Ghost Recon

THREE

With Rutang's cry still ringing in his earpiece, Mitchell launched himself into the air and crashed into a long puddle at the base of the hillside, the water rushing over his head and blinding him for a moment until he came up, rolled onto his right side, and returned fire on the three men now emerging from the trees.

He dropped one, panned toward the second, but was surprised to watch that guy stagger back, his chest bursting apart.

Off to Mitchell's right, Rutang was on his gut and directing steady fire toward that guy, emptying his magazine.

Mitchell clambered to his feet, just as the third and final thug charged toward Rutang's position, knowing that Rutang was reloading. Mitchell rushed to the next tree, froze, tracked the man, and fired, the first burst catching him in the leg. The terrorist began limping, turned back to face Mitchell, opened his mouth to scream, and swallowed Mitchell's next volley.

"Rutang? Looks clear for now. Hold it there, over."

"Roger that."

Taking in a deep breath, Mitchell charged from the tree, racing hard and fast toward Rutang's position on the other side of the narrow valley. He wove a serpentine path, feeling the heat of imaginary fire — until he didn't need his imagination anymore. Another squad of terrorists targeted him from above, AK-47s popping, the trees and mud suddenly alive with fire.

"Black Tiger 06, this is Ricochet, over!"

"Go ahead, Ricochet," answered Captain Yano, his voice faint as gunfire boomed in the background.

"Stand by to receive my new GPS, over."

"Give me a minute, Ricochet! We're still taking heavy, heavy fire!"

"Roger that. I'll signal in a few minutes, out."

Nearly out of breath, Mitchell slashed through a path heavily draped in vines, then came up behind Rutang's position and cried, "Rutang, coming up!"

"Okay, Scott."

Rutang lay on his side just behind a pair of small palm trees. He was using the secondary blade of his Blackhawk Mark 1 knife to slice open his pants leg. In his other hand was a big trauma bandage that he summarily slapped on the wound with a gasp and groan. Then he cursed and said, "That hurts."

"I know, buddy." Mitchell turned his gaze just ahead. "Billy, how you doing?"

Billy Bermudez, the team's assistant weapons sergeant, lay bare-chested on his back, his young face creased in pain, his M9 Beretta clutched tightly in his hand. A small incision had been made between his ribs and a tube inserted to relieve the pressure. That tube now dangled from the bloody hole.

"Scott," Billy began after a labored breath, "I'm not so good."

"He's got a hemopneumothorax, but the tube will help for now," said Rutang.

Billy shifted his shoulders. "Don't move me again. It hurts too much, man."

"I know," answered Mitchell. "But you'll take the pain." Mitchell locked gazes with the man.

Billy hesitated, then nodded. "Give me more pain."

Mitchell grinned weakly, then regarded Rutang. "You're first. Before they get any closer."

Rutang nodded, and Mitchell slid Rutang's arm over his shoulder and hoisted the man to his feet. Rutang began to pant, as though being burned. He held his breath, tried to put weight on his wounded leg, then exhaled a string of epithets.

"Just let it out, man." Mitchell was dealing with his own wound, but he wouldn't allow these men to detect any sign of weakness.

"Scott, I can't use the leg." Rutang's eyes were blood-shot, his face screwed up in a tight knot. "I'm not kidding, bro. I'm not kidding."

"That's okay. Here we go." Mitchell hoisted the man across his shoulders and took off, his arm throbbing, his knees beginning to give out as he started up the hill, working at a forty-five-degree angle to alleviate some of the pressure on his legs. He concentrated on his rhythm, just marching, breathing, nothing in the way.

Automatic weapons fire raked the hillside as he turned up toward a large outcropping of rock shaped like an arrowhead and painted a deep brown in the darkness.

Mitchell eyed the puffs and splashes on the hill as the rounds struck. At the same time, he pricked up his ears, listening for the locations of those shooters.

In fact, every sense was dialed to ten, the stench of the jungle and his own salty sweat making him grimace as the earth sank under his heavy boots.

"Almost there," he told Rutang.

Just on the other side of the outcropping lay a wide crevice with a flat floor and backed by another wall of rock. The area made for an excellent defensive position. They would have the high ground.

But getting them all there… Mitchell didn't want to think about it.

Once in the crevice, he slowly lowered himself to his knees and began to let Rutang slide off his shoulders.

"I'm down," cried Rutang.

"All right. Crawl back up near the top here and give me a little suppressing fire."

"I'm on it, Scott."

As Rutang got into position, Mitchell took in a long breath, rubbed the corners of his eyes, then gripped his carbine. He made a quick call back to Black Tiger 06, relaying their new GPS coordinates.

Then, for just a second, he glanced up at the stars. Not much of a religious man, he figured it couldn't hurt to ask that big commanding officer in the sky to cut him a little slack.

And in that second, a surprising peace came over him. He would get Billy and Carlos. He would bring them back. He would make it.

"Scott, I'm set."

"All right. Here goes nothing."

Mitchell took off, came around the outcropping, and swept across the hill in a full sprint, assuring himself that every step was good, that no bullet could touch him.

Blood dripped from his wounded arm, but he ignored it, swept a little wider, as the mud-covered hill boiled with even more incoming fire.

