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than twenty-three thousand feet in height. Below the snowy peaks, the mountains of Hindu Kush appeared bare, stony and poor in vegetation.
    The area had become an arena for fighting the war against terror, a war where the tribes went after each other as well as their common enemy—the infidels. The mountains had been their home for thousands of years and they knew every nook and crevice like the backs of their hands. The rugged terrain provided multiple places for terrorist leaders to hide, even with entire teams of supporters. From these secret places they launched attacks against United States and coalition forces working to clear out the vipers’ nests of terrorist activities and restore some kind of order in Afghanistan.
    Several missions, not just theirs, had already been successful in taking down terrorist leaders. Some had not been so successful. But no matter how many times he or the other teams did this, the fuckers kept springing up like weeds in a rainstorm. Slade Donovan was determined that his team’s mission would fall into the former category. Their assignment was to take out an asswipe named Ashad Mansoor. His first name translated as ‘hero’ and Slade was sure the man saw himself as some kind of hero to his bloodthirsty people. But this particular group had been identified as smuggling arms from Pakistan to Al-Qaeda followers in Afghanistan and killing nearly all the men sent out to annihilate him.
    Mansoor and his band of merry men were responsible for shooting down a number of both Apache and Black Hawk helicopters the Air Force had used to overfly the area, killing most of the men on board each time. Slade’s commanding officer had got word from CENTCOM that they had something very big planned for within the next ten days. Slade and his team had been given the assignment to take the bastard out and he was determined they would keep their string of successes intact.
    They had confirmed information that Mansoor, along with eleven of his closest advisors, was hiding out in a cave that they were using as their headquarters. Chatter had it they were planning something big. Slade’s orders were to take him down before that could happen. They were long past trying to take him alive and extract information. Too dangerous. Too risky. Now eradication was first and foremost the goal—the safety of whomever they were targeting was no longer an issue.
    They’d spent the day before planning the mission down to the last detail and memorising maps of the area. Slade looked at his men, grim-faced in their seats in the Little Bird helicopter, exposed skin covered with blackout, all wearing black clothing with black watch caps pulled low over their ears. Each man carried a pack with emergency supplies as well as his specially selected firearms.
    For Beau, it was the highly efficient Heckler & Koch SG1, a lightweight, highly efficient semi-automatic sniper rifle with high accuracy and a large magazine capacity. Its silent bolt-closing device made it ideal when absolute silence was required, as it was with nearly all of their missions. For Slade, it was the new H&K carbine, while Trey and Marc both carried the precision-made Browning M82A1 fifty calibre. Trey’s was more backup than anything since his primary assignment was as spotter for Beau.
    Additionally, they each carried either a Glock nine millimetre or a Colt 1911 handgun with a large supply of ammunition. With their other supplies it made for a heavy pack to shoulder, but their training had conditioned them so the weight was inconsequential. 
    “Slade?” The pilot’s voice sounded in the headphone Slade was wearing.
    “Yeah?”
    “Coming up on the landing zone in five.”
    “Got it.”
    He signalled to his men to get ready. They had exactly two minutes to exit the helo after touchdown to allow the bird to get away safely. You never knew when eyes might be watching you. And that was all it took for the four of them to jump down to the hard ground and