Chapter 28 - Zero Dark Overkill
The night over the West Virginia mountains was pitch black, smothered by low rain clouds and a cold mountain drizzle. Below us, the sea of dark hemlocks and pines stretched unbroken until the thermal scope picked up the razor-wire perimeter and machine-gun nests surrounding the mouth of the old coal mine.
"Spooky One-One in position," the voice of the AC-130 gunship pilot crackled over the tactical net. "We have multiple heat signatures around the bunker entrance. Heavy weapons mounted on technical trucks. Permission to clear the perimeter?"
"Cleared hot, Spooky," I replied from the command seat of the lead Black Hawk. "Sweep the courtyard. Leave the bunker entrance intact."
From five miles up in the clouds, the 105mm howitzer and 30mm Gatling cannon of the Ghostrider opened fire with surgical, terrifying precision. Long tongues of invisible 30mm rounds struck the ground at three thousand rounds per minute. Below us, the perimeter lit up in blooms of orange flame. The technical trucks detonated in cascading fireballs of exploding ammunition. Guard towers collapsed like matchsticks under the relentless rain of high-explosive shells.
"Assault elements, fast-rope in three, two, one—GO!"
The heavy nylon ropes dropped from the open doors of four Black Hawks. In seconds, fifty Navy SEALs dropped into the smoking ruins of the bunker courtyard, their boots hitting the mud, weapons raised, sweeping their sectors with laser illuminators that were invisible to the naked eye.
I slid down the rope, hitting the wet mountain earth, Hayes right behind me.
A surviving contractor burst from behind a burning bunker blast wall, raising an RPG-7 rocket launcher toward our helicopter. Before he could squeeze the trigger, three green laser dots converged on his chest. A burst of suppressed 5.56mm fire zipped through the mist, and he collapsed into the mud, the rocket spinning harmlessly into the pines.
"Breaching team to the blast door!" Hayes roared into his throat mic.
Two combat engineers sprinted forward, planting a heavy linear shaped charge across the hinges of the eight-inch-thick steel blast door that sealed the entrance to the underground complex.
"Fire in the hole!"
A concussive shockwave shook the mountain stone. The massive steel door groaned, its heavy hinges sheared clean through by molten copper jets, and fell backward into the dark concrete tunnel with an earth-shattering boom.
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"Move in!" I commanded, stepping through the billowing gray smoke into the belly of the beast.
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