Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.
Content Warning: Super mild tearjerk warning.
Apology: I've attempted to keep my little stories as close as possible to (my admittedly limited knowledge of) real military tactics, language, and situations. This one is by far the least accurate, and I'm sorry about that. I'd love to get schooled if we have any vets out there reading this.
TOC – Tactical Operations Center. FAK – First Aid Kit. CAS Evac – Casualty evacuation. VHF and UHF – types of radio. SWAG – Scientific Wild Ass Guess. LZ – Landing Zone.
-M-
There were certain scenarios that Jack Dalton had practiced so many times, the movement was rote. Many of them were things that had never actually happened in the field, not even once. But if they ever did happen, he knew precisely what he was supposed to do to survive them.
So when he was suddenly presented with impact plus sudden loss of altitude plus steep pitch plus proximity to ground, he didn't even think. He reached for his vest, unclipped the restraint that was the only thing actually keeping his ass in that bird, and he rolled out of the open loading door of the steeply listing aircraft, onto the nice soft rocks about nine feet below.
Had he waited even two more seconds, he saw immediately that he would have died.
The pilot was trying to use the auto-rotation function of the helo to compensate for the loss of power, but the RPG - or shrapnel from the hit - had blown at least one rotor clean off. He got the bird slowed, a little, but she canted on him, and the obliterated front cone caught on the edge of a cliff about fifteen feet away. The wounded Blackhawk dropped like a brick, tumbling down a steep incline of jagged rocks, shedding pieces of itself as it went. Jack ducked reflexively, covering his head, and his helmet was weirdly smooth, and the wrong shape.
He was still wearing one of the helo's passenger helmets.
Jack left it on – protective gear was protective gear, after all – and tore his eyes away from the still-rolling helo, looking towards the sky. It was broad daylight, a little after midday, and he picked out the anti-aircraft missile's exhaust trail, following it back towards the north. Jack grabbed a general heading before he scurried to the edge of the rocky shelf and tried to get his bearings.
The helo was just settling at the bottom of a ravine, lying on its right side between two crags in one of the more mountainous ranges north-east of Kabul. He'd been caught napping – literally – and a glance at his watch told Jack they were about thirty minutes into the flight. The altitude would give them decent UHF range, and Jack clicked his radio, checking that his earpiece was still in, and the helmet hadn't dislodged it from his ear.
Helicopter helmets provided noise protection. No wonder it was so damn quiet.
Jack pulled it off and dropped it - he needed his ears. The echo of the crash was still slapping between the mountain passes, but what he didn't hear was any screaming.
Jack started searching for a way down, keying his radio. "Sweeper Sweeper, come back, over!"
The bird was still smoking, but as it turned out, stop drop and roll was also effective for aircraft. There was a decent fire at the cone, and another near what was left of the rotor column, but as long as the fuel pump had shut off as designed the diesel probably wouldn't catch. Jack scanned the wreckage another long moment, then he swore and pulled his rifle to his front. The weapon was still in working condition. Optics were out of alignment, though, and Jack swore again, and focused on the exposed left flank of the bird.
She'd been tore all to hell by the rocks. Her belly had been ripped open from the outside in, and the left loading door was straight-up gone. He could see that the seat anchors had failed, and the interior was a tangled up mess of canvas, straps, and uniforms loose in the cabin.
There was movement, under the smoke, and he hit his radio again. "Sweeper Sweeper, respond!"
He clocked motion in the cockpit, which was almost as smashed up as the cone. They were never getting that left door open, not without a cutting torch. They'd have to pull the pilots out through the main cabin –
A bullet pinged some rocks no more than a couple yards away, and Jack was flat on his back before he heard the crack of the rifle. About half a mile out.
Anti-aircraft missiles and snipers in the middle of fuckin' nowhere . . . who the hell was out here?
Jack tilted his head up, grinding sand and small rocks into his scalp before he remembered to unclip his combat head gear from the front of his vest. He shoved himself behind better cover before he put his back against a rock and crammed the helmet back on his head. He caught both ends of the chinstrap with one hand and grabbed his radio with the other.
"Sweeper, Snakebite, somebody gimme a goddamn sitrep!"
If the radio in the bird was out, they'd lost their relay point back to command. Jack tried to remember who the hell was on coms for this op. It was the combat engineer, Rama . . . llama –
Finally, his radio popped. "This is - Sweeper Actual . . . are we taking fire?!"
He was, at any rate. Dalton shifted over another couple yards, getting into a position that would give him decent coverage of the north side. "Sweeper, you need to find the fuel shutoff valve – one in the cabin, one on top of the rotor column. I have security, over."
With the optics out of adjustment, the view was blurry at best, and there was a lot of ground to cover. Jack focused on the heading he'd previously taken, where it looked like the missile had come from. Chances were good whoever had spotted him was in the same neighborhood.
"Where - the hell you at?!"
It wasn't the lieutenant – her voice was very distinctive, and that wasn't it – and Jack didn't bother to respond for the moment, watching not for detail but for movement. His odds of hitting a target half a mile out with no wind indicator and compromised optics were slim to none. At this point he just wanted to figure out what the fuck was going on.
The scan got him nothing, and he was about to demand a sitrep again when the louie got back to him. "We got multiple causalities, we're not goin' anywhere. Anybody got eyes on?"
Considering everyone else – everyone else alive – was pretty much in that helo with the lieutenant, Jack knew that was for him. "Negative, Sweeper. Rocket came from the north. Get that fire out ASAP."
And please tell me the kid is still alive.
The radio went quiet, and Jack abandoned the optics for a moment, using his plain old eyeballs. The whole area was jagged mountains and steep ravines. On the north side of the slope he was on top of, there were clear tire tracks winding through the gorge bed. He followed them as far as his line of sight would allow, then evaluated the range beyond it.
No dust cloud yet.
Didn't mean there wouldn't be one soon.
Jack bellycrawled across the top of the ridge to look down the southern slope. Several people were now visible moving around the helo, and he didn't need the scope to pick out a familiar, leggy shape in a bandana. There was another person crouched beside him – probably the lieutenant – and she'd dragged him about twenty yards away, clear of the bird. He was guarding his ribs, but moving, and even as Jack watched she left him there and headed back for the aircraft.
Another soldier was on top of the helo, fighting with one of the fuel shutoff valves, and it looked like the fire at the cone was mostly out.
The less smoke the better. No point in sending up a damn invitation to come finish 'em off.
Even without marking their position, the site was not going to be defensible long-term. Not with the manpower they had. The two Air Force boys – if either of them were still alive – and a couple infantry, plus the louie and Mac from EOD, and one combat engineer made up Sweeper. Jack and the two sprocket greasers were not going to be enough, not if their enemy had anti-aircraft weapons.
They needed help.
Jack gave the northern slope another long look, and still saw nothing. There was no way the enemy could have been expecting them, they hadn't taken this route earlier in the morning and the US and her allies had nothing even remotely like regular air traffic or even a security presence this far north of Kabul. It was too hard to move supplies and men through these mountains.
Supposedly.
And even if they were already mobile and on the move, it would take them a good half hour in this terrain to make the dirt trail below. They had a little time.
Mind made up, Jack started his descent. It was steep but jagged, giving him plenty of places to put his feet, and he checked the helo debris as he passed it. The whole canvas net had been ripped clean off the left loading door, and Jack retrieved the combat first aid kit and a duffel marked 'EOD.' There was another pack, a little too far to conveniently grab, and Jack made a note to come back for it.
Below him, he was relieved to see Mac was up and moving. He'd clambered on top of the downed helicopter, near the cockpit, and he was whacking the shattered windshield with what looked like a rock.
Of course, after two hits the whole damn side of the windshield popped right out of the vulcanized rubber gasket. Jack saw a flash of red – god bless that kid's swiss army knife – and he watched MacGyver wedge the heel of a boot against the exposed edge of the windshield and start shoving the rest of it out of the damaged frame. The lieutenant had disappeared back into the main cabin, and Jack was finally close enough to recognize Private First Class Adams as the man who'd shut off the fuel. He had positioned himself outside the main cabin, and Jack watched the louie pass a pair of bloodied arms up out of the cabin to him.
By the time Jack had made it all the way down, they'd maneuvered the solider to the ground, and he recognized their other infantryman. He was very clearly dead.
As soon as he hit the floor of the ravine, Jack dropped the EOD duffel and doubletimed the FAK towards the helo. By then Mac had already deposited the windshield onto the sand and he was using it and the smoking, crumpled cone to get a leg up. A few feet away, a dark-haired man prairie-dogged out of the cabin, shoving the VHF radio pack out to Adams.
