The Last Protector(Clayton White #1)(4)
CHAPTER FOUR
Northern Iraq
Clayton White wasn’t a fan of hastily formed plans, but life, especially in his line of work, was full of surprises. Any plan was better than no plan at all. White’s strategy was simple but dangerous. His men had argued against it, and the Pave Hawk pilot and copilot hadn’t seemed convinced, either, but White had politely but firmly terminated the discussion. He had made up his mind.
“Thirty seconds to crash site,” the pilot said.
White glanced around the helicopter. The intent faces of the two PJs told him they were ready to go. The crew chief was moving around, preparing the Pave Hawk for the insertion of the two PJs. Five hundred feet from the SuperCobra, the Pave Hawk slowed, its nose flaring slightly as it dropped low enough to allow the two PJs to jump out. From where he was seated, White saw Bandit-Two on the ground near the tail section of the gray SuperCobra, a fire extinguisher next to him. The marine aviator was clutching his rib cage, and even from a distance, White could see the man was in pain. The SuperCobra lay on its side, its fuselage twisted and blackened, smoke still gushing from its turbines. The landing skids had been ripped apart.
Half a moment later, the Pave Hawk’s turboshaft engines revved, and the heavy rotor picked up speed, spitting skeins of small rocks and sand erratically across the landing zone as the helicopter gained altitude. White trusted the PJs to do their job. There wasn’t much these guys couldn’t accomplish. But with the ISIS technicals fast approaching, it was up to White to give his men the time they needed to extricate Bandit-One from the wreckage. White took another look at the tablet to confirm how far away the technicals were, then turned his attention to the copilot.
“See the bend in the road and these elevation lines on both sides?” White asked, his finger tapping a spot on the digital map. “Drop me there.”
“You got it,” the copilot replied.
White went down his mental checklist, visualizing how everything would go once he hit the ground. He then checked his M240B machine gun and accepted an AT4 rocket launcher from the crew chief.
“You sure about this?” the crew chief asked. “The door gunner thinks he can—”
“I’ve got this,” White interrupted him, slapping the crew chief on the shoulder.
“Sixty seconds,” the copilot said.
White felt the nose of the Pave Hawk dip as the chopper dropped to a mere thirty feet from the ground as it worked its way down a small valley, the scenery outside whipping by too fast for him to make out any details. Suddenly, the helicopter lost speed, and the pilot brought it down to within four feet of the ground. White unbuckled his safety harness and jumped out of the chopper, landing hard on the semipaved road below, his knees and ankles protesting the impact. He crouched down to reduce his size as a target and waved at the crew chief.
The Pave Hawk gained altitude, and the pilot turned the chopper 180 degrees on a dime. The noise was so loud it briefly numbed White’s senses and thoughts. The moment it was safe to do so, he sprinted toward the steep rocky hill on the west side of the road as the helicopter disappeared behind the hill on the opposite side.
White moved as fast as he could, but the extra ammunition he carried and the high-angle climb slowed him down considerably. Out of breath, his legs burning, White took cover behind a large rock a third of the way up the hill. He brought the M240B to bear and scanned the area for threats.
Relieved he wasn’t in immediate danger, he was about to continue his climb when his radio came to life with a flash of static. “SCAR-One, this is Victor-Two. Radio check, over.”
“You’re five by five, Victor-Two,” White replied, recognizing the voice of the copilot. “Are you in position?”
“We’re standing by, SCAR-One. Just let us know when. Victor-Two out.”
One hundred meters down, the road wound its way through the rocky-sided valley until a seventy-degree bend in the road forced any sane drivers to slow down in order to keep their tires on the road. White hadn’t seen any vehicles yet, but that sharp bend was why he had decided this was the best place to ambush the ISIS vehicles.
The bend was the perfect kill zone. Still, one hundred meters was too close for comfort. He needed to go higher. He probed the surrounding area and noticed an outcrop of palmlike trees nestled among boulders halfway between his position and the top of the hill.
Perfect.
White advised the copilot of his exact grid location, then flipped out the bipod of the M240B. He settled into his firing position, his chin resting on the buttstock of the machine gun. He could hear the Pave Hawk hovering on the other side of the valley, but he was confident that the sound of the ISIS vehicles would keep their occupants from hearing the chopper.
There was nobody else around, only a languid breeze, and, like everything in or near Mosul in August, it was boiling hot. White’s already sweat-drenched uniform clung to his body like an unavoidable second skin. He felt a drop of sweat trickle into his eye and wiped his forehead with his sleeve before taking a drink from his canteen.
The distance from his concealed firing position to the bend in the road was about 175 meters. The elevation would give him an additional advantage against the ISIS fighters. The plan was for him to ambush the lead vehicle. He had thought about using the AT4 first, but he’d be in trouble if he missed. The most crucial part of the plan was to stop the convoy long enough for the Pave Hawk’s door gunner to engage the technicals with the minigun. At a firing rate of four thousand rounds per minute, the minigun could chew through the technicals easily, but since the helicopter was their only way out of the danger zone, White wanted to minimize its exposure to ISIS fire as much as possible.