by Chris Lowry
Man had fought hard to wallow out of the lizard brain or at least control the response to it.
One of those men detached from the edge of the stream bank, an apex predator in his own right. He is covered with jungle foliage, face painted to match the ground, an H&K G3 gripped tightly in his hands. He carefully picked his way across the rocks and moved upstream.
Two other soldiers similarly clad and armed appeared in the stream behind him and followed, and then another two.
Five members of a six man Recce squad sneaked up the stream.
They were on a man hunter mission, tasked with recovering a high value target that had been taken by rebel forces, with assistance from Chinese or Russian nationals. Part of their job was to determine who the rebels were working with on this mission, and eliminate that pipeline.
The sixth man was further back. He kept close to the edge of the stream bank as he let the ferns and low hanging branches slip over his utility vest and backpack. He moved slowly, gun pressed to his shoulder. His eyes roamed all over the jungle, his teammates in front of him, the opposite bank. He was keyed up, they all were. Their movements were tense, slow and controlled.
Brill reached a rock and slipped down in the water. His job was to provide cover fire and keep a sight line on the shadowed defiles that scarred both sides of the stream. It was a great site for an ambush and the men knew it.
They also knew the men they were hunting were aware of it too.
Sanders was on point. He reached a fallen log that stretched across the stream and held up a meaty fist. His teammates faded to the edges of the stream but didn't hide against the banks. He stepped over the log, straddled it.
Eight figures popped out of the cliffs, four on each side. They opened fire in short controlled bursts. It was a bloodbath.
The rebels had been coached. Under normal conditions, rebel fighters relied on a spray and pray method in a firefight, meaning they depressed the trigger and kept going until the magazine emptied. They screamed to ancestor gods, God or Allah to help make their aim fly true, but none of the deities accounted for blow back which caused the barrels of their rifles to rise. All Recce's learned to duck as soon as you heard a bullet, or even a buzzing insect by your ear which could denote a bullet, because the Rebels would almost always fire over your head as the barrel lifted up.
It allowed a few seconds to take aim and fire, and after thousands of hours at the range, a few seconds was all these operators needed.
These were not normal conditions.
The rebels fired in short controlled bursts from high ground and decimated the scouting team. Bodies flopped into the stream and floated up against the fallen log. They didn't even get a chance to fire back.
Rage washed over Brill. He raised his rifle and prepared to charge. But waited. Something held him back. Perhaps it was the silence of the jungle or the chattering laughter of the eight rebel soldiers as they slid down the embankment and started to pilfer the bodies.
Brill drew a breath in through is nose, slowly blew it out of his mouth. He lined up on the first rebels head, and inched his rifle through an arc as he practiced the movement.
He moved back to the first rebel, a tall soldier that looked like a teenager. Brill popped a round through his eye socket. The rifle barked again, seven more times in less than four seconds.
Eight rebel bodies bobbed in the jungle stream.
Brill squatted in the water and waited.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Foster rooted underneath the passenger seat and released a Stanley thermos. He unscrewed the top and poured a small cup of cafe con leche. He sniffed the steam and sipped the hot liquid slowly.
“He waited until dark, checked the radio. It was shot, ruined. He went to the extraction point- they never showed up.”
“They never found his team?”
“The Russians had a man on the inside of command. Worked with the rebels and the Recce logistics.”
“A double payday.”
“He didn't get a chance to spend it.”
“Brill found him,” said Foster grimly.
“That's why he became a killer? Cause no one came to pick him up”
“What's your excuse?”
“I am a material girl and it is a material world.”
“That was a song right? Long time ago?”
“I was trying to keep it to your time line.”
“Thanks for that,” said Foster.
“So how did you find him?”
“The same way I found you.”
“I found you.”
“Exactly. In our line of work, it's rather difficult to walk up to someone and just ask.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ron watched Brill from the corner of her eye as they bounced along the jungle road.
“I can tell you're not asleep you know,” she teased. “Your eyes aren't moving.”
“I'm resting,” he said.
“Wake up and talk to me. You pretending to sleep is making me sleepy and I need to stay up. Help keep me awake.”
“I'll practice my listening skills.”
“My name is Veronica. My friends call me Ron. What's your name?”
“Bob. I'm Bob.”
“Hi Bob, glad to meet you. Bob. Is that short for Robert?”
“Just Bob.”
“Parents a little short on imagination when it comes to names, huh? No worries. I'm sure they had other attributes. Did you get your conversational skills from them?”
“From my grandfather. It's an inherited trait, skips a generation.”
“Ha!” she laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wallace furrowed his brow and he glared at the road.
“But you made me tell you my name.”
“Let's just say I learned my lesson.”
“From him?”
“Him and others,” said Foster. He poured a second cup of coffee.
“You going to offer me any of that?” asked Wallace.