Thank god for small favors.
"Hey Ding Dong, that thing workin'?"
Their combat engineer put both his forearms on the lip of what used to be the loading door and heaved himself out, not immediately answering. He looked a little shell-shocked; he'd clearly discovered the interior wall with his face at some point on the trip into the ravine, but his complexion was too dark for Jack to make out whether or not his nose or jaw were broken. A hand helpfully shoved his ass up out of the hole, and the lieutenant tossed another pack over the side and pulled herself out.
She seemed to be moving fine. "Adams, check the radio. What's the word on security, Dalton?"
He liked Smiley. For a lot of reasons, but primarily because he could remember her damn name, since she never actually smiled.
Also, she was one tough broad.
"We got half an hour, mebbe a little more before we should start expectin' company." He passed her the first aid kit, which she accepted, and then he turned for the cockpit.
The kid had already lowered himself down into the smoky space, and Jack used the same leg up onto the crushed nose of the helo, peering in.
The pilot was alive, but only just. The helo's forward instrument panel had been shoved so far into his belly that Jack was surprised he hadn't been cut clean in half. Blood seeped around the buried plastic and metal. The pilot's upper torso was lying across the center console, and remarkably, behind the sun visor on his perfectly intact helmet, Jack could see his eyes were open, staring towards the ground.
Towards his copilot.
Mac had dropped in around him, standing on the copilot's door, and had just finished ripping open a roll of hemostatic gauze with his teeth. Jack couldn't see much, but the kid slapped it down on the copilot's neck, then folded it back over itself and applied pressure.
Harness must have cut him. He didn't move, didn't so much as suck air through his teeth, and Jack figured the guy was out cold. He glanced back at the pilot, and saw that he had his eyes. Jack offered him what he hoped was an easy smile.
"Be with you in a second, man."
The pilot didn't so much as twitch an arm or hand in his direction, but the corner of his mouth turned up, just a little.
They both knew there was nothing Jack could do. If they moved the instrument panel off him, he'd bleed to death in under a minute.
The inside of the cockpit had taken almost as much damage as the cone. It didn't look like any instrument had power, and the radio was part of the panel that had been blown inward by the missile. Jack was pretty sure even Carl's Junior couldn't get it working in the amount of time they had.
"Hey Mac, you got this?"
His tech turned his head a little, but didn't lean up. "Yeah. Jack-"
"I know, kid," he said softly. "I'll let Smiley know what's goin' on up here, then I'll be back to help ya."
Jack slid down the battered nose of the helo and glanced up at the ridges on both sides of them out of sheer habit, picking out that second pack he'd seen on the way down and scanning for anything else useful. The lieutenant had the combat engineer sitting in a narrow little band of shade, assessing his face. Guy was gonna be lucky if both his eyes didn't swell shut. He was in his late twenties, of Indian descent, and Jack honestly couldn't remember his name.
"Smiley."
She waved Adams over to take on the cleanup job, and Jack raised an eyebrow when he finally got a look at her head-on.
She stared at him a second, then glanced down at herself as they stepped off towards the rocks. There wasn't a single limb of hers not smeared with blood. "Not mine."
"You sure about that?"
There was a faint tremor in her right hand, which she noticed and immediately closed into a fist. Considering she was career EOD, Jack knew better than to call that adrenaline. She was good and shaken, figuratively if not worse.
She'd just lost a man, and he was about to tell her that she was gonna lose another.
"How are my pilots?"
Jack kept his eyes on the ridges. "Copilot's injured. Cap's not gonna make it." He nodded towards the abandoned radio pack. "Make any headway with that?"
She looked away for a long moment, and he gave it to her. Finally she answered, and did a passable job at keeping a steady voice. "Radio's dicked up but I think we can get it working. Any chance we were spotted going down on radar?"
Probably not. "Damn dune coons took us down too fast. A DNF wouldn't register, we woulda looked like we just fell off the fuckin' planet."
"Shit."
About summed it up. Losing radar contact over these mountain ranges wouldn't send up an immediate red flag. Help wasn't coming until they got the VHF radio up, or a couple hours from now, when someone finally figured out they hadn't arrived as scheduled. In the first scenario, they would be able to give general coordinates and expect CASEVAC before sunset. In the second, it would be straight up search and rescue, which could take days. Depending how irritated the locals were, and how many more anti-aircraft missiles they had, both scenarios could get complicated fast.
Jack figured he'd plan for three days without support and hopefully he'd be pleasantly surprised.
"You're about to give me more bad news, aren't you."
Jack kept his expression flat, knowing Adams was looking their way. "We can't hold this position. We're gonna have to take our wounded and blow the site."
They couldn't leave the Blackhawk – even as damaged as it was – for the enemy to loot. Once they took what they could carry, they had to make sure there was nothing salvageable left. And since he happened to have two EOD techs and a combat engineer lying around, Jack didn't think that was going to be a problem.
Smiley didn't look surprised. Or happy. "How bad's the copilot?
"Dunno yet. Who's your medic?"
In answer, she glanced at the back end of the bird. Jack made out a pair of combat boots sticking out past what was left of the tail boom.
"It was - Corporal Serrano. I've got basic."
Deltas all had better than basic first aid training, mostly for trauma, but Jack was by no means a medic. All he had on him was his IFAK – which, as the name implied, was intended as an individual first aid kit. Everyone else's IFAKs would be even more bare bones than his. The bird's kit would have some decent painkillers, but three days would be stretching it.
"Uh, Ramarao's got a broken cheekbone, probably broken jaw. MacGyver busted a couple ribs. Adams seems fine, I'm fine." She glanced at him, as if it had only just now occurred to her that he had been in that helo too. "You good?"
"Ain't the first time I took a header out of a bird." He was a little sore, but that was it. There were enough of them mobile to make this work, so long as the copilot could at least half-ass being able to walk. They had no stretcher, and with the helo completely missing her main rotors he couldn't think of a way to fashion one.
'Course, a certain EOD tech probably could.
"I'm gonna need ya to wire the bird to blow via remote detonator. There's vehicle tracks on the other side of that ridge." Jack indicated the one to the north. "We need to take out their vehicles and as many of those fuckers as we can right here, right now."
The locals still knew these mountains better than they did, but he liked their odds a lot better if their pursuers were also on foot. "How much boom goo you got?"
Smiley frowned deeply. "Enough for this job and ten others just like it." It was dismissive. "But what about Serrano and Boone? I'm not leaving them here."
It took Jack a second to place the second name – the pilot. He hated the idea of leaving them on site, but they didn't have the manpower to carry the bodies and frankly even if they did it would slow them down too much. Half their squad was injured, and dealing with that was going to be bad enough. "I'll take care of it. Leave me Adams."
She gave him a hard look. "Sergeant, we are not leaving them in this bird-"
"No ma'am we are not," he agreed instantly, intentionally lowering his voice and hoping she'd take a hint. "I'll make sure they're squared away and safe til we can come back for 'em."
The lieutenant looked very much like she wanted to disagree, and she glared at the cliff to their right. Then it seemed to occur to her what she was looking at.
Rocks. And plenty of 'em. Once the helo was blown and the Tallies – or whoever the hell was out there – had a chance to see the debris was useless, they were going to abandon it to pursue the survivors.
Boone and Serrano would be fine. It was the rest of Sweeper she needed to worry about.
And she eventually came to the same conclusion. "Let me get a look at Higgins."
That could only be the co-pilot, and Jack agreeably stepped aside, and let her lead the way back to the cockpit. A career doing what he did made Jack very much appreciate the flyboys who came swooping out of the sky to pull their fat out of the fire. He made damn sure by the time he'd gotten off a flight he'd made eye contact with both pilots and he did his best to remember ranks and callsigns, if not last names. He'd never met these two before today, and he'd been planning to get to know 'em a little before he'd drifted off.
Boone was right where they'd left him – guy wasn't going anywhere and he knew it – and Mac had cut Higgins completely out of his flight harness. The hemostatic gauze had some blood spotting through it, but it looked like it'd mostly done the job of clotting the injury, and Mac had it taped up pretty good. Higgins was starting to come around, but he wasn't alert enough to help. Mac was leaning against the center console, craning his head out of the windshield hole, and his look of relief at spotting Jack approaching was tempered somewhat by the lieutenant's presence.
