BLACK OPS - HEROES OF AFGHANISTAN
By Eric Meyer
Copyright © 2015 Eric Meyer
Published by Swordworks Books
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Foreword
The day had started bleak and wintry, and it was getting worse. It was still too early for snow, but it would come before long. Overhead, the sky was still clear blue, yet in the distance he could see thick, dark clouds growling in like breakers on a California beach. There was harsh, bitter-cold weather on the way, no question. Even beneath his gear, helmet, combat vest with additional ballistic plates, gloves, thick camos and supporting thermal layers, he felt chilled. Yet it was more than just the bitter cold that made him shiver. The landscape itself felt wrong. Different. Different was bad. Different meant the enemy wasn't far away.
Lieutenant Rafe Stoner, U.S. Navy SEALs, ignored the clammy chill under his heavy clothing as he perched on the bone-hard passenger seat of the jolting Humvee. A man could survive the cold, but there were no guarantees to surviving an ambush. They were out there somewhere. He could almost smell their foul stench, although he couldn't see them. Not yet, but soon. They were close. He knew it for sure.
He was slated to go home after so long in country, two long, hard tours. In one month he'd leave this benighted land forever. To go home with the girl he'd fallen for. Madeleine Charpentier, a pretty UNHCR nurse who'd stolen his heart. He'd been lucky. At the time he was coming down after a beautiful Afghan girl gave him the heave-ho, in favor of a man he'd once counted as a friend. This time it was for real, Madeleine's UN tour was up about the same time as his, and they would set up home together. For life.
The States, France, he didn't care, as long as he was with her. They planned to discuss which country to set up home when they met up that evening. Today was her day off, and she was spending time shopping and cooking up a celebratory meal.
Tonight will be special. Tonight will be the start of the rest of our lives.
He smiled to himself as he thought of her, and then abruptly wrenched his thoughts back to the mission. The priority was to get home safe, not woolgather and put them all at risk. They were out here to hit the enemy where they least expected it. He stabbed the transmit button to call Zak Wilson, the SEAL manning the M2 machine gun in the overhead armored cupola. No one liked that duty, and for good reason. Despite additional armor, the man up top was invariably the Taliban sniper's first target. Unless the hit came from an IED, in which case he'd be the last man to feel the blast, although only by microseconds.
They'd started the operation with a UAV drone overhead, a Predator. Feeding images back to an Air Force controller at Creech Air Base, deep in the Nevada Desert. Any sign of an enemy sniper unit or unusual ground activity, and the remote operator would call in a warning. Except they'd recalled the drone due to a technical malfunction. Which meant his fireteam had to manage with what they had, their own eyes and ears. And then get home alive when it was all over. That was what really counted. Get the men home. Alive. Although getting home made him think again of the girl he loved, the girl who right now was waiting for him to return.
Madeleine, honey, I'll be back soon, there's just a bunch of murderous religious crazies to kill first. Keep the food warm, and don't worry if I'm a little late. The traffic may be a little heavy during rush hour.
He realized he was woolgathering again, and the gunner was waiting for him to speak. "Zak, what do you see?"
"Sweet nuthin', Boss."
He knew he'd have to drag it out of him. The top gunner took the big risks. He was entitled to expect a degree of latitude, even have some fun at his Lieutenant's expense. "You holding out on me, Zak?"
"Nope."
He waited, but there was nothing more. He decided to explain his concerns, get the guy on alert. "There should be signs of life, at least from that small town three klicks due east. You know the scene, traffic on the road, people herding goats, whatever. Except there's nothing; it's all too quiet."
The gunner didn't reply at first. Then, "You think we're driving into a trap." It was a statement, not a question.
"It's possible."
"Damn. Of all the times to lose our air cover, it had to be now. How about..."
He didn't finish. The sound of the bullet was a sharp whipcrack, followed by a shout of pain from Wilson. He didn't need to issue any orders. Diego Rivera, a fiery second generation Mexican, was already swinging the wheel around and stamping on the gas pedal. Chief Petty Officer Jeff Childers, the tough, competent, black number two in his fireteam, climbed up into the cupola to attend to the casualty. Stoner was already scanning the distant hills, binoculars in one hand and his HK-416 in the other. He knew the shot must have come from a high level shooter. The armored cupola of the Humvee negated most other possibilities.
He called out to Childers without taking his eyes of the visual sweep. "How is he?"
"Just bruised, Lt, maybe a fracture. I can't tell. But he's out of action for a time. The bullet took him high on the ballistic plate over his chest. He was lucky. Another few millimeters, and it would have entered his neck. I'll lower him into the rear."
"Roger that, take over the M2, Chief, but keep your head down."
"Reckon I will," the laconic acknowledgment came back, "You see him yet?"
"Not yet, I, no, wait, up there, two o'clock. There's a cairn of rocks on the edge of the hills. I saw a flash. Driver..."
"On the way," Rivera cut him off as he swung the wheel over again. Their mission brief was to seek out and destroy enemy snipers and IED teams. Small hit and run units who would be emplaced on the heights overlooking the Kandahar to Kabul Highway. Early that morning they'd received a report of Taliban IED activity, and they took this road parallel to the main highway. The theory was to use the Predator as their eye in the sky, locate and surprise the hostiles in their rear. So much for theory, an hour into the operation they told him the drone was returning to base, a problem with the telemetry systems. Now the men with beards had turned the tables on them. Almost.
