Deadly Eleven

by Mark Tufo

  Through the overhead static that nobody had thought to turn off, a gurgling voice tried to yell ‘trap’ but it sounded as if the owner of the voice had gargled with broken glass. Automatic gunfire could be heard, but the static made it sound as if it was just a bad connection and it didn’t last long. The heat signature picture indicated why.

  The attack didn’t last long; the heat signatures all scattered in different directions and left the scene. Quickly.

  “Good lord…what was that?” somebody asked quietly.

  “Get me that Blackhawk. Redirect them to a half click from that site. I want my boys picked up. Tell them to look for survivors,” Mitchell’s voice was calm and even though spoken through clenched teeth. He knew there were no survivors. He could tell from the quickly cooling pieces of what once was his team on the screen above. “Tell those chopper boys to look for any kind of evidence of what might have done this. No matter how crazy it might appear. I want it. All of it. Every hair, scrap of clothes, everything.”

  “I’ll scramble the clean-up team as well, sir,” Laura didn’t sound well as she said it.

  “Make it so,” Mitchell turned to leave the command center.

  “Sir?” Laura asked as he turned to go.

  “What is it?”

  “Where will you be, sir?”

  “I’ll be in my office. I have some calls to make. There are some answers I need and some heads I want. And I won’t rest until I have them.”

  “He said what?” Laura asked, shooting up from her chair in Colonel Mitchell’s office.

  Mitchell poured her a short glass of single malt scotch. His brow furrowed in deep thought. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too.” Mitchell said, reclining behind his desk. His eyes probed her, reading her reaction and wondering if she would have beaten the shit out of the congressman, then choked the very life out of him had he been here in person. That was the colonel’s first instinct. “When he placed the blame on our training and lack of preparedness, I was pissed. When he said that I was inept and shouldn’t be in command, I went past pissed and straight to livid. But when he said that my biggest mistake was making you my second…I told him that if he ever darkened our door again, I’d personally gut him and mail his balls back to his kid.”

  Laura paled. “God, you didn’t really say that, did you? He’s on our appropriations committee, Matt.” Though she was glad that Mitchell had stood up for her. She knew that Senator Franklin had never liked her and often doubted her ability to lead. She just didn’t know if it stemmed from her record with The Company or because she was a woman.

  “The man’s a political hack. He’s hated us from the git-go. The only reason he’s on the committee is so that the others will have somebody to keep them in check and so that the president has somebody he knows will go whining to him with everything that is decided when they’re in session. Besides, I had already called the other three congressmen and they assured me that heads will roll for us not having had the support from NSA and CIA that we were supposed to have. We also got heartfelt condolences for the men and their families. But the honorable Senator Franklin was the only one to go off the deep end.” There was obvious venom when he said ‘honorable’ and that was one thing that Franklin would never be.

  Mitchell had dealt with enough politicians over his career to know that there are bad ones, there are mediocre ones and there are damn few good ones. The one in question here was a certifiable nutcase; laughed at by his colleagues, ridiculed in the press, and somehow re-elected by his constituents. Franklin had been rumored to have gone off the deep end a long time ago, but that didn’t stop someone from putting the dumbass on their Oversight Committee and making him a permanent pain in their ass.

  The ‘Monster Squad’ as they were known, had an oversight committee of four politicians who could either make them or break them at a whim. They approved their budget, appropriated the equipment, manpower, support personnel, and made everything possible for their entire operation to exist. Their operation was, for all intent and purpose, a ‘black op’, meaning that nobody outside the four man oversight committee and the president himself even knew that they existed. Oh, their records reflected that they were military or government employees, but they ‘officially’ existed as clerks or cooks or field officers, not here in the center of the United States working out of an old defunct hangar at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City protecting this end of the world from things that go bump in the night and that mommies and daddies tell their little kiddies don’t really exist.

  Placing the command center here at Tinker was JC Watts’ idea. It was, pretty much, the center of the continental U.S., and it did provide a pretty good cover. The team could deploy from there and traverse the country easily and in equal time from this location. Nobody would expect a group of monster hunters to operate out of an unassuming hangar that used to be used for overhauling old aircraft.

  The hangar itself, to the odd passerby, was still just an old hangar. But underground, it was a state-of-the-art command center. Not huge, by any stretch of the imagination, but efficient and equipped well. Three of the four congress-critters, as Mitchell often referred to them, saw to it that the men stationed there had their creature comforts. Tinker was well equipped for recreational activities as well, and Oklahoma City, though not known as a Mecca for the arts or being a thriving metropolis, still had a down home quality of goodness to it. Good food, good people, and good clean fun. Just don’t expect more than triple A baseball if you’re a fan. At least they finally got an NBA team to settle there. Still, Laura often thought, it would have been nice to settle someplace a bit more lively.

  At least it’s not Montana.

  Laura sighed with relief. “Thank God. You had me scared we were shut down for good.”

  “Nope,” Mitchell answered. “In fact”, he continued as he refilled his scotch, “you and I are to start recruiting for a new monster squad right away.” Mitchell leaned back in his chair again and held the scotch glass to his forehead. “How in the hell are we going to replace a team like that on such short notice?”

