One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (42 page)

“I got it, boss!”

Kolt didn’t reply, knowing Slapshot’s wound must be superficial enough that he could still fight. Happy to at least have his squadron sergeant major’s support, he didn’t push it.

“Get us in front of the lead vehicle, Stew,” Kolt said.

“Roger.”

“Put your port side to the windshield,” Kolt said, letting everyone know that he wasn’t pushing the issue of who would fire the ferret rounds, putting CS gas through the windshield.

SEAL Captain Yost broke into the net from the JOC. “Breaker Four-One, this is Heater One-Zero, how’s your ship?”

Stew Weeks didn’t hesitate. He was still able to juggle his responsibilities single piloting an assault aircraft, loaded with wounded, and heading deeper into North Korea, looking for a fight.

“Systems solid,” Weeks replied. “Fuel gauge a little jumpy is all.”

“You need gas?” Yost asked.

“Negative,” Weeks said, “should be good for now.”

With an ear to Yost and Weeks, Kolt looked back into the cabin at JoJo, checking to see how Gangster was. JoJo was leaning over the former Delta officer, obscuring Kolt’s view of exactly what he was doing.

Kolt leaned a few inches deeper, trying to assess Digger and Slapshot. Digger was moving, apparently on his own, as Kolt spotted him helping Slapshot lift the shotgun sling from around his neck. Kolt wanted to ask how bad both Digger’s and Slapshot’s wounds were, but reconsidered. They were alive, and obviously not critical, so Kolt decided to let things ride.

Kolt saw Slapshot raise the shotgun, shove a thumb up into the fixed magazine to raise the loading tray and check the chamber, confirming he had at least two ferret rounds loaded.

Slapshot broke squelch. “I’ve got the shotgun. Digger, take one of the front tires.”

“Tunnel ahead,” Weeks said.

Kolt looked up, noticed the tunnel up ahead, pissed he hadn’t seen it first. Realizing Weeks didn’t have enough room to position his helo in front of the lead vehicle before crashing into the mountainside, Kolt gave Weeks an out.

“Pull if you need to, take them on the far side.”

“Hold on!” Weeks said.

Kolt felt the Little Bird accelerate and leaned slightly forward on the pod, keeping an eye on the two sedans as Weeks maneuvered in from the left. Now abreast with the lead vehicle, the tail rotor swung wide as Weeks banked hard right, holding a hard forty-degree angle to give Slapshot the correct angle of fire.

A moment later, Weeks pulled up and out, Kolt’s boots barely missing the concrete roof of the tunnel embedded in the hillside.

“Good hits!” Slapshot said.

“Put us on the tunnel exit,” Kolt said.

“Roger,” Weeks said, as he continued to climb. Weeks hugged the lush green hillside, covered with scrub bushes and sporadic brown bald spots.

“There’s gas all over the cabin floor,” JoJo said. “We’re leaking somewhere.”

“I’m not seeing it,” Weeks said, as he crested the hilltop and went nose down to the hardball road and the tunnel’s exit. “Instruments solid.”

Kolt kept his rifle aimed at the dark tunnel as the Little Bird touched down, just off the edge of the road. He unhooked and popped off the pod, immediately sprinting toward the U-shaped concrete tunnel entrance.

Surprised at not seeing the vehicles yet, Kolt turned to see JoJo on his heels.

“Nods down, let’s go,” Kolt said as he pulled the black plastic caps off his night vision goggles.

Kolt pushed down the right side of the tunnel, just a foot away from the wall, to not eat a rabbit round. He hoofed it opposite of the approach lane he knew the vehicles would likely be using, skittish of becoming roadkill. Up ahead, maybe another forty or fifty meters, he spotted the lead sedan cattycornered into the tunnel wall. The left front tire was flat and smoke billowed from under the hood. Through the smoke Kolt could barely make out the windshield, which bore the obvious marks of two shotgun rounds having penetrated into the cab.

Kolt and JoJo approached tactically, in depth with max fire power forward, ready for any North Korean that might have survived the crash and had maintained the will to fight. The trail vehicle, now in sight, looked as if it might have rear-ended the lead vehicle.

It took Kolt only another ten seconds or so to reach the lead sedan. With the engine smoke affecting his nods, he lifted them off his eyes, locking them into place above his helmet. Kolt picked up the residual from the ferret rounds, practically tasting the gas as it slowly entered his nostrils. With his rifle aimed at the windshield he slowed his pace to a careful hurry, closing the distance until he could see into the cab through the driver’s side window.

