by Weston Ochse
First published 2018 by Solaris
an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,
Riverside House, Osney Mead,
Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK
www.solarisbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-78618-112-1
Copyright © 2018 Weston Ochse
Cover art by Clint Langley
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
For everyone who has ever served in Afghanistan,
knows the taste of dust in their mouths,
hates driving down the pot-holed roads,
stares warily at passersby,
and looks lovingly at T-Walls.
This book is for you.
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world, more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian,
or The Evening Redness in the West
Prologue
BLOOD MERIDIAN WAS Boy Scout’s favorite book despite the author’s love of gruesome details like baby heads hanging from trees and scalps fluttering in the air like birds. The reason for his appreciation had more to do with the spirit of the narrative, a theme that Boy Scout universally understood… a theme of unrelenting madness, much like he’d experienced in Afghanistan over the last few years. The constant fighting, the ever-present threat of violence, and the seeming inexorable backwardism of the populace could have been transposed from the book or vice versa with no loss of intellectual impact, especially the madness he’d felt that single night four months ago when he just couldn’t take it any longer.
Boy Scout’s left eye twitched as he blinked the memory away. He couldn’t relive that moment now. There was too much at stake. Memories such as that were best saved for a solitary night in a shadowed corner with a bottle of something strong. It would do him and his mission no good reliving what he’d done… what he’d been forced to do by an absentee God.
He gave his crew a visual check, ensuring that they were still on mission, then resumed his vigil. Staring across the jagged and lifeless horizon, red dust-filled sky bleeding into earth of the same color, Boy Scout reflected on how similar it seemed to the terra damnata in Blood Meridian. Although Afghanistan was geographically different from the fictional landscape described by Cormac McCarthy in his book, it still held the same genus of condemned earth. As in the book, so it was in real life, the landscape of the damned included the souls of those who lived upon it. The main character had been a runaway kid, forced to witness terrible things. At times like this, Boy Scout thought about that fictional kid, wondering what he’d be thinking standing in Boy Scout’s shoes, the leader of a six-person security detail instead of companion to scalp hunters, eager to paint their history in blood. Boy Scout wondered how the boy would feel, knowing that there were real places where good men were sometimes forced to do evil things, just because it was the right thing to do… places like Afghanistan, where no one could escape without earning a little damnata of their very own.
He tore himself away from the memory of both his deed and the terrible book, raised his binos to his eyes, and observed the mountain to the convoy’s nine. He didn’t like their choice for a hunker-down site… no, that was too soft a word. He hated the choice. Although the road ran flat before them, keeping anyone from successfully hiding, the mountains to either side held too many dark clutches of brush-filled hollows. A sniper could be lying in any of them, some mooj who’d been shooting invaders ever since the first Russian tank crossed the Amu River forty-plus years ago.
Boy Scout had seen the results firsthand of what a fifty-caliber bullet could do to the human body, even if it was shot from a rifle that was first made in an 1800s English factory, dropped by some unlucky British soldier during the First Battle of Kabul. The weapon might be old and the dusky skin around the eyes sighting down the Martini-Enfield’s barrel might be wrinkled, but at three hundred meters, a round could still shatter a leg, remove a hand, or smash through an unprotected head as well as a round from any modern weapon.
“B.S., you seeing what I’m seeing?” Narco asked over their multi-band inter-team radios (MBITR).
Boy Scout spoke into the mic as he kept scanning his sector. “Not seeing anything you see, Narco, because I’m on my own sector.”
Narco delayed responding, which meant he was probably rolling his eyes. Boy Scout made a note to talk to him later in private. Dakota Jimmison, aka Dak, call sign Narco, was always a bit fast and loose, but while on mission, Boy Scout needed the man to remain focused.
“Vehicle approaching from twelve o’clock,” Narco said, all business now.
Was this the rendezvous or was it something else? Aloud, he said, “You and Preacher’s Daughter take it out if it gets closer than fifty feet.”
A smoky female voice joined the coms. “Guess who gets to break out the RPG?” After a pause she added, “This girl.”
Boy Scout could almost see the smile on her face through the coms. Glad she was happy, but he hoped they didn’t need to use the weapon. If they did, it meant they were in the shit and that all his worries were right. In this case, he’d rather not be right at all.
“Vehicle still moving. Clock it at two kilometers and closing,” Narco said.
Boy Scout needed to move forward to manage the situation but he was unwilling to disregard possible attacks from their flanks. They’d taken a three-vehicle convoy out of Mazar-e Sharif five hours ago just to hunker down on a set of GPS coordinates. That this location had been pre-selected for them hadn’t thrilled Boy Scout. The location had been Alpha’s idea. They could have reached the location by helicopter in an hour, but Alpha again had insisted they travel by land. Boy Scout had tried to argue that Alpha’s safety would be compromised if they prosecuted the mission as ordered, but Boy Scout was told in no uncertain terms that he and his team had one mission, which was to carry Alpha to and from an important rendezvous while maintaining secrecy and security… and since Alpha was a JSOC general officer, there was no getting around it.
