He picked up a CIA transmission, alerting him to the fact a
drone was now overhead, streaming back real-time video of the firefight. Ethan
set his rifle inside on the deck, pulled his ruck over and opened it up.
Quickly, he pulled out his Toughbook laptop, opened the lid and fired it up. In
a minute, he was looking through the drone’s orbiting eyes.
Dammit.
These Marines were in real trouble. He saw at least forty
Taliban on one side of the north side of the hill, fighting and firing RPGs at
the Marines on top. On the eastern flank of the hill, at least sixty Taliban
attacked.
Ethan called SEAL HQ and talked to Master Chief Gil Hunter. He
relayed the streaming video intel, telling him the four of them weren’t going to
make a huge difference in this fight. The master chief agreed and switched over
to the Black Jaguar Squadron, requesting immediate Apache support.
Ethan watched the dry, yellowed and rocky earth far below skim
by; the helo was at max speed. The Night Stalker pilots were skilled at making
insertions and exfil for black ops groups. They flew at a high enough altitude
so that the RPGs carried by the Taliban couldn’t reach them.
Ethan studied the laptop, trying to decide where to insert. If
they didn’t get those Apaches, it was going to be a brutal, long, drawn-out
fight. Marines were exactly that: steady, reliable fighters. They didn’t know
the words
quit
or
surrender.
Ethan liked working with the Marines because they had the
hearts of SEALs. He’d never tell them that, but those men were damned good in
combat.
The Black Hawk swung down, banking sharply. Ethan was tethered
to the frame with a harness, so he wouldn’t fall out. He ordered his men to
unsafe their weapons and get ready to bail as he stowed his laptop in his ruck.
For the insert, Ethan chose the south side of the hill, which was rocky and
nearly impossible for the Taliban to climb quickly. And then it would mean a
swift climb over hot, burning rocks in order to reach the pinned-down
Marines.
He was already in touch with Lieutenant Porter, the Marine
officer leading the squad, letting him know their ETA and where they were coming
in. Ethan didn’t want his team to be seen as a Taliban force coming over the
hill and get fired on by the Marines.
He heard a lot of other communications in his earpiece. The bad
news was no Apaches were available; they were all out on other missions, raining
hell down on enemies elsewhere. As the Black Hawk thunked and shuddered, drawing
closer to the parched earth and rocks at the base of the hill, Ethan called the
master chief and asked for other means of support.
They landed and leaped off the Black Hawk, the rotor wash
nearly knocking them over as they crouched and scuttled swiftly away from the
helo. Ethan used hand signals, getting his men into the rocks. Behind him, the
Night Stalker pilots lifted the bird off, getting the hell out of Dodge. He
called Porter and let him know they were on the ground. The officer sounded
relieved.
Moving up swiftly through and between the rocks, the SEALs
spread out in a diamond formation. That way, their flanks were protected and
covered. Ethan took the lead, breathing hard at the nine-thousand-foot altitude,
his lungs burning with exertion. Sweat poured off him, and he constantly wiped
his face with the back of his glove as he leaped and moved upward. He heard the
gunfire, the screams and curses of the Taliban.
Crouched and running, eyes moving left to right, Ethan led his
team higher into the rocks. The snap and pop of bullets sizzled around them
while they moved over the top of the hill. Ethan spotted the young Marine
officer firing at the enemy starting to come over the hill. He gave a hand
signal to his shooters to spread out and help the beleaguered Marines.
“Causalities?” he shouted above the gunfire at the officer.
“Two wounded,” he yelled back. “I need medevac! Two
nine-liners!”
Ethan nodded and quickly made the call into Camp Bravo squadron
for the Marine officer. Nine-line meant the wounded were critical. Fresh blood
would be brought in a cooler to give to the men when on board. He switched radio
channels, calling into the medevac HQ, apprising them of the situation and that
the wounded were critical. The male dispatcher told him a medevac would arrive
at the hill in twenty minutes.
For a brief second, he wondered if Sarah would be flying today.
She had to be back on the flight roster after her enforced four-day rest. His
gut tightened. He didn’t want her flying into this hell. All Marines were on
their bellies, firing systematically, not wildly. They were trained and
disciplined, not wasting any more ammo than necessary to kill the enemy.
He leaned over and told the officer there was a split Taliban
force of ninety men. The red-haired officer paled. Ethan could tell this was a
young lieutenant, not battle hardened with experience. He then heard the throaty
roar of the M4s going online from the SEAL contingent. They joined in with the
Marines’ M16 rifles, laying down fire and halting the Taliban attempt to overrun
their position.
Ethan’s job was to get the overview, assess their position and
then, because he was comms, get these Marines the help they needed in order to
repulse the Taliban. The screams of raging Taliban soldiers, gunfire, the
explosion of RPGs and the curses of the Marines were deafening. Crouching down
behind a rock, near Porter, Ethan worked the radios, seeing what he could get in
the way of support.
