The Suicide King

by Chris Fritschi

  Tate weighed his options. “We could draw the Vix out and ambush them, except…”

  “We don’t know how many there are,” said Wesson, finishing his sentence. “And we don’t know if any have wandered into the jungle. We could get attacked from behind.”

  Smiling, Tate nodded agreement. He had chosen Wesson as his second in command over a year before and couldn’t have wished for someone more reliable. She took her role seriously, maybe too seriously for some who considered Mortuary Affairs wasn’t like the rest of the Army. Yet she was a professional and went by the book.

  She was also the unit’s Automatic Rifleman. She carried the LM-948 Squad Automatic Weapon – SAW – with little effort, thanks to its polymer-Teflon frame. The standard round was a high-energy 336 caliber bullet that chemically reacted on impact. Hitting an object caused the soft slug to deform into a metal wad and instantly harden in that shape. The slug’s combination of shape and velocity created an annihilating impact through multiple soft targets. The visual effect of what happened to a body on impact was not for someone with a weak stomach.

  Tate turned his attention to the team’s engineer. “Monkhouse, did you bring anything we can add to the party?” he asked.

  Monkhouse took off his cap and rubbed his short, brown hair in mock thoughtfulness. “Seems like I might have something in my bag of tricks,” he said.

  He unslung his combat back and rummaged through it with the aid of his flashlight. “I got a couple of sticks of C-4, some det-cord and a couple of frags.” Detonation cord, commonly called det-cord, was one of Monkhouse’s handiest tool – a thin, flexible plastic cord filled with high-explosive.

  His amused smile went flat at Tate’s look of disappointment. “What?”

  “I had a Plan A that included Claymore mines,” frowned Tate.

  “Whoa, whoa,” said Monkhouse, as he put his hand out to interrupt him. “Claymores aren’t the answer to everything. They’re heavy. I don’t want to lug those around, do you? And besides, we got something better.”

  Tate noticed Wesson bristling at the casual way Monkhouse spoke to his senior NCO, but Tate had acclimated to Monkhouse’s style.

  Tate subtly motioned to Wesson to relax. He understood Monkhouse respected his position and authority, and felt that as long as the engineer did his job, he would pick and choose when to call him on his informality.

  “I know you’re waiting for me to ask,” said Tate. “What have you got?”

  “I have a crashed Blackhawk filled with a whole lot of JP-9 fuel,” said Monkhouse with a broad grin. “Or JP-9 plus, if you want to split hairs.”

  Being the team’s combat engineer, Monkhouse was the Swiss army knife of skills, whether it was fabricating a temporary shelter, throwing together a pontoon bridge, or demolitions. Monkhouse held a slightly disturbing fondness for the latter. If there was a way to turn something into an explosive, Monkhouse probably knew it.

  In this case, he was referring to the hundreds of gallons of jet fuel in their downed helicopter. Aside from the additive package, the main components of JP-9 was gasoline and kerosene, which made the fuel highly-combustible under the right circumstances.

  “How’s Plan A sound now?”

  They returned to the Blackhawk and salvaged the water cans in the storage lockers. After emptying them out, it was an easy process to syphon the jet fuel into the cans.

  It said a lot about the engineers of the Blackhawk that it could take such a beating and still have intact fuel cells.

  With each circuit they poured the fuel on the ground within the ambush area.

  By the fourth and last trip, Tate was sweat-soaked and breathing hard. The painkillers Rosse had given him were useless against the abuse of his broken rib.

  After dumping the fuel, he sat down heavily near Kaiden, who gave him a regarding look.

  Irritated and self–conscious, he tried unsuccessfully to ignore her judging gaze. “Thanks for helping.”

  “You’re the one who needs the exercise,” she said. “Not me.”

  “Why is everyone so obsessed with my weight?” he asked, then quickly brought up his hand, signaling her not to answer. “Never mind.”

  Tate called the team together, assigning each team member position for the ambush.