"His leg's jammed up under the collective," Mac said without preamble. "Jack, can you go up top-"
Jack gave him a nod and crawled up the cone to the top of the bird, laying on his belly and dangling over the left side of the windshield hole. It put him nearer to Boone than Higgins, and Jack put a light hand on the pilot's helmet.
"We're gonna get your nugget loose first, you just hang in there, son."
Jack felt the slightest nod in response. In the Air Force, a 'nugget' referred to an inexperienced pilot, which was a WAG on Jack's part. But it took a special someone to be more worried about his partner when he was missing his own bottom half, and Boone was watching every move they made with his copilot.
Jack kinda knew the feeling. His own nugget was breathing harder than he should have been, and he probably hadn't bothered to tape up those ribs.
The partner in question glanced up, checking his position. "When I get him standing, I need you to grab him and hold him up –"
"While you get him untangled. I got it, kid."
Mac just nodded, then glanced over his shoulder at the lieutenant. "Can you give me a hand –"
The two figured out the optimal hand-holds and counted it down, and combined they were able to twist Higgins up and around the center console. He wasn't coherent but he screamed, and when he jerked himself upright in an attempt to push himself away from the pain, Jack managed to snag the back of his flight suit. There was a wide strip of nylon – almost like a handle - that he'd always thought was on the back of jumps suits for just this purpose, and Jack grit his teeth and leaned further into the cockpit, trying to give the kid a little slack.
If Higgins hadn't been awake before, he sure as hell was now. "Wha'th . . . wha-"
"Calm down, Trent. You're okay. We were shot down." Smiley's voice was firm and calm. "MacGyver here is going to get the collective off you, and then we're going to get you out of here. You with me?"
Mac, to his credit, hadn't flinched, and Jack had a bird's eye view as he watched the kid break out his swiss army knife. He took off like, two bolts, and the entire collective just disintegrated into parts in his hands. They rattled down to the door, which Mac was standing on, and Jack immediately felt some of the resistance tugging on Higgins release.
Jack heaved the guy up a little higher, and then Smiley had him by the front of the flight suit, and she hauled him bodily out of the windshield hole.
Jack immediately rolled to his right and slid down the roof of the bird to the ground. By the time Mac had gotten his multitool squared away, Jack was in Smiley's old position, reaching in for him.
"C'mere, dude, watch those ribs –"
Mac didn't say anything about the help as he clambered out of the cockpit, and Jack kept a hand on him as he slid down the cone. As soon as Mac looked stable on his feet, Jack turned back to Smiley.
Higgins was on his back, gasping, and the right leg of his suit was bloody and torn. She went ahead and finished the job, ripping open his pant leg to get a look at the injury, but Jack could see immediately that it was a clean break. The leg was badly lacerated, but there was no bone sticking through the skin.
Given the state of that cockpit, he was damn lucky the limb wasn't crushed into paste.
"Yeah, he's gonna be fine." Jack gave the pilot – still watching them closely – a reassuring nod. "Get a splint on 'im, he'll be back in the sky in no time."
Mac scampered off without a word, Jack figured to get the first aid kit, but he came back also carrying a couple pieces of the aluminum framing of the cabin seats, and several harnesses. The lieutenant accepted them, lining them up unhurriedly beside the co-pilot's leg, and he picked up his head, trying to see what they were doing.
Smiley pushed him back down, pressing a morphine auto-inject pen into the top of the man's thigh. He didn't notice. "I have to set the leg, Trent."
She exchanged a look with Mac, who knelt on the co-pilot's other leg, and before Higgins could even agree, it was done. Mac passed Smiley the same hemostatic bandaging he'd used on the copilot's neck for his leg – none of them could stitch it, it'd have to wait - and ace bandage, which she used to stabilize the break site. Together they got the makeshift splint on and secure. Higgins was half out of it again, and Jack moved in smoothly to help the lieutenant get him on his feet. Mac was frowning but he let it go, and started putting the first aid kit back together.
Jack pulled one of the co-pilot's arms around his neck, supporting nearly all the weight on his right side, and Higgins picked up his head again. Jack hadn't gotten a good look at him before, but he was young, maybe only a little older than Mac. His eyes were a glazed green, bright with pain, and he got his first look at his bird.
"Wha . . . Alec . . ?"
Smiley was climbing up the cone to check on the pilot, and Jack hustled Higgins past, along the cabin towards what little shade the bird could offer just after midday. The airman started trying to backpeddle, but Jack didn't let him, and soon he found himself on his ass again in the sand.
"Alec . . . we'can . . . can'leave'im-"
"Relax, bud." Jack pressed a hand into his chest, laying him back flat, and Adams dragged one of the recovered packs over. Jack helped him get both of Higgins' legs up on it. Hard to tell how much of the blood in that cockpit had been the pilot's, and how much had been this kid's. He was pale and slurring his words, and if they expected him to be able to walk, he needed all the downtime they could give him. "It's okay."
"No . . . no, I needa-"
Adams looked like he had it under control, and Jack straightened to find Mac was right behind him. He was also pale, and looked conflicted.
"I left the kit for you, next to the cockpit."
Jack nodded, and resisted the urge to put a hand on the tech's shoulder. "You holdin' up?"
They both knew what he was asking.
Mac deflected – and if he hadn't Jack would have assumed he was dying – and glanced at the northern ridge. "How long do you think we have?"
A quick glance at his watch showed seventeen minutes had gone by.
"Little less than fifteen."
The kid absorbed that, then bent stiffly beside one of the duffels marked EOD. He pulled out a long loop of det cord and several bricks of C4, and then the lieutenant was right by his side.
"I got this, Mac. Go see if Ramarao is in any condition to help us. Adams, help Dalton."
With his tech focusing on the task at hand, and soon to be on the other side of the ridge, Jack headed back towards the cockpit. He found the first aid kit sitting right there, and unzipped the top compartment to find that Mac had arranged all the morphine auto-inject pens in easy reach. Jack made the loop around the nose of the downed craft, blocking out everything but the cockpit, and he shimmied up onto the cone, leaning a forearm on the windshield frame.
Boone's eyes slid towards him.
"He's gonna be fine, captain."
The pilot nodded slightly, then swallowed. His voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper. "Couldja . . . get my helmet . . .?"
"Yeah, yeah." Jack was as gentle as he could be, but the pilot was jammed in there good, and he barely moved. Never made a sound. Once the helmet was off, Boone squinted up at the sky. There were deep lines etched in his tanned face, showing how many times he'd done exactly that.
Jack followed his gaze. "Yeah. Not even company grade weather."
He got another tired smile. "Damn thing . . . came from right up unner us . . ."
Jack just nodded. "Not your fault, captain."
"My bird, my fault." His eyes slipped back to his helmet, still in Jack's hands. "In the visor . . ."
Jack obediently spun the helmet around – and confirmed his suspicion that the pilot was named Alec – and flipped up the solar visor. Between the interior casing and the visor attachment, he saw a corner of white, and Jack gently teased it out. It was a photograph, still in pretty decent shape, and Jack grinned down at the brunette smiling back at him before he held the photo in front of the pilot.
Boone surprised him by picking up his left arm and taking it. The man's face crumpled a little, but as soon as he had it, he eased himself back into his previous position, and tilted it so he could see her properly.
"Beautiful lady," Jack told him, and he meant it.
"The best," Alec informed him in that same soft voice. "Millie. She makes the best . . . damn sangria you ever had."
Jack startled himself by chuckling. "Sangria? That little lady looks like she was born and raised in Cincinnati. Don't you people violate spaghetti with chili or somethin'?"
The pilot just raised his eyebrows a little. "S'weird ol' family recipe. That shit's just 'mazin'."
"You want some water? I mean, it ain't sangria but I can raid the MREs for a flavor pack . . ."
The pilot gave a short, sharp exhale, and his eyebrows bunched. Once it passed, he managed to swallow again.
"God no. You tryin' . . . t'kill me?" He waited a beat, long enough to make Jack good and uncomfortable, then a little grin bent his lips. "Gotcha."
Jack blew out a sigh. "That is one dark sense of humor you got there, son."
Boone made a small noise in the back of his throat, and Jack chose to believe it was agreement.
"Alright, this is how this is gonna go," Jack told him, setting the helmet to the side. "You're gonna suck on one of these fentanyl lollipops that I'm sure tastes just like Millie's sangria, and I'm gonna shoot you up to your eyebrows with the hard stuff. Then we're gonna move this panel. Once we get you outta there –"
"No sir."
Jack broke off, having fished one of the aforementioned sticks out of the kit, and regarded the man in front of him. He hadn't moved, eyes still on the photograph, and his blinks were slow. Still, he looked like he knew exactly what he was saying.
