Chapter One

Chapter One

J

ohnson peered around the corner of the building, keeping most of his body hidden as he made sure the area was clear. He breathed deeply, a calming exercise, and smelled a mixture of tar and rancid water. With the kind of heat this place absorbed during the day, heat-vision was useless. That meant they had to go in using only night vision, which covered the whole place with an eerie green glow. It seemed like they were on another planet.

“It makes you wonder why they don’t send us in with suits of armor,” Lee muttered into his comms and covered their left flank as the team of ten men moved deeper into the small village.

“This is a covert operation,” Johnson hissed through his mic. “Something that nobody but us, our target, and the Lord Almighty can know about. Clanking around in those fucking Ironman suits would get us noticed fast, and this whole thing would blow up—literally and figuratively. And speaking of covert operations, what part of radio silence don’t you understand?”

He turned to glare at Lee, who shrugged but kept himself off the comm lines. With the kind of encryption that these things could work with, being overheard was practically impossible. Still, the fact remained that someone might hear them, even on the short-range comms. Even if they didn’t hear what was said, they might recognize military-grade encryption if they saw it and the jig would be up.

That said, he wished they had come out there with at least some of the heavy hitters the Army had available these days. Their own suits were far from defenseless, with full helmets that were resistant to gunfire and ceramic plates in the rest of their armor that made it similarly impervious to most handguns. There was even HUD tech in their helmets that usually only came with the full suits of armor. The designers came up with all kinds of hybrids these days.

Which made him wonder why the fuck they hadn’t come up with something that allowed them to run these missions using some kind of stealth suit of armor instead of these heavy as fuck ceramic-plate alternatives.

Johnson looked around and noted that no other people were out. Nightfall was essentially an announcement for these people to lie low and wait for the sun to come up again. The small town was stuck in the Middle Ages, although such luxuries as electricity and running water, as well as something as simple as guns, were known and used. It was, however, obvious from the way their roofs were covered with solar panels and the handful of windmills that generated electricity, that they were very sparing in the use of the modern amenities.

He held a hand up and stopped to listen to the silence. It was thick with the threat of hidden danger. He wasn’t sure about the rituals these people followed, but the fact that they were all hidden inside their homes was a very good thing since keeping collateral damage low was something of a priority.

At the same time, it could also be very bad. He didn’t like how quiet the place was. According to the reports, there was very little night-life there, but there should have been some noise—a pot clanging inside a hidden kitchen, the low murmur of conversation…something.

But the silence was deafening. He didn’t even hear the low sawing of crickets in the underbrush. Not that he would, considering that they were paces away from the desert, but hey, at least it would help to hear anything other than their boots.

Something wasn’t right. Johnson turned and gestured to Red Three, raised three fingers, and pointed to the top of a nearby building.

Jordi nodded and used a ladder quickly to hike up to the top of the building as the rest of the team moved in. Most of the structures were erected old-style. They were mostly squat, one-story buildings that had access to a rooftop covered with either solar panels or electric matting. Either way, the top of one of the buildings was more than enough to give the marksman a good vantage point over the rest of the village. Even better, he was the squad’s long-distance engagement expert and packed a massive fifty-cal sniper rifle.

Jordi pinged him the all-clear. Johnson returned a checkmark to his HUD and indicated for them to keep moving.

He didn’t feel right about this. It was too easy. They were being drawn into the village, which made it all too likely that this was a trap.

Warily, he looked around and kept his rifle ready as he raised his hand. He held up three fingers and then a closed fist, then two fingers and pointed to his left. Three of the men pulled away and returned to their starting location. Two more moved to the left, using the houses as cover. This left him with only three men to help find the target. It was a risky move but damned if he would walk all his men into a trap.

“What is this place?” Lee asked and looked around as he spoke off comms. “And why the fuck would anyone want to hide out here?”

“I’m not sure how you pronounce it in the local language,” Johnson said. “But it translates to sandpit. And I think the reason why they want to hide out here is because it’s isolated.”

The man grunted something and ended the conversation. The four men eased through the village and kept their movements as discreet as they could while they approached one of the houses at the center.

Johnson raised his hand again and his team stopped and looked around. Lights were off both up and down the entire street. It was so dark that his senses tingled. In all his years doing night ops, it was never this dark in any neighborhood in any town or city. There was always some insomniac who counted the hours before the dawn or someone awake, trying to read or get some chores done.