“I told you to be prepared for the trip.”
“Yeah, but I thought we would stop somewhere along the way.”
“We will stop “somewhere along the way” as you so eloquently put it. That somewhere will be our destination.”
“But I'm hungry.”
“Then it is well I am only drinking and not eating.”
“I'm thirsty too.”
“Forethought is an attribute in our business, and one I recommend you embrace heartily. What would you do if you were in a sniper hole for four days waiting for a kill.”
Wallace gripped the wheel with both hands. His knuckles grew white as he gripped the wheel.
“I would plan my approach better than waiting four days,” he snapped.
Foster ignored the anger in his voice.
“So how long before he told you his name?” Wallace asked after a moment as he tried to reengage the conversation. He ignored the tantalizing cinnamon smell of coffee that filled the car. His stomach did not and rumbled.
“I don't think he ever has.”
“His name's not Wingfield?”
“We were driving to a meet in Memphis one time, doing an assignment for the Dixie Mafia as they moved drugs up from New Orleans to Chicago. He was driving and we passed an exit sign that was an exact match for his name. Brilliant Wingfield.”
“That's a pretty big tell.”
“I have heard a trace of the South in his voice, but this narrowed the region down. I asked. He did not want to discuss further.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ron kept one eye on the road, one hand on the wheel, and stole glances out of the corner of the other to see if Brill would stir and keep talking.
“What do you do in Mexico?”
“Wander.”
“Does wandering pay the bills? How do you eat?”
He sat up with a stifled groan and studied the road for a second. His head swiveled around to the van, the road behind them and back to where
they were going.
“Do you always ask this many questions?” he tried a grin on and it felt okay so he kept it.
“Knowledge is power,” she grinned back.
Brill's smile turned cryptic and wistful. She noticed.
“What? Did you remember a joke? I love jokes.”
“A friend used to tell me that a lot.”
“He must be a smart man.”
“One of the best,” Brill agreed.
She nodded.
“I know a few of those. The world is full of great people if you know what you're looking for. Speaking of great people, we're close to some friends of mine and I was going to crash with them tonight. There's room for you. They won't mind.”
Brill flinched as they hit a pothole in the road.
“I don't want to impose,” he sucked in air and gasped.
“They won't mind, really. It's that kind of place. I'll vouch for you. Just don't be an asshole and we're good.”
“What if I can't make any promises?” he joked.
She hit another pothole and he gasped again.
“You don't look so good Mr. Wanderer.”
“I'm okay,” he sighed.
Ron didn't believe him but they were close to camp.
She decided to save the debate and pulled off the jungle road to a well-worn path.
The jungle pressed in on the small van. She bumped along for a hundred yards or so, and Brill cringed with each pothole. He gasped for breath, but kept a stoic look on his face.
Ron pulled the van into a semi-circle of camper buses and RV's pulled around a cleared communal area with a fire pit and tables set up under tarps. It looked like a hippie commune transplanted to the middle of the jungle, with long haired granola people being busy with plants, cooking and the general upkeep of camp life in the jungle.
Brill took it all in through slit eyes.
Even the sentries on top of a couple of the campers who stared out at the jungle with AR-15's and AK-47's held loosely at hand.
“Home sweet home,” Ron called.
“You live here?” he wheezed.
“Once upon a time,” she answered.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They slid into a stop in front of a tiger striped old school bus from the 70's that had been converted into a camper. Brill noted the men on top of the vehicles as they turned their way, not quite lifting their rifles, but wary just the same.
Ron hopped of the driver's side the van and greeted three people who spilled out of the bus. They wrapped up in a group hug, a tangle of arms and hair and smiles.
Brill got flashes of the newcomers. They didn't look like hippies. They were young, grad students maybe, or of that age where idealism met revolutionary fervor and planted the seeds of hope for a change. He had been there once, long ago. They wore khaki fatigues, most likely second hand from surplus shops or else shipped down by parents or friends from the United States. The clothing was used, but not well worn, which meant it had never seen any real action, just traveled from a Quartermaster Corps somewhere and ended up in the jungle.
“Amigos!” he heard Ron shout. “Mi familia.”
She broke away and hugged each in turn starting with Scooter. Brill dismissed him on sight. He was lean to the point of emaciation, with long stringy hair and a scraggly beard. He tugged at his hair and put the end in his mouth to suck on as he stared through small round glasses he felt gave him an intellectual air.
“We wondered where you were,” he said in a nasally voice.
“Hung up an Quixtapa.”
“We missed you,” said Dana, a solid squat red head with Irish green eyes and linebacker shoulders.
“Are you staying?”
“Just for the night,” said Ron. “I've got a deadline in San Diego.”
“Stay longer than a night,” Scooter pleaded.
“Can't hermano. I wish I could.”
