Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Read online

  Thankfully, it appeared that Marcus had successfully collected and cleared the room of any trip-able debris. Though he couldn’t see it, Nick trusted that as was planned, there was a pile in the assigned back corner made of rugs, dead bodies, furniture, etc.

  The only light came from the large moon outside. But even while at its near-full strength, the moonlight failed to push more than six inches in through the entry before it was choked out completely. Still the contrast between the moonlit scene outside, and the cavernous black inside, was great enough that Nick had quickly confirmed Red’s position when he and Truck had entered the room directly behind the kneeling shooter now covering the entry. The small man’s silhouette was lined up, facing out the open doorway but set back at the center of the room. So while he had been easy to spot from behind while framed the moonlit opening, his position was still deep in the shadows and hidden to anyone outside. Light can be tricky that way.

  According to the plan, Nick knew where Marcus should be, but he could not see the man for anything. Then on the right side of the kicked-in door, Nick noticed the edges of a man’s strong profile slowly break the line of moonlight as Marcus peered out into the compound.

  The utter lack of visibility inside the hut suddenly reminded Nick of the still-lit computer screen in the room behind him. He quickly looked back to make sure the light wouldn’t give them away. But thankfully it was deep enough in the back room that the monitor’s blinding light carried no more strength than that of a glow-in-the-dark sticker in the hut’s swallowing darkness.

  Men yelled from outside, the silence and lack of light from al-Habshi’s hut seemed to encourage them. Some of the yells seemed to sound like questions or queries of concern. Others seemed to contain anger and foretell impending pain for those in the middle hut.

  Looking out the door again, Nick guessed that visibility remained at thirty yards.

  Nick turned his head to look over his shoulder and whispered to Truck, “Truck, take a corner position on the right.”

  Nick eased over to Red, who was still in the center of the room covering the door. He leaned down by his ear.

  “Red, you take the opposite corner on the left.”

  As Red moved to the left, Marcus moved toward the center of the room closer to Nick.

  Now, Truck and Red waited in crossed, kneeling positions six feet from the door, providing them with forty-five degrees of visibility into the courtyard. Their “X” positions on the door yielded them with better safety if someone fired into the entrance, and it also would prevent anyone in front of the hut from seeing their muzzle flashes. Any shots they fired would only be visible from an enemy who was oblique to the door.

  Nick stepped next to Marcus and whispered, “Grab your syringe and go drug al-Habshi. I want him ready to go.”

  Marcus unsnapped a pouch and glided into the other room, Nick unable to hear him even though he knew Marcus was moving.

  “Here they come,” Truck announced softly. Nick -- centered on the door, but deep inside the room -- couldn’t see the angle from which Truck covered, but he trusted the veteran Special Forces soldier.

  He could just make out that Truck was in the kneeling position, his machine gun supported by his left arm, which was propped up on his left knee. It was a great defensive position, keeping him low while also keeping him stable and accurate.

  Nick heard Truck exhale.

  Truck could see silhouettes moving toward him from out in his sector. Three men hunched over and stalking forward like lions of the savannah stalking their prey.

  He aimed at the left one and pulled the trigger. A loud burst exploded the night’s silence. Truck eased off the trigger as the gun pulled off target, and brought it to the middle man. The man had kneeled and appeared to be torn between going prone and darting back from where he came.

  Truck shredded him with a well-aimed burst. Even half-trained recruits can hit a target at thirty yards. Truck repeated the release of the trigger and moved to the third target, who had dropped in the prone and fired a hasty barrage of bullets toward the hut and the muzzle flash from deep within the front room.

  A couple of bullets zipped into the room. Truck flinched but dropped the man with a torrent of bullets aimed low and worked up into his target.

  This small event felt like a lifetime but lasted no more than a few seconds.

  Aim. Burst. Adjust aim. Second burst. Re-aim. Flinch. A third burst, longer than the others.

