Ross winced. ‘One of our AFEUR teammates was compromised and inadvertently fired a round.’
‘You put that very carefully.’
Ross shrugged. ‘I’m the new guy — and this wasn’t the first impression I wanted to make.’
Mitchell steepled his fingers and sighed. ‘So the shot went off, and it all went to hell from there.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Ross, the Ghosts are about maximum impact with zero footprint.’
‘Absolutely, sir.’
‘You told me this was exactly what you wanted, that you needed to be a Ghost more than anything right now. I believed you. I still believe you — and I’m counting on you to get this done. So are the Secretary of Defense and the National Command Authority.’
Ross’s breathing grew shallow. ‘I understand, sir. I won’t let you down.’
‘Good.’
‘Sir, we get anything more on Delgado?’
Mitchell made a face, that same one he’d made during the first briefing in the isolation chamber back at Fort Bragg. ‘Langley won’t confirm a damned thing. Unfortunately there’s no love lost between us.’
Ross repressed his grin.
It was no secret that one of Mitchell’s operations in southern Afghanistan had got him caught between his orders and a clandestine operation being carried out by the CIA. He’d almost gone up on murder charges until the spooks’ little conspiracy backfired in their faces. And here they were now, trying to bail out the same agency that had almost hung Mitchell.
Trying not to sound as though he were prying, Ross said, ‘Sir, Langley could’ve sent in their own S and R team for this. So I’m still asking the same questions I had before we left: What was Delgado’s mission? Why is he so important? I mean, come on, they owe us that much, don’t they?’
‘He’s a spy working in Colombia. What more do you need?’
‘With all due respect, sir, it’s never that simple.’
A gleam lit Mitchell’s eyes, as though he were proud of Ross for prying. ‘All right. It’s not much, but Delgado’s been in South America for the past ten years. He’s one of the Agency’s most valuable agents in Colombia. This, of course, I got off the record. Colonel Evans says there might be something more because the secretary made a point of requesting us to get this job done.’
‘Fair enough, sir.’
‘I’ll be in touch when the NRO has our bird ready.’
‘Roger that, sir. Thank you, sir.’
Ross nearly lost his grip on the tablet as they hit a pothole and he thumbed off the link.
Pepper looked at him and cocked a brow, hazel eyes flashing beneath his salt-and-pepper crew cut. ‘Mitchell’s a good guy, a straight shooter.’
‘He would’ve been a great Navy SEAL.’
‘Somehow I don’t think that bothers him.’
They exchanged a grin, then Pepper said, ‘That was some good work back there.’
‘Good work?’ Ross snorted. ‘It never goes as planned, does it?’
‘Why should it? That’d be boring.’
Ross had to agree with that. ‘Well, thanks for the backup.’
‘That’s why I get the big bucks. So hey, you served with Matt Tanner?’
Ross glanced at Pepper and frowned. ‘Yeah, Tanner and I go pretty far back, SEAL Team Four in Little Creek. Great guy. Saved my ass more than once.’
‘He said the same about you.’
‘He’s talking about bar fights. So how do you know him?’
‘Tanner was part of an operation in China, and he’d worked with the major. Mitchell brought him to the Liberator to meet the gang.’
Ross’s eyes widened. ‘Tanner never told me that. So you’re saying that Mitchell brought a Navy SEAL to an Army bar?’
‘Hell, yeah, he did. And your boy Tanner actually survived. Good guy. I kept his e-mail. And when I heard you were coming over, I gave him a shout to see if he knew you.’
‘Spying on the new guy?’
‘No, I was actually glad you were coming. It’ll take Kozak and 30K a while to warm up, but you know how that is.’
‘Yeah, you gotta earn it.’
‘Kozak will come around pretty quickly. 30K? He’s another story. That guy needs some 550 paracord to tie down his ego.’
‘I like him.’
‘Really?’
‘He’ll keep me honest.’
Pepper stared through a thought. ‘Oh, that he will. And, sir, I …’ He broke off.
‘What?’
‘It’s nothing.’
Ross frowned. ‘Better spit it out now, or I’ll be thinking about it the whole drive out.’
‘I didn’t want to say anything.’
‘What’s bothering you?’
‘Okay. It’s just … Tanner told me about your boy. I wanted to say I’m really sorry about that.’
Ross stiffened, and his blood turned cold. ‘That’s not something I talk about.’
Pepper grimaced and shook his head, as though embarrassed. ‘No problem. I just wanted you to know that I’d heard, and if you ever want to vent or something …’
‘I wish he hadn’t told you.’
Pepper took a deep breath. ‘Me, too.’
Ross closed his eyes and rubbed the burning sensation. For the past two years he’d done everything he could to move on, to purge all the guilt from his mind, to avoid dwelling on it so he could perform his job. But it — 14 August — always found him, no matter where he was, even deep in a South American jungle.
He snapped open his eyes and quickly activated his Cross-Com. ‘Kozak, what do you got for me?’
EIGHT
Kozak and 30K were in the lead Hummer, with 30K at the wheel and Kozak handling the UAV’s remote. One of the AFEUR troops stood behind them in the roof-mounted weapons station, manning the M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun (aka ‘Ma Deuce’). Rain poured off the gunner’s legs and boots and puddled on the Hummer’s floor. Kozak wished they could just call the man back inside and seal the hatch because he was getting soaked himself.
At the moment, the drone crawler darted just above the treetops, skimming like a flat rock across an emerald-colored pond. The drone’s sensors were reaching out into the jungle ahead, data piped back from thermal and optic cameras, along with Forward Looking Infra Radar (FLIR) images indicating that the jungle on either side of the dirt road was still clear.
Bad news was that the drone’s satellite link was beginning to deteriorate as the storm neared the coast, with even heavier rain on the way and wind gusts up to sixty miles per hour.
‘Ghost Lead, this is Kozak. Secondary battery on the drone down to thirty minutes. Doesn’t matter anyway. Gotta reel her in once the big rain hits.’
‘Roger that. For now, though, get her up as high as you can and focus on the rivers ahead. They might try to move our package by boat. We have a Key Hole coming within range, but I need something now.’
‘I’m on it. Taking her up. Kozak, out.’
The drone crawler had been designed to remain on a fairly short leash, with a 1.5 to 2 kilometer range and sixty to ninety minutes of battery life, depending upon its power state: high drain occurred when in crawler mode, medium drain when quadcoptering, and low drain when stationary and just transmitting. Their load out included this UAV plus one backup, and while the UCAV — a tri-rotor drone with variants that included fragmentation grenades, missiles and a 5.56mm light machine gun — would’ve come in handy, they usually reserved that bird for interdiction, direct action and other assault-type missions, not hostage rescues.
Kozak fought with the controls as yet another gust buffeted the drone. The images coming in turned grainy, occasionally popping with static like his mom’s old Sony TV wired up to that rooftop antenna. He caught sight of two intersecting rivers, where the tree line seemed to fold in as though the ground were plummeting into a fault line. Farther out, the sky had turned gunmetal gray, with a wall of black clouds approaching from the west like an invading mother ship. There wasn’t much time.