“McQueen, keep Alpha secure inside vehicle. Criminal, you take my sector.”
“You want me to move back there so you can move up front, boss?” came another female voice, this one hard-edged, bordering on nasty. She was the newest member of the team. Her name was Sarasota Chavez. Her parents called her Sara, but to the team she was Bully.
After a second of thought, “Roger. Let’s do that.”
“WILCO,” she said, the word like a slice from a blade.
Boy Scout felt a pat on the shoulder as she left the side of the middle vehicle and took his position. She’d once been a convoy driver. She’d also been an MMA fighter. He felt confident with her at his back.
He nodded to Criminal, who was also watching the rear. The twenty-seven-year-old former MARSOC marine wore the same body armor vest as the rest of them, but his was decorated with a various assortment of My Little Pony patches. His name was Oscar James.
His friends called him Oz, but because of his ability to procure absolutely anything, Boy Scout had fondly given him the call sign Criminal. His HK 416 automatic rifle hung from a sling around his neck, ready to be raised. But for now, he had his hands on his binos.
Even knowing he didn’t need to say it, Boy Scout said, “You and Bully watch our flanks. Engage anything that moves.”
“Got it, B.S.,” Criminal said, referring to Boy Scout’s call sign and his real name, Bryan Starling.
Boy Scout strode forward. He glanced once through the armor-plated glass at Alpha sitting in the middle SUV. Chaz McQueen, former Special Forces Warrant Officer and now contractor, sat beside the GO, as stoic as he was muscular.
Boy Scout continued to the first vehicle.
Preacher’s Daughter, or Laurie May, aka Lore, former Army intelligence lieutenant now government civilian, was grinning from ear-to-ear as she held her RPG-32 cocked jauntily on her hip, grenade pointing skyward.
Narco, former Army military policeman now shit-hot adrenaline-junkie contractor, stood next to her, spying down the scope of a long rifle. Part Cherokee and part German, he had the soft and hard features of both nationalities. He and Criminal were fast friends. While Criminal wore My Little Pony patches, Narco wore Brony patches to fuck with him. He thought it was hilarious, but it only pissed Criminal off.
“What we got, Narco?”
“Up armored SUV by how low it rides. Land Cruiser. Same as ours. Think they’re friendlies?”
It didn’t make sense for them to be. If Alpha wanted to establish a meeting with friendlies, he could have done it any number of ways. Meeting out in the middle of bum fuck Afghanistan was such a waste of manpower and time. Unless...
Boy Scout spun and strode to the middle SUV. He jerked open the door and glared at the JSOC general. “Seriously? We’re your taxi ride?”
The general, whose face bore the desert tan and scars from a dozen Middle Eastern and African countries, didn’t change his expression when he said, “You’re an Operational Support Team. Your job is to support operations and transport VIPs. I’m a JSOC brigadier general. Mission accomplished.”
Boy Scout scowled on the inside. There were so many things he wanted to say. So many things he wanted to do at this moment. But he needed to keep it professional. He needed to do what his old boss Pastora had once said: Be gracious even in the face of an imbecile.
“How many and from what unit, General?” he asked.
“They’ll be JSOC. Don’t know how many.”
“The reason I need to know, sir, is because in about ten seconds, I’m going to command Preacher’s Daughter to send an RPG round down the throat of that oncoming SUV. As long as they don’t identify themselves, I have to treat them as enemy combatants.”
“Vehicle now one kilometer and closing,” Narco said.
“That’s now five seconds, General.”
Alpha pulled out an Iridium Sat Phone and punched three quick numbers. He held up a hand for Boy Scout to wait.
“Three, two, one.” Boy Scout turned to Preacher’s Daughter. “Prepare to fire.”
“Delighted to,” she said, shouldering the weapon and stepping away from the vehicles to make sure no one behind her was in the back blast area.
“If they are your pick-up team, have them slow to a stop and flash their lights three times. You have three seconds.”
Alpha shouted into the phone, resulting in the oncoming SUV skidding to a stop. When the dust cleared, it was pitched sideways and less than a hundred meters away. The headlights flashed three times in what seemed like a grudging fashion.
To McQueen, who sat in the driver’s seat of the SUV in which Alpha was currently sitting, Boy Scout said, “Why don’t you help the general out of the vehicle, McQueen.”
A fire hydrant of a man, McQueen was old school Special Forces and had recently retired so that he could better embrace his alternative lifestyle. He grinned wide beneath his boonie cap as he exited the front seat and held open the rear door. “Sir, if you will?”
The general blinked in surprise. “You want me to walk?”
McQueen squinted down the road for a moment, slowly glanced right, then left, then nodded. “It’s not far. We’ll cover you. Not to worry.”
