Love Makes Way (Love and Honor #4)

Chapter 1

Undisclosed Location in Northern Africa

August

He heard his mother’s voice, and it drew him to the kitchen. There, at the sink, her gingerbread apron covering her too-thin body and the silly snowman handkerchief covering her bald head.

“Mom?” he whispered.

She turned, hazel eyes lighting up. “Jerry! We didn’t expect you home!”

He shook his head. “But I didn’t make it home in time.”

She held her arms out. “Oh, it’s okay, son. I understood.”

He opened his mouth to tell her how much he missed her, how much he wished he’d made it home before she died, but a slap on his shoulder whisked away the cinnamon, bringing the sharp bite of JP-8 exhaust back into his olfactory processes.

Captain Rick “Daddy” Norton stood in front of him, hanging onto the strap above his head. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey,” he said. “Six minutes!”

Everyone in the helicopter then yelled, “Six minutes!”

Jerry nodded and unbuckled, joining his team in the center aisle of the helicopter. They would fast-rope out of the bird from each side of the rear ramp.

As he flexed his knees to the motion of the bird, he tried to reclaim the dream, the look on his mother’s face, the joy he felt at being in her presence again, but it eluded him. He shook his head to clear it and focused on the mission.

Jerry stood at the rear of the starboard stick behind Lieutenant Phil “Ozzy” Osbourne, a 180 Alpha who had trained as a Delta and served as the team’s medic and Jerry’s backup spotter.

Sergeant Calvin “Hobbes” Brock, one of the team’s 18 Bravos or weapons specialists, loomed in front of Osbourne, his helmet nearly touching the top deck of the Chinook.

Second from the front of their stick stood Master Sergeant Wade “Commando” Chandler, the team’s newly frocked first sergeant and a former 18 Charlie combat engineer now 18 Zulu.

Lieutenant Jorge “Pina Colada” Pena, a recent 18 Alpha or team commander, led their stick.

For the time being, Pena—who had trained as a Foxtrot or intelligence specialist—served as the team’s second in command and occasional detachment commander.

“One minute!” Norton yelled while holding up his index finger.

“One minute!” Everyone in each stick yelled back.

On the port side stick, Captain Rick “Daddy” Norton, the team commander, would grab the fast rope first upon arrival at the landing zone, or LZ.

Behind him and nearly attached to Norton’s hip stood Staff Sergeant Travis “Trout” Fisher, the team’s 18 Echo, their signal NCO.

Behind him stood Staff Sergeant Eric “Gilligan” Gill, an 18 Charlie, followed by Sergeant Daniel “Pot Pie” Swanson, an 18 Bravo, carrying a whole lot of ammunition and the team’s only M249 machine gun.

Behind Swanson and beside Jerry at the end of the other stick stood Sergeant Bill “Drumstick” Sanders with an MOS of 18 Foxtrot.

Sanders had an uncanny ability to read people.

He could have conned hundreds performing as a carnival psychic.

The crew chief shouted something none of them could hear as the nose of the 160th SOAR MH-47 rose to a nearly 40-degree angle and the stern dipped toward the earth.

He then simultaneously activated the rear ramp and manned the port side mini-gun.

The Army had equipped the MH-47 Chinook with twin miniguns, one near the ramp and one forward in the aircraft, as well as a 20mm cannon in the nose.

All of them now actively scanned for any kind of enemy presence on their LZ.

“Thirty seconds!” Norton yelled while holding up his finger and thumb in a pinching gesture.

“Thirty seconds!” Everyone in each stick yelled back.

The ramp fully lowered, filling the compartment with heat, JP-8 exhaust, noise, and a whole lot of rotor wash.

Pena and Norton kicked the coiled and very heavy fast ropes down the ramp until they hung free like poles in a fire station, only made of OD green nylon instead of brass.

The ten men would slide down these ropes exactly the same way firemen of old would slide down a brass pole.

The aircraft beneath their feet never budged despite the change to the center of gravity.

Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) pilots were the best of the best in the US Army, if not the world.

Norton made his hand signal and hypothetically yelled, “Go!” though no one could hear it.

Then he and Pena departed at nearly the same time.

One long second later, the second man in each stick followed, and so on, until Jerry grabbed the rope and slid down to the desert floor.

The first eight men out of the bird had already formed a circular perimeter around the LZ and had their weapons up and ready for use.

