Lex Talionis

by Peter Nealen

  The first two birds swept in, flared hard, and dumped Ross’s team off. They had the heaviest weaponry, since they weren’t supposed to make entry, provided everything went according to plan. Half of them dropped to their bellies around the birds, covering down on the lodge with the two M60s, while the other half sprinted for the trees.

  There were figures on the front porch of the lodge, presumably security personnel. Somewhat to my surprise, given everything else that had happened recently, they scrambled inside and out of sight instead of taking the guys on the ground under fire.

  I took all this in as Phil banked the Little Bird in a tight circle above the lodge, giving the cordon a few seconds to get in place, and the first pair of helos time to get clear. The golf course was big, but there was limited space in front of the lodge to set us down.

  Even as the birds pulled up and away, however, I looked down to see both M60s open fire, dust and bits of grass blasting away from the muzzles. I couldn’t see what they were shooting at, but I guessed they’d just taken fire from some of the lodge windows.

  “Dirt, bring us around so we can get some fire on those windows,” I called over the radio. Phil acknowledged, and the Little Bird banked sharply to come to something close to a hover in front of the lodge.

  Now only a few dozen yards from the front, we could see the shooters in several of the upper story windows. The machine guns down below were forcing them back from the windows, but from our altitude, we had clear shots.

  Without a word or any other signal, Alek and I lifted our rifles and opened fire, the barks of the 7.62 reports drowned out by the roar of the helo rotors. My first pair was hasty, and missed, and the guy started to bring his MP7 up to shoot back, before I knocked him down with two more shots high in the chest. Then we were past and pulling away again, Phil starting to circle for a landing.

  As Phil flared the bird hard to bring it to a hover, the skids just barely a handspan above the grass, the heavy element of Ross’s team was already moving, no longer under fire from the windows, heading for the near corner of the lodge. Between them and the other element at the far corner, they had all four sides of the building covered. No one was getting in or out without getting shot.

  The cordon in place, I led the assault team on a dead sprint for the front door.

  We were vulnerable for that last few yards; the support by fire team couldn’t do much and the entire front of the lobby was encased in now-shattered glass, including the doors. We ran with guns up, searching for targets, ready to provide our own covering fire if we had to.

  We bounded up the steps to the front porch without incident, then a shotgun blast ripped through the air between me and Eric. That it missed both of us was a minor miracle.

  I thudded into the heavy timber doorframe a split second before Eric did, even as Bryan and Larry dumped fire through the shattered door glass. I yanked a flashbang out of my kit, prepped it, and tossed it hard through the door. I wanted to get that sucker as close to those assholes with the guns inside as possible.

  The bang went off, and Eric and I were going through the broken windows. They’d been safety glass, so there were no large fragments sticking out into the opening to get snagged on.

  The lobby was surprisingly intact, given the amount of gunfire that had already been poured into it. A high-ceilinged, timber-and-stone hall, with a large stone fireplace in the center with easy chairs set around it, and a large reception desk to the right of the hallway leading back to the elevators and first floor rooms, it looked more like a ski lodge than a golf course, but since it was on Puget Sound, I guessed that it kind of fit. Bullet scars were now visible on the stones of the fireplace and pockmarking the reception desk.

  The smoke from the bang was still roiling next to the side of the fireplace, so that was where we went. A dude in tan 5.11s and plate carrier was crouched behind the fireplace, having been obviously rocked by the closeness of the detonation. He was blinking at the purple spot in his vision, and probably couldn’t hear our boots crunching on the broken glass all over the floor.

  He saw movement, though, and brought his shotgun up. He might not be able to see, but a shotgun can still kill you if it’s only pointed close enough to your center of mass. Eric shot him dead as I swiveled to cover the reception desk.

  More shots sounded on the other side of the fireplace, the suppressed 7.62 sounding like harsh, echoing claps in the lobby. Then two more young men in the same tan fatigues as the guy Eric had shot popped up over the top of the reception desk, leveling M4s.

