Chapter 15 - The Echo on the Frequency
The wind screamed in my ears like a dying animal as my boots found the icy lip of the drainage flume.
Gordon was right. The ancient concrete channel cut straight through the spine of the granite outcropping, creating a natural trench that masked my approach from the mortar crew above. But the price was terrifying: the outer wall of the flume had collapsed decades ago, leaving a narrow, eight-inch ledge of slick black ice hanging over a void of absolute darkness.
I didn't look down. I couldn't.
With my back pressed hard against the frozen granite wall, carbine held across my chest, I sidestepped along the ledge. Every gust of the seventy-knot wind threatened to tear me from the mountain, freezing my fingers inside my gloves until I could barely feel the trigger guard.
Ten yards. Twenty yards.
Above me, I could hear the harsh shouts of the enemy fighters in Dari, the metallic clatter of mortar shells being pulled from wooden crates. They were preparing a rapid-fire salvo to wipe out the crash site once and for all.
I reached the end of the flume. A snow-covered ramp led directly onto the rear of the granite shelf.
I took one breath, kicked through the drift, and stepped out onto the platform.
The three men around the mortar never had a chance to react.
My carbine spoke in three controlled, double-tap bursts. The suppressed cracks were muffled by the roar of the blizzard. The figures collapsed into the snow beside their weapon, the mortar shell clattering harmlessly against the frozen rocks.
"TOC, Valkyrie Actual," I panted into my comm, my breath coming in ragged, white plumes. "Mortar neutralized. High ground secure."
Back in the command center, five thousand miles away, a deafening cheer erupted through the open frequency—dozens of voices shouting in relief. But above the celebration, I could hear the ragged, choking sobs of an old man who had spent the last two minutes holding his breath in the dark.
"Good hit, Colonel..." Gordon wept over the radio, the professional facade entirely shattered. "Good hit... God, you're brilliant..."
"Don't start celebrating yet, General," I interrupted, dropping a green chemical flare onto the edge of the shelf. The emerald light cast long, eerie shadows across the snow. "Keller! Move the litters to the shelf! The bird can't land down in that ravine, but they can hover-taxi to this ledge!"
"Moving now, ma'am!" Keller answered.
Within three minutes, the team had hauled the seven survivors up the winding goat path to the mortar shelf. Diaz immediately set to work stabilizing the airman, whose pulse was dangerously faint.
"Pave Hawk is inbound!" Keller shouted, pointing through the storm.
Two piercing white landing lights appeared out of the blizzard, cutting through the swirling snow like twin spears of light. The massive helicopter moved slowly, fighting the vicious downdrafts, its wheels hovering inches above the rocky ledge as the crew chief kicked down the extraction net.
"Load them! First bird, go!" I ordered, helping Diaz lift the front handles of the litter.
We loaded the three critical casualties into the cabin first. The crew chief gave me a thumbs-up, yelling something lost to the wind, as the walking wounded scrambled aboard behind them.
"Colonel, get in!" Keller shouted, grabbing the frame of the door, his boots hanging over the ledge. "We're at maximum gross weight! She can't stay on the shelf!"
"Take them up!" I yelled back, stepping back into the snow. "Take them to the carrier deck! There's an auxiliary bird three minutes out for the security detail!"
"Colonel—"
"That is an order, Master Sergeant! Wheels up!"
The pilot dipped the nose, the roar of the turbines deafening as the Pave Hawk lifted gracefully away from the shelf, banking hard toward the south and carrying Vanguard Six back toward safety, medical care, and life.
Keller and three operators from my detail remained on the ledge with me, kneeling in the snow with weapons trained on the darkness below.
"Secondary bird is four minutes out, Colonel," Keller reported, reloading his carbine with a fresh magazine. "We hold this shelf, we're home free."
I stood on the edge of the granite outcropping, looking out into the pitch-black valley. The adrenaline that had carried me through the last two hours was beginning to recede, leaving behind a deep, bone-weary ache that settled into every old wound, every scar I had earned in twenty years of silent service.
I reached up to key my radio to report our status to Staer.
Before my finger touched the button, a low, mechanical rumble echoed from the gorge below.
It wasn't the sound of approaching helicopters. It was the heavy, rhythmic clatter of diesel engines and steel tracks biting into frozen stone.
Down in the ravine, piercing through the snowstorm, two massive yellow headlights flickered on, followed by three more pairs.
Armored personnel carriers. Reinforced with heavy machine guns, cutting off the southern exit of the valley, moving directly toward the base of our ridgeline.
"TOC..." I said, my voice dead calm as I raised my binoculars to my eyes. "This is Valkyrie Actual. We have a problem."
"Adele?" Gordon’s voice cut through instantly, frantic, alert. "What do you see?"
"Mechanized infantry platoon entering the southern approach," I answered, watching the lead vehicle's turret rotate toward our ridgeline. "They have thirty-millimeter autocannons. If that secondary Pave Hawk tries to hover in this bowl, those cannons will tear it out of the sky before the wheels touch."
A suffocating silence fell over the frequency.
"Call off the secondary bird," I said quietly. "We can't exfil by air. We're going to have to hold this ridgeline on foot until the weather clears for close air support."
"Adele, no," Gordon breathed, his voice breaking into a desperate plea that echoed across the five-thousand-mile wire. "You have no heavy ordnance! You can't fight armor with carbines!"
"We don't have a choice, General," I said, sliding the selector switch of my rifle to semi-automatic. "Tell mother I’m sorry I missed her birthday."
May you like
"Adele, listen to me!" Gordon shouted, and for the first time in his life, there was no arrogance, no pride, only the raw, brilliant mind of a legendary tactician fighting for the only thing in the universe that mattered to him. "Do not engage! Listen to my voice! Look at the rock face behind your left shoulder—"
The first thirty-millimeter shell hit the base of our shelf, showering us in fire and rock, and the radio screamed with static.