SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

“Naw.” Kaz kicked a stone down the hill. “We can do it. We’ll let you know when we’re set to blow it.”

Yates rubbed a hand across his forehead then checked the digital watch on his left wrist. “Work fast,” he said. “We got less than a half hour until the opposition arrives.”

“Wilco, Sarge.”

Yates put on his War Face. “I said, call me Rowdy.”

“Why?”

Yates turned on him, coming up very close, eyes wide, bull neck throbbing, invading X-Man’s space. The sergeant major, X-Man realized, could become hugely intimidating when he wanted to — and X-Man wasn’t easily intimidated.

“Why?” Rowdy stared down at the younger man wild-eyed for a few seconds. Then he growled, “Because ‘Sarge’ sounds like a character played by William Bendix in all those World War Two movies.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“Bad karma, guy. The William Bendix character always used to die. The negative association could affect my feng shui.”

X-Man blinked twice. He watched as Rowdy’s mustache upturned into a sly grin. He pressed his hands palm to palm in front of his chest and bowed his head in mock reverence to the sergeant major. “I am chastened, Master Rowdy,” he said. Then he turned and scurried back down the ravine with Kaz following in his footsteps.

Yates watched them go. They weren’t bad kids — for spooks. Rowdy looked down at the IEDs{Improvised Explosive Devices.} with approval. The kid certainly knew his explosives. Still, Rowdy didn’t have much use for spooks. His dealings with CIA had been mostly futile. In Iraq and later Somalia, CIA had been more a part of the problem than the solution. Rowdy was convinced that for all the help the suits at Langley provided Delta, the Agency’s initials should really stand for Can’t Identify Anything. In Mogadishu, faulty CIA intel caught Rowdy’s platoon in an ambush that cost him two of his troopers and a painful gut wound that took him out of action for six months. During the Kosovo campaign, Delta’s Agency liaison had been a retired Supergrade who’d been station chief in Belgrade in the mid-seventies. He’d had no contacts and no sources, and provided the Unit with no useful intelligence whatsoever. Still, it wasn’t the guys on the ground — the kids like X-Man who had some understanding of the real world — so much as the suits back at Langley who kept things screwed up so badly. Christ, they were such dumb-asses; they might as well be generals.

141 Kilometers East-Northeast of Tokhtamysh.

0844 Hours Local Time.

“Hear anything?” Ritzik shook Sam’s shoulder to get his attention, then tapped the spook’s headset.

“Negatory.” Sam shook his head, shouting to be heard over the swash of the rotors. “I think they’re maintaining radio silence.”

“Possible.” Ritzik thought for a minute. He bent his head to get himself closer to Sam’s ear. “How’s your Chinese accent?”

“Kind of like Maurice Chevalier’s English,” Sam shouted back. “I sound like a round-eyes. Why?” “I was thinking,” Ritzik said. “Maybe you could try to convince them the radio was shot up. You know — a syllable or two, and then silence?”

“I could try something real basic like wŏ bŭ-dŏng.”

“What’s it mean?”

“No comprendo — I don’t understand.”

“Could you say, ‘Can’t read you’ instead? ‘Don’t understand’ sounds pretty phrase book.”

“That’s an idiom,” Sam shouted. “I’m not fluent enough to do idioms. But I could try one-word directions to get ‘em where we want ‘em to go — y’know, dŏng, nán, xī, běi—north, south, east, west. And I could probably add left and right: zoŭmián and yòumián.”

“Up to you,” Ritzik said. “You do as much as you feel comfortable doing.”

“Got it.”

“Good.” Ritzik looked up and peered through the windshield. His hand found the radio dial and he switched to the insertion-team net frequency. “Mick—”

He watched Mickey D’s head go up and down. “Yo?”

“Your eleven o’clock, about nine, ten miles out.”

There was a three-second pause. Then: “Roger that, Loner. I see the dust trail.”

“Drop down some. Stay low — where they won’t see us or hear us for a while.”

The pilot’s head went up and down. But by the time he’d said, “Wilco,” Ritzik had already switched frequencies. He steadied himself as the big chopper slowed and lost altitude. “TOC, Loner — I need an update on the incoming flight.”

Ritzik waited for a reply. “TOC–Loner.” He transmitted the call sign a third, fourth, and fifth time. But all he heard in his earpiece was white noise.

125 Kilometers East-Northeast of Tokhtamysh.

0854 Hours Local Time.