The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark

by Boyd Craven III

  “You were into uh… black ops?” Frankie asked.

  “The blackest. I had a team that was in on for the hunt for Bin Laden, but we never found him. Lucky for him.”

  “Why’s that?” Courtney asked me.

  “Two of the men in my squad had family in the towers when 9/11 happened.”

  Everyone fell silent after that, until a few minutes later Frankie turned and asked, “So you are capable of doing what you’re proposing to do? This isn’t a suicide mission for you or us?”

  Suicide mission. Should I read more into the question? Why had she volunteered to come? She knew that Jamie and Mel were back, she’d made herself scarce, and this was my first time meeting her.

  “None of us have to die tonight,” I told her. “It’ll be lighting a few fuses, taking some potshots and running like hell. We just have to be careful to not hit any friendlies. Depending on the response, we might use the tow chain in the back and see how strong that fencing is.”

  “It’s electrified,” Crowder said.

  “It won’t be, if we do it right,” I said with a grin. “Steve had some supplies, you folks liberated. I’ve got a pound of C4 and a few detonation pencils in my pack.”

  Courtney punched me in the shoulder lightly and I looked over. She was smiling, and for the first time since we’d been driving in the truck, she felt something. I could see it in her eyes.

  “Getting nervous now?” I asked her.

  “The anticipation is killing me.”

  “We’re stopping in a quarter mile. Have to walk in from there,” Frankie said. “We’ll pull off and let you folks out. We’ll keep an eye from afar.”

  “Good deal,” I told her. “Courtney, ready to make things go boom?”

  She smiled and held up a soup can, showing duct tape holding the lid down on the inside of the can, and turned it side to side. I had to smile at her antics. Maybe she could heal after all.

  “I’m ready to watch their world burn.”

  Her words chilled me more than I liked to admit.

  The problem I saw immediately, was that the light poles were positioned to cover the front of the camp in front of the gates, with guard towers at the corners. There were more than four vehicles there, too. That sent a shiver of worry through me. The NATO troops had joined the DHS in the time since we’d had our briefing at the dinner table not an hour earlier. There was an APC with a turret and an extra Hummer with a .50 cal. The vehicles with the turrets became my first priority.

  Using hand signals, I led Courtney in a wide arc around the camp, careful not to kick any gravel and make unnecessary noise. There wasn’t much cover in the open, so we stayed at the edges near the corn. If somebody was looking for intruders using night vision, I might get a chance to pull us into a row of corn before we were seen. If they were scouting for somebody using thermal, well… we were fucked. I didn’t have anything for that, not in my handy dandy backpack. Not this time.

  Reaching out and grabbing several rocks from the gravel, I found a few that were more or less squared off equally. A smooth round rock or ball bearings would have been ideal, but there hadn’t been any ball bearings at the farm and the rocks here were from whoever had given the government the cheapest price. Still, it would work. I pulled the wrist rocket out, hoping that Mel had kept the band out of the sunlight, and put the rock in the leather pocket and did a test pull. It held. I looked at where the vehicles were that had the turrets and figured out a light pattern that would get us the best chances. Would the guards notice three lights going out?

  I estimated that it was close to twenty yards from the front gate to the closest vehicle, and if I took out the lights to make an approach to the ones I wanted to take out…

  “What are the chances that they left the keys in any of these?” Courtney asked me.

  “A lot of these just have an operating sequence to start them up. Mostly push button,” I said, looking at some of the armor sitting here.

  A lot of it was Russian surplus, stuff I knew all too well. Still, I had my eyes on a Hummer. It didn’t have a mount, but what it had was an old M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun. A nefarious plan started to form. I pulled back the band on the slingshot again and took aim. My first rock hit the shroud around the bulb. The rock punched a hole through the plastic and shattered the bulb, sending that portion of the lot into darkness. It was a lot louder than I’d expected.

  “Is the generator surging again?” I heard someone yell.

  I looked, it was somebody in the eastern tower who’d walked to the edge and shouted down.

  “Probably,” a man yelled back.

