Black Operations- the Spec-Ops Action Pack

by Eric Meyer

  The dog had already figured out the layout of the building. He turned fast and raced out the door before they had a chance to take aim and fire. Two of the Afghans ran forward and grabbed hold of Stoner. One gave him a stunning punch to the face. He forced himself to go slack and took two more blows while he watched two men grip Greg’s arms as they relieved him of his weapons, giving him several hard blows to make sure he understood his situation.

  Stoner sighed.

  We’re almost helpless. We’ve come full-circle, from capture at Ivan’s hands, to capture at the hands of the men besieging Lena’s place, and now by another warlord, but which one?

  He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

  “Tie their hands, and put them in the Hilux. Mullah Khan is waiting to talk to these people. Before he decides how and when to kill them.”

  “Yes, Habib.”

  Stoner struggled to control his bitterness. Khan had captured them before they even had a chance to kill him. He’d won. And Lena, assuming she didn’t fall during the battle for the compound, would end up as the forced bride of an Islamic cleric. She’d be better off dead. He’d kill her anyway when he had what he wanted. The enemy had won.

  He stared at the man who’d given the order, the leader. Like so many Afghans who’d known nothing but war, famine, and misery, he was lean and stringy. His face hadn’t escaped the ravages of his lifestyle, one eye showed the signs of disease. It was almost milky white, and one side of his face was lopsided, as if he’d been the victim of a car crash, most likely a bomb or an artillery shell. Whatever the cause, the damage was no less gruesome. The guy looked like Mullah Omar on a bad day.

  As they dragged him across to the SUV, Stoner stared back at the Chinese, Joseph Chow.

  “I’ll come back for you. And when I do, you’ll understand what a big mistake you made today. Right before I kill you.”

  He gave him a thin smile. “I think not. Goodbye, Mr. Stoner.”

  “It’s Stoner.”

  “Not for much longer.”

  They tossed them onto the back seat, and a man with an assault rifle climbed into the passenger seat. He put down the rifle, drew a Makarov automatic, and pointed it at Stoner’s belly. Another fighter jumped into the driver’s seat. He had one hand on the wheel, and in the other he held a pistol, a Russian Stechkin, which he used to wave in their faces.

  Habib leered at them. “Do not try the patience of this man. His brother died after the Americans and their allies bombed his home village. He would love nothing more than to shoot you both dead.”

  He shrugged, “Mullah Khan would prefer to speak to you before you die, but it makes little difference. Either way, you will die.” His smile widened, “If you wish to spare yourselves the pain you will undoubtedly suffer at the hands of the Mullah, you could try to escape. Give my friend what he wants, and let him kill you. He will not be satisfied until he has killed every infidel who treads the soil of our beautiful Islamic nation.”

  Stoner ignored him, and the vehicle jolted away, throwing them to the floor. He got back up with difficulty and looked aside at Greg. “Before you ask, I don’t know how to get out of this.”

  “I do. Remember what I took off Lena? It’s tucked in my inside pocket. It’s so small they missed it when they frisked me.”

  “Loaded?”

  “Yep.”

  “Except your hands are tied, it could be a problem getting to it.”

  “I have an idea about that, too.”

  The American smiled. “For a Russian, you’re a real surprise.”

  The man in the front seat turned and snarled out a warning. Greg snapped back, “Yob tvoyu mat!”

  Evidently the Afghan had learned some Russian curses, a throwback to the Soviet days. He reached over and slammed his pistol on the top of Blum’s head. Greg reeled back, twisted around, and the Afghan grinned. A stream of Pashto curses filled the car. Stoner ignored them. Blum ignored them. He’d landed back to back with Stoner, and the line tying his hands was accessible.

  The American started to pull at the knots. It was a race against time. Their only chance was to use the Colt .25 and take down the guard and the driver. Before they reached the city and Mullah Khan.

  The lights of the city loomed no more than half a kilometer ahead. They had only seconds to make their escape. The Toyota turned to enter the maze of streets. Stoner worked frantically at the knots that secured Greg’s wrists, but the engine note changed as the driver began to slow. They were almost out of time.

