by James Phelan
“Fox, I have a fix on the target closest to the door. The other seems to be lying on something to the far side. You have an easy entry,” she said over the radio. She didn’t bother identifying herself as she had long got used to being the only female member of the GSR team. There was no mistaking her voice.
“Roger that, Gibbs. When the door goes down, take him out,” Fox replied.
He and Geiger ran towards the guard box and stood either side of the door. Fox gave Geiger a nod and the ex-marine hefted his boot against the latched side, splintering the doorjamb inwards.
The first guard was playing cards at a table and looked up at the intrusion. His surprise was short-lived as his head quietly exploded in a cloud of red. Gibbs was right on the money.
The second guard was startled awake. He grabbed the assault rifle resting by his side—half a second too late as Fox squeezed a three-round burst from his silenced MP5.
“Gatehouse secure,” Sefreid called over the radio.
“Guard box secure,” Fox followed. Geiger was peering out the open windows for any potential threats.
“Grounds clear to the south,” Gibbs called through.
“Grounds clear north,” said Goldsmith.
“Beasley, how’s the transmission hut?” Fox asked of the last member unaccounted for.
“Job done, boss. Want me to head over now?” Beasley asked in his laid-back way.
“Thanks, Beasley, we move when you get here.”
Fox looked out the door, hoping the next assault would reunite him with his best friend.
25
ITALY
Popov awoke before the sun rose. Since he was a small boy he had suffered mild insomnia that left him with a pale, sickly appearance. Whenever he did manage to get some sleep—normally a few disjointed sessions through the night—he experienced a few moments of alarmed disorientation upon waking.
He lay motionless in the draughty room until he remembered where he was. He got up, pulled on his trousers and suit jacket and urgently made his way to the toilet outside.
The house was dark, the only light a dull illumination from outside coming in through the curtainless windows. Popov half ran for the back door, collecting his shin against a low-lying table on the way. He gritted his teeth, hobbled out of the back door and looked around in the dark morning haze.
Finding the small outhouse toilet, he fumbled hastily with the latch, dashed in and sat down— and none too soon. He reached forward and locked the battered old timber door, a contented smile settling on his face.
Beasley arrived at the guard box as Fox and Geiger were exiting. The headless guard had been heaped onto the other who lay on a small cot bed; a pool of blood trickled to the centre of the dirty concrete floor. Fox had thrown the dead men’s assault rifles on the roof of the structure, so they wouldn’t be found in a hurry in the event the position was lost.
“Wow,” was all Beasley said at the sight before him.
“This is Fox. We’re ready,” Fox said over the radio to the other members of the GSR team positioned around the compound.
“Copy that, Fox,” Sefreid responded. “Let’s move!”
Goldsmith and Pepper had entered the compound the long way, through the pine plantation and over the tall wire fence. Now they were moving in a crouched run through the spindly trees to the northeast, making as little noise as possible. Halfway there, the deep growls and barks of large dogs broke the silence of the night and their stealthy approach.
“Damn!” Goldsmith said as he and Pepper sprinted to neutralise the sound.
Sefreid and Ridge heard the dogs as they were quietly making their way to the main house. They picked up their pace.
“Gibbs, do you have a line on the kennel?” Sefreid asked.
Gibbs could barely hear the dogs from where she lay, but swept her rifle in the direction she knew the kennel to be.
“Negative, no sight line on the kennel,” she replied.
Fox and Geiger were making their way around the back of the motorbike garage when they heard the dogs and subsequent transmissions between the other team members. Fox nodded at Geiger and the pair split up—Fox set to enter the rear door of the main house, Geiger moving to flank the barracks.
“I’m in position,” Fox announced and waited for the others to do the same.
In the barracks, the dog handler rolled out of bed and donned a coat. He did not bother picking up a weapon as he knew the dogs would be barking at a fox, as quite often happened in the early morning. He went out into the darkness to give them a scolding.
Popov, too, heard the barking. He had a mutual understanding with these particular dogs—he didn’t like them and they didn’t like him. Earlier in life he had been the one bullied and picked on; now he looked forward to poking a stick through the cage at them when he had finished his business.
Pepper—now at the edge of the tree line with Goldsmith—saw the guard approach the kennel, a large caged area with some timber sleeping boxes to one side. From his position downwind he could smell the stench of the dogs’ faeces in the seldom-cleaned pen. He and Goldsmith shouldered their weapons.
“We have a target moving towards the kennel,” Goldsmith whispered.
“Take him down,” Sefreid ordered.
“Shut up!” the dog handler yelled in Russian to his animals, but they only barked more, in the direction of the trees. The handler glanced over, but could see nothing but darkness. He unlocked the latch, commanding the dogs to be quiet.
Goldsmith had fallen in love with his weapon during his five years spent with the US Navy SEALS. He got down on one knee and held the pistol grip with both hands as he aimed the cross-haired sight on the target’s torso. An eight-centimetre bolt flew from the compact crossbow with incredible power and silence and pierced the man’s chest, dropping him to the ground.
“Target down,” Goldsmith called as he holstered the crossbow to his thigh and picked his M16 up off the ground. He and Pepper ran for the kennels.
