SEAL Team Six Hunt the Falcon(8)
At twenty feet he heard the explosion. Wham! It hurt his ears and sent pieces of rock flying, crashing into him. Still, he managed to hold on to the rope.
Jonesy screamed, “Mofos! Stupid mofos! Why you gotta be pissing me off?”
A voice overlapped in Crocker’s headset. “Boss. Boss!”
Secondary explosions followed, thankfully none of them as close. Bullets flew their way, loose rock falling on top of them, hitting their shoulders, backs, and helmets.
“Boss! Boss, what the fuck?”
“Down!” he shouted at Jonesy. “Fast-rope down!”
His feet and hands eased up on the rope and he started flying down fast, still surrounded by fog, trying to count the distance in his head. Twenty feet, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. At eighty he started to tighten his grip around the line.
Into the mike in his headset, he shouted, “Slow down at eighty feet. Remember to slow down!”
The rope burned through his gloves. The heat and pain was intense by the time he emerged from the mist and saw ground, and Jonesy rolling onto a patch of moss-covered dirt.
“Hit the ground and roll!” he exclaimed into the mike before he hit, lowering his head and shoulder, and executing a modified parachute landing fall, popping up into a crouch. He spotted Jonesy waving him over to a group of boulders that formed a natural wall.
The enemy were still directing their fire above them into the gully. Crocker suspected that the Afghan major with the push-pull radio might have something to do with it.
He helped the remaining five and directed them to where Jonesy waited. Over the radio he ordered Dog to pull up the fast-rope, then joined the group huddled behind the rock. The sounds of battle were crisper and closer—so close he could make out men shouting in a foreign language.
Jonesy said, “The Taliban’s about a hundred yards in front of us. Station C stands over there to the right.”
Crocker turned and looked in the direction of a smooth rock that rose like the back of a blue whale. Beyond it sat a higher patch of land that was barely visible. Through wisps of fog and a patch of low shrubs, he thought he saw the top of a flat, fortlike structure.
“That it?”
“You got it, boss. We’re kinda behind the freakin’ Tal-i-bad lines.”
The fresh, piney smell reminded Crocker of happier times, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where he spent summer vacations as a kid. He turned to Davis. “Get Sergeant Perez on the horn and tell him we’re approaching north-northwest.”
“Roger.”
“Follow me.” This wasn’t the first time he’d rushed into something blind. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
He ran in a low crouch until he reached the slick, smooth surface of the rock, and holding on to it, started to scurry upward on all fours. Tough going. Every foot gained was a struggle. He was out of breath by the time he reached the top and spotted the shrubs ahead. Beyond them and to the right he saw the backs of three men wearing black turbans. One was kneeling on the ground setting up a machine gun.
Crocker aimed his HK416 and raked fire across their backs, left to right, then left again into the slumping, twitching bodies. One shouted an oath to Allah that echoed past him.
Akil, Jonesy, and Cal hurried up behind him.
“What the fuck was that?” one of them exclaimed, interrupted by the clank and clatter of metal against rock. Crocker located the grenade and pointed at it. Together they sprinted, then dove to the opposite side of a berm and hit the ground.
Crocker felt his chin crash into the ground as snow entered his nose and mouth. The explosion lifted his chest and belly into the air. Shards of metal fell around him as he hit earth again and saw stars.
A big gun was pounding. It seemed to be firing from a position closer to the cliff. His head spinning, he tried to lift himself up as voices called, “Chief! Chief!” Couldn’t tell who it was, but he realized it had to be coming over his headset. When he reached for the mike, he realized his helmet had been pushed back off his head. He was trying to adjust it when he noticed Akil pointing at him. A third man Crocker didn’t know was standing with him. Jonesy hurried over and helped him up.
The stranger said, “You can’t rest now, sir. You’ll miss all the fun.”
Some fun.
The man looked Hispanic—high cheekbones, a tribal tattoo on his neck. He said, “Chief Crocker, Sergeant Chino Perez.” His two gold front teeth gleamed in the muted light.
“You with us?”
“Fuck, yeah.”
Crocker still felt woozy, but he managed to run with them toward the guard station. The next thing he remembered, he was sitting on a sandbag. Someone handed him a bottle of water. When he swallowed, he tasted blood.