Black Operations- the Spec-Ops Action Pack

by Eric Meyer

  “Stoner.”

  “Mr. Stoner? This is Minister Shah. I have a job for you.”

  He dimly recalled Shah, one of the most corrupt politicians in Kabul. If he had a job, it could only mean one thing. A killing. Anything else and he’d use his own people.

  “Forget it, Minister. I’m not available.”

  “Not available! You have to be available. This is important. Have you been drinking, your voice sounds strange?”

  “I’m always drinking. Today is no different to any other. Find someone else.”

  He ended the call, cutting off the torrent of protests.

  Fuck you! There’s been too much killing in this damn country already, insurgents, murderers, rapists, although more often than not the innocent are the victims. Shah probably wants the death of a rival. What is it with these people? They think murder is the answer to everything, like the village outside Lashkar Gar. The place they turned into an abattoir.

  In his after-action report he referred to it as ‘target village.’ He never knew the name. Or was it a subconscious thing? As if not knowing the name of the place that started his nightmares would somehow make them fade? It didn’t work.

  He showered and dressed. He couldn't be bothered to shave, even if he could have stopped his hand from shaking. Instead, he went downstairs to the bar. A hair of the dog would cure the thumping in his head. There was no one behind the bar, which surprised him. They always had someone waiting to serve drinks. He looked around and noticed a man sitting at a table in the shadows of the far corner, a slim, smooth-looking man. Crumpled linen suit over a polo neck sweater. The clothes were American, no question, but not the accent.

  “Rafe Stoner?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  The accent was Russian, or maybe one of those tinpot countries that made up the Soviet Union until the break-up.

  Some kind of merchant, maybe, he’ll want a guide who can double as a bodyguard. They always do.

  Then he caught sight of the eyes as a shaft of sunlight penetrated the dim bar, eyes that flashed a vivid blue. Cold eyes, they could have belonged to a KGB executioner.

  “My name is Ivan. Ivan Vasilyevich.”

  Sure it is. And I'm Abe Lincoln's brother.

  “I thought Ivan Vasilyevich was the name of Ivan the Terrible.”

  He shrugged. “That’s right.”

  There was a silence. He was already bored and his head hurt. Time to put an end to it.

  “I’m Stoner. Right now I’m busy.”

  “I know who you are. I was just passing, and I thought I'd give you a piece of information you may be interested in.”

  “I doubt it.”

  The man smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, more like the look of a big cat about to eat its lunch. "It’s about your fiancée, the girl they murdered. Madeleine Charpentier, wasn’t that her name?”

  Stoner went rigid. It was another nightmare. He didn’t reply.

  “I heard something about the guy who ordered the IED that killed her,” the Russian went on.

  This time he did reply. “Whatever you heard, you got it wrong, pal. I killed him. All of the men who were involved in her murder, they're dead. As I said, I'm busy.”

  Ivan ignored the invitation to leave. “Except this guy. You didn’t kill him. He’s still alive.”

  “What do you know? Tell me his name.”

  The Russian grinned. “I don’t know his name. It’s just I came across some information about his brother. He was Taliban as well, until an American long-range sniper blew a hole in his head. All I know is the location of his grave. There'll be a headstone with a name. That should be enough to lead you to the guy you want.”

  Stoner was skeptical. “What do you want in return for this information?”

  Another grin. “Nothing, it’s just a favor, that's all. I've used your establishment a couple of times and always been treated well. It deserves a good turn. Do you want to know or not?”

  “Shoot.”

  Ivan’s story was vague. He conducted business in a mountaintop city called Panjab, a couple of hundred klicks from Kabul. There was an Islamic cemetery just outside the city, and one of the graves was that of a local martyr shot by an American sniper. What was interesting was the man’s brother, who'd been a local Taliban commander. During the eulogy, the man said he’d have his revenge a hundred times over. Afterward, he boasted about the destruction of a UNHCR ambulance. The only recent attack on such a vehicle had been on the ambulance in which Madeleine Charpentier died.

  Stoner leaned forward. “Do you have any proof of this?”

