by Jeff Carson
Contents
Alive and Killing
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Alive and Killing
By Jeff Carson
Copyright © 2013 Jeff Carson
All Rights Reserved.
David Wolf Books In Order
Gut Decision (A David Wolf Short Story) — FREE (sign up for release updates at http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html and receive it free) or at Amazon — http://amzn.to/1hmVORO
Foreign Deceit (David Wolf Book #1) FREE at — http://amzn.to/1p4Abv2
The Silversmith (David Wolf Book #2) — http://amzn.to/1eAimeB
Alive and Killing (David Wolf Book #3) — http://amzn.to/1jxiX6r
Deadly Conditions (David Wolf Book #4)— http://amzn.to/1lLbktz
The Leopard - European Espionage Series Book #1 (Title Not Determined)— Coming May 2014
Wolf #5 (Title Not Determined) — coming July 2014
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Chapter 1
The terrain beyond Bagram Air Base in eastern Afghanistan was dark. Dark as interstellar space. Or as dark as Afghanistan on a moonless night. As far as Captain Ryan Clark was concerned, the two were an identical shade of nothingness. The mountains surrounding the base were invisible, though he knew from the earlier landing they were looming tall all around them. The only visible light outside the base was a faint glow on the horizon to the south that he knew was Kabul, which was about forty miles away. He’d never been there, nor did he ever plan to be.
And he sure as hell didn’t want to be here, for that matter; and with every passing second the enormity of what he was doing seemed to multiply, tightening his already aching shoulders, and turning the sweat glands under his armpits into tiny open faucets.
At thirty-two feet above ground, the height of a three story building, and the height of the 747 400 cockpit seat he sat in, Clark could see the entirety of the southern part of Bagram Air Base. Through the glass in front of him was the white paint of the nose cargo door, still flipped up and blocking the straight ahead view, but to his left and right he saw dusty tan tents under dollops of dim yellow lights, and the void beyond. Next to the plane on the right was a row of cargo containers - blue, red and brown - stacked in a line that he couldn’t see the end of, but knew extended hundreds of yards.
He squinted into the dark and willed something to happen. Whatever the hell it was going to be.
Someone entered the cockpit behind them and cleared their throat with a low growl. “We’ll be ready to go in thirty minutes.”
Clark turned, already knowing it was the loadmaster, Vick.
Before the big bald man left, he locked eyes with Captain Clark and gave him a sustained expressionless look that spoke volumes. Thirty minutes left; I can’t stall anymore.
“All right! Let’s get outta here,” said the first officer with annoying cheer.
“Thank you, Vick,” Clark said, and turned to look back out the window. Let’s go, damn it.
Part of him was starting to hope it wouldn’t happen, and his breathing deepened at the thought. He found himself fantasizing they would call in their flight plan, button up the aircraft, fire up the engines, and leave, just like any of the hundreds of flights he’d piloted for World Cargo, the third largest air cargo company on the planet.
Of course, if that happened, he wouldn’t be living out the rest of his life in style. Without a care in the world. With all the money he could imagine, and then even more money than that.
And what would they think? Would they laugh at him and his entire idea and think he was crazy for even bringing it up? No, they’d be disappointed in him and probably pissed off. And how about Vick? Would he demand his money? Was that part of the look he’d just given Clark? Well, Vick wouldn’t get a cent unless this thing went down. Not paying Vick would be some tension in Clark’s life he could do without, because Vick was one of those iffy guys you didn’t want to mess with. Of course, that’s why Clark had approached Vick months ago in Dubai—Vick was iffy.
Let’s freaking do this, guys. Clark rubbed a hand underneath his arm, then on his pants to wick off the sweat.
“You want to program the FMS, and I’ll call ATC?” asked the first officer. This Brad Renton character, with his hopped-up-on-coffee efficiency and chipper attitude about everything, was getting on Clark’s already frazzled nerves.
“Yeah,” Clark said, because stalling anymore would be plain psychotic. “Yeah.”
Clark ignored Renton’s confused look and punched the buttons on the Flight Management System with shaky fingers. He wondered if it was the nerves or if he needed a drink. Probably both. Probably more of the latter. No matter what happened, he was going to have a quad Crown and water when he landed, and then another.
“Topaz,” Renton said into his microphone, “this is World Cargo 638. We are at cargo ramp Charlie, final altitude three-six—“
Clark’s stomach twisted and his vision swirled for an instant as he heard a muffled explosion somewhere out in the night. He turned and looked to the right and left of the nose-door, and couldn’t see anything—no smoke, no flash of light, no explosion. Then he realized the sound had come from behind them, through the open L1 door. It was happening.