Two busted-up North Koreans were up front. The passenger was older and dressed in a dark suit. His face had smashed into the windshield, leaving a bloody imprint on the glass. He was buckled over and coughing from the effects of the CS, but alive. Kolt immediately assessed him as a possible match for Seamstress. The other occupant, a uniformed North Korean, was still behind the wheel and definitely unconscious. It looked like his nose had been caved in by the steering wheel.

Kolt quickly moved to the rear driver’s side window, jamming his rifle’s muzzle through the glass. Empty.

“Passenger is a possible jackpot,” Kolt yelled to JoJo, letting him know to hold his fire.

Kolt resisted the urge to positively identify the coughing passenger, knowing they needed to secure the crisis site first.

Kolt heard tires squealing and turned to the trail vehicle. He saw someone behind the wheel, two hands gripped at ten and two o’clock. As it sped toward him, Kolt couldn’t miss the determination in the driver’s eyes, the specific look telling Kolt the guy wasn’t driving scared. No, the driver was driving with intent to kill, headed straight for Kolt.

TWENTY-NINE

Kolt had only a second or two to react, with few options. He looked toward the tunnel wall, realizing the approaching vehicle would smash him like a bug on a windshield. He turned back to the smoking lead sedan and instinctively took a step and braced his nonfiring hand on the trunk. He launched his body up and onto the hood just as the front right bumper of the approaching car struck the left rear quarter panel, knocking the lead car a half length across the painted center line and throwing Kolt to the asphalt just as he picked up a strong whiff of burnt rubber.

Kolt tried to roll out of the fall, hoping to ball up as if he was executing a parachute landing fall, but the weight of his vest and gear killed his momentum and he flopped to the deck, landing hard on his strong side and Roscoe’s bite wound. A shooting pain flew up through his shoulder blades as he ate the stock end of his HK416.

Kolt tried to roll into a prone position, struggling to right his rifle and get a bead on the tires. Searching for his red dot, Kolt caught an image just distant of the racing vehicle, partially framed by the bright light of day at the tunnel exit.

Slapshot!

Kolt heard several shots ring out, the noise easily suppressed by his Peltor hearing protection. Kolt fought to settle his red dot and control his breathing but the vehicle fishtailed violently, first bouncing off the right tunnel concrete wall, then crossing both lanes and careening into the left tunnel wall.

Kolt knew Slapshot must have taken both front tires for the driver to instantly lose control like that. Or, Slap decided to go directly for the driver.

Immediately, Kolt spotted a North Korean soldier step outside the driver’s side and turn around, aiming a handgun at Kolt’s face. Kolt dove back toward the smoking lead car, collapsing to both knees as three or four pistol shots rang out. Kolt heard the rounds whip by his head, one sounding as if it skipped off the pavement only a foot away. Kolt shuffled to the front quarter panel and hugged the tire for cover.

Kolt angled around the front bumper, saw the enemy soldier had mirrored his actions, now ducked behind the open driver’s door. Kolt scooted backward a few more inches, out of the soldier’s field of fire, and leaned forward, putting his helmet on the asphalt and trying to obtain a sight picture with his rifle turned sideways, ejection port down.

Shit!

Kolt knew he was too close to get a good angle and ripped his chin strap off and up, letting his Ops-Core helmet fall to the road. He leaned toward the road again, this time able to get his head close enough to the road to acquire a good cheek weld and observe the hidden North Korean’s knees on the deck below the open door through his HOLO Sight optics.

Holding his red dot just below the door, Kolt sent two 5.56 rounds down range only a few inches off the road. The man fell from behind the door, now partially exposed and screaming in pain while holding his left knee and shin.

“Cover me!” Kolt yelled.

“Roger!” JoJo said.

Kolt popped to his feet, stepped wide around the front of the sedan, and rushed the trail car. Seeing the pistol on the deck, he kicked it down the road, then put his size-eleven Salomon into the wounded Korean’s groin. Seeing the front seats were empty, Kolt quickly moved to the back seats, this time going for the door handle. He ripped it open with his nonfiring hand before reacquiring the upper receiver. Kolt spotted a fat old man, again, like the other one, wearing a black suit. His hands were already over his head, as if he had resigned himself to giving up and hoping he wouldn’t be hurt.

Kolt heard a transmission through his Peltors. It was Weeks: “Getting low on fuel.”

Already?
Kolt thought Weeks’s call was odd, knowing they had topped off the tank back at the JOC in Inchon.