His gaze locked on the houses on either side of the one they headed toward. “Nope,” he stated crisply and shook his head. “I’m calling it. We’re out of here.”

“The house is right there,” Lee protested.

“The target’s not there,” Johnson said. “This is a trap, and we’re bugging out.” He turned when he heard gunshots from the other side of the village where the remainder of their team had been left behind. They’d heard the communications, all right.

“Insurgents are everywhere,” Jordi called over the comms. The boy’s voice was low and controlled, but Johnson could hear the panic behind his words. “They were waiting for us just outside the village center. Bug out, squad leader. The east side is covered by bogeys!”

Johnson signaled for his men to move east but to keep to the shadows. He wasn’t sure if their movements were being individually tracked or if the enemy had waited for them to get deeper into the village before they attacked. Either way, he would be damned before he left any member of his team behind. He raised his rifle and narrowed his eyes as a group of men converged on the building where Jordi perched.

Johnson snarled, raised his weapon, and opened fire in two tight, three-round bursts. “Red Three, mark the entrance of the building.” The thunder of heavy ordinance shattered the night and one of the five combatants dropped with barely a grunt. Another man staggered, sagged against the wall, and clutched his leg. Damn good shooting, Johnson acknowledged and grinned wolfishly. A couple more men fell as the heavy fifty-cal fired and punched through their body armor like it was tissue paper.

“Appreciate the assist, Squad Leader. Bugging out now,” Jordi shouted and jumped off the edge of the building to drop smoothly to the ground.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew Johnson’s attention. A group of men emerged from a building in heavy body armor, toting outdated assault rifles. He swung his weapon around and gestured for his men to take cover as he opened fire. Time slowed to a crawl. They were outnumbered and outgunned, but the only thing that mattered to him was to get the rest of his men out.

He scanned the area, tugged a grenade from his pouch, and tossed it through a window of the building the men had exited. Loud shouts issued from inside in the few seconds before the explosion.

“Squad on the perimeter, pull away from the village and give us some cover fire,” Johnson snapped into his comms. He indicated for the three men with him to step into the building and clear it as he hid behind one of the walls.

Bullets sprayed around him, but from the haphazard fire spread between him and the three men who entered the building, he could tell that there wasn’t much in the way of leadership behind this ambush. They had been prepared to attack, judging by the lack of civilians, but they were still not sure what to do once the trap had closed. He guessed they had assumed that their superior numbers and better positions would enable them to overcome their lack of leadership.

“Roger that, Squad Leader. Stay safe in there,” one of the men on the perimeter called. It was a risk to split their forces like this, but those inside the village knew that they wouldn’t make it out if someone didn’t cover their retreat. Considering how deep in the black-ops book this operation was, they had nobody to count on but themselves.

“House is clear. Get your ass in here!” Lee called from inside.

Two men peered out of the windows, eliminated a couple of insurgents, and gave Johnson a chance to clear the wall he hid behind before he barreled through the window he’d thrown the grenade through only moments before. Jagged glass dug into his shoulder pads, but he was inside and now behind an interior wall. He moved more out of instinct than anything else. His heart hammered in his chest, which made it difficult to think. The other members of his team assumed defensive positions.

“We need a way out of here, Red Team,” Johnson said and tried to keep his voice steady as he reloaded his weapon quickly. His hands trembled but he pushed the weakness aside. He needed to be at the top of his game right now—for his team if not for himself.

Jordi connected his HUD vision to Johnson’s. “We see an opening on the west side of the village, Squad Leader.”

Johnson now had a good view of the highway that split the village in half. A group of men was crossing it, but there was a slight opening he thought the rest of his team could slip through. “Roger that, Red Three,” he said and glanced at his small team. “We need to make it to an opening on the west side of the village. We’ll break for it as quickly as we can, and we need to keep on pushing, so don’t—”

“Grenade!”

He wasn’t sure who made the call, but there was no disputing the fact that one of those little knobby orbs of death had dropped from a hatch at the top of the building. They had been in a hurry and hadn’t cleared the roof.

“Shit!” Johnson yelled as the hatch closed again. The three men deeper in the building scrambled to move as far away from the ordnance as possible. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it far enough.

Johnson ducked and flinched at the roar of the explosion, which seemed to last longer than it should have. The air smelled of death and the noise-filters in his helmet hadn’t kicked in fast enough, which left his ears ringing. He peered into the smoky mess that remained and tried to determine the consequences.

