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  This time he would be the insurance man instead of Pepper, and that was the whole idea, wasn’t it? Keep the old man safe. He took off running only a few seconds before Pepper and Kozak reached Ross, with Pepper calling after him.

  30K was halfway to the hut when the night sky blinked to white as that second pair of Penguins exploded before they ever reached the LCS. The ship’s Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapons System) had put its 20mm M61 Vulcan Gatling autocannon on target and blasted apart both antiship missiles. Captain Wagner had given 30K and the others a tour of the entire vessel, including the high-tech bridge with its joystick controller and flat-screen monitors. Of course, he’d been sure to boast about the Phalanx’s capabilities. That the ship was still above water and still able to defend herself was a damned good sign.

  30K reached the hut and crouched behind it. He fished out the drone’s remote from his pocket and got the UAV back in the air and on autopilot, in case Major Mitchell decided to take control of the drone himself for a bird’s-eye view of the battle.

  A crude ladder constructed of planks and twine leaned against the hut, and 30K quietly mounted it, coming up on to the slightly angled roof that was made of tin and covered with palm fronds. He propped himself up on his elbows and was there one second, gone the next as his camouflage caught back up with his movements. He set up the Stoner on its bipod, with this particular weapon being magazine-fed from the top and the sights set off to the left to accommodate the mag.

  He craned his head and scanned the jungle behind him, panning slowly to be sure no other FARC or Bedayat jadeda soldiers had moved up there – because the moment he opened fire, he’d become vulnerable. His escape plan involved a little jump off the back of the hut, nothing too elaborate, just a drop and run maneuver – a seven-foot bailout to the sand.

  But then his hasty recon of the jungle to the rear gave him pause. What the hell was that, just behind that cluster of nipah palms? Was that a fifth APC? One they hadn’t seen before? It was just sitting nearby, heavily draped in foliage.

  30K glanced back to the command hut, some fifty meters away. He thought about the position of his hut and the twenty-meter distance behind him, out to that hidden APC.

  And he thought about the Hescos and his first reaction to them. Hamid’s men had dug trenches, but the dirt they’d collected was hardly enough to fill those broad Hesco walls, yet there was no sign of excavation anywhere else near or around the outpost.

  He almost fell off the roof as he realized what they’d done … and what was about to happen.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  The discord rising to a crescendo across the outpost was enough to nearly deafen Ross and his men. The cracking of automatic gunfire, the blasting of fragmentation grenades and .50-caliber machine guns, and the roaring and subsequent bursts from RPGs were backed by the sudden and shockingly close whomping of rotors.

  Ross looked up and saw the bulky silhouette of the Sea Stallion pass overhead, one of its door gunners delivering a blistering hailstorm of fire on a position out past the huts, presumably on one of the Penguin missile launchers, the .50-caliber shell casings falling just a meter away, thumping like bugs on the sand until a louder sound drowned them out: two more Hellfire missiles charged off from the remaining Seahawk, and a heartbeat later, a one-two explosive punch rumbled in the distance, followed by strobing bursts of light across the bellies of clouds.

  ‘Delta Dragon, this is Guardian,’ called Mitchell. ‘The Penguins are disabled. Now get me those men.’

  ‘It’ll be my pleasure, sir.’

  Ross turned to Kozak, who’d just dropped on to his gut beside him. ‘You and our buddy good to go?’

  Kozak glanced down at his remote control. ‘Just say the word.’

  Ross looked past Kozak to Pepper. ‘I need a sniper on those APCs.’

  Pepper gave a curt nod. ‘I’ll show them some love.’

  After a quick glance back at the APCs, whose surfaces were still glinting with ricocheting gunfire, Ross took a deep breath and gave the order.

  The Warhound came lumbering around the huts to confront both vehicles –

  But then 30K was hollering over the radio, and Ross’s attention was divided – because he couldn’t hear a damned thing.

