Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) (3 page)

Chapter 6

Disaster struck on the
following night, just three days away from their destination. It was as if
Nick’s fears had cast a line baited for trouble, and then caught a whole school
of it. Actually, loads of it.

The four men had barely
covered a mile in the dark when Red, ahead on point, signaled for a halt
mid-stride.

Nick watched as the little
man’s body went completely rigid then slowly inched downward. Attempting to
silently crouch with nearly one-hundred pounds of gear working against you was
no small feat.

As soon as the bottom of
his water jug brushed the ground, Red released it and used his hands to help
him take a knee without pitching forward under the weight. Without even looking
to Nick for instruction, Red lowered all the way prone while keeping his gaze
locked ahead of him.

He didn’t even bother to
take his pack off. Going prone with that kind of crushing burden was never
something you did by choice.

Nick, in the second
position, froze. He moved as slow as he could and passed the signal back to
Truck and Marcus in the rear of the formation. Red remained motionless for
nearly three minutes, which felt more like three hours in the quiet, night air.

Red’s behavior was so
uncharacteristic that Nick avoided moving at all. With the way Red was acting,
any sound could be devastating. Finally, Red pushed himself up. He lifted the
water jug as if it was full of unstable explosives, and tip-toed backward. His
other hand kept his AK-47 pointing straight ahead, and he refused to turn his
back on whatever he had seen.

The team moved backward,
covering each other in bounds until they were a couple hundred yards away from
danger. The team circled up, and Nick leaned down by Red.

“What’d you see?” Nick
asked.

“Enemy troops,” Red said.

“Taliban?”

“Couldn’t tell. Saw a
silhouette coming toward me. Thought he saw me, then heard the sound of water
hitting the ground. He was pissing.”

Nick considered the
situation. Was it one man? Or more? He needed more information.

“Leave your pack and go
scout forward,” Nick whispered. The team staged their packs and set up a quick
perimeter, while Red dropped his pack, slung his AK-47, and pulled out a
silenced Glock .45.

It took thirty minutes for
Red to return, far longer than Nick preferred.

“We’re fucked,” Red said,
dropping to the ground.

He looked exhausted as he
guzzled from his CamelBak. Nick waited, and looked around their small
perimeter. Truck faced their front in the prone, lying behind his RPK machine
gun and its extended bipod legs. Marcus monitored their rear while their gear
sat stacked in the center of their ten-foot perimeter.

Red and Nick lay huddled
among the packs, keeping a low profile. Nick wondered how many men it’d take to
spook Red. The crazy little Marine had never shown an ounce of fear as far as
Nick knew.

Red stopped drinking and
collected himself. Nick saw his face take on a stern look in the rays of
moonlight shining through a mostly clear night.

“We’ve got a
battalion-sized element of Pakistani troops right in front of us,” Red
reported.

“What?” Nick said. “That’s
impossible.”

“I would have thought so,
too, but go check for yourself.”

Nick chewed on the news.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m certain,” Red said,
nodding. “They’re broken up and spread out all over the hill. Straight ahead
there’s about a platoon-sized element, cooking fires and all. They’re mostly
bedded up, but some of the men are still hanging around the fires,
bullshitting. Tried moving up the hill to see if we could go around them.
Walked nearly half a mile up it. Troops as far as you could see.”

Nick sat there, stunned.

“I turned around,” Red
continued, “moved down the hill back to my starting position, then walked half
a mile down from there. Same thing. Troops as far as you can see. There’s
probably an entire battalion on that finger ahead.”

“A thousand troops?” Nick
asked, shaking his head with disbelief. They had studied satellite images prior
to their departure, and the entire region had been clear of Pakistani troops,
except at the border.

Nick tried to calm
himself. “Are they in blocking positions? Facing this way or the other
direction? Like they’re looking for someone? Or maybe looking for us?”

“No way,” Red said.
“They’re all completely unprofessional. No fighting positions. Guys
horseplaying, singing, cooking shit over fires. But they’re there. No going
around them.”

