Locked On

  There was no way to engage him from the middle of the cab of the truck; it would have been impossible even if they weren’t being battered and jolted in all directions from the roll down the rocky hillside, but as it was there was no point even attempting to point a gun at the man.

  Instead he shouted into the back, “Sam! RPG, right side, twenty meters!”

  “Got it!”

  Mohammed al Darkur could not see the American behind him, so he had no way of knowing that Driscoll hefted his M4, stood in the covered bed, and held on to a roll bar. As the vehicle hit the main road and swerved hard to the left to avoid a parked Haqqani pickup, Sam swung outside of the rear of the vehicle, one-handed his rifle up the road, and dumped a full thirty-round magazine at any and all movement he saw out in the dark. A rocket-propelled grenade ignited and streaked in his direction, but the glowing warhead shot harmlessly high up in the night sky.

  Machine-gun fire from the other side of the road clanged against the metal parts of the big truck as it turned toward the east and headed back to Miran Shah. Sam tried to get back inside the truck to make himself as small a target as possible. His feet slipped, and he found himself hanging onto the roll bar, holding the canvas wall of the truck. He let go of his rifle to take the bar with both hands, and his weapon hung from its sling around his neck. While he fought to get his boots back in the vehicle, the one surviving commando in the back with him fired his M4 up the hillside from where they had just come. Return fire from the enemy flickered like fireflies off the rocky hill.

  Just then, in the cab of the vehicle, a long stream of 7.62-millimeter tracer rounds tore through the windshield, shattering the glass from the major’s left to his right. Burning bullets slammed into the chest plate of the ISI captain on al Darkur’s left, then clanged off of the steel on his own body armor, and then finally raked across the neck of the driver. The man did not die instantly, though. With a gurgle and a hiss of air, he grabbed his neck wound and writhed in pain. The big truck immediately veered to the right with these movements, and ran off the road, bouncing down the hill again toward the dry riverbed below.

  Sam had gotten both feet just inside the truck bed when the vehicle jacked to the right and went airborne before once again starting a violent high-speed descent. The movement spun Sam sideways, threw him hard against the side of the vehicle, and then he lost his grip on the metal bar.

  The American fell off the truck just twenty yards or so from the road, and the big vehicle continued on down the hill.

  37

  Mohammed al Darkur did his best to control the hurtling truck by reaching over the dead driver and grabbing the steering wheel. It was easier said than done, as Mohammed’s helmet had come off and now each and every bump the tires rolled over below him sent his head straight up into the metal ceiling of the cab. He felt blood dripping down his face, but he could not wipe it away before it filled his eyes because he needed both hands on the steering wheel.

  Finally they leveled out at the bottom of the dry riverbed. He’d even managed to turn the wheel enough to keep them out of the majority of the limestone rocks that had collected there through thousands of rainy seasons. He could still hear gunfire in the distance, but he took the time to get a foot over on the brake and then wait for his captain to leave the left side of the truck and, while under fire from above, climb in on the right, pushing the dead man into the middle seat. The captain took the wheel now and al Darkur scooted to the left window, found his rifle on the floorboard of the truck, and fired at the flashes of light up on the hill as the truck raced off to the east.

  Al Darkur was keenly aware that he did not hear any of the men in the back of the truck shooting. He worried about his men and he worried about the American who he had promised to protect with his life, but there would be no going back. They had to make it to the base on their own, and only then could they do anything to help the wounded or anyone left behind.

  Sam awoke slowly. His body was rolled in a heap and lying next to a small boulder. He did not feel any immediate pain, but he’d been around long enough to know that he was most definitely injured. The tumble out of a truck moving at that speed would have hurt him, whether or not the adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream right now would mask it.

  He remained still where he lay, and he watched the big truck continue off down the hillside. Men above him on the road fired down on it; they had not yet seen Driscoll, and he hoped he could lie here in the dark for now, wait for the Haqqani men to leave, and then sit up and assess his injuries.