  Just after he tried to call Ross, 30K tugged free a fragmentation grenade, pulled the pin, and hurled it toward the ground between his hut and the others. He lowered his head as the ear-piercing ka-boom resounded and the hut rattled while the dirt began raining down –

  And not two seconds after the dust was clearing, 30K was zooming in with his binoculars and probing the ground where he’d thrown that grenade … and there it was, a much deeper impression than normal, one too deep to be caused by just a single grenade …

  Hamid’s men had created a tunnel system leading out from beneath the command hut to 30K’s hut, and from there, they could flee to the waiting APC in the jungle. That’s where they’d found the dirt to fill all those Hescos, and if 30K was right, those bastards were right under him at this very moment.

  He saw now why Ross hadn’t replied: Kozak had brought around the Warhound, which was taking massive fire from the troops within the APCs – and Pepper was dishing out swift justice with his Remington, head shots routinely placed and delivered.

  That sudden racket must’ve spooked the men inside the hut, and they must’ve heard 30K because gunfire came punching up through the tin roof, stitching a deadly line before 30K could shift to avoid it, the rounds ripping through his legs.

  It was fortuitous that Pepper happened to be staring through his scope and had shifted his aim slightly to the right. There, out behind the huts, he saw them, at least three squads of troops, fifteen or twenty in all, racing back toward the command hut.

  At the same time, Kozak put the Warhound between them and the APCs, the big boy glistening with gunfire, 60mm mortars bursting from its back to arc down on unseen bunkers beyond. A guided missile suddenly erupted from its launcher to streak toward one of the APCs and explode across its hood, sending the vehicle skittering sideways and the men falling out the back, some decapitated, some bloody and disoriented, others climbing over the bodies to whip around and fire from their hips.

  This would’ve been a perfect moment for 30K to open up on them, his supporting fire finishing the Warhound’s job.

  So where was he?

  Pepper shifted his aim toward that far hut, where the door was now opening. Out burst Hamid, Valencia and Delgado, all wearing vests and armed with AK-47s. They saw the jungle, the raging battle around them, and the choice was damned clear. Jungle …

  For a second, Pepper was so overwhelmed by the moment and the image (the men they sought were right there!) that he could barely get the words out of his mouth. But then, finally, they came.

  And just as he finished his report to Ross, he panned up to spy 30K – his active camouflage disabled – dragging himself across the hut’s roof, trying to lift his machine gun in the direction of Hamid’s party.

  Only a second-rate operator would get on the radio and scream, ‘I’m hit! I’m hit,’ thought 30K as he struggled to bring his rifle around. You don’t cry about your wounds. You suck it up and take revenge. But damn, his pack must’ve been hit as well, the active camouflage unit damaged, its status bar flickering in his HUD.

  It was moments like this that made him appreciate all the training they did. The training made him harder, and hard men are tougher to kill –

  Which was why getting shot in the legs and dragging his wounded ass into an upright position so he could kill the bastards trying to escape was not a problem …

  Until one of them, Valencia, rolled back to face him, just as 30K was lifting his weapon.

  SIXTY-SIX

  Kozak was a multitasking maniac, a grand maestro of death, having divided his brain into four separate parts all working in concert with one another, his eyes flicking between –

  The targets being hit by the Warhound’s mortars, which appeared as throbbing
red blips on a digital map in his HUD …

  The video piped in from the guided missile camera as he launched a second rocket at the other APC …

  The grenade sensor’s readout marking the positions of the Marines along with the team, and the hostiles framed in red …

  And, finally, what he saw with his own eyes: the profiles of Hamid, Valencia and Delgado out by the far hut, and above them, surrounded by a bed of palm fronds, 30K rising to his knees with his rifle in hand …

  Screw the multitasking.

  That was his friend out there.

  30K, his big brother. The guy who always got him into trouble but the guy he wished he could be, with so much courage that he’d throw himself into a barrage of bullets and ask why the enemy was so cheap with ammo.

