Full Assault Mode by Dalton Fury Page A

forward.
    He reached Ghafour’s mud-walled sleeping quarters and peered around the corner. He fumbled to activate the laser marker as he eyeballed the exact spot he wanted to land the assault helos. There wasn’t any room for error. It was going to be a tight fit for both. But Shaft knew speed and location were essential. He wanted the assaulters to exit the back end of the helos right next to Ghafour’s house. The last thing he wanted was for Ghafour to squirt out the back door and hide out in another of the three dozen buildings in the area. If that happened, he knew they were in for a long night of methodical searching. And if it hadn’t been destroyed, he might as well throw his iPad 4 in the village well. Even if they got lucky and found Ghafour before he escaped, they faced even longer days and nights of walking back out of the valley with a noncompliant shackled man in tow.
    “Holy shit!” Shaft intuitively hit the deck. His body practically flopped on the ground as if he were a kid again back home, turning somersaults in the snow. A rocket-propelled grenade had soared from a nearby rooftop, barely missing the tail rotor of the slow-moving lead helo by several meters. The warhead impacted harmlessly against the valley wall some fifty yards away. It was close. Too close. If Shaft had a radio link with the pilots, he would have aborted the infil immediately and been happy to walk home. Even Ghafour wasn’t worth losing a helo full of teammates. But he didn’t.
    He watched as the lead helo flared then steadied over the small open area off the southern tip of Ghafour’s two-story house. He placed his green spotting laser off the starboard side, sparkling the center of the landing zone. The pilot was in the right place, but Shaft wanted to confirm their good judgment. He figured it might be smart to let them know he was in the area, too.
    Shaft nervously watched the helo as it seemed frozen in the air. He knew the pilot was desperately trying to ease her down without striking the rotor blades on the uneven terrain and adjacent buildings. Shaft pulled his PVS-14 night vision to his left eye and aimed it at the back of the lead helo. He could make out one crew chief on a knee on the tail ramp looking out the back. He knew that guy was the pilot’s eyes in the rear.
    Shaft also knew the operators were on their feet in the back of the helo up against the thin metal skin. As per standard operating procedure, they would be maintaining two lazy but separate lines facing the rear ramp, unable to do a damn thing from up there until they exited the aircraft.
    *   *   *
    Kolt could feel the erratic wobble in the rear of the helo, telling him Smitty was struggling with the controls, trying desperately to hold her steady in the middle of a man-made blizzard. The fresh snow was whipping up and turning on itself in a violent manner. The operators tried to look out the side bubble windows to orient themselves. The door gunners provided their only protection at the moment, but like Kolt and the other operators, they couldn’t see anything but a white wall of flurries.
    Kolt knew all the rear crew chief needed was the call from the pilot to drop ropes. Once received, two Delta operators would step toward the edge of the tail ramp and reach up to release the cotter pin to free the two coiled green nylon fast ropes that hung lazily from an adjustable I beam. Both sixty-foot ropes would unsnake from their loose coil, and gravity would extend them all the way to the ground.
    But after two minutes of hovering, the radio call hadn’t come yet.
    Kolt watched some of the operators drop back to a knee as they held onto the side rails. Kolt joined them. They just felt safer than standing until the helo touched the ground. It was one of those lessons an operator just has to learn the hard way.
    Kolt turned to look at the pilots. What is taking so damn long? They were a sitting duck for even a novice rocketeer.
    On the other side of the