Chapter Seventeen

What the fuck was happening?

“Contact, ten o’clock!” Freeman shouted.

Zaid scrambled after Rodriguez over the rocks and dove behind the cover of a group of boulders on the hill above the road. “What the hell?”

“You guys see anything?” Rodriguez shouted to Kai and Prentiss, pinned down a dozen yards or so from them in a shallow gulley.

“Negative,” Prentiss yelled back.

The rest of the team was scattered in two remaining groups nearby. Cover here was scarce, so they had to make the best use of what they could find.

Zaid kept his head down and waited for a break in the firing to steal a peek at what was happening below near the road. Shit had gone sideways in a matter of seconds. They’d walked into an ambush moments ago, but he had no clue who was firing at them, as there hadn’t been any enemy reported in the area. Was there a tunnel system nearby where the enemy had hidden?

“Fall back,” Hamilton ordered, his voice tense.

Oh, shit. They had to be badly outnumbered or outgunned for their team leader to give that order. He snuck a peek through a gap in the boulders, his chin brushing the ground.

“How bad?” Rodriguez asked, sprawled out next to Zaid on his belly with his weapon to his shoulder.

There was enough ambient light for him to make out the shapes of the men moving around by the convoy through his NVGs. More men than they had with them. “Bad.” His pulse drummed hard and fast in his throat.

“Khan and Rodriguez, fall back on my command to the north behind the ridge. The rest of us will provide cover fire,” Hamilton ordered.

“Roger,” Zaid replied, then clamped his jaw tight and maneuvered his weapon into position.

“Go.”

Though every one of his instincts told him to stay put, Zaid obeyed his team leader, shoved to his feet, and ran like hell for the ridge above. The volume of fire picked up immediately.

Light from the tracer rounds streaked past him in the darkness, thudding into the rocks and ground, kicking up sprays of dirt.

His lungs strained in the thin air, the muscles in his thighs burning as he pushed himself to run as fast as he could, with Rodriguez pounding over the terrain a few strides behind him. After what seemed like an endless amount of time they reached the ridge and dove over the edge of it.

Panting, Zaid rolled over the far side and crawled back to the lip to peer down at the winding road below so he could find out what the hell was going on. The NIU was retreating in chaos. Several of its members were down, lying strewn across the road and the bottom of the slope.

Then he saw the shooters and his blood ran cold.

“Khan, what do you see from up there?” Hamilton demanded, still pinned behind cover down the slope with the others.

What the fuck? He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at. “The NIU. They’re shooting at each other—and us.” No goddamn wonder they hadn’t been able to figure out where the attack was coming from.

“Say again?”

“They’re fucking shooting at us!”

“Motherfuckers,” Rodriguez muttered, taking aim and firing a few rounds downrange at the men shooting at them from below.

Out of nowhere, Jaliya’s face flashed through Zaid’s mind. She was probably back at the TOC, watching and seeing all this live via satellite or Hamilton’s helmet cam. He thought of his parents back in New Jersey, waiting for his next call or text to tell them he was okay.

This was bullshit. He was not dying out here. And neither were any of his guys.

“Maka and Prentiss, you’re up next,” Hamilton said via comms. “On my command. And…go.”

Zaid and Rodriguez opened up on the NIU members firing at them from behind the military trucks as Maka and Prentiss broke from behind cover and raced up the slope. Zaid tagged one guy as he stepped around the back of the last truck. The traitor fell to his knees and keeled over on the road, his weapon still in his hands.

Another target appeared to the left. Zaid aimed and squeezed the trigger just as a round hit the top of the ridge a foot from him. Bits of sand and gravel peppered his right shoulder.

Moments later, Maka and Prentiss made it to the ridge and slid down the far side before scrambling up to join him and Rodriguez.

Freeman and Lockhart darted over the open ground after that, leaving Hamilton, Freeman and Granger still down below.

“You boys got us covered up there?” Hamilton asked, voice tense.

“You know it,” Zaid answered, looking for another target. Until they figured out what the fuck was going on and exactly who the enemy was down there, it was a total shit show.

“Okay, on three,” Hamilton said. “Two. One. Go.”

Their three remaining teammates bolted from their concealed position and scattered as they raced up the hill. Zaid and the others opened up on the trucks from behind the relative safety of the ridge. In his peripheral vision he tracked Freeman rushing toward them.

Two thirds of the way up, Freeman fell.

Shit.

“Freeman’s down.” Zaid’s heart slammed against his ribs as the former SEAL struggled to his feet. Had he been hit?

“I’m not hit,” Freeman said. “But I’m pinned down and can’t move without getting my ass shot off.”

