Sons of Valor Read online

  “Two, this is God,” came Saw’s calm voice. “Shift left two meters.”

  Chunk scanned the woods and rocks to the south. A head snuck around a boulder and he dropped his green IR dot onto the face and squeezed. Three rounds tore apart the bearded face and the insurgent pitched forward onto the pine needles. Chunk switched to a single round with his right thumb as someone reached around the boulder and pulled at the downed fighter, only to collapse on top of him after Chunk’s bullet hit him in the chest.

  In the background, Chunk heard Saw finally going to work with his sniper rifle as the Taliban encroached into his sight lines.

  “Two—you got two tangos bearing down on your left,” Saw warned Spence. “And you got three more trying to flank you, Jackal Two.”

  Several more cracks followed.

  To Chunk’s left the tree line suddenly exploded with muzzle flashes. The ground in front of his face exploded and dirt sprayed his face. He tried to raise his head to engage a target but was forced back down by another barrage from the woods.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” he heard Trip grumble.

  Fire and move. Fire and move . . .

  He dropped low and shuffled to the left, smashing his elbow painfully into a rock. Then the air began to vibrate around him as he heard Riker, behind him, light up the night with the heavy machine gun. He peered above the rock, aware that warm blood trickled down his right cheek and was collecting in his beard. The stream of 7.62 from Riker’s Mk 48 tore through the pine trees, dropping branches and chunks of wood to the forest floor and forcing the fighters back. Chunk pulled his rifle up, sighted, and with three rapid squeezes of his trigger, dropped two retreating fighters, shooting them in the back.

  Then the world exploded to his right.

  “Oh, fuck,” came Spence’s voice. “Heavy contact. Five, shift fire right. We’re in deep shit.”

  “I got no line,” Riker said. “Moving back.”

  “Stalker Three and Four are on station,” came the pilot’s voice. “We see you in heavy contact, caught in a crossfire from north and south, Jackal.”

  Chunk imagined the battle from the attack helicopter pilot’s perspective. His half of the SEALs were on the west side of the courtyard, bunched up with limited cover. Spence and his team were even less protected on the other side. They were completely boxed in and, yes, caught in a wicked crossfire.

  Chunk was confident he could hold the south, especially with Riker on the Mk 48. Unfortunately, reaching their exfil required them to go through the heart of the Taliban force bearing down on Spence’s squad. The minute Chunk turned his team north, the Taliban shooters behind them would pursue, flanking them the entire way.

  First things first . . .

  “Stalker Three, we need you to clear a path north to Maker’s Mark,” Chunk said to the helo pilots.

  “You’re danger close, Jackal. Closest fighter is less than ten yards.”

  “Roger, danger close. Stalker, standby—we’ll reposition and clear you in hot.” He squeezed off several rounds south. Then, he pressed a button on the MBITR and clicked twice to the left, merging the channels. “Jackal, fall in on the cave mouth. Close ranks right fucking now. Stalker is coming in hot, danger close. Move now.”

  A steady thump of sniper fire echoed from Saw’s position, but it was quickly drowned out by a prolonged strafe from Riker’s heavy gun.

  “One more down to your north,” Saw called.

  “God, cover our six to the courtyard. Once we’re repositioned, we’ll cover your move to rejoin,” Spence called.

  “Jackal, I count ten tangos surging from the south tree line,” Yi said.

  Despite the bad news, Chunk felt a paradoxical calm come over him, warm and familiar from dozens of other firefights he’d survived. He’d repositioned his team and had Stalker engage. Now, they just needed to exfil.

  Muzzle flashes lit up in the trees south of him like fireworks.

  In response, he, Georgie, and Trip, popped up and poured fire into the tree line. A moment later a serpentine tongue of orange fire licked over his shoulder as Riker sprayed the advancing fighters with 7.62 rounds. Chunk watched several tangos bite the dust, unable to withstand the maelstrom of bullets.

  When the barrage ended, he made an adjustment. “Three, shift fire to the north to cover Two.”

  “Check,” Riker replied and brought the heavy machine gun around to work the flanking Taliban fighters.