Nick processed the
information. The good news was the battalion didn’t seem to be looking for
anybody, especially Nick’s group. If they were, they’d be tactical: patrolling,
looking, hiding.

That was the good news.
The bad news, as Red had stated, was that there was no getting around them.
Nick pulled the poncho liner over his head and used his red-lens flashlight to
study the map. He wanted to confirm his suspicions. Unfortunately, his
suspicions had been right on the money. The satellite imagery showed a hell of
a number of cliffs and drop-offs farther up the hill top in this area.

Nick’s team would need
mountain climbing gear to ascend the peak and move to the other side, which was
a complete no go. They lacked the gear, and it was far too dangerous in the
dark when they hadn’t prepped for it.

Nick stayed under the
poncho liner longer than necessary. He needed to think, and he for damn sure
needed to come up with a solution. Fast.

Chapter 7

Nick Woods made his up
mind after less than two minutes of running through the options. None of the
possibilities looked good, but that’s how war goes. It doesn’t go your way.
Life doesn’t either, Nick remembered, briefly thinking of Anne, his late wife,
and wondering if he’d be reunited with her before this mission ended. He shook
away the thought and refocused on the present.

As Nick saw it, the team
had three major options.

Option one was to hold in
place, hoping the Pakistani infantry battalion packed up, moved off the hill,
and departed the area. The problem with this option was there was no telling
how long the unit would be there, and Nick worried about their own rapidly
depleting food and water. Plus, the nearby Pakistanis could push toward them
and put them in some deep shit.

Option two involved trying
to slip through the middle of the Pakistani lines. Maybe attempt it at 0330,
when sleep and fatigue are at their greatest. But that seemed fraught with
serious risk, given that they’d be carrying heavy packs and water jugs. And
since they’d have their weapons at the ready, any guard or sleeping man who
woke would instantly recognize them as intruders, despite their similar weapons
and local attire.

Option three involved
moving down the hill, to the valley that was chock-full of travelers and homes.
Nick had a map of that area, but S3’s intel team hadn’t provided the kind of
detailed satellite photos that the team needed. So, they’d have no idea how
many homes were on that route, as it had been too far out of the planned
infiltration route.

Without climbing gear,
Nick knew a long and arduous trek to the top of the hill wasn’t a possibility.
Bottom line, it had to be one of the three options.

Nick believed waiting out
the Pakistani army was dangerous. It could take days for them to leave, and
Nick, Marcus, Truck, and Red weren’t getting any stronger under each day’s
unrelenting sun.

Infiltrating the Pakistani
army’s lines was undeniably their worst option. Maybe if just one of them spoke
the language and could talk their way out of being spotted, then maybe. But
none of them did, and with the moon nearly full -- a requirement for the
mission, so they could move well at night -- sneaking through so many Pakistani
troops was nothing short of suicide.

Thus, the men of Shield,
Safeguard, and Shelter were going down the hill.

Chapter 8

Nick lifted the poncho
liner and whispered for his team to pull it in. All four ducked below the
canopy of Nick’s outstretched arms.

Nick flipped his red-beam
flashlight on and oriented the team to their position. He then explained the
three options they had. Nick asked if there were any angles he had overlooked,
and he received nothing but headshakes.

“Since those are our
options,” he said, “we’ll go with option three and push down the hill. We’ll
cross the valley road and push up the opposite hill. We’ll move forward a
couple of miles and with luck, we’ll be beyond the Pakistani army at that
point. We’ll cross back to this side of the valley and continue on our planned
course.”

Marcus nodded his head and
said, “I like the idea of crossing back to this mountain range. We know from
our planning that this side of the valley is our best route in, and we have
better detailed satellite imagery of the terrain.”

“Yeah,” Truck agreed, “we’ve
practically got our infiltration route memorized, except for Red, who’s too
stupid to remember anything.”

“That’s why I carry a
map,” Red replied with a grin.

Truck stretched his right
leg out and groaned. “All right, but let’s make it quick so that my bum knee
doesn’t get any ideas and drop my ass down the hill,” he said.

