Blood Tide Read online

He skidded out of the Bird, hitting the desert sand awkwardly. I watched, appalled, as he struggled to rise, then fall again.

  Unthinkingly, I jumped after him, sprawling on the dirt with a wallop that punched the wind from my ribs.

  I glanced around, dazed and wheezing. A group of about ten gunmen from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, were sprinting towards us. We had to move out fast.

  The Black Hawk, smoke billowing from amidships, was yawing erratically like a crippled eagle. The pilot, also from American Special Forces, obviously did not know we had spilled out. He would have come back, otherwise. That’s written in stone with us.

  “Carl, we’ve got to move fast. Bad guys are coming from the south.”

  He didn’t move. Then I saw why. He had fallen awkwardly with the LMG — light machine gun — jammed between his legs. Even an untrained civilian could tell the right leg had snapped below the knee, and like most Special Force combatants, I am a trained first responder.

  I looked around. There was a dune with some straggly growth fifty yards behind that would provide a modicum of cover until darkness fell. I had to get Carl there quickly, but it would be a photo finish as ISIL terrorists were stampeding, whereas we were hobbling.

  Knowing I could damage Carl’s leg permanently, but considering that the lesser of dire evils, I grabbed his arms and started dragging him towards the dune. We had to get there first or else we were dead.

  I also grabbed his LMG. That was what was going to keep us alive until sunset. Or so I hoped.

  Carl groaned as his shattered leg jigged on the ground. His eyes fluttered open. I wrapped his arms around my neck, hoisting him firefighter-style.

  “Brother, we have to get to that dune. You are going to go through five minutes of hell. But we’ll make it.”

  He nodded. Carl was my hero, film star looks with a model girlfriend and the best guy imaginable to have on your side when stuff went south. Under fire, he had the temperament of a monk — although that’s where the comparison ends. Off-duty, he drank like a fish and was a hell raiser of note on rest and recuperation stints. The consensus was that Carl’s R&R involved little recuperation and even less rest. He was the epitome of a cool warrior, something I aspired to be. The problem was that in life-or-death situations, I had the impulse of a buffalo with toothache. Cool was not my default state.

  I half-ran, half-dragged Carl and any thoughts that ISIL hadn’t spotted us were dispelled as a curtain of lead whistled fractionally above my head.

  How we made the final few yards unscathed, I have no idea. But it probably had something to do with Carl dredging up a superhuman will to crack a Mach 2 pain barrier, slide off my back and hobble on one good leg faster than most mere mortals jog.

  We flopped behind the skimpy cover and I let rip with Carl’s LMG, raking the countryside. At least two men went down, dead or injured, while others hit the dirt, snatching whatever cover they could.

  “How much ammo is in your backpack?” I asked.

  “Three hundred linked rounds.”

  It was not enough. We could, of course, use the HK416 mags from my rifle, which fitted the LMG, but that weapon I gave to Carl, seeing he was too injured to handle the machine gun. I had two hundred and forty rounds — also not enough. I cursed my stupidity, but in my defense we’d only planned on a brief reconnaissance flight to check the defenses of Raqqa, the frontline Syrian town ISIL held. No one bargained on falling out of the Black Hawk.

  Crucially, we also didn’t have a radio. Our radio man was on the Bird. He could talk to base, but not us.

  We held fire as the terrorists regrouped. It seemed that by now they grasped that we had some serious firepower and caution was needed.

  But not all of them. A keffiyeh appeared above a rocky outcrop where most of the ISIL jihadists took cover. Carl and I fired simultaneously. The head exploded. I would like to say it was my deadeye shot, but I think it was Carl’s.

  He was not happy. “Kelly, we need to shoot separately. I’ll take anything left of our position.”

  I nodded. The only reason I had fired on his flank was because I was not sure Carl, with the agony of a leg broken like a stick, was up to it. I should have known better.

  The jihadists shoved their rifles above the rock barrier and rapid-fired blindly in our general direction. It was random, but had the desired effect of forcing our heads down as their fighters crawled forward. It also proved they had plenty of ammunition.