  Thighs burning, Chunk duck-walked back to the right, then popped up and fired into the trees. In that moment, he noticed the muzzle flashes opposite them had all but stopped as the surviving enemy retreated from Riker’s prolonged assault. A heartbeat later, the Taliban redoubled their efforts and unleashed a coordinated barrage.

  “Ah, shit,” he heard Georgie holler to his left.

  Then he felt something hot tear through his left arm.

  Awesome. Now I’m fucking shot.

  “Four, Six, and Eight—stagger movements now,” he ordered.

  Chunk ducked and counted to three, ready to pop up again, and pictured Morales, Edwards, and Antman covering each other as they moved one by one. He popped up and fired, ignoring the burn just above his elbow. His arm appeared to be working, so whatever wound he’d taken, it wasn’t mission critical.

  “Four’s in the courtyard.”

  Another strafe from Riker sent rounds and tracers into the tree line.

  “Eight is moving,” Antman replied.

  “God’s gotcha,” came Saw’s calm voice, then the whump whump of his sniper rifle.

  “RPG!” someone shouted.

  Chunk’s throat tightened at the call and he dove down behind the rise of rocks, feeling Georgie do the same beside him, uncertain which fire team was being targeted. An explosion rocked the earth behind him. An acrid smell filled his mouth and nose, and AK-47 gunfire cracked all around them.

  “Man down, man down!”

  It was Edwards’s voice.

  Chunk realized it was all going to hell . . . he had to get Spence’s guys to the courtyard so Stalker could strafe the north slope and clear a path to the exfil. Dug in like they were, it would be impossible to accomplish from the ground.

  “Covering fire!” Spence shouted, more a plea than an order.

  The desire to spin around and engage to the north to cover his men was almost unbearable. But if he shifted north now, they would be overrun from the south. Hold the line, said the voice in his head as he popped up again and fired two three-round bursts into the woods where he’d last seen enemy muzzle flares. Georgie and Trip followed his lead, and the return fire flashes in the woods fell off.

  “One, we have an urgent CASEVAC. Eight is down,” Edwards reported.

  “Down but not out,” came Antman’s tense reply.

  “Two, call the air strike,” Chunk barked.

  Spence’s fire team had still not made it to the courtyard, and Chunk couldn’t cover the rocky rise to have Stalker engage without risking friendly fire. The AK-47 fire from the north was relentless now as Spence and Edwards tried to drag Antman back to the courtyard without getting shot in the back.

  “Two, you gotta call it, dude,” Saw said, now the lone covering fire. “Or you’re fucked.”

  “Stalker Three, Jackal Two—you’re cleared hot on the tangos north. Danger close. Danger close.”

  “Roger, Jackal. Targets north. Danger close,” the helo pilot said, then unleashed hell.

  Chunk ducked and covered as the MH6 engaged. The unmistakable brrrrrrrrrttt of the Miniguns strafing the hillside sent a shiver down his spine. He couldn’t see it, but his mind’s eye imagined the scene—Taliban fighters scrambling for cover as twin tongues of fire turned the mountain into a pile of rubble, bone, and blood. The Miniguns went quiet and a half dozen squeals shredded the silence as the pilot fired his Hydra 70 rockets. In that moment, night became day, even behind Chunk’s tightly closed lids, and a wave of heat rolled over his back as the rockets exploded in near-simultaneous precision, engulfing the northern approach in a wall of flame.

  “Two,” Chunk said, keeping the strain out of his voice as best he could, “move north toward Maker’s Mark. We’ll cover your six until you’re clear, then pull up. Three and Five, covering fire when we move, then fall in on us.”

  Several double clicks followed, along with Saw’s calm voice in his ear, “Rog.”

  Chunk fired a burst, then glanced over at Georgie, who leaned in on his rifle, jaw clenched and shredding the tree line. A wet oval the size of a football soaked the kid’s left pant leg at thigh level.

  “How’s that leg, Georgie?” he called.

  “I’m in the fight,” the SEAL yelled back over the roar of his weapon.

  “Can you run?”

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “All right, get ready. We’re exfilling to Maker’s Mark,” he said, then into his mike, “Stalker Three, Jackal One—you cool repeating that performance and sweep south?”