The drumming of all those rounds, the clinking of brass, and the screams in Arabic and Tagalog all funneled into a steady hum that no longer bothered him. In fact, the hum drove him harder, faster, back toward his fellow operators.

Mitchell stumbled down on his heels through a little washout, fell backward onto his rump, and began sliding along with the streaming mud, landing with a sharp thud on a bed of broken rocks. He crawled forward, looked up, and found himself a few meters from a little ditch.

He blinked, saw three silhouettes in the distance, then his vision focused. He had just found three more of his men who had taken up a position some twenty meters west from Rutang's original spot.

The senior medic, Red Cross, lay in a pool of blood surrounded by soaked bandages. Rumblefish had taken multiple rounds in the chest and was propped up on a tree, his eyes vacant. Rapper, it seemed, had been dragged to cover after being hit by that mortar, his legs chewed down to the bone. He'd bled out quickly, his face gone gray in the half-light.

Mitchell wanted to close his eyes and remember their last moments together, but without a second to spare, he fought off the urge to gag and raced through the trees toward Billy and Carlos. In his haste, he'd forgotten to warn Billy he was coming, and as he rounded the last bush, a gunshot cracked on the tree to his left.

"Billy!" he cried.

"Geez, Scott!"

He reached the man and dropped to one knee. "Sorry, my fault. Thanks for having bad aim."

"Forget me. Go check on Carlos. I've been calling, and he's not answering now. He's right behind those palms."

Carlos Alejandro, the assistant communications sergeant, was arguably the most eloquent and scholarly member of the team. He spoke expertly on world politics, religion, and philosophy and could schmooze with majors, colonels, and even generals better than most officers Mitchell knew. And because of that, he wasn't one to ever go silent.

Mitchell found the man lying supine, his head turned to the right, as though he were listening to the ground. His eyes were wide open. "Carlos?"

The sergeant turned his head, looked up, his gaze slightly unfocused. "They're moving."

"You can tell?"

"Yeah, I just heard them scream."

"And you didn't hear Billy calling?"

"I figured if I didn't answer, he'd finally shut up."

Mitchell shook his head and smirked. "Ready? I'm carrying you back."

"Not in my lifetime."

Carlos had been hit at least twice in one leg and had taken a serious round in the shoulder. There wasn't a single white spot on any of his bandages.

"Don't give me any BS. You're coming."

Feeling guilty about having to lift the man but without another choice, Mitchell helped Carlos up to his feet, the man balancing on one leg and moaning softly.

Behind them, Rutang opened up on the men across the valley, muzzles winking from both sides of the jungle now.

And just as Mitchell pulled Carlos around and got him onto his back, a rocket-propelled grenade flashed and went streaking overhead like a falling star, casting harsh white light over the jungle as it headed toward Rutang's position.

Mitchell screamed into the radio, trying to warn the man, but his words were cut short by the explosion.

Smoke billowed, and rocks plummeted, as Carlos said through a shudder, "They got him."

"No," snapped Mitchell.

He started off with Carlos, heading directly toward that blast.

"They got Rutang," Carlos repeated.

"Don't believe it."

Yet Mitchell was back to losing hope himself. Was it all for nothing: the mission, his military career, his whole damned life? Would he get his men up to the high ground, where they would be slaughtered?

Where was the Scott Mitchell he knew? The guy who envisioned himself a Special Forces operator because he wasn't meant to live an ordinary life?

Where was the Scott Mitchell who pressed on, despite the odds, who never said quit?

Captain Fang Zhi had seen the RPG light up the sky and had zoomed in with his night-vision goggles to spy one of the Americans carrying another on his back, running straight for the smoke and burning fronds.

It was an act of heroism, no doubt, and for once Fang appreciated that team. Again, it was not the soldiers who should be blamed; it was their leaders. They couldn't help what their commanders had done to them. They were only victims, and it was a pity — a real pity — that they would lose their lives for their superiors' mistakes.

That was a very courageous man down there. Fang could not see his face clearly, but he thought the soldier might be the ODA team sergeant, a man named Mitchell, whom Fang had deemed one of the most serious and accomplished combatants among the Americans.

A few shouts from the hillside toward the east sent Fang's gaze to that position, where he spotted the terrorist who had fired the first RPG balancing the tube on his shoulder, ready to launch another grenade directly at the American.

Unsure of what had come over him, perhaps the respect he had for the American's courage, Fang set down his NVGs and lifted a brand-new assault rifle he was fielding, the T91 carbine with attached Leupold scope. The rifle wouldn't be available to the regular military until next year, but the ROC Army had issued several prototypes to its best marksmen, men like Fang who had scored in the top 5 percent of the entire ROC Army, which of course meant that if Fang wanted that terrorist with the RPG dead, he would make it happen with a single round.

Fang raised the rifle, drew in a long breath and held it, then sighted the terrorist with the RPG.

He had a clean shot.

And the terrorist was most certainly a moment away from firing.

Yet Fang knew that if he took the shot, he would give up his team's position.

He thought of the American trying to save his wounded colleague. He thought of his own men, of the hubris of the American and Filipino commanders.

And he literally shuddered with indecision, the target shifting left and right of the crosshairs.

Fang blinked hard, took another breath, and reached his decision.