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Rapp grabbed the man’s hands and jerked back on them. Gaffar managed to resist and maintain his balance without too much difficulty. He was just shaken up. No damage done.
Rapp handed over one of the weapons. There wasn’t much time. The approaching engine was getting louder.
The Iraqi ran toward the cliff at the edge of the road while Rapp retreated into the desert on the other side. He glanced back and saw Gaffar scrambling to high ground, looking solid and making decent time. The glare of headlights was growing in intensity, increasing the sense of urgency but also allowing Rapp to move more quickly over the uneven ground. He crested a small sand drift and dropped to his stomach on the other side.
Aiming into the oncoming headlights wouldn’t be optimal, but Gaffar didn’t have to be all that precise. He just needed to put the fear of God into these pricks.
The truck rounded the corner fast enough to lift onto two wheels. It had barely managed to straighten out when Gaffar opened up on the windshield. Unfortunately, the men in back were well braced and the truck didn’t roll. Instead it just lost power and slowed as the driver slumped against the steering wheel. The men in the bed leapt out as the vehicle began to grind against the cliff. There were eight of them and all looked uninjured. By contrast, both men in the cab appeared to be either dead or incapacitated.
Four went for the cliff, taking cover directly below Gaffar, where they would be invisible to him. The others were running directly at Rapp. Gaffar took one out when he was still fifteen yards away, but it was a lucky shot. The truck’s headlights had been damaged by its impact with the cliff and Gaffar wasn’t going to be able to reliably hit crouched, running men in the moonlight.
Rapp’s earpiece crackled to life but this time it wasn’t Marcus Dumond. The voice belonged to Fred Mason, his go-to chopper pilot on operations like
these. “Mitch, I’m inbound and I’m seeing a lot of commotion to the southwest. Are you kicking up dust over there?”
“That’s an affirmative.”
“You need help?”
The three remaining men had closed to within ten feet and Rapp fired, sweeping across them. Two dropped immediately, but one made it a few more steps, before falling into the sand right in front of Rapp.
“No. Continue on your heading. Your cargo should be arriving at the LZ in about fifteen.”
“What about you?”
“We’ll play that by ear.”
The men huddled at the base of the cliff had seen the flashes of his rifle and began pummeling the dune Rapp was ensconced behind. The body in front of him jerked with bullet impacts and Rapp slithered back a few feet before starting to crawl south. After a few seconds, the guns went silent. The terrorists would have no way to confirm a kill and would want to conserve their ammunition. After covering fifty yards, Rapp slung the rifle across his back and darted across the road. The scramble up the cliff took longer than it should have, but he had to remain silent. Not because of the assholes behind the truck, though. Because of Gaffar. They had no way to communicate and he was going to be looking for anyone coming up behind him.
Rapp swung well into the desert before cutting back. Moving slowly and focusing on every footfall, it took another three minutes before he spotted Gaffar lying at the edge of the cliff. Rapp came up directly from behind and put a hand on the man’s back.
He jerked and started to spin, but Rapp held him to the ground. “Relax. It’s me.”
The Arab let out a long, wavering breath as Rapp dropped next to him. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“They’re not moving?”
“No. They seem suspiciously comfortable where they are. I think we can assume that they’ve called for help.”
Rapp nodded in the darkness. “How fast are you on foot?”
“Middle of my graduating class in the army.”
So not very fast.
Rapp activated his throat mike. “Marcus, you copy?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Have you got a bead on us?”
“You’re kind of hard to miss.”
“Do we have incoming?”
“Four trucks. All full. ETA to your position is probably ten minutes.”
“Can you reliably track a man in the desert?”