  They were a fraction of a second too slow. I’d already had my SOCOM 16 leveled at the top of the reception desk, and only had to twitch the muzzle ever so slightly to the right to put a bullet through the rising skull of the first. A dark stain splashed against the shelves behind the desk and he dropped out of sight, as I started transitioning toward the second. Alek beat me to it. His first round smacked off the M4’s optic, nearly knocking the carbine out of the man’s hands, then the follow-up shot blew his eyeball backward into his brain, and he fell, his head bouncing off the desk before he collapsed to the floor.

  After a brief glance to ensure that we had the lobby locked down and cleared, we swept toward the hallway.

  As soon as we’d fingered Verdant Mount as a potential target, we’d studied every bit of info we could get about it, so we had a decent understanding of the layout. Granted, studying floor plans and photo imagery is no substitute for walking the ground and the hallways yourself, but we at least could be reasonably certain where the main meeting hall was on the second floor, as well as where the stairs, elevators, and most important danger areas were on all five floors.

  The elevators were right out. Even if they hadn’t deactivated them already, they could while we went up. Or just force the upper doors open and toss some explosives down the shaft. That meant going up the stairs to get to the conference room, which was the most likely place for the meeting to happen, unless security had moved them as soon as the shooting had started.

  We got down the hall to the stairway without further incident. Apparently, security was keeping to the chokepoints, though they probably could have pinned us down in the hallway if they’d just stuck their heads out and opened fire. Hallways are death traps, which is why we tend to prefer to move from room to room in CQB.

  I was beginning to think that we’d eliminated ‘Marius’’ A-team when I’d killed Baumgartner.

  We took a handful of seconds to set up on the door to the stairway. You can’t be too careful with stairways; they’re nightmares.

  Alek cracked the door open while I covered down on the opening, my muzzle right where I could nail anyone on the other side right about high chest. Larry tossed a flashbang in through the crack, then Alek pulled the door shut again, wrenching it closed against the resistance of the buffer.

  The bang went off a split second later, and I could hear the reverberation as the stairway amplified the blast. It had to be damned painful in there for anyone covering down the stairs.

  No sooner had the bang rattled the door than Alek donkey-kicked it open again and I pushed through the opening.

  A burst of automatic weapons fire rattled down the stairway, even as I flattened myself against the inside wall, my muzzle pointed up between the flights, trying to get a shot at the next landing. Whoever was up there wasn’t playing around, though. I ducked back as another long burst roared down at me, filling the stairway with catastrophic noise and blasting stinging chunks off the stairs and walls. It sounded like there was at least one Mk46 or some similar 5.56 light machinegun up there.

  This was a problem. Charging up the stairs into the teeth of machinegun fire was a good way to get dead while accomplishing exactly dick. And time was not on our side.

  I considered lobbing a frag up there, but that would mean exposing myself long enough to get the right angle, and that was a bad idea without having fire superiority. So, I got another idea.

  I grabbed one of the new guys, a
former Marine named Corey, who’d jumped on the assault team. “You and Billy cover down on the stairs here, and throw some fire up at them,” I said in his ear, hopefully inaudibly to those up above, especially as they were still blazing away at the next landing down, trying to keep us pinned. “Keep ‘em busy, but don’t expose yourselves enough to get shot. You’re the diversion. We’re going to try to flank ‘em, then call you up.”

  “Roger,” Corey said, shuffling ahead of me along the wall. He pointed his Mk17 up between the flights and pumped a half-dozen shots up, just to give them something to think about.

  Leaving Billy on the doorway, covering Corey’s back, I grabbed the rest and headed back down the hall at just about a sprint.

  There were two stairways, one at either end of the building. I was hoping that they’d figure we were heading up the first one, and would divert most of their forces there.

  As it turned out, great minds think alike. Or at least violent minds think alike. We were halfway down the hallway to the second staircase when the door opened and five shooters poured out.