  “How long to sundown?” I asked. Carl had been in the Middle East longer than me. In fact, I had only arrived at the FOB — Forward Operating Base — about three miles from Raqqa, the day before. I was the newest member of a twelve-strong group of Delta working with Peshmerga, the Kurdish liberation army.

  Talk about a baptism of fire.

  Carl looked at his watch. “Forty minutes.”

  As he spoke, a micro-flicker of sunlight on metal glinted to our left. Carl squeezed off a single shot. There was no further movement.

  Seconds later all hell broke loose as the jihadists let rip with a storm of AK-propelled lead as Carl and I ducked. As it quietened, I raised my head and again raked the terrain with the LMG.

  This carried on every few minutes; a thunderous volley from the jihadists as their men crawled towards us, then returning fire as we tried to drive them back. Inexorably, they clawed more ground than we retrieved.

  Fortunately, it was late November and we didn’t have a long desert summer evening to slug it out. Sunset was short and sharp, although it was not a given that darkness was our friend. The bad guys knew we were behind the dune, so as soon as it was dusk we had to move, or else they would overrun us.

  As the sun started slipping, I said to Carl, “Let’s make a dash for it.”

  He shook his head. “Another twenty minutes. I can’t move fast. We need it to be as dark as possible.”

  As he spoke, a fusillade of shots rang out. He grunted and spun sideways.

  I couldn’t do anything to help as I was too busy shooting at figures hurtling towards us. I kept my finger on the trigger, until they took cover. Although not all did. Three more bodies lay still on the sand.

  “You OK?”

  “Took one in the shoulder. Pretty bad.”

  “Can you shoot?”

  “No. Arm’s paralyzed.” He drew his nine-mil pistol with his good right arm. “Can use this though.”

  We had to move now. I raised my head fractionally above the dune and spewed several volleys of lead around the desert. It was to buy crucial time, which with the encroaching darkness was arguably more important that squandering bullets.

  As the LMG choked on empty, I hoisted Carl up.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Which way?”

  “East. See if we can make the FOB.”

  It was clear I was now in charge, although as a corporal I ranked lower than Carl, a gunnery sergeant. You would never have guessed that. Neither of us wore uniforms, and both had thick beards and longish hair; mine black, and Carl’s dark blonde.

  “Give me the LMG.”

  “It’s empty,” I said.

  “It’s a crutch.”

  Luckily, if you can call it that, Carl had been shot in the left shoulder and his right leg was busted. He could use the weapon as a crude walking stick, holding it in his right hand. The only problem was that a M249 weighed almost seventeen pounds. To be able to use that as a prop was testimony to the man’s incredible strength.

  I put my arm around his waist as we limped into the darkness as fast as we could.

  The jihadists did not think we would flee the only high ground in the area, so didn’t follow immediately. Instead they opened up on the dune as if it was a Fourth of July fireworks display.

  When they didn’t get a reply, they obviously thought we were dead or immobilized, so stormed the dune.

  It was only then, half a mile away, that I realized I had made a tactical mistake. Finding we had slipped the noose, the jihadists guessed we w
ould head east towards our FOB. They couldn’t follow our tracks in the darkness and would have to use flashlights. If we had taken the less logical route west towards Raqqa, we may have been able to confuse them until daylight. By then our Kurdish brothers would be looking for us.

  Now I could see lights flashing as they followed. I swerved south, hoping to buy more time, but as they knew we were trying to get back to Kurdish lines, they would soon work that out.

  I dragged Carl for the next two hours. His shattered leg bounced limply like a rag doll, step after agonizing step. He never grumbled. Not even a murmur.

  Eventually he spoke. “Kelly — leave me here. That’s your only chance.”

  “Save your breath, brother. You know that’s not going to happen.”

  “OK, I’m pulling rank. I order you to leave.”

  I didn’t reply. He knew that wasn’t going to happen either.

  We limped, stumbled and crawled for another hour. By now I could hear voices. They were slightly north of us, which meant they hadn’t spotted our tracks, but were close by.

  “They’re going to find us soon,” said Carl. “I’m not going further. You have to leave.”

