Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Page 13

  Nick inched his scope along the rugged, rocky terrain. He detected pieces of fighters -- a top of a head, a shoulder, a hand atop a boulder -- but nothing large enough to engage.

  “Nobody’s showing themselves,” Nick said, still behind his scope.

  He grunted, unsure. What now? Nick pulled down his rifle and looked at his team.

  Red was reloading another seventy-five round drum into the light machine gun. Truck was taking in some water from a green canteen. And Marcus was looking down at his watch, checking the time with a look of concern.

  Nick wiped his sleeve across his sweaty forehead. Damn, he felt as tired as he could remember feeling in a long time. He studied his men -- all bearded and turbaned up, to fit in better. They looked like a ragtag bunch of religious wackos. He stood and felt his legs shaky with fatigue. This needed to end soon. He was getting too old for this shit.

  The Fist of the Taliban could feel the imminent victory as his trucks raced across the open ground. The three trucks were fanned out, driving side-by-side on terrain that had mostly flattened out. They and their twenty-four fighters were flying at more than forty miles per hour across the rough land. And forty miles per hour on this rocky, hard ground felt more like eighty.

  Mushahid couldn’t believe that none of the fighters ahead had noticed them or turned in alarm. Everything was going according to plan, and these men were as good as dead.

  Nick couldn’t figure out an alternate plan. Though he was focused obsessively forward on the machine gun, while also searching for other targets, he allowed his mind to chew on the situation. But no matter how hard he thought, he kept coming up empty.

  There was no way around this town if they were planning on staying in the truck. The valley was a bowl that ended in a small pass through the mountains ahead. The only way through the steep terrain was through the road beyond the village. And the road passed through the village, which had some really pissed off folks waiting for his team to get within range.

  It was an impasse. And there were no other options unless they wanted to go on foot. Nick had walked all he planned to walk for a long damn time, so that ruled that out.

  Nick, frustrated, laid back down, incredibly pissed off. He was a sniper at heart. And he’d just have to rely on his gun once again to get through this damned mess. Maybe he could crawl forward and play turkey peek with these folks until they decided the fun was all gone.

  Red apparently wasn’t happy either. He pushed himself off the cab of the truck, cupped his hands, and shouted, “Come on you fuckers! You bunch of damn cowards! Let’s do this!”

  His voice echoed across the open ground, but no one on the opposite side even bothered shooting at the standing target. Both sides appeared to be conserving their ammo – the distance too great.

  Red seized the RPK off the cab, placed it against his shoulder, and loosed a burst of machine gun fire toward the targets across the distance.

  Nick looked up and said, “Knock it off, Red.”

  Thankfully, it was only a five-round burst.

  Nick returned to the scope and saw a very different picture than he’d seen only moments before. The villagers weren’t hiding anymore. In fact, as he watched, more and more stood. Their hands held up, weapons lifted.

  Nick couldn’t figure out what they were doing

  “They’re literally cheering,” Marcus said, looking through his own scope.

  “What the hell they celebrating about?” Nick asked.

  “Red’s shitty shooting, apparently,” Truck said.

  Nick ignored the banter, placed the scope’s crosshair on a target, and eased back the trigger. But before he could fire, the hair on the back of his neck stood -- his involuntary alarm system that had kept his sorry ass alive numerous times -- and Nick answered it immediately. He lowered the rifle and turned. And when he did, he nearly threw up.

  Chapter 43

  Dust climbed behind them like a tidal wave racing in their direction. It rose in height and width, its breadth and density revealing the hazard beneath its cloud.

  It appeared ominous, and Nick froze for a moment after turning. The glint of the early morning sun pinged off the glass and chrome of the vehicles and forced Nick to squint his eyes against its glare.

  “Contact rear!” Nick hollered, his voice screeching, his alarm too great to control or hide the fear in such a moment.

  All four men turned to confront their new threat. Nick was the first to fire. He estimated the trucks at a thousand yards away but closing fast.

