Archeology and Espionage
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, Beckett, Nikki Heat, the Middle East…but you know that. Rating: K Time: in the near future after the story The Treasure of the Penelope.
Rick's stomach lurched as the helicopter dropped like a stone towards the desert below.
Graham was acting as the gunner and was hunched over her weapons panel.
"Weapons clear." Wozniak said.
"Roger that. Weapons clear." Graham muttered.
A second later what looked like a solid bar of red shot out from the underside of the helicopter. Rick knew they were tracer rounds, one every five rounds from the minigun.
"I got the sangar." Graham yelled. "I saw a whole bunch bounce of the inside of the sangar and ricochet around. Anyone inside is toast."
They pulled away from the target and Rick could just barely see a few muzzle flashes behind them. The he heard a clunk sound.
"We took a hit." Wozniak yelled. He checked all of his instruments. "We look good. Must not have hit anything critical. Oh, you okay, Colonel?"
"Yeah, and I do consider myself to be critical."
"Ooh! Lookie there." Wozniak shouted. "Agony Zero Two found him a big sangar and out a missile into it. Flattened that motherfucker good." He looked over at Graham. "Sorry about the language, ma'am."
"Let's flatten a motherfucker ourselves." Graham replied.
"There's something at the south end." Rick yelled.
"Good eyes, Colonel. Looks like a pile of supplies covered with some rocks and junk. I'll tell Agony Zero Two we're going after it and to watch our ass."
They fired two missiles into the pile but got nothing but the explosions of the missiles' warheads.
"No secondary explosions. It might have been a dummy stash or maybe it was their food and water. We'll go back and work over the sangars."
On their third pass over the Iranians' position, the window beside Rick was shattered and he felt something hit his chest.
"Are you hit?" Wozniak yelled.
Rick carefully began checking himself.
"I'm not bleeding and…shit. I found the bullet. It hit my plate on the side which stopped it, but it's hot. I burned my finger."
"Not enough for another Purple Heart, I'm afraid." Wozniak said.
"Collecting Purple Hearts is not my idea of a good time."
They made two more runs and as the sun was coming up, Wozniak announced, "Agony Zero Two, were Winchester, out of ammo." He added for Rick's benefit. "How are you?"
"I've got two more missiles and a little bit of minigun left. One more run?"
"Okay, we'll follow you."
The run was a waste of time. One missile didn't track and shot off inro the desert and the other hit just short of a sangar. The minigun rounds bounced off the sangar.
"At best, the last run made their shorts brown. We're heading home."
Aboard Helen of Troy
Rick didn't relax until they were on the ground, and he saw Kate. She ran to him and threw her arms around him.
"You know I worry about you terribly."
"And I worry about you." He replied. "And, come to think of it, I worry about myself, too."
"Come on. I have to show you how much I worried." She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards their suite, but he pulled back.
"Kate, I have to go over everything we saw with Colonel Nayef while everything is fresh in our minds. Then we have to brief our respective troops. It'll be a while."
She glared at him, but then smiled.
"You know, soldier, if it were anyone else but you, I'd go looking for a sailor."
Rick laughed.
"Lucky me."
She leaned in and whispered in his ear.
"You have no idea."
"Colonel," Captain Smith called out to Rick. "You'll want to see these. We just got sent some satellite photos of the Iranians position. And there's more."
"Okay, let me grab Colonel Nayef."
Nayef had never flown a gunship mission before and was still full of adrenaline, going over the mission with Agony Zero Two's crew, Warrant Officers Buller and Browder.
"We have new intel, Colonel. Satellite photos. We need to go."
"I have seen gunships attack from the ground before, Colonel Rodgers, but never from inside one. It was amazing. Fantastic. Unbelievable."
Buller laughed.
"I don't think Colonel Nayef is gonna stop smiling for a week, sir."
"Probably not even then." Nayef said. "But duty calls."
The satellite photos didn't show anything they hadn't known earlier about the Iranians.
"They're dug in covering 360 degrees and with overlapping fields of fire. This is gonna be a tough one." Rick said.
"It's the rest of the satellite photos that worry me." Nayef said. "There's a column moving north from Yemen, doubtlessly some Iranians and their Yemeni friends, ten technicals and four larger trucks. The technicals appear to hold eight or ten people each and I'm betting the larger trucks carry supplies."
"And we haven't heard anything about when our lift ships will be coming."
"We have a choice." Nayef said. "We can attack the Iranians we just hit and try to kill as many as possible, or we can go after the column coming from Yemen. Do you have a choice, Colonel Rodgers?"
Rick looked at the photos and thought.
"I'm betting the Iranians are short of food, water and ammo. I think we can get two strikes in on the column today and maybe another two tomorrow. If we stop the column, the Iranians are going to get very, very thirsty pretty quick. They'll be a lot easier to kill. They may even surrender."
Nayef shook his head.
"One thing they won't do is surrender. They'd rather be martyrs, and I'd rather help them achieve that. And I think your idea is correct. Hit the column."
"One thing, though. Wozniak will be flying a lot farther this time, so they won't be carrying any extra weight, such as you and me."
"Inshallah." Nayef said. "As God wills it."
