Choke Point

FORTY-EIGHT

It was nearly midnight, and Mitchell called to give Ross another update on the Ocean Cavalier’s ETA, now moved up to 2:41 a.m. local time.

Ross downplayed the exact nature of their situation, which was to say he did not lie but did not volunteer the full truth. He told Mitchell that Naseem had been killed and they were en route to the second safe house and would be there well before the ship’s arrival. There was a rebel attack in progress, but local forces seemed to be getting the upper hand.

Mitchell was pleased, but some suspicion had leaked into his tone. ‘Do you need help?’

‘Negative.’

If Ross requested backup, he would, in his mind, be admitting defeat. At the same time, if he deliberately endangered his men to protect his ego and reputation with the GST, then he was a fool and didn’t deserve the job. He was reminded of a quote from his favorite American president, Theodore Roosevelt, who had once said, ‘Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.’

Incoming fire forced Ross to cut short his update to Mitchell and put Kozak to work on some troops strung out along the highway and several snipers posted on the roof of a hotel. Ross ducked into his hatch as the rounds pinged and popped, and Kozak was going to town on the fifty, trying to silence the bastards, brass arcing over the APC’s roof and tumbling over the sides. Ross couldn’t pry any more speed out of the engine, barely doing 60 kilometers per hour, the steering yoke growing hot in his hands.

He hadn’t forgotten about the roadblock ahead, lying just before the Gate of Aden, a stone bridge that spanned the soaring mountains on either side of the road.

‘Pepper, what do you got?’ Ross asked.

After leaving the mosque, they’d called in both drones, but just before commandeering the M113, Ross had ordered one UAV redeployed. Pepper, who’d sworn he was okay, was now monitoring that drone from the troop compartment, and his report was about as morale-lifting as warm beer and stale pretzels:

‘Well, ladies, we still have four Panhards in the defile, which means we’re staring down the barrels of four ninety-millimeter guns. Looks like three squads on the roadside now, with some RPGs and even a few mortars — although there might as well be a thousand dismounts because those guns will blow the shit out of us before we get within a hundred meters of the checkpoint. They’ll need to call in some archeologists to dig us up and identify our remains.’

‘I say we go in there and kill those bastards with our good looks,’ 30K said. ‘Sorry, Pepper, we don’t need you.’

Pepper chuckled under his breath. ‘Okay, bro, you’re the scout. We’ll send you up there and see what happens.’

‘Glad you guys can joke around,’ snapped Kozak. ‘What the hell are we gonna do?’

‘Relax, gentlemen,’ Ross said. ‘The fact is, Pepper’s right. There’s no way we’ll breach that checkpoint. But we didn’t borrow a tracked vehicle for nothing. There’s a dirt road leading off into the mountains about a klick before the roadblock, just before a curve in the road so they shouldn’t see us when we duck out. We’ll ride this bitch into the mountains as far as we can, then if we have to, we’ll dismount and hike the rest of the way. It’s the best we can do, but I think we might reach the port in time. Are you in?’

‘Hell, yeah, I’m in,’ said Kozak.

‘You Navy guys are all right,’ 30K said.

‘I’m not in the Navy anymore,’ Ross reminded him. ‘I’m a ground pounder, same as you.’

‘Captain, that’s a good plan,’ said Pepper. ‘But we’re gonna burn a lot of fuel once we start climbing.’

‘I know,’ answered Ross. ‘But like I said, we’ll keep her going for as long as we can. So … hang on … it’s time for a little off-roading.’

Ross took a deep breath and squinted at the highway ahead, the flickering streetlights, the section of the city now lying dark and without power, along with that turn he’d noted snaking off to their left, the dirt fanning across the road. He was slowly earning the team’s trust. Now all he had to do was keep them alive.

Kozak was trembling.

As they turned off the highway and broke on to the dirt road, the M113 bouncing hard over some deep cuts in the path, he held up his hand and confirmed the fact.