  Nick aimed several inches high and began shooting quickly, grateful in this moment that his Dragunov was semi-auto instead of bolt action. Marcus and Truck fired on semi-auto with their AKs, as well. Everyone trying to fire as accurately as possible.

  Red stood in the bed of the Toyota and fired from the standing position with the RPK. Not the most accurate position, but he, too, had panicked upon seeing the trucks and wasn’t thinking entirely clearly. Each man knew they had to stop the trucks, or they were all dead.

  The three trucks hurtled toward what was looking more and more like American invaders. Mushahid Zubaida, riding in the passenger seat, was holding on for all he was worth. His right arm was braced in the window, and his left hand gripped the truck’s dash as tightly as he could squeeze it.

  The truck bounced and hopped, spending as much time airborne as it spent on the ground. He glanced at the speedometer, but couldn’t brace his head still enough to read it. The dry, dusty ground wasn’t rough here by most Pakistani standards, but no open ground was designed for trucks to drive at more than forty miles per hour.

  Make that fifty, he finally saw the speed between all the bouncing and jostling. No doubt this charge was wrecking the undercarriage of the truck. Well, when they uploaded the video of four dead Americans caught in Pakistan, he was sure more donations would pour in from his Muslim brothers across the world. They could buy new trucks then.

  He turned his attention from the speedometer to their target, and a smile appeared on his face. They were eight hundred yards away, and while their surprise had been blown by something (it was too far for him to see the cheering villagers), only light, ineffective fire from the Americans snapped by.

  Mushahid Zubaida had the infidels, and he knew it.

  Chapter 44

  Nick changed mags on the Dragunov as the charging vehicles cleared the eight hundred meter mark.

  “Change mags, everyone,” he shouted.

  As he slapped his own fresh magazine in, he knew the next few moments would be the difference between life and death. The trucks were about to enter effective range, which is why he ordered everyone to reload. At this range, a single man running dry could very easily turn into the kind of situation that ended up with no one making it out of Pakistan.

  They would either make a few great shots and hit all the “should make” shots or they’d die. Period. There was no middle ground, and Nick didn’t like their odds.

  A few rounds snapped by, fired from the villagers behind them. Great, Nick thought. Now the villagers are back at us. He hoped they weren’t advancing on them; there was no time to check. They wouldn’t be able to cover enough distance to matter before the trucks decided their fate anyway.

  Stay focused, Nick, he thought as he brought the Dragunov back into his shoulder with its fresh mag. But before he settled in to aim, he had an idea.

  “Let’s all focus on the middle truck,” Nick yelled.

  The trucks cleared six hundred yards. Closing fast. Nick noticed out of the corner of his eye that Red was jumping down from the truck to take a prone position. Good. With that bipod, he wouldn’t be missing anymore shots from this point on. And he had seventy-five in that drum.

  Nick brought the scope up, aimed at the engine, and fired. KRAK. KRAK. KRAK. The other men of S3 poured bullets into it, too, and Nick saw two tracers cut into the engine. Those were from the RPK, and two tracers meant ten rounds had just zipped into it. It also meant Red was really holding t
he gun tight and keeping its groups controlled since machine guns often rose up on you.

  More bullets riddled the front of the middle truck, but the group of vehicles passed five hundred yards without a pause. But now they were very much in the effective range of their weapons.

  Nick knew his team didn’t miss at this range. Not at a man-sized target and definitely not a truck-sized one. Four of the best gunman in the world were firing at a single truck in the middle of a formation.

  The Americans’ fire had completely ceased. “They must be reloading,” Mushahid said to his driver. “Hurry, Khalid.”

  Mushahid quickly glanced right then left out both windows to make sure the two flanking trucks were still matching pace. Mushahid smiled and again urged Khalid to drive faster.

  Suddenly the machine gun let loose. He could tell from the muzzle flash that it was firing now from a lower position on the ground. He could also tell that its accuracy was flawless.

