End Game

by John Gilstrap

  Yeah, right, Jonathan didn’t say. “Here’s how it’s going to work,” he said. “We’re going to become a human snake. I’m the head, Big Guy is the tail, and you two are the belly in the middle. Follow in lockstep, do everything I tell you to do the instant I tell you to do it, and we’ll get you safely out of here.”

  “Do you know anything about my parents?” Graham asked. “Are they both dead?”

  Jonathan hesitated, then let him have it. “Yes. I’m sorry.” It would have been wrong to lie. “Now let’s make sure you don’t join them. Let’s move.”

  Jonathan led the tiny parade to the freezer door, where he raised a hand to stop them while he peeked out and swept the space with his muzzle. “Clear,” he said.

  From behind, he heard Boxers say, “Put your safety on, young lady. And keep the muzzle pointed at the floor. I’ll tell you if and when we need your help.”

  Jonathan hadn’t realized the extent of Boxers’ firefight out here. The walls and floor had been chewed to hell. One of the attackers had gotten disturbingly close.

  He turned a hard right and started back toward the loading dock. They were in the middle of the open space when the throwaway radio broke squelch. “Um, Scorpion?” LeBron’s voice said. “Were you expecting people by parachute?”

  Anton Datsik continued to be impressed by the resources that the American government could make available when they were motivated. He’d requested parachutes for his team, an airplane, and a pilot who knew not to speak. All things were available to him with two hours.

  Dangling from his harness, watching through night vision as the ground approached beneath his feet, his only worry was whether he was too late. With about three hundred feet to go before impact, he checked to his right and to his left to make sure his team was still together. They were, of course. They were six in total, plenty enough to confront a bunch of Chechen amateurs.

  Datsik was gratified to see the cars still parked behind the factory, interpreting it as a sign that the interlopers had not yet accomplished their mission. Once the code was revealed, there would be no need for the enemy to stick around.

  At slightly under one hundred feet, he saw two dead bodies sprawled astride the entry door on the loading dock. Startled and distracted, he nearly missed nailing his stand-up landing. On the ground, with his chute under control, he said to his team on the radio, “Gather on me. There is a complication.”

  Jonathan watched from a window at the rear of the building—the closest exit to the Expedition that would get them out of here. At first, Jonathan saw only two invaders land from the sky. Their technique was perfect, and even from this distance, he could see their night vision and their weaponry. This was trouble.

  “I’ve got two,” he said over the radio.

  “I’ve got four,” Boxers said. He was watching through the loading-dock windows.

  Jonathan’s two dumped their parachutes and scurried to the right. “Mine are coming your way, Big Guy.”

  “I see them. Let me know what you want to do.”

  It took all of two seconds for Jonathan to decide their next move. “Disengage,” he said. “We’re going out the rear.” It made no sense to start a firefight, especially when the enemy seemed competent. Truth be told, those parachutes unnerved him a little. For all he knew, they could be a souped-up team of feds coming in to lend them a hand. He doubted that, but you never knew. Opening fire on the unknown without provocation was always a bad idea.

  He knew that Boxers would disagree, but Big Guy was first and foremost a soldier, and he knew when an order was an order.

  When they were all gathered by the back door, Jonathan delivered his instructions. “I don’t know who these guys are, and they clearly haven’t seen us yet. We’re going to head out this door and move carefully to a car we have stashed about a hundred yards from here. There are a couple of dead guys on the other side of the door. Don’t freak out.

  “Graham, I know you hurt and this is going to be tough, but I need you to keep your good hand on my rucksack. Do not let go. As long as I can feel the tug, I know you’re still with me. If there’s shooting, do exactly what I tell you. If I tell you to drop to the ground, you become one with the dirt. Do you understand?”

  The kid’s eyes grew huge and he nodded.

  “I need a verbal response. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Jolaine.”

  She looked up.

  “Do not engage with your firearm unless we are engaged first. If it comes to that, remember the only ammo you have is what’s left in your one mag. I’d make them count if I were you, and watch your background. Every miss goes somewhere, and I don’t want to be responsible for any collateral damage.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Done,” Jonathan said. “Mother Hen, we’re moving.”

  “I copy,” Venice.

  “Hand on my ruck, Graham.”

  He felt the tug.

  “Big Guy, IR Lasers off. They’ve got night vision, too. Here we go.” Jonathan pushed the door open and led the short parade out into the open and into the night. He pivoted to face right as he confronted the threat at their three o’clock, using his body as a shield for PC One, and walking sideways in a kind of bastardized grapevine step. He glanced left periodically to stay in line with the IR glow stick he’d dropped at the hole in the fence.

  All it would take at this point would be for one of the bad guys to glance their way and they’d be made, all advantage of operating in the dark lost. His one advantage over the OpFor was their use of the outdated two-tube NVGs. The tunnel vision they created all but eliminated detection of the periphery. To capitalize on that, Jonathan led the way at a painfully slow pace. Particularly in reduced light conditions, the human eye was much more likely to capture motion than it was to capture a single image. Throw in the fact that both his PCs were essentially blind, and one of them was crippled, it was a bad idea to run.

  And then running became a very good idea.