  “This is a textbook L-shaped ambush.” The L-shaped ambush was a tried and true formation used by the military since time out of mind. The squad would be divided into two fire teams, with one team positioned on the long arm of the L, and the other team providing the heavier firepower at the short arm.

  This was where Wesson would be. Shrubs and other foliage had been placed as camouflage in the rough shape of a large L, which the team would hide behind; their enemy wasn’t going to notice, or care, if the brush was in an unnatural shape.

  The Vix weren’t cunning, sneaky, or tactical. Without the stimulus of loud sounds, or a moving target, the Vix appeared deceptively lethargic. Left undisturbed long enough a Vix would stop moving entirely and fall over. They would lay motionless indefinitely, until something triggered them. If that happened they would instantly be up, looking for and moving towards the source of their attention.

  Once they had a tangible target, it became a whole new ballgame; the Vix transformed into an unrelenting force of raw strength and savagery that would not stop until its head was nearly destroyed, or its body was blown apart. If one got a hold of someone, it could rip through bone and muscle like tissue paper.

  “Sergeant Wesson,” said Tate. “You’ll be at the bottom of the L with your SAW. We’ll be leading the Vix in your direction. Can you handle that?”

  Wesson was momentarily confused by the question. Was Tate asking her if she had enough ammunition, or if her weapon was functional?

  The brief look he gave her held more meaning behind it, and she realized what he was really asking.

  A few months before, they had been searching an abandoned DEA base. She had opened a shipping container, not knowing that it was filled with Vix.

  Since that time, vivid images of snarling faces and rotted hands clawing at her stalked her sleep. She never told anyone how deeply the experience had rattled her, but Tate’s question hinted that he had seen something in her that betrayed her secret.

  “I’m fine. I mean, it’s fine,” she said, feeling more awkward with every word. She stopped herself and took a breath before going on.

  “I’ve got my position set up, and marked my field of fire.” Wesson had wedged a stick in the ground to the left side of her machine gun barrel, as a marker. It defined the boundary of her safe field of fire. Shooting past that stick and she’d risk firing into the other ambush team.

  “Good,” said Tate.

  To Wesson’s relief, he didn’t give her a second look, but turned his attention to the others.

  “Ota and Fulton,” he said, “you’ll provide security to Wesson’s position. Kaiden, Rosse, Monkhouse and I will make up the other fire team. Sergeant Monkhouse?”

  “I’m set up,” said Monkhouse. “I got detonation cord leading from my position to the area where we dumped the jet fuel. When the Vix walk into that, I’ll set off the cord. After that, you guys will want to grab your marshmallows and sticks.”

  Rosse gave Monkhouse a sidelong look of disgust and shook his head. “You gotta a real disturbing sense of humor,” he said. “Ya know that?”

  Monkhouse seemed to make a hobby out of getting under Rosse’s skin. The more irritated Rosse got, the more Monkhouse enjoyed it, but this wasn’t the time, or place.

  “All right,” said Tate, cutting off Monkhouse’s reply. “Everyone get your head on straight. Once the ball gets rolling on this ambush, everyone needs to pay attention to what’s happening, or this could go south on us fast. If you have any questions or concerns, now’s the time.”

  Each member of the team scanned the faces around them, looking for an unspoken question or hint of doubt.

  “Okay,” said Tate, satisfied nobody had anything to say. “Everyone i
n position.”

  Silent except for the rustle of clothing and the soft crunch of boots on the ground, the team members moved to their assigned positions. Each of them did a final check of their weapons.

  Tate keyed up his mic. “Ota. Get their attention.”

  At the other end of the ambush position, Ota settled his cheek on the stock of his rifle and rested his eye behind the scope. He keyed his mic twice, acknowledging Tate’s message.

  Through Ota’s scope, the details of the base’s compound sprang to his eye. Several Vix were meandering aimlessly, while a couple were kneeling over bloody corpses.

  Ota fixed the crosshair on a Vix that was standing still, and squeezed the trigger.

  The immediate area in front of him flashed with the crack of his shot. The head of Ota’s target fragmented into a mist, and the body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. Every Vix within sight snapped their eyes towards the sound of the gun shot.

