Warris hollered even louder, "Jawaad, get back here!"
The truck's driver threw it in park and hopped out, along with a passenger: both OpForland soldiers armed with rifles. They dropped to their bellies and began returning fire, paintballs whirring past Mitchell, who was grinning to himself.
G-chief Jawaad had screwed up the entire ambush.
The ODA team and the guerrillas were supposed to lie in wait until the truck hit the trigger line, at which time one of Jawaad's men would toss a smoke grenade while a simulated claymore exploded, tearing apart the vehicle's front end.
Mitchell had, in his own way, just welcomed his students to Unconventional Warfare 101, where no battle plan survived the first enemy — or friendly — contact.
He continued running at the truck, taking fire from the enemy soldiers, paintballs striking his thighs and chest. He squeezed off a few more rounds and staggered forward, shouting once more about revenge until he dropped to his knees in the mud, fired again, then fell and rolled onto his side, crying, "Help! I've been hit! I'm hit!"
Now it was up to Warris and Williams to gain control of the chaos.
Mitchell lay there and watched as, across the path, one of the team's evaluators, Captain Simon Harruck, rose from the scrub to watch as the sergeant assisting him lifted his small camera to digitally record the event.
Warris ordered his engineers who'd been standing by on the claymore to circle around to the vehicle's rear, while everyone else opened fire on the truck, paintballs thudding and fountaining across metal.
Within five seconds the two enemy soldiers were "dead," and Warris called a cease fire. His engineers were the first on the vehicle and began unloading and busting open crates containing Meals, Ready-to-Eat and weapons caches.
Mitchell got to his feet. "ODA team? Guerrilla team? The exercise is terminated. On me right now!"
It took several more minutes for everyone, nearly thirty in all, to rally around Mitchell in the middle of the road. He shook his head at Warris. "You got two medics. Couldn't spare one to save my life?"
The captain furrowed his brows in confusion. "You ran at the truck, blew the whole ambush. You looked like you were trying to commit suicide."
"And now every G here is pissed off at you for letting me die."
"But you killed yourself."
"No, I was getting my revenge. And maybe that was more important to me than my own life. Or maybe I was trying to show my men how important their cause is. I was trying to teach them how to fight to the death."
"By running into fire."
"Maybe I martyred myself." Mitchell sighed and adopted a more conversational tone. "See, you don't know what these guys will do when it comes down to it. You always have plan B, which involves them betraying you or doing something crazy, like running into the road."
Warris nodded. "But we still accomplished the objective. Truck stopped, cargo seized."
"Maybe not. You put so much gunfire on that truck that you blew it up. Everybody should have held fire. You send out your medic and put your snipers to work to pin down the bad guys."
Warris swallowed, and Mitchell knew that every decision the captain had just made would weigh heavily on his mind. He was already wondering if his career was in jeopardy.
So Mitchell let him off the hook and added, "I know that one second could make the difference between living and dying, but you need to take that second and think, okay, I got a guy running at the truck. He's stopped the truck — which was what the claymore was supposed to do. We got no smoke, but the G-chief has all their attention. Let me get my marksmen on target. And yes, I know you need to make that assessment in one second. But we're not out in the woods because we're afraid of challenges. And for what it's worth, I did the same thing you did — just put tons of steel on target. I never sent the medic. The guerrillas turned it around and blamed me for his death. It took me a long time to win back their trust."
Warris considered that, muttered a "Whoa," then added, "Captain, I appreciate your honesty."
Mitchell offered his hand. "Lessons learned. So now that I'm dead, you need to figure out if you can still negotiate with my Gs and who's in charge — and sometimes even that can be a real headache. And oh, yeah, the Gs are going to loot those bodies, then after that, they might want to chop off their heads and put them on poles. How do you feel about that?"
Warris's eyes grew wide.
Mitchell gave a short nod to Captain Harruck, who began barking new instructions to the group as up ahead, an HMMWV came rolling forward and stopped. "Hi, I'm looking for Captain Mitchell," said the young PFC at the wheel.
Mitchell drew his head back. "Really, because I've been looking for you, Private" — he read the woman's patch—"Morgan."
"Sir?"
"Yeah, I haven't had a hot shower in two weeks. Can you take me to the nearest hotel?"
The private grimaced. "I'm sorry, sir."
"Yeah, I smell. You'll get over it. Just get me to a shower."
"I mean, I'm sorry, sir, they sent me up here to get you. I've been waiting back at your FOB all morning. Just got cleared to come up. I have orders to drive you back to Bragg — no detours."
Mitchell frowned. "Great." He climbed into the Hummer and collapsed into the seat, mud and paint splashing all over the floorboard. "Sorry about the mess."
"That's okay, sir."
He closed his eyes, hating that his driver, the pretty young PFC Morgan, could be Kristen's twin.
When they reached Bragg, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon and Major Grey were waiting. Gordon said they had the general breathing down their necks. Apparently, misery loved company. They ushered Mitchell directly into the nondescript Ghost offices and practically shoved him in front of the video monitor.
On the screen was General Joshua Keating calling from USSOCOM. The general's conservative haircut and tinted glasses belied his history as a Special Forces operator back in Vietnam and during the first Gulf War, where he'd earned drawers full of medals. He had degrees in history and business and had already penned a successful book about the history of Special Forces operations. He was even a graduate of the Harvard Executive Education Program's National and International Security Managers Course, and for the past decade had served in more command positions than even he could probably remember. Earlier in the year he had finally taken over as commander of USSOCOM, his dream post, Mitchell knew.
While some loathed and feared Keating, Mitchell got along with him just fine, in part because the general was a hands-on officer who understood the unique nature of Special Forces operations and considered it his duty to keep in close contact with his men on the ground. Sure, he was an impatient taskmaster, but he was also a straight shooter who never held back a punch. Mitchell found that refreshing.
Keating leaned forward, his breast full of ribbons standing in sharp relief against his starched and pressed class As, the new blue army class uniform having replaced the old green in 2011. "Mitchell, you look like crap."
He pawed self-consciously at the mud on his face. "Thank you, sir. I had another word in mind."
To Keating's right hung dozens of screens displaying maps, intelligence reports, satellite imagery, and live video streams from operators in the field, all of it coming together in a pixilated mosaic fluctuating with a life of its own. Over the general's left shoulder loomed a four-meter-tall, three-dimensional map of the Chinese coast and Taiwan, with green overlays and flashing grid coordinates drawing Mitchell's attention to several locations.
"Don't be a wise guy, Mitchell. I dragged you back from Robin Sage because we got a situation."
"Sir, I've been out in the woods for a couple of weeks. Haven't been online or seen a newspaper… but my fortune cookie tells me it's got something to do with that submarine sale to Taiwan."