  Mushahid braced for impact as the rounds slammed and cut into the truck. It sounded like a mass of sledge hammers hitting one after the other, shaking the truck and punching holes through the front window.

  Khalid screamed. “Agh!!!”

  “Be strong, my brother,” Mushahid yelled. “We have them.”

  Then a second burst and other weapons opened up. The truck appeared to be catching bullets like a giant magnet. It sounded like sticking your head in a metal trash can and banging both sides with baseball bats.

  “Be brave, Khalid!” Mushahid called out.

  Khalid didn’t answer, and Mushahid saw his driver’s body slumped against the window as the truck veered sharply to the left. Mushahid reached over to grab the wheel and stabilize the vehicle before it flipped.

  Chapter 45

  Nick saw the middle truck veering and slowing, the other two trucks roaring past it.

  “Shift left,” he shouted. “Shift left. Shift left.”

  They each shifted their fire onto the left truck, now within three hundred yards. It came under even more withering, accurate fire than the first. At two hundred yards, it, too, slowed -- its driver riddled with bullets, the hood shredded and flapping above a smoking engine.

  No one needed to say “shift right.” The final truck was at one hundred yards and flying straight toward the middle of their line. Without question, the driver intended to run over them.

  Red unleashed the light machine gun on it while Marcus slammed in a new thirty-round magazine. Nick doubted they’d stop the truck before it and its fighters were on top of them. But then he remembered the best news ever.

  He released his sniper rifle, jumped to his feet, and leapt over the side of the truck bed. He landed precariously, stumbling all over packs and gear. One leg crumpled under him, and he bashed his knee into a computer tower.

  But in that death dance when time slows, Nick’s body responded as it always had. He found his footing, hoisted the stolen RPG, and switched off the safety as he spun it toward the oncoming truck.

  He aimed low and fired. WHOOSH. The smoke trail flew toward the truck and an explosion thumped the truck, striking in front of the passenger side front tire. The blast ripped the wheel off, and the truck jerked to its right and flipped on its side. It rolled and rolled and rolled, fighters flying, falling, and flattening under the weight of the truck.

  The fighters (who still could) struggled to engage their assailants. But none of them had a chance. Bullets lanced them with laser-like precision. Not a single bullet fired from Nick’s team missed at such a close range. And how could they at less than one hundred yards, outfitted with scopes and precision-tuned weapons synced in by one of the country’s best armorers.

  The closest truck’s eight Taliban fighters were each dead in a matter of seconds. But there was no time for cheering. The fighters from the first two trucks were getting their act together.

  Those from Mushahid’s middle truck, which had been stopped at five hundred yards, had deployed from the truck. These were some of Mushahid Zubaida’s most loyal fighters, and they needed to close the distance while the Americans were focused on the other trucks.

  “Let’s go, my brothers,” Mushahid yelled.

  His troops had seen the riddled body of Khalid in the driver’s seat, and they needed no urging. The seven of them sprinted forward, covering ground as only lightly armed guerrillas can do. Unlike most troops, they had no heavy flak jackets, helmets, or gear ranging from canteens to first aid kits to weigh them down.

  The seven fighters from the second truck just two hundred yards away from Nick’s team were already spreading out and firing. The shots from these fighters were intense and accurate enough to drive Nick’s team into the prone, searching for cover.

  “Fuck!” Red screamed as three bullets smacked in front of him.

  Nick rolled out of the truck and ducked as bullets snapped by his head.

  “We can’t stay here,” he yelled.

  Red pulled his machine gun into his shoulder and yanked the trigger, but it clicked. Dry. Out of ammo. And the ammo was in the truck bed.

  Truck noticed the situation and rolled next to Red.

  “Take this,” he said, tossing Red’s AK-47 to him and grabbing his RPK back. “I’ll grab more ammo from the truck.”

  Red immediately resumed the fire to cover Truck, as did Nick and Marcus. Not having a machine gun up and running was a guaranteed way to lose a firefight.