  Ivan shook his head. “No, but why would I make it up? If you want to check it out, why don’t you look in next time you’re passing? The cemetery is on land belonging to Stori Transport. That’s a company run by a woman named Lena Stori.”

  “A woman? I bet the Mullahs love her.”

  He grimaced. “Not much, although they’d love to get control of her transport company. You can imagine the opportunities that would give the right person, and the kind of cargoes they could carry around the country without attracting attention.”

  “Drugs.”

  “Drugs, for sure. The man who gets control of Stori Transport only has to make his services available to the traffickers, and he’d be rich beyond his wildest dreams.”

  Stoner nodded. “Was she involved?”

  Ivan looked puzzled. “In the drug traffic? No way, she won’t touch drugs, no matter how big the bribe. She’s squeaky clean.”

  “I meant with planting the IED that killed Madeleine Charpentier.”

  “Negative, she’s good people, feisty as a box of firecrackers, but one of the few honest folk in this shithole country. I doubt she's aware of the existence of the grave, but she’d be able to direct you to the cemetery.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.”

  A grating laugh, “That’s my business. Knowing about things. I have to go, Stoner. Good luck if you do decide to check it out. See you around.”

  He jumped to his feet and strolled out of the bar. Stoner had many questions, but the way his head was pounding, they’d have to wait an hour or two, until he managed to switch off the sub woofer beating inside his brain. Then again, there was a way to fast rack the process. He went behind the bar and helped himself to a bottle of the real stuff kept out of sight. Real Jack Daniels. Tennessee's finest. Next time he’d tell Anahita to serve it up when his friends came around. The Afghan bourbon was almost as lethal as the war.

  A couple of stiff drinks, and he felt ready to face the world. He had business he needed to attend to, but there was only one priority. Find a grave, in the mountain city of Panjab.

  “You’re crazy.”

  He jumped, and his hand dropped down to where he normally carried his two Desert Eagles. Big .50 caliber handguns, designed to drop a man dead before he had time to take his next breath. His eyes pierced the shadows, and he recognized Greg Blum. Brown leather coat, dark pants and shirt, dark hair and dark, sunburned skin, in part a legacy of his Afghan mother. His father had been a Russian, a throwback to the Soviet occupation. Greg was a farmer, although he looked more like a gunman. He was also a gunman.

  “Where the hell did you spring from?”

  “I’ve been here all night, waiting to talk to you.”

  “Ma Kelly should have thrown you out.”

  He grinned. “We go back a long way. I was one of her best clients. You know you’re making a mistake. It’s time you started to live your life again. You can’t keep reliving the past. Madeleine's dead. You need to move on."

  He stared at the half-Russian, half-Afghan. A man who’d once been his friend, had stolen his girl, and then redeemed himself by helping him when he went up against a notorious drug trafficker. It didn’t give the half-breed the right to tell him how to lead his life.

  “If ever I need advice, don’t call me, I’ll call you. Now beat it. I've had one Russian in here already. I don't need another one."

/>   The other man didn’t move. “You didn’t swallow his tale, surely? A grave in some flyspeck mountain town, with a story about the guy who ordered the bomb that killed Madeleine. He’s trying to use you, Stoner. If you don’t realize that, it’s time it knocked off the booze and got wise. You’ve got a life in front of you, why don’t you enjoy it?”

  He shook his head to try to think straight, but it only made the headache worse.

  Greg’s right. The guy was almost certainly feeding me a line, although I can’t work out the reason. Not right now.

  There was another problem; he needed the booze to help him forget. It worked, up to a point, except it had the unfortunate side effect of leaving him confused. Not the best way to fight a war, and he had little doubt if went to Panjab, there’d be violence. Maybe he should knock off the sauce until this was over. The Taliban would be sure to keep their former master bomber well protected. There was no doubt when ISAF finally pulled out of the country they’d call for him again.

  His head still pounded. He walked to the bar to pour another double shot, downed it in one, and his brain started to function.

  “I made a promise.”

  “To Madeleine? She’s dead.”

  He glared at Blum. “She was dead when I made it; I was holding her in my arms. I said I’d hunt down and kill every man who was involved in planting that IED. I’m not going to break that promise. If there’s one man left alive, I’m going after him.”