Another sniper round pinged off the armored shield of the cupola, and Childers triggered the M2, punching out a long stream of heavy rounds. The big .50 cal was accurate to eighteen hundred meters, and firing from the long belt at a rate of up to eight hundred rounds a minute, it was enough to give the enemy cause to worry. But they weren't worried. A light machine gun opened, and a hail of bullets peppered the ground around their vehicle, although none scored any hits.
Rivera was gunning the Humvee along at over fifty mph, bumping and lurching over rough ground as they ascended the slope of the hill. Stoner was searching for a target when the second gun fired again. He marked it as a couple of hundred meters to the west, and this time several rounds hit the bodywork of the charging Humvee. Instinctively, he shouted to Rivera, "Keep heading for the sniper," as he took quick aim and started to return fire at the second machine gun.
He wanted the sniper first. He would be the expert. The
man who could shoot at and kill Americans, then disappear into the rocks and scrub to reappear days later to start killing again. Sniping was a skill, and the only counter to the threat was to take down the man. Childers kept up a rapid rate of fire with the M2, and the sniper hadn't reappeared. They were climbing the steep slope fast, only a hundred meters away, when the barrel of a rifle appeared over the rocks, a barrel with a scope fitted.
He's still there, good.
"Rivera..."
"I see him."
The shooter snapped off a shot, a good one. It starred the windshield, and then he ducked down out of sight again. Diego steered around the side of the cairn, bouncing over rock and deep gouges in the ground, and then they were on top of the hill. The sniper had started to run, and Childers aimed a long burst with the M2 that almost cut him in half. There was no time for congratulations. Another man, his spotter, was trying to snake away, and this time the burst from the M2 went over his head as he vanished into a deep furrow in the ground. There was only one way to deal with him. He addressed the fourth member of the fireteam, Petty Officer Al Edlund.
"Al, we're going after him. Chief, you and Rivera take out the other machine gun. Let's go."
Diego slowed the Humvee, and they rolled out onto the dirt and small stones that made up the surface of the hilltop. He put his head up first to sweep for the spotter. Nothing, no sign of him, but he had to be close. He ducked his head as a renewed burst of firing spat toward them from the distant machine gun, but then he shifted his aim, to target the Humvee bearing down on him like a snarling wolf. He left them to it; Chief Childers wasn't the kind of guy to tangle with. Not when you'd just nailed one of his men, armor or no armor. He heard the roar of the .50 cal and knew they were doing their work.
Ahead of them, a tiny piece of cloth showed, just above a small niche in the rocks. He'd gone to ground. He signed for Edlund to go north of his position, and he slithered to the south, to take him from both sides. He had his finger on the trigger as they closed in on the target.
Shit!
A torn piece of cloth was all, and then the man rose about fifty meters ahead of them. In his hands he held an RPG rocket launcher, and Stoner could even see the crooked smile, as he knew he'd bested the SEAL fireteam. Except he couldn't hit both of them, and he fired off the rest of his clip to draw his attention, and dived for the cover of a few rocks, only centimeters off the ground.
The explosion came at the same instant as Edlund's burst tore into him. He felt the blast wave suck him into the air and slam him to the hard, rocky ground like he was an unwanted FedEx parcel. He saw stars as the breath whooshed out of his body. The next thing he knew, Edlund was leaning over him with an anxious expression.
"You okay, Lt? That rocket was real close."
"Too damn close. Yeah, I think so. Ask me in a couple of minutes when I've checked out my skin for leaks. How about the machine gunner?"
"They got him, two of them, and the loader. It shouldn't have happened, though. We should have had a drone overhead to warn us. Or they could have given us something heavier like a Stryker."
"Yeah, well, the Navy gives us what the Navy gives us. We have to make it work."
He dragged himself to his feet as their Humvee drew near, and Chief Childers jumped down. His expression was grim. "We were too late, Lt. They ambushed a target down on the Highway."
He grimaced. "Dammit. Highway One, the Kandahar Kabul road the brass said they'd keep clear of hostiles."
"Like most promises in this shithole of a country, it didn't mean a damn," Childers spat out, "It looks like they hit a medical convoy this time. I can see the white vehicle from here."
"Do we know who they are?"
"Looks like UNHCR, Boss." He gave the Lieutenant a worried look.
Stoner smiled as he patted him on the arm. "You're thinking of Madeleine, but she's not on duty today. She's safe. We'd better go down and take a look at the wreck. There may be survivors."
"Roger that."
Rivera climbed out of their Humvee and regarded the bodies. "A clean sweep, Lt."
"You sure you got the machine gun crew, no leakers?"
"Not unless they were invisible. They're all dead."
"Okay. The bastards hit a UNHCR ambulance down on the main highway. We need to get down there and check for survivors."