  “People have already been here,” Datsik said to his assembled team in Russian. “See the bodies at the door.”

  “What does that mean?” a team member asked. His name was Leonid, and while always aggressive, he never seemed very bright to Datsik.

  “I do not know,” Datsik replied. “But this looks like professional work. The fact that we do not hear continuing gunfire means that we are either just on time or perhaps too late.”

  “The enemy of our enemy is our friend, is he not?” Leonid asked.

  Datsik had learned years ago that all surprises were inherently bad. If the US was sending a team here for action, Philip Baxter should have told him. And if the shooters were not American agents, then who else would want to kill the Chechens? “We need to enter carefully,” he said. “We don’t know—”

  “Look!” Leonid said. “To the right!”

  Snatching his Kalashnikov to his shoulder, Datsik turned and saw what appeared to be two American Special Forces operators, one huge and one of average height and girth, moving slowly away from the factory with two other people, a lady and a boy. Beyond them, Datsik saw the glow of an infrared marker on the ground near the woods line.

  His team assumed shooting positions and prepared to engage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  To run would mean turning their backs on their enemy. Jonathan had no choice but to engage. “We’re made,” Jonathan said. “Graham and Jolaine, on the ground, now.”

  Graham yelled as Jonathan pushed him to the deck face-first, but Jonathan didn’t care. He didn’t have time to. Jolaine likewise dropped to the ground, but she assumed a prone shooter’s position. Jonathan and Boxers both dropped to a knee, weapons up and ready.

  “Everybody hold your fire,” Jonathan snapped.

  “Are you friggin’ kidding me?” Boxers said.

  “Hold your fire,” Jonathan said again. They were out in the open, with zero cover, and they were outnumbered by professional shooters. �
��We don’t know who they are.”

  “I know they’re pointing a goddamn gun at me.”

  “As we are them, but you’ll notice they haven’t fired, either. For all we know, they’re good guys.”

  “That would explain the pigs I saw flying over frozen Hell this morning,” Boxers said.

  A voice called from the other side, “Put your weapons down or we will open fire.” The thick Russian accent did nothing to soothe Jonathan’s doubts.

  “Who are you?” Jonathan shouted.

  “Does not matter,” the Russian said. “You are outgunned.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Boss,” Boxers growled. “It’s Ivan. Are we really doing this?” Ivan was their generic term for any Russian. Any Eastern European, for that matter.

  “Full-auto,” Jonathan said, softly enough to be heard only through his microphone. “If it comes to it, I’ll rake ’em left to right, and you rake right to left.” If this went hot, the best they could hope for was to be hit in their body armor.

  “Drop your weapons!” the Russian shouted again. One of the operators on the Russian’s right started to pull away from their skirmish line to move on Jonathan’s left flank.

  “Don’t move!” Jonathan yelled. “Get down now or I will open fire!”

  The commander on the other side barked something in Russian and the flanker pulled back in.

  “This is some weird shit,” Boxers said. “Who are these guys?”

  “We are not putting our weapons down,” Jonathan said to the other commander. “For the same reason that you are not. If you shoot, we’ll shoot. If you don’t, we won’t.”

  “You can trust us,” the Russian said.

  “Easy words for a Russian who just parachuted into the middle of my operation,” Jonathan said.

  “Would you like me to make some friggin’ tea?” Boxers said.

  In the distance, Jonathan could just hear the first tone of approaching sirens.

  “Leash is getting short, Boss.”

  “Tell you what,” Jonathan called to the other side. “If you’re here for what I think you are, everything’s fine. Your enemies are dead, and your codes were not revealed. You can go home and sleep well. Meanwhile, my friends and I are going to walk away from you.” Under his breath, he said to his team, “Nobody move till I tell you.”

  “Do you have boy?” the Russian yelled.

  “Twenty bucks says this does not end well,” Boxers mumbled.

  Jonathan ran the options through his head. The approach of sirens made quick action essential, and he couldn’t very well lie about something Ivan was about to see with his own eyes. “I do,” he said.

  The Russian paused. “Okay,” he said. “You leave, but go slowly. Give me no reason to shoot you.”

  “He wants the kid,” Jonathan whispered.

  Graham groaned. “Please, no,” he begged. “I want this to stop.”

  “Wanting’s not the same as getting,” Jonathan said.

  Boxers said, “They’re waiting till we stand up, and then they’re going to take their shot. I think we should go first.”

  “Not yet,” Jonathan said. The two forces were separated by maybe seventy-five yards of open field. Napoleonic face-to-face battlefield tactics had faded away a long, long time ago.

  Jonathan saw movement in the night, beyond the Russians. Seconds later, the motion revealed itself to be a dark panel truck, and it was moving way too fast. It skidded a turn into the long driveway, blasted through the chain-link gate, and raced toward them.

  Two of the OpFor turned to face the new threat while the others kept their weapons trained on Jonathan and his team.

  “Odds will never be better, Boss.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Shit.”

  The truck skidded to a halt a good sixty to seventy feet before hitting the assembled Russians, therefore no doubt preventing the driver from getting seriously ventilated. The driver’s door flew open, and a female voice yelled, “Don’t shoot! Nobody shoot.”

