FOUR.
"Oh, damn, Mick, we got only ten minutes till the Russians arrive."
Staff Sergeant Raymond McAllen, leader of a six-man USMC Force Reconnaissance team, didn't need his assistant, Sergeant Terry Jones, to remind him of that. He'd set his stopwatch within a minute after the eighteen-man platoon fast-roped down into the valley as their Black Hawk had thundered off to seek cover until they called her back.
"We got less time than that, Jonesy. But the crash site should be just over that ridge."
"Yeah, but it don't look good. No contact from them. We don't even know if this guy is still alive."
"Our job's to find out. Come on!"
The sun was beginning to set over the Sierra Maestra mountains in southern Cuba, and the shadows grew longer across slopes covered in mud from the midday rains. McAllen and his men had already shouldered their way through some dense jungle in sweltering, humid air, but they were almost at the site.
And no, this wasn't a run-of-the-mill TRAP (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel) mission. Apparently, one of the passengers onboard the Learjet was a Russian colonel who'd been on his way to Guantanamo when the Russians had shot down his escort fighters. They'd also managed to strike a glancing blow to the jet, forcing it down into the mountains.
Fortunately, McAllen and his entire Force Recon company had been engaged in a weeklong, live-fire training exercise at Gitmo and been able to respond within minutes of the call.
Unfortunately, they'd been out in the field doing some physical training when the call had come, and they'd been forced to board the chopper with whatever they had, leaving behind their best high-tech toys-advanced body armor, weapons, and communications systems that were all part of the military's Future Force Warrior program.
They'd get by with just the conventional gear. McAllen believed that if you depended too much upon technology in the field, you'd become sloppy and soft, a kid at a convenience store who can't make change, a Marine who can't aim because the computer does it for him.
He waved on the others, Jonesy first; then his two recon scouts, Corporals Palladino and Szymanski; his radio operator, Lance Corporal Friskis; and finally the team's medic, Navy Corpsman Gutierrez, who carried the team's biggest gun, the Squad Automatic Weapon, because putting more steel on target was the best form of preventative medicine.
Palladino and Szymanski moved out ahead, walking point, ready to throw hand signals or call in via the intra-team radio at their first sign of contact.
Meanwhile, the other two six-man teams were about three kilometers west, moving to head off part of a company-size Russian ground force that had already inserted, minutes after the crash. A second Russian team was just north of the site, and higher was scrambling to put another Force Recon platoon on the ground there, but McAllen still bet that his team would reach the jet before the Russians did.
Their friends in Moscow were taking no chances and assuming nothing. They'd actually planned in advance to drop troops on the ground and ensure that this colonel was dead.
That certainly had McAllen's attention.
He pulled up the rear, sweeping the jungle with his carbine, head low, repeatedly stealing glances behind.
They stole their way even higher up the slope, boots digging deeper into the mud, as the mountain grew darker and the hoots and cries of birds seemed to drift off into an eerie silence, save for their footfalls. The stench of the crash grew stronger, a combination of mildew, smoke, and spilled fuel.
"Outlaw Three, this is Outlaw One, over," called McAllen over the radio.
"Go ahead, One," answered Palladino; he was also the team's sniper, six feet of muscle and hard heart.
"Got eyes on the site, over?"
"Just now, but we'll need to approach over that hill to the east. We can't get down this way. Too steep. Come on up and have a look, over."
"Coming up."
After reaching the ridge and jogging over to where Palladino and Szymanski were hunkered down, McAllen caught his breath and saw what the sniper was talking about.
The approach was far too steep. Even so, this perch afforded a perfect view of the valley below.
The Learjet had burrowed into the side of the mountain, yet most of the fuselage was intact. Its wings were gone, though, its side door open, smoke still pouring from its engines and the long, meter-deep furrow stretching out behind. They couldn't get to it, but circling around as Palladino had suggested would kill even more time.
"What do you want do, Sergeant?" asked Szymanski, his chiseled face and thick neck dappled with sweat.
"Shift around."
"Uh-oh," interrupted Palladino, staring through a pair of night-vision goggles into the gloom ahead. "Enemy contact, tree line north. At least six guys, maybe more. They're moving in."
McAllen tensed. So the Russians had beaten them to the site, but they hadn't reached the jet itself yet. He got on the radio: "Outlaw Team, this is One. I want Outlaws Three and Six up here on the ridge. I want sniper and SAW fire on that tree line. The rest of you come with me!"