Two of the men hadn’t made it away in time. Shrapnel had ripped through not only their armor but their helmets too. The vital signs feeding directly into his helmet had flatlined. They were gone.

There was still one heartbeat, though. Lee lay on the ground. He growled with the effort as he dragged himself to where his assault rifle had landed after it had been torn from his grasp. Johnson knelt beside the man and made a cursory examination—not easy while he struggled to move. He wasn’t a doctor, but some training in first aid helped. Lee actually looked like he had avoided the brunt of the explosion with most of his armor intact, except for his right leg. It had almost completely shattered and the lower half of the limb hung on by what looked like the barest of muscle fibers. It didn’t bleed that badly, though, which indicated that maybe the wound hadn’t severed any arteries. Or maybe the shrapnel was still in there and suppressed the bleeding.

“Fuck!” Johnson exclaimed and put his hands on Lee’s shoulders to force him to a halt. “You need to stay with me, you got that, Red Seven?”

“Need to get to my rifle, sir…” Lee’s voice sounded distant like he was half asleep. “Can’t…leave any traces behind…”

“Your rifle’s done for, Seven. Listen to me and you listen good, because I’ll get your dumb ass out of here whether you like it or not,” Johnson shouted over the ringing in his ears. “You take this…” He handed the man his own assault rifle and dragged Lee to a spot where he would be out of sight of anyone outside. “You cover that door and make sure nobody shoots me from behind while I clear the roof, do you understand me?”

The injured man looked blankly at him for a moment but after a few seconds, he focused his attention and nodded. He gripped the rifle firmly. Lee was a fine soldier despite being a chatty Cathy at heart. Sometimes, all you needed was to be reminded what your priorities were.

Lee steeled himself, avoided looking at his mangled leg, and aimed the rifle at the door. “Will do, Sarge,” he said, his voice shaking gently.

Johnson nodded as he tugged his sidearm from the holster at his hip. He hurried to where the hatch opened to the roof. While he wasn’t sure that the small wooden stepladder would take his weight, there really was no other option.

He had almost reached the top when the hatch opened and one of the insurgents peered through the aperture to see if the room had been cleared by the grenade.

Definitely not professional soldiers, Johnson mused as he drew the combat knife coldly from his hip, gripped it in a backhand, and stabbed it into the man’s throat. A sudden burst of bright red blood coated the face of his helmet. He twisted the blade and used the movement to hook the man and drag him down through the hatch. His pistol aimed at the opening, he waited until a couple more faces came into view. He pulled the trigger and the almost negligible kick of the pistol punched back into his hand as both faces disappeared in a spray of red. They fell back and shouts erupted on the roof as he hauled himself through the hole.

Three men awaited him. He’d had extensive training for situations like this, and for the first time since the firefight had started, Johnson felt calm and collected. Ice filled his veins, and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

He fired before he’d even fully found his feet. The first man stumbled back as his throat suddenly opened. The hollow-point round tore through his jugular on the way out. Johnson shifted slightly and dropped to his knees when he saw weapons raised toward him. He gripped the pistol in both hands and close to his chest and didn’t need to aim when his enemies were this close.

A second man fell, the life in his eyes immediately extinguished when a bullet punched into his forehead. The third tried to turn away. Seeing his comrades eliminated this quickly obviously affected him, and when one lacked training, instincts came to the fore. He wanted to survive but Johnson was ready. A bullet pierced the man’s back and severed his spine at his third rib. He dropped and was dead before he hit the ground.

For a moment, Johnson wondered if a swarm of mosquitoes had gotten inside his helmet. A high-pitched whine pushed through his calm and he had to resist the urge to swat at the air around his head. He knew, instinctively, that there were no bugs, but his nerves protested in the aftermath of his killing spree. Three shots, three yards, and under three seconds. Exactly like the rulebook called for.

He looked up and swallowed his bloodlust, and his gaze settled on another man on the roof. He was smaller and leaner and appeared to be a civilian—maybe forced into the situation by the insurgents. The man was on his knees with his hands raised and mumbled something incoherent, clearly begging for his life.

For a second, he was tempted to spare the man. Too many people had died today. Besides, the backlash for killing a civilian in this situation would be beyond massive. Still…

“Sorry, I can’t risk it, asshole,” Johnson said and raised his weapon. The man clearly didn’t speak English, but the intention was clear. He tried to move away but his frantic efforts were too slow. A double-tap through the forehead felled him in his tracks.