  As the driver emerged, Jonathan recognized her right away as Maryanne Rhoades.

  “Oh, man,” Boxers said with a laugh. “Ain’t this some shit?”

  “Oh, my God,” Jolaine said. “That’s Agent Rhoades.”

  Maryanne approached the Russians at a run, her arms extended from her sides, and her hands exposed. “Nobody shoot!” she called. “This is over. This is over. No one needs to shoot anyone.”

  Jonathan could vaguely hear the Russian commander speaking to his troops, presumably translating her words.

  Maryanne passed through the Russian skirmish line to take a position between both parties. She extended her hands like a traffic cop stopping traffic in both directions. “Please,” she said. “Put your weapons down. The police are coming, and we need to be out of here.”

  Jonathan broke his aim, but kept his M27 at low-ready as he stood. The Russian commander said something to his troops, and they likewise lowered their muzzles.

  “So, this is what brinksmanship feels like,” Jonathan muttered. He moved casually to his left so that he could see the entire enemy line, without Maryanne being in the way.

  “Don’t trust them,” Boxers warned. He, too, had broken his aim, but he maintained a stable shooting platform, up on one knee, his hand still wrapped around the grip of his 417.

  “What’s going on, Maryanne?” Jonathan asked. “Why are you here?”

  “To interrupt the bloodshed,” she said. “To make sure that Graham is safe.”

  “And why are they here?”

  “To stop the Chechens,” she said.

  “I already did that,” Jonathan said. “You already gave me that job.”

  “Can we talk about this later?” Maryanne pressed. “The police are on the way.”

  “Hey, Ivan,” Jonathan yelled. “What are your plans now?”

  One of them stepped forward. “If we are done, then we are done,” he said. “We will leave.”

  “Good,” Jonathan said. “Then we’re done, too. Jolaine?”

  “Right here.”

  “Help Graham to his feet, will you?”

  The Russian said something to his troops.

  “Remember the plan, Big Guy,” Jonathan said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jonathan listened to the boy’s moans as Jolaine got him to his feet, but he never took his eyes off the bad guys, just as they never took their eyes off him. He slipped his finger into the trigger guard.

  “I’m ready,” Graham said. His voice was weak with pain. And he was posed in the open for a clear shot.

  “Good,” Jonathan said. “I’ll be right—”

  The Russian leader jerked his rifle up, but before he could bring it to his shoulder, Jonathan fired a five-round burst into his neck and his ear. At the same instant, Boxers opened up on the skirmish line. Jonathan raked the line from left to right. In less than two seconds the Russians were all dead.

  Maryanne had dropped to the ground, her arms covering her head.

  Jonathan walked over to her and patted the top of her head with a gloved hand. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  When she looked up, she was confused at first, and then she went right to anger. “What the hell did you just do?”

  “Can we talk about this later?” Jonathan said. He keyed the mike on the Radio Shack radio and said, “Thanks, guys, for the heads-up on the parachutes. The Expedition is yours if you want it. The toy airplane, too, but I’d be careful not to show that off too much.” Not wanting to engage in a conversation with LeBron and Dawn, he switched the handset off before they had a chance to answer.

  Jonathan looked to Maryanne. “The police are on the way. And I could use a ride.”

  As she rose to her feet, Maryanne surveyed the carnage. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  “Probably not,” Jonathan said. “Now, about that ride.”

  Boxers drove the panel truck over Maryanne’s objections, but he let her ride shotgu
n. There was a row of seats behind, and Jonathan sat there. Graham tried his best to find comfort on the floor, and Jolaine tried her best to help him.

  “So,” Jonathan said. “How big an international incident did we cause back there?”

  “You’ll never know,” she said. “I just don’t believe it went down that way.”

  “How was it supposed to go down?” Jonathan asked.

  “Never mind,” she said. Jonathan read discomfort in her body language.

  “Yeah, okay.” A beat. “You know what I don’t get is why you were there in the first place.”

  She shifted in her seat. “There are some things you just don’t have a right to know,” she said.

  Jonathan smiled. “Hey, Big Guy, do me a favor, will you, and pull over.”

  Boxers had hit the turn signal even before the question was out.

  Maryanne shot Jonathan a panicked look. “What are you doing?”

  As the vehicle slowed, gravel crunched under the tires. When they were stopped, Jonathan said, “Get out.”

  Maryanne looked appalled. “What? Why?”

  “Because I can’t stand the sight of anyone who betrayed me.”

  “What are you talking about? I just saved you.”

  “I confess there are holes in what I’ve figured out, but the one thing I know for certain is that you were there to exfil the Russian team, and that the Russian team was there to kill my PC—the very PC that you hired me to protect. I don’t understand why, and frankly, I don’t much care.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “It’s not like that.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “I’ve been wrong before,” he said. “Get out.”

  “But we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “All the better,” Jonathan said. “Please don’t make me ask again.”

  Boxers drew his pistol and rested it against her head. “Think of it as a safety thing,” he said. “The longer you’re here, the stronger my desire to use this.”

  Tears came to her eyes. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I mean, I tried to—”

  “I deeply don’t care,” Jonathan said. “Out.”