Cliff Ryder - Aim And Fire

Sergeant Elidondo radioed all the teams one last time, making sure they were in position, then gave the order.

“Execute, execute, execute!”

The truck lunged over the dune, heading off-road to ram a portion of the fence. Immediately they began taking fire from the guardhouse. What looked like blasts from assault rifles ricocheted off the front armor and bulletproof glass of the truck. “Goddamn, they put out the welcome mat for us!”

Tracy heard the driver exclaim. She heard the SWAT snipers on another channel, and as she watched, one of the riflemen was taken out with a well-placed shot into the viewport.

“Be advised, be advised, there are gunmen on the roof.

Repeat, gunmen on the roof, Team Bravo,” the ops officer radioed.

“Roger that—see three emplacements, two front, one back. Will disembark between all three—they’ll never know what hit ’em.”

The truck screamed down the hill, but when it was about thirty yards from the fence, Tracy heard a loud explosion, followed by a column of dirt and flame erupting under the truck’s front tire. The vehicle tilted on two wheels, and for a moment it looked as if the driver might have been able to bring it back down upright, but then it rolled over on its side, crashing to the ground with an earthshaking impact and skidding to a stop.

Tracy heard everything as it went down.

“Team Alpha, Team Alpha, what is your status? Can anyone hear me in there, over?”

“Tag Team One to Base, have eliminated one guard in the gate post, over.”

“This is Air One. We are in initial descent—what the hell was that, over? Jesus Christ! They’ve got heavy weapons up here. Repeat, heavy weapons, possibly .50-caliber rifles.”

A huge report echoed over the small valley and the helicopter pilot yelled into his mike, “Base, this is Air One.

We are taking fire from heavy weapons on the roof. Repeat, taking heavy fire—” A scream came from the helicopter, and the steady pitch of the rotors became labored and whining. “Air One to Base, Air One to Base. Mayday, Mayday, we are going down. Repeat, we are going down!

Return fire, dammit, return fire!”

Throughout it all, Briggs remained as calm as anyone Tracy had ever seen. “Roger that, Air One. Can you make it outside the perimeter and regroup with Team Charlie, over?”

Tracy tore her gaze away from the monitors and looked out the front window to see bright flashes flare on the roof, followed by a series of concussive reports that over-powered everything else in the area. The helicopter, its rotors laboring to keep it aloft, sideslipped and lumbered away from the roof of the building, smoke trailing from its lower fuselage, no longer the swift, powerful bird of war it had been only a few seconds ago.

“Flash-bangs to cover their withdrawal. Good idea.”

Nate shielded his eyes as he watched the debacle unfold.

They didn’t hear a crash or see an explosion, which made Tracy dare to believe the pilot had put the bird down safely.

“TacCom, this is Alpha. We are pinned down approximately thirty yards from the gate. Lofgrend is injured and cannot move—oh, shit. RPG, there is an RPG at the main gate!”

“I’m on it.” This came from one of the snipers, followed by a single gunshot a few moments later. “RPG is down.”

“…Thanks, Tag Team. We still need evac ASAP….”

Tracy shielded her eyes from the glow of the firefight and tried to make sense out of everything that was happening. The well-thought-out plan was disintegrating before her eyes. The terrorists were dug in, and it might be hours, perhaps days until they could get a force inside, giving their adversaries plenty of time to get that rocket off the ground. They needed to do something immediately. But what?

“This is bulllshit!” Nate got up and stalked to the back doors of the truck. Tracy followed, only dimly aware of the SWAT officer trying to regroup the remaining men.

“All Border Patrol, on me! Form up right here.” In less than thirty seconds Nate had a dozen men and women around him. “All right, this is what we’ve been expecting ever since 9/11. We’ve got terrorists back on our home soil, and we’re gonna take ’em out. Everyone wearing vests, raise your hands.” A half-dozen arms shot up. “All right, you’re with me in the insertion team. Everyone else, you’ll follow behind and extract the SWAT team in the truck.”

“Hey, who says you get to be the hero here?” Billy Travis shouldered his way to the front of the group.

“I don’t have time to bulldog you, Travis. Either you got a vest and you’re with me, or you don’t and you’re on second team. That’s the way it is.”

Travis thumped his chest, revealing the bulky outline of a vest under his shirt. “I never come to a party unprepared,” he said.

“Well, get these boys into an SUV and wait for my signal. All right, people, mount up. Use channel 26 for our comm. Move out in thirty seconds.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Tracy grabbed Nate’s arm. “What are you going to do?”

“Try to turn this cluster-fucked op around before it’s too late.” Nate headed back to the large SWAT van. “You can sit this one out back here—it’s liable to get real nasty down there,” he said.

Frowning at the suggestion, Tracy thumped her chest, too. “In case you didn’t notice, I raised my hand back there. Let’s go.”

Nate ran to the driver’s side of the SWAT van and jumped up into the seat, twisting the ignition key. Briggs looked over in surprise. “What in the hell are you doing?”

“Officer, I’m commandeering this vehicle in the name of the United States government,” Tracy said as she slapped a fresh magazine in her SIG Sauer and pulled the slide back. “You can stay on or get off—the choice is yours.”

The lanky officer grabbed a lethal-looking HK MP-5N, rammed a 30-round stick magazine into the receiver and cocked the weapon. “Those are my people dying out there.

Let’s hit it.”

Tracy nodded, and turned back to Nate. “Go!”

“Briggs, tell your back-door team to make their entrance in thirty seconds if they haven’t done so already.

And give me covering fire from all your snipers—I need those snipers on the roof to keep their heads down for a minute!” Nate bellowed.

“You got it!” Briggs began issuing orders to the rest of the SWAT teams on the perimeter.

“Extraction team, ready! Insertion team, ready! Go, go go!”

With that, Nate floored the gas pedal, making the huge van lurch up the rise between two of the sniper teams, who were firing steadily at the roof of the compound. The tall, black, armored behemoth reached the crest of the hill and seemed to pause a moment before plunging down into the valley of hellfire. As soon as it did, bullets began ricochet-ing off the windshield from several directions.

“What happens if a .50-caliber round comes at us?”

Tracy asked the SWAT officer, who had buckled a helmet on. He grabbed a spare and quickly adjusted the inner webbing, then held it out to her.

“If it does, don’t worry about it—you’ll probably be dead before you even know what hit you.”

“Glad I asked.” Grabbing the Kevlar helmet, Tracy jammed it on her head and hunkered down behind Nate’s seat, all too aware that it would be little protection. She braced herself for the impact of a huge bullet, but it didn’t come—apparently the snipers were doing their job.

“Extraction team, as soon as I pass the truck, get to it and get them out of there!”

“Copy that, Nate.”

“Insertion team, on me. Follow me through the hole.”

Travis’s voice came over the radio. “What hole? I don’t see any hole!”

“The one I’m about to make, goddammit!” Nate goosed another burst of speed out of the van, pushing it to more than fifty-five miles per hour. Tracy and Briggs swayed back and forth as the vehicle lurched forward even faster.