Renton and Clark looked at each other with wide-eyes.
“Whoa,” Renton said.
Before Clark could come up with a response, the area erupted with sirens, and then the entire base switched off to black. And this time, when Clark looked out the window, it was like they were in interstellar space. He couldn’t remember seeing such darkness, other than by his cabin in Colorado on a cloudy night.
A second later, Clark heard a series of low thumps, followed by several huge explosions, this time in the far distance, too far to be on the base. He knew that would have been the almost instantaneous retaliation from the base. The anti-artillery radar would have triangulated the origin of the attack and sent a barrage of bombs to the exact spot, like a return lob in a deadly tennis match.
If anyone had remained outside the air base near the origination point, or any other mortars were waiting to go off nearby, they were now tiny pieces floating on the wind.
But Clark knew
the retaliation would be a useless gesture.
He knew the men who set off the round would have been somewhere else with a cell phone, activating a crude motor that would drop the mortar to the bottom of the tube, discharging it into the bustling air base with a push of a button. Somewhere much closer.
He looked out the window toward the line of containers to the plane’s right, now totally invisible in the darkness. He just hoped they were smart enough to aim the round in a place to minimize casualties. He’d seen death, and he never wanted to be part of it again.
“All traffic hold position, stand by,” said a voice through their earphones.
Footsteps clanked up the L1 door stairs, and a few seconds later Vick was back inside the cockpit door. “Turn everything off, and come with me, gentlemen.”
They shut down the exterior lights and followed Vick to the warm tarmac below.
“This way,” said Vick as he swiveled a flashlight beam ahead of them. The radio on Vick’s chest crackled with orders and responses, and there was a cacophony of muted, unseen noises coming from all over the base—revving engines, doors slamming closed, shouting men, and hurried footsteps.
Clark looked at the open main cargo door and the aft belly door, black yawning mouths in the darkened plane, and wondered just how they were going to pull it off.
It didn’t matter to him. Clark had guaranteed Vick one hundred thousand dollars on top of the five he had already received to worry about it, a sum that would buy him all the liquor and hookers his heart could desire for years. Vick said he would get it done. Clark didn’t need to know how, and in fact, he was grateful he didn’t know.
Gretchenweld, the ride-on mechanic, joined them out of the darkness and stepped in stride. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.
Vick slapped Gretchenweld on the shoulder and looked over at Clark with a nod. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
Clark gave a quick nod, not knowing if his gesture was visible or not in the darkness.
“You ever been through one of these before?” Renton asked.
Clark shook his head.
“Second for me. Last time, holy shit, they sent off three Tomahawks over the mountains. It was the loudest, brightest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You know what those Afghani guys out there do?” Gretchenweld said. “They pour ice into the mortar tubes and put the round in. Then they take off into the mountains. A few hours later, the ice melts, the primer hits the firing pin, and boom. We send out the return fire, but they’re long gone. You,” he pointed at Renton, “since you saw Tomahawks, they musta had some target they were hitting.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Damn, this is insane.”
Clark nodded, already growing weary of the conversation. “Damn,” he said.
Clark moved himself to the rear and stayed silent as Gretchenweld and Renton conversed behind Vick. They walked in front of two other 747’s and picked up another six crewmen in their procession. Finally, they reached a bunker, which was a rectangle box of concrete with a steel roof. Clark thanked God it wasn’t a real attack, because the shelter looked damn inadequate to him.
Clark shuffled inside the open bunker and squeezed in between three pilots on a squeaky wooden bench. He looked out into the darkness, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t see any of the planes.
…
“How about you?” The pilot took another drag of his cigarette, dimly illuminating the mustache on his upper lip. It was so dark that no one could see, yet for some reason the group of pilots huddled on the benches decided swapping life stories was a good idea. Forty-five minutes holding out in a bunker in war territory apparently did that.
And now it was Clark’s turn. “Uh, seven years now.”
“Whoa.”
“Shit.”
The group broke out in a chorus of glib remarks.
“So why the hell are you here? I’d be flying to Hawaii, or the south of France with your seniority. What, did you screw up your scheduling this month or did you piss someone off.”
None of your fuckin’ business.
“Nah,” Clark said jovially, “I just wanted to see what we were doing over here. You know. Curiosity I guess.” Clark shrugged and then realized no one could see gestures, so he finalized his statement. “I just like to go everywhere, ya know? Europe, Africa, South America, Australia. I want to see the world.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that,” an irritated voice came from the darkness. “I’ve been coming here exclusively for nine months.”