  Greg sighed. “You'll get yourself killed. It’s not territory you know anything about, and besides, in your condition, I wouldn’t trust you to even find the place, let alone shoot straight when you locate the target.”

  “Believe me, when the time comes, he’s toast.”

  “Unless he kills you first. Stoner, I’m going with you. We can take my GAZ.”

  His headache became worse at the thought of the Soviet relic. “You’re not serious? Drive across Afghanistan in that heap of Russian tin? I’d sooner walk.”

  Greg’s SUV was a dark green GAZ 69, the jeep first produced in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. With a two-liter engine, it was slow, belched fumes, and was heavy on gas. The ugly and iconic symbol of Stalin’s Russia was the most uncomfortable and unreliable vehicle he’d ever traveled in.

  Blum grimaced. “We used it before when we went after Mahmoud. As I recall, it didn’t let us down. It’s more than I can say for your Jeep Wrangler.”

  “Only after they shot my Jeep full of holes." It had cost him a fortune to fix, and almost a month in the shop. Now it was back the way it should be, all black and chrome, with black leather seats. New smoked glass, toughened alloy wheels, a new winch and bull bars, “Anyway, I don’t need any help.”

  “You need rehab, Stoner. Until you get it, you need my help. Besides, if I let you go alone, Faria would kill me. Why don’t we swing by and say hello on the way? Say hi to the kids. Ahmed misses you.”

  “He still got that old tractor, the Fordson?”

  Greg grimaced. “He won’t part with it, or the dog, Archer. The three of them are inseparable, Ahmed, the tractor, and the dog sitting alongside him. I call 'em the Holy Trinity."

  Stoner smiled. Greg and his wife Faria had secretly converted to Christianity, and the local Muslims would kill them for it if they found out. Faria had once been his girl, and it had been a hard struggle to get over the loss when she chose Greg over him. The girl he found was Madeline Charpentier, a beautiful UNHCR worker. Murdered by a Taliban roadside bomb.

  Finally, he nodded. “You’re on. We’ll need to grab some weapons from my store before we leave. You still got that rifle at home?”

  Greg nodded. His rifle was a Dragunov SVD-63 semi-automatic sniper rifle chambered in 7.62mm. Developed in the Soviet Union, Stoner had a grudging respect for it. One thing the Russians knew how to do well was building accurate rifles. The legendary success of Vasily Zaitsev at Stalingrad during WWII came with the use of a Moisin Nagant infantry rifle, albeit heavily modified.

  “I reckon you may need it. Some motherfucker Taliban warlord isn’t going to throw up his hands and give up when we arrive in town.”

  He climbed to his feet and staggered, feeling the effects of the booze from the night before still hammering at his brain. Greg tactfully ignored it, and the two men walked out of the bar and around the corner to where a heavy, reinforced steel door gave access to Stoner’s basement. He turned the key in the lock, and they went inside. He turned on the light, and they walked down the steps to his armory.

  He had racks of weapons lining the walls, the tools of his trade. Handguns, everything from Makarov and Tokarev 9mm automatics, Colt .45s, to a couple of spare Desert Eagles. Assault rifles, M4 A1s, M-16s, and the ubiquitous AK-47 and its descendant, the AKM 5.56mm. There were even rocket launchers, Soviet era RPG 7s, an M-60 machine gun, a Barratt .50 caliber sniper rifle, and a variety of explosives, antipersonnel mines, and hand grenades.

  “Help yourself to a Makarov, Greg. There’s plenty of ammunition. You might want a couple of grenades; they tend to even up the odds.”

  “Sure, sure.” His attention was distracted, and he was staring at the Barratt, “You know, I always wondered how good these things were. Longer range than my Dragunov, that’s for sure.”

  Stoner nodded, and even the slight movement of his head was as if someone had thumped him with a big fist. “The range of that thing is incredible. The M82A1 has a range of almost two thousand meters, and the armor piercing round it fires weighs a whisker under two ounces. It’s accurate, too. Locate a target in the scope, pull the trigger, and say goodnight. Doesn’t matter if it’s a man or an APC, same result. Bang, dead.”

