by Chris Lowry
Would the men outside react in time?
The door was hanging by one hinge, giving him a limited view outside.
Six men gathered around a pickup truck, a Nissan four wheel drive which was one of the most common vehicles in Africa.
There was a mount for a .50 cal in the bed, but it was empty.
The men were arrayed in a random pattern from the tailgate to the hood of the truck, each of their rifles trained on the door and spitting bullets into the dark opening.
Lights were coming on in some of the apartments, though smart residents were staying dark until the shooting stopped.
Smart, thought Brill.
He took careful aim through the crack in the door, moving his pistol from the head of one man to the next in sight.
He couldn't get all six, not from this angle, but two were sure to fall.
Brill popped them both.
One minute they were standing, the next it was like someone cutting the strings on a puppet and they dropped.
The others noticed and stopped shooting, screaming obscenities instead.
Brill rolled across the floor, yanked a rifle and rolled back.
A line of bullets stitched the ground next to the dead body.
He checked the magazine, half full.
He had never been a fan of spray and pray, but with four men left, and maybe more on the way he needed to escape.
He stuck the barrel around the corner and squeezed off three round bursts in three blasts with one hand.
He leaned around the corner and shot the other four men as they scrambled for cover.
The last one squirmed in the dirt, crying and squealing, his ripped abdomen spilling into the sand.
Brill checked the street in both directions.
No one there yet.
He grabbed a second rifle from one of the dead bodies on the stairs, and ran outside.
Two of the men were still breathing, the gut shot crier and another who was gasping with a sucking chest wound.
Brill put him out of misery with a rifle shot to the head, then flipped over the gut shot man.
“Speak English?” he growled in Afrikaans.
The man mewled.
He was worthless, concerned only with his own agony now.
Brill ended his suffering.
He grabbed two more rifles and magazines off the dead bodies, and left them where they fell.
It was going to be a story for authorities to piece together, but so far, no witnesses had popped out to the street.
He was sure they were watching him though, so as he jumped into the cab of the pick up truck, he grabbed a scarf and wrapped it around his head.
Let anyone watching tell a story about Boko Harem shooting a scientist and then fighting it out among themselves.
He cranked the truck. It wouldn't start. He pumped the gas and tried again, and this time it turned over.
Brill dropped it in reverse and backed out of the village as fast as he could manage. When he reached the end of the street, he swung around in a giant cloud of dust and raced the fifteen miles back toward the SEAL team.
He wasn't sure what was going on, but he knew there was no alarm.
That team had been on him too fast, and they were too ready to kill him.
Someone had talked and when he found them, they were never going to speak again.
TEN
Washington knew they were screwed.
The cluster they had walked into turned sideways the moment the stepped onto campus.
Three am was when most people were supposed to sleep, and SEALS were damn good at sneaking.
So were young couples in love.
Sinatra was focused on the building and tripped over the young couple sleeping on a blanket wrapped in each other's arms. Their cries of alarm woke up the dorm rooms, but instead of disgorging students, armed militants streamed out.
They had a choice.
Firefight with superior numbers, or retreat with the mission incomplete.
The LT called retreat and the team moved back under the cover of darkness.
But Abu Aish was no fool.
He had a backup squad with instructions to seal off the University and the SEALS ran right into a bottleneck trap.
Aish piled on the men surrounding them, until the team was in an untenable position.
Outgunned, outmanned and on lower ground.
“Hold your fire,” LT commanded.
Washington had seen this scene in a movie once. A SEAL team sneaked through the sewers and came up in a prison basement, but set off tremor sensors that alerted the bad guys they were coming.
When the last SEAL popped up into the basement, they were faced against a superior force with overwhelming firepower shooting down from high ground.
A classic no win, get killed situation.
“Surrender,” Aish called out to them.
His voice was light and effeminate, a harsh contrast to the demented terrorist he was.
“LT,” Washington grunted.
The team glanced around, weapons drawn, ready to face down and die if called for.
There would be nothing gained for it, except the deaths of good men. They would be tortured, but when they missed extraction, the US would send in Para-rescuers, or negotiate for their release.
The LT weighed their options. He wasn't sure if the team could take out enough terrorists for their loss to hold meaning.
The bullet slammed into his Kevlar and knocked him backwards. He could hear six more shots follow as he struggled to catch his breath, struggled to reach his weapon and return fire.
A boot slammed on his hand and crushed the bones.
He screamed and lunged at the terrorist standing on his fingers. The man slammed a rifle butt into his head and the LT blacked out.