  * * *

  Archer raced across the grass. He ran along little known tracks and trails, heading northeast. If anyone had asked him, and even if he’d been able to understand and reply, he wouldn’t have known how he knew the direction to take. Only that he possessed some innate ability to sense direction. As if he had a built-in GPS guidance system. It was one of those miracles of nature beyond human understanding. It just so happened that when the U.S. Marine Corps picked that particular German Shepherd, they chose right.

  Dawn was breaking, and it meant he could run faster. Now he could find his way past the ruts, potholes, and obstacles that constantly threatened to injure his legs. Traps to break a bone or gouge a deep cut into his paw, to stop him from completing his mission. He cut across a plowed field, which only awaited the seeds to transform it into a cash crop. Archer didn’t understand opium and had no idea what it was. Nor did he care, although if they’d given him a plant to sniff, he could have uncovered more than a score of fields right outside the city.

  He reached a metaled road, and his ears pricked up when he heard the sound of shooting. He dropped lower to the ground, knowing that men were trying to hurt other men with the peculiar metal sticks they carried. A bullet had struck him once, a graze under the stomach, and he never forgot the pain as it slowly healed.

  He came closer to the house. The house where he knew the person lived who owned the scrap of white cloth he carried. The person Greg told him to seek. A series of muzzle flashes lit up the night, and he swerved away to find another way through. There were more loud noises, more guns firing, and he prowled around the perimeter of the building to find a way past the bad men.

  He soon found what he wanted. An animal had scraped a shallow hole at the base of the wall that had crumbled. He scrabbled with his front paws to deepen the hole, and when it was deep enough, he struggled through. He knew if he ran across the open ground to the house, a bullet would find him. So he searched for a way to reach the person he sought.

  There was nothing. If he went to the house, the pain would start. Even worse, he wouldn’t complete his task. And then he saw it, a shattered glass window with wooden shutters. The gunfire had torn holes in the wood, but it wasn’t big enough to pass through. Yet big enough for them to see out and recognize him. He was Archer, and they were his friends.

  Would they understand if he ran to the shattered window and barked? Would they realize it was him and admit him to the house? Or would they leave him exposed to the gunfire of the men all around him? Bad men. He knew they were bad. They smelled the same, a peculiar, pungent odor. An odor he associated from long ago. Men he’d been trained to detect and show his Marines where they were hiding.

  The canine reasoning took place inside his brain in a couple of seconds, and the answer came even quicker. He was up, running, bounding across the open space. It was mostly gravel, with a few patches of earth, nothing to protect him from the bullets. He reached the shuttered window and went up on his rear paws, scratching at the woodwork. He didn’t bark, not at first. They’d trained him not to bark when the bad men were close. But the shutter remained closed.

  * * *

  “What the fuck! There’s a dog out there. The bastards must have sent it to break in here and attack us.”

  She watched Bob Crawford ready his assault rifle to put a couple of shots into this new threat. She was surprised. Muslims despised dogs, most of them. Sebastian Koch peered out through the shattered woodwork.

&nbs
p; “Didn’t Blum’s dog look something like that?”

  “Every German Shepherd looks like that,” Malik snapped, walking into the room, “Shoot the bastard. I hate dogs.”

  Crawford smiled. Malik could not shake off his Islamic upbringing, and dogs were the very embodiment of the Devil. So they said. Whatever the reason, he didn’t want anything to upset the temperamental killer. With Rumi Baba dead, the last thing he needed was Malik to get spooked and maybe even run out on them.

  “I’ll take care of the dog. Just keep an eye on those guys outside.”

  The big Shepherd was still scrabbling frantically at the wood, as if trying to rip a hole big enough with its claws to get through and savage them with its bared teeth. For some reason, it wasn’t snarling, which puzzled him. Instead, the animal was making a kind of whining noise. Lena looked again, wary of the occasional bullet that buzzed through. Nervous in case this was some new tactic they were trying. Yet the whining noise didn’t sound that aggressive.

  Is he trying to talk to us? Tell us something? Ridiculous, it’s been a long night. And yet...

  Crawford’s M-16 lifted a fraction as he sighted along the barrel and started to take up the pressure on the trigger. The whine had dropped almost to a whisper, and Lena had a feeling Black Bob was about to make a big mistake.

