Apache Dawn, - [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

>They followed the Santa Monica Freeway for a few minutes before approaching their destination. “Two minutes,” reported the pilot.

“Get your shit wired SEALs, this is the real deal,” Cooper called out.

He looked to his own load-out and checked his HK MP5 submachine gun. The integrated red-dot laser and a rail-mounted tactical light were all functioning properly. The front grip was secure and ready. One magazine fully loaded, a round in the chamber, and 4 more across the front of his tactical vest. He had his radio and a pouch loaded with M-79 rounds for the ‘pirate gun’ he had strapped to his pack. He also had an old K-Bar that had been handed down to him from his father, a Marine in the First Gulf War.

“There’s the interchange…forty seconds…” announced the pilot. “Viper Two, on me. Viper Three and Four, take the triangle and call it.”

“Roger that, Viper Lead.”

“Shifting for approach on your starboard,” answered one of the pilots behind Cooper’s aircraft.

“Viper Four has starboard flank.”

“Here we go ladies…stay frosty,” said Cooper. The silence he received by way of reply was expected and comforting. His men were locked, cocked, and ready. Nothing else need be said. They had executed protection-extraction missions before in enemy territory, under fire. Here, flying over Los Angeles at sunset, would be pure cake, but no one was slacking off.

As he focused on the odd, arrow-shaped building that was All Saint’s Hospital, the sky behind him suddenly lit up to noon-bright.

“Missile!” someone yelled.

“Holy shit!” screamed Charlie.

“SAM lights, Viper flight, evasive! Scatter!” yelled Cooper’s pilot. Without further warning, he pulled the Little Bird into a gut-wrenching dive that caused the world to spin past Cooper’s head in a dizzying blur. The other pilots responded, creating a confusing jumble of chatter in Cooper’s ear.

“Nnnnnh…” someone grunted.

“Hang on!” roared Cooper.

“Rooftop, two o’clock low, here comes—”

Another explosion lit up the early evening sky, this time right in front of Cooper. Two screams were cut off in a hiss of static. As his own pilot forced the little helicopter to gyrate and drop even lower, he could see parts of the unfortunate Viper 3 and its passengers shoot out in all directions from the fireball.

“No!” someone roared.

“LT!” Cooper heard himself scream.

“Taking small-arms fire,” warned the pilot. “Hang on back there.”

“I got targets on three rooftops—aaah!” yelled Jax.

“Jax’s hit!” said Petty Officer Alexander Knuteson from the other side of the helicopter.

Cooper was desperately scanning the buildings blurring past his field of view, looking for targets. The pilot was flying forward even faster now, nose down, zipping in between buildings. Muzzle flashes to Cooper’s left caught his eyes as he struggled to keep his head level in the wind.

“Tangos, seven o’clock high, the rooftop! Light ‘em up!” Cooper called out. He pulled his MP5 to his side and fired a burst in the general direction of the figures on the roof of the apartment building as they roared past. He had little hope of hitting anything with the pilot jerking the aircraft as if he were flying drunk, but at least it gave the enemy something to think about. Three more weapons spat fire and bullets from his helicopter. He could see flashes coming from behind them and knew Charlie’s fireteam was shooting back as well. The broad starburst of Jax’s M60 shredded windows where someone had taken a few pot-shots at their aircraft.

The pilot came to an intersection and dove for the street. Cooper felt sick to his stomach. That had never happened to him before. Making a hard bank to port, the pilot hugged the street and Cooper and Mike were almost low enough to touch the cars below. Cars, delivery trucks, motorcycles, and scooters were squealing out of the way of the little black helicopter as it cruised through the intersection doing 80 miles an hour only ten feet off the deck.

Cooper got a blurred glimpse of windows exploding and more muzzle flashes. “They’re everywhere!” someone called out. Loud metallic pings and pops echoed around Cooper.

“We’re taking damage,” grunted the pilot. “Losing hydraulics…hang on!” The helicopter was smoking now, leaving a curling black trail in the air about ten feet above street level. Cooper could see people running for cover.

“There’s a parking garage, dead-ahead. Hit the roof, Viper Two!”

“I’m right on your six…”

“Ten seconds,” warned the pilot.