Gutierrez hustled forward with his big machine gun, setting up a few meters away from Palladino, who dropped to lie prone with his M40A3 sniper rifle balanced on its bipod.
McAllen led Jonesy, Szymanski, and Friskis along the ridge, weaving through the palms and other trees until they reached the aforementioned hill east of their position. It, too, was particularly steep but draped in enough dense foliage to conceal their advance-and the possibility of a tumble down the hillside.
"Outlaw One, this is Outlaw Six," called Gutierrez. "They're breaking from the tree line, over."
"Let Outlaw Three take the first shot, and that's your signal to open up, over."
"Roger that."
McAllen imagined Palladino up there on the hill, staring through his scope, making hasty calculations- When suddenly his rifle resounded, a great thunder-clap echoing off the mountains.
A gasp later, Gutierrez began delivering his lecture, the Professor of Doom bathing himself in brass casings, the SAW rat-tat-tat rat-tat-tating loud and clear.
McAllen's group had a handful of seconds to make their break from the slope and weave a serpentine path toward the downed plane.
He ordered Szymanski and Friskis out first and they charged away, vanishing off into the trees, while he and Jonesy took a more westerly path, closer to the Russians in the tree line. McAllen figured that even if the enemy got closer, at least two of his men would make it to the plane, while he and Jonesy could intercept.
Up on the hill, Gutierrez and Palladino continued laying down fire, the Russians only answering with sporadic shots.
McAllen and Jonesy reached the Learjet, two seconds behind the other guys. "Stay out here," McAllen ordered Szymanski. "Mask up. Pop smoke. Friskis, stay with him. Call the PL, tell him we've reached the site."
"You got it, Sergeant."
McAllen and Jonesy slipped on their masks and McAllen followed Jonesy into the hazy confines of the jet, his rifle at the ready.
The cabin walls and ceiling were heavily scorched. He glanced right.
And wished he hadn't.
At least ten people were strewn about, their blackened limbs twisted at improbable angles. A few of them were dressed in the burned remains of civilian clothes while the others wore military uniforms, Navy mostly.
"Check the cockpit," he told Jonesy, then rushed forward to the nearest body, whose government ID had melted into his chest. There wasn't much left of his face, either, but it was clear he wasn't their Russian colonel. He was a black man, about middle age.
McAllen was about to move on to the next guy- When the man's eyes snapped open, shocking the hell out of him. "Jesus!"
The survivor's voice came thin and cracked. "Help me."
McAllen leaned over the man. "Whoa, God, buddy, yeah, yeah, I will. And you help me. We're looking for a guy, a Russian colonel."
"Sergeant!" hollered Friskis from the doorway. "I think we got another squad. They're moving up!"
"Okay, get ready to fall back. We have a survivor here. Jonesy, check the others!"
McAllen's assistant emerged from the cockpit. "Roger that. Pilots are dead," he reported, his voice muffled by his mask.
The black man grabbed McAllen's arm. "Please, my daughters need me."
"Don't worry, buddy, I'll get you out of here. What's your name?"
"Charles Shakura."
"All right, Mr. Shakura, stay calm." McAllen carefully unfastened the man's seat belt. "But listen to me, man. The colonel. We need to know about that Russian colonel. He's supposed to be onboard."
Shakura grimaced.
Abruptly, gunfire began drumming on the outside of the fuselage- And Jonesy came rushing forward from the back of the jet. "Looks like some civilians and officers, but no one's cuffed, Sergeant."
"Charlie, where's the Russian?"
Shakura swallowed.
McAllen seized him by the collar. "Where is he?"
Shakura slowly blinked. "He got here by sub. We're just the . . . just the decoy. He was never on this flight."
McAllen's shoulders slumped. He released Shakura and glanced over his shoulder at Jonesy.
"Well, I thought I was a Marine, not an actor," snapped Jonesy. "And I just love being expendable."
McAllen took a deep breath, composed himself. "All right. Doesn't matter what's going on here. Decoy, no decoy. We got a survivor. Help him out, get him strapped into a litter."
Jonesy sighed in disgust. "You got it."
Drawing in another deep breath, McAllen shifted outside, where Friskis and Szymanski had taken up firing position on their bellies alongside the fuselage, whose port side faced the tree line, now obscured in thick walls of gray smoke.
McAllen got on the radio with his platoon leader, shared the grim news that they were just part of a decoy mission but that they did have one survivor to rescue. The PL promised close air support within five minutes.