"Come on, cap, we ain't leavin' ya here. We gotta blow the bird."
Alec gave a little sigh. "Think it'll be . . . open casket?"
He weighed the odds. ". . . nah. I don't think we're gettin' outta this hole for a couple days. They'll getcha on ice back at the FOB, but the heat . . ." No amount of mortician's putty could undo the swell of two days' cookin' in a body bag.
"Save the . . . good stuff for them."
Jack found himself shaking his head. "You don't mean that, man, and I ain't gonna pull you outta here like that."
". . . what . . . snake eater like you can't stomach it?" Another half-smile. "I don't even got a stomach . . . t'stomach it with."
Jack couldn't help it. He laughed. Then he finished unwrapping the lozenge. It was longer than a toothpick, with what looked like a small white earplug on one end, and a little cannister on the other. "Jesus, dude. Now I definitely want to see what you're like on Unkie White."
He thought the guy was gonna fight him, but the pilot opened his mouth and accepted the lozenge, and Jack tucked the earplug-looking side between his cheek and lower gums. The pilot gave it a half-hearted suck, then pulled a face.
"This is not sangria, you fuckin' liar."
Jack gave him a confused look, then made a show of inspecting the wrapper. "Oh, yeah. My bad. Says it right here, this one's ass flavored ass."
The pilot almost choked, but then his face contorted with pain, and Jack actually did feel like an ass.
"Sorry, man, I'm sorry-"
When the pilot could speak again, he pried his eyes open. "Couldja . . . do me a favor?"
"Yeah, dude. Whatcha need?"
He swallowed, and moved the shitty lollipop to the other side of his mouth. Jack gave the cannister end a quick squeeze to get the rest of the drug out, and Boone closed his eyes in thanks.
"One last thing. Can't seem to . . . reach my sidearm. Got one on ya?"
Dalton gave him a long look. "Now that ain't gonna happen, ol' son."
Alec gave the lozenge one last hard suck, then spat the empty plastic stick out. "I am still the captain . . . of this goddamned bird, and I don't give a shit what . . . unit you're with. You ride with me, you follow my orders. Now give me a damn sidearm."
Dalton bristled. "You said it yourself, you are a captain in the United States Air Force, not some racehorse pulled up lame an' needin' to be put down. We don't know how bad it is til we get a look atcha." It wasn't like he couldn't override the captain. Grab his left arm and auto-inject enough morphine to knock him out.
But it wasn't like the pilot wasn't right. They didn't need to get him out of that cockpit to know that he was going to die, no matter what they did.
"You're not pullin' me . . . outta this cockpit alive. You hear me?" His voice was rough but steady. "And you're not wasting . . . those meds on a dead man."
Jack glanced down at the first aid kit, at the purple caps all lined up in a row. Outside of the two in his own kit, that was all they had.
"We can spare it and still take care of your nugget." That had to be it, listening to Higgins getting his leg set -
"You got maybe . . . ten minutes 'fore the Tallies get here?" The captain painfully transferred the photograph to his right hand. "And you're not pullin' . . . this thing outta me if . . . I c'n still feel it. No sir. Just gimme the . . . easy way out already."
Then he held out his left hand.
Jack glared. He was right, and he knew it. It would take half the morphine they had to kill him, and it would take seven, maybe eight minutes.
And whether he killed him with drugs or lead or even just time, that was still what it was.
"Soldier, I gave . . . you a fuckin' order."
He transferred the glare to the kit, which didn't offer up any help whatsoever, then he snatched it closed and reached down to his right thigh. The weapon was undamaged from the fall, and Jack pulled it free and gave Alec a long, steady look.
"I'll stay. You shouldn't be alone."
The pilot smiled – not at him, but at the photograph. "I'm not. Millie an' me, we'll be fine."
Alec's left hand was starting to shake, and Jack took a measured breath, then flicked off the safety and handed the weapon over, barrel towards the ground. The captain took it like he knew how to use it, and let it rest on the instrument panel a moment.
"Don't suppose you c'n . . . doctor things a little?" He grinned at his girl. "Hard to tell her I . . . died instantly if autopsy says otherwise . . ."
Jack reached out and gripped the other man's wrist, still holding the gun. He gave it a good hard squeeze. "I'll do what I can, cap."
"Make sure she knows . . . she was here."
Jack nodded, and released Alec's wrist. The pilot closed his eyes and dipped his head, then pressed the photo to his lips. He was still holding her there when Jack slid off the battered nose of the helo and walked away.
He gave his face a quick scrub and headed back around towards the helo's belly. "Adams, you guys pull the HRPs-"
His voice died in his throat when his eyes fell on a familiar, lanky shape crouched beside Higgins, most of the way through constructing a crutch.
It wasn't Adams.
Mac cast a glance over his shoulder. "Adams went to run a clacker to Ramarao, they're almost . . ." He trailed off as well as he read Dalton's expression. " . . . you . . . uh, you need a hand?" The kid glanced back down at Higgins, obviously trying to be sensitive, and the copilot struggled to sit up.
God damn it.
"Aren't you supposed to be plantin' some explosives on the other side of that ridge?" He almost grabbed his tech by the arm, not even sure what the hell he intended to do with him. Had he been on the other side of the rocks he might not have heard anything, but he wasn't and Jack couldn't get him there in time.
Both the younger men flinched at the gunshot, Mac right beside him and Higgins on the ground, and Jack set his jaw.
"Send Adams to me as soon as he gets back." He kept his voice level and turned away, towards the small pile of equipment that had already been salvaged from the cabin.
Behind him, Higgins sucked in a shaky breath, Dalton could hear him scrabbling in the sand but he'd rather Mac stay with him than follow him up to the cockpit. Jack started pawing through the bags, and sure enough, they'd pulled the helo's egress kit, including extra water, MREs, tarps, two M9s, ammo, and human remains pouches – HRPs.
Better to call them what they were, and Jack pulled two body bags from the three pouch pack.
"Alec – tha'was -"
Mac said something to Higgins, his voice soothing and too low to make out, and Jack left him to it, making a quick retreat towards the tail of the bird. The corporal hadn't gone anywhere, and Jack could only surmise from the damage that Serrano had been sitting right where the rocks had torn up through the helo's belly. Unlike the pilot, he probably had died instantly, or close to it. Jack spread one of the bags beside him, hating that it was rote, it was muscle memory just as much as bailing from the falling helicopter had been.
It didn't take him more than sixty seconds to get the corporal squared away. A tiny avalanche of pebbles caught his attention, and Jack looked up to see Adams scrambling back down the steep slope.
His first instinct was to snap something about following orders, and the private first class's apparent inability to. If he had, Mac would have been on the other side of that ridge, and spared the job of trying to calm a distraught and injured airman. Instead, Jack waited impatiently for the man to finish his descent.
"Any activity up there?"
The private nodded, stumbling to a stop a few feet in front of him. "Yessir. Cloud of dust over the ridge past this one. Smiley and Ramarao are settin' up four charges, all remote det."
The lieutenant didn't seem to be worried about running out of materials. Given the mission had been to eval a bridge and potentially level it, Jack was pretty sure the EODs' packs were loaded with high capacity explosives. Since the game was going to move from ambush to cat and mouse, and they were the mice, bombs were going to come in handy.
Still pissed off despite the relatively good news that they had a little more time than he'd originally estimated, Jack just grunted and turned, expecting the private to follow. Mac was crouched next to Higgins, one hand on his chest to keep him down, and he still hadn't shaken the shock out of his eyes. They slipped to some spot on Jack's leg – the empty holster – and then Jack was past them. He waited until he'd looped the nose of the bird before he shook out the other body bag.
"Get up here, help me get this thing offa him."
It went much faster with help. Jack had to crawl into the cockpit and put his feet against the instrument panel to shove it clear. Alec had chosen the under the chin technique, ensuring the slug went up and couldn't possibly hit anyone on the ground, and it had left his face perfectly intact. Millie was still there in his right hand, not even crumpled. Jack rescued the photo and reached under his fatigues for his tee, carefully wiping the blood off the slick paper. Then he tucked her into a chest pocket on his vest, and recovered his and Boone's sidearms.
Once Boone was freed from his harness and transferred to the bag, Jack pointed to a likely spot along the cliff, where there was a small rockslide just waiting to happen, and Adams went to clear them a space. Jack slid Millie from his vest and tucked her safe and sound into Alec's left jumpsuit pocket, just over his heart. Then he went to help Adams.
