Ghost Read online

  The bomb bay doors opened faster than the eye could follow. Without warning there was a blast of wind that filled the bomb bay.

  "Tallyho!" the pilot said over the platoon net. "Good luck!"

  The first jumper was Vahn, as the lightest of the group. As the clamps let go he felt the ram against his back thrust him out, and the foam rubber banging against him and then dropping away in the wind, and the wash from the B-2 tumbled him into the maelstrom.

  He tucked into a fetal position until he was free, then opened out into a full spread, looking around with the Night Observation Device. With the NOD he could see that there was ground down there but nothing else. There was a high bank of thin clouds they'd have to drop through to get a view of the target. Then he saw a flash of light, rising from the ground, that erupted from the clouds and tracked across the sky. He suddenly realized he was actually seeing a SAM missile targeting the B-2.

  "SAM in the air!" he yelled on the tacnet, wondering just what good that would do.

  He glanced over his shoulder and could see most of the team in the air behind him. He couldn't pick out who was who, but a quick check revealed seven members at least. Some of them were picking up to him pretty quick.

  The ascending SAM was moving so quickly it was more like a laser than a missile, but suddenly it banked off to the right and went straight vertical before exploding like a firework.

  "Lost track when the bomb bay closed," the OIC said over the net. "Glad it didn't track on one of us. Form up in a stack. We're angling southwest."

  The jumpers started to form their stack, maintaining separation, when Roman suddenly broke the silence.

  "What in the hell is . . ."

  Vahn looked around and realized he could see something approaching at their altitude and at a high rate of speed. It looked like—

  "INCOMING!" Chief Adams screamed.

  "Bulldog Four, Bulldog Four, vector bogie, angle one seven five, Angels thirty," the AWACs technician said, then changed to intercom. "Sir, I've got a Mig-27 closing on Bulldog Four, but I'm getting a weird intermittent on my screen in the area."

  The group commander in charge of the Aleppo patch brought up the screen and gave it a quick read. He was an experienced officer with hours of managing mock dogfights and this one was going more or less like training. The Syrian fighter pilots were generally chosen for their social position, rather than their skill. For all of that, they were probably the best the third world had to offer. Which simply meant that the F-15s and F-16s of the Combat Air Patrols were having a harder time killing them. So far, no American plane had been successfully engaged by either the Syrian pilots or their much more dangerous SAMs. But anything could change that so he gave the screen a close study, noting the marker for the F-15 and the intermittent radar tracks. He puzzled over those, hooking one for closer scrutiny, then noted the altitude change on the nearly motionless tracks, and blanched.

  "Bulldog Four! Bulldog Four! Break left and dive! Say again, break left and dive!"

  Bulldog Four was an F-15C, the best damned fighter in the world in Major Mike Speare's opinion and he was the best damned pilot in the world. And he didn't have anything on his threat receptors. But he was an experienced fighter pilot and he'd learned to trust the AWACs people in the bones, so without a thought he broke left as hard as he could handle, pulling the Gs up to fifteen and turning his head right to see if he could spot the threat. What he saw, literally, made him piss his pants. Mostly it was just two very wide eyeballs above a pressure mask and a heavily rigged figure dropping through the air. The wing of his F-15 missed the descending HALO jumper by less than five meters.

  "Holy shit!" he bellowed. "I almost hit a fucking jumper!"

  "All aircraft, be aware," the AWACs mission officer said. "SEAL HALO team dropping near point 1148, currently Angels 32. All aircraft, avoid 1148 for five minutes and do not fire into region. Bulldog Four, turn right, descend to Angels Twenty and engage bandit point 1273 Angels Fourteen."

  "Bandit locked," Speare said, calming. "Go Slammer."

  Meat Two, the lowest jumper in the stick, had been nearly hit by the F-15 and the wash from it picked up him and Vahn and spun the two of them through the air like tops. The stick broke apart as it entered the wash, all of the jumpers going into out-of-control condition, which meant being whirled like leaves in a tornado.

  "Ruck loose," Roman called as his rucksack bulging with ammunition and gear broke away from its rigging straps and dropped to the end of its descent line. Since he was spinning through the air at the time, the momentum of the heavy rucksack turned him into something like a bolo, spinning horizontally in the air with blood rushing into his head with the building G forces.