As the Little Bird flared out over the upper level of the garage, dirt, gravel, and thick acrid smoke flew up into the faces of the four SEALs. Cooper ignored the stinging from his face and was thankful he had his clear goggles on. Ten feet, five…

“Now!” he called out. Safety straps were ripped clear and his SEALs leapt from the still-moving helicopter and rolled clear. In a heartbeat, the pilot hit the throttle and powered the aircraft up and away, engine whining, heading north in a cloud of smoke.

As the Killer Egg lifted out of his line of sight, he could see the last remaining helicopter perform a similar maneuver on the building across the alley. It was a five-story medical building with a few large air-conditioner units and a helipad on the roof.

In seconds, the helicopters had passed from sight and slipped in between taller buildings, effectively leaving the remaining SEALs in silence.

“Cover, now!” hissed Cooper. His black-clad squad crouch-walked to the edge of the roof and ducked down below the short parapet. They were in near-darkness—there was only one light on the roof, glaring balefully above the single roof-access door.

“Ell-Tee?” Cooper said. He checked the frequency on his radio. “Echo? Stumpy, Little John—anyone, come in…”

“What the fuck was that?” called out Charlie’s voice over the net.

“Head count,” said Cooper, angrily pulling his clear eye-shield off his helmet. He looked at his fireteam.

Swede was finishing up a field patch on Jax’s left arm. On his other side, Mike was peeking over the edge of the building with his next-gen night-vision goggles already in place.

“Team 1, good to go,” Cooper said, satisfied that his squad was combat-ready.

“Team 2 good to go. I think we lost both birds,” said Charlie from the next building’s rooftop.

“I know,” Cooper said through gritted teeth. “Those assholes were waiting for us—”

“On our whole flight path?” said Charlie’s voice in disbelief. “That’s not possible…”

“Someone must have gave them our flight path. It was a goddamn trap. In Los Angeles.” He punched the graveled roof by his side in frustration, but calmed himself after a second and called out, “Nest, this is Striker, Actual, do you read me?”

He got no response.

“Hey Coop, I see some of ‘em on the building across the block to the south. I count six,” whispered Mike. “They’re right between us and the hospital.”

“Nest, Striker, Actual, do you read me?” Cooper called out again. Static was the response. “Tank, keep trying to raise fleet.”

“On it,” came the deep reply.

Cooper closed his eyes tight for one deep breath. Get a hold of your emotions, Master Chief. There will be time to mourn later. You have a mission to perform. And you will exact retribution.

With two bright fireballs, he had lost half his team, including his commanding officer and close personal friend. He was now in command of what was left of SEAL Team 9.

Two days…they were going to retire my ass in two fucking days…

“Sparky, what you got?” asked Cooper.

“Got a dozen more on the two buildings east of the hospital. Dammit…there’s a lot of them,” reported the deep bass voice from Petty Officer First Class John Sparks, the platoon sniper. “They look like they’re setting up comms. Some kind of mast array. Industrious little bastards.”

Cooper leaned around Jax and Swede and could see the Nebraska native on the other building with his Mark 12 5.56mm SPR sniper rifle perched on the edge of the building, scanning for targets almost half a mile away. Cooper closed his eyes again, leaning back against the facade. He needed three heartbeats.

Three…two…one…

When Cooper Braaten opened his eyes, he was the cold, hard, killing machine that the Iranians had feared for nearly a decade. All his storm-tossed emotions—the anger at the breach in operational security, the upwelling of grief over the catastrophic loss of half his team—everything not essential to mission completion were locked securely in the sea chest of his heart. He would deal with that post-op.

“Yo, Coop, I got Nest,” whispered Tank over the net.

Cooper switched channels on his radio. “Striker, Actual, to Nest.”

“Go ahead, Striker, Actual.”

“We made a hard landing with Bravo platoon only, grid Poppa-Bravo-Niner. Repeat: Alpha Platoon is down. Assuming command and proceeding to objective, approaching from north. Multiple tangos on rooftops to north and east of original LZ, there’s a shitton of civvies in between us and the objective, please advise, over.”

After the briefest of pauses, he heard the reply, “Nest copies all, Striker, Actual. You walked into a real sierra-sierra. We’re getting some interference on—” Static broke up the transmission.

“Nest! Nest, come in…” Cooper said. He looked at Swede who shook his head sadly. Sierra-Sierra. Hmph. Shitstorm doesn’t begin to describe it.

“—eat: proceed to your objective post-haste. No contact with Slipknot. Repeat, we have lost