He grinned, finding an A-10 warthog pilot loitering in the area
with a load of bombs and a Gatling gun that could repulse the Taliban. Ethan
quickly gave the pilot their GPS location. The pilot, who called himself
Wolverine, said he’d redline to their position and get there in about twenty
minutes.
Feeling better, Ethan turned, told the officer and then moved
between two towering rocks. He went prone and began to pick off the Taliban as
they crawled over the top of the hill. In his mind, he worried about the medevac
coming in. Where should it land? He needed to know where the two wounded Marines
were located. Pushing to his knees, Ethan crawled between the rocks and spotted
a Navy combat corpsman some hundred feet away, tending to the Marines who were
in critical condition. They didn’t look good.
Damn.
He saw the grimness in the corpsman’s face as he tightened up a
tourniquet on one Marine’s bleeding thigh. The other Marine had a head injury.
No way could he ask the medevac to wait. The Marines were critical and would die
soon if they didn’t get immediate transport.
Ethan wondered if it would be too late. As he turned to keep
Porter updated, he couldn’t help but think of Sarah. Something told him she
would be piloting that Black Hawk into this fiery hell.
Dammit!
Chapter 6
T
he moment Sarah heard Ethan’s voice over her radio channel, her heart did a triple beat in her chest. She’d gotten the intel and GPS location of the Marines pinned down on a hill at the ready room from her flight commander. She held the cyclic and collective, pushing her Black Hawk to maximum, the blades thumping heavily, making the craft shake and shudder. Her copilot, Eddy Tait, a twenty-two-year-old warrant officer from the bayous of Louisiana recently out of training, was busy with the radio frequencies. She watched her next waypoint coming up on her HUD, heads-up display, banking to the left. In the rear was her aircrew chief, Hubbard. She had two medics on the flight, Carew and Pascal, because this was a nine-line call and both Marines were critical. Her medics were solid players, especially Pascal because he was an 18 Delta corpsman, the most highly trained combat medics in the world. Tait was questionable because this was his first rotation and he wasn’t aggressive when it came down to flying into bullets and RPGs exploding around them. She’d seen the fear in his face before they lifted off. He’d gain a set of cojones over time.
The heat rising off the earth hurled the Black Hawk up and down like a yo-yo as it hit big air pockets. As she kept them as steady as possible, Sarah constantly moved her gaze between the cockpit panel and the land five thousand feet below them. Her dark helmet visor was drawn down across the upper half of her face, the mic near her lips. She felt the urgency, knowing two Marines were critical. While forcing herself not to think about Ethan being down there, she milked every bit of speed out of her Black Hawk. Tait was working the overhead throttles to get every ounce of speed from those two engines.
Within five miles of the hill, Sarah heard Major Donaldson’s pedantic voice come over her radio.
“Black Dog One, this is Black Dog. Over.”
Twisting her lips, she thumbed the mic. “Black Dog One. Over.” What the hell was he on the radio for? She’d already gotten approval from the Marines and SEAL HQ at Bagram to fly in and pick up the wounded men. She felt dread. There was no way he was going to tell her to back off this run now.
“Loiter at five miles, Black Dog One. Over.”
Tait’s mouth fell open, and he quickly looked to his right where she sat, confusion in his eyes.
“That’s a negative, Black Dog,” she growled back. “We have a nine-liner, two critical, and I have approval from Bagram.” Would Donaldson back off now? Sarah swore under her breath after she turned off the channel so her crew couldn’t hear her conversation with her boss.
“This is an order, Black Dog One. Loiter at five miles until I give you permission to fly in. Over.”
Not a chance.
Sarah keyed the mic. “You’re breaking up,” she said as she played with the mic, making it sound like she was. “Can you repeat? Did not receive. Over.”
Sarah heard the major angrily repeat the order. She continued to key the mic, causing static disruption.
Go to hell, Donaldson. If it were you on that hill, you’d sure as hell be screaming like a baby wanting a medevac to come and rescue your sorry ass.
Tait appeared uncertain after hearing Donaldson’s order.
“Just fly,” Sarah said. He was so damn green he didn’t understand that she followed Bagram’s orders, not her CO’s belated, secondary order. Bagram trumped Donaldson. Two men’s lives were on the line. They had family who loved them, maybe wives and children. Sarah was damned if she was going to let a few bullets and the threat of RPGs stop her from landing and taking them on board.
“Hey, Chief Benson,” Pascal drawled, humor in his tone as he spoke to her on the ICS, intercabin system. “Having a little trouble with our radio, are we?”
Sarah grinned sourly. “Yeah, it’s messing up. Gotta have it looked at, Pascal, once we get back.”
“It’s been on the fritz before,” Pascal said, chuckling. “I’ll look at it and see what I can do.”