What was the matter with him? He was better than this. Braver. But he kept hearing something Pepper had told him when they’d first met: ‘If you spend enough time on patrol, you develop a sixth sense. You’re out there just a few minutes, and you already know if it’s going to be a good day or a bad day. You can’t explain it. But you can feel it. People on the West Coast talk about earthquake weather, or how you can smell when a quake is coming. It’s kinda like that.’

Consequently, that powerful sense of foreboding had rested its heavy palms on Kozak’s shoulders, and he knew he had to wrench free from it, like a boxer ripping himself off the ropes.

The one thing Ross had failed to mention was that traveling into the mountains would turn them into a lone heat source against the sheer rock faces, and any gunship pilot looking for a target of opportunity might decide to unload his rocket pods. The Yemeni Army was, to the best of Kozak’s knowledge, not using any Blue Force-like tracking system that would automatically tell that pilot they were friendlies, and even if he assumed the M113 belonged to government forces, he could mistake them for deserters or even make the correct assumption that the vehicle had been, ahem, borrowed. Kozak’s shoulders slumped even more now. He began to shiver through his breath.

‘Pepper, this is Kozak. Are you scanning for aircraft?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, they’ve got four gunships running CAS, spending most of their time taking out some APCs and small armor, but nothing coming this way, not yet anyway.’

‘Cool.’ Kozak glanced over at Ross, who gave him a quick nod, as if to say, We’ll be fine.

They were kicking up one hell of a dust trail, the tracks grinding through the hard dirt and rock, Ross relying upon night vision to navigate around the larger rocks and keep them on the trail. But the farther they got from the road, the more vulnerable they became, Kozak knew, and his paranoia increased exponentially.

‘Still clear?’ he asked Pepper.

‘I’ll sound the alarm if the drone picks up anything, bro.’

‘Okay, stay sharp, man.’

‘What do you think I’m doing back here?’

‘Sorry. I just … I kinda like flying the drone myself.’

‘I noticed. Don’t worry, I won’t miss anything.’

‘Thanks.’

The dirt road veered off to the left, and the grade increased dramatically to perhaps ten or twelve per cent. The engine’s drone deepened for a moment then became much higher pitched as it strained against the slope.

Kozak stole another look at Ross. The captain’s face was hard and unreadable. He’d had a plan and was working that plan like a machine. So this was the way to develop fierce loyalty, to get your men to follow you into hell. You were always thinking two steps ahead of them and kept your emotions in check. Your commitment and courage allowed them to believe in you, the mission, and themselves. Kozak still had a lot to learn.

He pricked up his ears. Was that the engine straining again? The tracks crushing more rocks?

Or was that a helicopter approaching?

Down below in the troop compartment, 30K was seated next to Pepper and staring over his shoulder at the UAV’s remote. Pepper’s breath was a little strained, and 30K suspected the man might have cracked a rib or two but wasn’t saying.

‘Hey, Pepper, before when I said you gotta lead the straight and narrow, I wasn’t kidding.’

‘What?’

‘Seriously, you scared the shit out of me back there.’

‘What’re you talking about? I got banged up by some rocks.’

‘Dude, listen to me, you’re the most experienced guy we got. You’re the best shot. We can’t lose you.’

Pepper laughed under his breath. ‘Okay, I’ll try not to die.’

‘Dude, I’m serious.’

‘You’re just overtired.’

‘Look, every time we go out, I say the same thing: if Pepper buys it, I’m screwed.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because like I said, if they can kill our best guy, then I don’t stand a chance.’

‘What about Ross? He’s got more experience than me.’

‘He don’t count.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he just doesn’t.’

Pepper frowned. ‘Uh, you okay?’

‘Look, I want you to stay close. No more risks, all right? I’ll tell the captain we need to pair up from now on.’

‘Where’s this coming from? Maybe that pizza fried your brain. What’s the matter with you?’

30K shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But I can’t shake it. So just do me a favor? You stick with me.’

Pepper sighed, failing to hide his grimace. ‘Jimmy, you’re a good kid, but if I had a daughter, I still wouldn’t let her date you.’

30K was about to smile when the drone’s proximity alarm beeped, and Pepper’s glance riveted on the remote. He lifted his voice into his boom mike: ‘Kozak, you son of a bitch, you jinxed us.’