“Five,” Mad Dog confirmed. “Who the hell are these jokers, anyway?”
It was a rhetorical question, and one that both men had been pondering since receiving the order to stand down from their original mission and await these new arrivals.
Hood wasn’t sure why they had opted for a high-altitude, low-opening insertion. HALO was typically reserved for stealth missions behind enemy lines, and while this valley nestled in the Spin Ghar mountains near the Af-Pak border wasn’t exactly friendly territory, the terrain was far more hostile than the small bands of Taliban and Islamic State fighters hiding out in the mountain caves, especially at night. Actually, he wasn’t even sure why they were jumping in at all, or what they hoped to accomplish. He didn’t even know for certain who they were. The only thing he was pretty sure of was that he wouldn’t like the answers to any of his questions.
This was his mission — his party — and these guys were crashing it. Worse, they were crashers with an official sanction.
His original orders were to conduct a deep reconnaissance of the border region, mapping all the various routes through the mountains, identifying potential caches and refuge locations. They weren’t far from the infamous Tora Bora cave complex where Osama bin Laden had hidden out in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks, and while the initial reports about the caverns had been wildly overstated, Hood and his team had already discovered several previously undocumented caves, suggesting that the mountains still hid plenty of secrets. Two nights earlier, they had observed a small group — six armed men and two burqa-clad figures that might or might not have been women — moving along one of the trails from the east — from the direction of Pakistan.
Without knowing for certain whether they were smugglers or enemy fighters, Hood had elected to follow them from a distance, gathering more intel about their movements, taking photographs and even getting close enough to determine that, despite their traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez outfits and pakul hats they were speaking Arabic.
That wasn’t unusual. IS fighters were recruited from every corner of the Islamic world — from Chechnya to West Africa, and all points in between. In fact, Hood took it as evidence of their affiliation, and so when transmitting data back to the JOC via satellite uplink, he had also requested permission to interdict. While Hood waited for a reply, the group of suspected enemy fighters entered one of the caves and had not yet emerged, so Hood’s team had set up an observation post nearby, ready to pounce as soon as the insurgents came out. Hood just hoped he would get the go-ahead before that happened.
Instead, he had been told to stand down and await the arrival of a specialized — and highly secretive — operations team.
The unexpected response had left him gobsmacked. He could tolerate a certain degree of micromanagement from higher up — that was part of being a soldier. But he and his team weren’t ordinary ground-pounders. They were the Unit. The goddamned Delta Force, the best of the best. They were the specialized team that dropped in out of the blue and took over, not the other way around.
The flashing of the IR strobes seemed to grow more frantic as the jumpers zeroed in on the DZ like guided missiles, but then, just a few seconds before the inevitable impact, Hood heard a series of faint but distinctive reports as the jumpers pulled their chutes, stalling their meteoric descent a mere two hundred feet above the ground. Hood could see the square ram-air chutes, five dark silhouettes against a field of stars, orbiting the circumference of the drop zone, and after a few more seconds, he could make out the human shapes hanging beneath them. One of them broke formation and corkscrewed down to the strobe marker on the ground, raising his legs and flaring his chute at the last possible second for what Hood had to grudgingly admit was probably the best set down he’d ever seen.
The jumper quickly hauled in his chute, jamming it into a stuff sack as he cleared the drop zone, making a beeline for Hood’s position.
“Looks like we’re open for business,” he muttered into his mic. “Who’s our lucky first customer?”
The man held a rifle — an FN SCAR-H if Hood was not mistaken — at a casual low ready, but while his chest rig sported a holstered pistol, and at least half a dozen mag and grenade pouches, he wore no helmet, and did not appear to be wearing body armor; just black coveralls with matching gloves and balaclava. His eyes were hidden, but not by a set of NVGs.
Mad Dog’s voice crackled in his ear. “Is that fucker wearing shades? At night?”
The newcomer was indeed wearing what looked like a pair of Oakley wraparound sunglasses. As he got within a few feet of Hood, he reached up with his left hand and peeled off the balaclava to reveal a square-jawed, unshaven visage that reminded Hood a little of Russell Crowe’s character from the movie Gladiator. The man replaced his shades and then, impossibly given the constraints of their respective eyewear, seemed to look the Delta troop commander right in the eye.
“Major Hood?” The man’s voice was a flat baritone, and low, almost a growl.
“That’s right,” Hood replied, feeling more than a little defensive. “And you are?”
“In a hurry.” The man glanced over his shoulder just as a second jumper touched down, then returned his attention to Hood. “Lead the way.”
Nonplussed, Hood just stared at the other man. Behind him, the second jumper was hastening away from the drop zone as the next man in line spiraled in for a landing. “Don’t you want to wait for the rest of your team?”
“They’ll catch up.”
Hood’s patience was nearing its limit. “Look, I was ordered to give you my full cooperation, but it’s five klicks to the OP, and it’s not like there’s a paved trail and helpful interactive signs along the way. I’ve got men out here, too, and I’m not going to put them at risk by letting you and your people blunder all over the place and draw fire. I’ll get you there — all of you — but you’re going to have to do this my way.”
The square-jawed man regarded him with an utterly blank expression for several seconds. “Major Hood, you were ordered to give me your full cooperation, and that means no questions asked. I don’t have time to lay it all out for you, and even if I did, you aren’t cleared for most of it.”
“Bullshit. My clearance—”
“Doesn’t cover this.” The man paused a beat. “But if it will get you moving, I will tell you this much. My team is utilizing a very advanced battlefield integration system that is way beyond next gen. So, while you’re leading me to the observation point, I’ll be marking the trail for them. They will literally be able to follow in my footsteps. Nobody is going to be blundering.”
Hood’s ire did not cool, but it did change focus a little. If these guys were sporting “beyond next gen” tech, then their authority came from someplace even higher up than he had first suspected. “Those aren’t sunglasses you’re wearing, are they?”
“No.”
Before Hood could respond, another voice joined the conversation. “Jeez, Jack. Cut the guy some slack. We’re all on the same side.” It was the second jumper, and the voice was low and husky but definitely feminine.
The inadvertent disclosure of the first man’s name paled into insignificance alongside that second revelation. A woman?