Ghost Trail by Brian Tyree

Author:Brian Tyree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

YEMEN

“Why didn’t we just Tomahawk their asses?” Baldo asked McCreary as Douglas circled the drone above the city of Al Mukalla, on the Yemeni coast. Trest arrived behind the box, startling Baldo.

“Because the Al Qaeda cowards put their IED factory between a children’s hospital and a mosque, knowing we couldn’t risk the collateral damage of a cruise missile or Hellfire strike.”

“Sorry, sir,” Baldo said, apologizing for his mild profanity. “I didn’t see you.”

“In addition, we have friendlies in the area,” Trest said. “An embedded Marine SF unit.”

“Are they on our comms?” McCreary asked, concerned about the secrecy of Project Cloudcroft.

“Negative. Maintain radio silence. They’ll pop chemlights on exfil. Guide our man to them. If he gets in trouble, radio JSRC to patch us through.”

“Roger that.”

“How did the new pack work?” Trest asked. “Did he find the demo kit the Navy boys left for him.”

“Yes, sir.” McCreary said. “Worked fine and he picked up the kit. He’s on his way to the target now. The buildings are heavily guarded by snipers…” He pointed to the IR image from a Keyhole satellite — showing Trest Al Qaeda snipers dotted throughout the area along with gunmen on balconies.

Ghost One approached the dilapidated building sandwiched between a Middle Eastern mosque and a third world hospital. The decayed look of the three story building was just a façade that went one room deep. A pair of guards were visible through his infrared visor. They hid, tucked out of view on either side of the rickety door. The entire façade resembled a building from Beirut in the 80s — appearing to have weathered more than one bomb blast.

McCreary ordered Ghost One to move slowly around the broken door to not disturb it and draw the guards’ attention. He followed the pre-planned three-dimensional blueprint map — projected in his HMD in augmented reality. The polygon map showed the path to his flashing target.

Ghost One reached the fuse room, where Al Qaeda operatives constructed triggers and fuses for an array of improvised explosive devices (IED). All the bomb makers were long gone as dawn was only hours away. Ghost One removed the demo kit that had a timer even a monkey could trigger. McCreary walked him through it, a process they had rehearsed half a dozen times in the VR OmniTrainer back in Hangar 302. The timer was set for two minutes — it just had to be activated — which Ghost One did with ease. He made his way back outside in under a minute, starting up the street when he heard McCreary over the radio. “Chemlights in sight. Proceed to exfil.”

Baldo typed in the new target that appeared in Ghost One’s HMD. An area a few blocks away where the desert met the small city. Ghost One could see the chemlights far off in the distance through his IR visor along with the flashing target HMD for him to follow.

Two floors up in a building across the street, an Al Qaeda terrorist swept the buildings with American made night vision goggles, his AK-47 at his side.

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