  Chapter 27

  Nick had no idea how many rounds Truck had fired, but the drum of his RPK machine gun only held seventy-five rounds. Truck might have fired as many as twenty shots in the exchange, so Nick moved over by him and lifted his pistol to cover the opening.

  “Reload that weapon, hoss,” Nick said. “Those damn drums take forever to reload, and we’ll be breaking out of this place any moment now.”

  While Truck reloaded, Nick covered his sector. He couldn’t see anything in the gray, moonlit night except for the three bodies Truck had added to the landscape.

  Behind him, Marcus re-entered the room and whispered, “Al-Habshi is ready to move. The man will be sleeping in thirty seconds.”

  “Great. Now cover this sector while I break out the NVGs,” Nick said to Marcus.

  Marcus moved into position, and Nick eased deeper into the room. He holstered his .45 and brought up the NVGs.

  The compound lit up in tones of green, and Nick swept the compound yard directly to their front. He saw two 4x4 trucks, but nothing else. The NVGs easily allowed visibility all the way to the wall, so he felt confident no one was to their front.

  Nick angled his way inside the room toward Truck and Marcus to scan their sector in the compound. As Nick peered into the darkness, he heard Truck finish reloading. Through the green world of the NVGs, Nick confirmed the three bodies wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.

  They lay mangled and unmoving, and Nick studied them a moment longer. Truck had done a number on the men. They lay in deep pools of blood, which looked black in the NVGs, and the bullets had twisted their bodies into what appeared to be uncomfortable, writhing positions. If they were playing possum, they were doing a hell of a job.

  Nick checked the rest of Truck’s original sector and observed no one else.

  He worked his way the opposite direction, confirming first that the middle area remained clear. Nick then swung the NVGs so that they penetrated the darkness of Red’s sector on the right side of the compound. It, too, appeared empty.

  “We’re clear for now,” Nick said in a low voice. “Marcus, go grab al-Habshi.”

  Truck, his RPK finally reloaded, stepped up behind Marcus to retake his position. Marcus moved to the computer room, and Nick stepped back into the depths of the room, inhaling deeply. He braced himself for the next part of the mission.

  He heard dragging from the computer room and saw Marcus pulling their bounty by one arm. Marcus dropped him, and al-Habshi’s body slumped to the ground. They would leave him in the middle hut while they cleared the other buildings.

  “Let’s hit the two other buildings so we can get the hell out of here,” Nick murmured.

  Chapter 28

  The team stacked by the door, still inside the middle hut and the protection of its darkness. Red was back in the lead, but Truck took the second position this time instead of Nick. Behind him, Nick took the third position followed by Marcus.

  The three huts were set in a straight row, each building’s front wall perfectly plumb with the other two. Both the left and right hut were pressed directly up against the surrounding compound wall, creating twin alleys on either side of the completely detached middle hut. The plan was to clear the left hut first followed by the right side one.

  Truck glanced back at his two leaders to confirm the stack was ready. Seeing Nick and Marcus nod, he squeezed Red’s shoulder -- the silent signal for “go.” Red stepped through the door, in his heel-to-toe, ready-to-fire manner. This was no time for running or noise. It was back to sy
stematic clearing. Orchestrated death, studied and rehearsed to no end.

  Red briefly covered ahead before turning sharply to the left. Truck peeled right and dropped into a prone position, his body parallel with the middle hut’s front wall. He rested the machine gun on its bipod legs and aimed it at the hut across the way on the right side of the compound.

  Nick and Marcus exited and caught up with Red, who had paused against the wall to wait for the rest of his stack. Nick bumped Red, and the three-man stack moved along the front wall of the middle hut that they had already cleared. At its corner, they wanted to make sure the alley between the middle and left hut remained clear.

  Nick stepped back a couple of feet from the wall and covered their target hut with his pistol. Marcus stepped even further out from him and brought his AK to bear on the door, as well. Red knelt and peeked left down the alley before yanking back. He then brought his weapon up and pivoted around the corner.

