Gray Genesis

  GRAY GENESIS

  by

  ALAN MCDERMOTT

  Books by Alan McDermott

  Gray Justice

  Gray Resurrection

  Gray Redemption

  Gray Retribution

  Gray Vengeance

  Gray Salvation

  Gray Genesis

  Trojan

  Run and Hide

  Seek and Destroy

  Fight to Survive

  Motive

  Dedicated to our essential workers

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Some of the locations you might recognise (Afghanistan, for one) but the people mentioned are all figments of my imagination (a few well-known heads of state excluded). As far as I have been able to determine, there is no 2nd Battalion, 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. I also fabricated the 654th, 667th and the 698th infantry regiments.

  I’d like to thank Liam Saville, Bram Connolly and Alex Shaw, three fantastic authors who helped sculpt the outline. This book was supposed to be a collaboration between the four of us, but as other commitments got in the way, it was agreed that I would take it on and turn it into a Tom Gray story. If it hadn’t been for my wonderful friends, this tale would never have been written.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Prologue

  Miriam Dagher had never had a fear of flying. But as she stood at the gates waiting to board the British Airways flight to Kabul, she felt ready to throw up. Her hands trembled as she gripped her boarding pass, and the sweat accumulating in her armpits was growing increasingly uncomfortable.

  Am I doing the right thing?

  She’d asked herself the question a hundred times that day, and she still didn’t have the answer. Only time would tell. It was too late to back out now, anyway. The decision had been made, plans put in place, promises made and bridges burnt.

  Her old life was over.

  A cheerful steward motioned her forward and held out her hand. Miriam gave her the sweat-stained card.

  “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m a nervous flyer,” Miriam lied with an apologetic smile. “I’ve done it hundreds of times, but it never gets any easier.”

  “Well, don’t you worry. You’re in good hands. This is one of the safest planes in the sky.”

  Miriam tried to smile graciously but it came out as a grimace. She hurried through the gate and down the tunnel that led to the door of the Boeing 777, where a stewardess checked her seat number and pointed Miriam towards the first class section. As this was going to be her last flight for some time—perhaps forever—she’d splashed out on an expensive upgrade.

  She took her seat by the window, buckled herself in and clasped her hands together, her eyes closed tight.

  Why am I doing this?

  She wanted nothing more than to leap from her seat and run from the plane, go back to her home and undo everything she’d done. But that was impossible. She’d made a deal to protect her country, to take lives in order to save lives.

  That was the hardest part; knowing she’d be responsible for countless deaths. It flew in the face of the Hippocratic oath she’d taken as a medical student, as well as the years spent looking for ways to improve healthcare outcomes.

  A stewardess cleared her throat to get Miriam’s attention, and when she opened her eyes she was offered a hot towel. She took it and wiped her hands and face, knowing that little luxuries like this would soon be a thing of the past. Where she was going, all she had to look forward to was baking heat and basic sanitation at best.

  The itch under her breast was annoying in the extreme, exacerbated by the sweat accumulating under her ample bosom. She turned to face the small window and massaged the area gently, the sensation clawing at her like the never-ending doubts that flitted around inside her head.

  She declined the offer of a pre-flight drink, preferring instead to try to sleep. But her vision was immediately filled with images of the dead, men young and old torn from families, their agonising death throes ringing loud in her ears.

  And it was all her fault.

  Chapter 1

  ‘Contact, south wall.’

  The moment the call came over the radio, Master Sergeant John Balmer jumped up from his bunk and picked up his Heckler & Koch HK416 rifle and ANVIS-9 night vision glasses. He pulled the NVGs on as he ran out into the courtyard. Behind him was the accommodation block and armoury, and the other three walls separated the old fort from the vast void of the desert beyond. Only now, it wasn’t empty.

  He sprinted up the stairs on his left, to the parapet where the huge bulk of sergeant Hank Lomax stood alongside one of the troopers.

  ‘What have we got?’

  ‘Two o’clock, six hundred yards,’ Lomax said, looking out into the darkness. Like the team leader, he too was wearing the vision enhancement gear.

  Balmer checked the area and saw what Lomax had spotted. It was a man wearing the traditional Afghan perahan tunban—a form of shalwar kameez. He was hard to spot against the desert floor, but when he moved he gave himself away. His actions were clumsy, almost inviting attention. Balmer watched him inch closer to the fort, and in his peripheral vision he saw a second figure off to the first one’s right.

  ‘They’re early.’

  ‘At least they showed,’ Lomax shrugged.

  ‘We’ve got two visitors on the south wall,’ Balmer said over comms. ‘Check your zones.’

  ‘Clear east.’

  ‘Nothing to the west.’

  ‘I’ve got movement to the north. Two… wait, three contacts.’

  Lieutenant Joel Harding trotted up the stairs and stood looking out over the parapet. ‘What have we got, sergeant?’

  Harding was the leader of 2nd Platoon, Company B, 2nd Battalion, 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment, the current occupants of forward operating base Tork. Balmer and his team had been sent to reinforce the camp following intel that the fort was due to be attacked, much to Harding’s annoyance. He’d told Balmer that his men could handle any assault, and clearly didn’t like Delta Force stepping on his toes.