The Chinook departed rapidly and without ceremony.

Each man in the team held up two fingers as they cleared their lanes of fire, assuring that they could not detect any enemy combatant activity.

Over their team’s comms, Norton used NATO-designated number call signs and phonetic pronunciation to announce, “Objective is wun klick to my tree o’clock. Bounding overwatch. Move out.”

A chorus of clicks acknowledged his orders, and they moved out tactically toward the objective.

Five men would set overwatch while the other five men moved out forward past them toward the objective.

Then they would hold in place, weapons ready, covering the movement of the five men behind them, who then overtook them as they bounded forward.

Twenty minutes later, the tang of burned cordite burned Jerry’s nose as he pressed his back against the sun-scorched mud wall.

The heat from the sun bounced off the dirt to burn his neck and the underside of his jaw.

Sweat soaked his jacket and headband. A heartbeat later, a bullet chipped the edge of the wall above his head, showering him with grit.

Jerry ducked and moved—surprisingly fast considering his bulky gear and the long rifle he carried—and crouched behind the front tire of a rusting Land Rover Defender, a relic left over from when Algeria had provided them to Sahrawi Polisario Front insurgents during the Western Sahara conflict.

He kept the engine block between himself and the shooter.

Carefully, he shifted the strap of his M110A1 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System, or CSASS, which he had affectionately named “Cassie,” and examined the area around him. He needed to make that umbrella thorn tree ten yards to his left.

“Bravo Four? Status? Over.” Captain Norton’s voice crackled through comms, calm but with a nearly undetectable edge.

Jerry keyed his mic, voice low. “Six, this is Bravo Four. Pinned by the wall behind the Land Rover. One hostile, three-zero meters north. Need covering fire to make the tree to my 10 o’clock. Over.”

“Roger,” Norton replied. “Pot Pie. Show Jerry Maguire the money. Lay down cover fire on my mark—short bursts until directed to cease. North. Bravo Four, move on burst, break.” After a two-second pause, Norton transmitted, “Mark.”

A breath later, Swanson’s M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, rattled off short bursts after short high-volume bursts of deadly fire, stitching the alley with suppressive fire.

Jerry bolted, boots pounding the dry earth.

With practiced ease, despite the sixty pounds of gear weighing him down, he grabbed the lowest branch and swung up into the tree.

Bark and spiny thorns bit his palms as he scrambled higher, making him regret not taking a second to pull on his gloves.

Once high enough, he pulled Cassie around, checking the optics, zeroing in on the target.

“Bravo Four. On objective,” he confirmed into the microphone.

Commands barked in his ear as the team stormed the thatch-roofed adobe building.

He scanned the building by peering down Cassie’s left side.

Normally, his spotter, Osbourne or Swanson, would handle calling out targets for him.

However, Phil had stayed with Pena’s group, and Gill’s additional bulk would have proven problematic had he tried to perch alongside Jerry in this tree.

Not for the first time, that left Jerry alone in his current perch.

He saw a flicker of movement and instantly acquired the target through the powerful optics atop his rifle.

Years ago, Jerry had reconciled the lethal facts and results of his occupation with his Christian faith.

Throughout the Bible, scripture makes many references to Godly men who take the lives of their enemies in combat, ranging from Gideon to Joshua to Samson to King David.

God created all men with an intended purpose.

Sometimes, God’s intended purpose meant he created warriors.

Like his father and his grandfather before him, Gerald Adam McBride knew beyond any doubt that God had always intended him to lead the life of a warrior.

Keeping the men of his team alive was his mission, and he felt assured that one day he could hold himself blameless before the God of the universe.

That certainty did not stop occasional nightmares from visiting him.

He would have worried much more about his spiritual and mental health if he never experienced a drop of remorse over the lives he took in battle.

But the math worked in his favor. He could remove one evil life from this world and directly safeguard the lives of his team members.

And perhaps that act would also save a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand innocent lives.

Through the powerful scope, he caught an insurgent popping up from behind a rusted Toyota Hilux, deadly AKMS rifle poised to fire on his team.

Jerry calmly squeezed the trigger—smooth, precise, like making a slow fist—and the man dropped before he could fire his first shot.

“Strike times one,” Jerry announced over comms, a bowling analogy meaning he had not left any pins standing.

Norton responded with two clicks, meaning “good work.”