  The dog’s whine changed to a bark. She’d heard that bark before, when they first introduced Archer to her. She was convinced, and she shouted, “Don’t shoot!”

  Crawford whirled to look at her. Akram shifted nervously, as the barrel of Bob’s assault rifle moved in the direction of the Lena Stori. He moved his own rifle a fraction and then lowered it. Lena felt reassured. Ivan’s man really was looking after her.

  “He’s trying to get in here,” Crawford protested, “That’s an attack dog. He’s one big mother. Could do a lot of damage if he gets inside.”

  She walked forward to the bolt on the shutter. “He’s ours, Bob. That dog is Archer. He belongs to Greg Blum. He brought him with him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Look, there’s the proof.” She drew him to a hole in the woodwork as big as a man’s head and pointed, “Can you see the white cotton in his mouth? That’s my handkerchief. I gave it to Stoner before he left. We have to let him in. Something’s gone wrong.”

  Crawford hesitated a moment more, but several shots smacked against the wall of the house nearby, and a couple came through the wooden shutter. They were shooting at the dog. He snatched at the bolt, swung the shutter open enough to allow Archer to jump through, and bolted it closed again.

  “Archer!” she shouted, soothing the excited animal and stroking his fur. He was panting with exertion, and it was obvious he’d completed a hard journey. She took the white cotton from his jaws, and he made no objection. She looked at her bodyguard.

  “He’s thirsty, Akram. Please bring a bowl of cold water from the kitchen.”

  There was only a short hesitation, before common humanity overcame his Muslim upbringing and he went to carry out her request. She held up the white fabric.

  “It’s a message, and there’s only one reason they’d have sent the dog back with this. They’re in trouble. Deep trouble.”

  Crawford looked dubious, but he agreed it was a possible explanation.

  “If it’s true, we’re screwed. There’s no way we’ll get out of here, not without a miracle. Now it’s daylight, they can take their time sniping at us, and the chances are they’ll use RPGs. They always were the preferred weapons of the discerning terrorist.”

  His defeatism annoyed her. She recalled the times when business had been hard. When she’d been up against the odds, hemmed in by Muslim extremists who hated dealing with a woman. Bankers trying to recall her loans, employees refusing to take orders, men like Imam Mazari, trying to relieve her of her fortune.

  “Rubbish.”

  Black Bob stared at the woman. “Excuse me?”

  “I said rubbish. You’ve never run a business, have you?” Before he could reply, she hurried on, “When there’s a crisis, you modify your strategy to take account of changed circumstances. Let’s look at this from all sides. The men outside are Sunnis, correct?”

  Crawford nodded slowly. “Khan’s men, yeah, they’re Sunnis, have to be. So what?”

  “So we need to draw them out into the open, to persuade them to make a suicidal attack on the house. Right now, we can’t kill them because they’re behind cover. We need them to come at us as a crazed mob. Then we can shoot them down and make our escape.”

  “Lady, it’ll never work,” he shook his head, “They’re fanatics, sure, but these men are not stupid. They won’t go for it.”

  “You’re wrong,” Akram’s voice cut in, “You’re not a Muslim, and you don’t understand what motivates them. I was brought up a Sunni before I turned my back on that nonsense and joined Ivan. If we can find a way to incite their rage, they’ll come at us in a foaming frenzy. Remember, the Mullahs and Imams do it every week, at Friday prayers. Turn ordinary men into slavering animals.”

  Bob sighed. “Okay, so I don’t understand what motivates them. Tell me how we turn them into crazed lunatics?”

  “Leave it to me,” Lena said, “Hold them off for a little while longer. I’ll find a red rag to show this particular bull.”

  She walked away and started up the grand staircase. Akram followed, her faithful shadow. She allowed herself a smile.

  It’s nice to have a bodyguard. It’s even nicer that Stoner was concerned enough to give him the order to watch over me.

  Crawford looked in on her as he went from room to room, making sure the enemy wasn’t about to come at them from an unexpected direction. He left, and a few minutes later Sebastian Koch appeared, carrying out his own checks. He shook his head when she gave him a questioning glance.

  “Nothing happening, just the occasional shot to remind us they haven’t given up. What are you up to in here?”