  He wasn’t inside the fence. I saw him walk up toward the gate. He must have been between two of the trucks, and in our arc around the lot in the darkness, we hadn’t seen him. Maybe he’d been in one of the vehicles?

  “Damn it. It’s almost the end of our shift. Let the morning crew deal with it.”

  Music to my ears. I didn’t pay attention to the shouted response, instead I focused on the next light and took aim. My rock missed it, and deep within the camp, I heard it hit a metal roof somewhere, making a racket as it fell. Without pausing, I loaded the slingshot with the last of my rocks and fired again. This time with the angle, I hit the bulb instead of the shroud and the light tinkled as the glass broke and the light winked out.

  “Another one? Shit,” the guard called. “You watch the gate, and I’ll go get the scissor lift.”

  “Not like I’m going anywhere,” the man in front of the gate replied.

  I squinted in the darkness and I couldn’t see into the western tower, but Steve had told me that nine out of ten times, that one was never staffed. It didn’t have a heater or bathroom for long shifts. Still, if they had the NATO kids here to play, would it matter? Would it be staffed? From what I could see, it looked like they were gearing up for an assault and I could only guess where that assault would take place.

  I turned and took the carbine off my shoulder and handed it to Courtney. She started to take hers off as well, but I stopped her and held a finger up to my lips, whispering, “I’m taking out the guy by the gate. Then you and I are going to set our charges, and take that Hummer with the M2.”

  “M2?” she asked, looking around.

  “The machine gun.”

  “Oh, ok.”

  We’d have to ad-hoc our plan, as a lot of the hardware had rear-mounted engines. We could also put our ordinance on the turrets or barrels, disabling their big guns. That wouldn’t be as ideal as disabling the engines on everything, but when I opened the show with the Ma Deuce, things would get interesting. Courtney would have her chance for revenge as the .50 cal BMG rounds chewed up the lightly armored vehicles remaining. Or at least that was the plan I had in my head.

  “Be right back,” I said, pulling my Kabar and holding it in my left hand.

  I gave her one more look and saw she was melting into the shadows again, and I nodded. She’d come when I signaled her, I was positive. Slowly, I crept vehicle to vehicle, staying in the shadows as much as possible, my eyes everywhere. For the watch towers. For sleeping men in the vehicles, for the guard that I could no longer see. I had three rows of vehicles left to cover when I heard a soft whistling and then, the sound of a trickle of running water. I crouched low, being careful not to let the gravel crunch as I did so, and looked under the body of a troop carrier. A pair of boots stood on either side of a growing puddle.

  Luck. More luck than I could have ever wished for. I ghosted around the front of the vehicle and chanced a look. A man in a black uniform with a DHS patch on his shoulder was urinating near the side gas tank, his carbine resting on the step of the truck. When I sunk the blade into the back of his neck, severing his spinal cord, he never made a sound. Just a quiet gasp as his life ended quickly. I pulled the knife out, wiped it off on his shirt and pushed his bloody corpse underneath the vehicle, then made my way back to the outer line of vehicles.

  I saw the darkness move, and a blonde-headed sp
ecter stepped into the edge of the light and then back out of it. Courtney. She’d seen me coming back. I looked at the gate and the towers. Seeing nobody, I motioned for her to join me. The gravel crunched and I tried not to wince at her noisy approach, but there wasn’t anybody within earshot. I thought. Hoped. We’d only seen one guard, and I’d put him down. I took my carbine back from her and slung it over my shoulder.

  “Place these two on the hoods of that one, and that one over there,” I told her. “I’ve got this one, that one with the big gun, and then we meet at the Hummer.”

  “We don’t have enough of these,” Courtney said, handing me the big can and a soup can full of thermite.

  “Won’t need any more, not if we’re lucky. Even if we only take out these four, it’s going to hurt their operations. Buy us some time.”

  “To blow shit up and kill bad guys?”

  “Yeah,” I said smiling, “to blow shit up and kill bad guys. Be careful, I only saw one guard roving outside the fence, but there might be drivers sleeping in some of these vehicles. If gunfire breaks out, just head to the Hummer that I pointed out.”

