long silence from Gangster’s end.

“Say again, Racer!” Gangster demanded. “You launched? For what?”

“We are about three mikes out, sitrep on the ground.”

“Negative, negative, negative,” Gangster said with deep disdain in his tone. “Turn around and head to Beaver immediately.”

“Can’t do it,” Kolt said, careful with his inflection. A lot of people were listening on that net, especially his men—Gangster’s old men—and even though they still had their fighting load of bullets and charges, their SIMON devices, and most of their MAUL rubber rounds, he knew he needed some more situational awareness about Kleinsmith’s shitstorm that he couldn’t obtain from the pod of a Little Bird.

“Need fuel and a medic, then we’ll turn.”

Kolt looked at JoJo, who was nodding his head in approval.

“Noble Zero-One, this is Heater One-Zero, go ahead and put her down here. Tractor One and Two arrived, z-bags and medics waiting.”

Startled by the response, Kolt didn’t recognize the call sign, but he knew the voice. It was Captain Yost, the SEAL Team Six commander. He wasn’t sure if he was in for an ass chewing or an attaboy for safely recovering Hawk, but he knew Yost to be a calm-headed commander and a seasoned SEAL leader.

“Roger,” Kolt said.

“Quick FRAGO on the ground, hot refuel,” Yost said. “Need to get you guys airborne ASAP!”

TWENTY-SIX

Inchon, South Korea

Kolt instinctively lifted his black Salomons a few inches as Breaker Four-One’s tubular skids gently found the weed-covered and forgotten parking lot outside the hangar. Something about the idea of having his lower legs crushed always made him nervous.

Kolt unhooked, slipped off the pod, and turned toward the hangar area. He spotted the litter bearers and waved to get their attention. With the blades still spinning, Kolt reached high in the air, careful not to lop his gloved fingers off, and pumped his fist to get them to hurry the hell up. Seeing Kolt’s signal, they started jogging toward the bird.

Greenpeace know about this place?

The place stunk like the black-market dock of a Panamanian trout farm. The aroma was worse than last night. He rubbed his nose with his sleeve and chalked it up to baking sun rays pulling every biohazard from the side-floating bloated bodies.

Kolt turned back toward Hawk, still sitting upright in the belly of the helo, holding her left deltoid with her right hand. Through the open cabin he noticed Digger had retrieved his leg. Now bent over the opposite pod, framed by the pearl white and aqua blue waters of the Yellow Sea, he was reattaching it to the male end of his right knee.

The idle engine still turning the blades drowned out the sound of the waves slapping against the riprap as if hiding the danger ahead. The rolling whitecaps, something Kolt knew the SEALs, and maybe Gangster, would frolic in, hadn’t always given him pause, but that was another time.

Hawk looked comfortable, almost as if she thought they might be giving her a lift back to the Seoul Grand Hilton. She made eye contact with Kolt, smiled, and lifted her left hand in a thumbs-up.

“This is your final destination. Don’t forget your belongings,” Kolt yelled, trying to be heard over the engine noise as he passed Hawk her cell phone back. “We have one more leg though.”

“Where are you guys going?” Hawk yelled.

“Troops in contact,” Kolt said.

“I’m going!” Hawk said, letting go of her shoulder to try and close up her soiled blouse, and pulling her bandaged leg off of Digger’s helmet to show she was ambulatory and not a liability.

“You’re fucked up, you need attention,” Kolt said. “We got this.”

“You guys don’t know the train like I do.”

“I said we got this.”

“You don’t got shit, Kolt!” Hawk said, knocking her blond bangs out of her eyes and running her hair behind her right rear.

Kolt narrowed his eyes at Hawk, a little taken back by the smart-ass remark. Uncharacteristically informal for sure. In the past, ever since they’d first met inside Huske Hardware House years earlier, Hawk always made it a point to be respectful, if not of the rank, of the seasoned operator.

Kolt took a long pull on his CamelBak. He swirled the fresh water around his mouth for a few seconds before spitting out a long stream that splattered several unnamed weeds, essentially clearing the clam nets from his mouth.

“You’re delirious,” Kolt said, chalking it up to the shock she must be feeling, coupled with the blood loss. He motioned to the litter bearers to help her out and onto the litter.

“All yours, fellas.”

“You guys don’t know what Seamstress looks like,” Hawk yelled, “only I do.” She scooted a little farther away from the litter bearers like a kid avoiding Mommy, not ready to go to bed just yet.

“Look, Hawk, you aren’t frickin’ going, now get the hell out so we can refuel this thing.”

She didn’t budge. The litter bearers, in a high crouch under the spinning blades, stood dumbfounded. Kolt looked to his left, where two men in civilian clothes were approaching the nose of the helo, laboring to keep from dragging the heavy black z-bag they were holding between them.

Why didn’t Digger just stick her?

Hawk leaned toward Kolt and handed him the folded-up note. Kolt opened it and cocked his head, a little confused.

“Field trip permission slip from your mother?” Kolt said before shoving it in his left shoulder pocket next to his chew.

