Political Risk Excerpt: New Moon Mission

The whump whump of the CH-47 Chinook’s rotor blades was heard overhead by the surviving soldiers of a double-nickel A-team at the designated southern Afghanistan desert LZ. Corporal Audrey Kinsey, now the officer in command, lit a flare that sparked whitish red-hot, illuminating a barren clearing and the gritty-bearded bull-dog face of Delta Force Marcus Olmead, wearing a palko and chapan. They had retreated just in time to make their rendezvous after a fierce firefight with the Taliban. Casualty count was two KIA, three wounded.

Olmead feared the worse for his partner, Jason Atwood, wounded and left behind but he had no choice. Corporal Kinsey and the others, unfamiliar with the landmark barren terrain, would have taken twice as long in their retreat - even with NVG's and GPS handhelds - missing their rendezvous or chancing another encounter with the Taliban. He had a blood-hound instinct to double time them since he knew this region better than his boyhood rural backyard home in North Carolina. Atwood wouldn't have it any other way.


When the Chinook’s rear ramp was lowered - spilling out a reddish glow - Kinsey and the others piled in carrying two wounded. Olmead helped with radioman 18 Echo, who had RPG shrapnel bits peppered into his back. The other casualty, Private First Class Michael Lindsey, had taken an AK-47 slug in the rectum. He was nearly bled out. Wasting no time, Olmead climbed over the exhausted grunts, making his way to the pilot’s cockpit. Shouting above the helicopter's whining engines he gave a report to the co-pilot.

-Major Wayne Kaplan and Private First Class Thomas Peterson are KIA. You got two wounded, one is pretty bad. Get a ‘commo blackout control number’ on all four. Can’t have their families kicked out of military housing.

The co-pilot acknowledged Olmead in the affirmative thumbs up.

-And you never saw me.

Olmead returned to the rear of the Chinook. He purposely didn't say anything about Atwood. That was classified. Olmead and Atwood were a Delta Team. Once out in the field, they operated with immunity and autonomy, taking commands from an "operational controller" who could be someone at CENTCOM, the CIA or even a significant political leader. They were the 'eyes-an-ears' in the opium rich Helmand region of southern Afghanistan.

Corporal Kinsey’s blood stained hand grabbed Olmead’s arm as he passed by her.

-Where're you going?
-Apocalypso.

That was Atwood’s code name to the A-team members.

-He's probably dead.
-The shit he is, Corporal.

Kinsey recoiled from the fierce look Olmead shot at her and the fact he reached for his side arm. In no uncertain terms would he not use it if she pressed him further. Kinsey released her grip.

-You had your fucking chance out there and you blew it, Kinsey. I'm sorry that the major bit the big one, but Atwood warned you it was a flawed strategy. You got two dead and god-fucking-forbid my partner makes three.

A Chinook crewman started to close the hydraulic ramp as the Chinook pilot throttled up for take off. Olmead with just one chance to bail wasn’t going to miss it. Kinsey yelled to him as he darted for the ramp.

-The package wasn't a tribal leader. That air strip is owned by the Saudis. It's used for falcon hunting. We were supposed to smash-and-grab a Saudi prince.

-Fucking A, Olmead yelled back at Kinsey as he took a leap out of the airborne Chinook, free-falling for a moment, hitting the hard desert surface in a bone-bruising thud.

Picking himself up Olmead started running blindly through the Chinook’s prop-wash-dust cloud. Soon all that he heard was his boots pounding on the hard-paned desert flatness in the pitch black new moon night; backtracking to where he left Atwood, hoping his partner was still breathing and worse of all hadn’t been taken prisoner by the Taliban.