  The alley lay empty, except for the truck and generator in the background, the latter humming loudly in the night air.

  Nick and Marcus advanced past Red toward the left hut. Once they crossed the four-foot opening, Red stood and backed from the corner -- his AK up and covering the alley the entire time.

  Nick moved left along the hut’s front wall enough for Marcus to hug the corner and take over watch of the alley. As soon as Marcus raised his AK down the alley, Red advanced behind him, past Nick, and assumed his position on point.

  The cautious movement might have been overkill, but there were only four of them and neither the perimeter nor the two huts had been cleared. One thing was for sure, though, and that was the left hut was about to have fewer occupants.

  Chapter 29

  The left hut also had a flimsy door on it, but this one stood wide open. Perhaps the three men who had attacked them while they were in the middle hut had come from here and left it open. Or, perhaps someone inside had opened it so they could more easily shoot out it.

  It didn’t matter which of the two scenarios it was. S3 was about to take the place down.

  Red stopped a couple of feet from the door, his AK covering the entry. While he protected the stack from anyone stupid enough to exit the hut, Nick snatched a flashbang from his web gear. He pulled the pin and hurled it into the room.

  BOOOM!

  Red and Nick followed the shockwave of the flashbang. Flashbangs roared at 170 decibels and created a temporary loss of hearing and balance since the shockwave rocks the inner ear. The blinding flash also knocks your vision out for as long as five seconds if your eyes are open when it explodes.

  The three S3 members had closed their eyes and lowered their heads as it left Nick’s hand, so they weren’t affected. And their ears thankfully had a nice, thick mud wall between them and the concussion.

  Red and Nick burst into the room behind the shock. Both flicked on their blinding flashlights as they split up and cleared the room. Their beams cut through the dust and smoke from the flashbang, but they found only bed rolls and blankets.

  “Clear,” Red said.

  “Clear,” Nick echoed from the other side of the room.

  This hut contained only a single room. Apparently, just a place fighters slept. Outside the hut, Marcus held security, but the team was in a vulnerable position as split up as they were. Truck had his back turned to the alley they had just cleared, so he was as good as dead if a fighter circled behind the middle hut.

  Red and Nick knew they needed to move fast, so they spent only a few seconds scanning the room for intel or anything valuable before exiting.

  “Man coming out,” Red said as he stepped out. Nick followed, and the team reformed then crossed the alley in the same method as earlier.

  Truck remained behind his RPK in the prone. His weapon covered the third and final hut on the right of the compound. The stack closed on him and the target hut, heel-to-toe walking silently -- their weapon barrels barely moving with their practiced assault walk.

  They were closing on Truck’s position when the door to the final hut suddenly flung wide open. Light poured from the doorway, and two men sprinted out of it. Truck’s RPK roared and raked the men. Red paused to add a barrage of fire from his AK-47 into them, as well. Both attackers dropped to the dirt.

  The team dropped all pretense of silence and caution. Red, Nick, and Marcus sprinted to the opening. Truck spun around as they passed him and oriented his weapon toward the compound’s front gate further down the hill, which for the moment was closed.

  The three men cleared the final hut with flashbangs, but it lay empty same as the previous one. With the compound secure and the computer-wiz al-Habshi in hand, they were one step closer to finding their primary target: Rasool Deraz.

  Chapter 30

  Nick, Red, and Marcus exited the third hut and headed back toward the middle one.

  “Marcus, Red,” Nick said, “check the back of the compound and make sure it’s empty.”

  The two nodded and left to clear the back of the compound and make sure no fleeing enemy (or squirters) had hidden back there. Nick walked over to Truck, who lay behind his RPK, still oriented on the front gate.

  Nick knelt and said, “Hold your position and keep that entrance covered. We’ll get everything loaded up.”

  Nick hurried to the middle hut, remembered he still carried his pistol in his right hand, and holstered it for his flashlight. He entered the hut and pushed into the computer room.