“From Seamstress,” Hawk said, “probably need to get it translated.”

“You’re still not going.”

“Seamstress doesn’t have an RRD on Kolt,” Hawk said.

“We know,” Kolt fired back, “you hit him with a Q dot.”

“I missed!”

“You sent Toyota.”

“I did,” Hawk said, “but I hit his jacket, right between the shoulder blades.”

“Good enough,” Kolt said.

“Think about it, Kolt,” Hawk fired back. “If I hit his head, they’d have to waterboard the shit out of him, cut his head off, or make him bob for apples for an hour to get rid of the Q dot crystals.”

“Your point?”

“The point is that they probably stripped Seamstress naked by now, or best case, have taken off his jacket.”

“No jacket, no crystals, no tag,” Kolt said. “Is that it?”

Movement out of Kolt’s peripheral grabbed him. The two refuelers had held up short of the bubble and lowered the z-bag to the deck by the side handles. As per standard procedure, they looked to the pilot for instructions. CW3 Stew Weeks extended his forefinger and turned it downward, issuing the signal to fill the main tank only.

Kolt then noticed Weeks manipulating some small knobs, frictioning down the cyclic and the collective. The pilot then took out a black nylon strap and placed it over the collective. Weeks unhooked his safety harness, bent forward in the seat, and wrapped a red-and-yellow bungee cord around the spring-loaded right pedal. These steps would maintain the Little Bird at flight idle, main rotors spinning, and allow him to unass without risking the aircraft yawing right.

Weeks leaned back, confirmed the rpms were holding steady, and began crawling out of the right side of the bubble cockpit.

Kolt turned back to the medics. “See about her left shoulder. Body wrap her if you have to, but get the bleeding stopped. Her head, too.”

Kolt turned away from the cockpit, took a few steps in a crouch to clear the blades, then went upright, following Weeks up the slight incline toward Slapshot and the rest of the boys. Some lounged in the rucksack flop and some were standing. Kolt slid his rifle around to his back, letting the sling hold it in place, muzzle down, as he approached the hangar. He was looking at the front door when it flew open; the first person out ruined his day.

Shit! Gangster.

On Gangster’s heels, immediately following him out the door, was Captain Yost, the SEAL commander’s barrel-chested body and hint of a beer gut filling up the fatal funnel completely. Next out was the SEAL LNO and a few others Kolt didn’t recognize.

Guess we’ll get plenty of opinions.

Yost was a legend, Kolt knew, on the battlefield and in every boardwalk bar and saloon in Virginia Beach. Even though he’d slowed down a little, the hard-man, dirty-fighter reputation he’d built as a young SEAL officer had stayed with him. Kolt knew Yost wasn’t Dick Marcinko hard, but he was damn close. That was all good, for sure, but it needed to wait until they could hit oyster and beer night at CP Shuckers again. At the moment, Kolt only needed gas and a mad-minute intel dump.

Gangster went right for the jugular, not wasting any time. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Tied up, man,” Kolt said as he unhooked his helmet from his assault vest. “Hawk’s wounded but fine.”

“What?” Gangster said, looking past Kolt and toward the helo. “How bad? Where is she?”

Kolt ignored Gangster’s episode, pulled off his glove like a gentleman, and stepped toward Yost as he approached. Kolt extended his hand, taking the full seat of Yost’s, and consciously doing grip battle, as he didn’t want his old friend to best him.

“I still gotcha, Raynor,” Yost said, smiling as he handed Kolt a bottle of water. Kolt could feel the ice-cold water through his tactical glove.

“Great to see you, sir,” Kolt said. “Last time I believe I was dragging your ass across the Drina River east of Zvornick.”

Yost smiled, laughed, and slapped Kolt on the back. Total bullshit of course, as the War on Terror had seen to it that they ran into each other every few months or so. Kolt also knew he owed Yost for saving his ass, keeping him from drowning in the river that night, some sixteen years ago. In fact, it hadn’t been too long that Raynor and Yost were at the memorial chapel in Dam Neck, the services for the SEALs that had hit Nadal the Romanian’s safe house in Sa’naa, Yemen, and run into a trap. Before that tragedy, Yost had requested Racer by name to deploy with his SEALs.

“Damn good to see you, too, Kolt,” Yost said. “Look, Kleinsmith and the boys are in their E and E corridor but having a slow go of it with their casualties.”

“Just waiting on gas, sir,” Kolt said as he poured half the bottle of ice water on his head and took a deep swallow of the rest.

“Not sure they’ll get through the DMZ and back inside South Korea in one piece,” Yost said.

Gangster jumped in. “Kleinsmith blew Beaver and Bear.”

“Old news now, right?” Kolt asked, knowing he and his men were only gassing up to QRF the SEALs and not try to recover Seamstress.

“No, it still matters. One of your missions is QRF, quick reaction force, but your little flight to Panmunjom took the quick right out of that,” Gangster said.

“So the bridges are blown then, big deal,” Kolt said, still not understanding exactly what they were looking at before they buzzed back across the MDL and into North Korea airspace.