War Tactic

by Don Pendleton

  A group of the nastiest, most rag-tag, hopeless-looking pirates you could ever want to see was flooding out of the rig. Some of them were carrying dead bodies. That was a new one. The bodies all wore black uniforms. A few of the pirates were waving black pieces of fabric, some of which looked like the top half of BDU fatigues. That was McCarter’s work, right there. The pirates had turned on their Blackstar helpers and were now looking to collect.

  A delightful lack of gunfire was now directed his way. As a pilot who had spent more hours flying combat missions than he cared to admit, Grimaldi was necessarily allergic to taking small-arms fire from the ground. He was positively opposed to fielding anything heavier. The rockets and EMP weapons they had seen thus far were the stuff of nightmares for a man like Jack Grimaldi. He was grateful for the pirates’ mistaken idea that he was somebody who could bestow money on them. Whatever delusion got you through the day, right?

  The pirates were waving him down now, trying to get him to land so they could, as they mistakenly believed, collect their reward. Grimaldi started moving in tighter and tighter circles, getting closer to the rig each time. His purpose was twofold. First, he wanted to make sure he could spot an antiair weapon if this was all an elaborate ruse. The pirates were probably fairly uneducated, for the most part, but there were some among them who were very smart, as they had already seen. He didn’t want to let them draw him into a trap. He was damned if he was going to let a bunch of second-rate pirates or mercenary hire-ons knock him out of the sky. He had been shot at by far worse.

  The thought brought back memories for Jack Grimaldi. He couldn’t really remember, sometimes, just how long he had been at this. His teammates never gave him any grief about it, but it was a fact that in his younger days, he had worked for the mafia. Eventually, with the help of the Big Guy, he had seen the error of his ways, first working as a mole, then coming aboard with the organization that would eventually become the Farm. In all the years since he had been warring with the predators who sought to destroy freedom and liberty around the globe. It was, he thought, a pretty damned good way to go through life. There was plenty of action, plenty of adventure. There was never a dull moment. And in between missions, there were pretty ladies to entertain.

  Yeah, if he had it to do over again, he would, and he’d choose the same things.

  His second purpose, in flying increasingly small arcs around the oil rig, was to herd the pirates. They were following him, fixed on him. He was no longer a Sikorsky helicopter to them. He was now, thanks to David McCarter’s trick, a great big flying piggy bank in the sky.

  Time to give these bastards the surprise of their lives.

  He opened up the external speakers. Once more, Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” began to play. That was when Grimaldi’s radio lit up. The frequency was low-band RF. That was the one on which Wijeya broadcast. Interesting.

  Grimaldi reached out and flicked the switch to answer the transmission.

  “You, up there,” Wijeya’s voice called out. “You are a CIA pilot, yes?”

  “This is G-Force,” Grimaldi said. “We are not CIA. All we are is just another brick in the wall. I’m coming for you, Wijeya.”

  “Do not be a fool, American,” Wijeya said. “I will make you a rich man. Bring your chopper down. Let me board it. Carry me from this place. I will give you money. I will make you wealthy. I have many resources. My benefactor can give you even more. Help us accomplish our goals.”

  “We don’t need no money,” Grimaldi said. “We don’t need no education, and we don’t need no thought control.”

  “I have heard this,” Wijeya said. “You are quoting a song. You are trying to make me feel foolish.”

  “Pink Floyd is never foolish,” Grimaldi said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Blackbeard, I have some serious killing of your pirate scum crew to do.”

  “Wait,” Wijeya said. “I will tell your government everything you want to know.”

  “Don’t know what government that is,” Grimaldi said.

  “Stop playing games with me!” Wijeya demanded. “It was my benefactor who directed me to attack the targets we have chosen. He provided the money. He provided the weapons. He told us when and where to attack, and he told us to wear Chinese uniforms or fly Chinese flags or make other gestures to implicate the Chinese. This is information you want, yes?”

  “You haven’t really told me anything I don’t know,” Grimaldi said.

  “I have told you that the Chinese are not behind these attacks,” Wijeya countered. “Is this not what you want to know?”

