plan has changed. Pirate 2 is one hundred percent SNAFU. We are pressing forward with Plan B. Martinez, Hendricks, Colley, Simmons. You’re with me and Lieutenant Colonel Heath. We are A-Team. We will move into the house, eliminate any opposition, acquire the target, and terminate. We are going to be moving very fast. Go mode. Understood?”
Martinez, as always: “Stone, how you plan to make this a twelve-man assault? It’s a twenty-four-man—”
Luke stared at him. “I said understood?”
Various grunts and growls indicated they understood.
“No one resists us,” Luke said. “Someone shoots, someone so much as shows a weapon, they’re out of the game. Copy?”
He glanced through the windows. The chopper fought through a brown shit storm, moving fast, but well below its max airspeed. Visibility out there was zero. Less than zero. The chopper shuddered and lurched as if to confirm that assessment.
“Copy,” the men around him said. “Copy that.”
“Packard, Hastings, Morrison, Dobbs, Murphy, Bailey. You are B-Team. B-team, you support and cover us. When we drop, two of you hold the drop spot, two hold the perimeter near the gates of the compound. When we go inside, two move forward and hold the front of the house. You’re also the last men out. Eyes sharp, heads on a swivel. Nobody moves against us. Eliminate all resistance, and any possible resistance. This place is bound to be hotter than hell. Your job is to make it cold.”
He looked at them all.
“Are we clear?”
A chorus of voices followed, each of differing depth and timbre.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
Luke crouched on a low-slung bench in the personnel hold. He felt that old trickle of fear, of adrenaline, of excitement. He had swallowed a Dexedrine right after takeoff, and it was starting to kick in. Suddenly he felt sharper and more alert than before.
He knew the drug’s effects. His heart rate was up. His pupils were dilating, letting in more light and making his vision better. His hearing was more acute. He had more energy, more stamina, and he could remain awake for a long time.
Luke’s men sat forward on their benches, eyes on him. His thoughts were racing ahead of his ability to speak.
“Children,” he said. “Watch for them. We know there are women and children in the compound, some of them family members of the target. We are not shooting women and children tonight. Copy?”
Resigned voices answered.
“Copy that.”
“Copy.”
It was an inevitability of these assignments. The target always lived among women and children. The missions always happened at night. There was always confusion. Children tended to do unpredictable things. Luke had seen men hesitate to kill children and then pay the price when the children turned out to be soldiers who didn’t hesitate to kill them. To make matters worse, their teammates would then kill the child soldiers, ten seconds too late.
People died in war. They died suddenly and often for the craziest reasons—like not wanting to kill children, who were dead a minute later anyway.
“That said, don’t die out there tonight. And don’t let your brothers die.”
The chopper rolled on, blasting through the spitting, shrieking darkness. Luke’s body swayed and bounced with the helicopter. Outside, there was flying dirt and grit all around them. They were going to be out there a few moments from now.
“If we catch these guys napping, we might have an easy time of this. They’re sure not expecting us tonight. I want to drop in, acquire the target inside ten minutes, and load back up within fifteen minutes.”
The chopper rocked and bucked. It fought to remain in the air.
Luke paused and took a breath.
“Do not hesitate! Seize the initiative and keep it. Push them and push them. Make them afraid. Do what comes naturally.”
This after just telling them to watch for children. He was sending mixed messages, he knew that. He had to get on script, but it was hard. A dark night, an insane dust storm, one chopper down before the mission even started, and a commanding officer who would not turn around.
A thought went through his mind, laser fast, so fast he almost didn’t recognize it.
Abort. Abort this mission.
He looked at the two lines of men. They looked back at him. The normal enthusiasm these guys would show was sorely lacking. A couple of sets of eyes glanced out the windows.
Sand was spraying against the helicopter. It was like the chopper was a submarine under water, except the water was made out of dust.
Luke could abort the mission. He could overrule Heath. These guys would follow him over Heath—they were his guys, not Heath’s. The payback would be hell, of course. Heath would come for him. Don would try to protect Luke.
But Don would be a civilian.
The charges would be insubordination at best, mutiny at worst. A court martial was practically guaranteed. Luke knew the precedents—a lunatic, suicidal order was not necessarily an unlawful order. He would lose any court martial case.
He was still staring at the men. They were still staring at him. He could see it in their eyes, or thought he could:
Call it off.
Luke shook that away.
He looked at Wayne. Wayne raised his eyebrows, gave a slight shrug.
Up to you.
“All right, boys,” Luke said. “Hit hard and fast tonight. No screwing around. We go in, we do our jobs, and we get right back out again. Trust me. This won’t hurt a bit.”
CHAPTER TWO
10:01 p.m. Afghanistan Time (1:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Near the Pakistan Border
Kamdesh District
Nuristan Province, Afghanistan
“Go!” Luke shouted. “Go! Go! Go!”
Two thick ropes descended from the bay door of the chopper. Men dropped down them, then disappeared into the swirling dust. They could be a thousand feet in the air, or ten feet above the playground.
The wind howled. Biting sand and dirt sprayed in. Luke’s face was covered by a ventilator mask. He and Heath were the last ones out the door. Heath wore a similar mask—they looked like two survivors of a nuclear war.
Heath looked at Luke. His mouth moved beneath his mask.
“We’re gonna be legends, Stone!”
Luke hit the green START button on his stopwatch. This had better be quick.
He glanced below him. He couldn’t see a damn thing down there, or anywhere. It was all on faith. He went over the side and fell through bleak darkness. Two seconds later, maybe three, he touched down hard on the ground. The landing sent a shockwave up his legs.
He released the rope and looked around, trying to get his bearings.
Heath landed a second later.
Men in masks appeared out of the gloom. Martinez, Hendricks. Hendricks gestured behind him.
“There’s the wall!”
Something large loomed back there. Okay, that was the wall to the compound. A couple of dim lights shone on top of it.
Hendricks was saying something, but Luke couldn’t hear it.
“What?”
“They know!”
They know? Who? Knew what?
Above their