As soon as Crocker and Mancini hit the ground, Ritchie and Cal pulled the ropes back up into the helicopter body and the Black Hawk banked left over a two-hundred-yard hill. Akil, Davis, Mancini, and Crocker took cover behind rocks and established a perimeter. As Crocker surveyed the darkening landscape through his NVGs, Mancini ventured out to inspect the drone.
No one appeared in their vicinity, but a warm wind blew across the hills and through the scrub, creating an eerie hiss.
Through the headset built into his helmet, Crocker heard Mancini say, “Pred looks untouched. Must have been a technical problem, because I see no evidence of enemy fire.”
“Good,” Crocker said back into the mike.
“The Hellfires are intact. So are the multispectrum targeting system, infrared sensor, and TV camera.” Technology, food, and history were Mancini’s three big passions.
“All we’re taking are the Hellfires,” Crocker growled back in a low voice. “The rest we’re going to blow up.”
“Damn shame.”
“Orders.”
“It’s a sweet piece of technology,” Mancini continued in a low, gruff voice. “Each one of these babies runs about twenty mill without the bells and whistles.” He loved technological doodads and was the guy on the team who coordinated with DARPA, which was the branch of the Pentagon that developed new military equipment.
“Not our call,” Crocker said back, continuing to eyeball the stark landscape.
“What do you mean, not our call? Who pays for this stuff?”
Mancini often complained about government waste and profligate spending. Crocker jibed back: “Since when do you pay taxes?”
“Very funny. Actually-”
Crocker cut him off. “Not now.” This wasn’t the time for a personal anecdote, or any other kind of distraction. They were in Assad territory with a job to do. The wind started blowing harder.
Akil, twenty yards to Crocker’s right, watched a little twister climb the hills to the east through a long-distance night scope. “All clear,” he said over the radio.
Crocker: “Good. Let’s get this over quick.”
Mancini: “You want me to try to disassemble the satellite dish and communication component?”
“No time. Just detach the Hellfires from the missile pylons.”
“Roger.”
Crocker looked up at the darkening sky and realized that the helicopter hadn’t returned yet. “Where the fuck is the helo?” he asked.
“Maybe they found a falafel stand and stopped,” Akil wisecracked back. All he seemed to think about was food and willing young women, and he had an unquenchable appetite for both.
Crocker turned to the commo man, Davis, to his left and said, “Contact the pilot and tell him he’s clear to land.”
“Roger, boss.”
“Might want to set it on that patch over there past that clump of scrub,” he added, pointing to the spot. “Remind him to keep the engines running.”
“Will do.”
Akiclass="underline" “Tell him we plan to be out of here faster than a knife fight in a shithouse.”
Their job was to retrieve the Hellfires, then destroy the wreckage, which they’d do as soon as Ritchie (the explosives guy) landed with the C-4. Northern Syria wasn’t a location Crocker felt like hanging in. Major cities had been turned into rubble by the Assad army as the rest of the world watched. Lately, Assad had attacked his own people with chemical weapons. Still the UN had done nothing but talk. Like Somalia and Rwanda all over again, which would probably yield another anarchic state that the United States would have to deal with one way or another. Global politics made him sick.
This mission had been a last-minute emergency call as they were packing their gear and getting ready to leave the secret base in Israel for home. Lately he and his team had been spending a lot of time launching ops against Hezbollah and the Quds Force-both controlled by Iran. Dangerous, seat-of-their-pants ops in unfriendly territory.
Here they were again; friggin’ Syria this time. Crocker heard a high whining sound past the hills, followed by a loud metallic noise that echoed and faded.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked, sweat forming under his helmet from the dry desert heat.
“Didn’t sound good,” Mancini said.
An understatement, to say the least.
Akiclass="underline" “Maybe it was a camel fart.”
“Or an explosion.”
Crocker asked, “Where’s the Black Hawk? Anyone see it?”
“Fuck, no. Don’t hear it, either.”
“What happened? Somebody tell me something,” he said, growing anxious.
Mancini: “No flash of light, no flames.”
Davis shouted urgently, “No response from the pilot, either.”
“You try the copilot? Cal? Ritchie?” Crocker asked, hoping it wasn’t what he thought it was.
“I did, yeah. Tried all three.”
“And?”
Davis shook his head.
Crocker’s stomach sank. Grimacing, he glanced at his watch. The time-on-target (TOT) was already approaching ten minutes, which was too damn long, especially with enemy in proximity. Also, the explosion, or whatever it was, was sure to attract attention. He’d operated practically everywhere in the Middle East before, with the exception of Syria. Given the Assad regime’s longstanding support of Palestinian terrorists and friendship with Russia, it was never a place he wanted to go.
“You sure that piece-of-shit radio is working and you’re getting no signal from the helo?” Crocker asked.
“Positive, boss,” Davis answered.
“Try again!”
Davis did with a frown and shook his blond head.
Crocker groaned. “All right, you stay here with Mancini. Akil, come with me.”
Chapter Two
We meet our destiny on the road we take to avoid it.
– Carl Jung
The landscape had turned a thick, almost furry dark. And the moon hadn’t risen yet. All they had to navigate by was their NVGs, which proved awkward because the two SEALs were moving fast over rocky, uncertain terrain around the crest of a hill. They weren’t following a path, just picking their way over loose rock, sand, and gravel at a thirty-five-degree angle, carrying their packs and weapons.
Crocker hoped they’d find the helo intact with maybe some minor mechanical problem, or hear over the radio that for one reason or another, the pilot had had to turn the helo around and had returned to Israel.
Even if that meant he and the other four SEALs were marooned in Syria for the time being, he’d take that outcome over the more ominous alternative. He was already planning how they could hunker down and defend themselves until relief arrived.
“You see anything?” he whispered back at Akil.
“No, but I smell fuel.”
Not a good sign, but Crocker saw nothing burning. And no lights.
He sniffed the air. “Fuel?” he asked. “You sure you’re not smelling your cheap-ass Egyptian cologne?”
“I’m a Ralph Lauren man all the way. Classy shit.”
“Shit is right,” Crocker said. “Your big nose must be better than mine. Which way is the smell coming from?”
Akil licked his index finger and held it up to determine the direction of the wind. He pointed up the far side of hill. “This way.”
“That’s west.”
The next gust of desert wind carried the unmistakable scent, which sickened Crocker even further. Richie and Cal had recently healed from injuries sustained chasing some Quds Force operatives in South America. Ritchie, in particular, had suffered a nasty bullet wound to his jaw, which required extensive plastic surgery. He was scheduled to get married at the end of the month. All the guys on Crocker’s team were like brothers. He didn’t have the stomach for more wounds and broken bones.
The higher they climbed, the stronger the stench of fuel.