  “Give me the name of the person who hired you,” Grimaldi said. “Do that, and maybe you even leave here alive, Wijeya.”

  There was a very pregnant pause. Finally, when Wijeya came back on the line, he sounded sheepish. “I…I do not know his name,” Wijeya said.

  “Then give me a description,” Grimaldi said. “Something we can use to identify him.”

  “I do not know that, either,” Wijeya said. “We never met. We only spoke by satellite phone.”

  “Not very helpful, are you?” Grimaldi said.

  “Wait!”

  Grimaldi cut the connection. He made one more tight arc, the closest yet, and when he was satisfied that all the pirates were in the kill zone, he brought the Sikorsky down to hover over the deck of the oil rig. He didn’t dare use the grenade launcher, given the damage that might do and his inability to target more specifically, so he simply didn’t switch it on. The 7.62 mm guns, though…they were all he would need, and he switched his fire control to “live.”

  “This is G-Force,” he said into the radio for Phoenix Force’s benefit. “I am commencing my attack run…now.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The guns on either side of the Sikorsky began belching deadly lead. The pirates below were scythed like wheat. Grimaldi walked the chopper back and forth, making tight semicircles with the nose depressed. His rounds tore through the ranks of the pirates, blowing them open, ripping them to pieces. The deck of the oil rig was suddenly awash in blood and body parts.

  When Grimaldi was satisfied that the majority of the pirates had been wiped out, he started to make wider circles around the rig. Now he was looking for stragglers. Phoenix Force was below. That meant the decks, which had been controlled by the enemy, were a free-fire zone. He roamed the air above the rig, picking off any Blackstar goon or pirate crew member he saw.

  His “target rich environment” eventually became very sparse.

  The Stony Man pilot completed several more sweeps of the rig. Finally, when he was satisfied, he prepared to contact the Farm. The commo gear on his chopper had been recording since the start of the mission. It was standard procedure to make a mission log. He opened the scrambler and placed a call by satellite relay to the Farm.

  “Jack,” Price said. “What have you got?”

  “The decks of the rig are clean,” Grimaldi said. “Phoenix successfully got most of the pirates belowdecks to come up for air. I’ve made sure that’s the last air they’ll draw. And it looks like those pirates managed to take out most of the Blackstar forces aboard the rig, as well.”

  “You’ve been busy,” Price said. “That’s fine work, Jack. Why are you calling, though? Normally David calls in with mission updates, unless he can’t.”

  “My own initiative,” Grimaldi confirmed. “I’ve just had an interesting conversation with Yanuar Wijeya, the pirate captain. He claims that the operations implicating the Chinese are all the actions of a mysterious benefactor who financed the ops and directed all of his activities. Unfortunately, if he’s telling the truth, his employer used cut-outs and never dealt with him directly except through sat phone.”

  “Which we can’t trace,” Price speculated.

  “I figured it wouldn’t be a lot of help,” Grimaldi said. “But every little bit…well, helps. I guess that’s silly.”

  “No, Jack,” Price said. “You did fine. Relay me through to David, will you?”

>   “Relaying,” Grimaldi said. “David and company, I have Barb on the line. I think she’s inquiring as to your general well-being.”

  “We have cleared out all resistance,” McCarter said. “Wijeya and a small reserve force, we believe, have taken refuge on the control deck. They’ve barricaded the hatches. We’re going to have to get creative to get in there. Once we do, though…well, once we do, I have reason to think this end of the operation is finished. The intel we’ve received has these folks as puppets, and I think it’s most likely that Rhemsen is pulling the strings.”

  “Yes,” Price said. “That squares with what Able has been able to tell us. And what Jack got out of Wijeya just now.”

  “Oh?” McCarter said. “I hadn’t heard about that.”

  “He made me a better offer,” Grimaldi said. “I’m going to hire on as a pirate pilot. Not a lot of pirates have their own air force.”

  “That sounds like a great career move, Jack,” McCarter said. “That and junk bonds.”