  Laura shook her head as she thought of the many months of training the team had put in; the physical augmentation, the boosters…everything that made up being a member of the squad. She thought of each member and how ‘alive’ they had been as they packed their gear just hours before in preparation for this op.

  “Any word from the Blackhawk or the clean-up team on what attacked them?” Mitchell asked.

  “Not yet, sir. Preliminary reports just indicate a lot of tracks coming in and out from multiple directions. But the area is soft sand, so they can’t get impressions or even pour castings,” Laura glanced at her notes. “But whatever it was, some of them had a running gait of over twenty-five feet. So they were covering some serious terrain at a very high rate of speed.”

  Mitchell wished again he could have gotten the technical support he had requested. Even an unmanned drone with video capability could have given his squad enough fair warning to prepare for the onslaught. Imagining the last moments of his team’s lives was not something he wanted to do, but he knew it was a nightmare he wouldn’t soon be rid of.

  Mitchell reclined in his chair and held the scotch to his chest. “How soon before Squad One returns from England?”

  “They’re supposed to be training for the next three weeks, but I can have them on the next flight home.”

  Mitchell rubbed his eyes, debating what to do.

  “I know this is probably going to go over like a lead balloon…but I do have an idea,” Laura offered.

  “Right now I’m open to anything,” Mitchell waved her on without opening his eyes, letting the iced scotch ease his ache.

  “Maybe we could contact the other squads? See if they could each offer up one member. We could mold them into what we need them to be?”

  Laura watched the colonel carefully for any movement. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he had fallen asleep, but she knew him well enou
gh to know his mind was carefully weighing all the pros and cons of this possibility. His gears were turning and she could almost tell when the light came on over his head.

  Mitchell commanded Team Four which covered the U.S., Canada, and most of Mexico. The team was made of two small squads of seven men each. Team Five covered South America and was based out of Brazil. Teams One, Two and Three covered Europe and Africa. The teams were really a modern solution to a very old problem: Monsters.

  Monsters are, by the simplest definition, things that go bump in the night. If it is a threat, then the Monster Squads take them out. Period. So far, the most common monsters that the squads had really encountered were vampires and very rarely the occasional zombie uprising. But considering that the monsters have had centuries to hone their hiding skills and the squads have only been around for a few generations, it wasn’t hard to understand why, IF there were other kinds of monsters out there, the squads weren’t running into them.

  Teams of experts scoured the papers, internet blogs, news reports, any source of information looking for key words that might indicate a monster or group of monsters in an area. If something is triggered, a scout is sent out to verify the findings. If the scout sends back positive intelligence, then the squad is mobilized and the monster is taken out. Once the threat or threats (plural) are taken out, a clean-up team is sent in to remove any evidence of the monster ever being there, or the squad having entered. The world goes on its merry way never knowing that what goes bump in the night might eat you and pick its teeth with your bones.

  “Make it so. Call who you have to and get who we can. We’ll probably get their bottom of the barrel squad members…if anybody is even willing to part with some…but it beats the shit out of going out in the field and recruiting from raw recruits.”

  “You got it, boss.” She got up to leave but stopped and turned back around. Mitchell opened his eyes and gave her a questioning look. Laura picked up the rest of her scotch and downed it. Setting the glass back on his desk she said, “Never leave a good scotch behind.” Mitchell gave her a rare smile.

  “I couldn’t agree more.” He followed suit. “You know, he’s right about one thing.”

  Laura paused. “Sir?”

  “Franklin. The son of a bitch is right about one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Laura asked, not really sure she wanted to know.

  “In the end, I’m still the one responsible for their lives.” And Mitchell knew that they would haunt him for the rest of his.

  Jack Thompson moaned as his body screamed at him in pain. Everything was dark, but his body was on fire and every movement made him painfully aware of every nerve ending firing double-time. He was being jostled, bounced uncaringly and with the sounds surrounding him, it sounded as though somebody was carrying him. Quickly.

  Slowly he became more aware and current memories began to return to him. His team was approaching the old mud-brick farm house when suddenly dark, hairy creatures attacked them from every direction. They were blindingly fast. And strong. Good heavens they were strong. And they were vicious as hell, too. Teeth! He remembered teeth as long as his fingers, and claws at the end of paws that looked a lot like a man’s hand. They looked a lot like dogs…good, Lord! Wolves! They were attacked by some kind of mutated wolves.

  Jack’s mind was spinning and he could feel himself beginning to lose consciousness.

  Could it be? Could they have been attacked by werewolves? During the day? A sudden jarring sent a pain so intense through his body that Jack passed out, but the last thing to go through his mind was an image of a black wolf face snarling at him wanting to tear out his throat.

  Chapter 236

  “Problem, Matt.” Laura had barely stuck her head into Mitchell’s office. He knew something was wrong because she always knocked before opening his door. It was like an unwritten law for her, and for her to break it now, even under these circumstances, something must be really haywire.

  “Report.” Mitchell dropped what he was doing to give her his full attention.