Red reached over and
punched Truck hard in the calf of his straightened leg. Truck’s only response
was a grunt.

“So,” Red said, “I guess
since we’re down a leg thanks to gimp here, pushing forward and taking on those
Pakistani bastards is out of the question?”

Nick smiled and looked
over at Marcus, who was shaking his head and chuckling. The team could always
count on Red’s confidence.

“Marcus?” Nick asked. “Any
other thoughts?”

“It’s a solid plan,”
Marcus confirmed. “And it’s the best option we have under the circumstances.”

Chapter 9

The four men of Shield,
Safeguard, and Shelter descended the hill, picking their way around loose
gravel and crumbling dirt that gave way under the weight of their heavy
footsteps and gear. Red led the way, followed by Nick, then Truck with his RPK
machine gun, and finally Marcus, who pulled rear security.

Each man knew the next
part would prove pivotal. On one hand, they were dressed to fit in. Loose
pants,
turbans wrapped around
their heads,
Soviet-bloc weapons, and random green and black smocks. On
the other, their packs and assault gear, though of non-American variety, still
gave them away.
Rarely would
Afghans or Pakistani be carrying so much gear, and if it were necessary, they’d
use pack mules.

But this couldn’t be changed, and taking on some villagers certainly
beat duking it out with the heavily-armed Pakistani army.

The team soundlessly descended further and further, attempting to stay in
dark shadows. It took almost two hours as they were trying to be patient on
Truck and his knee, but they soon neared the road at the bottom of the valley.

Nick was surprised that they had avoided any mud homes to this point.
Though the border regions were sparsely populated, luck seemed to be on their
side thus far.

Red halted the team and signaled for them to spread out on line -- or in
a straight line. Each team member found good positions that were either low to
the ground or behind something. They all dropped their packs and aimed in on
the “road,” which could hardly be considered such by Western standards. More
like a gravel driveway barely wide enough for a single truck.

Nick could feel his heart speed up, as the tension mounted. Now, they
were committed. Any contact and it was on. An attempt to retreat up the hill
with their heavy packs would surely end in failure. And they couldn’t ditch
their packs and try to ascend either, because that meant certain eventual
death, given they’d be without any supplies.

No, any contact and they’d attack forward, killing whoever was in the
way, as well as those who responded to the gunfire. Nick and Red, the only two
with NVGs, scanned the road ahead, which could just be made out with the
natural light.

Between the men and the road, Nick estimated about four hundred yards of
field. It was mostly flat and planted with some kind of knee-high crop.

Nick looked twice over the ground but saw nothing. He looked toward Red,
and the small point man signaled all clear.

Nick swallowed down some water and reached over to lift his
hundred-pound pack. He whirled it around, swinging it into place -- it was too
heavy to simply lift -- and tightened up the straps. He bounced up and down,
allowed it to shift, and adjusted the straps one last time. Unfortunately, when
you weren’t using up ammo, it made it harder to lighten your load.

The team was ready. Each man was standing, or truthfully, slightly
leaning forward under their packs. The team would push together across the
road, despite the unconventional nature of such a move.

Typically, a unit would leave half of its men in place to provide a base
of fire from cover, while the forward element moved across a dangerous sector.
But S3 was too small to split up, and Nick wanted to rely on speed and keeping
his men together. That way, if the shit hit the fan, they could fight together
or work their way back.

Thankfully, they crossed the field and the rocky path without incident.
The four men pushed up the steep hill on the opposite side of their insertion
route without difficulty, other than hauling up all their heavy gear. But they
soon started running into compounds, which presumably had mud homes behind
their walls. Red shifted their course left and right to dodge them, and they
progressed further up the hill without detection.

Soon, their legs and backs were shaky and weak with fatigue, but they’d
done it. Now they were back to where there were no trails, no wandering
villagers, not even a single pile of dog droppings.

And it was a good thing. Dawn was approaching, and it was time for them
to hunker down.