  The Vix instantly charged towards its source.

  “Here they come,” said Ota into his mic.

  Tate counted seven Vix as they came running towards the kill zone.

  “Hell, Top,” said Rosse next to Tate. “We could’a saved all that work setting up the ambush.”

  Tate was thinking the same thing, but all that changed when a mob of Vix spewed out of the base in a flat-out run towards them.

  “Okay, Wesson,” he said into his radio. “You’re up.”

  Wesson was looking down the barrel of her SAW at the oncoming Vix. She told herself to pull the trigger, but her finger didn’t budge.

  The Vix were getting close, and the sounds of their grunts and snarls flung her mind back to that DEA camp.

  Her mind flooded with images of boney hands that clawed and ripped at her combat vest, as the stench of their breath suffocated her. Naked teeth snapped and chipped inches from her face. She could hear Tate yelling her name from far away. She wanted to answer, to yell, scream, anything, but no sound would come out.

  Something sharp jabbed her in the shoulder, breaking the spell. She blinked and the world returned to the present.

  She turned and saw Ota looking at her with an expression of sad understanding.

  Using the stick he’d prodded her with, Ota tapped her radio; Tate was yelling at her over the radio.

  “Wesson, fire,” barked the radio. “What are you waiting for?”

  Embarrassed and angry with herself, Wesson pulled the stock of her SAW to her shoulder and began shooting, cutting down a small group of Vix that were about to overrun the kill zone.

  The flashes of her gun gave focus to the Vix, and sent them into a frenzy.

  Positioned along the long arm of the L, Tate put his hand on Monkhouse’s shoulder as he watched the gory swarm eat up the distance to the kill zone.

  Monkhouse pulled the safety pin out of the detonator. His earlier anticipation of setting off a big explosion was swept away by dread, as the throng of seething death and gore bore down on them.

  The Vix were moving too fast for Tate to wait for all of them to enter the trap, or they’d overrun it and run into Ota, Wesson and Fulton.

  “Now,” said Tate, as he squeezed Monkhouse’s shoulder.

  Monkhouse pulled the detonator’s ring. Trails of dust shot up as the det-cord exploded its way into the jet fuel-soaked ground.

  Night turned into day with a roar as the jet fuel and its fumes ignited in a pillar of searing heat and flame.

  The blast wave slapped Tate in the face, making him drop to the ground.

  Wesson gripped her machine gun, ready to annihilate anything that came out of the flames. She saw movement within the fire and began to press the trigger on her LM-948, but paused.

  Sheathed in flames, a Vix stumbled out of the flames. It stood a moment, then turned towards Wesson, and though she knew it had no eyes to see her with, it sent a chill up her spine.

  “Just die,” she said under her breath. “Leave me alone. Leave me alone.” Her finger tightened on the trigger when the burning Vix sank to its knees, wavered a moment and finally fell over.

  Wesson wanted to look away but she was rooted in place, transfixed by the flaming effigy.

  The spell was broken by someone tugging on her arm.

  “Sergeant?” said Fulton. “Top’s calling you.”

  Then Wesson heard Tate over her radio. “Sergeant Wesson, report.”

  “Damn it,” she muttered, as she fumbled for her radio. “I’m here, Sergeant Major.”

  “Any movement at your position?” asked Tate sharply. The fire was a solid wall that rose up twelve feet, making it impossible for Tate to see what was happening at Wesson’s position.

  Wesson looked around, avoiding the lone, burning corpse. Nothing else was coming out of that inferno.

  “No, Top,” she said. “Nothing here survived.”

  Tate nodded to himself in agreement with Wesson. “Everyone rally at the outpost gate,” he said.

  Everyone got up and leaving the pyre behind collected at the gate. With a signal from Tate they entered the outpost. It was a short walk to the middle fo the outpost and they hadn’t seen, or heard anyone.

  “Top, should we be standn’out here in the open like this?” said Rosse, looking worried. “What if we didn’t get’ em all?”

  “The Vix couldn’t have missed all that noise and light,” said Tate. “If there’s any left, they’ll be inside a building.”