They swung aboard the vehicle and bumped down the opposite hillside. A white Mercedes SUV, converted to an ambulance, was still smoking in the center of the road. A man covered in blood was propped up at the side of the road, weeping. Rivera pulled up nearby, and he and Stoner climbed out. Childers stayed in the cupola, and Edlund kept them covered from the rear. There was always the chance it was a staged ambush. The Lieutenant knelt down next to the casualty.
"Where are you hurt? We're here to help you. Where's the blood coming from?"
The man shook his head. "You don't understand; it's not my blood. The IED exploded right under those nurses in back. They didn't stand a chance. I was lucky. It tossed me around and knocked me unconscious for a few seconds when the vehicle jumped a couple of meters in the air. When I came to, I tried to help them. You have to believe me, but I couldn't do any more. Jesus Christ, I wish I could have done more. I came out here to try and flag down some help. It's so unreal. I just don't know..."
"Sure, sure," Stoner soothed him as he did a quick check. There were no obvious wounds, but if the IED detonation had knocked him unconscious, there could be trouble on the way later in the day, "How many inside, two?"
"Yeah, two nurses, two girls. One of them's Greta. She's German. She was dead when I got to her. Madeleine was still alive, but I don't know about now. It's not fair, she only came because another nurse failed to show. This is her blood all over me. I did my best to..."
No! It can't be. She's not working today! She's at home, preparing our celebratory meal. Please, dear God, no, let it be someone else. There must be another Madeleine. Yeah, that's it.
He was already forcing his way into the ambulance. The upholstery was still smoking from the explosion, and the air was acrid with the stench of burned polyester and roasting flesh. He had to twist his body to crawl into the back where two bodies lay in unnatural angles. One was clearly the German girl, Greta, dead with a massive wound in her chest where the scrap metal the Taliban packed around their bomb had torn her upper body into bloody ruin. Her clothes were still smoking along with the upholstery, and parts of her flesh had started to cook.
The other girl was face down, and he could see blood pumping out of her body, which meant she was still alive. He turned her over slowly, gently, knowing it had to be another girl, not his Madeleine. Then he gave out a small sob.
He was wrong. She wasn't at home. Wasn't preparing for their special evening. She was here, broken and bleeding in a wrecked ambulance at the side of a dusty road in the center of Nowheresville, Afghanistan.
Her eyes flicked open for a second, and her lips tried to form a smile, but then her eyes closed again. He put his ear to her mouth and was shocked to hear her breathing coming in shallow, hoarse rasps. Her wound was low in her groin, and it had hit an artery. He could see where the guy outside had tried to apply a dressing, but it was like trying to repair a leak in the Hoover Dam with a Band-Aid.
He lifted the dressing and almost passed out. The shrapnel had torn her lower body into a bloody mush, and it would have taken a miracle to fix it out here in the middle of the countryside. She needed an emergency room, and fast. He gently placed her down and squeezed out of the ambulance. Rivera waited for him, his face grim, like a man with bad news.
"It's Madeline," he shouted, "Help me get her out of there, Diego. We have to get her to a hospital! She's dying!"
He didn't reply at first, and then he shook his head. "No can do, Lt. We have a problem. One of those bursts from the machine gun punched holes in our fuel tank. We have enough gas to get us about five klicks, and that's only if we're lucky."
He felt an overwhelming sense of h
elpless despair. "Use the radio. Tell them we need a medevac helo out here pronto. Whatever it takes, we have to get help."
Rivera gave him a sympathetic glance. "I'll do it now, Lt. They'll get right on it. Don't worry."
He nodded. "I'm going back in there to stay with her. Tell them it's life and death."
"I'll do that."
He stayed with her for the forty minutes it took before they heard the sound of rotor blades in the distance. Too late, she was already gone. He'd stayed with her as she bled out, and she opened her eyes once more and said one word, his name. "Rafe."
They closed for the last time, and he held her as he felt the life go out of her. The helo took her body back to Kabul, and he went with her. The medics tried to revive her with a defib, they tried adrenaline, they tried heart massage, they tried everything. But it was only going through the motions.
Three days later, he attended the funeral service and accompanied the casket to Bagram. The UN C-130 flew her back to her native France, and he watched it take off, choking back the tears. Four weeks later, he was signing the papers that would end his Naval career.
"You're sure you don't want to take a Navy flight back to the States?"
He shook his head to the anxious looking Naval captain. "No, Sir. I'm staying here."
"You sure that's the right thing to do, Lieutenant Stoner? You've had a terrible shock with the death of that girl. You should go home and take time out to think about your future."
"I'm staying."
He looked puzzled. "What for? What is it you're after, Stoner? Revenge, payback, something like that?"
"Something like that, yes."
"You should try and pick up the threads of your life Stateside, before you make a final decision."
He'd given the man a long, hard look. "Captain, I don't have a life. Not anymore."
"Don't you have anyone you care for?"
He shook his head. "Anyone I cared for is gone. I care for no person, and no person cares for me."
"So you're staying in Afghanistan."
"I'm staying."
He sighed. "You got somewhere to live?"
"Jalalabad, someone I know has a place there."
He shrugged. "Okay, if that's what you want."
He didn't answer.
It's not what I want. I just don't care. My life is over. I want nothing. Only oblivion.