The ground gun kept firing, sharpening their aim.

“They’re getting closer!” Mike yelled. “Take out the SOB!”

Ty laid off the 23mm and lined up the missiles as glowing green basketballs flew straight at them.

He pulled the trigger, and three missiles shot out of the pods toward the spot where the tracers streamed out of the enemy gun.

“Shit, shit!” Mike yelled when the flash from the missile fire glinted off the fuselage and temporarily blinded him. “Take the controls! I can’t see!”

“I’ve got it.” Ty gripped the stick and flipped the weapons selector back to the 23mm guns, then twitched the copter directly toward the machine gun and fired. He walked the rounds right into the throat of the muzzle flashes, then pulled up abruptly before his shells made a direct hit that lit up the ground for twenty feet around the gun.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Waldrop crowed in one breath, then shouted in another, “RPG! Break right! Break right!”

Ty dumped the stick and hit the chaff and flare buttons as he twisted the bird away from a rocket that flashed past the right side of his windscreen.

“Too damn close!” Mike muttered, still rubbing his eyes as more tracers streaked up from the ground. “How many big guns do they freaking have?”

“The correct answer,” Ty said, as he hopped the aircraft over a hill, “would be too many.”

Beside him, Mike grinned. “Nice flying, baby bro.”

“You’re celebrating a little early, don’t you think?”

Something smashed into the tail section of the bird, answering his question. The chopper shuddered, almost stopped, and smoke billowed into the cockpit.

NATE QUICKLY MOVED the team into position. They’d all seen the ground fire aimed at the chopper and knew their position had been given away. This was the exact last thing he’d wanted to happen. Shades of the Bin Laden raid all over, as any hope of an easy in, easy out flew out the proverbial window.

Damn. They’d landed in the middle of Taliban country and he had no desire to have a video of American heads being hacked from their bodies showing up on the Internet.

It wasn’t enough that he had to worry about the ground team. He was anxious about Reaper. Mike and the guys had taken a lot of fire. It seemed every idiot with a gun and a grudge was determined to take down the team’s only way out. Since the chopper had danced away through the fireworks and out of sight, he put his trust in the guys flying the bird to do their job.

In the meantime, they needed to step it up. Several dwellings surrounded by private walled courtyards stood in the general area of their target building. According to their Predator video feed, which had spotted the letters on the roof, the house was the one next to a storage shed of some sort.

No dogs barked in this section of the village, but it seemed every hound in the surrounding area had set up a ruckus that would wake the dead, much less any bad guys.

With M-4s shouldered, Alpha squad—Cooper, Taggart, Santos, and Carlyle—headed for the courtyard to gain access through the back door. Bravo squad—Coulter, Jones, Reed, and Mendoza—headed to the storage shed to clear it, then scooted around to the front of the house. Back at Kandahar AFB, Charlie squad—Crystal Reed and B. J. Mendoza—monitored their action via drone surveillance and coordinated everything, including contingencies, with U.S. military assets. Nate had a bad feeling they were going to need them.

Hanging back in the shadows, Nate, along with Green, waited during the Alpha and Bravo teams’ entry to keep control of any enemy engagement and as lookouts. Nate fingered the trigger of his M-4 as the main building team stacked alongside the doorway, breaching charge already in place. Overkill? No way. They still didn’t know for certain if they were dealing with friendlies or hostiles, and he wasn’t taking any chances.

Nate looked over his shoulder and saw that the back-door team was in place and ready. “Green light,” he said into his radio.

The breaching charges front and back fired with loud cracks, and each team moved into the house via its respective door.

Lights from flashlights slashed through open windows. “First room clear,” came over the radio from Alpha team leader Cooper after a long delay.

“Mission clock, three minutes remaining.” Crystal Reed’s voice broke into the team’s commo over their radios. “And it looks like you’re about to have company. Predator feed shows a lot of dismounts, all stirred up and headed your way.”

Nate swore under his breath. It had taken a lot of arm twisting and favor calling to get a Predator tasked to their mission, and he was grateful for it now.