  He sat in the sand.

  I sat with him. “OK. If we stop here, we stop. I’m not leaving.”

  Carl swore. He knew he would also do the same for me.

  He started digging with his good arm. “Then make a foxhole, you fucking idiot.”

  We waited silently, Carl slipping in and out of consciousness. At times he whispered “Rachel … baby, I’m sorry.” I shoved my bandana over his mouth to stifle the sound.

  It was three a.m. Two things could happen. They would walk past us and we may be safe until morning when hopefully a posse of Delta and Peshmerga would ride to our rescue. Or they would find us in the night. That would be the end.

  It was our bad luck that the jihadists split into two groups, one heading southwest, the same route we had taken.

  But it was our good luck that the guy who found our tracks called out loudly to his fellow gunman. Carl is an Arab linguist as all Delta operatives have to be fluent in a second language. Mine is Spanish, which wasn’t much use in the Syrian desert.

  “He’s calling his mates,” said Carl. “They’re onto us.”

  So we knew they were coming.

  Lights flashed everywhere as the jihadists studied the ground. Judging by the number of beams there were at least ten of them, about eighty yards away. They would soon stumble upon us.

  When they were about forty yards away, I stood silently, rifle at eye-level, gauging the firing arc I needed to bring them all down. I started at the left, the weapon chattering in my hands, several bullets a second sweeping down at a decreasing angle. The wildly optimistic logic of this was that with the first burst, the men would hit the ground. So I started firing at chest height, rapidly decreasing height to get the rest as they dropped for cover. That was the theory anyway.

  I had twenty bullets in the magazine. It was my second last. I would not get another chance. Not even to reload.

  I hit the ground as the magazine emptied, expecting a barrage of AK-47 lead in return.

  There was silence. In fact, so quiet that I thought I had gone momentarily deaf from gunfire noise.

  There was nothing.

  “I’m going to have a look,” I said to Carl. But he had passed out.

  I crawled from our crude foxhole towards the jihadists. They were either waiting for me, or dead.

  If it was the former, I would be shot on approach. Fortunately for me, it was the latter. Two were still breathing, a situation I rectified with my knife.

  Carl was conscious when I returned.

  “Round one to us,” I said.

  “Good work. I don’ think we’ll be so lucky next time. You have to leave me.”

  I said nothing. The decision might be taken out of our hands anyway. There was no doubt the rest of the jihadists had heard the gunfire and would be coming for us. I only had one magazine left. Perhaps ten seconds of fire. Carl was clutching his Glock 17, which I knew had seventeen rounds. So did my pistol, although I had a Glock 34, with a slightly longer barrel for accuracy. Not that it would be an issue as everything from now on would be extremely close and personal.

  Finally, we had Yarborough knives, issued exclusively to Special Forces with our personal serial number. But I reckoned we would be face down in the desert sand long before it got to that.

  They came in the darkness before dawn. All that gave them away was a slight hiss of a boot scraping sand. So slight that I thought my ears were playing tricks. But Carl heard it too, the brief rasp somehow piercing his pain-fogged mind.

  I strained my eyes, peering through the murk. On the horizon, the first glimmer of dawn appeared, slate against the obsidian night. Once it lightened, we would see each other. But we would have the edge as we knew where they were, and they would still be looking for us. An edge that would last a few seconds.

  As the darkness morphed to ash-gray, I saw them. They were spread out, each man about ten yards from the other. I would not be able to mow them down like the previous group.

  I checked the HK’s selector switch was on burst mode, even though I would be firing single shots. I knew it was, but it was habit.

  The jihadists were waiting for sunrise before making a move. They had worked out from the angle of fire where their colleagues had fallen where we were likely to be. But their mistake was misjudging the strength of the light. I could make out the dim outline of least five men still crouching, instead of lying flat in the sand.

  I eased myself up on my elbows, never taking my eye from the sights. Then I opened fire.

  The effect was instantaneous. Two men went down, others ducked, while those already in position opened fire.