In his early thirties, Pascal was an experienced medic and knew the dance. Then there was Tait, who scowled, his mouth set. He had yet to understand politics versus orders. She’d set him straight once they returned to Bravo.
As she banked the Black Hawk, the helo thunking and the vibrations rippling through her entire body, Sarah heard Ethan’s voice on the radio.
“Black Dog One, this is Avalanche Actual. Over.”
“You got me, Avalanche Actual. Where do you want me to drop in? Over.”
Sarah smiled to herself, knowing Ethan would instantly recognize her voice. If he did, it didn’t come through in his low, steady tone. He was speaking to her as if all were calm, but she could hear the fierce firefight going on around him.
Ahead, she noted the hill and several RPGs exploding near the rocks where the Marines were pinned. Her heart rate went up. Taliban lurked on two sides of the hill, trying to come over the top like ants and overrun the Marines. Where to land? Did Ethan have a spot chosen?
“Black Dog One, I’m putting out green smoke to mark your landing site. You’re going to have to come in on the south side of the hill and land downslope, just below the top of it. Over,” Ethan said.
No doubt he was trying to land her helo downslope from the firefight. Bullets couldn’t bend, and it would mean they’d take less fire as a result.
“Copy that, Avalanche Actual. Coming in hot. Out,” she answered, bringing the helo in swiftly. Sarah knew from experience that the Taliban would see them coming in and throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at them. Never mind Geneva Conventions clearly spelled out that a red cross on the nose of a helo meant no one could fire at it or try and destroy it. The Taliban went by its own rules.
Ethan stood crouched behind some boulders, watching Sarah guide the Black Hawk helicopter into the fray. He’d gotten two other Marines to bring their wounded comrades up to this point. There was no way he could afford men to carry them down to the base of the hill, where it would have been much safer. The trip probably would have killed them anyway. He swiftly looked around and called Porter on the radio.
“Lieutenant, when I give the order, lay down suppression fire so this bird can land. She’s coming in hot and we have to protect it.”
“Roger,” Porter said.
Ethan then switched channels, connecting the Marines and SEALs. “Suppression fire. Lay it down now,” he ordered. SEALs knew how to lay down lead in a curtain that would keep the enemies’ heads down.
He wiped his mouth, watching the Black Hawk scream in. Damn, Sarah was a hellion in the air! She flared the Black Hawk, nose up at the last moment, bleeding off forward air speed and then thunking that helo down hard on its tricycle landing gear. She would keep the speed at eighty miles per hour—takeoff speed—so she could get out of there if things turned sideways.
“Now!” Ethan ordered the Marines behind him. He got up, slinging his M4 across his back, and helped pick up the first Marine. Simultaneously, both medics from the Black Hawk leaped out and ran at top speed toward them to help, a litter between them.
Bullets started snapping around the Black Hawk. Sarah sat tensely, watching Ethan, the Marines and her medics haul the two unconscious Marines on board. Several bullets smashed into the Plexiglas on her side of the cockpit. A shower of sparkling fragments slammed through the cockpit area. She flinched but kept her hands steady on the cyclic and collective, her boots on the rudders.
Hurry! Dammit, hurry!
Suddenly, Tait screamed. Whipping her head around, she saw he’d been hit in the arm from a fusillade of bullets shattering his side of the cockpit Plexiglas.
The medics got the Marines on board. She heard Pascal yell, “Lift off!”
Sarah didn’t need any more than that. Tait lifted his gloved hand, pushing the throttles overhead to the wall, punching the fuel into her bird. She cranked up the cyclic, getting the hell off the hill. As she guided the Black Hawk down the slope, avoiding the hail of gunfire, she could hear the pinging sounds of bullets ripping into the skin of her bird. Some blew through the cabin, opening holes between the inner and outer skin going between those two layers of insulation. She prayed none of them hit the Jesus nut, the rotor assembly, or they were screwed. Tait was moaning and crying in pain, holding his shoulder, blood leaking between his fingers.
“Pascal!” she snapped into the mic. “Tait’s been wounded in the left shoulder. Can you get up here?”
“On my way in a second....”
Pascal’s cool, calm voice was a godsend in the chaos for Sarah. She wanted to yell at Tait to suck it up. But the copilot was crying like a baby. Hell, the two Marines in the back were wounded and neither of them was screaming like he was. Sarah guided the Black Hawk up as fast as she could to five thousand feet altitude while pushing it forward in an effort to get back to Camp Bravo as quickly as possible.
Tait handled the throttles overhead in the cockpit between their seats. Sarah had to keep both her hands on the collective and cyclic. With Tait out of the fight, she was doing both. Not a good scenario.
Pascal examined Tait’s bloody arm. He said to her, “This turned into a casevac, Chief Benson. Both those Marines... Head directly for Bagram.”