The JSOC general gave Boy Scout a sour look, but otherwise said nothing. He stood, pocketed his Iridium, and grabbed his rucksack, which was bulging with God knew what.
Boy Scout and McQueen followed him to the head of their convoy then stopped and watched him walk the hundred meters to the waiting SUV.
“Were we really only a taxi service?” Narco asked.
“Seems so,” Boy Scout replied.
“Ten-hour round trip,” Criminal said from the rear. “That sucks balls.”
“What Oz said,” Preacher’s Daughter grumbled.
“What she said,” McQueen added, scowling. “Ever get tired of the feeling of being used?”
Boy Scout shook his head. “Enough of that. What’s done is done. I’m sure he had good reason to bring us out here.”
“Like taking out ten kilos of black tar heroin behind Uncle Sam’s back,” Narco murmured. And he should know. He’d spent three years with the DEA after a stellar career in the infantry working Mexican border interdiction ops. It was the DEA who’d given him the call sign because he could sense drugs like he was psychic. And then, of course, there was that time he’d been caught dealing himself, the reason the DEA had let him go, and why it had been so hard for Boy Scout to get the guy a clearance.
Even knowing Narco’s ability, Boy Scout couldn’t help but ask, “What makes you say that?”
“Why else are we out here in the middle of nowhere with no security other than our happy asses and close enough to the border one could drive over? If we went by helo, he’d have to have filed a flight plan. Now there’s nothing to prove we were even here.”
Boy Scout nodded. Narco’s logic was impeccable. The question was, why would a general need black tar heroin... if that’s what he had?
Bully cried out from the rear. “Object at seven o'clock and moving fast.”
Everyone spun to that direction.
Boy Scout brought up his binos but only saw a flash of hot white light.
“Identify,” he called.
“Missile!” shouted Oz.
Boy Scout lowered his binos and saw the flash of light heading towards the general’s SUV. Damn. Boy Scout began to shout an order, but it died in his throat as the image stopped in midair, as no missile could ever do.
“WTF,” Criminal and Narco said as one.
Boy Scout commanded, “Lore, fire!”
Preacher’s Daughter still had the RPG on her shoulder. She prepared to fire, but then a savage barrage of gunfire erupted from the other SUV, targeting the object.
Glints of light flared from the mysterious object as each round found its mark. Boy Scout could see that it was roughly shaped like an immense medieval knight’s shield but so bright that it was difficult to watch without blinking furiously. The object had a distorted aura, like a mirage, the sky behind it skewed and melted.
“What is it? A UAV? Taliban have UAVs like that?” Bully asked.
“Taliban don’t even have paper airplanes,” Narco said. “Must be Russian.”
Boy Scout doubted that it was even Russian. Something about it was off. Way off.
The general’s SUV began to back away, then turn. The driver floored it, dust spinning into a storm, as someone continued to fire out a window.
Two more objects appeared in the air beside the first one, as if they’d been there all the time and had just now become visible. Before the general’s SUV could get twenty meters, the objects attacked it, lances of fire shooting out from their centers, slamming into the vehicle. The SUV swerved, then flipped and rolled. After a few seconds, it exploded, sending pieces of metal and men high in the air.
Bully took a step back. “Oh shit!”
“I’d say the general should have filed a flight p
lan,” Narco said.
Boy Scout had to think quickly. Mounting up didn’t seem the right thing to do. But if they didn’t, then they were too out in the open.
The three objects turned toward them and began to move, leaving in their wake white-hot mirage-like distortions.
“Lore, carefully. Wait until they’re close, then fire. Dak, I want you to reload her as fast as you can.” He paused, then added. “When she fires, everyone give everything you got.”
He heard metal on metal as everyone readied. He didn’t even bother raising a weapon. He seriously doubted it would help.
Still, they had to try.
They had to do something.
Dying like sardines in a can like the general had was no option.
He detected a faint humming emanating from the objects that grew louder the closer they came.
When the trio of burning shields stopped in front of them at an altitude of about thirty meters, Preacher’s Daughter slowly raised her RPG, gave a whispered prayer to St. Michael, then fired.
The middle object exploded in a shower of impossible sparks, and began to spin in the air, faster and faster, pieces of it falling to the earth while others shot into non-existence.
All around Boy Scout, his TST opened up with everything they had—four HK 416s pouring dozens of 5.56-mm rounds per second into the two remaining targets.
Narco pulled out a new rocket propelled grenade and inserted it into the launcher.
Boy Scout stood, locked in wonder, as what was left of the middle object began to fall… right on top of them. For a brief second, everything seemed familiar, then the world became brighter and brighter and brighter until the humming sound turned into a scream. Boy Scout slammed his hands to his ears and closed his eyes to the new terra damnata as a white-hot meridian bore through his eyelids and consumed him whole.