  “I was thinking of investing in some internet startups, too,” Grimaldi said. “Crowd-funding and all. Wave of the future. I’m bringing her in, David. Barb, I’ve got to let you go. I’m heading into the thick of it down there and I need to make sure nobody ganks me.”

  “Understood,” Price said. “Good hunting. Farm, out.”

  Grimaldi set the chopper down on the oil rig’s bloody, scorched landing pad. With his trusty MAC-10 submachine gun at the ready, he climbed out of the Sikorsky. As he always did, he felt naked, walking around without the big helicopter around him. He wondered if other pilots felt separation anxiety when they were outside their craft for some reason while still on a mission. It felt weird not to be in the seat of the chopper, not to have the stick in his hands. But he was no stranger to firing the occasional shot in anger from the ground, either.

  He began checking the bodies on the deck. Most of them were obviously gone, but there were a few who warranted checking. He toed these with his boot. Smoke rose, spun in wild eddies by the still-moving blades of his chopper. It took a while to spin down the engine and bring those blades to a stop. Grimaldi also didn’t intend to stray far from the whirlybird. It was, after all, their ticket off this rig, once all the enemy was neutralized.

  He had a feeling they had come pretty close, even if there were a few enemies still moving under their own power. The pile of corpses in front of him was worse than anything in any war movie. But then, having fought this endless war, first against the mafia, then against terrorism, Grimaldi didn’t understand why anyone watched war movies. Either they were so unrealistic they were laughable, or they were so real they brought back too many bad memories. Either way, there was no reason he could see to watch one.

  The pirate near his right boot began to moan.

  Grimaldi leaned down. He took the canteen from his belt and offered the dying man a drink. The pirate spoke no English, or was so far gone he did not try to speak even when Grimaldi prompted him several times.

  The pilot supposed that seeing a man treat with compassion a former enemy, an enemy that the pilot himself had ripped apart with machine guns, might seem strange to an outsider. But once a man was down, once he was no longer a threat to you, even if he was an enemy…you could be compassionate to a fallen foe. No less than the Big Guy himself, had taught Grimaldi that.

  The pirate he was examining quietly died. Grimaldi eased the man gently back down to the deck.

  Standing, the pilot walked a long, slow death watch across the deck of the oil rig. He found nobody else still alive. Finally he climbed back into the Sikorsky, checked the status of the various gauges and readouts, and activated his communications system.

  “David, this is G-Force,” he said. “All clear up here. I repeat, all clear up here. To the best that I can assess, the rig is clear topside. What’s your status below?”

  “We’re preparing for the final assault on the control deck,” said McCarter. “Return to overwatch, Jack, and we’ll be up to catch our ride out of town soon. Also, let me know if Wijeya tries to offer you any more side income. I’m happy to match his offer, mate.”

  “No need,” Grimaldi said. “I was thinking of getting a paper route.”

  “It’s all about income streams,” McCarter said. “Phoenix, out.”

  “G-Force, out.” Grimaldi spun up the Sikorsky, made sure everything was in the green, and took the big helicopter back into the sky.

  This was where he belonged. Above it all, in the night, in the blue sky, in the space above. He couldn’t imagine another life. He couldn’t imagine being anything other than what he was: a Stony Man Farm pilot, standing on the front lines of the war between the predators and the forces of justice. He would do this job for as long as they let him. He would fly this chopper, and a hundred others, and anything else that had wings or rotors, until he couldn’t wrap his fingers around the controls anymore. Plenty of men kept right on flying well into old age. Grimaldi didn’t feel old. In his heart, he knew he was a long way from being forced to retire.

  Jack Grimaldi smiled. He dipped and banked the chopper, bringing it around for a patrol pass. The oil rig was smoking. He checked his fuel levels. Everything was holding. He had plenty in the reserve tanks to keep him aloft and watching over his boys.

  There were few flying machines that Grimaldi hadn’t operated. There was just one quality that all of them had in common. That quality was freedom, the feeling of being unfettered, of leaving the Earth behind. Even when enemies were shooting at him, he felt the pull of freedom.