  ‘Contacts to the north and south, sir.’

  Balmer tried to hide his contempt, but calling a product of OCS ‘sir’ just stuck in his throat. Balmer had been in more firefights than this puke could ever imagine. Harding looked like he was just weeks out of officer candidate school, or perhaps he’d been one of the fortunate ones whose daddy got him a place at West Point. He was five ten—an inch shorter than Balmer, and not as heavily built.

  ‘How many?’ Harding’s voice was steady, but Balmer could sense his trepidation.

  ‘Five so far.’

  The size of the opposing force seemed to settle the lieutenant. ‘Okay sergeant, stand your men down. We’ll take it from here.’

  Balmer wasn’t about t
o take a back seat if there was action to be had. He was sure the thirty men under Harding’s command could handle five insurgents, but there was no way he was going to stand back while the bullets flew. Besides, he knew the Taliban wouldn’t send just five men to attack a heavily-defended fort. This had to be either a scouting party, or a distraction.

  ‘Maybe I should deploy my men to the east and west walls,’ Balmer suggested. ‘We’ll be out of your way there.’

  ‘You do that, sergeant.’

  Harding began issuing orders, positioning his men to cover the north and south.

  Balmer gripped Lomax’s elbow and led him around to the west wall, scanning the open desert. He got on closed comms so that he was only communicating with his own team.

  ‘I want Rees, Hubble and Johnson on the east wall, now. Jacobs, with me on the west.’

  The fort was relatively small. The north and south aspects were just a hundred feet long, while the other walls were close to a hundred and fifty. Below them in the courtyard sat Balmer’s vehicles; two GMVs with turret-mounted Browning M2 .50 calibre machine guns, as well as two Cougar H 4x4s that the infantry used to scout the local area. There was also a fuel dump. The consumables, such as food and ammunition, were stored inside the buildings built into the east wall. The DFAC, known as the mess hall, was on the ground floor with an office and stores, while the upper floor was the accommodation block. In all, there wasn’t a lot to be gained from attacking it, especially with such a small force that wouldn’t be able to hold on to it.

  Jacobs ran up the stone stairs just as Balmer reached the middle of the west wall.

  ‘Something’s going down,’ Balmer told them, ‘and the LT is underplaying it. Not even the Taliban are stupid enough to try and take the fort with five men. There are more out there. Find them.’

  Balmer relayed similar orders to the team on the opposite side of the base, then looked out over the wall. He didn’t detect any movement, but his pulse had quickened, just as it did before every skirmish.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked over the comms.

  ‘Nada,’ Hubble replied.

  Perhaps the Taliban were that desperate, though it seemed a waste of men. They had to have some idea of how many men were manning the base.

  His thoughts were interrupted as a bright flash stung his eyes. Balmer whipped off his NVGs and saw a flare descending over the desert to his left and right.

  ‘What the fuck is the LT playing at?’

  ‘They haven’t got night vision,’ Lomax pointed out.

  The night erupted as dozens of rifles opened up on the handful of targets. Balmer snapped his glasses back on and checked his zone, just as several figures rose from the ground a couple of hundred yards away.

  ‘Contact west!’

  He sent three-round bursts at the targets, dropping the first and quickly seeking the next. Rounds pinged off the concrete all around him as Hubble reported ten more Taliban at the other side of the camp.

  ‘That’s more like it!’ Balmer felled another, and two more went down under the onslaught from Lomax and Jacobs.

  ‘RPG!’

  Balmer saw it just as Lomax shouted the warning. They both targeted the man as he raised it to his shoulder before he collapsed backwards, blood spurting from half a dozen wounds. Another figure appeared as if from nowhere, rising out of the sandy floor and running to his fallen comrade’s side. Any thoughts of picking up the grenade launcher and finishing the job were quickly dispelled thanks to a barrage from the fort.

  ‘Alpha Three, how you doing?’ Balmer asked Hubble.

  ‘One to go.’

  It was the same for Balmer. The last of his targets had crawled behind a rock, shielded from fire.

  ‘Alpha Two, finish it.’

  Jacobs sent a round from his underslung M203 hurtling towards the boulder. It exploded just behind and to the side of the stone, and shrapnel tore the last of the aggressors apart.

  The shooting had also stopped on the far side of the camp.

  ‘Alpha Three, anyone hurt?’

  ‘Negative,’ Hubble replied.

  It was unsurprising. The fire directed at the base had been erratic, undisciplined—as if the dead Taliban had never held a rifle before.

  Balmer and Lomax walked over to Harding who looked pumped. Balmer knew it was the adrenaline from the fight.

  ‘You need to requisition some night gear, sir. You could have lost men if they’d made it in closer.’

  ‘Already tried, Sergeant,’ Harding said. ‘Billions of dollars spent on this campaign so far, and they can’t throw a few thousand bucks our way. I’ll add it to my report, though. In the meantime, I need to get the area cleared.’ He turned to one of his men. ‘Send a squad out to collect their weapons and call in transport to pick up the bodies.’