  “Great,” said Rosse. “Now we get to find out which door’s hiding a man-eating jack-in-the-box.”

  “Hooah, Sergeant,” said Tate, using the Army’s universal reply.

  Rosse grinned back at him. “Hooah, Sergeant Major.”

  “All right,” said Tate. “First priority is getting help. Second is finding survivors. Fulton, you’re our radio guy. Get to the comms shack and call in our situation. At a minimum we need transport and additional security. Rosse, you go with him. That’ll be the only door you need to worry about. Get to it.”

  Although it was a small outpost, Tate had instructed everyone to be familiar with the layout when they first arrived. Not that he’d anticipated anything like this night’s events; as a practice it just made good sense to know your way around.

  Rosse and Fulton headed off to the communications hut.

  “I don’t want to be boxed in,” Tate continued, “so we’ll leave the gate open. Wesson, you’re on security there. I think we got all the Vix, but in case you see any approach from the woods, take them out. Ota, you’re in the guard tower. You’ll have a view of everything from up there.”

  Tate paused, giving them an opening for any questions, but none came. He nodded, and Wesson and Ota left for their assignments.

  “That leaves you and me,” he said to Kaiden.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “We look for survivors and hope none of those fobbits shoot us in the process.”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “We could wait until the help flies in and let them do it,” she said.

  Tate frowned at her with disapproval.

  “All right, boy scout, have it your way.” She rested her hand on her holstered pistol and tilted her head to one side for Tate to lead the way.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  STAND DOWN

  By dawn, every building had been searched and remaining survivors found. As a safety precaution, the dead were burned, although this was mostly symbolic since they would have turned into Vix long before.

  With the light came the time to find answers to how the Vix breached the outpost.

  Tate walked the outpost’s perimeter, looking for a breach in the fence, but he found nothing. His leg was hurting from the fall out of the helicopter, but he made himself walk it a second time, with the same results. The fence was intact and showed no signs that anything had come in under, over, or through.

  Tired, sore and irritated, Tate limped into the dining facility, known as the DFAC, to join up with the rest of the team.

  Basically, i
t was a fabric shelter system that looked like a quonset hut. He wasn’t surprised to find everyone huddled over cups of coffee; nobody had slept more than a couple of hours in a day and a half.

  The coffee machine was dribbling a fresh brew into the glass pot, but Tate wasn’t interested in waiting. He pulled the pot out of the way and stuck the cup under the stream until it was full.

  After returning the pot, he eased himself down on the bench seat with the rest of his team. The rich, earthy aroma of the coffee wafted around his head, taking some of the edge off his bad mood.

  “What did you find, Top?” asked Fulton, as Tate was in the middle of drinking his coffee.

  Tate felt no need to rush the experience, and took his time before speaking.

  Rosse gave Fulton a sharp bump in the shoulder with his elbow. “Give the man a chance to have his coffee,” he said. “Can’t ya see he’s tired?”

  Fulton grumbled something under his breath as he rubbed his shoulder.

  “What was that?” asked Rosse. “You got something to say to me?”

  “Both of you knock it off before I kick you out of here,” cautioned Wesson.

  Fulton looked down at his coffee, while Rosse gave Wesson a long stare.

  She stared back at him. “Is there something you want to say to me, Sergeant?” she asked evenly.

  “No,” he said. “If you don’t need me, boss,” he said to Tate, giving Wesson a quick glance, “I’m gonna get some rack time.”

  Tate nodded his approval and Rosse walked out. The night had been rough on everyone, making nerves brittle.

  Earlier, some of the team had returned to the downed helicopter to scavenge anything left behind.

  With the sun up they could see the treacherous obstacles the Blackhawk had narrowly missed. It was a marvel nobody had died. In particular was a large boulder, that would have cracked open the fuselage like an egg and easily ruptured the fuel cells. The team would have been immolated in a pool of jet fuel in the same way they took out the Vix the night before.

  Some didn’t give it a second thought, while others were preoccupied by their near miss with an agonizing death.