by Peter Nealen
He squatted down and grabbed Childress by his shock of flyaway black hair, twisting his head back. “You know, I really don’t give a fuck about all their bullshit about a ‘better world,’” he said conversationally. “I’m just here for the money and the violence. But you and your buddies have fucked with my ops twice, and now that’s threatening my livelihood. They don’t think I’ve got it anymore. So, you have to get taken off the board.” He leered at Childress. “Of course, it looks like you’re pretty well off the board already. But I want your buddies. And you’re going to tell me where to find them.”
“Fuck you,” Childress whispered. He was rewarded with a punch to the face that made his nose crunch. Pain stabbed through his head and his eyes watered, as he felt blood flow freely down his face.
“That was just a taste,” the sandy-haired man said. “I’m only just getting started on you.” He straightened. “Of course, I’m not going to get really inventive just yet. You see, there comes a certain point where pain no longer becomes all that effective, especially with strongly resisting subjects. And I gotta hand it to you, Sam, most men I’ve known who’d already lost the use of their legs and got left to rot in a hospital by their friends while they went off to make money would have started talking already. Though maybe you’re just thicker than most. Think you’ve still got something to fight for.”
He loomed over Childress. The smile on his face wouldn’t have been out of place on a shark. “But now that I know who you are, I can find the people you care about. I can get people out looking for them right now. Mom, aunt, uncle, cousin…you see, a lot of people who could resist pain being inflicted on themselves have a real hard time watching it be inflicted on a loved one.”
Looking up into the man’s eyes, Childress could see that he meant every word. Whoever this guy was, he was just sick enough to go through with it, and he’d probably enjoy every moment, even if it turned out to be for nothing.
But Sam Childress wouldn’t roll over and play dead for anybody. “You got to this place pretty quick,” he said. “Can’t be too far from the hospital. And after you shot two cops, I don’t think you’re going to be going anywhere to fetch anybody. I think you’re hiding right now, which means fuck you, you weak piece of shit. Do your worst.”
The sandy-haired man shrugged. “It was worth a try.” Rearing back, he kicked Childress in the guts.
***
Tom Burgess had done reconnaissance and surveillance in all sorts of environments, ranging from the woods and villages of Kosovo, to the barren mountains of Afghanistan, to urban environments not too far removed from the sprawl of the Beltway. This really wasn’t much of anything new to him. It had been a lot of years since he’d been an Active Duty SEAL, but he’d been in the business, so to speak, for a lot longer than he’d been in the Navy.
This wasn’t even the richest place he’d done R&S in. He’d tracked a Person of Interest through Dubai once. That had probably been the richest neighborhood he’d ever been in, much less worked in. He hadn’t liked it, though he’d loved the work. Dodging the UAE police while looking for a bad boy who had connections with sheikhs and princes across the Arabian Peninsula, with no backup but one guy in a car, half a mile away, and the highly-illegal Maxim 9 integrally suppressed pistol he’d had under his shirt, had been a thrill that had rarely been surpassed in his life.
And that was including that one village in Uganda where he’d met Herc.
He wasn’t bored here in Northern Virginia, though it was hardly his favorite stomping grounds. After all, he was working. It didn’t matter to him that it was Stateside. He figured there were a lot more immediate enemies Stateside than overseas. And this bunch certainly qualified.
He’d never met Sam Childress, but that didn’t matter to him, either. He’d joined the team, and that made Childress his brother. Hell, just their common experience, to him, made them brothers. That some evil bastards had kidnapped the guy out of the hospital just fueled Burgess’ righteous fury.
Burgess had converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church after Kosovo. While that enclave in Serbia was almost entirely Muslim, he’d seen enough of the former Yugoslavia to fall in love with the culture and the Orthodox faith. He saw it as more of a warrior’s faith than most of Christianity in the West, and as such, he found no conflict between his faith and the need to visit violent retribution on the kidnappers.