  We both opened fire at the same time. I quickly ducked into the shallow alcove of a room’s door as I snapped shots at the lead shooter, even as his own rounds whipped past my head with painful snaps that slapped the side of my head with the force of their passage.

  My own shots were slightly more accurate than his. The first two hit him in the plate and staggered him. Then, braced inside the little alcove, I put the third round just below his left eye. He crashed to the floor, tripping up the guy behind him, just in time for that dude to take at least five rounds just above the plate as he fell.

  For a second, the hallway was a hellstorm of flying metal and noise. Then it all fell silent, except for the dull roar of shooting from behind us, where Corey was still keeping the machinegunners on the stairway busy. All five of the hostile shooters were on the floor, and the air was thick with the smell of gunsmoke and death.

  I didn’t dare take my eyes or my muzzle off the hallway in front of me. I was in the lead, so that was my responsibility. “Sound off!” I barked hoarsely. My mouth and throat were as dry as the Mojave.

  “Up,” Alek called out.

  “Up!” Nick answered.

  “Up and up!” was Eric’s reply.

  “Up,” Bryan said.

  “I took a few to the plate,” Larry wheezed painfully. “And my arm got trimmed, too.”

  “I got him,” Eric called out. I could hear him move up and start checking Larry, though I still didn’t turn my head to look.

  “You make one hell of a meat shield, brother,” I heard Eric tell Larry. “You soaked up all the rounds and left the rest of us in the clear.” He paused. “Damn. Don’t look now, but you took a couple to the dome-piece, too. Your helmet’s tore up.” After another moment’s examination, I heard him clap Larry on the shoulder. “That arm’s going to hurt, but you’re not leaking anywhere else. Just try to keep to the back, I think it’s safe to say your plate is compromised.”

  “No shit,” Larry replied, still sounding a little pained and out of breath. I didn’t know how many rounds he’d taken to the plate, but having caught a few bullets that way myself, I knew it was not comfortable. He’d be aching for a while.

  “Moving,” I called, and stepped out into the hallway, gliding toward the end as quickly as I knew I could shoot accurately. I stepped over the bodies, kicking weapons away from grasping hands, just in case.

  I paused at the stairway, letting Alek push across and carefully crack the door open. There was still enough noise coming from the far end of the hall that I hoped anyone left up on the landing above wouldn’t be expecting us, so we were staying soft for the moment. That was about to change in a second.

  Letting my rifle hang, I pulled a frag out and prepped it. Then I nodded to Alek, who pushed the door the rest of the way open.

  I went through the doorway, with Alek turning to enter right on my heels, his own OBR up over my shoulder. I was going to get rocked if he had to start shooting, suppressor or no, but it would be preferable to getting shot in the face.

  I moved quickly to the base of the stairs, leaned back, and hucked the grenade up toward the second landing. I’d released the safety lever as Alek had pushed the door open, and the fuse was cooking before the little metal ball left my hand. There were maybe two more seconds left.

  There was a yell, and then the entire stairwell seemed to explode.

  It’s hard to describe the overpressure of even a little M67 grenade going off in an exposed space like a stairwell. The narrow space amplifies the blast, and even though we were shielded from the frag that lashed the walls, we got hammered by the concussion. Even helmets and earpro could only somewhat mitigate the gut-punch shock.

  But there wasn’t time to shake it off. Alek pushed past me to take the lead, bounding up the stairs three at a time to hit the first landing and pivot around, pointing his rifle up toward the door.

  Meanwhile, I grabbed my own weapon from where it dangled on its sling in front of my chest, and ran up the steps after him. Nick and Bryan pounded after me, with Eric and Larry taking up the rear. Larry wasn’t moving too good; his breath had probably been knocked out, and he might be nursing a cracked rib. There was blood all the way down his left sleeve, and the front of his plate carrier was mangled from the hits he’d taken.