Freeman was totally exposed out there, easy pickings for the fucktards firing from behind the trucks. And Hamilton and Granger were too far away to help him.

Zaid was getting him out of there.

“Cover me,” he yelled over the gunfire, and darted behind the others to the left, angling for the closest concealed position to Freeman.

He could hear someone else moving behind him but didn’t stop to look back. Granger and Hamilton made it to the ridge and jumped over the edge to safety. Zaid kept running, paused only a moment when he reached the spot he’d chosen, and risked a look down the slope with his weapon up, ready to fire. Freeman had found a medium-sized boulder to crouch behind, but he was taking heavy fire.

“You guys ready?” Zaid asked his teammates, loading a fresh mag into his rifle. They were all poised behind the lip of the ridge, weapons aimed downrange.

“Roger that,” Maka replied without looking up from his M4. At the far right of their line, Hamilton was on the radio, hopefully requesting air support.

Zaid looked back down at Freeman, who hadn’t moved, still returning suppressive fire from his spot. Now the NIU survivors were racing up the slope toward FAST Bravo’s position. But how the hell were they supposed to tell friend from foe?

“What a fucking nightmare,” he muttered under his breath.

Freeman was still holding on.

“Let’s do this.”

Zaid glanced behind him to find Prentiss crouched there. He nodded. “Cap?” he asked Hamilton.

“Ready. Freeman, Khan and Prentiss are coming to you. Get ready. Rest of you, concentrate your fire on those trucks,” their team leader said.

“Copy,” Freeman answered, the foreign note of stress in his voice sending a surge of adrenaline through Zaid’s body.

He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, his muscles tensing, weight poised on the balls of his feet. Now.

He charged over the lip of the ridge, firing at the targets moving below on the road while his teammates opened up with suppressive fire. Prentiss was right behind him.

“Move, Freeman,” Zaid ordered, rushing to his teammate as he fired, the retreating NIU members coming up the slope adding to the confusion.

Freeman bolted from behind cover and hauled ass up the slope. The moment he reached them, Zaid and Prentiss began their retreat, firing as they moved. Rounds whizzed around them, the tracers streaking past in the darkness. Zaid’s heart pounded against his sternum as he raced back to the safety of the ridge and jumped over the lip.

Panting, he closed his eyes for a moment and said a prayer of thanks before looking over at Hamilton, who was still on the radio but watching the situation below with a sharp eye. Using hand motions, the team leader ordered them to move east, staying behind the ridge. All nine of them got up and moved single file toward a rise that would give them a good vantage point so they could see what was happening below.

“Gunship should be on station within the next six minutes,” Hamilton reported as they ran in a crouch to their new position. “Khan, see if you can find out what the hell’s going on from those guys,” he said, meaning the NIU members racing for the safety of the ridge.

Zaid didn’t know what kind of aircraft Hamilton had requested, and he didn’t care so long as it showed up in a hurry to clear off those traitorous assholes below. He searched the faces of the NIU members scrambling up the hill.

He recognized one as the man slid over the edge of the ridge and ran toward the guy, weapon up. “Drop your weapon!” he yelled in Dari.

The man whirled, his eyes wide, and quickly lowered his weapon before holding his hands up.

“Why are you shooting at us?”

“Not us! Them!” He waved an arm toward the chaos unfolding below them. “Our own members opened fire on us before turning on you.”

“Where’s General Nasar?” He was supposed to be here directing his men. Had he been hit?

“I have not seen him,” the man panted.

This was so fucked up. FAST Bravo had worked with this same NIU unit for three consecutive deployments now, and FAST Alpha longer than that. And Nasar couldn’t just have disappeared into thin air. Zaid had seen the guy getting onto another Blackhawk back at base. “How many attacked you?”

“At least half of our force.”

Half their own force had turned on the other? “Why?” Why the fuck would they do this? Were they hoping to capture the shipment themselves, then get it across the border and sell it to make a profit?

“I don’t know! I swear I don’t know what’s—” The man broke off and hunched over, his expression twisting as he dragged his hands down his face with a choked sound.

Zaid reported his findings to Hamilton as he hurried back to his own team. Until they knew who they could trust on the NIU, that unit was on their own.

Hamilton was on the radio again. “Copy that.” He cursed and grabbed for his weapon. “You’re not gonna fucking believe this,” he said, and Zaid’s stomach dropped. Every man on the team was watching Hamilton now. “It’s Nasar. He’s The Jackal.”

Zaid reeled at the announcement. But it made so much sense all of a sudden.

