Syrian was turning his remaining force to confront the newcomers when aimed 7.62 fire began reducing his numbers. Two men dropped almost immediately. Another scrambled down the trail; had there been time Kassim would have shot him in the back.
With a hostile force of unknown size behind him, Kassim recognized a no-win setup. He organized a fighting withdrawal, leapfrogging his remaining men into the rocks and boulders on the near side of the trail with a steep dropoff. He cast a longing glance uphill where the English woman had held out so long.
Bosco and Breezy had plopped into hasty prone positions as soon as they had targets. Like everyone else, they were out of breath but at sixty to eighty meters, they made good use of the steady position. It was over in seconds. Hendricks, the least fit of the military athletes, felt jilted: trailing by forty meters, he never got a shot.
Khan took Blake, pursuing the
Lee had his binoculars out, scanning the uphill slope. “I don’t see any… wait!” He pointed to a prominent boulder about eighty meters away. “Looks like a body there. You, you, you — check it out. Search to the top if you have to.”
Bosco, Breezy, and O’Neil eagerly complied. They began the climb, calling for Carolyn Padgett-Smith.
Bosco was back twenty minutes later, carrying an AKS. He handed it to Lee. “Sir, this was in the den near the crest. Lots of brass and two
Sick at heart, Lee accepted the Klimov, noting that the magazine was empty.
Khan tweaked his mustache. “Of course, we should look. But we may still be outnumbered, and our force is divided. I suggest that we send a runner to bring the others here in case the terrorists regroup. The med-evac helicopter should have picked up our casualties by now.”
Lee considered his colleague’s argument and decided it made sense. “Very well. Can you contact Quetta and request one or both of our Hips?”
“Surely, Major. It shall be done.”
Lee sat on a flat boulder and gathered his thoughts. He was still fighting the queasiness in his gut — the gnawing thought that he may have lost Dr. Carolyn Padgett-Smith.
He pulled his canteen and took a long gulp of water. Whatever happened, he was going to taste something stronger back at base.
27
Three SSI operators spent nearly an hour combing the crest of the hill, easing their way down the far slope. They called frequently for Padgett-Smith, but got no response.
By the time Terry Keegan arrived in Helo One, the searchers were looking on the reverse slope. In order to coordinate the rescue effort, he landed briefly on the crest and the crew chief handed out two radios with frequencies compatible with the Hip’s gear. Then Keegan pulled pitch, lifted off, and pedal-turned down the face of the slope.
Lee, belatedly arriving at the crest, keyed his mike. “One, this is Lee. Copy?”
“Copy, Major.”
“Say status Helo Two. Over.”
Keegan’s voice crackled in the handset. “En route in three-zero… make that two-zero mikes. Hydraulic problem. Over.”
“Ah, roger that. Status of our casualties?”
“Dustoff was inbound when we took off, sir. Over.”
Lee double-clicked to end the discussion. He turned to Khan.
“The med-evac flight was about to land when Keegan left Quetta. Hip Two should be here in twenty minutes or so.”
Keegan slowed to forty knots and surveyed the terrain before him. He assumed that Dr. Padgett-Smith would take the easiest route downhill — assuming she went that way — and planned his search pattern accordingly. His Pakistani copilot used a colored pen to trace the Hip’s flight path, avoiding duplicate effort when Marsh arrived.
Ten minutes later the noncommissioned crew chief pointed to the right and called over the intercom. “Sir, what is that?”
Keegan turned to the heading and saw what he saw. Closing to one hundred meters, he gave a huge grin behind his lip mike. “Lee, this is Hip One. Over.”
“Ah, copy.”
“Call in your dudes, Major. I’m returning with Charlie Poppa Sierra.”
Padgett-Smith got out of the helo and walked briskly to the edge of the crest. She pulled her Browning, pointed it downhill, and pressed the trigger. The Hi-Power recoiled and the slide locked back. She holstered the empty pistol and looked at Steve Lee. There were tears on her dirty cheeks and a grim smile on her lips. “I just had to know…”
Lee wrapped his arms around her and felt her start to tremble. “I know, Carolyn. I know.”
He hadn’t a clue.
Sandy Carmichael read the email first. She emitted an Alabama shriek and dashed out of her office, bound for the board room.
“They found her! Padgett-Smith is alive!”
Derringer, Wolf, and some others turned in their padded chairs. Carmichael logged the different responses. Smiling broadly, the admiral pounded his right fist into his left palm. Joe Wolf crossed himself and briefly bowed his head. Everyone else hollered and congratulated one another.
Derringer broke in: “Sandy, what happened?”
“Well, sir, there’s an email from Frank. He’ll send an after-action report but here’s the short version. After the ambush last night, Dr. Smith found some high ground and stayed put. At dawn she started firing a prearranged signal. But the al Qaeda gang got to her first. Evidently there was quite a firefight. She held them off for quite a while and even killed a couple.”
“You go, girl!”
Carmichael turned to see Sallie Ann at the door. She had heard the excitement.
Derringer and Wolf exchanged knowing male glances. Nobody needed to state the obvious: two women affiliated with SSI now had shot for blood. The admiral made a mental note to caution his colleagues against making too much of that fact. Male
“Anyway,” Carmichael continued, “she was out of ammo so she ran down the far slope of the mountain. That was when Steve Lee’s team arrived. They chased off the terrorists, and Terry Keegan lifted them back to base.”
Wolf spoke for many in the room. “I don’t care if I have to buy a ticket to London. I want to meet that lady.”
The sentiment was widely shared as the meeting disintegrated into animated conversation. Derringer