  He was eyeing her work, and his face mirrored his doubt. With Akram’s help, she was painting huge letters on a white bedsheet. She finished the writing, and then attached a flag to the top edge of the sheet. When she’d finished, she turned to reply.

  “Mr. Koch, the flag is our Shiite flag. My father kept it to display during important Shiite festivals, although we were always careful not to incite the Sunnis.”

  He grimaced. “I doubt a flag will upset them. They must’ve seen hundreds of them.”

  She smiled. “What I’ve written is an old Shiite saying. It translates roughly as ‘Although Allah the Exalted has not created a creature worse than a dog, yet still a Sunni is worse even than a dog.’ This is our red rag, the matador holding it up for the bull. All we need then is for the animal to charge.”

  Koch shook his head and walked away muttering under his breath. She heard him say, “This is all bullshit.”

  She ran after him. “Mr. Koch, no matter what you think, we’re going to hang this flag outside the window in the next five minutes. Tell Mr. Crawford to make sure you’re loaded and ready. They’ll come.”

  He snorted and walked back down the staircase. She heard shouted orders from Crawford for them to concentrate all their efforts on the front of the house, and to make sure they had plenty of ammunition. In spite of their skepticism, they were prepared to give it a chance. She nodded to Akram, and between them they pushed open the shutters.

  Immediately, gunfire tore through the remaining glass, and fragments showered inside the room. They stayed low either side of the opening so that the thick stone walls of the house protected them from the gunfire. She nodded to him when the firing slackened, and they leapt up and hung the cloth on the outside. When they’d tied both ends to the radiator pipes that ran inside the window, they raced out of the room to join Bob. If it worked, he’d need the extra firepower. She took hold of the assault rifle they’d given her and waited.

  Have I just made the worst business decision of my life? I’ll soon know.

  There was silen
ce outside as their attackers digested the text on the draped cloth. They were fighting words, words that threw scorn on their legendary religious beliefs. The Shiite filth had dared to challenge them; men Mullah Khan had dubbed Soldiers of Islam, the cherished and chosen of the real faith.

  No gun fired, no voice shouted, there was only a shocked disbelief. And then, like a cracked and broken dam, their welled up fury and bitterness erupted. The first warning was a ragged chorus of angered voices.

  “Allahu Akhbar!”

  A chorus of voices of men goaded beyond endurance echoed around the compound. They burst out of cover as one man. Like a savage horde from the days of the barbarians that once overran the disciplined legions of the Roman Empire. Perhaps thirty men, it was impossible to count the mass of racing savages. Every man was firing his rifle, most from the hip. The barrage of lead flattened harmlessly against the stonework, or ripped through the remains of the wooden shutters to embed into the plasterwork the other side of the room.

  She heard Bob shout, “Fire!”

  Immediately, she flung herself at a narrow slot in the wooden shutters, pointed her rifle at the charging mob, and pulled the trigger.

  The defenders were ranged shoulder to shoulder, kneeling behind the shutters. Black Bob, spitting curses, the laconic Sebastian Koch, calling cheerful insults to the enemy, and Malik, his face expressionless, firing round after round into the charging mob. Akram Latif was alongside her, and she knew he was ready to push her behind cover if the incoming fire became too intense. She appreciated the thought, but wished it were Stoner here with her.

  We could die today, here in this place. Stoner, wherever you are, I pray you get away safe. Come back to me.

  Crawford had ordered them to select semi-auto single shot or three-shot burst mode. “We don’t have ammo to spare,” he’d shouted over the racket of the firing, “Shoot the bastards dead. Don’t give them a lead shower.”

  In numerical terms, the Sunnis outnumbered them by a factor of six to one. Theoretically, the defenders had no chance. Theoretically. But it was about more than numbers. It was about control and discipline, shots aimed and fired, compared to those merely wasted in the white heat of anger. They aimed and they fired, fired again, and again. The charging men went down. Ragged heaps of torn, bloody flesh littered the ground. Their prayers, their imprecations to Allah, their screams of fury, were as nothing. An armored vest and a Kevlar helmet may have protected them from the bullets. The bitter words of the Koran did not. Allah did not. The Prophet had failed them, and they died.