Nasar had been at all the briefings. He had the training and knowhow to pull something like this off. He knew the mission inside and out. How many men would be here, the timing, everything.

Rage built inside Zaid, a hot pressure expanding beneath his ribs. That fucker. That fucker had set them all up to die here so he could get his dope across the border.

The sound of approaching aircraft filled the air. Zaid glanced to his left just as the two Apaches appeared out of nowhere, rising into view from where they’d been hidden behind a hill in the distance.

A roar of approval rang out from the team. Zaid rolled to his belly and put the stock of his weapon to his shoulder, peering over the edge of the ridge as the attack helicopters unleashed a stream of withering fire on the enemy from their 30 mm cannons.

The world below them exploded in a blast of light and sound. Then a 70 mm rocket hit the center truck and detonated. The blast wave ripped through the air and ground, thudding against Zaid’s eardrums and compressing his chest. When he opened his eyes to look down, all three trucks were nothing more than twisted hunks of burning metal.

Bye bye poppy juice, and whatever the hell else had been in there.

Grim satisfaction tore through Zaid. He kept searching for a target, but the only men moving down there now were on fire as they crawled away from the wreckage.

“Let’s move out,” Hamilton ordered. “Blackhawks are coming in to extract us at exfil site delta. Everybody up.”

As one they turned north and started down the back side of the ridge. Zaid had only taken a few steps when gunfire suddenly erupted from the right. “Contact!” He dropped to one knee and took aim at the new threat.

The outlines of at least a dozen men appeared on a slight rise to the east. Two of them held something on their shoulders. No sooner had Zaid focused on them than two RPGs screamed over their heads, streaking toward the Apaches.

“Shit…” Zaid held his breath as the pilots took emergency evasive maneuvers and launched their chaff and flare countermeasures.

Blinding streaks of light split the dark sky, followed by two brilliant white fireballs and deafening booms as the RPGs exploded short of their targets. But one of the gunships was trailing smoke now. It dropped, then righted itself and turned to the west, limping away and losing altitude as it flew.

“Fall back! Move!”

At Hamilton’s sharp order Zaid pushed to his feet once more and ran after his teammates, heading north. Scattered shots rang out from the enemy force approaching from the east, but they were still too far away to do any damage.

Now it was a race. Zaid and his teammates were running low on ammo. They had to make it to the exfil site before the enemy got to them. The Apache could clear their tail no problem, but only if it remained on station until Zaid and the others made it to the Blackhawks.

A whooshing sound brought his head up. Through his NVGs he caught the streak of another RPG that had been unleashed.

“Get down!” he yelled, and dove to the ground.

A heartbeat later the terrain in front of them exploded in a hail of rock and dirt, shooting a small geyser of debris into the air. Then a telltale rumble started up.

“God dammit,” Zaid breathed, and scrambled to his knees as the ridge they were descending seemed to crumble beneath their feet.

Rock and earth gave way in a mini landslide set off by the explosion. He had no footing. His boots slid over the ground helplessly, unable to find purchase. He held a death grip on his weapon as his feet went out from under him.

Down he went, tumbling once, twice over the loose earth. A grunt of pain escaped him as he bounced on a rock, the sharp edge digging into his left shoulder with bruising force, but at least his helmet was still on.

Somehow he found his footing again and managed to stand up. A strong hand shot out and grabbed hold of the back of his uniform, yanking him to safety. Zaid crashed face first into a wide chest, bounced off, and fell to his knees. Panting, disoriented, he looked up into Maka’s taut face.

“You good, brah?” his teammate asked.

“Yeah,” Zaid managed, climbing to his feet once more. He was sore and banged up a little and his NVGs had snapped off somewhere, but otherwise good.

“Assholes got what was coming to them,” Maka spat, and spun to follow the others.

Zaid glanced over his shoulder to check the eastern horizon. His eyes barely picked out the silhouettes of bodies littering the ground from the enemy position. He didn’t know if they were all dead or not, but wasn’t waiting around here to find out.

“We’re on our own, boys. Both Apaches are returning to base.” Hamilton kept them moving at a fast clip. “Let’s get a move on.”

“Okay, Cap,” Zaid managed.

FAST Bravo hurried across the open terrain, heading for the incoming Blackhawks. But two hundred yards from their destination, they came to a sudden stop when another line of figures appeared on the top of a small rise in the distance.

Zaid’s stomach sank as he took in the number of enemy blocking their way, too far away for him to make out any faces or other details. His team was outnumbered at least two to one, they had limited ammo, and their fire support had just returned to base.

“Freaking hell,” Freeman snapped ahead of him. “It’s Nasar.”