Full Assault Mode Read Online Free PDF

door—then uncharacteristically hesitated, turning back to his men.
    “Anyone think Shaft has a better deal tonight?”

 
    THREE
    The Black Hawk carrying Kolt and Bravo Team put them down on a rocky hill six hundred yards to the west of Thunder Turtle’s position in a swirl of snow. Kolt was already unclipped and out the door before the helo’s balloon tires gently touched the ground. Nine times out of ten, helos got you where you wanted to go, but they were just big fat targets when they landed. Every second on an unmoving helo in a combat zone was ass puckering.
    Ricocheting tracers bounced into view over the low ridgeline that blocked Kolt’s position from the Taliban ambush site. An eerie orange glow marked the location of the destroyed Buffalo. Kolt had had the pilot put them down in a downwind position from the Taliban ambush point behind the cover of a small ridge. He kept his eyes on the ridge, searching for the telltale spark of enemy fire, but the Taliban had focused all their energy on Thunder Turtle.
    The Night Stalker’s custom MH-60M Black Hawk’s twin General Electric T700 engines whined as the pilot poured on the power and launched the helo skyward while the last assaulter exited the bird. Kolt buried his head and closed his mouth as stones and sand pelted him. It was never a good feeling for those few seconds when tons of whirling death hovered over your head.
    “I’m betting they didn’t see us come in,” Slapshot said, coming up beside Kolt and tapping him on the shoulder as the windstorm created by the departing Black Hawk dissipated into the cold mountain wind.
    Kolt looked up at the ridge, flipping down his night vision goggles. The Taliban must have figured the snow would keep any kind of immediate rescue from reaching Thunder Turtle. Or they simply planned to make a mess and melt back into the village before American air power could get on station. Either way was good.
    “The helo just radioed Thunder Turtle our position. They know we’re here,” Slapshot said.
    “Rog,” Kolt said. “Now, let’s let the Taliban know we’re here.”
    Kolt, Digger, and the team’s sole sniper, Stitch, took off, moving down the hill into the small gully before the ridgeline. It would have been a suicidal move in daylight, but in the dark and with the enemy blind and focused elsewhere, it was a calculated risk. Actually, it sucked, but it beat the hell out of trying to put the helo down on the X. That had been tried before, and a lot of good men paid the ultimate price. Still, if the Taliban had even a single spotter on the ridge watching their rear, Bravo would catch hell. Kolt, impetuous and even reckless at times, wasn’t stupid. Half of Bravo remained on the hill covering the other half as they made their way down the hill and then up the ridge.
    Slapshot whispered over Kolt’s earbud. “Racer, movement on the ridge, your eleven o’clock.”
    Kolt froze. AK fire mixed with the heavy pounding of a 40mm grenade launcher on one of the armored vehicles while a gunner blazed away on a loud-ass .50. The rest was lost in a wind that was picking up speed and, with it, more snow.
    “Shit, lost it.”
    Kolt eased his head back and looked up and to the left. Blowing snow and wavy shadows from the flames of the burning Buffalo on the other side were all he could see.
    “Well?” Kolt asked, easing his HK416 into a more comfortable position against his shoulder. He looked out of the corner of his eye and saw the two other Bravo Team members with him had frozen in place as well. Stitch’s nearly six-foot frame with superwide shoulders cast a long moon shadow several feet in front of the larger Digger, who was humping a twenty-two-pound M249 light machine gun with a MultiCam soft bag loaded with two hundred rounds of linked 5.56mm and his twenty-six-pound black medical-aid bag.
    “I was sure I had a head and upper body, but I can’t see shit now,” Slapshot said.
    “Can you rifle lase the spot for