LITMIR.BIZ

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by, screaming as it did.

      Mortar.

      “Incoming!” Luke screamed. “Incoming!”

      All around him, vague shadows threw themselves to the ground.

      Two more flashes of light launched.

      Then another.

      Then another.

      How did they know?

      In the black darkness of the sky, something exploded. It blew up in muted orange and red. In the sandstorm, the explosion sounded like the crackling of distant thunder. The chopper. It was hit.

      From his vantage point on the ground, Luke watched it circle in the sky, an orange streak against the black. It looped toward the right, spinning now. Its engines screamed, and Luke thought he could hear the sound of its blades.

      Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump.

      It seemed to move in slow motion, sideways and down. It lit up the night like a tracer as it passed over the stone wall of the compound.

      BOOOM!

      It exploded on the other side of the wall, inside the compound. A fireball went up, two or three stories high. For an instant, Luke imagined it was all over. Chopper down, pilots dead. Support chopper inoperable. They were trapped here, and the Taliban seemed to have known they were coming.

      But that helicopter just blew apart inside the compound.

      Like a bomb.

      And that might give them the initiative.

      Several men in masks lay nearby.

      Martinez, Hendricks, Colley, Simmons. His team.

      Heath had to be around here somewhere.

      “Up!” Luke shouted. “Up! Let’s go!”

      He jumped to his feet, dragging the nearest person with him. In an instant, they were all up and running, a dozen men, moving fast. Night vision was useless. Lights were useless, and would draw fire. They simply ran in total, spinning darkness.

      In ten seconds, they reached the wall. Luke guessed left, and moved that way, hugging the stone. Within a few seconds, he came to the opening. There was the chopper, an apocalypse. A few silhouettes ran in the light from the flames, pulling wounded away from it.

      Luke didn’t hesitate. He ran through the opening, his MP5 out now. He gave them a burst from the gun, a blat of automatic fire. Now the silhouettes were running away, back toward another looming shadow, lights beckoning in the chaos.

      The house.

      His men were running with him.

      Up ahead, the silhouettes of the retreating men sprinted up the small flight of stairs to the stone house. Luke sprinted up the stairs behind them.

      Two men faced the doorway, pulling automatic weapons down from their shoulders. They wore the long beards and headwraps of the Taliban.

      POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!

      Luke fired without thinking about it. The two men fell.

      Suddenly, there was an explosion behind him. He glanced back—it was impossible to see what was going on. He moved into the house. An instant later, four more men appeared next to him—his A-Team. They took up firing positions in the stone foyer, facing in toward the rest of the house.

      They removed their ventilator masks simultaneously, almost as if they were one person. Martinez went to the downed Taliban and shot each one in the head. He didn’t touch either one of them.

      “Dead!” he said.

      It was quieter here.

      “B-Team leader,” Luke said into his helmet mic. “Status?”

      Heath came running into the house out of the darkness.

      “B-Team leader…”

      “We’re holding the front gate,” a voice said inside Luke’s helmet. It was Murphy. His Bronx accent was unmistakable. “Stone! This don’t look good. That was an ambush! They were waiting for us!”

      “Just hold the gate, Murph. We’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”

      “You better hurry, man. Somebody knew we were coming. Won’t be long before there’s more of them, and I can’t see ten feet in front of my nose.”

      Luke’s team had already moved further into the house. Heat went in right behind them.

      “Hang in there. We’re inside.”

      “Make it quick,” Murphy’s voice said. “I don’t know if we’re still going to be here.”

      “Murphy! Hold that gate! We’ll be right out.”

      “Aye, aye,” Murphy said.

      Luke turned toward the darkened corridor.

      Another man appeared—a big man in a white robe. He managed to reach his trigger, but he fired wildly. Luke kneeled, drew a bead on the man.

      POP! A dark red circle appeared on his chest.

      He seemed surprised, but then slid bonelessly to the floor.

      Now Luke moved through the dark hallways, listening for sounds up ahead. He didn’t have to listen long.

      BANG!

      A flashbang went off, then another.

      BANG!

      There was shouting and gunfire up ahead. Luke moved slowly toward it, snaking along the wall. Now there were sounds behind him, out on the grounds—automatic fire and explosions.

      Luke checked his stopwatch. They’d been on the ground for less than four minutes, and the whole mission was already FUBAR.

      “Stone!”

      Murphy’s voice again. “Trouble. Barbarians at the gates. I repeat: front gates under attack. Unfriendlies converging. Men down. Hastings down. Bailey down. We are falling back to the house.”

      “Uh, negative, B-Team. Hold those gates!”

      “There’s nothing to hold,” Murphy said. “They’re ripping it up! They got an anti-tank gun out there.”

      “Hold it anyway. It’s our only way out of here.”

      “Dammit, Stone!”

      “Murphy! Hold those gates!”

      Luke ran further into the house.

      There was screaming just ahead of him. He ran through a doorway, crossed the threshold…

      And came upon a scene of total chaos.

      There were at least fifteen people in a large back room. The floors were covered in thick, overlapping carpets. The walls were hung with carpets—ornate, richly colored carpets depicting vast landscapes—deserts, mountains, jungles, waterfalls.

      Simmons was dead. He lay on his back, his body splayed, his eyes open and staring. His helmet was off and a chunk of his head above the eyes was gone. Two women were also dead. A small child, a boy, was dead. Three men in robes and turbans were dead. It was a massacre in here. There were guns, and blood, all over the floor.

      At the very back, near a closed door, a mass of people stood. A crowd of men in robes and turbans held children in front of them, and pointed rifles outward. Behind the men, another man lurked—he was hidden enough that Luke could barely see him.

      He must be the target.

      All around the chamber, Luke’s team crouched or kneeled, still as statues, their guns trained on the group, looking for a shot. Lieutenant Colonel Heath stood in the center of the room, his MP5 machine gun pointed into the crowd.

      “Okay,” Luke said. “It’s okay. Nobody do any—”

      “Drop those weapons!” Heath shouted in English. His eyes were wild. He was focused on one thing—getting that whale.

      “Heath!” Luke said. “Relax. There’s children. We can—”

      “I

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