  “Got it,” she said and started moving, this time a lot more quietly than she had been on her approach.

  My heart was going a thousand beats a second by the feel of it, and I crept to my first objective. When I got there, I positioned the large can over where I knew the engine housing was. It was the most heavily armored vehicle, almost a full battle tank. I wasn’t 100% sure if a couple pounds of thermite would do the job, because I knew a regular grenade was iffy… but it was my best chance. I didn’t want this puppy coming our way. Still, I wasn’t going for the main engine, so much as the controls to it.

  The reason I hadn’t filled the cans to the top was I wanted to create a wind break for the matchbooks. When the sparklers lit, it would throw off a lot of light and smoke, drawing attention. When the thermite went up, well… that was going to be huge light show, one that would blind you if you looked at it directly. I pulled out one of five matchbooks and pushed it into the can so the sparkler was behind the matches. I pulled one off, bent the flap backwards, and struck it. It lit and the quick smell of sulfur filled my nostrils as I shoved the lit match into the book.

  I knew I had about thirty seconds roughly, until the main matches went up, igniting the sparkler, so I gave the area a quick look and almost sprinted to my second objective. It was an APC with a turret. I could get to the motor easily on this one, so I set my charge on top and placed the matchbook. I caught a whiff of sulfur and heard a hissing behind me from where Courtney was. One was lit. We had seconds now. I folded the flap back and started to strike a match.

  “Hey, who the fuck are you?” I heard and I dropped the lit match into the can, hoping I’d done enough.

  I didn’t say anything, my body tensed as I turned and saw a man in all black and NVGs coming up on me, his carbine already aimed. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten the memo that we didn’t want Murphy to tag along for this op.

  “The Avon Lady,” Courtney whispered behind him.

  The man was good, but she’d gotten into position before either of us had realized it. When she plunged her knife into the side of his throat, he almost dropped his gun and she ripped the knife out, severing his jugular and windpipe.

  He started to fall, but in his last moment, he pulled the trigger, firing a three-round burst into the ground. Just that fast, I heard a hissing right behind me and I took off running, grabbing Courtney by the hand. She hadn’t had time to wipe the knife off, but she sheathed it quickly, her hands covered in blood.

  “It’s starting,” she told me as we made it to the Hummer, our hearts hammering so loud, I imagined all of the camp could hear it.

  As it was, our running had masked the sounds of shouts all around us. We heard them, but couldn’t make out the words. I shoved Courtney into the Hummer and went toward the back where the M2 .50cal was. Old Ma Deuce was ready to go by some kind soldier from somewhere. I pulled the charging handle and looked for targets.

  “A stick shift? Is that why you brought me along?!” Courtney yelled at me, annoyed.

  “Deal with it.” I told her, looking to see how much time we had.

  When I opened this up, everyone in a mile would be awake.

  “I want some revenge,” she told me.

  A bright flash of thermite igniting drew my attention, and with the extra light I could see a group of men running toward us, goggles on. They were still on the other side of the fence, but I wasn’t going to let something like a little chain link and electricity keep me from doing my duty. They had no idea I was there, so I opened up. The M2 is a heavy machine gun, able to penetrate light armor, and was perfect for the mop up I had in mind. Still, it was a finicky beast. It was known for misfires, misfeeds, and it would cook off if you fired more than, say, 150 rounds in a couple of minutes. Depending on the ammunition, it could either be deadly or cause more harm to the gunner than those being gunned down.

  As luck would have it, it was loaded with armor piercing rounds. Too bad the men running for the gate didn’t know that. The quick bursts cut them down in seconds. I swiveled the gun and started putting short bursts into the front ends of the vehicles around me. All four vehicles with thermite were lit up, as the rust added the oxygen needed to make the exothermic reduction-oxidation reaction. Yeah, even a Devil Dog knows fancy words. Sue me.