He was out walking the target neighborhood at the moment. Dressed in designer jeans and a dark t-shirt, he wouldn’t appear out of place there. To really blend in, he’d volunteered to walk an older dog from the local shelter. He was a little out of the way for the intended walking radius, but he fully intended to bring the dog back when it was all over. At any rate, he now appeared to be one of the neighbors out walking his dog in the early afternoon.
That was what brought him past the light-brown brick house with the shades drawn in all the windows, just in time to hear what sounded almost like a yell from inside.
Burgess was too much of a professional to react outwardly. The dog reacted, looking toward the house and whimpering. That was another good reason to have a dog along; animals detected trouble a lot faster than most humans did. And Burgess was already convinced that there was trouble there.
The sound was repeated. This time it definitely was a yell, and it sounded a lot, despite how muffled it was, like a man in pain.
He didn’t change his pace. Blow things now, and Childress was a dead man. He just kept going, tugging the increasingly nervous dog along, marking the spot in his mind.
It wasn’t one hundred percent conclusive, but given the area and the task at hand, he was pretty sure he was on the right track.
He kept going until the house was out of sight behind him, and started into the trail leading into the woods behind the subdivision. Once well back from the road, he knelt and tied the dog’s leash to a tree.
“Sorry, boy,” he said. “But you’ve got to stay here for a bit.” The dog whimpered, but Burgess put a finger to his lips, then slipped into the trees, remarkably quietly given the expensive shoes he was wearing.
It took a few minutes to work his way back around, avoiding the neighboring houses and moving carefully from tree to tree. He wasn’t exactly dressed for rural reconnaissance, but he’d make do. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Finally, he peered around a tree at the back of the brown brick house.
He couldn’t see anything at first. The blinds were all drawn, which was a bit suspicious, this time of year, and with the neighbors being as far removed as they were. Not conclusive, by any means, but with the yell, it was another indicator. The longer he looked at the place, the more it looked like a safehouse.
He drew a small pair of binoculars out of his back pocket. They weren’t great optics, but they’d do. He scanned the back of the house, looking for anything else out of place. He wanted to be surer than he was.
And there it was. A blind shifted, and he got the briefest glimpse of a face. At that distance, and with the binoculars, though, it was enough. It was the smaller guy, the one with the tattoo on his forearm.
Making sure he wasn’t observed, he pulled out his phone and opened the group text. “Tango sighted. Possible hostage under duress.” He appended the address and gave a rendezvous point.
It was time to get their brother back.
Chapter 14
Three kilometers away from the crashed drone, Brannigan called a short security halt. They had passed over a low ridge, and hopefully had lost the oncoming vehicles that had been approaching the crash site.
He climbed out of the Land Rover, his L1A1 in his hands, and scanned the horizon before turning to Vernon. The others were either on the trucks or out and watching their surroundings. The Blackhearts had enough experience in hostile environments by then that holding security was second nature.
“I’m guessing your boss wants to rendezvous,” he said. He was almost as interested in Vernon’s reaction as he was to the answer.
> “He does,” the big man replied, pulling a piece of paper out of his vest. “He gave me the coordinates before we left; he didn’t think it was going to be wise to go back to the camp after the drone was spotted.”
Brannigan raised an eyebrow as he accepted the paper with military grid coordinates written in a hasty scrawl. “Thinks ahead, doesn’t he?” he asked.
“Mr. Price?” Vernon said. “Yeah, he does. Mostly.”
Brannigan looked up from the grid coordinates. “Mostly?”
Vernon looked a little uncomfortable. “Look, you know about the Anambas op. That…didn’t exactly go according to plan. And we were all pretty sure we were going to die until Price showed up at the eleventh hour to extract us.” He looked toward the horizon, clearly eager to get moving.
“You seem to have a decent head on your shoulders, Vernon,” Brannigan said. “You know his rep. I know his rep. Can I trust him?”