Heart sinking, Sarah nodded. “Roger,” she said, heading west toward Bagram Air Base. It would be a fifty-minute flight. “How bad?” she demanded.
“Past critical,” Pascal said, leaning over Tait, trying to size up his wound. He pulled out a pair of scissors from his trouser pocket, telling the panicked copilot to turn and sit still so he could cut into the upper sleeve of his flight suit to examine the wound.
Sarah’s mind leaped ahead. Tait was too green to be of much help. She switched channels and made a call into E.R. at Bagram, alerting them to their location and the status of their two Marine patients. By the time she was done, Pascal had cut Tait’s sleeve to examine the injury.
“You’ll live, Mr. Tait,” Pascal drawled. “Just a flesh wound. You’ll be fine. I’ll put a bandage on it and when we land at Bravo, you can go over to the dispensary and they’ll patch you up. Congratulations on getting your first Purple Heart.”
Pascal eased out of the cockpit, then turned and shared a private smile with Sarah.
Sarah got it. “Tait, get on the horn and apprise Major Donaldson we’re heading for Bagram.” She wasn’t going to let him sit there crying and acting helpless. It was time he sucked it up and became a team member. She needed his focus on those damn overhead throttles.
“Hey, Chief Benson,” Tait said. “You got blood on your right arm.”
Snorting, Sarah said, “Make the call to the major, will you? I’m fine.”
Tait gawked at her.
She glared over at him, daring him to say one more word.
He quickly went back to making the call to Donaldson.
* * *
Ethan wearily climbed out of the Night Stalker helicopter that had just landed at Camp Bravo. The sun was low on the western horizon. His men followed him, all of them walking a little slower, exhausted by the long firefight. The good news was the A-10 Warthog had made the defining difference. The Marines finally owned the firefight after the Hog spewed its load of bullets and bombs all over the lower slopes of that hill.
The concrete revetment area radiated heat, increasing the temperature. As they walked toward Ops, Ethan watched as a Black Hawk with a red cross on its nose landed. The cockpit area was shot up, some of the Plexiglas destroyed. Halting, he knew it had to be Sarah’s helo. Why was she landing just now? She’d left the hill hours ago. He wanted to wait and talk to her.
Turning, he told his men to get cleaned up, get some chow and ramp down. He’d be over at SEAL HQ later to write up a report on the mission. As beaten up as he felt right now, Ethan
had
to see her.
Sarah was the last crew member off the bird. She felt tiredness creeping through her limbs. Pascal checked out the radio before he left for Ops. Major Donaldson wasn’t going to like what he saw. Her Black Hawk was pretty well shot up and a new Plexiglas would have to be installed. Not good for his bottom line. She shrugged, climbing out, pushing up her visor. As she did, she noticed Ethan coming her way. Instantly, her heartbeat sped up. He was dirty and sweaty, his cammies soaked. His M4 was in a sling harness across his chest. He looked damned good to her, and she felt suddenly lighter.
Ethan met her with a smile, seeing the exhaustion in her eyes. There was blood on the right side of her face. The shards of Plexiglas had exploded in on her. His eyes missed nothing as he rapidly examined her standing there, one boot resting, her hip at an angle while pulling off her Nomex flight gloves.
Damn, but she was a warrior. Ballsy as hell. It was the first time he’d seen her in action, and she took no prisoners. The smile that came to her face drove heat straight down through him.
“You must have flown straight to Bagram. How are the two Marines?” he asked, drawing to a halt about six feet away from her. She removed her helmet; her black hair was in a loose ponytail.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, meeting his glittering eyes, feeling Ethan’s touch without ever being touched. “They were alive when we transferred them over to Bagram E.R. Pascal, my medic, is an 18 Delta guy. He works miracles.” She put her helmet into the canvas bag, pushed her kneeboard into it and picked it up.
“I hope they make it,” he said, slowly walking with her toward Ops. Around them, other helicopters were taking off. The air filled with the smell of kerosene aviation fuel. He was worried, looking at her upper right arm. “You take a hit?” Ethan asked, gesturing to her arm, concerned.
“Yeah,” Sarah muttered. “Nothing to write home about. Pascal looked at it earlier and said it was a piece of Plexiglas in my arm. I’m going over to E.R. and have them pull it out, stitch me up and I’ll be good as new.”
“Probably not the first time this has happened?”
“Not the first time,” she said, gazing up at him. “How are you and your guys doing? Helluva firefight you walked into.” Sarah drowned in his dark look, her eyes dropping to his mouth. God, what a mouth Ethan had! It was driving her crazy. She wanted to feel his mouth beneath hers, tasting him, feeling his power, his maleness. Whatever was happening between them, it hadn’t gone away. On the contrary, it had grown stronger. Sarah felt that familiar tug-of-war between wanting to trust him and wanting to pull away.