Black Site (43 page)

And the Turk recorded it all.

Timble understood. Propaganda. Al Qaeda rescued its four men, yes, but that was probably not even the primary objective here. No … this entire operation was to create a film, documentary evidence of America’s imprisoning, torturing, and then massacring Afghani Taliban.

And Josh Timble himself was the proof. His face, his name, his career before becoming a black operator with the Unit, this all created the final piece of the puzzle. Without him it could all be just a clever ruse. The choppers and the soldiers and the uniforms and the guns and even the guy speaking flawless English. The Arab world would convict America for much much less, but America could always say it was nothing but an opportunistic and cynical disinformation operation on the part of the enemy. Some of its allies would believe it.

But Captain Josh Timble? An Army Ranger the Pentagon had “erased” when he became a Delta operator? How the hell could the Americans come out now and say, “Oh yes, about Timble. He was captured by the enemy years ago. We just didn’t think to mention it.”

America had some strong allies in the world, but no relationship was tight enough to believe that transparent lie.

No matter that the transparent lie was the truth.

America’s secret prison, in cahoots with the Afghani and Pakistani governments, where the Taliban heavyweights had been tortured for years, and where they were finally executed.

On camera.

Christ almighty.

This would derail any peace in Afghanistan; this would eradicate any working relationship whatsoever between the Pakistani government and the U.S. government. Hell, this could bring thousands, no, tens of thousands of new foot soldiers from around the world into the folds of the jihadists.

Protests and terrorism at every symbol of America in every nation in the Eastern Hemisphere.

America would lose its stomach for this debacle, and America would go home.

The Tet Offensive? No, this would be worse.

The sounds of the gunfire had died out, replaced by the sound of the slowest of the Chechens still reloading their rifles with fresh and full magazines.

Roscoe, Bouncer, and Spike understood too. They were part of this ruse, part of this setup, the ramifications of which were now becoming clear.

“Holy shit, boss,” said Bouncer. “This was the plan all along.”

T.J. heard his teammate through the ringing in his ears. He just nodded, looking at the pile of dead men in prison jumpsuits.

Daoud al-Amriki turned toward Timble. He nodded. Proud of himself. “And that’s a wrap.”

“So you execute your Taliban allies?”

Al-Amriki just shrugged. “Afghani Taliban. Their colleagues are planning on suing America for peace. These men’s deaths are insignificant in comparison to the big picture. This will kill the peace jurga next January. It will reveal the Americans and the Pakistani government to be torturing and murdering Taliban dignitaries, and it will push America out of Pakistan at least, and with some luck, it will push America out of Afghanistan as well.”

Obviously he was an architect of this plan, but T.J. suspected that the politics of it were determined by the very top leadership of al Qaeda. Daoud continued: “We fully expect this to weaken the government in Islamabad and to push our allies into power. If and when that happens, we will have access to the nuclear weapons that Pakistan possesses.” Al-Amriki could not stop smiling. He looked like a proud young American soldier who’d just taken part in a successful battle.

Josh Timble nodded, sighed, and then launched himself at his fellow countryman with the strength of pure hatred.

*   *   *

Raynor made his way slowly and stealthily through the ruins of the low tower on the Sandcastle’s wall. He banged his wounded forearm several times climbing over the broken rocks to make his way into a small blast hole, and then he picked his way forward in the darkness and lingering dust and smoke, finally making it to a staircase that led up to the tower’s roof.

Gunfire crackled over at the stockade. It was heavy and protracted. It sounded like a full mag dump by a dozen or so shooters.

It sounded like a firing squad.

Kolt used the noise to rush to the roof. There, at the top, he saw him: a single Chechen standing on the roof. He had looked back to catch a glimpse of the action over by the Black Hawks.

Raynor rose behind him, reached around his body, and grabbed his jaw. Yanked it violently to the right while jacking the man’s body harshly to the left. The torsion of the contradictory movements snapped his neck.

The Chechen dropped straight down on the broken stone roof. Kolt followed him, lowering his body between the parapets. He crawled forward, brought his rifle to his shoulder, and looked at the scene.