Sefreid and Ridge reached the corner of the main house and peered in a window—an empty bedroom. They continued towards the front door, crouching along the side of the building. Once they were in position at the front door, Sefreid called into his mike: “Fox, we’re ready to go.”
“Let’s do it!”
At both ends of the house the doors were kicked in.
Goldsmith and Pepper were halfway to the kennel when the dogs got out. There were three of them and Goldsmith could see with his night-vision goggles that one had some crude gauze bandaging around its snout.
The three Alsatians bounded towards them, vicious teeth bared for attack.
Goldsmith took his crossbow from its Velcro strap and fired another stainless steel bolt. It missed the bounding dogs now speeding closer towards them. The next shot hit the lead Alsatian, now only fifteen metres away, tunnelling its way through the dog’s hindquarter. It fell, spasming and yelping, but the other two dogs bounded by without even noticing, intent on the kill.
Popov heard the injured dog’s whimpering and smiled, thinking the dog handler must have given it a hiding. Satisfied, he began feeling around in the dark for some toilet paper.
Inside the house, Fox scanned everywhere. He was momentarily startled to see two figures in front of him across the main room, then relieved a millisecond later as he noticed the fluorescent neck straps.
Sefreid motioned to Fox to check the two rooms closest, whilst he would do the same in the rooms near him. Ridge was to check just one room and then cover the others.
Geiger used a small mirror—not unlike that used by a dentist, only on a long extendable stem—to see into the barracks room via the rear windows. Everybody inside appeared asleep. He pushed the mirror into a pouch in his Kevlar vest and ran, crouching, under the window line to the other side of the building and the only door.
Goldsmith loaded another three-bolt clip into the top of his crossbow. The dogs were nearly
on top of them.
Pepper hefted his big M60 machine gun above his head and, using it like a club, swung at the Alsatian as it leaped at him. It moved with the blow and lunged again, this time getting past the machine gun and sinking its teeth into Pepper’s forearm. The large man grunted in pain and punched the dog off him. It snarled even more ferociously, blood dripping from its fangs.
Goldsmith pulled back on the lever that moved the heavy duty firing cord of the crossbow into its primed position. He looked up in time to see the other Alsatian begin its leap through the air, its gaping gauzed mouth aimed at his jugular. He raised the crossbow to fire, but the force of the dog’s weight knocked it from his hand and it discharged into the air as the dog brought him down.
Rolling around, he saw his M16 to the left and lunged for it. The dog bit fiercely into his face.
Nearby, Pepper took another swipe at the dog attacking him, but it was too fast, skirting his blow and moving in for the kill.
In the main house, the GSR team could just hear the attacking dogs above the kicking-down of doors.
The first room Fox entered was occupied by a sleeping hulk of a man snoring under a blanket, the old steel-frame bed buckling under his weight. He stirred at the noise and looked up at Fox, who must have appeared like death itself in his black fatigues and face paint, night-vision goggles pro-truding from his face and MP5 levelled out.
Fox noticed the man glancing from him to a pistol on the bedside table. He quickly squeezed the MP5’s trigger. Three rounds spat from the silenced submachine gun into the man’s forehead.
Geiger had the door to the barracks covered and was waiting for Goldsmith and Pepper to arrive. He could hear the dogs’ snarling over in the direction he expected his two team-mates to come from.
“Geiger to Goldsmith, I’m in position. What’s the hold-up?” he asked.
Goldsmith couldn’t see or hear anything. The Alsatian had torn off his night-vision goggles and his earpiece when it attacked his face. Now all he could see was darkness as his eyes took their time to adjust. Two lines of blood ran down his cheeks where the dog’s bottom canines had pierced the flesh.
“Doug, I can’t see!” he called out to Pepper, who had answered Geiger’s radio call, saying they would be there soon.
Turning around, Pepper saw his fallen comrade. The dog spat out Goldsmith’s goggles, freeing its jaws for another attack.
“The hell with this!” Pepper said, and pointing his machine gun at the dog, he squeezed the trigger.
Popov opened the toilet door a little to let in some fresh air. Finding only an empty roll of toilet paper on the floor, he was deciding what to do next when the sound of heavy machine-gun fire ripped through the still morning. Stunned, he looked out the door, wondering who was shooting at what.
The dog was snapping at Goldsmith’s jugular as he reached for the pistol in his hip holster. He was still pulling it out when Pepper’s M60 roared to life and the dog was cut down. Again the gun roared, then Pepper came over to Goldsmith and easily hefted the smaller man up by the arm.
Sefreid was kicking in his second door when he heard the distinctive sound of Pepper’s M60—and thought he and Goldsmith must be rounding up the men in the barracks.
The first room Sefreid had checked was empty, but the bed had been slept in and was still warm to touch. He warned the others over their headsets that there may be someone loose in the house, but thought it was probably the man who had gone to the kennels earlier.
In the second room, the occupant awoke at the sound of the gunfire, only to be knocked unconscious by a blow to the head from Sefreid’s rifle.