But this news wasn’t good. A lot of Tangos on foot—dismounts. While they’d planned for it, he still didn’t want to deal with a slug of bad guys.

“Looking like we might need some help headed our way,” Nate told Crystal.

“Roger that. Already on it,” she replied. “Stand by.”

Contingencies were in place if the whole thing had dropped into the pot, but his team being out here was so off book that Nate wasn’t sure he could count on the military coming through—even if they did find Albert. DOD’s repeated deniability mantra wasn’t merely lip service. If it started to look as if they were going to buy the farm, they would suddenly be on their own.

For more reasons than one, he hoped they found Albert in that house. Then they needed to get out of here. Fast.

He still hadn’t heard from Bravo squad. “Bravo. You stop for a burger and fries? What the hell’s going on in there?”

Chapter 25

TY FOUGHT THE CONTROLS, TRYING to assess where they’d been hit. Smoke boiled up in the cockpit, so thick he could barely see the multitude of warning lights blinking at him from the instrument panel. Beside him, Mike frantically hit switches, reset breakers, and changed over to backup systems.

Ty bore down hard on the right pedal and finally managed some semblance of control. The smoke started to clear, and he scanned his gauges. Not good.

“Everyone all right?”

“Fine,” Mike and Waldrop answered.

“Want me to take back the controls?”

“I’ve got it, big bro. What the hell hit us?”

“My guess? RPG,” Waldrop said, then yelled, “And shit, shit, here comes another one. Break left! Now, now!”

Ty continued to fight with the damaged controls; the bird moved sluggishly. “Brace!” he yelled. “She’s not responding.”

By some miracle of luck, timing, and fairy dust, the RPG missed them.

“We’re clear!” Waldrop shouted. “Damn. Thank God and poor shots.”

“That came up out of the valley we just crossed.” Mike craned his head around, looking for more. “Don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough. Can you keep her in the air?”

Ty clenched his jaw. “Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle?”

“Then swing back around. I’m going to get that sucker.”

Ty let the right pedal loose a bit, and the helicopter miraculously responded and spun back toward the valley.

Mike flicked the weapons selector switch back to Missiles, took aim, and pulled the trigger, dumping half a dozen missiles toward the enemy guns.

This time, everyone was prepared for the flash, and they all closed their eyes as the missiles shot out of the pods.

When Ty opened his eyes, he saw the valley blow in a flash of fire.

“Nice.” Waldrop high-fived Mike.

“Let’s head back to the LZ and assess the damages,” Mike said.

As Ty started to turn the chopper, a loud crash and the sound of tearing metal rattled the bird. She started spiraling downward.

“Pull back! Pull back!” Mike yelled. “We’re going down!”

THE LAST TIME Nate had looked, Reaper had been kicking ass and taking names as a massive series of explosions lit up the night. Then nothing.

“Reaper, do you copy?”

Nothing. Not even static.

He glanced at Green, then tried again. “Reaper, do you copy?”

More silence.

This was bad. Real bad.

Then Mike’s soul-tearing words came over the radio. “Reaper is going down! Reaper is going down—”

The radio went dead silent.

Nate’s stomach dropped. “Base, you copy that transmission?”

“Roger that.” Crystal’s voice sounded calm but filled with concern. “Eyes in the sky looking for the crash site now. Will advise. Out.”

Nate pressed his cheek against his rifle barrel, then gathered himself. “All teams, sit-rep.”

“Alpha, clear, moving toward your position.”

“Bravo, where the hell are you?”

“Bravo targets secure. Repeat. Targets secure. Three subjects in custody. Hold fire. We’re coming out.”

Worried about the chopper crew but relieved to finally hear from Bravo, Nate walked toward the blown front door, with Green taking a covering position behind him.

Cooper and Taggart walked out first, leading three figures bound in flex cuffs with black cloth bags over their heads. The last one in line had a bad limp. He was almost as tall as Nate but was rail-thin beneath his Pashtun garb.

Nate’s heart picked up a beat.

Santos and Carlyle followed, guns trained on all three figures. Santos, fluent in Pashto, ordered them to kneel on the ground. Two did as they were told, but the taller one stood, defiant.