The two Black Hawks began spooling up.

“What did I miss?” he whispered to himself.

*   *   *

It took two Chechens and their rifle butts ten seconds to get the American prisoner off of al-Amriki. As soon as T.J. leaped on the unsuspecting Daoud, all three of the Delta men closer to the Black Hawks launched on their guards, and the one CIA man in the dirt who was ambulatory scrambled to his feet and charged a Chechen with a rifle.

The CIA man was shot with a three-round burst at point blank range. He flew backward and landed on Jeff Hammond, who could only try to hold pressure on the entry wounds. The three Delta prisoners were beaten down severely. All of them were left facedown in the dirt and gravel, bleeding from their heads and arms and backs.

T.J. was hurt as well, but he was in better shape than David the American. Daoud had taken a fist to his nose, which gushed blood like a faucet, and his eyes watered and blackened. He’d also been knocked to the ground and kicked and kneed in the groin, and he found it impossible to catch his breath much less give any orders for thirty seconds. When he did recover, when he finally pulled himself back up to his feet by using his counterfeit M-4 rifle as a crutch, when he did find himself able to suck in enough air to speak loudly enough to be heard by the men around him, he barked a command in Arabic.

“Line them up and kill them all!”

T.J.’s helmet was knocked from his head, and he was dragged by two men over to the pile of Taliban bodies in front of the wall and dropped on top of them.

He turned and saw his three teammates being kicked forward. A Chechen fired a short burst next to Bouncer to get him to his feet and moving, and soon they were shoved down on the dead pile as well. There were only two CIA men remaining, and the unconscious man was shot in the head where he lay. His forehead exploded and tissue splattered on Hammond, who scrambled to his feet and limped slowly over to the rest of his countrymen so that he could share his fate with them.

The five wounded Americans lay in front of the dead bodies, looked with blurred vision through their bruised eyelids at the American traitor who had just ordered their execution. The Turk was at the man’s side, encouraging him to hurry up. The chopper blades spun. The AQ men in the rear helo looked on. Dust sandblasted T.J.’s eyes.

Al-Amriki wiped a half cup of blood from his nose and face. “I said kill these infidels!”

A group of Chechens moved forward quickly and raised their rifles.

*   *   *

Kolt Raynor was too far away to see all the action taking place on the other side of the Black Hawks, but he knew he had to do something when he saw the Chechens in view run over toward the wall of the stockade. They moved with purpose—he could tell they were responding to an order, and he saw them raise their rifles as they hustled.

Kolt worried about hitting his own men, killing T.J. and his team, but at this point, he did not see that he had much choice.

“Fuck it.” He sighted on the rear chopper because most of the action was taking place forward of the bird.

He flipped the AK to the fully automatic setting.

And with no real objective other than to send as many al Qaeda men to cover as possible, he put pressure on the trigger.

*   *   *

T.J. reached over and took Tony Marquez’s hand and shook it weakly. He was the closest man to where he lay. “See you around, Bouncer. It’s been an honor serving with—”

Just then came the
snap, snap, snap
of incoming rounds, and the corresponding crack of gunfire from the west. The Chechen guards ducked or dove to the dirt, and the firing squad turned as one toward the threat.

The Turk and al-Amriki cowered low behind the front Black Hawk. Daoud then ran toward the corner of the stockade and made his way around for cover.

In three seconds Timble had gone from hopelessness to hope. He sat up on the bodies of the dead Taliban and shouted to the Americans around him:

“Everybody in the building!”

FORTY-FIVE

Raynor had emptied his Kalashnikov, but he did not want to let up on his one-man assault for the amount of time it would take to reload it. Instead, he lifted the RPG dropped by the dead Chechen sentry and pointed it at the rear helicopter. He took less than a second to aim—he was more interested in making noise than in hitting his target. He just wanted to create as big a distraction as possible for as long as possible to help any surviving Americans.

Kolt launched the finned grenade, and a black smoke trail streaked away from him and shot toward the Black Hawk. The grenade nailed it just aft of center. The big helicopter shuddered and filled with fire and black smoke. The burning black fuel was caught up in the swirling rotors and shot out in all directions, clouding the entire scene.