ELEVEN
Radio silence is nerve wrenching and painful. Brill wanted to reach out to the SEAL team to get a situation report, but didn't for two reasons.
One, orders were to keep quiet to avoid detection from electronic monitoring. The presence of the terrorist kill team waiting for him outside of Fazi's house told him the mission had been compromised, or at least parts of the mission.
Two, his radio had been shot in the firefight. A piece of metal or plastic from the shattered casing was embedded under his skin and causing him great pain.
He ignored it, but he couldn't ignore the blood leaking down his leg. He ripped off a sleeve and made an impromptu wrap.
It didn't feel like the shrapnel nicked anything vital, just a nice long tear wound. He cinched it as tight as he could with one hand and vowed to ask Washington for some Quik-clot and gauze once he hooked up with the team.
The Nissan bounced across the rutted dirt path carved out of the sand that passed for a road in these parts.
He was used to it.
A ride on a jungle path was usually an adventure in not breaking down, which the trucks always inevitably did. He hoped it wasn't the same for this stolen pickup.
It carried him back toward Sokoto and he paused on the edge of town.
He couldn't see past the buildings, but something was up in the middle.
A cloud of dust swirled up into the air before being whisked away and dispersed on the whistling wind.
His eyes narrowed. The activity was near the University building, if he recalled his maps correctly. That's where the SEALS were supposed to make their capture.
He expected to find them on the other side of town, but needed to investigate first.
If the dust was trouble, they might need his help.
He pulled the truck beside a building and killed the engine. There was a scarf on the seat and he wrapped it around his head and shoulders.
He still looked out of place in black BDU's, but the checkerboard headdress and assault rifle might dissuade second looks.
He jumped out of the truck and jogged through the streets toward the University. He kept to the edge of the buildings, staying in shadows where he co
uld. The small village was quiet, except as he drew closer to the dust cloud.
Ahead he could hear the murmur of a crowd.
He sneaked to the edge of a building and peeked around.
A group of AK-47 toting terrorists surrounded six of the SEALS. The Islamists had their faces hidden behind black scarves, waving their weapons, slamming them into the men.
Each time one of the sailors pitched face first on the ground, the other terrorists would jump in and pound him with kicks, rifle butts, yelling and spitting.
There were fifteen of them.
Brill could make out Washington, being the only black face in fatigues, and maybe the tall one was Sinatra. They were missing one man. Brill couldn't see the LT.
That meant two things. Either he was dead, or being interrogated.
He checked the clip in his rifle and pulled a spare out of the pouch and prepared it for quick insertion. The reason the AK-47 is so ubiquitous in third world countries was because it was so simple to use, and practically indestructible. But they still jammed.
Brill didn't have time to dissemble and clean the weapon, so he checked the action and sent up a silent prayer to the gods of war that the previous owner had at least kept it out of the mud.
One of the Islamists raised his gun and shot a SEAL in the thigh. The man screamed in pain, then rage. The terrorists laughed and shot the man next to him in the other leg.
Brill raised the rifle and flicked the selector to semi-auto. He'd rather be using his pistol up close, but from this range it was hard to miss.
He didn't.
The terrorist shifted his rifle toward the next SEAL and dropped to the ground. A second glanced over at him and made a questioning noise. A hole opened up in his forehead and he pitched over backwards.
The crowd noticed something was wrong and the murmurs took on a new pitch, higher, more fervent.
Brill moved the sights along the group and aimed for head shots. He couldn't risk center mass because they might fire into the SEALS and ruin his rescue operation. He dropped three more before they began returning fire.
Bullets jackhammered into the wall above his head.
He dropped to one knee, sighted around the corner and sent two more to their death.
The SEALS went horizontal to give him a clean field of fire.
Damn their training was good, he thought. Too bad he couldn't say the same for the crowd.
They scattered like sheep, screaming and shouting as they tried to escape, but hysteria made them move in concert, shoving and pushing the weaker out of the way. They also blocked the field so Brill couldn't just lay down a line of fire.
He needed to make something happen and fast.
One of the Islamists would start grabbing hostages, either villagers or a SEAL and he didn't want that to happen.
It did.
Two of them grabbed Washington and cowered behind him as they stumbled toward a building on the far side of the University courtyard. Brill couldn't get a clear shot, not without exposing himself around the corner, and the remaining eight were emptying their rifles into the wall he hid behind.
Until they ran dry.
Rule number one of a firefight. Always have more bullets than your enemy. Brill listened as the fire rate trickled to dry clicks. An AK can empty a clip at full auto in four seconds.
Brill still had sixteen bullets plus the magazine in his pocket.
