Shattered Read Online Free PDF

who hadn’t been in the country long enough for their bodies to adjust to the altitude, were suffering from mountain sickness. The base at Bagram was almost a mile high, and at nearly twice that, they stumbled along, lungs searing, stomachs roiling, tossing their cookies along the way.
    Except for the panting of labored breaths and the unrelenting whistle of the biting wind, the mountain seemed deceptively calm.
    Almost peaceful.
    Then suddenly, bang!
    They’d come under intense fire.
    The first few times it happened, the FNGs, this being their first time in battle, would dive face-first, burying themselves in the snow. The more experienced Rangers, Marines, and SEALs didn’t so much as flinch.
    After three gunfights in approximately thirty minutes, the FNGs were quickly becoming seasoned soldiers. Had it not been for the high potential of bleeding wounds and possible death, they could have been playing paintball.
    “Thank God for pray and spray,” Tremayne said as one guy madly shot down from above, the bullets hitting harmlessly around them, sending up small geysers of snow.
    “Roger that,” McKade said.
    He calmly lifted his rifle, put the shooter in the crosshairs of his scope, and effectively took the bad guy out.
    Not long after that, they came across a group of stone-and-mud huts set in a small valley on the side of the mountain. Three were standing; the rest appeared to be rubble.
    “What do you think?” Tremayne asked, scanning the huts with his field glasses.
    McKade eyed them through his rifle scope. “The place looks deserted to me.”
    “Either it took a hit from one of our bombers or the quake got them,” Tremayne decided. “Odds are that a refugee camp isn’t going to be overrun with friendlies. Let’s see what we can find.”
    They dragged Shane and the unconscious Marine past a dead cow and two goats who’d survived whatever had taken out the huts. Tremayne instructed one of the Rangers to build a fire in one of the hut’s fire pits while the rest went out scavenging.
    “We need some local clothing,” he told them. “We’ve already got the Afghani hair-and-beard thing going, but those Ranger high-and-tight haircuts stand out like red flags.”
    It took fifteen minutes to round up what they needed. Including some thick wool blankets.
    “So long as you don’t mind the fleas, they’ll help keep you warm,” McKade said, piling three on top of Shane just before they took off again.
    And walked straight into a wasps’ nest of machine-gun fire and mortars.
    “Goddamn it!” Tremayne shouted as they all ducked behind a fortuitously close outcropping of rocks surrounded by trees. Momentarily ignoring the risk, he yanked off his helmet and threw it on the ground. “I am starting to get fucking tired of these guys!”
    “At least now we know where all the people from the village went,” McKade said with his usual calm.
    “I don’t suppose you can get around behind them, like you did at the crash site?” Tremayne asked.
    The sniper looked out from behind the rocks, immediately drawing another burst of gunfire. Fortunately, these tangos’ aim turned out just as bad as the earlier ones; a grenade, obviously shot from a launcher, hit about twenty feet away, creating a small avalanche.
    “The problem is, they’re shooting from what appears to be a fortified location from up above,” McKade said. “My guess is that it was built back during their fight with the Russians. Or, hell, maybe it goes all the way back to the days of British occupation. Without some heavy air support, I can’t see any easy way to get past them.”
    “The only easy day was yesterday,” Tremayne reminded him of the SEAL axiom.
    “True. Though some days are tougher than others. And despite our well-deserved reputation for chewing nails and spitting out bullets, getting blown away by tangos isn’t exactly going to be completing our mission.”
    “How far away would you say they are?” Tremayne asked, looking