Brutal Business: Book Three in the Mad Mick Series

by Franklin Horton

  That moment of satisfaction, of pride in the effectiveness of her force, was short-lived when The Bond upped the ante. There was a pop and a whoosh followed by a powerful explosion as a soldier with an M203 grenade launcher brought it into the fight.

  “Just what we need,” Jason moaned.

  The first grenades fell short as the man with the launcher struggled to get a shot without getting his head blown off. He found his groove, and soon had the range dialed in. Each successive grenade climbed closer to Barb's firing line.

  "Keep your heads down!" she ordered.

  Inspired by the explosions that the M203 was producing, other Bond soldiers began lobbing grenades blindly over the guardrail toward the river. Each explosion, slightly muffled by the water, sent plumes skyward like fountains. Though water would minimize their effectiveness, a grenade landing too close to Wayne and Conor would shred them in a way their armor could not prevent.

  Barb scanned for the source of the grenades, hoping to focus her fire, but there were men all over the place now. Too many to keep up with. They were behind cars, shooting from the windows of buildings, behind trees, and flattened behind obstructions. How many more were there that she couldn’t see?

  Her team had to keep firing, had to keep pressure on these men, so that her dad and Wayne could get away, but their fire was less effective. The Bond soldiers were dug in and it was her team that was suddenly more vulnerable with grenades popping off and rifle rounds chewing up the ground around them.

  Then it happened. A grenade landed just feet ahead of a downed tree providing cover for several of her shooters. When it exploded, there was the whistle of flying debris. That was followed by a scream and a chorus of shouts. One man rolled to his side, clutching his face. A second toppled over silently. Yet another was holding his mangled hand above his head and praying loudly.

  Barb snapped her head toward Shannon and found the young woman paralyzed with fear. "You're on, kid! Go!"

  Shannon's terrified eyes found hers. Barb didn’t have time for reassurance and encouragement, but before she had to repeat herself the young woman choked it down. Shannon grabbed her bag and bolted toward the injured.

  Rounds were zipping all over the place, shredding the bark off trees and dropping tiny limbs from above. The opposing force had Barb’s group in their crosshairs and the tables were turned. This was when she’d start losing people. Maybe it was time to go?

  With her head already out of the game for the moment, Barb chanced a glance downward to check on her father, terrified of what she might find. She imagined him in a bloody puddle, staining the water around him. She was pleased to find that this was not the case. He was gone. Wayne too. Her instinct was to search for him, to see where he’d gotten to, but she curbed that. Her dad would be fine. He was not in the open anymore. She had work to do and she needed to get on with it.

  "There's more crossing downstream!" Jason yelled.

  With no orders to the contrary, her remaining shooters directed their fire toward a second group of men downstream pouring over the guardrail. Some had already reached the river and were taking those first icy steps to ford the river. With all fire turned in that direction, the soldiers at her old camp seized the opportunity to launch their own offensive. She might not have noticed this immediately had one of the men not been so gung ho as to take a running leap over the guardrail. His foot sank into a hole between two boulders. His body had so much forward momentum that his leg snapped immediately, the knee hinging in an entirely new direction. The soldier hung there trapped and screaming until Barb mercifully euthanized him.

  There were more targets than they could repel. They were in danger of being overrun. Barb either needed to call more shooters forward or bite the bullet and retreat. If those men climbed this hill and got in the woods around them, her people would be picked off one by one. It would be over.

  Yet she was a fighter, not a runner. Perhaps it came from her lack of experience. Just as she keyed her radio to call more shooters forward, a dozen enemy splashed through the knee-deep water, retracing the path her father and Wayne had taken moments ago. She dropped her radio and turned her rifle on the men but never had a chance to fire. Just feet from the shore there was a massive explosion that dropped all of the men. Bodies collapsed into the water, the current pulling them away, and the water running red with their blood.

  She understood now that her father had left the men a present before he made his way to safety. One of his little Mad Mick claymores with his special recipe of ball bearings, washers, and hex nuts. He hadn’t had time to rig a trip wire so he must have triggered it remotely. That meant he was alive.

  With this team eliminated from the fight, she directed all guns toward the second team attempting to cross. Taking the brunt of all the fire, those men could not find adequate cover and chose to retreat.

  “We’ve got them on the run!” Chuck yelled. “Get’em, boys!”

  Invigorated that they were back on the winning side of things, Barb’s team was overtaken by a proficiency they’d not possessed earlier. They became more confident that they could win this battle. Rather than spraying rounds to keep the enemy from advancing, her shooters were in the zone and had their targets ranged. For every man who vaulted the guardrail to safety another caught a round and went down screaming.

  Sam had been less confident of her shooting abilities at this distance. She’d been directing her fire at areas where there was a greater concentration of enemy, hoping her odds of taking someone out were improved. She put her rifle on safe and propped it up against a log. “Hand me those binoculars.”