Raynor dropped to a knee to reload his AK, but just then an incoming RPG, fired from one of the other towers, hit the stone wall just below his position. The explosion knocked him off his feet, and he slammed his forehead on the parapet as he fell. He rolled over onto his back, slow to recover from the concussion, and looked up into the air.

His ears rang.

Move! Move!
he told himself. He needed to keep up the fire, no matter what. On his back still, he reached a weak hand out, searching for his rifle. It took him a moment, but soon he realized it had fallen over the side of the tower when the RPG hit.

Kolt Raynor was unarmed.

Bits of the parapet a foot above his body cracked and exploded as Kalashnikov fire came from multiple directions.

He stared at the blue sky. He did not think he could get up, did not think he could do anything more for T.J. and his men.

He closed his eyes. He thought it was over.

His ears rang still.

Boom!
Another RPG hit his tower. Debris rained down on him. He covered his face with his arms to protect himself, though it hardly mattered.

He knew he would be dead as soon as the Chechens came up the stairs.

Then his eyes opened and his arms lowered to his sides.

His head cocked.

A faint noise overcame the ringing in his ears. A buzzing sound, like an angry bumblebee. On his back Kolt turned his head from side to side, looking around, as the buzzing grew louder and louder.

The stone tower began to vibrate. Broken bits of rocks shook next to him.

Then, just ten feet or so from the tip of his nose, an MH-6M Little Bird helicopter raced overhead. Kolt could see the ankle-high hiking boots of the men strapped to its two outboard benches, and the untucked MultiCam camo pants whipping in the wind.

There was one unit in the U.S. military whose men wore hiking boots and didn’t tuck their pants into them.

Fucking Delta!

Hell yes!

Another Little Bird shot by, just off to his left. Then the ringing in his ears was completely supplanted by the sounds of more propellers, larger machines, the reverberations like jackhammers tearing up the rocky hillsides in all directions.

Kolt Raynor did not move. He was disoriented, but he’d been in the Unit long enough to know that during a Delta hit the last thing you wanted to do was pop your head up and look around,
especially
in a damned guard tower.

Instead, he just lay there, not moving a muscle, and watched the sky. Soon a Black Hawk helicopter chugged overhead. Kolt wanted to stand up and cheer, but he knew better, so he kept still.

*   *   *

As T.J. got the men moving around the corner toward the entrance to the stockade, the rear enemy Black Hawk exploded in smoke and fire. T.J. knew that the al Qaeda prisoners had been in there, and he hoped like hell they’d gone up in the black smoke that obscured the entire area now with the prop wash.

And then, just after he dove through the entrance to the stockade, Timble heard the wheezing sound of the six-bladed propellers of Little Birds. He looked over his shoulder and saw four choppers banking in a tight arc over the highway to the south. Instantly he knew the Unit had come.

It was dark in the stockade. The first room they came to had been blackened with explosives. A pair of Kalashnikovs lay in the shambles of burned and torn furniture. T.J. grabbed a weapon and gave the other to Kilborn, as he was the least injured.

And now, inside the stockade and appreciating the cover it provided, he also knew the Chechens would quickly realize that this baked-mud-and-stone building would be a good refuge for them, too.

“Down the stairs!” he shouted. “We are holding this stairwell!” Kilborn, Marquez, and Haynes shouted their assent. Hammond was helped along by Haynes—the older CIA officer was badly hurt and losing blood.

Together the five Americans headed down the darkened staircase.

*   *   *

When the sky above him cleared, Kolt Raynor, very slowly and very carefully, slid across the gallery of the tower to the stairs that led back down to ground level, and sat on a stone step. The ringing in his ears subsided, and he remembered the radio that Hammond had given him. He doubted Hammond was still alive, but he retrieved it from his vest and depressed the button.

“Hammond, this is Racer. Are you receiving?”

There was a long pause, then a crackle and a response, but it wasn’t Hammond’s voice.

“Racer? It’s T.J. I’m with Hammond in the main building, break. He’s injured. I’ve got three more with me, one is injured. Where the hell are you? Over.”