SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

They could hear the choppers before they actually saw them, a slow crescendo of loud, reverberating whomp-whomp-whomping that echoed ominously off the rocky hills and deep ravines. The hair on the back of Ritzik’s neck stood up. The sound made him feel vulnerable because it was impossible to figure out which direction the aircraft were actually coming from, or how many of them there were. The only thing he knew for certain was that they were closing in more and more with every passing second. It was, Ritzik decided, a hell of a way to start the day.

They’d halted just after zero six hundred, as the sky was going from midnight blue to dark purple. It seemed to take forever for the sun to come up, and the air was noticeably chilly — only in the high forties. As it grew light, shortly after seven, Ritzik saw why. Fifteen, perhaps twenty kilometers to the north and east, a line of awesome, jagged snow-covered peaks towered thousands of feet above the sparsely forested foothills. Beyond the range they could see, there was a second series of peaks. Beyond those lay Tajikistan, and safety. But they were still a long way off.

The party had left the desert floor behind shortly after zero four-thirty. The transition had been abrupt. They’d gone from the lunarlike surface of sand and rock, then traversed a ten-klik swath of windswept, sixty-foot dunes, which in turn quickly gave way to steep, precipitous rocky hillocks. From the dunes on, it had all been uphill. The road along which they were currently bumping cut in S-curves between a series of ridges dotted with thorny scrub and clumps of dwarf evergreens bent like hunchbacks by wind and weather. It was rough, desolate, unforgiving terrain.

“Afghanistan without the charm,” was how Rowdy’d put it just after first light.

“I see we’re given to characteristic understatement this morning,” Ritzik had answered.

* * *

At zero six-twenty Rowdy called a halt — it was getting too light to go any farther. He detailed Goose and Tuzz to scout ahead, while Curtis and Shep grabbed one of the captured RPG launchers and four rockets and dropped back atop the ridgeline to make sure their six was clean. The rest of the party was detailed to cut boughs and brush to camouflage the vehicles. Which wasn’t going to be easy. The big boxy truck would stand out — unless they buried the bloody thing, which wasn’t an option. And so, while they could soften its lines and make it harder to spot from the air, anybody who was flying low and slow and wasn’t blind couldn’t help but see it.

The rear guard brought the first piece of news at zero seven-sixteen. “There’s movement behind us,” Curtis reported by radio. “One vehicle — maybe two. I’d say about twenty miles, coming west. More or less along the same track we were on. They’re still on the desert floor, moving slowly. But they’re raising dust.”

Ritzik frowned. “How many people we talking about?”

“No way to tell that, Loner.”

“Army?”

“Dunno. Could be. Could also be civilians on the move.” There was static in Ritzik’s ear. Then: “Want us to set an ambush?”

“No,” Rowdy broke in. “You guys get your butts back here. Let’s not waste people or time. I don’t want to expend anything we don’t have to. We’ll keep an eye out. See how the situation develops.”

“Wilco.”

Ritzik turned and looked around, searching. “Tracy?”

He finally spotted her clambering over the ridgeline. “Where the hell—”

She picked her way through the scrub, blushing. “We girls need some privacy, y’know.”

“Sorry.” He pointed toward the truck. “It’s all yours.”

“And about time.” Wei-Liu patted the small canvas sack she carried. “I was able to make some preliminary studies overnight.”

“How does it look?”

“Old. Fragile. The batteries are in terrible shape — you can smell the acid. Obviously, I wasn’t about to touch anything while we were bouncing around.”

“Good idea.”

She waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, she said, “Okay, I’ll get to work.”

0728. She’d just laid out her tools and secured the rear flap open to give herself some light when she thought she heard the low rumble of distant thunder. Within seconds, Rowdy appeared above the tailgate. She thought he and the rest of them all looked somewhat ridiculous with their faces striped with black, green, and brown camouflage cream. She hadn’t noticed in the dark. But in daylight, they simply looked foolish.

“We got aircraft approaching, ma’am,” he said. “You gotta clear out — take cover.”

Wei-Liu stood her ground. “I’m perfectly all right where I am, Rowdy.”