"Pinze!" Cruiser said loudly, uttering the number five in Pashto as per the challenge.
Instead of a password in reply, the area to the front exploded with gun flashes. Bullets split the air around the SEAL and he went all the way down to the ground. The belch of Puglisi's grenade launcher broke into the din, and within seconds a detonation and a scream were heard.
The lieutenant had his CAR-15 set for automatic bursts of three rounds, and he stayed low as he scrambled backward. He didn't want to fire, knowing that the muzzle flashes would betray his position. When he reached Gunnarson and Puglisi, they all leaped up and turned to rush southward to break contact.
Then the star shell suddenly detonated overhead, its flare floating down under a parachute.
The SEALs went to the ground, turning to face the enemy in the stark glare. The mujahideen were more warriors than soldiers. They shouted Islamic slogans, leaping from the ruins, running at the SEALs. Puglisi had reloaded his M-203, and he lobbed another HE grenade at the enemy. He then joined in the fusillades from Cruiser and Chief Gunnarson that were ripping into the charging Pashtuns. A half dozen of them jerked under the impact of the bullets before collapsing to the ground. The flare burned out and the gun flashes died off.
Cruiser led his two men down the valley rather than straight back west toward the mountains, the way the mujahideen expected them to go. The sounds of bullets zipping and crunching the ground to the north showed that the ruse was working.
Another flare opened up and the Pashtuns caught sight of the SEALs once again. They resumed their wild assault, blasting out inaccurate volleys while running at the Americans. The bullets of two CAR-15s and an M-16 whipped back and forth into the last four mujahideen, knocking them sprawling to the dirt.
The latest flare went out and the sudden silence was overwhelming.
"I think that was all of them," Gunnarson said.
Cruiser had started to reply when a third flare went off above them. But this time there was no more firing. The lieutenant looked toward the village. "Goddamn it! There's some son of a bitch up there with a flare pistol?'
"I'll take care of him," Puglisi said. He turned back to his trusty M-203 and fired a trio of HE rounds up into the rubble. Three widely spaced explosions quickly followed the last one just as the flare went out.
The SEALs waited for another illumination device, but twenty minutes went by with nothing lighting up the darkness. Cruiser signaled for the others to follow as he moved off toward East Ridge and the rest of the platoon.
Up in the village, a very frightened Bashar Abzai cowered in the rubble, determined not to fire the flare pistol again.
.
0315 HOURS LOCAL
THE contact team's return to the platoon caught everybody's attention. As Chief Matt Gunnarson passed through the perimeter, he ordered a hundred percent alert, warning of the possibility of an attack by reinforcements. The SEALs observed fire team integrity in placement and formation as everyone did his best to find the most advantageous field of fire within the illumination of his night vision goggles. Meanwhile Lieutenant Jim Cruiser and Chief Petty Officer Gunnarson reported in to Brannigan and Senior Chief Buford Dawkins.
"Our boy wasn't there," the 21C informed the skipper. "But a group of real pissed off mujahideen sure as hell was."
The main thing the Skipper was concerned with was the potential of more fighters suddenly appearing out of the east. "How'd the firefight go?" he asked Cruiser.
"There's no doubt we got them all," the 21C reported. "I think there was ten, but Chief Gunnarson estimates maybe nine. Neither one of us is sure. There was somebody in the village shooting up flares until Puglisi kicked off some grenades from his M-203. There might have been one guy alone or a couple."
"If he survived and isn't wounded, he's probably already legging it for his home base," the senior chief said. "That means the warlord or whatever he is, will be sending out every swinging dick he commands to get us."
"Then we'll kill 'em, by God, Buford!" Gunnarson said.
"Or we'll kill as many as we can until they kill all of us," Brannigan countered. "Remember that asset at the briefing said there was two or three hundred of the bastards?'
"Well," Cruiser remarked, "here we are one way or the other." He winked and grinned. "This sort of situation makes you wish we were still doing those short raids. Hell, normally we could hightail it back to the water for pickup by boat."
"The nearest water is about eight hundred miles from here, sir," Senior Chief Dawkins said. "That would take a lot of hightailing."
"It's not going to be easy to call in a pickup," Brannigan said. "If those mujahideen have Stingers, they'll knock down any aircraft that comes for us:'
"They probably have plenty," Cruiser said. "The CIA gave those fucking things away like lollipops when the Afghans were fighting the Russians."
Brannigan took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's get everyone on their feet. We'll be better off at our base camp on West Ridge. I want to get across that valley between it and this mountain before daylight."
The senior chief turned to the fire teams on the perimeter. "All right, people. Off and on! We got a fast trek to make before the sun comes a-shining with the dawn."
The platoon reacted quickly, moving out of the rocks to form up.
Chapter 5
BASE CAMP IN WEST RIDGE
AUGUST
0830 HOURS LOCAL
THE top of the mountain's crest was as bare bones as it had been for eons. The small creek, not more than two yards wide, meandered through boulders, rocky outcrops and scrub brush. James Bradley tested the stream with his potable water chemical analysis kit, and found it to be safe for human consumption. That was great news. It meant no one had to use the water purification tablets that created a sour taste.
The sixteen men of Lieutenant Bill Brannigan's platoon occupied this pristine location without giving the slightest visual evidence of their presence. The soil was firm, without dust, thus the SEALs moving from spot to spot as they took up security and firing positions left no boot prints. Vital sound and light discipline so necessary for concealment came as instinctively to these veterans as did breathing and swearing. The SEALs blended deeply into the environment, making them deadly as cobras.
Brannigan set up his CP within an area enclosed by a natural wall of rock. A roof of thorny brush was put on top to provide overhead cover, and the entrance was blocked from sight by more vegetation and stones. The skipper killed a half dozen scorpions during the first few hours of occupation, and the surviving poisonous insects seemed to have concluded that, as Shakespeare wrote, "the better part of valor is discretion." They became discreet to the point of disappearing from sight.
Now, on this second day of the operation, Lieutenant (JG) Jim Cruiser, Senior Chief Petty Officer Buford Dawkins and Chief Petty Officer Matt Gunnarson crowded into the CP to drink instant coffee and have an official confab with the Skipper. Brannigan took a sip of coffee, grinning at his senior subordinates. "I was just wondering how many times I'm destined to sit in the middle of harm's way in the company of you guys and your ugly mugs."
Dawkins emitted a country-boy chuckle. "We ain't in harm's way, sir. Hell! We're on Harm's Freeway."
"Actually, we're on Harm's Freeway going north in the southbound lanes," Cruiser added with a grin.
"It's more'n that. We're on Harm's Freeway going north in the southbound lanes with no off-ramps," Gunnarson interjected in uncharacteristic humor.