  Valencia had his rifle raised –

  Kozak was about to scream but a barrage of incoming fire ten times heavier than before came out of nowhere, as if every remaining troop at the outpost had suddenly converged on their position, and this tiny piece of swamp and sand on an island smaller than Brooklyn was about to become a slaughterhouse.

  Before Kozak could take another breath, the second APC was struck by the Warhound’s guided missile, Valencia’s rifle flashed and popped, and Pepper swung around and fired a shot at the fleeing men.

  The plates on 30K’s chest took a few of the rounds, but one caught him in the arm, another grazing his neck, the multiple impacts making him lose his balance before he could return fire, damn it –

  And two more gunshots later, he was falling back off the hut’s roof and into the air …

  He landed on his head and shoulder, a horrible crunch reverberating through his neck, the feeling of bones shattering, and then his breath gone, the Cross-Com torn from his face, the dirt in his mouth, his eyes flickering open, another burning pain in his side turning prickly and sharper, just after a rifle report. He’d been shot again.

  His left arm was useless, the collarbone most certainly broken, the bone already popping in his shoulder. He reached back for his pistol, saw Valencia lying on the ground clutching a gunshot wound at his hip, saw Hamid and Delgado darting off for the APC, as a fresh wave of gunfire began shredding the hut above him.

  After stealing a quick breath, he pulled himself up on one elbow and tried to crawl forward. Nothing. He tried again with everything he had. Cursed. Tried again.

  Damn it. He would not be killed by this hybrid half-assed army. They didn’t deserve a prize like him, these amateur bastards. They’d hardly earned his respect. He drove his elbow deeper into the sand and groaned, just as a round pinged off his helmet.

  It was a Sunday afternoon, and Ross was home in Virginia Beach for two weeks of R & R. Wendy had gone out to Target with her friends to buy something for a baby shower happening the following week, and she’d warned him twice to keep an eye on the boys, and he’d sworn he would.

  ‘Dad? It’s so hot outside. Can you shoot us with the hose?’

  Jonathan and his little buddy Marcus were running around on the front lawn, playing catch with a Nerf football, but they were sweating bullets and needed to cool off.

  Ross had argued against the pool, citing the initial expense, high maintenance costs, and trying to joke that he didn’t want his wife fraternizing with the pool boy while he was on the other side the world.

  The boys would’ve been in that pool on a day like that. On 14 August.

  ‘Okay, guys, give me a minute. I’ll go get the hose.’

  Backhanding sweat from his brow, Ross padded across the lawn, opened the gate, then crossed the backyard patio to unscrew the hose from the spigot.

  He was gone all of twenty seconds, and since then he’d counted and recounted every one of them, each seeming to strip a year off his life.

  Although he never heard their conversation, Marcus conveyed it later on, how he’d thrown the ball too hard, how it’d gone over Jonathan’s head and Jonathan had said he’d get it. He hadn’t even looked as he’d run into the street.

  The guy who hit him was thirty years old, the brother of a Navy SEAL who lived at the end of the block. That was no coincidence since many operators lived in that area. He was driving back up to Long Island after coming down to see his brother for the weekend. He was under the speed limit, completely sober, utterly devastated. He just couldn’t stop his pickup in time.

  Ross had heard the brakes squealing, the thump, Marcus yelling, and another voice: ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’

  He dropped the hose and went sprinting around the side of the house –

  To find his little boy lying facedown in the middle of the road.

  And at that moment, Ross was struck with the hollowest, most painful feeling he had ever known, a piece of his soul dying as he staggered toward the scene, mouth falling open, breath suddenly gone, legs failing to work …

  Now, as he squinted toward 30K lying facedown in the sand, struggling to pull himself up, he realized with gritted teeth that this time – this fucking time – it wasn’t too late.

  ‘Pepper, Kozak, take the Warhound and go after Hamid!’ he ordered.

  ‘What about 30K?’ cried Kozak.

  ‘I got him! You go now!’