His radio popped just as they were carrying Serrano to the front of the bird. "Sweeper Sweeper, be advised enemy is less than five minutes out, over."
That was his cue. "Adams, finish up here. Not one hint of the bags or anythin' else showing, you got me? Not one."
The private pulled up short. "Sir, don't you need me up on the ridge-"
"I need you right here, makin' sure these men are safe til we come back for 'em. After that, double check the gear. Remember we got three wounded. Higgins and MacGyver ain't gonna carry anything but themselves, Ramallama's gotta go light. Give him the corporal's rifle. You, me, and Smiley'll hump the extra."
Jack jogged back to the helo's belly, where he found a quietly crying Higgins all alone in the sand. The copilot seemed a little more alert; he opened his eyes when he heard someone approaching, and quickly wiped his face.
Dalton took a knee beside the young pilot. "How you feelin', airman? Up for a little hike?"
Higgins did a passable job at sucking down a deep breath. "Ready t'pull cock anytime."
It was Air Force speak for bailing on a shitty party. Jack gave him a little grin. "Glad to hear it. We're gonna set off a few party favors of our own here in a minute, and I need your ass up over that ridge." Jack indicated the steep slope to their right. "Adams'll help you. Can ya do that?"
Higgins reached over and grabbed hold of the strange, forked cane slash crutch that Mac had fashioned for him. Jack could see now that the V, which he had thought was where an arm would go, was in fact the bottom of the contraption, and one of the legs of the V was shorter than the other. "Good t'go."
"Good man." Jack made to get to his feet, and the hand that had been gripping the cane crutch transferred to his ACUs.
"The . . . the captain . . ."
Jack suppressed a sigh, then shook his head. "He's gone, son."
"You're . . . y'sure?"
Pretty damn sure. "Yeah."
"'Cuz . . . self inflicted gunshots . . . survival rate is s'prisingly high –"
Jack shut that down before he could go any further. "I'm sure, kid."
The grip on his uniform pants tightened. "Don't . . . wanna leave 'im if . . ."
"He your training officer?" Jack glanced up at a soft sound above him, and he saw fingers appear on the visible edge of the helo. Someone was pulling themselves out of the cabin.
". . . yeah . . ."
"Hell of a pilot," Jack told him, focusing back on Higgins. "Even without power, he slowed the bird down, saved six lives in four seconds. Ya couldn't'a been paired with better."
The kid's eyes welled up with fresh tears, and his grip loosened. A pack dropped behind Jack, attracting both their attention, and Jack heard MacGyver slither to the ground on the other side of the bird.
That he'd chosen the smoother path – over the curved roof of the bird, rather than straight down – told Jack exactly how much those rib were bothering him, and he made a mental note to have Smiley wrap him up when they had some time. Last thing they needed was a floating rib to do some real damage.
Jack got to his feet, and Higgins' hand slipped off, absently seeking the cane crutch. Dalton gave him a nod, then circled back around the tail of the bird, expecting to meet MacGyver halfway. He didn't; he saw the kid's shadow near the cockpit, and Jack frowned but left him to it, starting the uphill climb back to his previous position up on the ridge.
This time he was well aware eyes could be on them, and he kept to cover, locating Smiley and Ramallama a few yards away. Jack bellycrawled towards them, taking a quick peek around the rocks, and saw that their enemy was just coming into view, in the form of an old pickup truck, a repurposed delivery truck, and a late 90s Volkswagon Beetle on way bigger than standard issue tires.
The trucks made sense – they intended to haul some goods. The Beetle, though, that threw him a little, and he glanced towards Smiley, who was holding two remote detonators.
He figured once those four charges blew, the survivors would hunker down, expecting to take fire. When they didn't, they'd either wait for backup, or – if enough of them survived – they'd scale the ridge. Sweeper and their gear needed to be over the next one before that happened.
Even though they were only a few yards apart, and the enemy were still in their vehicles with no chance of overhearing them, Jack keyed the radio.
"Sweeper, what's our status, over."
Smiley glanced over at him, but hopped on the radio as well. "This is Sweeper Actual. Four explosives placed along the vehicle path, all remote det. Sweeper Five, report status, over."
It wasn't the first op he and Mac had been assigned a different callsign, but he'd been calling Angus 'Snakebite' going on two hundred days now, and calling him Sweeper Five was just weird.
The radio popped. "Helo's ready to go. Remote det. Over."
That musta been what the kid was doing. Wiring the bird to light up.
Jack got back on the horn. "Sweeper Sweeper, be advised, we are pulling back to the south ridge, repeat, the ridge south of the helo. Sweeper Three will be assisting our flyboy. Sweeper Four, you're packing light, assist Sweeper Five as needed. Once over the ridge, Sweeper Three will find you a secure position. Stay put and get that VHS radio up and working. Move out."
On his left, he saw Ramallama do a somewhat decent approximation of staying low as he picked out his descent path, and once he was out of sight, Jack took over his position beside Smiley.
She didn't even bother to look at him, eyes on the slow-moving caravan. "You gonna keep ordering my men around?"
"Long as I'm on security." He slipped the rifle sling over his head, settling into position, and eyeballed the distance before he started adjusting the optics. When he had it about as good as he could get it without actually testing, he shifted onto his right side, made a loose fist, and punched her lightly in the right shoulder.
"Punch buggy."
The look she threw at him was incredulous. "Are you a fuckin' first grader?"
Jack grinned broadly. "Naw. Mebbe fourth grade or so."
And he finally got one. It wasn't much, it almost looked like it hurt her a little, but her lips thinned, and pulled upwards in something that wasn't exactly a grimace.
"My older brother loved that game. You have any idea how many damn bugs were in New York City in the eighties?"
He did not, but it was easy to imagine. "More than in the Lone Star State combined, I'd wager."
"Damn straight. God, the bruises we'd have after a fifteen minute car ride."
"Well, at least ammo wasn't a problem."
She made a noise of agreement, and they watched the vehicles clamber closer. "Speaking of, how much you got?"
"Fifty rounds on the Barrett, seventy-four for the nine mil. I'm carryin' half, rest is in my pack." The egress kit would have had two Beretta M9s and thirty rounds per. Besides the M4, he had no idea what Serrano had been carrying, and was trusting Adams to move it to his or her pack.
She didn't say anything about Jack's missing bullet. "So what's the plan here?"
"Disable all three vehicles and as many soft targets as possible. I figure you know how to accomplish that better than me."
"I have a little experience," she agreed grimly. "Then pull back, set up on top of the next ridge, rinse and repeat?"
He knew he liked her for a reason. "You got it."
After that, there wasn't much time to chitchat. The lead pickup finally made it to the relatively clear path in the gorge below, and it pulled up generally in the area he figured they would. Even with the scope close to accurate, he couldn't see where Smiley and the combat engineer had buried the explosives. The vehicles were packed with Afghans, almost two dozen all totaled, but he couldn't tell their tribe affiliation or anything else useful, other than several of them had M16s, the rest AKs, and there was a grenade launcher per truck.
Dalton re-evaluated the plan. There was no way in hell he was going to let them chuck an RPG over the ridge. If those two weapons didn't get taken out in the explosions, he was going to have to do it the old fashioned way.
"Sweeper Sweeper, advise when you are secure, over."
He'd barely taken his finger off the transmit button when Smiley blew the first two charges.
The VW had been tailgating the delivery truck, and she got both. The truck flipped, top facing them, and the Beetle went straight up airborne, but somehow came back down on all four wheels. Three of 'em came right off.
The pickup truck gunned it, assuming it had triggered a timed blast and it could outrun the other, and instead they drove right into it. It was a direct hit, right in the undercarriage, and the truck's fuel tank blew. It was in several pieces, and Jack didn't pay it any more attention. No chance anyone survived.
He saw a man wriggle out of the driver side window of the delivery cab, an easy target, but he didn't fire. A much slighter figured followed, both dropping to the other side of the truck for cover. There was no movement in the bed, just a lot of bodies, and Jack couldn't find the grenade launcher. With any luck, fire would eventually encounter one of the grenades and take care of that little problem.
The bug surprised him, though. Damn thing popped open like a clown car, and three figures piled out. They dragged a fourth, no way to know if he was alive or dead, and they huddled behind it, screaming to their colleagues by the delivery truck.
So five, maybe six survived. With their forces cut by three quarters, most likely they'd wait for backup, or straight up run. Plenty of smoke to indicate they'd hit trouble, even if their radios or walkies were out of commission.