  “Make the call and we’ll light them up,” the pilot came back.

  “They’ve got at least one RPG in the mix. Be careful, Stalker,” Chunk warned.

  “Roger that, we’ll light ’em up with rockets first in that case.”

  “God,” he informed Saw, “covering fire, then fall in. Let’s move, people.” Chunk led the retreat. Georgie followed in a hobbled backpedal, rifle up and firing behind them. As they crossed in front of the cave entrance, Chunk scanned over his rifle into the blackness. Thank God, the hole was still empty, or they would have been cut to pieces. And yet, with the Taliban maintaining this kind of presence, and mounting suc
h a tenacious defense, it all but confirmed these caves had played a role in the drone attack. With that thought, he snapped the IR beacon off the left shoulder of his kit, turned it on, and tossed it to the ground at the entrance to the black hole.

  They pushed through a gauntlet of boulders and bullets.

  Overhead, the helo’s engines whined and Chunk glanced up in time to see the Stalker pilot execute a truly badass maneuver. Like a drift racer, he swung an arc over top of the cave while gaining altitude and repositioning to fire down mountain on the Taliban to the south. The pilot opened with a rocket barrage, emptying the eight remaining Hydras. The explosion that followed completely washed out Chunk’s night vision. Light blind, his toe caught a rock and he stumbled, banging his knee painfully. A heartbeat later his vision returned. He scanned ahead and saw Spence and Edwards helping Antman, who was buckled over at the waist, across the rocky terrain on the final push to the X. Glancing behind him, he saw that Georgie was limping now, taking a skip instead of a stride every few steps, so Chunk ducked beside him and hooked an arm around his torso.

  “Stalker Lead,” Chunk said, calling the Blackhawk pilot. “Jackal will make Maker’s Mark in less than four mikes. One urgent surgical.”

  “Roger, Jackal,” came the reply.

  “Jackal One, Stalker Three,” came the little bird pilot. “Clearing the woods for you.”

  “Copy. Thanks for your help. Just one more package for you. You should see a strobe on station at Dewar’s,” he said, referring to the IR beacon he’d tossed into the mouth of the cave.

  “Stand by, Jackal . . . Roger we’ve got it.”

  “Turn it to dust when we’re clear.”

  “Roger that, Jackal.”

  He liked the pleasure he heard in the pilot’s voice.

  With the woods behind them, Chunk and the others reached a wide cliff ledge, less than forty feet across, with a hundred-foot drop-off to the east and a sheer thirty-foot wall of rock to the west. The outcropping had barely enough clearance for the fifty-four-foot rotor diameter of the Special Operations variant 160th SOAR Blackhawks.

  He eased Georgie to a knee. The others followed his lead, all taking tactical knees and scanning all directions in a defensive circle at the edge of the thin woods.

  “Mother, Jackal is Maker’s Mark,” Chunk announced, a hint of triumph creeping into his voice.

  “We see you, Jackal. It’s clear around you. Stalker, Mother—clear for pickup of the package.”

  In seconds, a Blackhawk materialized at the very edge of the cliff ledge, the tips of the rotors sparking green with static electricity in the NVGs. Spence and Edwards sprinted forward, Antman in between them, then Morales, all scanning over rifles as they stepped backward into the helicopter, which hovered expertly just inches from the ledge. The Blackhawk nosed forward and headed south, dropping below the ledge as a second bird moved into position.

  Chunk scanned behind them as Riker and Saw helped Georgie into the helicopter. Then they stepped backward into the bird, never stopping the scan over their rifles. Chunk’s stomach lurched as the helo dove steep and fast. Then it rose rapidly and banked east, climbing higher into the sky, then sharply south toward J-Bad.

  “Stalker Three, Jackal One. Send it.”

  He flipped his NVGs up just as the entire east side of the mountain exploded. A mushroom of flame lit up the twilight sky as the Hellfire missiles fired by the MH6 turned the mouth of the cave into Dante’s Inferno.

  Chunk grinned.

  Anyone left in the cave was a crispy critter now. The Talis wouldn’t be launching drone attacks on US convoys from that mountainside stronghold ever again.