Lauren Graham was excited. She'd been nervous before because she had Colonel Rodgers right behind her and if she screwed up, he'd be right there to see it. But she hadn't and she was thrilled that Wozniak, whom she found was referred to as the Wizard of Woz, was taking her along as the gunner on Agony Zero One.
"You won't regret taking me along, Mr. Wozniak. I promise you I'll be the best gunner you ever had. I've been studying the satellite photos until I have them memorized. I know the position of every rock in every sangar there. I know where…"
Wozniak held his hands up in the shape of a T, the sign for time out.
"Lieutenant, you don't have to convince me. Now, we have something serious to do."
"Anything, Mr. Wozniak. I'm ready for anything."
"Good, 'cause we're having lunch now. It's been days, at least, since breakfast." Woz stopped as he headed for the dining room. "And by the way, we're hitting the convoy coming up from Yemen, not the Iranians."
"Should I…" Graham began but was cut off by Wozniak.
"No. You should have lunch, help me prep the bird and be ready to shoot up anything that looks like a motor vehicle? Can you do all of that, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, Mr. Wozniak." Graham said quietly.
They had decided that they'd fly out over the Red Sea, keeping away from the coast, then head inland to the south of the convoy and attack from behind, hoping to surprise them.
Aboard Agony Zero One
Three hours later, the two helicopters were over Saudi territory and watching the dirt road ahead for any sing of the convoy.
Lauren Graham was surprised at how calm she felt. She could feel some adrenaline building up inside of her, but she was in control. Then she saw it.
"Dust cloud straight ahead. That has to be the convoy." She yelled.
"Good eyes, Lieutenant. Buy you a beer back home."
Wozniak got on the radio.
"Agony Zero Two, we have the convoy in sight. We're gonna go in first and you follow behind. You just don't shoot at us, okay?"
"We've done this before, Woz." Buller snapped back. "And I make them too close to the water to do anything but turn inland to scatter. You agree?"
"Roger that. We'll be firing in ten seconds."
Ten seconds later Agony Zero One opened up with two guided missiles and three bursts from the minigun. One of the trucks turned sharply to the right, went off the road and turned over. One truck was hit by a missile, stopped and began to burn, very slowly. Two technicals were hit and kept going but with dead and wounded now aboard.
"Where the hell did my second missile go?" Graham yelled.
"Probably straight down. Don't worry about it. There, third technical from the front, he's got a twin 23mm anti-aircraft gun. Take him out!"
Wozniak cranked his helo around to give the enemy gunner the smallest possible target. Graham hosed the vehicle with minigun fire and saw the crew thrown around like toys.
"Put another burst into it to make sure the gun is knocked out, Graham."
She complied, probably using too much ammo.
"Agony Zero One, this is Agony Zero Two, the bastards are leaving their vehicles and getting under cover. We should…Shit! An RPG just sailed by my canopy. Missed me by about an eighth of an inch.'
"Agony Zero Two, we'll shoot up the vehicles and go home. We're getting close to Winchester."
The made two more passes and then headed home.
"You okay, Lieutenant?" Woz asked.
"I'm fine. I'm really fine. Really."
"I never asked, what's your call sign in the Marines?'
"They call me Skinny." She said, not at all happy with her nickname.
"Skinny? Well, that's a hell of a piss poor call sign for a combat hardened Marine pilot. Gotta think you up a better one."
Just before the landed Wozniak laughed.
"I've got it. From now on, Graham, you're Tock."
"Tock?"
"Yeah, Tall Ovulating Coldblooded Killer. I like it and it's gotta be better than Skinny."
"That it is."
Aboard Helen of Troy
When they'd landed, they found they had the occasional bullet hole in the skin of the helos, but no damage to anything critical. The crews began readying them for another mission while the crews went to brief Colonels Rodgers and Nayef.
"We knocked out two of their trucks for sure," Wozniak said, "and damaged one. We got about half of their technicals and maybe half of their troops. Hard to say if there were dead and wounded falling off the technical or if they were just jumping off when they saw us coming. What I'd like to do is go back just after dark. The metal in their vehicles will retain the heat while the rest of the desert cools down. They'll stand out on our thermal imagers like they were lit up for Christmas."
"Okay. You still okay with having Lieutenant Graham as your gunner?"
"Sure. Tock's a great gunner. Couldn't ask for a better one."
"Tock?" Rick asked.
"Yup, Tall Ovulating Coldblooded Killer. She's a natural, sir, and her new call sign reflects that."
Rick looked over at Lieutenant Graham.
"You okay with that?"
"It's better than Skinny."
The ground crews worked to refuel and rearm the helos so they were ready to fly again just before sunset.
Aboard Agony Zero One
"Buller, can you see any people down there?" Woz asked over the radio, while circling what was left of the convoy.
"Nope. I guess they're all under something, or maybe covered themselves with rocks and sand. Not enough difference in the thermals from a person from the desert. We'll never find them, but the vehicles stand out just fine. Let's go get 'em."
"Okay, me and Tock will go first. Use a figure eight formation and watch each other's asses."
"Roger that. I'll be happy to watch Tock's ass."
Tock blushed since she wasn't used to men being complimentary about her physical attributes, but rather they noticed the lack of any. It was too dark for Woz to see the blush.
TBC