Page 25 of Point of Contact

“They’re ambushing the HA mission?” Jesse asked in disbelief, his adrenaline surging, just as Miller rushed past with his Scout team, all of them fully kitted out and loaded down with weapons and ammo.

“We’re going out as the quick-reaction force,” he yelled at Jesse. “Let’s go!”

Jesse leaped to bring up the rear, Enriquez’s urgent words into the radio following them out. “Battle Base, this is Two-Five. Reporting troops in contact east of the village, break. Repeat, troops currently taking heavy contact. Request immediate air support, over.”

Jesse’s boots skidded over the loose shale as he and the Scouts ran pell-mell down the mountain. In the back of his mind, Jesse couldn’t help but think of the Taliban’s recent strategy—ambush a squad, then have a second team lying in wait to attack the rescuers as they rushed to help. Fear coursed through Jesse in a sickening wave, but it wasn’t for himself, it was for his brothers, pinned down by the bullets he could hear being fired at them in an endless barrage.

Miller, in the lead, held up a closed fist to call a sudden halt. “An old Taliban ratline we found the other day goes up that ridge,” he panted, pointing to a narrow spur that ran behind the village. “If we can stage up there and lay down enough suppressing fire, we can give our guys a fighting chance to get clear.”

Without another word, the eight men turned and charged up the footpath worn into the side of the mountain by generations of insurgents. Jesse half-expected to run into a hail of bullets that would cut them all to pieces, part of a counterattack to their counterattack, but it didn’t happen. They ranged themselves along the spur, lying prone, weapons pointed down into the village.

“Seeing muzzle flashes from the long house,” one of the Scouts reported, binos to his eyes. “Don’t think they’re coming from anywhere else.”

Miller nodded tersely to the dude manning the Mark-48 machine gun. “Villanueva. Light it the fuck up.”

The gun roared. Jesse held the hundred-round ammo belt steady for him, feeding it into the tray to make sure it didn’t jam. Even without binoculars, he could see it wasn’t doing anything to penetrate the stone house, but all they could do was pray it forced the enemy’s heads down long enough for their guys to make a run for it.

“Platoon is on the move,” Miller announced, his own binos to his eyes. “Keep it rockin’, V!”

The gunner continued to pour it on. Jesse could see the distant figures of one group of American soldiers bounding up the trail before dropping to one knee and firing over the heads of the second group, covering them. Suddenly the man in the lead jerked and spun around, falling to the ground, limp.

“Got one down!” Miller yelled. “Hostile fire from the north tree line! Motherfucker!”

It became clear in an instant what was going on. The attack from the house in the village had served its purpose, to drive the Americans back toward their outpost...and straight into the arms of a second, more concerted ambush. With the firing behind them, and now in front of them, they were flanked.

“Go, go, go!”

At the order Jesse pushed to his feet and ran back down the ratline toward the main trail, five other guys hot on his heels. Behind him, Villanueva kept pressure on the house, not letting up.

The Americans had all jumped off the road again, taking cover as best they could behind the meager shelter of rocks or trees. The second someone tried to raise up to shoot, bullets stitched across the ground toward them, pinging off the rocks with deadly ricochets, keeping them pinned down.

The body of the fallen man lay unmoving in the middle of the road. Jesse refused to think about who it was; there was time for that later. Now the job was to get his surviving brothers and Kimi out of this mess and back to the outpost. He and the Scouts took a knee behind yet another cluster of rocks, and focused their fire on the spur that rose just above the tree line to the north.

We won’t be enough. We’re not enough! Where’s fucking air?

Movement in the forest as a small band of enemy fighters scurried toward the body. The platoon on the road was helpless to stop it, cut off from their fallen brother by the wall of lead the shooters were laying down between them. The Taliban grabbed the body by the chest rack and began dragging him off.

One of them suddenly screamed and fell, hit by either his own friendly fire or an American who’d managed to get a shot off. The two other hostiles doggedly persisted, and Jesse saw it was only a few more yards until they’d disappear into the trees. Without another thought, Jesse surged to his feet and rushed directly toward them, M4 blazing.

Bullets shredded the tree limbs around him, but Jesse ran on. He’d die before he’d let those assholes carry off one of his brothers, their purpose to desecrate the body and post images of it on the Internet, devastating his family even more. A primal roar rose up in his chest and spilled through his lips, his single-minded goal to stop that from happening. The Taliban dropped the body and dove for cover from the hail of bullets Jesse rained on them in a furious burst.

In the next instant Jesse had to drop to the ground himself as an RPG exploded not far away, the enemy trying to keep him and the Scouts back. He could feel white-hot shrapnel pelting his thick uniform, and unbelievably one of the hostiles crawled along the ground toward the body, while more Taliban materialized in the forest behind him. The dead soldier was too big a prize to easily abandon, both for the PR opportunities he represented and the wealth of combat gear he carried.

Jesse started running again, determined to take those bastards to hell with him. Suddenly a cloud of white smoke bloomed between the body and the enemy trying to reach it, disorienting them, forcing them to fall back. Jesse sprinted toward his fallen brother. Here was his chance to retrieve him before those motherfuckers could lay hands on him again.

Gunfire cracked around him, and Jesse recognized the distinct bark of the Mark-48 coming from the ridgeline above as Villanueva abandoned shooting at the house and instead covered him. To a man, the mission had shifted from escape to recovering one of their own.

Everyone goes home. Everyone.

The battle was fierce on all sides as Jesse shot and ran. A second smoke grenade exploded, and Jesse could see out of the corner of his eye that Riley was loping toward him from the opposite side of the road, already pulling the pin on yet another one. Their eyes met in silent, intense communication. Riley lobbed the grenade, and they each took a knee, shooting into the haze, creating a withering crossfire. Screams from the enemy echoed around them as some were cut down, shredded into pulp.

The rest melted off into the forest, and Jesse and Riley headed toward the body, each grabbing a hold of his chest rack and dragging him unceremoniously off the road behind the shelter of some rocks. Smitty was there immediately, kneeling next to them, his gloved hands sure and swift as he made his assessment.

Jesse and Riley flanked him, covering him with suppressive fire while he worked. The crack of guns from the ridgeline stopped, and soon Jesse became aware of the reason: the beat of rotor blades from the sky as a pair of Apaches buzzed in, hosing down the cliffs with powerful bursts of their guns.

The platoon rose up as one, raking the forest with lead, hoping to pick off some of the fleeing enemy before they got away. With the immediate danger passed, Jesse turned his attention to the fallen man. He’d taken a round to the jaw, shattering it, and another to the forehead. His face was purple with trauma, eyes slitted, staring unseeingly up at the sky.

“He’s gone,” Smitty muttered, and Jesse at last glanced down at the name tape. Patterson, a twenty-one-year-old private first class on his first combat deployment. He was newly married, a baby on the way, and he’d proudly showed everyone the sonogram picture of his unborn son he kept tucked in the liner of his helmet.