  I wasn’t firing enough rounds to permanently disable vehicles, but enough to put them out for a day or two. Still, when I got the angle on it, I holed fuel tanks, causing pretty blossoms of flames. The Hummer rumbled to life and I was jostled out of the middle as Courtney pulled herself up and started firing at the fence line with her carbine. I was stuck reloading belts from some ammo cans and almost dropped the belt, but I held onto it. Courtney laughed and screamed and cried. Small arms fire started from one of the guard towers as I got the belt in and the charging handle pulled back. I swiveled, almost pushing Courtney out of the way with the now glowing hot barrel, and fired a short burst.

  Wood splintered and somebody started screaming as the small arms fire stopped.

  I turned and let loose on the west tower, then held my rounds and waited as Courtney changed mags.

  “You having fun yet?” I asked her.

  “No.” She started firing again.

  Inside the gate were highway concrete dividers; a chokepoint for people and vehicles coming into the camp. Cover for small arms fire. I waited until Courtney was changing mags to start firing at them where the men were positioned behind them. Chunks of concrete started disintegrating, and not wanting to be hit by flying concrete shrapnel, the men closest to my concentrated fire moved to reposition. Courtney took the opportunity.

  “Got them.”

  “We’ve bloodied their noses enough. Get us out of here,” I told her.

  “Got it. You keep their heads down, Dick.”

  I wanted to pull the gates down and free everyone, but I hadn’t seen the opportunity to do it yet, and then I heard three motors rumble to life near the front of the gates.

  “You were right about their drivers,” Courtney yelled.

  Rounds started pinging on the armor plate next to my head on the turret, and I dropped down.

  “We’re going to have company.”

  “We going to crash the gates?” She asked.

  “Get us out of here. Get us to the…”

  “Where are the damned lights?” she screamed.

  “Go, just go dammit,” I screamed as rounds started hitting the back of the truck, some punching holes in the light armor. I flattened myself out as we started moving.

  The fire intensified for a moment, but once we hit the darkness outside of the lighted area, the pings of small arms fire came less frequently, until we were a good thousand yards away and it stopped entirely. Headlights lit up our back end and I popped up in the turret. I couldn’t see what was following us, but I made sure the M2 was ready, turned it, and started firing at the light
s. The barrel had had a good chance to cool down, so I let a long string of ammo go straight down the paved road behind me, hopefully disabling everything. What happened was the headlights went out; shot out or turned off, I’d never know.

  “There they are,” Courtney screamed.

  For a heartbeat, I thought she meant the DHS/NATO peeps, but as I turned the turret, I saw somebody waving with a flashlight in both hands. Frankie. Somehow, she’d seen me and recognized me in the turret. My admiration for the young woman grew.

  “Let’s go,” Courtney screamed out of the window.

  Suddenly, a contrail of smoke and fire flashed past us, slamming into the truck. The explosion lit up the night as Crowder and Frankie’s bodies were thrown, burning, into the air. I turned to see two men with a Javelin Anti-Tank missile launcher putting their sights on us as one of them reloaded.

  “Get out of the Hummer,” I said, crawling out of the top and rolling down the side till I hit the ground hard.

  “What?” Courtney screamed out of the side window.

  She was half out of the door when I’d made it to my feet, and I grabbed the front of her vest and yanked her unceremoniously out. The body of the Hummer and the angle of where we’d come to rest had shielded the movements, but now I couldn’t see the missile men either. Despite the roaring flames of the truck, I pulled the screaming and kicking woman into the corn as a missile hit the Hummer. The shockwave of the explosion made my ears pop, and the heat wave was like standing next to a smelter.

  “Thank… thank you, Dick,” Courtney said when she realized what had happened.

  We waited and another missile struck the Hummer, flipping it. We both ducked as debris peppered the area.

  “Are the cops…” she said looking around.

  I could see Frankie. I crawled over to her, amazed by how far she’d been thrown. If being half burned hadn’t killed her, the broken neck from landing did. Her body was shredded by shrapnel. I didn’t see Crowder anywhere nearby.

  “She’s gone,” I said quietly.

  I motioned, remembering there were still men out there, and we started crawling deeper into the field. We were leaving easily followed tracks on the ground, but we were mostly covered overhead by the leaves of the corn stalks. You’d have to be almost ground level to see us. We heard motor sounds and shouts and screams of anger and rage.