THE SEAL TEAM BELOW, where Marine Corps Sergeant Khatereh Shinwari hid in her sniper hide, was in danger. The June sun was almost setting in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. Khat made a slow, sweeping turn to the right with her .300 Win Mag rifle along the rocky scree slope. She spotted fifteen Taliban waiting behind boulders to jump the four-man SEAL team climbing up the nine-thousand-foot slope.

Lips thinning, Khat watched the inevitable. She knew the team was looking for Sattar Khogani, the Hill tribe chieftain who was wreaking hell on earth to the Shinwari tribe. Her tribe. Her blood.

Pulling the satellite phone toward her, she punched in some numbers, waiting for her SEAL handler, Commander Jim Hutton, from J-bad, Jalalabad, to answer.

“Dover Actual.”

“Archangel Actual.” Khat spoke quietly, apprising Hutton of the escalating situation. She shot the GPS, giving the coordinates of where the SEALs were located and where the Taliban waited to ambush them. She asked if Apache helos were available.

No.

An A-10 Warthog slumming in the area?

No.

A C-130 ghost ship?

No.

A damned B-52 on racetrack?

No. All flight assets were tied up with a major engagement to the east, near J-bad.

“What the hell can you give me, Dover?”

Khat was only a Marine Corps staff sergeant, and her handler, a navy commander, but she didn’t give a damn at this point. Four good men were going to die on that scree slope really soon.

“No joy,” Hutton ground back.

“You’re going to lose four SEALs,” she snapped back in a whisper, watching through her Nightforce scope. “Do you want another Operation Redwings?”

She knew that would sting him. Four brave SEALs had walked into a Taliban trap of two hundred. They were completely outmatched and without any type of support because their radio failed, and they couldn’t call for backup help.

It had been one of the major reasons she’d gotten into her black ops activity and become involved. Khat didn’t want any more fine men murdered because a drone wasn’t available, or a satellite, or a friggin’ Apache combat helicopter.

More men had died that night when a hastily assembled QRF, Quick Reaction Force, was finally strung together out of J-bad. The MH-47 Chinook had taken an RPG, rocket-propelled grenade, into it, and it had crashed, killing all sixteen on board. More lives were wasted. She had cried for days after it happened, unable to imagine the tragedy inflicted upon the families involved. None of their husbands, brothers or fathers were coming home.

It can’t happen again. She wouldn’t allow it. Khat knew without a sat phone, radio calls into this area were DOA, dead on arrival. The radio call would never be heard. She wasn’t sure the leader of the patrol had one on him.

“There are no assets available.”

“You said this team is out of Camp Bravo?”

“Affirmative. I’m initiating a QRF from Bagram. But it will take an hour for them to arrive on scene.”

“What about a QRF from Camp Bravo?” Khat wanted to scream at this guy to get off his ass and get involved. Sometimes she wondered why they’d given her Hutton. He was a very conservative black ops handler. She wished she still had Commander Timothy Skelling, but he’d just rotated Stateside. Hutton reminded her of a slug; as if he didn’t know what to do quickly, when pressed.

“I’m calling them, too. They can be on scene, providing they aren’t already engaged elsewhere, in thirty minutes.”

“Roger,” she said, her voice hardening. “Get a call patched through to that platoon and warn them.” Like fucking yesterday. She felt her rage rising. It always did in situations like this. She didn’t want to lose Americans.

“I’ve sent a call over to Chief Mac McCutcheon of Delta Platoon.”

“I’m waiting five minutes,” Khat growled. “If I don’t see that team stop and hunker down for an incoming call from Bravo, I’m engaging. The least I can do is warn off the SEALs, and they’ll take appropriate action.”

Shifting her scope, she saw more of Khogani’s men sneaking up on the other side of the ridge. There had to be twenty of the enemy in all. Smaller boys with the Taliban group held the reins of the horses far below the slope. Sweat ran down her temples, the heat at this time of day unbearable.

“Archangel, you are not authorized to engage. Repeat. Do not engage. Your duty is to observe only. Over.”

She cursed Hutton in her mind. “Roger, Dover Actual. Out.” She hated Hutton’s heavy, snarling voice. All they did was spar with one another. To hell with him.

Khat wasn’t about to take on thirty or so Taliban with one sniper rifle. But she could fire some shots before the muzzle fire from her rifle was seen by the Taliban. They would be fourteen-hundred-yard shots, and she set up to take out at least two or three of the hidden tangos. A .300 Win Mag didn’t have a muzzle suppressor. Khat knew she could become instant toast when the sharp-eyed enemy spotted her location.

In the back of her mind as she checked elevation and windage, she knew Hutton would get a QRF up and pronto, if one was available. A quick reaction force would be needed because she knew Khogani’s men would attack these four SEALs. Camp Bravo, a forward operating base, sat about thirty miles from the Af-Pak border, near where she was presently operating.

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