The Remaining: Trust: A Novella Read Online Free PDF

awake, thinking about how he could have done it better. “As soon as we can clear a safe landing zone, we’ll need you guys to medevac the wounded to the Green Zone. That’s all I have for now.”
    Abe then sat there, his legs tucked under the outboard benches, his ass beginning to ache from the tension, and the minutes went by as slowly as the creeping landscape below them. It did not take long for the urgency of the moment to give way to being pissed because he’d seen this shit coming. He’d told Colonel Lineberger that they needed to use the Little Birds for daily recon along the convoy routes, but the colonel had refused to approve the fuel usage. Said they needed to save it for QRF situations. To which Abe had responded that if they reconned the routes, they would have less QRF situations.
    The colonel had not been convinced.
    For him, it was about the longevity of his operations, not the longevity of his men. In his eyes, there was a date somewhere in their black, unknown future, when they would not have any more fuel to run the birds. His only concern was extending that date as far out as possible.
    This should have never fucking happened.
    The headset hummed and cracked. The pilot spoke. “Copperhead-One-Three to Fargo-Six. I’ve got visual on a bit of a smoke cloud. Is that you guys?”
    A momentary wait. “Copperhead, that’s correct. That’s us. Smoke’s from the IED that went off.”
    “Fargo-Six, we copy. We’re ETA five mikes out right now. Have your men hold their return fire as we come in. How copy?”
    “Yeah, I copy. Hold fire for insert.”
    Abe leaned out just slightly, overcoming the sensation that he would fall. Out beyond the bubble of the cockpit, he could see the little brown smudge on the horizon that the pilot had been speaking of. It seemed incredibly far away, but Abe knew they would be on top of it soon enough.
    “Rocky-Six to Copperhead group,” Abe called. “Two-One and Two-Five, kick out ahead of us. Take a pass at the trilevel building in the train yard on your way to your buildings. See if you can’t take a few of them out.”
    “Two-Five copies; we’ll take lead.”
    Almost as an afterthought, Abe raised Tyler quickly. “What floors of the hostile buildings are you taking the most fire from?”
    “Stand by,” came Tyler’s strained response.
    Abe waited. The black smudge on the horizon had dissipated, but it still marked their objective, and Abe could see the patchwork of farmland beginning to turn into winding, centipedal neighborhood streets, and then into boulevards with businesses clustered along either side.
    Tyler came back on the line and gave them a quick lowdown. On the trilevel building, most of the muzzle flashes were coming from the top level. On the brownstone and the red brick buildings to the north, the muzzle flashes were scattered around the top two levels, but they were clustered toward the street.
    The two Blackhawks had moved ahead of the Little Bird now, and they began descending toward the gray and brown urban terrain below them. Abe felt the feeling of weightlessness as the Little Bird dropped altitude, trailing behind its two larger counterparts by maybe a mile.
    He checked his rifle again. One in the chamber. Safety off.
    He turned, looked through the open backend of the helicopter to the soldiers on the other side. He caught their eyes and gave them a thumbs-up with raised eyebrows and mouthed, You good? They both gave thumbs-up. Abe craned his neck to look behind him. The soldier to his back slapped him on the shoulder and thrust a thumbs-up into his face.
    Get your mind right. Focus.
    He pictured it all. Visualized it. Stepping down smoothly from the helicopter onto the roof. Descending into the building below, silent and unheard. He pictured going through a door and seeing a man shooting from a window. In his mind, he put his rifle on the man and pulled the trigger twice, crumpling him. He was quick and he was accurate. He was