  My aim had been good. The second landing was wreathed in smoke, the walls and doors scarred by shrapnel, and two mangled figures were slumped over similarly scarred-up and now blood-soaked Mk46s.

  Alek pushed up, swiveling around to keep the next flight up covered, as the rest of us pushed past him to stack on the door into the hall for a moment.

  Only for a moment. I cracked the door and Bryan threw a flashbang inside, immediately followed by a second from Nick. We were banking on anyone in the hallway expecting an entry as soon as the first went off, so we hit ‘em with a second one. As soon as the second bang’s concussion rattled the door, we were moving.

  It had worked. There were four more shooters, dimly visible through the smoke that was now filling the hallway, staked out in front of the conference room doors. They must have been braced for the first blast but not for the second, because they couldn’t see and didn’t seem to have much equilibrium as we closed in on them. They must have been staring right at that second bang when it went off.

  All of them still had weapons in their hands, though, and so they died in a hail of suppressed gunfire as we swept forward, Nick and I almost shoulder-to-shoulder across the hallway.

  Nick pushed just past the doors to cover down the long axis of the hallway, while the rest of us set up to make entry. I tapped Bryan and pointed down the hall toward the far stairway, which was still resounding with sporadic bursts of gunfire, as the shooters there tried to keep anyone from coming up the stairs. They must have been utterly deafened by the racket, if they weren’t reacting to the shitstorm behind them.

  Bryan just nodded, bumped Nick, and headed down the hallway toward the stairs to relieve Corey and Billy.

  Just before I kicked the door open, I heard a voice bellow something. Then the doors flew open under my boot and we were flowing in, guns up and looking for the next threats.

  The conference room wasn’t all that large; this was a golf resort, after all, not a convention center. It was still big enough for nearly fifty people to be seated comfortably.

  My eyes immediately snapped to the guys in suits standing on the edges of the room, who were obviously PSD. My rifle swiveled to cover the first one, but he already had his hands on his head and his pistol on the floor. The other four men in similar attire were also in the same attitude.

  In the center of the room stood a broad-chested, big bellied man with a round, ruddy face and thinning gray hair. He was wearing a light gray suit, and had his hands held well out to his sides, palms out and empty.

  “Easy, boys, easy!” he boomed, in a pronounced West Texas accent. “I think this has gone entirely fa
r enough. No need for anyone else to die today.”

  I recognized him then. This was Mason Van Damme, Stavros opposite number in “Marius.”

  He had the broad, open face and practiced demeanor of a big, bluff good-old-boy, but when I looked into his eyes, which were studying me intently, I could see the emotionless, shark-like cunning there. This was a dangerous man, though in a far different sense than Baumgartner and the others this son of a bitch had hired.

  “I know you,” he said to me, his eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen your picture.” He nodded suddenly, as if placing my face. “You’re those boys who caused all that ruckus down in Mexico a little while back,” he said. “Took down an entire cartel, all by yourselves. Well, now. That’s impressive. Mighty impressive.” He glanced over my shoulder at the still-smoking hallway. The shooting had ceased out there, hopefully because the machinegunners in the stairway had been silenced.

  “I don’t know who you boys are working for,” he continued, his booming voice still as firm and confident as ever. This was not a man who was easily rattled, even though he was presently staring down the still-hot rifle muzzles of the men who’d just gone through his security like a shotgun blast through tissue paper. “And I don’t know what they’ve told you about what’s going on here. I can guarantee, though, that it’s only part of the story, whatever bits of it might be true.

  “Now, I know you boys are patriots,” he went on, his tone becoming even more conciliatory, rather like a disappointed father trying to talk sense to his wayward son. “You wouldn’t have stuck your necks out in Mexico the way you did otherwise. So, I know that if you knew that what we’re talking about here is saving the country, you’d be a little less quick on the trigger.” He raised an eyebrow. “Hell, with everything that’s happened lately, I’m sure we can make an arrangement that will benefit everybody. As it turns out, we could use people like you, son.”