A hint of guilt rippled through Johnson as he moved toward the edge of the building, ejected the mag from his pistol, and replaced it with a new one. He would need to set his emotions aside, he knew, or push through them if he wanted to live to regret his actions there today with what was left of his squad.

“Red Three, is the west of the village still open?” he asked and squinted in the direction that seemed to be the best way out. “Red Three?”

He checked the vital signs of the other half of his team. No response. Either they had all gone offline, all at the same time with technical difficulties, or…

His heart sank and he muttered, “Shit.” He stooped to retrieve an assault rifle a dead man had dropped, then peeked over the edge of the building. A fairly large group of men made their way toward the door but, like he had, none thought to check the roof. They would pay for that.

His lips drew back in a rictus snarl as his first shots cut through the massed insurgents. As packed together as they were, the rounds ripped through one and sometimes two men at a time to dispense all kinds of collateral damage.

It wasn’t until he had fired the third burst that the men realized that they were being fired at from above and quickly tried to find cover. There wasn’t much to be had, though, since the area between the house Johnson was on and the one across the street was almost completely open.

A rout ensued and most of the men didn’t even bother to retaliate as he maintained the steady barrage and only stopped when he ran out of ammunition. He drew away from the edge of the building, moved back toward the hatch, and dropped without using the stepladder. A jolt of pain knifed through him when he landed. He scowled at the pieces of shrapnel that jutted from his armor.

“I can’t get the rest of the team on comms,” Lee gasped as he pushed awkwardly against the wall for support. In all honesty, Johnson was surprised that he hadn’t bled out by now. He vaguely recalled something about severed arteries going into spasm on occasion, so if one had been shredded, maybe that was what had kept him alive. Only time would tell whether he would make the inevitably rough trip out.

“Me neither. They haven’t responded at all,” he replied and took a moment to collect the dog tags from their fallen comrades. “We’ll swing by to see if they’re still around. I need you with me on this, all right? I’ll carry you out, but you need to stick it out with me. Pass out on my back, and I’ll give you time to recover only to kick your ass once we’re back on base, got it?”

“Roger that, Sarge.” Lee forced a grin that soon became a grimace.

He grinned in response. The man’s leg hung by a thread, but he was still game, and Johnson felt a thrill of pride in his team. He was relieved that a man in his crew still believed in him despite the hardship they’d faced tonight. Still, he was well aware of how adrenaline played in these kinds of situations. He kept his thoughts in check and pulled the wounded man onto his back and allowed him to support himself with his arms as best he could.

Johnson let his shoulders do most of the work and held Lee’s damaged leg in place with one hand, while the other gripped his sidearm. His heart still hammered furiously against his ribcage, but he moved toward the door despite the sense of doom that had settled over him. The whole village had fallen into an eerie silence again, which made him grind his teeth. He didn’t like this kind of quiet. It always meant trouble.

Shouts were exchanged in the distance along with a couple of rogue gunshots, but other than that, the only sound was the wind whipping through the open areas of the village. There were still hostiles around, and he was well aware of the fact that he hadn’t been able to take care of all of them. Which begged the question—where the hell were they?

They cleared the building with none of their enemies in sight. He tried not to think of the warm, thick liquid that ran down his body beneath his armor. Obviously, whatever wounds he had sustained continued to bleed. The only thing that blocked the pain was the adrenaline that coursed through his system.

Johnson shook his head and grinned. There was nothing like going for a jog with a man draped over your back to keep the blood and adrenaline flowing. He knew that all the activity simply made it worse. It was a given that he would certainly continue to lose blood, and with the movement and exertion, he would tear his wounds and make them worse. But, if he stayed in place, the chances were he and Lee would both be gunned down. They needed to get back to the evac zone as quickly as possible. All other medical emergencies could wait.

He pushed himself to move as fast as he could with Lee on his back. Johnson hissed and his muscles burned by the time he finally cleared the village. There was no more gunfire and no reports over the comms. The other squad members’ vitals were still quiet and the chance that anybody else was alive was remote. He suspected that either their HUDs or his own had sustained damage and he couldn’t pick up even the flatline indicator that would confirm his suspicions.