  One jihadist in a white and black keffiyeh charged us, shouting the mandatory “Allah Akbar” of those intent on finding seventy-two virgins in Paradise.

  He must have been on drugs as well as adrenaline as I had to fire five shots to bring him down. My rifle was empty.

  I fell back into our foxhole, drew the Glock and nodded to Carl, “We did our best brother.”

  Carl somehow got his shattered shoulder to respond and squeezed my arm.

  “Buy you a beer brother. Either here or on the other side.”

  He emptied his Glock at the charging men. I did likewise. There were no more bullets.

  Carl awkwardly reached for the Yarborough sheathed on his right hip, but couldn’t twist across his broken leg. I drew it for him. He smiled and winked, a picture of infinite defiance that is still etched in my mind.

  I then draw mine.

  The first man hadn’t seen us clearly in the twilight and stumbled straight into our foxhole. I went for his carotid, while Carl gutted him.

  At least twenty of them now surrounded us. One shouted in Arabic and I saw the first man reverse his rifle to club us with the butt. It seemed the order was they wanted the American bastards as live trophies, probably to behead with butcher knives later on video.

  Then I heard gunfire. This was it, I thought. They’re going to kill us after all. Better than being taken alive. Far better. I sprang out the foxhole, knife in hand and to my absolute astonishment, the gunman before me dropped. Then another.

  Suddenly the jihadists were fleeing into the desert.

  I was still trying to figure things out when I heard an American voice shout, “Carl, Kelly — is that you?”

  “Yeah,” I yelled, waving my arms.

  Five men in Peshmerga uniforms ran up. Behind them was a massive-shouldered black guy in jeans, T-shirt and fleece-lined denim jacket. Morgan Rogers. Delta Force. I knew he and Carl were close friends, having worked in Somalia and Nigeria before. Until that moment, I scoffed at the idea of guardian angels.

  “Our drone finally spotted you,” he said, a smile creasing his craggily-handsome face. “We saw the gunfight from the sky twenty minutes ago. Got here just in time I guess. Where’s Carl
?”

  I pointed to a figure lying in the sand, knife in one hand, empty pistol in the other.

  Morgan nodded. “Yeah. That’s him all right.”

  Chapter Two

  A HUMVEE ARRIVED with a paramedic. The Kurds loaded Carl into the back and sped off to the FOB.

  Morgan and I climbed into an old army truck with the rest of Peshmerga troops, arriving at base just as a Carl was about to be stretchered into a modified Cessna flying to Germany. He was awake, despite the hefty dose of opioids, and summoned me and Morgan over.

  “What kept you?” he asked the big Delta operator. “I pulled you out of Somalia a helluva lot quicker than you got to me.” *

  “Sorry brother. The pilot had to make an emergency landing about ten klicks from where you and Kelly fell out. He couldn’t turn because the hydraulics seized. By the time they radioed us it was getting dark. We got a drone up, but couldn’t see anything until the first gunfight a couple of hours ago. But even then, all we could see were flashes, yours being much smaller so we assumed you were taking them on with nine-mils. Brass wanted to wait for daylight to send a Bird up, but I got some Kurds together and we drove to the coordinates.”

  “Fuck the nine mils. At the end all we had were blades.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Morgan. “You have a real fan club going here with the Kurds. You’re the Village People’s original Macho Man.”

  Carl grabbed my arm. “I won’t forget this, brother. I’ll contact you when my leg can kick ass again. We’ll have that brewski.”

  “You bet.”

  Morgan took me to the canteen for some food. I couldn’t eat anything, let alone grease-scorched eggs and curly naan bread, but was desperate for coffee, as black and strong as humanly digestible.

  “You’re considered a serious gunslinger among the Kurds after diving out of the plane. They were champing at the bit all night to get to you before the jihadists. Not bad seeing you’ve only been here for three days.”

  “I didn’t even think about it. I just kind of jumped.”

  “Yeah. Well, good thing you did. Otherwise the jihadists would be swinging Carl from a bridge over the Euphrates in a snuff video. And Carl is one guy we don’t want to lose. Ever. You’ll get a medal for this.”