The third was Enrique, an handsome man with a face that hinted of Spanish heritage.
“What did you bring us?”
“A wanderer like me,” she answered. “He's banged up, bleeding. He won't let me look at it though.”
Dana's face morphed over to that of a concerned mother. She gazed through the windshield at Brill with soft eyes.
“Want me to talk to him?”
Brill opened the door and they watched him as he pulled himself out of the passenger seat and held himself up by the door. He sucked in a breath, and stepped toward the group.
Scooter extended a sweaty palm.
“You staying with us tonight too, brother?”
Brill reached out for the hand but missed. He was surprised. Normally he was pretty good at handshakes, as simple as they were. And standing. He had years of practice with that. Standing was easy. Just keep your feet apart and braced and balance. So why was it so hard right now, and how was it getting dark so fast?
He missed the hand and fell to the earth hard.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The key to waking up in a strange room is to try and maintain the pretense of sleep and allow a moment to acclimate. Brill didn't flick open his eyes, or try to jump out of bed or call out. None of the things people do in movies, even though it would seem to be a normal reaction.
He became aware of sounds first, coming to him from down a long tunnel. They were muffled voices. He controlled his breathing, and slit open his eyes and tried not to squint at the light.
The room was gray, with a window that stared out at a brick wall. The steady beep of a heart monitor matched the rush of blood in his ears. The murmurs came from the corner so he turned his head and cracked one eye open just a little.
Foster spoke with a blood-stained surgeon. The doctor was Turkish, a bushy mustache bounced as he explained something to Foster. His scrubs and gown were covered with blood.
They both noticed his head move. Foster looked like he hadn't slept for days, his normally meticulous suit was rumpled, bags under his sunken eyes.
“Can you hear me?”
He nodded. The voice still sounded muffled, but overpowered the rush of blood in his pounding head.
“Did I get the mark?” he whispered.
He must have said it softly, but Foster still put a hand on the butt of a pistol under his arm and glanced at the doctor.
The man hadn't heard.
“It's better we discuss that later,” said Foster. “You gave us a scare.”
Brill moved his head back painfully and glanced down at his body. He wiggled the fingers on his right hand and felt them, all five, and did the same for his left hand and then ten toes.
All was accounted for and all ached. Foster probably had them ease up on the morphine just so he wouldn't let a nugget of information slip. His body was wrapped up like the mummy, the bandages tight against his skin. Skin that ached just as bad as his muscles.
“Well Doctor?” asked Foster picking up the conversation Brill interrupted with a shift of his head.
“He will recover, I think. We are through the worst of it now. Let us see how he is after some rest.”
The doctor hurried out of the room, his mind already on the next patient he had to visit.
“Success?” asked Brill now that they were alone.
“They sent in a kamikaze. What do you remember?”
Brill shook his head, but it hurt too much to move far. Just a micro movement really, a fraction of an inch to the left, a fraction of an inch to the right.
“You got the mark,” Foster answered. He placed a hand on Brill's shoulder. “Get some rest and I'll be back later.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The world looks different viewed through cross hairs. It's an extreme example of tunnel vision. A good sniper is taught the power of focus, a great sniper combines speed with precision.
Brill leaned against of row of boxes five feet back from a window that looked out over a set of row houses in Ireland.
The day was gray and cloudy, threatened rain that had yet to fall.
&nbs
p; He's comfortable in jeans and a canvas work coat, looking like every other blue collar worker that populated the street below. A couple of young kids played and yelled as they batted around a worn soccer ball.
He settled the stock against his shoulder and watched the world through scope, his breath low and controlled.
A British Army Transport paused in the street to let the kids clear out before it rumbled past. They yelled and flipped off the soldiers.
The radio headset in his ear crackled.
“Shadowboxer?”
“Go,” he said.
“They're breaking up.”
“Confirmed. Now go.”
He shifted the barrel of the rifle to a short stout young man standing on the corner. He's dressed in jeans and a jacket that looked a lot like what he was wearing. The man started walking away from the building and just before he turned the corner, he glanced up at the half open window where Brill was hiding.
“Damn it,” Brill sighed.
He pulled a silenced pistol from his pocket and placed it on a box in front of him.
“Spotter,” he said into the radio.
“Yeah? Go.”
“You just gave me away.”
“No one noticed. I swear,” the man said nervously. “Abort?”
Brill studied the street. The kids still played. Walkers walked. Everything looked the exact same. Maybe he had gotten lucky.
“Sir?” the Spotter asked again.
“Negative. Proceed to pick up.”
He continued the mission.
The Spotter walked ten yards up the street and passed an alley way. Two goons jumped him and dragged him through the trash and behind a dumpster. The taller one, Danny pulled a pistol from his jacket and shot the young man in the back of the head.