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Pepper got choked up as he and Kozak broke from cover and sprinted toward the Warhound. Pepper just couldn’t bear to abandon 30K and felt as though he needed to save 30K himself – but the mission required him elsewhere. Period.

  When 30K had told Pepper not to take any more risks, that if Pepper bought it, the rest of the team would be doomed, Pepper secretly felt the same way about him. While Pepper might’ve been the most experienced, he knew in his heart of hearts that 30K was the bravest man they had; in fact, he was the bravest soldier Pepper had ever known. Seeing him there, shot to shit and groping for life, was incomprehensible because if their bravest guy was going to buy it, where did that leave them?

  Utilizing the Warhound for cover, they passed through a fusillade of fire so dense that Pepper found himself flinching over every round that caromed off the UGV, its feet stomping like an elephant’s for a few more meters, the air rank with the scent of gunpowder until –

  The ground heaved and splintered, and then, with a creak and groan, some heavy wooden beams – the same ones used to contrast the railway – came popping through the dirt like broken bones through flesh, the Warhound’s weight too much for them. Pepper realized that this was a reinforced tunnel, and he, Kozak and the Warhound were now plummeting some three meters toward the floor below, the dirt coming with a hiss, Kozak hollering, the Warhound whining as it slammed into a side wall then hit the dirt floor and toppled on to its side.

  30K could barely see through all the sand in his eyes, but for a moment, the Warhound was there, breaching the gap between huts, and in the next second, it was gone – what the hell?

  Through a rising cloud of dust came Ross, sprinting toward him and dragging a wave of gunfire as though it were a cape. He came within three meters –

  But a frag exploded with an orange glare behind him, catapulting him into the air, his silhouette morphing into an eagle in 30K’s imagination, a star-filled eagle with talons of gold that swooped down to collapse next to him.

  ‘Boss? Boss? Shit, man, come on,’ he cried.

  Ross stirred and raised his head. ‘I’m still alive. Good. I’m getting you out of here. Ready?’

  ‘Forget it. My legs are gone. Took another round in my side. Internal bleeding, man, I can feel it. Don’t waste your time.’

  ‘Oh, I see how it is. You just can’t handle the fact that it’s me who’s saving you. The Navy fucker with all the baggage. Well, I got news for you, Rambo, right now my baggage is you.’

  ‘Then leave me!’ 30K screamed.

  ‘You giving up?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then let’s go, motherfucker!’ With that Ross got up on his hands and knees, pulled 30K around, then managed to position him so he could rise, lifting him into a fireman’s carry.


  With what felt like inhuman strength, Ross started out, knees wobbling at first, but he was up with 30K braced across his back and now crossing toward the first patch of fronds near the jungle, his gait shifting to the left and right as he fought against 30K’s weight.

  Without warning, an incredible sound from behind them had 30K lifting his head:

  The Marines must have been watching their escape and wanted to provide cover, because at least ten came charging forward, breathing the fire of their war cries, throwing themselves right into the line of fire, lobbing grenades and scaring the living shit out of the FARC and Bedayat infantry who’d moved up. The entire outpost turned medieval, infantry killing one another point-blank, the sand turning dark with blood. Not since Afghanistan had 30K seen anything as grisly. But the gambit worked, and Ross was able to reach cover.

  ‘Thank you,’ 30K told those boys. ‘Thank you.’

  Pepper clambered to his feet, coughing and waving dust from his eyes. He craned his head left and right. ‘Kozak? Kozak?’

  ‘Here …’ came a thin, almost unrecognizable voice from somewhere ahead.

  Pepper rushed forward, and there, where he’d seen the Warhound topple on to its side, was Kozak –

  Pinned beneath the half-ton monstrosity.

  ‘Aw, dude, how the hell?’ Pepper asked. ‘Where’s the remote? Let me see if I can get him off you.’

  ‘No time, bro. I’m just stuck, not dying. You take off. They’re getting away!’

  Pepper shuddered with indecision, but deep down he knew Kozak was right. ‘All right, buddy, hang on.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Kozak. ‘Just go!’