  Marcus and Red investigated the back of the compound, even checking a couple of nooks and crannies behind the generator and behind a small upright structure that turned out to be a storage shed.

  “Red, go find us a truck,” Marcus instructed. “I’ll run in and help Nick.”

  Red ran up to the truck behind the middle hut. The truck was a four-wheel-drive Toyota. Burgundy. Exterior banged up a bit but probably a mid-90’s model.

  Through the glass, he saw a long gear shifter sticking up from the floorboard in the middle. A stick shift. Not a problem. He tested the door handle and found it unlocked.

  Red opened the door not worried about IEDs as he would have been back in Afghanistan. He slid into the seat, saw the keys were in the ignition, and pushed the clutch in. The ignition turned the motor, and the engine easily caught.

  He pulled it out of gear and listened to the idle. The engine sounded good. He turned the lights on to test them -- both worked -- and noted the truck had a half-tank of gas. He revved the engine a few times then pushed the pedal to the floor to hear it roar. Nothing clanked or squeaked.

  Mileage showed 113,743. It’s just a baby, he thought. Red felt good about the truck. He shut the door and pulled the seat forward three notches to fit his short legs. He leaned back, confirmed the seat was close enough to allow him to work the pedals easily, and drove the truck down the alley and around the front of the middle hut.

  He turned it off to conserve gas and jumped out to investigate the tires and check the spare underneath. He also wanted to investigate the other two trucks to confirm this was their best option.

  While Red checked the trucks, Nick and Marcus worked like madmen in the computer room. They yanked wires from computers, servers, and monitors, stacking gear they planned to haul off in a corner. The two men heard Red pull the truck up.

  Nick nodded at Marcus, and they increased their pace. They hurriedly hauled servers and computer towers out to the truck and loaded them along the front near the truck cab. Back inside the room, they slung crap they didn’t plan to take into an opposite corner. The pile grew as monitors, power strips, and keyboards were tossed into it.

  The two men also rifled their way through files, stacks of papers, and two metal file cabinets. Marcus spotted a duffle bag on the ground. He reached for it, unzipped it, and discovered a pile of half-folded clothes. He hastily dug in the bag and confirmed nothing else was hidden in it. He dumped it and tossed it to Nick.

  “Let’s use this,” he said.

  The two hastily began cramming
files, documents, and disks into the bag.

  Chapter 31

  Nick and Marcus looked the room over one last time and departed the hut for good. Red was running across the compound back toward them as they reached the truck.

  “The other two are shit,” he said, nodding back over his shoulder to the other two trucks. “Higher mileage, less tread on the tires. I slashed the tires so no one uses them to pursue us.”

  “Might be courier vehicles,” Marcus offered.

  “You find any spare gas?” Nick asked.

  “No,” Red said, “but we have half a tank. That’s plenty to get us back to the border.”

  “Good to go,” Nick said. “You two go get our packs and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Nick checked his watch and saw that dawn was rapidly approaching.

  About a minute later, a blast made Nick jump, and he remembered Marcus and Red were blowing a hole in the wall to retrieve their packs. Nick pulled a map out and studied their route under a red penlight.

  He had it practically memorized, but with all the adrenaline pumping through him, he wanted to etch it down in his mind once more. He traced their exit route with his finger and worked on some contingency plans, trying to rehearse mentally for worst-case scenarios.

  Nick had learned that when it came time to actually need a solution, you didn’t have a chance to work one out. Marcus and Red returned, tossing two of their massive packs into the truck bed. The truck bed shook with their weight, and Nick wondered how the hell they had carried the things for two weeks straight.

  Marcus and Red departed for the other two packs, and Nick reviewed their route one final time, studying it from where they sat to where he intended to cross the border.

  Marcus and Red lugged the final two packs into the truck bed, and Nick folded the map. Marcus and Red stepped away again and entered the first room to carry al-Habshi out. They hefted the man’s unconscious body into the truck bed and slid him forward.