  CHAPTER 20

  outside the joint special operations task force compound

  joint base jalalabad

  afghanistan

  0545 local time

  Chunk watched two Air Force PJ medics from “white”—the AFSOC’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron—tend to Antman and Georgie. Antman’s wounds looked pretty superficial, despite his blood-soaked cammies. More blood than bone, as Riker liked to say.

  “It’s just cuts and scrapes,” Antman protested as the medics tried to lay him back after helping remove his kit.

  “Don’t give me that ‘it’s only a flesh wound’ Tier One operator bullshit,” the medic barked, pushing Chunk’s teammate backward as his partner set up an IV. “This was done by an RPG, right?”

  Antman nodded.

  “So you could have a frag in your belly or your liver, or shit leaking out of your colon into your abdomen, for all you know. You could have a vascular injury, or a—”

  “Yeah, fine, fine. I get it,” Antman relented. He reclined on the plywood table and stuck out his arm.

  “We’ll get X-rays, and if everything looks good, the JSOC surgeons will stitch you up and clear you, bro. Just chill out with that macho shit and let me do my job, okay?” the PJ said.

  Chunk couldn’t help but grin as he knelt beside Georgie, who was leaning back on his elbows while Morales cut away the blood-soaked pant leg around his right thigh.

  “How’s it look?” Chunk asked the medic.

  Morales pressed on Georgie’s thigh and dark blood dribbled out of a round hole.

  “Ow, shit. Stop it, asshole,” Georgie complained.

  “Suck it up, dude,” Morales said. “You got fucking shot. Let me look at it, you big baby.”

  Morales probed behind Georgie’s knee, looking for an exit wound—talking as he worked. “Normal popliteal pulse below the entry wound. I don’t feel an expanding hematoma or an unusual mass, so I don’t think the bullet clipped an artery. Doesn’t seem like the bone’s broke, but you know, adrenaline is the great concealer—anything’s possible. You need an X-ray and maybe an angiogram for a vascular injury. Does your foot feel normal, bro? Pins and needles or anything?”

  Georgie wiggled his foot around in his Oakley book and shook his head. “Leg feels normal. Just hurts in my thigh.”

  “Good, good, probably no nerve damage.” Morales turned to Chunk. “Overall, he got lucky. Seems like minimal damage for a 7.62. Probably a ricochet or a piece of frag rather than direct impact. Congratulations, kid,” he said, turning back to Georgie. “You’re a gunshot wound underachiever.”

  “Mama always said as much about me,” Georgie said with a shit-eating grin.

  Chunk liked what he was seeing. Morales was gonna be great on the team.

  To his left, the PJs were loading Antman into a Humvee parked at the head of a line of white pickup trucks. Georgie would be next, which meant this was the opportunity to talk to the whole team before they got split up.

  “Listen up, Jackal,” he said, raising his voice. “The op did not go as anticipated, but we adapted and overcame. You guys stayed tight, focused, and took care of business. Stalker saved our asses tonight, but that’s okay because it means the Head Shed did their job and planned a good op. Watts and Yi were clearly onto something, because that turned out to be a convention of assholes inside that mountain. Good work tonight, fellas. Drop your shit here and secure it inside the compound. Then, I want everyone in the trucks and over to medical.”

  “The surgical team is meeting us at the base on the other side,” one of the PJs called from the back of the Humvee-turned-

  ambulance.

  “You heard him. Everyone goes to the Forward Surgical Team, but you get checked out by our JSOC docs—no one else. No one comes back to the compound without their nod. Hooyah?”

  “Hooyah, boss,” Spence said. “You heard the man. Let’s go, boys.”

  Riker appeared at Chunk’s side, and Saw came moseying over for a sidebar.

  “I’m good, boss,” Saw said. “Never left my hide. Don’t have a scratch.”

  “Fine,” Chunk said. “Big boy rules for you, but go over anyway and stay with our guys, okay?”

  Saw nodded but sighed audibly as he started stripping off his kit.

  “I’ll stay behind and secure the gear, boss,” Riker said, then eyeing Chunk’s blood-soaked left sleeve: “You probably need to get that checked out, right?”