  “You know that we don’t usually keep in contact with the other squads, right?” Mitchell nodded, urging her to continue. “Three other teams were hit at almost the exact same time as we were. Same M.O., same results.”

  Mitchell paled. He stood up slowly as the information sunk in. Out of five teams that covered the world, only one remained untouched? “Holy shit,” he whispered. He turned to look at Laura. “Which team is still kicking?” Mitchell knew a lot of the operators personally, and he couldn’t choose any one team to root for to have survived this coordinated attack.

  “Team Five. The Brazilians got the same kind of report of a large cell of vampires in a southern area, except their scout couldn’t verify anything. They’re going back now to look to see if he missed something that was supposed to be there to bait the trap—”

  “Which would make him inept,” Mitchell finished for her. “What of our boys with the Brits?” Matt’s eyes couldn’t hide his concern.

  “No, they’re all safe. But you know the Brits have three squads with Team One. They lost eight men when one of their squads was hit. I’ve sent word to send our boys home,” she said. “Whoever coordinated this attack may not have baited their trap good enough for the Brazilian scout to catch it.”

  “Or maybe they didn’t want to take out all of the squads…for whatever reason,” Mitchell added.

  “To what purpose?” Laura asked, puzzled.

  “Think about it, Laura. If you have a group like ours, small, tight-knit, everybody pretty much knows everybody else, and you take out four of the five, and you leave that fifth team totally unharmed, it could cast a shadow of suspicion on that fifth team.”

  “How so, sir?”

  “Like they’re in cahoots with the monsters.”

  “Surely you don’t think the Brazilians would team up with the monsters, Matt. I’ve known Pablo and his team since you brought me on here and—” Laura began to argue, but Mitchell cut her off again.

  “No, I’m not saying that is the case at all. I’m saying that the monsters might be trying to make it look like that.” Mitchell sighed and reached for the scotch again. “All I’m saying is, to the Europeans, it might not look so good that the SA team got off without a scratch. We might have to keep our eyes and ears open for a bit.”

  Laura nodded, thinking through his thought processes.

  “Meanwhile, start reviewing active duty personnel files and get the trainers and detailers geared up for work. Let’s get ‘em with doc for the enhancement protocols and their inoculations. I want you to look at SEALs and Green Berets first.” Laura shot him a questioning glance. “I’ve learned from personal experience that those two groups make the easiest transition to the squad. Just get me the best candidates in here. Tomorrow!”

  “Yes, sir!” She turned and was out the door before he could add any other demands.

  Mitchell sat at his desk and considered the ramifications of this attack. Whoever was behind this knew their tactics. They knew what it would take to get squads from all four of those teams out at the exact same time, and had something strong enough and fast enough to take out and destroy armed operators in broad daylight. Their previous intel had said vampires were in the area, and the scouts had confirmed evidence of vampire attacks. Mitchell hand-picked his scouts so he knew his men were trustworthy. If the evidence was faked, then it was a damned convincing fake.

  But vampires that could attack in daylight? Not unless they wore lead-lined clothes and sunscreen with an SPF of, oh, about 10,000. So, what does that leave? Zombies are slow moving and they don’t leave a heat signature, and it would take a horde of literally thousands to overtake a fully armed squad. Werewolves? They’re night creatures as well, and so far, no squad had reported evidence of werewolf activity in those areas. Besides, the next full moon was two weeks off.

  Whatever this new attacker was, they needed to start coordinating with the other teams to ensure that this never ha
ppened again. Losing a squad member was horrible. Losing a whole squad was a fucking tragedy. But losing four squads from five different teams? In one night? That is totally unacceptable.

  Elsewhere, across the world…

  The heat was unbearable. The wind just made it worse, blowing sand into places that sand was never meant to be. Insects in the desert were never your friend. For them, it’s eat or be eaten. Same thing goes for reptiles. If they weren’t venomous, they had some form of defense or attack that made them very unpleasant and not good bedfellows. The nights are cold, the days are sweltering, and even the brushy cover that provided the shade from the unrelenting sun barely allowed movement for the two man sniper team sent to this insurgent camp buried in the shallow valley below.

  The mission: assassinate one terrorist leader. Cut the head from the snake and allow the insurgents to feel the terror of knowing that they, too, can be stung in the same manner in which they sting others. In other words, a taste of their own medicine.

  “I’ve tasted this shit before,” Lamb muttered softly.

  “When’s that?”

  “Yesterday.” He spat the desert sand out of his mouth. “And the day before that. And the day before that.”

  “And the day before that.” Jacobs added. “I think I’ve heard this bitch before.”

  “Nothing like sand to make your gum taste good.”

  “Yeah, nice and crunchy. That’s why you don’t chew it with your mouth open, moron.” Jacobs grinned at him, his face crusting as he smiled, the dirt lines around his eyes making his Asian features look even more exotic.

  “Hand me the water before I become jerky.” Lamb sipped the lukewarm water wishing he had something cold and alcoholic. Four days in the desert takes its toll on everybody but this mission sucked worse than the others. Being a sniper team lets you travel the world, take you to ALL the fun places, meet new and exciting people…and kill them.