The bottom of the delivery truck caught fire like it meant it – probably the oil pan - and the men there cried out, then sprinted for the cover of the VW Beetle. Jack didn't move a muscle.
"That work for you?" Smiley's voice was barely a whisper.
He caught her looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Remind me not to piss you off." Then he jerked his head in the general direction of behind them. She bellycrawled back from the edge, and he made her descend first, keeping an eye on the flaming vehicles until he figured she was about two-thirds of the way down. Then he followed after.
Sweeper was most of the way up the next ridge. Adams had the airman, but he was also the only infantryman they had left, and he was leading the way. Ramallama and Mac followed, and of course his goddamn EOD was carrying a pack.
Nobody in this whole damn outfit could follow an order. Not one.
The Blackhawk showed no signs of a boobytrap, and even knowing where they'd tucked Boone and Serrano away, he could barely tell. Depending how serious Mac had been when he'd wired the bird, Jack thought there was a pretty good chance the explosion wouldn't even move the smaller rocks. He took a quick read of the position off the two ridges, rather than the helo, so he could accurately describe the site after the Blackhawk was vaporized. Then he scooped up his pack – somewhat mollified to feel that it was heavier than usual - and he hustled to catch up.
The next ridge was a little more broad, giving them plenty of places to hide, and Adams picked a decent spot, protected from sight unless you were dead in front of them. By the time Jack made it up there, everyone had settled in, and MacGyver had the radio pack in front of him, in several pieces. Wires were sticking out everywhere, and Jack was about to ask if he'd used the same rock on the radio that he had the windshield, but then he realized the broken bits were legitimately broken.
Mac had salvaged them from the cockpit.
The kid still looked pale, and Jack couldn't tell if the grimace was from discomfort or frustration. They'd tucked Higgins in beside him, again on his back with his legs up, and his face in some shade. His eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling rapidly. Everyone else sitting there looked up at them expectantly, and it was clear from their expressions that the seriousness of their situation had finally set in.
Smiley grabbed the FAK and headed towards Higgins, and Jack took a knee by Adams and Ramallama.
"Ding Dong, you got any maps of this part of the mountains?"
The engineer could have been glaring daggers; it was too hard to tell with both his eyes swelled half shut. "It's Ramarao. If you can't make your flaccid Texan tongue wrap around that, call me Arush."
Jack reared back and held up a hand. "Whoa there. Let's not be draggin' the great Republic of Texas into this now. Maps, Ramallama. Yes or no."
"Just ignore him. He'll get it right when it counts," Mac advised, from the other side of their little clearing.
The engineer muttered to himself, too low for anyone to make out – and, Jack suspected, in Punjabi. Then he rustled around in his pack.
While the engineer was looking, Jack turned to Adams. "Keep an eye on the north ridge. Lemme know when you see activity." The infantryman nodded, then slid his eyes past him, Jack suspected to Smiley. Since technically he was giving the order as it related to security, he didn't see a need to check with the lieutenant, but she either agreed or was ignoring them, because Adams grabbed his M4 and headed back towards the edge of the ridge.
Didn't matter. Jack still wasn't going to let the crunchie off the hook for letting Mac carry a pack.
"Not that I think you're capable of reading it," the engineer muttered as he came up with a thick rectangle of paper.
"Well, it's all one big pretty picture, so I think I can manage it, Pajamas," Jack drawled, snatching the map right out of his hands. The combat engineer just stared at him.
Jack glanced at the map key, then started unfolding it, looking for the right coordinate grid.
"He's the one in pajamas," Ramallama finally grumbled, glancing over at the flightsuit-clad copilot while he put his pack back in order. The airman had clearly paid for the scramble up the slopes; Jack could hear the pain on his breath, and Smiley was being gentle as she tried to get a better look.
"Come on, man, and you were doggin' me for readin'? Ain't you ever heard of llamas in pajamas?" Jack found the grid he was looking for and spread the map in the middle of the clearing, grabbing a few handy rocks to pin the corners down.
"It's Bananas In Pyjamas," Mac corrected absently. "You're thinking of Llama Llama Red Pajama."
Jack paused. "Really?" Then he thought better of it. "Got the book on your nightstand, doncha."
MacGyver let it pass with a distracted shake of his head, concentrating on the radio pack. Smiley, however, jammed a morphine auto-injector into Higgins' thigh, and after the young pilot yelped, she turned towards them.
"You know, I thought you were exaggerating, Hollywood, but you were spot on. He really is an ass."
Jack looked up in time to see the corner of Mac's mouth turn up.
"Hollywood, huh?" Of course Mac's EOD unit had gone for the easy moniker. "What, your unit don't know your first name?"
The other side of Mac's mouth turned up, forming a tired smirk. "Oh they do, Jack. They just have a little something called respect."
"Aww. Now that ain't nice. I got plenty'a respect for ya, Carl's Junior, you know that." He was cut off by a quiet pop in his ear.
"Sweeper, we got activity on the north ridge, over."
Now that was way the hell too early. Those little shits had really climbed the ridge?
Jack exchanged a glance with Smiley, all the levity gone from her expression, and he headed back up the slope. "Sweeper Three, hold position, do not engage, over."
He found Adams in a reasonably good place, M4 up on a rock, and he tapped the infantryman on the foot to get him to shove over. Jack took his position, but he didn't even bother to use the Barrett's optics.
There were at least a dozen men working their way down that slope.
His first thought was a competing tribe, but one of them, the very slight one, looked familiar. Jack settled in behind the scope and caught the singe on the kid's scarf.
And it was a kid. No more than fifteen years old, an AK strapped to his back.
Jack moved on to another target. Maybe seventeen. He finally found an adult among them, and behind him was a leggy dark-eyed youth who looked like he didn't weigh enough to use that grenade launcher he was carrying.
Not a damn one of them even had a beard.
Jack lifted his head with a curse and rolled onto his side, giving the position back to Adams. "Radio me the second one of 'em steps beyond the bird and so much as looks in our direction."
The private nodded, eyes wide, and Jack stayed low, just in case more were topping the ridge. Either he and Smiley hadn't let the whole convoy arrive, or another had been dispatched to catch up to the first. There was no way they could have responded that quickly to the smoke. Which meant reinforcements, if any had been sent, were also well on their way.
They couldn't take them all out with the bird. And they sure as hell couldn't hold the ridge against so many.
As soon as he was sure he was out of line of sight, Jack doubletimed it back to their position. Smiley had Higgins sitting up, and she looked up at Dalton as he dropped back to the map.
"Pack it up, kids. We're oscar mike in three." Jack scanned the topography, getting his hearings. Over the next southern crest, there was a kind of connecting ridge that served as a backbone to the neighboring range. It was definitely the best path to go on foot, with the ravines on both side being even steeper than the ones they'd already climbed. And it would take four-wheeled vehicles half the day to go around.
Jack pointed it out on the map as the lieutenant crouched beside him. "I need you and Ramarao to make this go away. I don't care if you collapse it or make the whole goddamn thing a minefield, but when you're done, nobody crosses."
Smiley took it in, turning the map a little. "How many are coming?"
The clearing was too small to be delicate about it, and they already had everyone's eyes. Jack found himself looking towards MacGyver, frozen in the act of the stuffing the last of the scavenged radio pieces into his pack.
This was not a situation he ever wanted the kid in, and it was going to get worse before it got better.
"Looks like we flew right over a damn recruitment site. Dozens, maybe more. Well armed. They ain't interested in the Blackhawk. They're interested in shuttin' us up." He stabbed the map with a finger. "We gotta stop 'em here, buy us some time to call in the cavalry." Then he looked back up at Mac. "I know you're hurtin', dude, but you gotta get that hunk'a junk workin', and I mean right now."
Mac's lip set in a pale line, and he nodded once.
The lieutenant grabbed the map, shaking off the paperweight rocks. "How much time do we have?"
Jack looked her square in the eye. "Not enough. Me an' Adams can guarantee you twenty, anything after that's scared money."
Smiley balked. "I'm not leaving you here-"
"If you can walk us across it great, otherwise we'll take the long way 'round and lay a fake trail."
Finally her voice dropped, to a whispered growl. "I know who you are, Dalton, but Adams is a goddamn private first class and he is not trained for this-"
"We have the high ground and plenty of cover." He matched her volume and intensity, and saw no need to mention the additional grenade launchers. "Me and Adams are all you got, lieutenant. If we all stick together, we lose this fight here and now." Then he held out his right hand for the remote.
Not for the first time, he had to remind himself that he was not the ranking officer here, and threatening a superior officer into doing what you wanted them to wasn't always the best move.
