M230 chain gun, Hydra 70 air-to-ground rockets, and AGM-114 Hellfire or FIM-92 Stinger missiles. The mere silhouette of that helicopter summoned up horrific death in the imaginations of the Taliban who’d seen their fellow warriors shredded under its unceasing fire.
Ozzy got back on his radio and talked to the chopper pilot, requesting that he come to the village immediately and put his chain gun to work on the insurgents.
“We’ll get you back to the landing zone right now,” said Ozzy.
“You hear that?” Moore asked Rana. “We’re heading back. We’ll be okay.”
Rana clutched his Makarov to his chest. “I don’t like this.”
“I’m with you, Rana,” Moore said. “You’ll be fine.”
As the words left Moore’s lips, he flicked his gaze up toward the opposite end of the house, where a figure had just rounded the corner, and the figure’s rifle appeared in the moonlight.
Moore raised his AK-47, set to full auto, and squeezed off a four-round burst that drummed into the man’s chest, sending him thrashing and falling into the sand.
Even as that guy fell, Ozzy and Bob-O came under a hailstorm of fire from the other side of the house — at least three Taliban fighters opening up on them and driving them away from the corner. Bob-O stepped in front of Rana to protect the kid while Moore stole one more look back, then spun around and went charging up beside Ozzy.
Two houses lay on the other side of the street, and Moore noted the muzzle flashes before he hit the deck. One guy was on the flat roof, exploiting the calf-high parapet running along three sides. He fired and tucked himself back behind the stone. Another was at the back of the house, where a knee wall afforded him good cover.
And the last one stood inside the house on the left, shifting into the open window to fire, then rolling back. All three knew that the mud bricks would protect them from the enemy’s rounds.
“Rana, stay with them,” Moore told the kid. Then he crawled two more meters to get close to Ozzy. “Keep them busy. I’m circling around. I’ll start with the guy on the roof.”
“Dude, are you nuts?” asked Ozzy. “Let me frag ’em.”
Moore shook his head vigorously. “I want one alive. Give me a couple of zipper cuffs.”
Ozzy snickered in disbelief but handed over the cuffs.
Moore winked. “I’ll be right back.”
“Hey, Money,” called Rana nervously.
But Moore was already racing out of the alley. Dressed like a tribesman himself and armed with their weapons, if he were spotted, there might be a moment of pause that he’d fully exploit. He charged around two more houses, crossed the dirt road, then reached the back of the house atop which one of the Taliban fighters had carefully positioned himself. The guy had used a rickety wooden ladder, and it was during the next round of gunfire that Moore rushed up that ladder, allowing the racket to conceal his advance.
He came over the ledge and spotted the guy, kneeling down and popping up like a target in a black turban, laying down fire, then snapping back behind the parapet. Bob-O and Ozzy sent their own suppressing fire into the stone, drilling up debris and dust that rose in small clouds along the parapet.
With the Taliban’s attention fully directed ahead, he neither saw nor heard Moore’s approach. Moore took the Makarov in his hand, clutching the barrel so that the grip extended from the bottom of his fist, forming an L- shape.
Then, after taking a deep breath, Moore broke into a running leap, arcing high above his opponent, shifting into an off-beat combination of Krav Maga and his own improvisation. As the guy turned his head, catching a flash from the corner of his eye, Moore came down on him like some taloned predator, driving his knee into the man’s back and forcing the grip end of the pistol into the man’s neck, below and slightly in front of the ear. A sharp blow to the side of the neck would cause unconsciousness by shocking the carotid artery, jugular vein, and vagus nerve.
The guy fell back across the roof, and Moore withdrew the zipper cuffs from his back pocket and bound the man’s hands behind his back. Then he zipped up the guy’s feet and left him there. When he woke up, they’d have some tea and a nice conversation. For now, though, Moore descended the ladder, as once more Ozzy and Bob-O got off some suppressing fire on the other two Taliban.
Moore brushed his shoulder along the wall as he headed back around the next house, reaching the corner where, to his left and about ten meters ahead, the second Taliban fighter was hunkered down at the knee wall. He was armed with a rifle but also had a pistol holstered at his side and wore a heavy pack that Moore assumed was loaded with more magazines. Moore shuddered over the decision: The guy seemed too far away to catch silently from behind. And if Moore ran forward at the wrong angle, he could be caught by Ozzy’s or Bob-O’s fire. Getting taken out by doing something bold was one thing; doing something reckless and getting shot by his own people was to reach a level of stupidity usually reserved for adulterous politicians.
Since Moore was carrying an AK-47, if he did fire, then the third Taliban might assume that his buddy was responsible for those rounds. But then came an even better diversion: The Apache Longbow and its thundering rotors swooped down, banked hard right, then began to wheel over them. The wind and roar stole the Taliban fighter’s attention, as did the powerful spotlight that panned across the alley.
Moore raised his rifle, got off three rounds, punching the guy in the back, blood spraying. Then he whirled and took off along the wall of the next house, within which stood the last guy. Moore got down on his hands and knees and crawled beneath the side window, then came around the front of the house. Bob-O and Ozzy ceased fire, and Moore was able to position himself beneath the open window through which the last guy was firing.
At this point, yes, they could lob a grenade and finish the guy, but Moore was already an arm’s length away from the insurgent. He rolled onto his side and strained his neck to peer upward until there it was, the guy’s rifle barrel hanging above the windowsill, within reach. Moore grabbed the rifle by the upper hand guard and used it to haul himself onto his knees, just as the guy, screaming in shock, let go of the weapon and reached for his holstered pistol.
By the time he freed his weapon, Moore had thrown down the AK and leveled his Makarov. Three rounds sent the thug crashing onto the floor. Moore had used his own pistol because one of the oldest of old-school combat rules said that only as a last resort should you put your life in the hands of an enemy’s weapon.
The Apache was already leaving, called off by Ozzy.
Only the fading whomp of rotors broke across the Mana Valley. Finally, a dog barked, and then someone hollered in the distance. English.
Moore jogged back across the street and down to the end of the alley, where he met up with Ozzy and Bob- O. The stench of gunpowder was everywhere, and Moore found himself shaking with adrenaline as he crouched down.
“Nice job, Puke,” said Bob-O.
“Yeah,” breathed Moore. “Took one alive up on the roof. I get to interrogate him.”
“We killed four more, but the rest fell back into the mountains,” said Ozzy, cupping one hand over his ear to listen to the reports from his men. “We lost them.”
“I want to talk to Old Man Shah, let him lie to my face about this,” snapped Moore, referring to the chief of the village.
“Me, too,” said Ozzy, showing his teeth.
Moore drifted over to Rana, who was still sitting in the alley, knees pulled in to his chest. “Hey. You okay?”
“No.”
“It’s over now.” Moore proffered his hand, and the young man took it.
While Ozzy’s team policed the bodies of the Taliban who’d been killed (and fetched the prisoner Moore had bound up on the roof), Moore, Ozzy, Bob-O, and Rana reached the mud-brick fort. The rectangular buildings were surrounded by brick walls rising about two meters and a large wooden gate before which now stood a half-dozen guards. Ozzy told one of the guards that the chief of the Shawal tribes needed to speak with them immediately. The guard went back to the house, while Moore and the others waited.
Chief Habib Shah and one of his most trusted clerics, Aiman Salahuddin, stormed out of the gate. Shah was an imposing man of six-foot-five or so, with a large black turban and a beard that seemed more like a bundle of black wires than hair. His green eyes flashed in Ozzy’s light. The cleric was much older, perhaps seventy, with an