“Yeah.” Clark said, “Well, keep at it. You’ll get your seniority, and you’ll get some more freedom in your schedule. Then things get a lot more fun.”
The men grunted in approval.
Clark stood and stepped outside through the stagnant cloud of cigarette smoke. He looked into the night again, then down at the glowing dials on his Breitling watch. It had been fifty-two minutes, and he’d been sensitive to the sounds of the base the whole time. He’d heard some vehicles driving by, some loud metal scraping, some large diesel engines, and a few unidentifiable noises that could have come from anywhere, but there was no telling if he’d heard anything from the direction of the plane.
Just then a bouncing light materialized in the distance and came toward them.
They all quieted and watched the light approach. A minute later, a man stopped at the bunker. It was Vick.
“All right. We’re all clear,” he said.
Another couple flashlights approached and the men in the bunker said their goodbyes and scattered, following their designated loadmasters into the night to the waiting planes.
Clark felt a squeeze on his arm, and glanced at Vick who was walking next to him.
Vick kept his eyes forward. “We’re loading a few extra things now, and we’ve put an updated manifest on your seat. Otherwise, when we get there, I think we’ll be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”
It was done.
Clark’s pulse quickened for an instant. It was really happening. Now, he just had to not crash the plane, and it would be out of his hands. “Okay, sounds good.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. Apparently Renton and Gretchenweld were talked out.
When they reached the plane, Gretchenweld and Vick peeled off and approached the belly door, and Clark and Renton headed to the L1, and climbed up into the cockpit.
Clark picked up the updated manifest and looked at it. There was a list a mile long: Humvees. Rations. Equipment for refurbishing. Containers.
“Pfft.” He flipped through the document as if he was looking at a Chinese newspaper, and handed it to Renton.
Renton laughed and tucked it into the metal documents folder.
“All right,” Clark said, “let’s try this again.”
He pecked the buttons of the FMS with a steady hand, feeling a mixture of exhilaration and pity. Exhilaration for his future that awaited him. Pity for theirs.
He shook his head. Forty days. And that was if the ocean conditions were good and there were no delays on the railways in the States. Forty days.
It was too much to think about. For now, he only thought of a tall glass of whisky wetting his lips when this was over, and that was enough to make him content.
Chapter 2
“My dad and I used to hike up there a lot. I love it up there. . .”
And there was number four.
Wolf went back to blocking out the drone of the greasy-headed underachiever in front of him, and stared up at a spider web in the corner of the ceiling. It was high up, gently swaying on the breeze of the air conditioner vent. Too high to stretch up and swipe it away, even with Wolf’s six-foot-three reach.
At least Wolf liked that about his new office. The politics? The fact that he had to be interviewing this candidate? That he didn’t like about his new office—his new position. But the ceilings? He loved the airy and light feel of the tall space.
He could probably scoot a chair underneath it a
nd get at it. Wolf blew a puff of air out his nose as he realized how much thought he was putting into the whole thing.
“Sheriff Wolf?”
Wolf snapped back to attention and looked at the interviewee.
He was smiling at Wolf, like he wanted in on the joke. He looked to the corner of the ceiling. “Whoa, got a doozy of a web up there. Don’t they clean this place?” He laughed too loud and sat back with one arm hooked to the back of the chair. Then he wiped his nose with a sniff and crossed his leg, displaying a smudge of dirt on the knee of his jeans. The sudden movement pushed another wave of body-odor across Wolf’s desk.
Nineteen-year-old Kevin Ash, son of the new Chairman of the Town Council of Rocky Points, Charlie Ash, was a shoo-out, and Wolf had just about heard and seen enough.
The only points Wolf could give the kid on self-presentation were for the collared shirt. Unfortunately, it looked like he’d been storing the shirt in a tennis ball can for the last year and demerits for ill-fitting jeans and beyond-broken-in muddy hiking boots negated the points.
Kevin winked conspiratorially. “I’ll tell my dad they need to get someone on that.”
Then there were the shameless mentions of his father in order to help his chances of getting hired. That was the fifth. Enough.
Wolf stood up and held out his hand. “Thanks, Kevin. I’ve got your resume, and I’ll be in touch.”
A confident smile stretched across Kevin’s face as he stood.
Wolf shook his hand, walked around his desk, and pushed him gently toward the door. He opened it, and pushed him a little harder into the hall.
“Uh, I guess I’ll check in with my father, or whatever, or I’ll just wait and see—“
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll be telling your father what I think. I’ll definitely be in touch with him.”
Relief replaced worry on Kevin’s face and he strutted his way through the squad room in front of Wolf. Kevin nodded and slapped his hand on the corner of Officer Baine’s desk on the way by.