But in this case, logic won out. She glared at him, then slapped the detonator remote into his hand, and Jack gave his partner one last look. He'd been around Mac long enough to know the kid wasn't just brilliant, he was a certified genius, and he'd already put it all together even if he couldn't hear everything. Mac's blue eyes looked a little sharper than usual, but also uncertain, and Jack shot him a reassuring grin.
He'd get the radio up and working, and Ramallama was their com man. He knew how to call in support.
They'd be fine.
Jack turned on the combat engineer, who was wearing Serrano's M4. "You trained on that weapon, specialist?"
Ramallama gave a quick shake of his head. His left eye was swelled almost completely shut.
Jack was at his side in three long strides. He pulled the weapon up, making sure the barrel was pointed at rock. "See this little guy here?" He indicated the safety. "This is safety on, this is semi-auto. You do not move this to burst unless the enemy is ten feet in front of you and there are eight of 'em. You hear me?" The last thing they needed was a combat engineer tearing through ammo like they tore through buildings.
The engineer nodded, indicating he got the idea, and Jack put it back into his hands. "If you can't see, don't shoot." Jack turned back to Smiley, who had pulled a holster out of the egress kit and was helping herself to an M9.
There was nothing left to say, so Jack left them in the lieutenant's capable hands and made it back to Adams before he got back on the horn. Fifteen to twenty men – mostly boys – were at the crash site, either working their way down the slope or pouring over the helo. A few had set up a defensive perimeter, facing them, but it looked like they figured the Americans had set up IEDs to blow up the vehicles and then bailed. No one else seemed to be coming over the north ridge, and Jack left Adams where he was and selected a position about twenty yards away.
He got on the radio. "Sweeper Three, I'm gonna zero in my scope and see if I can't convince anyone else to join the party. If anyone makes a run for us, force 'em to take cover behind the bird. How copy, over."
There were a couple large rocks between them, so he didn't have line of sight on Adams, but the response came back at once. "Sweeper Six, good copy, over."
His first target had to be the grenade launcher, child soldier or not, and Jack made it quick and clean. The moment the rifle cracked, everyone started scurrying, and Jack heard the M4 crank up to his left. Jack then picked out the furthest target, on the top of the opposing ridge, and put a bullet center mass. It was ever so slightly low, and Jack adjusted the scope.
He couldn't get it any more accurate than that until he added some distance, but it was good enough.
Adams did a decent job at keeping the enemy off the southern slope, but the M4 was a much more obvious target, and Jack heard him start cussing when the Tally started shooting back. Jack picked off the adults first, hoping the younger boys were unwilling conscripts and would just hide behind a rock and stay there, but it didn't seem to make much difference to the amount of return fire.
They'd already drunk the kool-aide. Kids had probably been indoctrinated in school. Jack did the best he could to work around them, but he wasn't going to let them take a piece outta him or Adams.
A sniper set up on top of the opposing ridge, not well enough, and Jack put him down. Then he unhurriedly exchanged his spent magazine for a fresh and keyed his radio.
"Sweeper Three, how you doin' on ammo, over."
"I got two and a half mags."
It was amazing how quickly active combat impacted radio discipline. "Sweeper Three, keep it to burst fire. When you're down to your last mag, we'll blow the bird. Break. Sweeper, gimme a sitrep, over."
In the end, he and Adams were able to buy about eighteen minutes. There were clearly still men on the other side of the north ridge, which became obvious when a mortar sailed over it, landing about twenty yards short on the southern slope. Jack didn't see it in time to call it, he just curled himself into a ball and covered his head as the rocks sprayed up.
"Sweeper Three, pull back, they're gonna walk those right to you!"
No sooner had he said it than other came over the ridge, danger close to Adams' position. He didn't hear anything after the explosion, not over the radio or with his ears.
"Sweeper Three, sitrep!"
There wasn't a damn thing Jack could do about it, whoever was launching them was just shy of the top of the northern ridge. Those who had taken cover around the helo were starting to duck out, and Jack knew time was up.
He pulled the remote from his vest, flipped up the safety, and put his thumb on the button. "Sweeper Sweeper, AO is hot!"
Then he clicked the button.
If he didn't know his partner as well as he did, he would have said Mac was mad as a mama wasp and eager to get some. But Jack did know the kid, and he tucked that explosion away under "when Mac actually follows orders, he takes them literally." Obviously Smiley had told him to make sure there wasn't anything left, because that was exactly what MacGyver had done.
When shit stopped raining down, Jack chanced a glance over the rocks, and found the site was devastated. If anyone down there was alive, they sure as hell weren't getting up and comin' after them any time soon. Dalton stayed low, and headed to the last place he'd seen Adams.
His radio crackled. "Sweeper Three, Sweeper Six, sitrep!"
The private had taken his advice and tried to retreat, and Jack found him on his back, looking stunned, about six feet down the southern slope. He was dirty, and his vest looked like it'd taken a little heat, but he was breathing and awake. Jack slid between the rocks and used his ass as a brake, grabbing the man by his vest to check.
No visible blood. Adams jerked in his hands, then picked up his head, blinking rapidly.
"You good?"
The tall man nodded, then grimaced and tried to actually get his shit together. Jack hauled him up into a sitting position and was somewhat reassured when the private checked his weapon seemingly on autopilot. Jack got back on the radio.
"Sweeper Sweeper, helo's vapor. Sweeper Three's oscar mike to your position. Don't blow him up." Then he released the radio and patted Adams on the helmet. "Fall back to Sweeper, take up rear guard. I got the rest of these d-bags."
Adams blinked at him, a little owlishly, and Jack pulled them both to their feet, giving Adams a helpful shove in the right direction. "Move out!"
Then Jack returned to the ridge.
All told, he managed to hold the position another fifteen, maybe sixteen minutes. Far longer than he'd dared hope. He let three or four curious folk pop up for a closer look, and once they just started to believe he'd retreated, he let the Barrett explain how wrong they were. Then he played a merry game of whack a mole while their artillery guys tried to figure out his position. He got them to waste a good dozen mortars before they wised up, and put three men with rocket launchers along the northern ridge.
If he took one, the other two would spot his position and fire.
Jack selected a nice little natural ranger grave almost directly across from one of 'em and shot the missile, not the man. The explosion startled everyone long enough for Jack to take the second, and then he rolled his ass right down the southern edge of the ridge. The third rocket hit dead on his old position, and Jack swore when a particularly spiteful rock bit into the back of his neck.
That was about all he could do. The rocket trick was only gonna work once, and they'd move slow now that he'd trained 'em not to trust he was really gone.
"Sweeper Sweeper, I am oscar mike to your position, please do not shoot me, over." The very last thing they needed today was a friendly fire incident.
Then Jack slung his rifle onto his back and hauled ass.
He wasn't even within sight of the natural little land bridge before his radio crackled. "Sweeper Six, when you hit the street sign, call in and we will walk you through. How copy, over."
Street sign? Jack keyed the radio, even as he ran. "Good copy, Sweeper."
Turned out the street sign was just that – a neat column of rocks about waist high, topped with a bright red marker declaring 'MINES' with the triangle and skull and crossbones.
Smiley wasn't even trying to be subtle.
"Sweeper, found your street sign, over."
"I see you, Sweeper Six. Proceed dead ahead about a hundred and fifty meters."
Which was roughly the first third of the length of the 'bridge'.
Smart. Tell 'em straight up to expect mines, then don't bother to waste any explosives for the first good bit. Once they started to get cocky, they'd start blowin' up. Slowed 'em down while conserving explosives.
Jack did as he was instructed. The next voice on the radio made him smile.
"You're doin' great, Jack. See the little lion on top of the flat rocks on your left?"
Mac knew how much he hated bombs. Jack scanned the area, and sure enough, there was a little formation that looked just like a lion, sunning itself on the rocks.
"Go around it to the right. Give it about ten feet."
In that way, Mac walked him rapidly across the land bridge. The Yoda rock. The Wily Coyote hole. Mount Rushmore. Things he knew Jack would spot immediately in an otherwise utterly nondescript landscape. Jack managed the crossing at a fast walk, and he was way the hell more confident in Mac's directions than he would have been with distances and degrees of turn.
He could also tell by his partner's voice that it was taking effort. He and Smiley had been working hard and fast, and the kid was about beat. They needed to find a place to hole up, as out of the heat as possible, and get some food and water into him. The whole squad needed to take a breath.
And get that damn radio working, or all of this was gonna be for nothing.