A pair of grenades exploded somewhere behind them. That would be the Russians trying to take out Gutierrez and his big gun. "Outlaw Six, this is One. Take Three and rally east to our second hill, over. We're bringing up a survivor."
"Roger that, One. On my way, out."
McAllen and Jonesy moved Shakura out of the Learjet. As Jonesy unfurled the portable litter he had removed from his pack, Friskis and Szymanski kept the Russians busy, triplets of fire drumming repeatedly.
Somewhere in the distance, the whomping of helicopters began to grow louder.
Once Shakura was strapped in, McAllen called back the scout and radio operator from their firing positions and gave them the unenviable task of hauling the injured man back up the hillside. He and Jonesy would remain behind to cover.
"Go now!" he cried, and while the two men took off with their survivor, he and Jonesy set up on either side of the fuselage.
Not three seconds later, something remarkable and utterly breath-robbing occurred: The damned Russians decided to storm the jet!
A wave of six troopers in masks appeared in the smoke not twenty meters away, running directly at McAllen, their rifles blazing, rounds punching into and ricocheting off the plane, popping in the mud, whizzing overhead.
Out of the corner of his eye, McAllen spotted at least as many troopers charging toward Jonesy.
"Oh my God, Ray! Here they come!" cried his assistant.
A terrible ache woke deep in McAllen's gut as he realized he couldn't get them all. Damn, there was too much life left in him. He hadn't even found the right woman . . .
And he'd worked so damned hard to get where he was, a Force Recon warrior-swift, silent, and deadly-the eyes and ears of his commander.
How many training missions? How many real operations, including that big one in the mountains of Bulgaria, fighting those terrorist bastards, the Green Brigade?
And now the big war had just started, maybe the war to end all wars, and he'd barely had a chance to make his contribution to the fight.
His life wasn't flashing before his eyes. That was a myth. But that ache, that solid, thick ache whispered like the Reaper in his ear, This is it. Time's up. The bill's come due. This is it. Time's up. The bill's come due.
He figured the best he could do was lay down some fire across their unarmored legs, try to drop all six of them as quickly as he could, and as they fell, he might be able to pan again with another salvo.
He set his teeth and squeezed the trigger of his carbine, striking the legs of the Russian to his far right, bringing that man down, though he could still recover and fire.
Yet before McAllen knew what was happening, Palladino's sniper rifle boomed once, blasting the head off one Russian, boomed again, tore off the shoulder of another. McAllen continued sweeping across the last three guys, dropping all of them.
Not a second after he did that, Gutierrez cut into them from above with his SAW.
McAllen exploited the moment to burst up from his position and charge toward the Russians attacking Jonesy's position. He already had a grenade loaded in his carbine's attached launcher, so he let it fly. Just as the grenade hit the mud and exploded, McAllen hit the deck himself, bringing up the rifle and raking their line with fire.
Suddenly, out of the smoke, came a lone Russian, blood pouring from his neck, his helmet gone. He screamed something at McAllen and swung his rifle around.
The roar of their Black Hawk was deafening now, the rotor wash suddenly hitting them, knocking the Russian back. As the enemy soldier lost his balance, one of the helicopter's door gunners opened up on him, and he jerked involuntarily before hitting the ground.
Since the valley was far too dense for the chopper's pilot to land, the bird continued to wheel overhead, door gunners cutting apart the tree line, giving the remaining Russians something to think about.
McAllen got to his feet and jogged past the dead troops to where Jonesy was lying on his gut.
Unmoving.
McAllen ripped off his mask and dropped to his knees, shaking his assistant. Then he ripped off Jonesy's mask and rolled the man over, seeing that he'd been shot in the face and neck.
McAllen rose, and all the anger and frustration suddenly funneled into his arms and legs. He hoisted Jonesy over his back in a fireman's carry and staggered away from the downed plane toward the hill. Friskis ran to meet him. "They got Jonesy," was all McAllen could say.
He told himself over and over that it didn't matter that the mission was a decoy and that they'd been pawns in a little game of deception. It didn't matter. It was a Marine Corps operation and Jonesy had done his job, as they all had.
But his mind raced with the what-ifs and with the names of the people he could hold responsible. If higher knew that the mission was a decoy, then why did they risk the lives of highly trained Marine Corps operators? Couldn't they have played wait and see or just attacked from the air? They probably wanted the decoy to look perfect, right down to the bogus rescue mission on the ground.