  The corpses would be transferred to a mortuary next to Kandahar airfield, where they would be printed, photographed and checked for unexploded ordnance. The Red Cross would then take the dead insurgents to Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, where family members would collect the dead so they could be granted a martyr’s funeral.

  ‘Remind them to check for booby traps,’ Balmer said. ‘I’ve seen these guys go into battle wired up. When they get killed, there’s someone nearby ready to detonate their bomb vests remotely.’

  Balmer hadn’t actually witnessed it, but the lieutenant’s action this evening seemed a little gung-ho, and he needed to exercise caution if he and his men were going to survive their time in Afghanistan.

  His words didn’t seem to hit home, though.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant, but my men know what to do.’

  That’s master sergeant, you dumb sonofabitch!

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Balmer whipped off a salute and walked away, with Lomax in close attendance. ‘Tell the men to get their heads down, we’re moving out early.’

  ‘Will do,’ Lomax said as he swapped out his magazine for a fresh one. ‘What did you make of that?’

  ‘The LT or the attack?’

  Lomax laughed. ‘Both.’

  ‘People that poorly trained and ill-disciplined have no right picking up a rifle,’ Balmer said.

  Lomax nodded sagely. ‘And the Taliban?’

  Balmer chuckled and slapped Lomax on the back. In truth, they had little time for the common foot soldier. Balmer and Lomax were Delta Force—the best of the best. They had few rivals in the game of warfare, and the only fighting unit they had any grudging respect for was the British SAS—and that was only because Delta Force had been built on the Special Air Service model. Twenty-five years earlier, Colonel Charles Beckwith had spent a year with the boys from Hereford with the aim of creating a tactical team to respond quickly to international terrorist threats. Delta Force and the SAS still operated side-by-side and often exchanged members in their cross-training program. In fact, Balmer’s first mission was a joint effort alongside the SAS to rescue a Japanese ambassador held hostage in Peru. His British counterparts had performed well, executing the job with consummate professionalism, but that didn’t mean Balmer had to like them. Respect, perhaps, but they’d never be friends. There was an SAS contingent at Kandahar, but he’d never been able to get on with them.

  The British might have the history, but Delta Force was the future.

  ‘Seriously, John, what were they thinking? One RPG and a few rifles?’

  ‘I reckon it was a test of the defences,’ Balmer said. ‘They should have seen enough to convince them to find another target.’

  ‘Maybe… unless they’re willing to throw hundreds of men at it. Can’t see the point, though. This place has no strategic value, and there’s not much worth taking.’

  ‘Who knows what they’re thinking,’ Balmer said. ‘I’ll write it up and let the Captain deal with it. In the meantime, if you’re still having trouble sleeping, get the vehicles loaded up. I want to be out of here at first light.’

  Chapter 2

  When the crew chief signalled five minutes to the drop point, sergeant
Tom Gray nodded his acknowledgement and checked his gear one more time. The other three men in the back of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook mirrored him, ensuring magazines were locked and loaded.

  ‘Game time, big man,’ Corporal Simon ‘Sonny’ Baines grinned at Len Smart, the other sergeant in the four-man patrol. ‘Cast aside all thoughts of Melanie from the DFAC and get your killing head on.’

  Smart glared at him. ‘She’s more your type. Loose morals and low IQ.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have them any other way.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Carl Levine shouted. ‘I can’t get that image out of my head. It’s like an ant riding a hippo.’

  ‘She’s not that big,’ Sonny laughed.

  ‘Not that big? I dreamt about her last night and woke up with a lard on!’

  Gray wasn’t one for banter just before a mission, but he couldn’t help but chuckle. Some men, like Gray and Smart, blotted out everything to ensure they were focused on the job ahead of them. With Sonny and Carl, it was humour. It was an odd mix, but had seen the eclectic team bond so well over the last two years.

  Gray considered them the family he’d never had. He’d been placed in foster care at an early age, moving from home to home, school to school. He hadn’t really had much of an opportunity to form ties with anyone during his youth, but he more than made up for it when he joined the junior leaders at sixteen. It had been his careers officer at high school who had suggested the army. On reflection, Gray assumed it was because he didn’t tend to take crap from anyone—especially fellow students—and he’d been up before the headmaster on many an occasion for looking after himself. If they’d hoped a stint in green would help him channel his aggression, they’d been proven right years ago. Gray had dovetailed with army life from the very start. He loved the discipline and the physical activities, but most of all the camaraderie.

  Sonny was the youngest of the quartet at twenty-four, though he looked like he’d just left school, hence the nickname he’d been given after passing SAS selection. He was also the smallest at five-nine, with blond hair and boyish good looks. Levine had a couple of years—and inches—on him. Next in the height charts was Gray, while Smart was the tallest of the group at six-three. His hair was already receding even though he was only twenty-six, and the bushy black moustache made him look more like a company executive rather than a man of action.