Vernon looked even more uncomfortable at that. “I owe him, Colonel,” he said. “He pulled me and the handful of others who survived that jungle out of the fire just before the Chinese cut us off and either killed us all or captured us and disappeared us into forced labor camps.” He took a deep breath. “Yeah, he’s got a rep. He’s supposed to be the big war profiteer boogieman. And yeah, he looks out for his own interests first. He’s ambitious. No denying that. There’s stuff he’s done I sure don’t agree with.
“But it all boils down to that. Everyone else had written us off, and he came for us. The information that Dan took off Yuan’s body was what he was after, but he still stuck his own neck out to bring us out. The powers that be would have buried us, and probably buried that info.”
“So, that’s why you’re still working for him?”
Vernon nodded. “Didn’t seem like there was much else to do,” he said. “Dan was the guy who really kept us alive, but he got out of the game, swore he’d never go out again. The rest of us? We signed on for action, and got plenty of it. When it went bad, he took care of us. What were we gonna do? Spit in his eye?”
“I know a few who would,” Brannigan mused.
They needed to get moving. This wasn’t a permissive environment, and the clock was ticking. But he needed every bit of information he could get about Price, and this little conversation with Vernon was helping him build the picture he needed.
Vernon came across as a generally honest man, a big, bluff soldier. He didn’t know for sure, but he’d guess Army; the big man didn’t have quite the attitude that often came with Marines. So, his appraisal of the situation had value. It could be that Price had pulled the wool over his eyes; the man had a reputation as a slick operator. But that one detail that Vernon had mentioned stuck out.
He said that Price himself had gone in to extract them from the Anambas islands. And now he was here, kitted up and packing a rifle, just like his men. That said things, too.
Brannigan wasn’t under the illusion that simply being a combat veteran made anyone by necessity a better man. It offered the opportunity for personal growth through facing danger and enduring hardship, but he knew plenty of combat veterans, even good fighters, who were despicable human beings.
But Price was taking care of his people, and he wasn’t sending them into fires he wasn’t willing to go into himself. That was a point in his favor.
It didn’t mean he wasn’t lying about the situation in Chad, or his reasons for being there, but it was still a point in his favor.
And the fact remained that there was something off about all of this. Jihadis used drones, he knew that much, but nothing as sophisticated as that one that the man named Max had shot down.
“I do too,” Vernon said. “But I’m not that kind. He showed us loyalty, which is a hell of a lot more than most contracting companies I’ve worked for. He gets some in return. And now there’s this.”
“You think he’s right about the Humanity Front?” Brannigan asked, as they got back into the Land Rover.
“Colonel, I know he is,” Vernon said. “You haven’t heard half of what we’ve seen here.”
“So, enlighten me,” Brannigan said.
Vernon seemed to hesitate. He didn’t appear to be comfortable taking this into his own hands. Brannigan understood; Price was Vernon’s boss, and hadn’t given his blessing. But he was also proactive enough to know that “Commander’s Intent” was a thing, and a certain degree of initiative was required for a small team in hostile territory.
“We’ve been watching them since we got here,” he said. “You’ll understand when you see their camp. They’ve got more military hardware in this part of the country than I think the entire Chadian National Army does, short of their border posts with Sudan. That place doesn’t look like a humanitarian aid camp, it looks like a FOB. I’ve never seen a humanitarian NGO with up-armored combat vehicles and heavy weapons.”
Brannigan had to admit that he’d seen pictures of similar vehicles, some kind of South African mine-resistant gun trucks, in the intel dump that Price had given him, but they’d been out of context. “Well,” he said. “Let’s go have a look, then.”
***
“We should halt here and proceed on foot,” Price said over the radio.
The Blackhearts had met up with Price’s trucks about another five klicks from the security halt, and Price and his boys had led the way northeast. Now they had halted in some low trees in a draw amid the red rock hills north of Bourkele. Price’s men were already getting out and setting security, and the Blackhearts quickly followed suit, as much out of caution about Price as anything else.