Smiley and Mac were working on a set of tripwires by the time Jack had approached within yelling distance, and they waited for him to pass before Smiley gave Mac a nod, and the kid carefully drew some dull, very thin nylon through an eye hook he'd wedged between a couple stones. Jack only saw the spiderweb of string pull taut by the way tiny rocks and dirt moved as the thread lifted. It was creepy, like a bunch of ants had all erupted out of the dust at once.
Mac secured his end, and Smiley did something, then tucked a couple fist-sized rocks around it, and carefully backed off. MacGyver did the same, much less gracefully, and Jack actually caught him by the back of his vest as he stumbled.
The kid hissed in pain and Jack let go immediately, grabbing his right bicep instead. Mac was just as pale as he'd been before, and there wasn't much sweat on him. Considering he'd been working in the blistering sun with zero cover, it wasn't a good sign, and Jack hauled him back a safe distance from whatever the hell he and the lieutenant had just rigged up, and got a better look at him.
Mac's eyes were still sharp, and a little too bright. His lips were almost the same color as his face. "I'm good, just – lay off the vest."
Jack did no such thing. He moved to unclip the side buckles, even as Mac frowned and swatted at him. "Smiley, you check the kid yet?"
He got the right side undone and went for the velcro, brushing the lower quadrant of the vest as he pulled MacGyver around, and the embedded ceramic plate, that was intended to stop bullets, swung in like it was hinged. It barely brushed the kid, and he dropped like a sack of rocks.
Dalton was totally unprepared; Mac's knees hit the sand before Jack managed to find something safe to catch, which ended up being his helmet. Mac's mouth was wide open but he wasn't making a sound, and Jack dropped beside him and laid him back as gently as he could, slipping his hand from the helmet to the back of the kid's neck.
MacGyver was usually wound pretty tight, but Jack could have bounced a quarter off Mac's back. Tense didn't begin to cover it.
"Smiley!"
Mac finally remembered how to breathe, sucking in a sad little gasp of air, and Jack had the vest off him in a flash. There was no blood on his ACUs, but Mac choked again, a little more deeply, when Jack's fingers brushed the front of his uniform shirt, and Jack pulled it up off his chest to unzip it. The tee beneath was unmarked.
The lieutenant was on his other side, and she didn't hesitate to pull the tee loose and roll it up. "Easy, kiddo. Talk to me. Where does it hurt?"
That ended up being a very stupid question.
Jack didn't change his expression in the slightest at the deep red bruising, which quickly tapered off into dark purples, then blues near the edges. It started just below where his sternum ended, right at the kid's solar plexus, and would have been between the top and second grouping of an eight-pack if Mac had one. It stretched half the width of his ribcage, and the deepest part of the bruising was the size of a fist.
Dalton brushed the bruised skin as gently as he could, and they watched Mac flinch. While his abdominal muscles contracted, nothing beneath the bruising seemed to, and the skin felt abnormally rigid. Mac was gulping air, but the flesh around the bruises barely moved.
Jack didn't need to be a medic to recognize what he was looking at, and apparently neither did Smiley. She pulled the tee up higher, inspecting his upper chest, but the bruising – more accurately, the bleeding – didn't seem to be high enough to breach his chest wall.
His lungs weren't compromised. He could still breathe.
"Got some crush damage here, Hollywood," she told him matter-of-factly. "You feel any sharp pains?"
The kid's eyes were almost as round as his mouth, and he picked up his head, trying to see over the rolled up tee shirt. "Only when something – ahh, touches me. I don't know what happened. Right leg just gave out."
Jack dragged Mac's vest over, and inspected the interior. Whatever had hit him – or whatever he'd hit – when he'd been bouncing around inside the helo, it had snapped his lower ballistic armor plate in half. Would have been a hell of a blow. He was amazed the tech was moving at all.
"How's the leg feel now?"
Mac tried to catch his breath. "Uh . . . pins and needles. Like it's asleep. It's, ah, nerve pain." He managed to drag his head up far enough to catch a glimpse of the damage, and his eyes got wider, if possible, before he dropped back to the sand. "That's, uh, that's not good."
"No, it's not," Smiley agreed, "but you've been running around like a moron since the crash and you're not dead. That means this bleed is manageable, and it'll slow as long as we keep you still and keep your heart rate down."
Jack tried to fish out the important information there. He needed to be still. That meant no more setting bombs, no more scaling cliffs. No more walking, even across flat surfaces if they could avoid it.
No more retreats. Not without some way to carry him, and everything they could have used to do that had just been blown sky high.
Jack gave his bomb nerd a full beam Dalton grin. "Ooh, sittin' still. That's gotta be about your least favorite thing."
Mac tried to scoff. "There are a . . . a few things I like less." His legs were already beginning to shift restlessly. "Actually . . . uh . . . it's starting to feel a little better."
"Lying flat took some of the pressure off the nerves," the lieutenant told him, rolling his shirt back down. "Stay put, and try to stay calm. Ramarao and I can handle the rest of the prep, and then we'll help you back to camp."
Mac swallowed, then nodded, closing his eyes against the sun. Jack put a hand on his shoulder, high enough that he knew it wouldn't hurt him, and gave him a little squeeze. "Guess I need to go find us a place to hole up. Be back before you know it."
Smiley hooked a finger at Jack, and he obediently followed her to her pack, where she produced Ramallama's paper map. "Rest of the squad's with Adams sitting under a big rock about two hundred meters due east." Then she grabbed her radio. "Sweeper Four, I need an assist at the bridge, over."
She didn't even wait for the affirm, and dropped her voice. "That injury's bad news. There's nothing we can do for internal bleeding out here. And given the size of that bruise, Mac's lost almost as much blood as Higgins." She glanced over Jack's shoulder, presumably towards MacGyver. "And speaking of shit we didn't need today, Adams didn't paint me a pretty picture. What am I really looking at?"
Jack tried to pull his focus back to the larger issue. The kid was in trouble, but the truth was he was liable to get shot before he could bleed to death. They had zero intel on enemy numbers. They sure as hell hadn't been shy with the mortars or RPGs, which made Jack think they either had plenty, or they really needed them dead. And with so many child soldiers . . .
"I think we're lookin' at a training camp. No way to know how big without headin' over and takin' a gander." Jack wasn't currently kitted for recon, but he could at the very least stay behind and radio in enemy numbers and positions. Not that Smiley could do much with the intel, even if she had it.
They needed some goddamn air support and an evac.
"No," the lieutenant said immediately. "I need you here. Only other gunner is Adams, and we're three men down now."
"Three?" Jack's voice was sharp.
"Ramarao's basically blind. He has to hold his eyes open to see."
Jack blinked. "And you're gonna let him set explosives?"
The look he got was blistering enough to strip the paint off the wall of a honeymoon hotel. "Dalton, we're EOD. Every member of this unit can literally set charges with their eyes closed."
A quiet snicker emanated from Mac's general direction.
"Shut it," Jack called over his shoulder, then focused back on Smiley. "Fair enough. You keep slowin' 'em down, I'll find us a nice little hidey hole, and we'll get that radio up and workin'."
He found the rest area Adams had chosen easily enough – and passed Ramallama on the way. He was actually holding his right eye open with his fingers, and his face was significantly more swollen than it had been even an hour ago. Jaw was definitely broken; it was gonna suck trying to get an MRE into him. Higgins was in the deepest part of the shadows, on his back with his legs up on packs, and he looked like he was asleep. Morphine and heat would do that, but seeing as the airman was probably down a pint or two of blood, they'd have to keep an eye on him.
They were going to have to treat Mac for shock, too, just as soon as Smiley and Ramallama could get him back here.
Adams started to get to his feet, but Jack waved him down. "Stay put. I'm gonna check out the neighborhood. You get any action, you call me."
-M-
So this was actually a suggestion from BookNeed007 originally intended to be a Turkey Day Trimmings – the first time Mac got hurt, and Jack learned how to deal with an injured MacGyver. Simple enough, right? I envisioned a helicopter crash, Mac getting to make all kinds of fun stuff out of a crashed helicopter, Jack learning how the kid dealt with pain and problem-solving when he was impaired . . .
Yeah. And then I realized we'd need a pilot, and it probably wouldn't just be Jack, Mac and a pilot in a bird so there was a team, and suddenly it was sixty pages, our boys were surrounded, I would have straight up killed Mac if not for the timely medical advice of one Gib. Most of the rest of this is written, but I realized it was way the hell too long to post as a single chapter, so I decided that it would be a standalone story, but could easily have happened in the Turkey Day universe.