  Above him on the road, the gunfire died down as the truck raced away and disappeared up the dry riverbed. He heard men climb into trucks and drive off, and he heard other men, Haqqani fighters most likely, moaning in pain. He had no idea how many survivors were on the hill above him, but he had no doubts that the area up around the compound, higher on the hill from the road, would still have able-bodied enemy shooters.

  Driscoll’s hands moved over his body now; he felt blood on his arms and on his face, but he was able to move without pain. He then lifted his legs slowly, one at a time, and found them operational. He reached out into the dry dirt and brush, searching with his fingertips for his rifle, but the weapon had come off his body when he fell off the truck. His pistol was still on his hip, however. He knew this because the weapon was digging into his lower ribs.

  Once reasonably certain that he was ambulatory, he looked around him in the dark. A low copse of trees lay fifty yards farther down the hill to the west, and he thought he might try and low crawl there to find cover before daylight.

  Just then, from the road above, a flashlight’s beam illuminated the trees. Another beam tracked to the east, to Driscoll’s left. The lights searched the hillside haphazardly, searching perhaps for anyone who’d fallen from the escaping truck.

  Sam did not move; there wasn’t much he could do but hope the beam didn’t settle on him as he lay there. If nothing else, he wanted his hand on the grip of his Glock 17 pistol, but even accomplishing that small feat would involve more movement than he was prepared to make.

  The lights passed over him, and then stopped on a point on the hill to his left and another twenty yards on. Men on the road began shouting now, there was no question but that they had seen something.

  Shit, thought Sam. If the Haqqani shooters started heading down the hill, he would have no choice but to—

  And then, movement right where the flashlight beams had settled. A lone SSG commando, the man who had been in the back of the truck with Driscoll when it ran off the road, stood up and opened fire with his M16. He must have been tossed out as well, but he’d now been spotted, he knew it, and he had no choice but to go loud. Driscoll saw that the man was wounded; blood covered his clothing and gear and shone in the white light beams centered on him.

  Sam could have stayed right where he was, but he did not even consider it. He rolled up to his knees, drew his Glock 9-millimeter pistol, and opened fire on the men above. By doing this he knew he was risking the chance that the Zarrar soldier would shoot him in the back in surprise at the sudden movement and noise, but he decided to put his trust in the training and instincts of the commando and concentrate on killing as many of the Haqqani forces as possible.

  With his pistol, he dropped both of the men holding flashlights, hitting one in the thigh and the other center mass. Others on the road dove for cover, giving Driscoll a second to turn toward his colleague in the SSG. “Head for those trees, ten yards at a time!” he shouted, and the young soldier looked back over his shoulder, found the copse halfway down the hill, and then turned and ran back ten yards. While he did this, Sam fired a few pistol shots up the hill, then when the SSG man laid down suppressive fire, Driscoll leapt to his feet and began running down toward the trees himself.

  They moved in a leapfrog fashion—bounding ten yards, then providing supporting fire for the other, as they hurried for the relative cover of the trees below them. More than once either Sam or the SSG sergeant fel
l during his descent, slowing the process and giving the men above a near stationary target at which to shoot.

  They made it to within twenty yards of the trees when the slide of Driscoll’s Glock locked open after firing the last round. The Zarrar commando was bounding past him at just that instant. Sam pulled his last full pistol mag from his belt and slammed it into the gun’s grip, and then dropped the slide, chambering a round.

  Next to him he heard the soldier grunt loudly, then the man pitched forward and tumbled to the ground. The American fired seven rounds up toward the road, then spun and ran to help his wounded comrade. He dropped to the ground next to the commando’s still form, and he found the back of the soldier’s head completely sheared away by a well-placed AK round.

  The man had died instantly.

  “Fuck!” Sam shouted in frustration and anguish, but he could not stay here. The sparks kicked up by impacting jacketed bullets in the rocks around him encouraged him to move his ass. Driscoll grabbed the rifle off the dead man and then crawled, rolled, and slid the rest of the way to the trees.