  "Holy shit!" Simmons shouted when he saw the ruck coming towards him. He desperately flopped into a position he'd never heard of, basically on his side and banking as well as he could, and saw the ruck flash past his face. He heard a grunt and looked over to see Meat One spinning off, limp and out of control, and the ruck dropping. It had apparently hit the Meat full force and lost most of its momentum.

  "Meat One, you read?" The junior NCO got back into position and delta tracked towards the meat who was descending on his back.

  "This is Vahn. Meat Two is either dead or unconscious from the miss."

  "Ditto Meat One," Simmons said, catching up to the jumper and trying to get a look at him. His mask was still attached, which was all that he could say at the moment. "He got hit by Roman's ruck. Roman, you there?"

  "Trying to catch my damned ruck," Roman gasped. "Okay, it's official. This job is just too fucking exciting sometimes."

  "Vahn, Simmons, hold onto the Meats until we get to opening, then release. They'll drop towards the target and the chute will pop on its own at Angels Two. We'll try to find them and recover them after the mission. Team Check."

  "Chief." "Simmons." "Vahn." "Roman, and I have to say that I take it back, this was a bad idea." "Sherman, ditto." "Meat Three, here. With all due respect, ditto."

  They raced through the clouds, descending at nearly 150 mph, and Vahn finally got a look at the ground. They were following the OIC, who was tracking on GPS, but it didn't matter anymore. Below twenty thousand feet now, they could see the target and even see the smoke still billowing from the fires in the underground facility.

  "Be advised, that smoke is hazardous to your health," the OIC said. "We're going to go in to the south, just inside the perimeter fence. Spirit in the Sky, I want a JDAMs at point North 23145 East 14315, now, now, now. Given forty seconds, we should be on the ground just after it lands."

  "Sir, this is Meat Three."

  "Go ahead, Johnson."

  "I would like to state that I made a serious mistake when I didn't ring out in BUDS, sir, with all due respect."

  There were chuckles on the team net and the OIC nodded his head.

  "I think we're all with you there, son," the OIC said. "With the possible exception of the chief."

  "Nope," the chief replied. "Gotta agree. This is even worse than 201." An air-to-air missile flashed by below them and they could see the silhouette of a Soviet style fighter, banking and climbing over the target. "Much worse."

  "Mr. Ghost?"

  Mike looked up into a fairly beatific face and a pair of really shapely breasts and smiled.

  "Thank you," he muttered. "Valhalla is real."

  "You passed out," Britney said. "They ran away again. What do we do?"

  "Get in the room," Mike whispered, trying to move and realizing that he just didn't have the blood left. He was surprised he could think and his vision was going again. "I'm done. All of you, in the room. Get guns. Amy show. Hold the door. I hear the angels call my name . . ."

  "He's out again," Britney said. "Thumper, help me drag him into the room."

  Between the two of them they got him into the torture room and laid out by the dais. Then, with a great deal of trepidation, Britney picked up one of the rifles.

  "How do you use this?" she asked Amy
.

  "First of all," Amy said carefully, "you put the safety on."

  "What's a safety?"

  "Coming up on pull," the OIC called. "Spread the stack."

  The thickening air was noticeable as they descended and they had actually slowed. But they were still approaching the ground rapidly. The jumpers rotated away from each other and spread out, Vahn and Simmons moving to position and then more or less tossing the two dead or unconscious jumpers away.

  "And . . . pull," the OIC called.

  Almost simultaneously, seven chutes opened and began banking towards the darkened facility below.

  "Oh, Spirit in the Sky," the OIC caroled. "Where's our JDAMs?"

  As he asked the ground below was riven by a massive explosion and the shockwave slammed into their bodies.

  "Thank you, Great Spirit," Roman said.

  "Head for the impact point," the OIC called. "Ready personals. We're going straight in."

  There were a series of screams as a massive explosion shook the room and concrete dust drifted down. Amy rolled into the room, her hands clamped over her ears and screaming in pain.

  "Amy?" Britney yelled, grabbing her by the arms. "Are you okay?"