  Blum still hesitated, but in the end, he nodded. “If there’s room in the Wrangler, I’ll take it.”

  He packed the Barratt in a canvas case, together with spare ammunition. He also chose M67 fragmentation grenades, two in each pocket, and strapped on the Makarov. At least it was Russian built, and he felt more confident. Stoner found space on the workbench and swiftly dissembled, cleaned, and reassembled his Desert Eagles. He strapped on his belt under his leather coat and pushed the guns into the holsters. Finally, he took down and M4 A1, the reliable and accurate American assault rifle chambered for 5.56mm rounds, and filled a canvas pack with spare magazines. They were ready.

  The two men drove north to Mehtar Lam, where Greg had his home, a small farm. He lived there with Faria and the three children they’d adopted after the death of Ghulam Durani, a neighboring farmer. First out to greet them was Archer, the big German Shepherd dog who’d previously belonged to the Marine Corps. He bounded up to the two men, barking and wagging his tail. Ahmed Durani followed him, smiling and waving. The brave Afghan kid had saved their asses when they went up against the notorious warlord Mahmoud.

  Faria came out last with the two girls, Ahmed’s sisters. She kissed Greg and grimaced at the guns both men carried. She gave Stoner a cold look.

  “I see you've got my husband involved again, Rafe. What is it now, another drug trafficker? Is Greg coming back home this time, or will I get a message that he died in some shootout?” Her voice was full of spite and anger. It was more than that, he realized. It was fear.

  Stoner shrugged, embarrassed by her outburst. “Faria it’s nothing like that. It’s just a case of checking out a grave marker in Panjab. That’s not too far from here. I need a name, the guy who ordered the hit on Madeleine.”

  “You’re going to kill him.” It wasn’t a question.

  He didn’t reply.

  What is there to say? The guy’s a murderer, and he killed Madeleine. What else can I do?

  He greeted the children, managed to disentangle himself from Archer, and they went inside. Faria cooked a hot, spicy meal, and after they’d put the two younger children to bed, they ate in almost total silence.

  Her fear of the future was very real. The last time Stoner came into their lives, not only did Greg almost die, she almost lost her life, too. A local Imam suspected her and her
husband of apostasy. Of turning their backs on Islam and becoming Christians. It happened to be true, but it was only their business, nothing to do with some Islamic busybody. He'd tried hard to execute Faria by stoning, and the two men only saved her after turning the mosque in Mehtar Lam into a bloodbath.

  There was a long silence at the table, and then he nodded. “Faria, I'm sorry. I made a promise to Madeleine.”

  A pause, and then she softened. “Just make sure you bring Greg home safe. You should take the dog with you. You may need him.”

  Ahmed looked up sharply. “I need Archer to help me on the farm.”

  They looked at the fourteen-year-old fondly, a good kid. He and the German Shepherd were bosom buddies.

  “We’ll be fine,” Stoner replied, "We don't need the dog."

  “You take the dog,” she insisted, “Somehow, I get the feeling you'll come back if he’s with you. You know they’re frightened of him.”

  She meant the Muslims. According to some obscure Islamic text, dogs were impure. In other texts, good Muslims should only keep them for hunting. One way or the other, the presence of the dog unsettled them. There were times when it was useful to unsettle an enemy. It gave you an edge. In battle, that could mean the difference between life and death.

  Archer seemed to know instinctively they were talking about him. He was a clever canine, a U.S. Marine. The Corps had trained him to follow a scent until he homed onto the target, no matter what the distance. Not that he'd needed much training, he just knew what they wanted him to do, and he did it. They'd taught him another trick that Ahmed had discovered. When you pointed at a person and said one word, "Target," that person went down. And stayed down, until his handler said otherwise. As German Shepherds went, he was big, and he was mean. As long as his master wanted him to be mean. Other times, he was a teddy bear.

  He came and nuzzled the American's hand. After a couple of seconds, Stoner said, “We’ll take the dog.” He glanced at Greg, “Time we hit the road, buddy.”