Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(3)
The Taliban leader shook his head, his nostrils flaring. In answer, Boss grabbed the guy under the arm and yanked him up like a ragdoll, giving him a little shake before setting him on his feet and propelling him forward with a hard shove.
“Move out,” Boss ordered.
In less than two seconds, they were all slogging it up the side of the mountain. The loose shale and rocky rubble gave way beneath their desert-tan boots, and for every two steps forward, it seemed they slid one step back. It didn’t help matters that al-Masri fought them every inch of the way, slowing their progress until it seemed they’d never reach their destination. By the time they’d covered half the distance to the plateau, sweat streaked their camouflage face paint and dampened their clothes.
Jake was dying of thirst, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. And just as he made a grab for the hydration tube on his CamelBak, the biggest, ball-twisting sight he’d ever seen manifested before his gritty eyes…
Taliban fighters swarmed the plateau like ants on an anthill. All armed with AK-47s. All with only one thing in mind: Kill the Americans.
Holy shit!
Somehow they’d managed to climb up the backside of the mountain even though Jake’s maps had shown nothing but a sheer cliff face…
Well, obviously his maps had been wrong. Go figure. Because that’s exactly the kind of day he was having.
“Get him in front of us!” Boss roared as they shuffled in behind al-Masri, using him as a human shield, knowing the Taliban leader’s men wouldn’t risk opening fire on their esteemed commander. But as they began to inch back down the mountain, al-Masri stuck out his foot, tripping Rock who was directly behind him.
Jake and Boss made a grab for their teammate as Preacher scrambled to secure the Taliban leader, but they were too late. Somehow al-Masri managed to snag Rock’s KA-BAR from the sheath around Rock’s waist and, in the blink of an eye, he’d driven all seven inches straight into Rock’s shoulder. A heartbeat later, he ripped out the blade and aimed it straight for Rock’s carotid artery.
What happened next was like something beyond reality.
This is the man who’s responsible…
It was a fleeting thought, but it was enough. Because no sooner did he have it than Jake lost his grip on the thing inside him. Rage poured through his system, hot and violent.
This man, this evil man has killed and injured enough of my comrades. It stops. Now!
Then it was if he’d been catapulted from his own body. With an odd sort of detachment, he seemed to watch himself. Watch as he raised his weapon, aiming it at al-Masri’s turbaned head. Watch as he pulled the trigger.
Blood sprayed from the Taliban leader’s skull in a terrible arc of crimson gore, and Jake was suddenly slammed back into his body just in time to feel a delicious sense of justice right before he realized what his impulsiveness…what his bloodlust may have cost all of them.
Oh, shit! What have I done?
“Fall back!” Boss roared as the first volley of rounds sprayed around them, biting into the shale, kicking up razor-sharp flecks of rock that turned one projectile into fifteen.
Fall back. Yo, Jake didn’t need to be told twice. And fall was the operative word.
He tried turning and getting his feet under him so he could at least attempt to snake his way down the mountainside, but if he thought going up was difficult, going down was impossible.
At least, it was impossible to manage with any sort of control…
He slipped and slid, his thick-soled boots skidding on the loose shale as he occasionally turned to fire behind him.
SEALs were trained to make their rounds count, so while al-Masri’s men wildly sprayed the side of the mountain, Jake and the guys only fired when they had a target they could hit. By the time they’d slipped back into the relative safety of the little copse of trees, he could see the bodies of at least seven Taliban fighters littering the steep slope.
It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Especially since more of al-Masri’s men rushed over the brim of the plateau. The intel they’d received on the number of fighters the Taliban leader commanded was clearly off.
Way off.
He’d bet his left nut there were at least two hundred hard-faced militants closing in on their position.
“This is bad!” Preacher yelled from behind a small tree trunk as he continued to acquire targets and fire. He was trying to protect their left flank while Jake covered their right. Boss quickly dispatched anyone stupid enough to come at them head-on, and Rock picked off anything that managed to slip by all three of them.
“We’ve got to get off this mother-sucking mountain!” Boss yelled, his suppressed M4 quietly spitting rounds uphill as more Taliban fighters breathed their last.
The acrid smell of cordite perfumed the air around them as hot rounds bit into the trees behind which they took cover. Jake’s particularly weak, little sapling wasn’t going to last much longer under the barrage.
“If we can make it to the valley, take over one of those houses, we can hold our position until help arrives!” he yelled, slamming in another clip.
They had the ammo; they had the weapons. The plan just might work.
Of course, making it down to the valley was going to be the tricky part and, yeah, he couldn’t deny the fact that it would’ve been a whole helluva lot easier for them if they’d still had al-Masri to use as a shield and bargaining chip.