It wasn’t uncommon for insurgents to use kids to play on the sentiments of American soldiers who were far from family and younger siblings-lull them into a false sense of security. Surely these men knew that.
“Foster!” Nelson barked across the radio. “Get that gate down on the double.”
“It’s okay, LT,” Specialist Foster’s voice came back in a wash of static. “You’re not gonna believe it, but this kid speaks English. Says his name’s Kenny-”
“Impossible!” Hunt snatched up a pair of binoculars from the map table. The boy loitered at the gate, preventing the soldiers from closing it without bringing the heavy steel beams down on top of his head. He wore faded blue jeans and some kind of ball cap with a logo on it she couldn’t read. A red, white, and blue Pepsi T-shirt was just visible under a black fleece jacket. Streaked blond hair caught the heavy rays of afternoon sun over the sawtooth western slopes of the Hindu Kush. The boy certainly had American features, but Hunt knew such a thing was impossible. Even without the binoculars, she could make out the look of detachment on the kid’s face-almost, but not quite, a smile-as if he’d just won a game but didn’t want to let on.
Lieutenant Nelson found a fresh string of curses as he swept his M4 off a rack near the door. He headed toward the gate at a trot.
Hunt fell in beside him, wishing she had a rifle instead of her puny nine-millimeter handgun.
“Shut the damned gate!” Nelson screamed into the radio as he moved.
“Seriously, Lieutenant,” Foster came back again, almost giggling. “This kid speaks English better than Nguyen. Can you believe this shit? He says he’s from-”
They’d made it to within twenty meters of the gate when Foster suddenly pitched forward, his head exploding like a blossoming red flower. Chunks of him flew into his partner and the boy. The crack of sustained rifle fire followed an instant later, drawn flat on the thin mountain air.
Specialist Kevin Nguyen, the second gate guard, had just handed the kid a chocolate bar when the shooting started. He scooped the boy up in both arms and ran for cover behind the gate bunker as withering incoming fire began to pour from the mountains. On the American side, fifty-caliber Brownings opened up with a reassuring clatter from each of the three raised sentry posts, sending a fusillade of lead and glowing tracer rounds back toward the surrounding mountains.
Gray puffs of dust kicked up as bullets struck the ground around Hunt’s feet. She crouched, doubling her speed to sprint for the relative safety of the concrete guardhouse. Nelson moved backwards, methodically picking off attackers with his M4 as they swarmed the half open gate.
Hunt made it to the guard shack and slid behind a concrete Jersey barrier, pistol clutched in her hand. She landed beside Specialist Nguyen, who now lay on his side, firing his rifle with one hand while he shielded the little boy who called himself Kenny. Hunt rolled up on her shoulder to watch in horror as a stream of insurgents in black turbans materialized from every mountain shadow. Pouring through the gate, the screaming Afghans engaged surprised pockets of soldiers, caught flat-footed in the attack.
Less than thirty feet away, an HiG fighter so young he was yet unable to grow more than a few sparse whiskers on his pointed chin, stood in the full open and pressed an RPG to his shoulder, aiming for the guardhouse. The look of jubilance on his face was unmistakable as he chanted the hollow, breathy “Allahu Akbar!” of a holy warrior.
Hunt shot him twice in the chest with her pistol as he pulled the trigger. He slumped and the RPG hissed past, missing the intended target but skittering along the rocks to blow the tires off a Humvee behind them.
Still firing, Lt. Nelson dove behind the concrete barrier to land beside Hunt with a heavy grunt.
“Anybody hit?” he said, his eyes still referencing the EoTech holographic sight of his M4.
“We’re doin’ just fine, LT,” Nguyen snapped back, between well-placed shots from his rifle. An enemy fighter fell almost every time he fired.
Hunt rolled half on her side in the dirt so she could look Nelson in the face. “I’m sure you guys got a Predator up somewhere around here. What do you say we call and see if we can borrow it?”
The LT grunted in agreement, handing his M4 to Hunt.
“You give us cover while I make the call…” Radio communication with higher command from the narrow Afghan valleys was impossible and Nelson never went anywhere without a satellite telephone on his belt. It took agonizing seconds for the link. When command finally picked up, the urgency in Nelson’s normally collected voice was obvious.
“We’re getting our asses handed to us!” he screamed above the din of gunfire. “We need air support ASAP!”
Another voice, shrill and broken, came across the radio Nelson had set on the ground. “AAF coming through the fence by the Afghan Army latrines!” It was Sergeant McCrary, two years younger than Nelson. AAF was Anti-Afghan Forces. “What’s your location LT?”
Nelson snatched up the radio. “Stand by.” He turned back to the sat phone. “Get us support as soon as you can,” he said, a pained look on his beaten face. “Bring them in-hello…?”
He dropped the phone. “Dammit. Lost the signal.” He took up the radio again.
Hunt shot two more insurgents while she listened to Nelson give orders that chilled her to the core.
“Fall back, fall back,” the lieutenant shouted into the radio while he surveyed their situation as best he could with a wall of bullets flying overhead. “All able, form a new perimeter around the command bunker. Watch your dispersement. We’re gonna have to hold these guys off for a while… Fixed wings are twenty minutes out, Apaches are forty.”
Nelson had just ordered all his men to abandon his own position at the front gate. They were now nearly a hundred yards outside the new perimeter.
“Sit tight, LT,” McCrary’s voice crackled over the radio, nearly drowned out by gunfire and yelling. “I’ll get a squad together and we’ll come bring you in.”
“Request denied,” Nelson barked. “We’ll hold them off from our position. You see to your defenses… That’s an order.”
Insurgent shooting lulled for a moment as the fifty-cals opened up to drive them back from the gate. Three black turbans popped up from the river bank fifty yards west of the bridge. Hunt and Nguyen shot got two of them before the third ducked out of sight.
“How many do you think?” Hunt said, more to herself than anyone else.
“Three hundred…” It was Kenny, peering from under the shelter of Specialist Nguyen’s body. The look in his dull gray eyes reminded Hunt of a child that got his kicks from torturing animals.
The boy smiled as if he knew a deadly secret, raising his dirty brow slightly. “They’ve been watching everything you guys have been doing for two weeks, figuring out how to take the camp.” He grinned up at Nguyen, who looked back in slack-jawed amazement.
“Thanks for the chocolate bar,” the kid said. He gave a bored sigh, oblivious to the bullets zinging overhead. “Too bad they’re going to cut your filthy head off.”
With that, Kenny opened his fleece jacket. A black cylinder about the size of a can of deodorant rolled into the dirt toward Hunt. The boy’s hands shot to his ears. He ducked his head against Specialist Nguyen.
“Grenade!” Hunt screamed, a half second before the blast slammed into her chest.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
7th Fighter Squadron Langley Air Force Base Virginia
A curt airman wearing green digital camo BDUs and a pencil-thin mustache had disappeared with Ronnie Garcia’s ID what seemed like hours before. Now she stood outside the reinforced steel door, rocking back and forth from one foot to the other. Evidently, there was some concern about her level of need to be within spitting distance of a hangar full of F-22 Raptors.