There were only eight terrorists in the courtyard, plus the two almost behind Washington.
He leaned around the corner and sent a bullet into the eight as fast as he could pull the trigger.
Washington dragged his feet, making it hard for the men to haul him backwards. They dropped him and ran for the corner. Brill put a bullet in each of their backs.
He rounded the corner and pushed past the last of the fleeing crowd. The two wanna be kidnappers were scrabbling in the dirt for their weapons. He took careful aim at the back of their heads, and then they didn't move at all.
Brill slung the rifle and gave Washington a hand up. He pulled the lock blade out and cut the twine binding his wrists.
“We've got to move.”
TWELVE
“Where's your LT?” he asked.
Washington turned Sinatra over and checked him for wounds. The terrorists had shot into his Kevlar and left him with broken ribs and wheezing. He listened to his breathing but the lung didn't make a sucking sound which indicated a punctured lung. Still it was going to hurt to move him and there was still the chance one of the ribs could penetrate the delicate tissue.
“They took him,” Washington said to Brill. “Aish and three others took a truck in that direction.”
He pointed to the West.
“How long?”
“An hour? Maybe two. It was tough to keep time.”
All of the men were battered and beaten. If they were captured during the raid, that meant they were tortured for four hours.
They were still good for a fight, but not for a rescue mission.
“Who takes command?” Brill asked.
“I will follow orders,” Washington huffed under the weight of Sinatra. “In the absence of orders I will assume leadership until such a time as the mission is complete or I am relieved of command by a superior officer.”
God damn he loved SEALs. They were just like Recce's.
“Get these men to the airfield. I left a truck four blocks over there by the edge of the city,” Brill ordered. “I'm going to get the Lt.”
“How long should we wait?”
“Until I get there.”
“I mean what if you don't come back man?”
“I'm coming back. Don't leave without us.”
Washington gave him the once over.
“At least let me come with you.”
“Your squad is down by half,” said Brill as he checked the load in his magazine. “You have wounded to tend, and a hostile force around our position.”
“You're one man going into the shit by yourself.”
“I am the shit,” Brill gave him a half smile.
“Yeah,” Washington grinned back. “You're full of it at least.”
He held out a hand. After a moment, Brill gripped it and shook.
“Give me an hour, ninety minutes. I'll bring your Lieutenant back.”
“We'll be waiting.”
THIRTEEN
They went that away is a pretty fair description when there's a posse chasing after the bad guys, but general directions weren't so great when one man was searching for another in the desert.
Still Brill kept his head as he ran in the direction Washington had indicated. The hard-packed roads were windswept almost nightly by the constant wind out of the desert, not only spreading sand across the clay, but also erasing all tire marks or hoofprints from the previous day's transportation.
The road was bare. No tracks, no traces of movement in the sand drifts, just the ever-present encroachment of this attempt at civilization on the edge of wild spaces.
Brill circled back toward the village and watched the buildings. The structures on this side of town were mostly houses, small adobe constructions that looked like they could have been lifted from the middle ages and baked under the burning sun.
Aish and his men may have carried the LT into one of them for a more thorough interrogation, or to hold for ransom in exchange for releasing terrorist prisoners.
But Brill doubted it.
Not the reason for the kidnapping and separation, no they would try to use the LT as a bargaining chip, just as they probably planned to televise the beheadings of half the SEAL team.
He doubted they would take their prisoner into a home.
A building on the corner of one street looked like a warehouse. Playing the odds again, it was fifty fifty the LT was sequestered there. But the building felt right.
It was away from the homes by the space of a house or two, set off by itself. People would hear the screams from torture, but it could be easy enou
gh to ignore, softened by the wind.
Brill skulked toward it in the shadows of other buildings.
He didn't have much time. Someone might have reported the rescue of the team to Aish, or he may have heard the bullets.
If he was a vengeful man, the LT might not have much time, and Brill knew most Islamists were very vengeful, even if they were miseducator, misinformed and generally bad people.
And he hated bad men.
He reached the side of the building and leaned against the wall to catch his breath.
He could hear them inside. Men shouting, yelling in Arabic. The sounds of fists hitting a body hard.
He felt a tightening in his stomach.
Torture brought it out in him. He could feel memories of the time he was kidnapped and tortured by Angolan rebels well up at the back of his mind and fought them down. He did a quick set of box breaths, three count in, hold for three, three count out, hold for three.
He only needed to do it twice and the training kicked back in. The zen state constant meditation had produced gave him a sense of clarity.
There was a man behind that wall who needed his help.