  "Ow FUCK!" Amy shouted, shaking her head. "The blast must have gotten magnified by the corridor. That really hurt!" She rolled back into the doorway, shaking her head and clearly disoriented. "Babe! Flares!" she yelled, pointing down the corridor. "Flares, Babe!"

  Babe picked up three of the flares and triggered them one by one, throwing them to land expertly right at the base of the stairs.

  "Are you going to be okay?" Babe asked. When there wasn't any response she tapped Amy on the shoulder and got a rifle pointed at her. "Hey! Watch it! Are you going to be okay?"

  "What?" Amy yelled, shaking her head.

  "Can you hear me?" Babe shouted, pointing at her ear.

  "Barely." Amy rolled back into the doorway and shook her head, leaning her chin on the rifle.

  Britney's head came up at a series of popping noises. They sounded like guns, but not the ones that had been firing. Instead of the way the soldiers had been shooting, ripping off long bursts, this was short and sharp, more the way that Ghost fired.

  "What's that?" she asked as one of the long rips started then stopped at a series of short bursts.

  "I don't know," Babe said, then looked at Amy who was staring intently down the corridor. "AMY!"

  The girl looked up and Babe squatted down by her.

  "THERE'S FIRING," she shouted, pointing to the landing. "DIFFERENT FIRING. NOT THE SAME GUNS."

  Amy looked confused for a second and then her face split in a grin.

  "LIKE POPCORN?" she yelled.

  "Yeah," Babe replied, nodding.

  "STAY HERE," Amy said. "BE MY EARS."

  "Okay," Babe said with a nod. But she picked up one of her grenades, just in case.

  "Holy. Fucking. Shit," Roman said. The area outside the entrance was torn by the blast of the JDAMs, which had caught some of the Syrian commandos in its path. But it wasn't the torn bodies that got that expletive out of him. It was the sight inside the doorway. There was a landing and then a series of steps down to the left. Then another landing and a right angle turn. The second landing was, literally, covered with bodies. There was nowhere for a person to set a foot without stepping on at least one body and in some cases more than one. Some of them seemed to have been torn by blasts as well. The entire landing was drenched in blood, the floor covered in it, the walls splashed with it, even the ceiling. "This is so cool! It's like . . . Doom or something!"

  "What?" the OIC called. The team had stacked on the door to the entrance, while two SEALs pulled rear security and Roman was supposed to be probing, not standing there gawking.

  Roman actually paused, speechless, for a moment and then shrugged.

  "It's just fucking bodies, sir," he replied. "I mean, lots and lots of bodies, piled up on each other. Like a Doom game scene, up to your knees in gore. It's so fucking cool."

  "Are there stairs?" the OIC asked calmly.

  "Uh, yeah," Roman replied, stepping into the landing. "That's covered in bodies too." The area was actually too brightly lit for his NODs, so he flipped them up onto his helmet. That, in a way, made the scene even cooler, since the light was red and made the stairs look like they went straight to hell. He walked down the steps until he got to the edge of the bodies, just above the landing, and quickly peeked around the corner and ducked back. This came very close to getting his face shot off—a round actually hit his NODs, ripping them off his helmet.

  "HEY!" he yelled. "NAVY SEALS. WE'RE HERE TO GET YOU O . . . OUT! SO PLEASE DON'T SHOOT US, OKAY?"

  "SEALs," Babe said, pushing down on the barrel. "SEALs! Don't shoot, Amy!"

  Amy laid the gun down on the floor and bent her head over it, nodding.

  "SEALs!" Babe shouted. "Come ahead. We won't shoot."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Roman leaned around the corner again, then ducked back. When there wasn't another shot he stepped onto the bodies on the landing, watching his footing and trying to see who had been shooting at him. He realized that the attackers had been royally fucked in this engagement. There was no way to see beyond the flare light. They were sitting ducks to anybody in the darkness. He flicked on the tac light on his M-4 and flashed it down the corridor and stopped when it revealed an open door. A door with one naked girl lying on the floor in the prone position, her head bent over an AK lying on the floor, and another leaning out the door and waving him forward. He looked at the tableau for a moment and then quickly turned the light away along with his head.

  "Sir," he said. "We have a problem."

