“What is it?” Charlie asked. “Did it drop a bomb?”
“Zoom in on it,” Weng ordered.
Charlie did and they could see the black silhouette of the stealth drone against the lighter gray background. “It released the drone?” Charlie asked, astonished. They followed the drone as it banked around in a wide loop. It left the contrasting patch of land beneath it, blending in with a black land mass, disappearing.
“Where’d it go?” Matt asked.
A small rectangular object appeared. Lighter in color against the black background. “There— what is that?” Matt asked.
“A parachute canopy,” Weng said. “Record the feed.”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie acknowledged.
The chute diminished in size as it drifted to the ground below.
“Zoom in.” Weng commanded. The field of view enlarged and stopped.
“That’s the maximum, sir.” The chute now appeared larger in frame, but the image was blurry. The thermal signature of a man glowed beneath the canopy. The drifting figure stopped instantly as he hit the ground. Landing clean. The chute canopy quickly shrank and vanished. Reeled into the man’s backpack in a flash. He slowly stepped forward.
“Stay on him.” Weng said.
The glowing man took a couple more steps and disappeared.
“What?!” Matt exclaimed. “Where’d he go?”
“It’s the Phantom,” Charlie said.
“Send the confirmation,” Weng ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is this?” Matt asked. Charlie typed in a command to show a wide angle view and map overlay.
“Al Mukalla, Yemen.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
YEMEN
“Why didn’t we just Tomahawk their asses?” Baldo asked McCreary as Douglas circled the drone above the city of Al Mukalla, on the Yemeni coast. Trest arrived behind the box, startling Baldo.
“Because the Al Qaeda cowards put their IED factory between a children’s hospital and a mosque, knowing we couldn’t risk the collateral damage of a cruise missile or Hellfire strike.”
“Sorry, sir,” Baldo said, apologizing for his mild profanity. “I didn’t see you.”
“In addition, we have friendlies in the area,” Trest said. “An embedded Marine SF unit.”
“Are they on our comms?” McCreary asked, concerned about the secrecy of Project Cloudcroft.
“Negative. Maintain radio silence. They’ll pop chemlights on exfil. Guide our man to them. If he gets in trouble, radio JSRC to patch us through.”
“Roger that.”
“How did the new pack work?” Trest asked. “Did he find the demo kit the Navy boys left for him.”
“Yes, sir.” McCreary said. “Worked fine and he picked up the kit. He’s on his way to the target now. The buildings are heavily guarded by snipers…” He pointed to the IR image from a Keyhole satellite — showing Trest Al Qaeda snipers dotted throughout the area along with gunmen on balconies.
Ghost One approached the dilapidated building sandwiched between a Middle Eastern mosque and a third world hospital. The decayed look of the three story building was just a façade that went one room deep. A pair of guards were visible through his infrared visor. They hid, tucked out of view on either side of the rickety door. The entire façade resembled a building from Beirut in the 80s — appearing to have weathered more than one bomb blast.
McCreary ordered Ghost One to move slowly around the broken door to not disturb it and draw the guards’ attention. He followed the pre-planned three-dimensional blueprint map — projected in his HMD in augmented reality. The polygon map showed the path to his flashing target.
Ghost One reached the fuse room, where Al Qaeda operatives constructed triggers and fuses for an array of improvised explosive devices (IED). All the bomb makers were long gone as dawn was only hours away. Ghost One removed the demo kit that had a timer even a monkey could trigger. McCreary walked him through it, a process they had rehearsed half a dozen times in the VR OmniTrainer back in Hangar 302. The timer was set for two minutes — it just had to be activated — which Ghost One did with ease. He made his way back outside in under a minute, starting up the street when he heard McCreary over the radio. “Chemlights in sight. Proceed to exfil.”
Baldo typed in the new target that appeared in Ghost One’s HMD. An area a few blocks away where the desert met the small city. Ghost One could see the chemlights far off in the distance through his IR visor along with the flashing target HMD for him to follow.
Two floors up in a building across the street, an Al Qaeda terrorist swept the buildings with American made night vision goggles, his AK-47 at his side. He caught the glowing chemlights and called on his cell phone. He barely spoke when the building across the street erupted in an explosion followed by a series of larger explosions — the demo detonating explosive devices inside. It went up like a fireworks factory. Rounds of ammo popped and jettisoned from the burning building. In the chaos, the Al Qaeda loyalist opened fire at the chemlight. A SEAL sniper shot back, taking him out. Al Qaeda operatives appeared from every nook and cranny along the street, firing back in the direction of the sniper.
“Get him outta there!” Trest said. Realizing Ghost One was in the cross fire.
At the bunkhouse, Weng and the others watched the YG-30 satellite feed in a wide-angle view over Al Mukalla. They immediately saw the round glowing area of the explosion in infrared.
“Zoom in!” Weng ordered. Charlie had already typed the command and the field of view enlarged to cover several city blocks. They watched the firefight between gunmen in buildings and snipers from an enemy force down the street — taking cover behind buildings.
“Where is he?” Charlie asked.
“Take cover!” McCreary yelled through his headset. Then repeated it. “Beacon to Ghost One. Take cover.”
Ghost One jogged toward the flashing light of his exfil target and found cover alongside a building on the left. Continuing his progress along the wall toward his target. Snipers and gunners leaned from window sills and balconies firing down the street at the SEALs. They returned fire. A bullet struck the stucco building near Ghost One, blasting shrapnel of rock fragments at his head and neck.
“We’ve got a problem,” Baldo said. Pulling up the feed with Ghost One’s vitals and suit status. “He’s been hit. And is losing power.”
McCreary studied his heart rate and pulse readouts onscreen. The numbers were normal. “Maybe it’s just the suit.”
“Rebreather malfunctioning… We’re about to lose stealth,” Baldo said as he saw the battery power bar move from yellow into the red. He swiveled in his chair to Trest, “Initiate self-destruct, sir?”
Trest thought about it. “Stand by. Initiate it, but don’t pull the trigger until I say.”
“Yes, sir.” Baldo typed in the self destruct command and the cursor flashed — waiting for him to hit enter.
Trest turned to McCreary. “Get JSRC on comms. Tell them to pull him out of there. On my authority. Priority Alpha. Use all available resources.”
“Yes, sir,” McCreary replied. Dialing his radio to the JSRC frequency and issuing the order.
All eyes in the bunkhouse fixated on the laptop screens. The adrenaline rush made Matt forget about his injuries as he stood beside Weng — watching the screen like it was a new Yuen Woo-Ping action film.
“Why are they advancing?” Weng asked, observing the glowing IR forms of SEALs heading directly into the kill zone of the Al Qaeda gunmen.
“Here!” Charlie pointed to a faint glow beside the wall, further down the street. It was the shape of a man, barely visible in IR.