  The Haqqani network fighters wasted no time in targeting the woods where Driscoll had sought cover. Kalashnikov rounds tore into the trunks and limbs of the mulberry and fir and sent leaves and needles raining down like heavy mountain snowfall. This forced Sam to drop down onto his belly and crawl as fast as possible to the other side of the little copse. It was only thirty yards across and thirty yards deep, so he knew he could not hide out here for long.

  Sam found a spot behind a thick tree trunk and he took a moment to check his body for injuries. He was slick with blood; certainly he’d caught shrapnel from kicked-up rocks on the hillside and cuts from head to toe falling out of the truck and rolling down to his current cover.

  He also checked his gear, or what was left of it.

  The rifle he had confiscated from the dead soldier was an older M16. A good gun with a nice long barrel, great for hitting targets at distance, though he would have preferred his scoped M4 lost up on the hillside. His three remaining M4 mags in his chest rig would work in the M16, and for this he was grateful. He reloaded his new rifle with an old magazine, and then he moved to another position, this one right at the southern edge of the grove.

  Here he thought over his options. He could surrender, he could run, or he could fight.

  He did not consider surrender for a moment, which left two options, run or fight.

  Driscoll was a brave man, but he was a pragmatist. He had no problem hauling ass if that was his best option for survival at this point. He peered out of the woods and checked to see if there was any escape route possible.

  A grenade, possibly fired from an RPG launcher, exploded thirty yards behind him.

  Fuck.

  He peered out across the valley now; a sliver of moon shone through a break in the clouds, casting a faint glow across the dry limestone riverbed that ran off to the east and west. The rock field was fifty yards wide at the floor of the valley, and anyone leaving the grove where he had sought cover would be exposed to the guns above him on the road for several minutes before he could find more cover.

  No way Sam was going to slip away into the night. He couldn’t run down to the riverbank and try to run away. It would be suicide.

  Driscoll decided then and there that he wasn’t going to go out with a bullet in the back. These trees would be his Alamo. He would face his enemy and fight them, make as many of them pay as he could before their sheer number did him in. Slowly, and with some reluctance, he hefted his M16, stood, and headed back up through the woods.

  He’d not made it ten yards before chattering AK fire sent more leaves on top of him. He dropped down on his knees and fired blindly through the cover, dumped half a magazine downrange to put any heads down, then he regained his feet and ran up, charging toward the enemy.

  A group of six Haqqani men had made it halfway down the hillside from the road. They’d been sent down by their leaders to search for the soldier who would certainly be hiding under a rock in the trees. Sam knew he surprised them by breaking out of the trees in front of them, his rifle on his shoulder and flames and smoke spewing from it. As they returned fire, along with a firing line of men on the road above, Driscoll dropped onto his heaving chest, sighted on the flashes of their Kalashnikovs, and fired three-round bursts until his magazine ran dry. He knew he’d taken out at least two of the men, and four remained, so he rolled onto his hip, pulled a mag out of his chest harness, and began reloading his gun.

  Just then he saw a larger flash of light up on the roadside. Instantly he recognized the wide flash of an RPG taking flight, and in another instant he realized the missile was going to hit right where he lay.

  With no time to think, he vaulted to his boots, turned, and leapt back toward the trees.

  The grenade hit the ground just behind him, exploded in fire and light, and blew American operative Sam Driscoll end over end, sending hot sharp shrapnel into his body and tossing him into the woods like a discarded rag doll.

  There he lay facedown and motionless while the Haqqani descended on his position.

  38

  President Ed Kealty had spent virtually all of the past two weeks on the campaign trail. There were five swing states that Benton Thayer felt could go either way, so Kealty canvassed them in Air Force One. This morning he went to a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then headed to a wind-turbine plant for lunch and a quick tour. He then flew to Youngstown, Ohio, for a rally before shooting east for a dinnertime black-tie affair in Richmond, Virginia.