  "Say again, Roman?" the OIC replied. "You're broken."

  "We have a problem," Roman said, stepping back up the stairs. "None of these girls have any clothes on."

  "That was in the brief, Roman," the chief growled. "You should have been listening instead of high-fiving Sherman."

  "Maybe I kinda caught that in the brief, Chief," Roman said. "But they Don't. Have. Any. Clothes. On."

  "Roman," the chief said. "Get the fuck down there and . . . Oh, fuck it, I'm headed to your position."

  The chief stumped down the steps, ignoring the bodies except to watch his footing and, at one point, catch a short sleigh ride as a pile slid downward, then flicked on his taclight and used it to negotiate his way down the body-strewn hallway.

  "This your doing?" he asked the girl slumped over the AK.

  "Hers and Ghost's," the other girl in the doorway said. "She can't hear, that blast got her pretty bad. I'm Babe, at least that's what Ghost called me, for Babe Ruth since I was throwing grenades."

  Even the chief had to admit he was having a hard time not ogling Babe's well-formed breasts, but he mostly looked her in the eye.

  "Did a good job," the chief said gruffly. "Where's this Ghost character?"

  "He's . . . really badly shot up," Babe said, pulling on the chief's arm. "He's over here."

  The chief negotiated his way past a couple of the girls who were around the doorway and bent down over the blood-covered figure. It took him a moment to place the face and then he laughed. A real, honest belly laugh. He leaned down and checked the pulse at the carotid, then took Ghost's chin in his hands and shook his head back and forth.

  "Wake up, Ghost," the chief said loudly. "Quit fucking off on the job!"

  "Wha . . ." Mike said, his eyelids fluttering open. "Adams?"

  "Yeah, Ghost." The chief chuckled. "What the fuck are you doing here? Don't you know this is a job for professionals not Ass-boys?"

  "Fuck you, Ass-boy Two," Mike muttered.

  "You stay with us," the chief said, smiling. He dropped his assault ruck and pulled out an IV bag and catheter. With quick, sure, movements he inserted the IV and then handed the bag to Babe.

  "Either hold this or get someone to hold it," Chief Adams said. Then he started digging deeper. And out came a box of tampons and another of maxipads. He
heard a loud snort from behind him and saw the girl on the door, AK now at port, shaking her head.

  "Where's the condoms?" she shouted slurrily. "Extra large, right? Unlubricated?"

  "We're not doing underwater demo," the chief shouted back, grinning. He pulled out a pair of bandage scissors and started cutting away Ghost's clothes. As he'd come to a major hole, he'd either slap one of the maxipads on it or insert a tampon. From time to time Ghost would moan, but he kept working until most of the major external bleeding was stopped. By the time he was done with that, other members of the team had been deployed in and around the room and the OIC strode in, shaking his head.

  "Ladies," the OIC said, looking around the room and trying to meet the girls' eyes by the light of the flares and some taclights that had been pointed at the ceiling, "the current plan is for us to hold this position until Syrian defenses are . . . banged up enough that we can get helicopters in. That shouldn't be more than a couple of hours. Let us do the fighting, you ladies just chill and try to stay calm. And, uhm . . ." He paused and shook his head again. "I know what you have been through, some of it anyway, and we're sorry. But, we're also men and SEALS aren't by any stretch of the imagination New Age guys or metromales, and with the exception of Petty Officer Roman we're not gay."

  "Hey!"

  "If any of my men give you a hard time, or are looking in an offensive way, tell me and I'll do something about it. Like kick his ass. But . . . there are going to be looks. There might even be comments. If any of them are offensive, tell me or the chief and we'll deal with it. I'm Lieutenant Reynolds, by the way, Charlie Platoon, SEAL Team Three."

  "Lieutenant?" Babe said, handing the IV bag to Britney and walking over to him. "Can I say something?"

  "Yes, miss?" the lieutenant replied.

  "Thank you," she said, and wrapped her arms around him.

  Before they knew it, all the SEALs were being hugged and kissed.

  "Ladies," Reynolds said, after a bit. "We have a job to do and we can't do it if we're so distracted we don't know what day it is. So, thank you, too, and kindly let Roman and Meat go."