Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Combat Ops Read Free Page A

voice command so that my computer would patch me into the Cross-Com cameras of the others, and I watched as the guards fell like puppets. Thump . Down. And then my men, who wore masks themselves, hit the bad guys with quick shots from a new CS gas gun we were fielding. The gun issued a silent burst into an ene my’s face.

    Ramirez crouched before the lock on the front gate while I rushed down from my position and joined him. It was a cool desert night. A couple of dogs barked in the distance. Laundry flapped like sails on long lines that spanned several nearby buildings. The faint scent of lamb that had been roasted on open fires was getting swallowed in the stench of the CS gas. I checked my heads-up display: two twenty A.M. local time. You always hit them in the middle of the night while they’re sleep ing. Again, not rocket science.
    Ramirez, our expert cat burglar, picked the lock with his tool kit and lifted his thumb in victory. I shifted into a courtyard as Treehorn whispered in my earpiece: “Two tangos. One to your right, up near that far building, the other to your left.”
    “See them,” I said, the Cross-Com flashing with more signature red outlines that zoomed in on each guard. Like most Taliban, they wore long cotton shirts draped over their trousers and held to their waists with wide sashes. The requisite beards and turbans made it harder to distinguish among them, but they all had one thing in common: They wanted to kill you.
    I lifted my rifle, about to stun the guy on the right, who stood near a doorway, his head hanging as though he were drifting off.
    Ramirez had the guy on the left, the taller one.
    Static filled my earpiece and the images being sent via laser from the monocle into my eye vanished.
    Just like that.
    The lack of data felt like a heart attack. I’d grown so used to the Cross-Com that it had become another appendage, one abruptly hacked off.
    My first thought: EMP? Pulse wave? We’d lost com munications, targeting, everything. And I never for one second thought the Taliban could be responsible for that.
    Ramirez shifted over to me as he kept tight to a side wall beside the courtyard. “What the hell?” he asked, voice muffled by his mask.
    Without warning, two shots boomed from the dis tance: Treehorn. He’d taken out both guards with live fire. I wanted to scream at him, but it was too late.
    “We’re clear!” I shouted to Ramirez. “Let’s go.”
    I’d barely gotten the words out of my mouth when salvos of gunfire resounded all over the compound. I listened for the telltale booming of my team’s rifles echoed by the popcorn crackle of the Taliban’s AK-47s. Everyone had gone weapons free, live fire.
    At the same time, the whir of the Cypher drone’s engines resounded behind me, but then the drone banked drunkenly and dove toward the courtyard, crashing into the dirt with a heavy thud followed by the buzz of short circuiting instruments.
    The enemy was using electronic countermeasures?
    They had taken out our Cross-Coms and drone?
    Impossible.
    We were in rural Afghanistan, where electricity and running water were considered high-tech.
    Ramirez and I ripped off our masks and switched magazines to live ammo. We reached the main door of  the building, wrenched it open, and shifted inside, where, in flickering candlelight, two robed Taliban turned a cor ner and spotted us.
    One hollered.
    I dropped him with a sudden burst and Ramirez caught the second one, who was turning back.
    I don’t want to glamorize their deaths or emphasize our bravery and/or marksmanship. I emphasize that we had made the concerted effort to minimize casualties and initially had the advantage of our information systems. But when we lost comm and satellite, all bets were off. I’d given my men permission to make the call, given their circumstances. Treehorn was, admittedly, a bit prema ture, but I’m still not sure what would’ve happened if he’d held back fire. I’d told all of them they could