  It was after ten-thirty in the evening when Kealty climbed out of Marine One on the White House’s back lawn. On the short chopper flight over from Andrews Air Force Base he’d been informed by his chief of staff, Wesley McMullen, that Benton Thayer needed to meet with him in the Oval Office. Thayer had also asked that Mike Brannigan be there. This was odd, the campaign manager requesting the attorney general be present at a meeting, but Wes had everyone assembled and waiting on the President.

  Kealty shot straight into the office without going to the residence first. He still wore his tuxedo, having not changed out of it during the twenty-minute flight from Richmond.

  “Can we make this quick, guys? It’s been a long day.”

  Thayer sat on one of the two sofas, Wes McMullen sat next to him, and Brannigan sat across, next to Kealty.

  The campaign manager got right down to it. “Mr. President. Something came into my possession today. A computer drive. It was left on my car at my club, I have no idea who gave it to me, or why I was chosen.”

  “What is on it?”

  “It is a dossier on a retired Navy SEAL and CIA paramilitary operations officer named John Clark. He is a recipient of the Medal of Honor.”

  “I’m bored already, Benton.”

  “You won’t be bored for long, Mr. President . Clark is a close personal friend of Jack Ryan’s; they worked together on certain operations. Certain black-ops–type missions.”

  Kealty leaned forward. “Go on.”

  “Someone has plopped a computer drive into our laps that contains evidence of criminal wrongdoing by this Mr. Clark. Assassinations for the CIA.”

  Kealty nodded. “Assassinations?”

  “As well as wiretaps, breaking and entering, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “This file comes from someone at CIA?”

  “It doesn’t look like it. The drive does have information from CIA sources, that’s for damn sure. There must be a leak over there. But this information looks like it might be coming from China, or Russia, or even a friendly government that doesn’t want Ryan back in the saddle over here.”

  Kealty nodded. Looked at Brannigan. The AG was hearing about this for the first time. He had a look on his face like he knew he had a long night ahead of him checking all this out.

  Thayer continued, “But all this stuff Ryan’s buddy Clark did—every murder, every breaking and entering, every illegal wiretap, it is all inadmissible in court.”
r />   “And why is that?”

  “Because several years ago President Ryan gave him a full pardon for each and every act he did while working for the CIA.”

  Kealty smiled as he stood up slowly. “He didn’t.”

  “He did. Some in the Justice Department know about it, but not many.”

  Kealty turned to Mike Brannigan. “Mike. Tell me you didn’t know.”

  “I had no idea, sir. It must have been sealed. Whoever has given us this information, if it is true, must have gotten the information illegally through—”

  “Can he do it?” Kealty asked. “Was that legal, just waving a wand over a CIA black operator to say, ‘no harm, no foul’?”

  Brannigan did speak up with some authority now. “A presidential pardon can clean your slate for most any federal crime. Civil, state, and local charges aren’t affected, although I assume with a CIA operator, that wouldn’t be a factor.”

  Kealty’s chest heaved with excitement, but then he deflated. “Okay. So … if Ryan gave this meathead a pardon, sure, we could leak it, if we did it carefully. That will be embarrassing for Ryan, but we won’t be able to get to Clark. And without Clark in hand, up on charges, it won’t be anything other than one-day news. You know how Ryan is. He’ll wrap himself up in the flag and salute the camera and say, ‘I did what I had to do to keep your kids safe,’ or some bullshit like that.”

  Thayer shook his head. “Ryan pardoned him for his actions with the CIA. But there is one murder in the file that, apparently, did not happen as part of his CIA duties.” Thayer looked down to the pages in his lap. “He supposedly killed an East German named Schuman, 1981, in Berlin. The file I have doesn’t have a word on it. I checked other avenues, as well. As far as the CIA is concerned, even internally, this never happened.”

  Kealty connected the dots. “So if he is off the hook for killings while working his CIA job, and this murder was not a CIA job…”