  Rounds snapped by, their whip-like stinging coming painfully close to pinning the team down. The seven Taliban from Mushahid’s truck had caught up and joined the line of fighters already firing.

  The incoming fire picked up, heavier and more deadly.

  “Shit!” Red screamed. A round had blown a fist-sized rock toward him from just a foot away. Nick ducked after a particularly close round snapped by so loud it felt like it burned. All Nick wanted to do was crawl into a hole or ball up into the fetal position.

  Nick all of a sudden remembered the villagers. The last thing they needed was for those bastards to be running up on their rear. He leaned up, looked behind him, and felt something smack his shoulder. He slammed his body back into the ground, to avoid further damage.

  He burrowed his face into the ground as more rounds whipped past him within inches. His glance to the team’s rear had confirmed his worst fear. The villagers behind them were firing and moving toward them. They were about to be doubly fucked.

  Chapter 46

  “We’ve got to move,” Nick screamed, his head down again.

  His Afghan clothing was turning red from the wound, which he was afraid to investigate. His arm and shoulder still moved, but that could just be the adrenaline. And seeing the wound would only accelerate the shock and panic.

  Nick fought every fear that overwhelmed him by telling himself that they were dead if they stayed. They were pouring through their ammo and quite outnumbered, facing assaults from two directions. Probably still ten or fourteen men to their front from the stalled trucks, and six or eight villagers behind them. Assuming he assigned someone to shift fire to the villagers, they were most likely looking at a stalemate, absolute best case.

  A stalemate would favor the enemy. They could be reinforced and re-supplied. Nick’s team was as good as dead.

  Nick forced himself to his feet, firing off his sniper weapon by just pointing toward the enemy. The point was suppression, not accuracy at this point.

  “Let’s go!”

  No one needed any encouragement. Truck dropped his reloaded RPK in the bed and hurdled over the truck bed to get in the driver’s seat. Red and Marcus leaped into the bed, firing liking mad men and clambering aboard.

  Truck slammed the clutch to the floor and yanked the Toyota into first gear. Bullets pinged through the tailgate and zinged by their heads. Nick’s rifle clicked dry, and he hopped in the bed, the last man to load up. He saw the RPK among the gear but had no idea if it was reloaded or not. Worth a try, he figured, hefting it and loosing a long burst. The gun roared, dominat
ing the sound of the battlefield. It joined Red and Marcus’s fire.

  Their rate of fire was more like that of scared recruits than calm professionals. It was inaccurate but heavy. And volume trumped accuracy in this case. If only one or two Taliban fighters took their time and truly aimed, they wouldn’t be making it to the border.

  The Toyota slung gravel and nearly dumped the three men in the back. They careened and collided into each other and the gear stowed inside the bed. The only person in the truck not completely scared out of their mind was Ahmud al-Habshi. He was coming to and beginning to regain his senses. But fortunately for him, he was still a little too high to not be enjoying life.

  The Toyota picked up speed and roared as Truck pushed the engine to the brink in each gear. The villagers to their front saw what was happening and concentrated their fire.

  “Bring it, boys!” Truck yelled as he headed right toward them. He’d had it with being cautious and was most definitely done playing nice. And if he hadn’t accepted the possibility of his death a long time ago, then he would never have signed on for another mission a la Nick Woods.

  Rounds cut through the windshield, but Truck never flinched. Behind him, Nick, Marcus, and Red climbed across gear and assumed firing positions over the cab, engaging the villagers. But Truck didn’t notice. He was in his own world now. It was just him at the reigns of a hundred and fifty horses charging full speed ahead.

  What was death? Death was definitely staying where they were. Death was definitely fighting all the men behind them. Besides, what was death anyway? Death was staying put and letting your ass get surrounded. So while Truck accepted death, that sure as hell didn’t mean he’d go easy.

  Consequently, death brought no fear to Truck or any of the other men. They’d faced it too many times to sweat it. As the saying went, “He who cares the least, wins.”