  That was why they fought. That was the mission of Phoenix Force, of Able Team, of Stony Man Farm. They stood on the battle lines, on the ground, in the water, up here in the beautiful liberty of the skies, because freedom was the right of all human beings. They fought to make others free. They fought to preserve others’ freedom.

  They fought, and would keep on fighting.

  Yeah.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Carl Lyons threw himself into the ranks of the enemy. He grabbed the nearest Blackstar goon, snapped his wrist and took his collapsible baton away. This he smashed across the face of the next man. Behind him he could hear Schwarz and Blancanales fighting, as well, backing him up, watching out for him.

  He lost himself in the battle. There was nothing outside him now. There was no worrying about the mission, no anxiety for success or failure. There was no outrage at the ignominious fate Schwarz almost suffered. There was no emotion at all. Lyons was a creature very much driven by rage at times, he knew, but there was a point beyond rage, a point at which he stopped feeling anger and just felt…cold, numb, ready to take on the enemy and fight his way through no matter what.

  He brought his borrowed baton down on the face of another man, then smashed it across the man’s knees and then drove his foot into the man’s gut. He plucked a second baton from this fallen Blackstar thug’s nerveless fingers, stood and roared in defiance. Now he had a baton in each hand.

  “Come on!” he bellowed. “Come on if you’re coming!” The whirling, vicious cyclone of doom that was Carl Lyons with a blunt weapon in both fists started smashing, striking and slashing its way into the ranks of the Blackstar men. The mercenaries had seemed arrogant at first, confident in their greater numbers, but now, with Carl Lyons ruthlessly smashing them down, they were starting to flee.

  Always, as he fought, Lyons was aware of Fitzpatrick. The coward was hanging back, hoping his goons would be able to do the job, maybe thinking that once the members of Able Team had been sufficiently beaten down, he would step in to finish the job. That squared with what they had seen of this prick’s character up to now. How someone as venal and cowardly as Fitzpatrick reached a position of authority, even in a corrupt mercenary outfit, Lyons didn’t know. Could the world of soldiering really have gone that far downhill?

  He knew it hadn’t, of course. Cowardice and self-service had always been qualities found in certain stripes in the military, just as in every other walk of l
ife. People were people. Many of them were vile and there wasn’t anything you could do about them.

  Except smash them and break all the bones in their faces.

  Lyons whipped his batons into the cheekbones of the man in front of him, feeling and hearing the crunch of bone fragments being smashed free. He followed up his attack by hammering down with the batons, alternating his strikes, beating and smashing and whipping.

  At his flanks, his teammates had acquired batons of their own. Schwarz was alternating baton strikes with acrobatic kicks, doing a fair amount of damage in the process. Blancanales fought as he lived, with a kind of quiet dignity, striking targets of opportunity with his own baton and making quick work of the less-experienced Blackstar troops.

  Finally they had smashed and beaten as many men as there were enemies willing to advance. Lyons broke his left-hand baton across the face of one of the last remaining goons. The Blackstar man went down like a steer with a bolt through its head. Lyons wheeled on Fitzpatrick then.

  Blancanales and Schwarz finished their own batch of enemies. The big training hall was now filled with unconscious, dazed and dead men, their bodies askew at Able Team’s feet.

  Lyons looked down at his remaining baton. It was bent. That was the problem with those collapsible jobs. If you hit too hard with them, they couldn’t stand up to it. Give him a good, old-fashioned hardwood baton any day. Something modern like a PR-24 side-handle. Or even an ancient Japanese tonfa. He liked a weapon you could really lean into, something that shattered bone and ruptured organs. He had done enough of that here today.

  Well. Almost enough. There was still Fitzpatrick.

  “Come on, you son of a bitch,” Lyons said. “Let’s do this.” He cracked his knuckles, flexing his big, powerful fists.

  “Oh, you just don’t know when to quit,” Fitzpatrick said. He talked tough, but Lyons could see it in the man’s eyes: he was scared, and trying to cover it. Lyons charged, lowering his head and coming at Fitzpatrick like a bull, slamming into the man’s chest and driving him back and to the floor.