Read Online Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Combat Ops by David Michaels - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Michaels
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure
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over, park the vehicles, and move in closer on foot.
We’d taken such great care to slip into Sangsar during our first raid attempt that I’d felt certain no Taliban had seen us, but according to Shilmani, they had. Interest ing that Zahed did not tip off his guards at the com pound and allowed them to be ambushed. That was decidedly clever of him.
However, this time our plan was more bold. Be seen.
Be mistaken. And be deadly.
Hume had rigged up a temporary remote for the Cypher drone, and though there was no screen from which we could view the drone’s data, he could fly it like a remote-controlled UFO, keeping a visual on it with his night-vision goggles.
We were bass fishing for Taliban, and the drone was our red rubber worm.
Within five minutes we’d taken up perches along the heavy rocks jutting from the mountainside and had, yet again, an unobstructed and encompassing view of the valley and all of Sangsar.
The drone whirred away, and I lay there on my belly, just watching it and thinking about Harruck and Shil mani and that old man Kundi and remembering that every one of us had his own agenda, every one of us was stubborn, and every one of us would fight till the end.
“Sir,” whispered Treehorn, who was at my left shoul der. “Movement in the rocks behind us, six o’clock.”
SEVEN
When I was a kid, D.C.’s Sgt. Rock and Marvel’s The ’Nam were among my favorite comics. I didn’t realize it then, but what drew me to those stories was the simplic ity of the plots. The good guys and bad guys were clearly defined, and you understood every character’s desire and related with that desire. Kill bad guys. Save every one. Win the war. For America! Be proud! Come home and get a medal, be worshipped as a hero, live happily ever after. As a kid, you’re looking for admiration and acceptance, and being a superhero soldier always sounded pretty damned good to me.
However, that would never happen if I stayed in Ohio. There weren’t too many opportunities for me growing up in Youngstown. Sure, I could’ve gone to work in the General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown like my father had, but I doubt I would’ve matched his thirty years. Boredom or the tanking economy would’ve finished me. My brother Nicolas got out himself and became an engineering professor down in Florida, while Tommy owned and operated Mitchell’s Auto Body and Repair in Youngstown. He loved cars and had inherited that passion from our father. He’d had no desire to ever leave home and had tried to persuade me to stay and run the shop with him. Because Dad was an avid woodworker, Tommy even tried to persuade me to open a custom furniture shop and work with Dad, but that didn’t sound very glamorous to an eighteen-year-old. Jennifer, the baby of our family, married a wealthy software designer, and she lived with him and their daughter in Northern California.
So I’d gone off to see the world and serve my coun try. Because that sounded so hokey, I told everyone I was joining the Army to pay for my college education— which Dad resented because it made us sound poor.
I can’t lie, though. During my service I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly—and it’s easy to become disenchanted. When I’d joined, I was just as naïve as the next guy, but for many years I clung to my beliefs and positive attitude, and I let my passion become infectious. But I think after 9/11, when the GWOT (global war on terrorism) got into full swing, my veneer grew a bit worn. It didn’t happen overnight, but every mission seemed to sap me just a little more. I grew older, my body became more worn, and my spirit seemed harder to kindle.
When I raised my right hand and they swore me in, I never thought I’d have to wrap my head around no-win situations in which everyone I dealt with was a liar, in which my own institution was undermining my ability to get the job done, and in which my own friends had drawn lines in the sand based on
We’d taken such great care to slip into Sangsar during our first raid attempt that I’d felt certain no Taliban had seen us, but according to Shilmani, they had. Interest ing that Zahed did not tip off his guards at the com pound and allowed them to be ambushed. That was decidedly clever of him.
However, this time our plan was more bold. Be seen.
Be mistaken. And be deadly.
Hume had rigged up a temporary remote for the Cypher drone, and though there was no screen from which we could view the drone’s data, he could fly it like a remote-controlled UFO, keeping a visual on it with his night-vision goggles.
We were bass fishing for Taliban, and the drone was our red rubber worm.
Within five minutes we’d taken up perches along the heavy rocks jutting from the mountainside and had, yet again, an unobstructed and encompassing view of the valley and all of Sangsar.
The drone whirred away, and I lay there on my belly, just watching it and thinking about Harruck and Shil mani and that old man Kundi and remembering that every one of us had his own agenda, every one of us was stubborn, and every one of us would fight till the end.
“Sir,” whispered Treehorn, who was at my left shoul der. “Movement in the rocks behind us, six o’clock.”
SEVEN
When I was a kid, D.C.’s Sgt. Rock and Marvel’s The ’Nam were among my favorite comics. I didn’t realize it then, but what drew me to those stories was the simplic ity of the plots. The good guys and bad guys were clearly defined, and you understood every character’s desire and related with that desire. Kill bad guys. Save every one. Win the war. For America! Be proud! Come home and get a medal, be worshipped as a hero, live happily ever after. As a kid, you’re looking for admiration and acceptance, and being a superhero soldier always sounded pretty damned good to me.
However, that would never happen if I stayed in Ohio. There weren’t too many opportunities for me growing up in Youngstown. Sure, I could’ve gone to work in the General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown like my father had, but I doubt I would’ve matched his thirty years. Boredom or the tanking economy would’ve finished me. My brother Nicolas got out himself and became an engineering professor down in Florida, while Tommy owned and operated Mitchell’s Auto Body and Repair in Youngstown. He loved cars and had inherited that passion from our father. He’d had no desire to ever leave home and had tried to persuade me to stay and run the shop with him. Because Dad was an avid woodworker, Tommy even tried to persuade me to open a custom furniture shop and work with Dad, but that didn’t sound very glamorous to an eighteen-year-old. Jennifer, the baby of our family, married a wealthy software designer, and she lived with him and their daughter in Northern California.
So I’d gone off to see the world and serve my coun try. Because that sounded so hokey, I told everyone I was joining the Army to pay for my college education— which Dad resented because it made us sound poor.
I can’t lie, though. During my service I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly—and it’s easy to become disenchanted. When I’d joined, I was just as naïve as the next guy, but for many years I clung to my beliefs and positive attitude, and I let my passion become infectious. But I think after 9/11, when the GWOT (global war on terrorism) got into full swing, my veneer grew a bit worn. It didn’t happen overnight, but every mission seemed to sap me just a little more. I grew older, my body became more worn, and my spirit seemed harder to kindle.
When I raised my right hand and they swore me in, I never thought I’d have to wrap my head around no-win situations in which everyone I dealt with was a liar, in which my own institution was undermining my ability to get the job done, and in which my own friends had drawn lines in the sand based on
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