Geiger was running back from his vulnerable position to the cover of the main house when he heard the M60 fire. It would surely rouse the occupants of the barracks.
“We’re on our way!” Pepper’s booming voice came over his radio earpiece.
The door to the barracks flew open and two figures came out into the dark morning. They were wearing hastily donned fatigues and each had an AK-47 assault rifle raised to his shoulder, scanning for a target.
They were both looking in the direction of the gunfire, away from the corner of the house where Geiger was located. He sighted them up and squeezed the trigger of his M16 twice in quick succession. The sharp crack-crack felled the two guards in front of him.
“Two targets down,” Geiger called over the radio. “I could use some help, guys!”
The windows of the barracks smashed out and the flaming tongues of fully automatic fire pointed everywhere. Geiger loosed another well-aimed shot through a timber window frame and wounded a guard in the neck.
Sefreid had just called “All clear!” to the others in the house when they heard the firefight outside.
Ridge tied the semi-conscious guard up in one of the bedrooms and stood by him, intimidating the man with his combat knife. Fox had made a second search of the house in vain. Gammaldi was nowhere to be seen.
“Geiger, this is Sefreid. Fox and I are on our way,” Sefreid said as he ran out the front door.
Fox looked at the man tied up and turned to Ridge. “Find out what they’ve done with him,” he said coolly as he made for the back door.
Ridge stood over the man, holding his knife out so that it glinted in the minimal moonlight.
Popov was glad he had gone to the toilet when he had. Peeking through the partially opened outhouse door, he listened to the assortment of gunshots and watched as a large black-clad figure ran out the back door of the house and took cover at the side.
He pulled up his trousers and readied himself to run.
Fox crouched next to Geiger behind the cover of the main house. Wild shots flew from the barracks in every direction, the guards not game enough to go out the door or get too close to the windows. Geiger took a quick look at Fox’s face and knew he had not found his friend in the house.
“There are five left in the barracks by my reckoning,” Geiger said. “Think Gammaldi may be in there?”
“We can’t take a chance in case he is,” Fox replied. “Gibbs?” he called over the radio.
“I’m on my way, Fox,” Gibbs said as she ran along the runway and climbed some stacked crates that allowed her access to the roof of the hangar. Whilst her position on the roof of the transmission building had been the highest point in the compound, the hangar had blocked her view of a couple of the buildings. On hearing the firefight and Geiger’s call for assistance, she had taken the initiative to move.
On one side of the main house, Sefreid fired short bursts from his silenced MP5 into the barracks, ensuring that the guards inside kept their heads down.
“Goldsmith, Pepper, what’s your position?” he barked as a few bullets shredded the timber near his head.
“We’re covering the rear of the barracks,” Goldsmith said over the headsets.
“Gibbs, talk to me,” Sefreid said as a burst of bullets tore into the ground near him.
“Just a sec,” Gibbs responded as she dived and slid along the roof to its edge, sighting her rifle as she went. She was just in range to use her thermal scope setting.
“Okay, I have five figures in the barracks; repeat, five in the barracks.” As she spoke she steadied her long rifle.
“Gibbs, are they all aggressive?” Fox’s voice came over the radio.
She looked through her scope, silent a moment.
“I’m just out of range to be absolutely sure,” she said. “You think Gammaldi’s in there?”
“Could be,” Fox admitted.
“Okay, everybody, listen up,” Sefreid ordered. “Call out the known targets for Gibbs to fire on!”
“Okay. We have one southeast window,” Geiger called over the radio.
Gibbs sighted up the red shaded blob in the designated area. With gentle pressure on the trigger, her rifle fired silently. Only the split-second mechanical sound of the bolt recoiling and driving another bullet into the chamber was audible. The empty cartrid
ges were collected in a specially made canvas pouch.
The large bullet went through the timber wall of the barracks as if it were cardboard, and the vertical shape in her scope changed to a motionless horizontal one.
“Target down!” she confirmed for everyone’s benefit.
“Northeast window and—” A short burst of gunfire came from Sefreid’s position. “North window, a target in each!”
Gibbs sighted up the first target. With a loud whack! the bullet passed through the tin roof and the target fell.
“One down,” she said calmly and sighted again. Whack!—this time the bullet did not hit its target. Whack!—still the figure remained standing. Something was absorbing her bullets.
“I’m still getting fire from the northeast corner!” Sefreid yelled over the radio.
Gibbs got up on one knee to increase the angle of attack and fired again—whack! whack! whack!— then the eight-round magazine of her sniper rifle was empty.
“Damn!” she said as she opened one of the pockets on her pants.
All firing stopped for a moment and Sefreid looked around the corner. The gunman from the northeast corner was no longer there.
“Goldsmith, you lay down cover fire to the rear of the barracks,” he said. “Pepper, cover my approach to the door!”
He ran under the heavy suppressing fire from the M60, which splintered high around the roof line of the barracks.
“Geiger, meet me with a flash-bang!” Sefreid called as he approached the door.
“On my way!” Geiger responded.
He ran towards the door of the barracks, assault rifle leading the way. From behind, Fox closed in slowly, scanning the windows as he went.