They reached the desert and moved toward some outlying buildings on the west side. If the enemy dumbasses had any brains, this would be where they waited for Johnson and his squad. There was no sign of them, but there were bodies—in last-stand numbers too, he noted as he scrutinized the area. He raised his pistol when he heard footsteps.

“Don’t you dare,” Lee growled, but Johnson needed to unload his burden. He dropped his teammate abruptly and Lee cursed and grunted in pain as he landed in a heap. Johnson gripped his pistol with both hands as the three insurgents who searched through the corpses on the ground realized that they had newcomers on their hands.

The armor on the bodies looked familiar—too familiar. Even with the sun having set an hour before, it was hard to miss what his own men had worn into combat. And those men were looting the bodies.

Fuck these guys!

He pulled the trigger, faster than they were. As tired as he was and with as much blood as he’d lost, he expected that reaction time would be a toss-up for the victory. At this point, all he could do was take advantage of the fact that the men had been too occupied with looting the weapons and possessions from his dead squad mates to have hands on their weapons.

The insurgents didn’t even fire a single shot before bullet holes appeared in their chests and heads as they fell, choking on their own blood. Johnson fired until the nine-round magazine in his pistol was expended. He retrieved the last mag he had for it, slapped it in, and continued to shoot.

Even when he was out of bullets, he wasted a couple of seconds pulling the trigger of his empty weapon.

“Sarge! We need to get out of here,” Lee said. His voice had taken on that distant quality again.

“Sure,” he responded harshly. “I need to take care of something first.”

“Sarge, they’re fucking dead! Get it together.”

Johnson turned and gritted his teeth. “Just… I need to take care of something.”

He could feel the effects of the blood loss take over now. The weakness in his body went beyond fatigued muscles. Those same muscles didn’t receive enough oxygen to keep up with the exertions they were forced into and had begun to shut down one by one. But still, he needed to do something first. He staggered toward his fallen comrades.

“Sarge?” Lee asked and propped himself up on his arm to watch as the sergeant quickly collected the dog tags from the men who had been killed. Those little pieces of aluminum that nobody would think to steal had more value to their families than all the money in the world. Of course, the Army would come up with some story about where they were stationed and how they died. Medals would be handed out and funerals would be held as coffins without bodies were delivered back to the States. That was merely how things were done.

Johnson moved toward Lee and tucked all the dog tags into his pouch before he helped the man to stand on his good leg.

“How are you feeling, Red Seven?” he asked as he heaved the man onto his back again.

“Like a fucking twenty-dollar bill, sir,” he replied. The man had applied some bandaging to his leg, but there was only so much that could do. He needed surgery. “It looks like one of the motherfuckers tagged you, though.”

Johnson glanced down as he moved again. A couple of holes had appeared in his armor and now leaked red. Well, he guessed it was red. With the only light source available to him being a half moon and stars, everything simply looked black.

“We’ll make it,” he said, moved one foot in front of the other, and actually tried to run. He managed a few steps before he decided that if he fell over, neither of them would get up again. Still, he maintained a good pace—slower than he would have liked, but from the clock on his HUD, they had more than enough time to get back to the evac zone.

It felt like hours. The desert chilled as night deepened and the cold seeped into his bones, although blood loss was possibly to blame for some of it. He grasped Lee with both hands and kept moving, determined to get at least one member of his team out alive even if it killed him.

Hours and more endless hours passed, although it felt like days. He couldn’t see the sunrise, but he did feel the heavy rotors of the helo that was sent to pick them up and the chopper’s blades that churned the air above his body. Voices babbled and he tightened his grasp on Lee’s arm. They wanted to take him. He shook his head in panic, knowing he needed to get the asshole to a hospital. Back to the evac point.

“Sergeant,” someone said. “We need to get him some medical attention.”

Lee was limp. He’d passed out a while back, but Johnson wasn’t quite sure when, though. He struggled to stay on his feet and a pair of arms caught him by the shoulders.

Someone dragged him toward the helicopter. “Get him out of his armor.”

“Are you kidding?” a second voice replied. “That stuff is the only thing keeping everything in him from spilling out. We need to get him to a hospital.”

The cold faded and so did his shattered senses. It was an unmanageable chore to keep his eyes open. Straps came over him and held him in place as the helicopter took off.

“Save Red Seven,” he whispered and shivered with fear at how weak his voice sounded. He wasn’t sure if anyone heard him, so he said it again. Well, he thought he did. He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. His eyes closed and he felt his grip on things loosen. He slept.