Ignoring Weeks’s call for the moment, Kolt froze as he noticed another man opposite the fat man in the backseat. It was another older man for sure, not as heavy as the other two, but either unconscious or dead. Strangely, this one was dressed in his birthday suit, if not for the baggy gray drawers, his hands hidden behind his back.

Kolt reached into the backseat, grabbed the suit collar of the fat man, and dragged him out to the hardball road. Kolt rolled him to his belly and dropped his right knee hard into the small of the North Korean’s back.

“Grab the other guy,” Kolt said.

“Rog,” Slapshot said.

Kolt yanked a pair of flex cuffs from his assault vest, quickly flex-tying his man before moving around the vehicle to help Slapshot. The mostly naked man was lying on his belly, too, as Slapshot worked to set the teeth of his bolt cutters on a set of shiny handcuffs.

“He’s alive,” Slapshot said. “Our man?”

Kolt tapped his rifle’s SureFire, white-lighting the man’s hands. Kolt studied them as his squadron sergeant major worked to turn him over. Kolt lifted one of the hands, felt how oddly large it was, and gently set it back down. Kolt looked down to the man’s feet. Fat and flat, flopped heavily to the street like two groupers scored on a deep-sea fishing outing.

“Jackpot!” Kolt transmitted. “I say again, Jackpot.”

“Roger, Jackpot,” Weeks said. “We need to go. Not sure we’ll make the DMZ.”

Kolt rotated his rifle to his back side, muzzle down, and leaned over to lift Seamstress over his right shoulder.

“I got him, boss,” Slapshot said.

“You’re wounded, man,” Kolt said, looking at Slapshot’s blood-soaked Multicam top. “No worries.”

“What about the others?” Slapshot asked.

“Leave ’em,” Kolt said as he turned back to the smoking vehicle where JoJo was still holding security. “JoJo, let’s bolt.”

Slapshot led the way back to the tunnel exit, toward the waiting Little Bird. JoJo brought up the rear, maintaining security at six o’clock, allowing Kolt to concentrate on carrying the precious cargo.

“Eagles coming out!” Slapshot transmitted, signaling Gangster and Digger that friendlies were exiting the dark tunnel.

Still twenty or so meters from the spinning Little Bird, Kolt noticed someone standing near his pod. It was Gangster, his thick latte brown hair blowing heavily in the rotor wash, his helmet under his arm like he was carrying a football. Kolt looked closer as he closed the distance, and realized Gangster also had his assault vest off, holding it in his other hand, his rifle slung.

What the hell?

Kolt laid Seamstress down on his external pod as Slapshot helped to position him into the cabin. Smelling a heavy odor of fuel, Kolt eyeballed Gangster as he stepped in, handing his helmet to Slapshot, then awkwardly trying to affix his assault vest around the topless Seamstress. Kolt watched as Gangster connected the Velcro straps around Seamstress’s waist. It definitely wasn’t one-size-fits-all, but it would work.

Slapshot secured Gangster’s helmet over Seamstress’s head before climbing into the cabin and then turning to help Gangster slide the North Korean into the cabin. Gangster’s efforts were a funny sight, but Kolt knew it was smart. No need to have hung it out on a high-risk mission and have the precious cargo get smoked by a lucky round from a hidden North Korean sniper or a Red Guard paramilitary in the hills.

“Good call,” Kolt yelled, looking at Gangster. “You okay?”

Gangster turned to Kolt and locked eyes. “Where’s your helmet and nods?”

Kolt had practically forgotten about dumping his headgear to get a shot but ignored the comment, wiping the two snot snakes hanging from his nostrils with his sleeve before keying his hand mike and moving to straddle the front of the personnel pod. Kolt took a long pull on his CamelBak, swirled the water around his mouth several times, and spit it out onto the hot asphalt.

“Breaker Four-One, this is Noble Zero-One,” Kolt said, “we’re up with one PC.”

“Roger, Four-One is out with five Eagles plus one,” Weeks said. “I’m not sure I can lift us all.”

Kolt felt Weeks give the bird max power as the helo vibrated like an unbalanced overstuffed washing machine.

C’mon, c’mon, Stew, get us airborne.

Kolt felt the bird lift off the deck a few inches but quickly drop the skids back to the two-lane road.

“We’re heavy,” Weeks transmitted.

“Nothing to shed, brother,” Kolt said. “Gotta make it work.”

Then, just as Kolt finished his transmission, he felt the Little Bird climb. Slow but steady. Several seconds later, Weeks turned a quarter port side, climbed to roughly thirty feet, and slowly lowered the cockpit nose as he accelerated southwest toward the border.