Price was watching the hills and the sky as he walked up to Brannigan. “We won’t be invisible,” he said, “but we’ll be a hell of a lot lower profile. We’ve got to make sure we keep our distance. They’ve got three of those drones in the air over the camp at all times, and one hell of a twitchy QRF.”
Brannigan just nodded. “We’re ready,” he said. They were a little short on gear and sustainment for a normal reconnaissance patrol, but they’d have to make do.
Price nodded back and pointed to the short, wiry man with about four days of beard on his hawkish face. Brannigan thought he’d heard the man called Sam. He nodded back and started up the hill above them, picking his route carefully through the rocks and scrub. Price fell in behind him, along with the rest of his team, leaving the Blackhearts to follow in trace.
Brannigan glanced at the hills. If he’d read the map right, they had about five or six klicks to go. A decent movement, though actually made somewhat easier by their lack of heavy R&S loads. He waved to Flanagan, who fell in behind Vernon.
Wade caught up with him as they started up the slope. “Are we really buying this?” he asked. “I mean, so far all we’ve got is his word and an unarmed drone that looked a little sketchy.”
“It’s more than we had coming in here,” Brannigan said. “And there was a lot of verifiable stuff in that intel packet he provided. It might have been fabricated, sure. But with the drone? Why would he go to those lengths to convince us if he was making it all up? That wasn’t a cheap piece of tech.
“And there’s one other thing,” he continued. “If this was all a scam, why is Price himself out here? There’s no way he could know we were coming. He was out here, if Van Zandt’s reporting was accurate, before we even knew about this little fun and games.”
“I don’t know,” Wade said, his pale eyes fixed up the slope at where Price was momentarily visible through the scrub. “I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t trust anybody, Wade,” Bianco said. The two men had slowed as they talked, and the bigger man had caught up.
“I trust you,” Wade replied. “I trust Joe, and the Colonel, and all the other Blackhearts. Anybody else?” He snorted. “Why should I?”
On that note, they continued up the hill in silence.
***
Price hadn’t been kidding. They could just make out the hum of drones as they got to the last hill before the plain where the Humanity
Front’s camp sat like a weird, technological transplant. It took some looking to spot the UAVs themselves, but there were at least three of them, orbiting the camp at about a thousand feet.
The hawk-faced man had gotten down into the scrub, practically disappearing into the vegetation. He was clearly good in the field. But from what Brannigan had seen so far, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Price had clearly looked for good operators for this trip.
Flanagan had already gotten low and started forward. Brannigan followed suit, while Wade and the rest set security on the downslope. They were committed. And the drones could be trouble.
The two men worked their way up toward the ridgeline, where Price and the wiry man were already in the prone, under a jujube tree. They joined the two men, peering over the rocky outcropping at the plain below.
A dry riverbed cut through the plain, lined with farms and walled kraals. Except right at the bend, just below them, where the Humanity Front’s camp had been hacked out of the local farmland.
Price handed Brannigan a pair of binoculars. “Have a look for yourself,” he said.
A quick scan confirmed that Price hadn’t been lying; this was definitely the Humanity Front’s operation. A motor pool, covered with mesh sun shades, contained several dozen white-painted trucks and SUVs with the NGO’s logo on the sides.
The security was, as Price had said, impressive. The outer wall had been built from HESCO barriers, topped with barbed wire, with what looked like floodlights posted every few meters to illuminate the area just outside the wall. Boxy guard towers were set about every fifty meters around the barrier. A helo pad occupied about half of the compound, with quonset-style shelters housing what looked like H145M Eurocopter light helos.
As he scanned, he saw the sealed and air-conditioned trailer that Price had told him about, and that had been featured in the imagery in the intel packet. It was surrounded by more HESCO barriers, and there were armed guards stationed outside.
He also saw a second motor pool, set well back from the gate and covered over with a double layer of the mesh shades. The posts holding those up were taller than those in the regular motor pool, and they had to be. He was pretty sure those were Hawkei armored vehicles, which stood 2.3 meters without turrets. And while the mesh obscured the view, he was fairly certain that these did have turrets.