  Jason dropped a hand and groped for them, then slid them through the leaves toward her. She pressed them to her eyes. Barb noticed her staring in a direction they hadn’t been taking fire from previously.

  “Are there more?” Barb asked. “Did they get around us?”

  Sam stood up and rushed toward Barb. Jason grabbed her, trying to pull her back behind cover, but she slipped away from him. She handed the binoculars over to Barb and directed her where to look. When Barb got the binoculars to her eyes she found her father and Wayne in a draw about fifty yards away, working their way toward them.

  They continued to take fire but it was more sporadic. Grenade fire had petered out. She suspected it was likely because they had expended the rounds they carried with them. These men had rushed into the fight and hadn’t been armed up for a prolonged engagement. She was lucky. If they’d had their trucks with them, their belt-fed weapons at their disposal, this might’ve gone another way. Then, as if invoked by her thoughts, two diesel engines started in tandem. She sensed this was exactly what she had feared. These men were not running. They were bringing their A-game.

  Barb shouted out orders. She radioed her people at the top of the hill to get the horses clear. She ordered Chuck, Sam, and the others to continue firing. She scanned down the firing line and caught Shannon working desperately with a severely injured man. Shannon gave Barb a pleading expression but Barb had no time to spare for her.

  “Jason, you’re going with me. We need to help my dad. The rest of you, start retreating up this mountain. Take turns laying down cover fire while everyone else moves backwards. If I’m right, we need to get the hell out of here immediately.”

  53

  Conor struggled up the steep slope, his legs turning to rubber and threatening to give out on him. Although the blow from the round he’d taken had knocked him flat on his ass, he was uninjured. The two sets of body armor he’d stolen from the dead Bond soldiers had been tossed over his shoulder when he was shot. The bullet meant to kill him was buried somewhere in that stack of gear.

  His elation at not having been killed though was short-lived. His clothes were soaked through from the thighs down and in the cold, breezy conditions it was extremely uncomfortable. While he didn’t think he was at risk for hypothermia, it made for a really bad day. Add to it that he was chugging up an extremely steep hill loaded down with his personal
gear, his boom bag, and the goodies they’d taken from the men they killed.

  Except for the claymore he planted on the riverbank Conor and Wayne had mostly stayed out of the fight. They had very little cover and wanted to gain distance up the slope before they engaged the enemy. If they drew fire they had nowhere to go. He was impressed at the effectiveness of Barb’s force. They’d done well to keep the enemy at bay despite the odds. It couldn’t last though. Barb’s people would be severely outgunned if The Bond could untangle their trucks and bring their best toys into the fight.

  “The Bond is...running,” Wayne gasped. “They’re...turning them back.”

  Struggling under the weight of his gear, Conor found it nearly impossible to respond. He gasped, “No.” He wasn’t convinced they were leaving. This wasn’t over.

  Wayne simply shrugged rather than waste his breath arguing about it. He was convinced The Bond had enough and was going home. When he heard the diesel engines starting up he understood exactly what Conor meant. He was wrong. The Bond wasn’t retreating. They were just running back to the house to get their big stick. When they got back the real ass-kicking would start.

  “Must suck...to be right...all the time,” Wayne croaked.

  Conor shook his head wearily. There was a highlight reel of his failures running in his head at that comment. All the times he’d been wrong. There were so many he didn’t have the wind to go into it.

  “Dad!”

  Conor snapped his head up to see Barb barreling down the slope toward him, Jason behind her. He didn’t like this one bit. The move had left them both too exposed. It was entirely unnecessary. He’d have made it up there. Eventually. Besides not having the wind to reprimand her, he was aware that he would have done the exact same thing in her situation.

  Jason ran to one side and Barb the other. They slung the personal rifles across their backs and offloaded Conor and Wayne’s burdens onto their own shoulders. They didn’t stick around for a mushy reunion and pats on the back. There was no time for that. With their fresh legs, Jason and Barb chugged back up the hill at double time, leaving Wayne and Conor shaking their heads.

  “Youth...” Conor said, too winded to take the thought anywhere.

  Wayne nodded, understanding every unsaid sentiment.

  Shed of his burden, Conor did manage to find a second wind. The hills out of the river valley were nearly vertical. Standing upright Conor could almost hold his hands out in front of him and touch the slope ahead. Running was not an option. It was more like climbing stairs. He put everything he had left into it. If The Bond had the kind of goodies on those trucks that he imagined, they needed to get as far away from here as they could.

  When they reached Barb’s firing position they found a group standing around staring at Shannon. She was crouched on the ground beside a young man with a traumatic injury to his neck. His eyes were glazed over and bright arterial blood seeped from a wound Shannon was desperately trying to pack gauze into.

  At Conor’s arrival, Shannon gave him a pleading look. He was familiar with what that expression said. She was acknowledging that everything her father had feared was correct. Despite her certainty that she was ready for this, she was discovering she was not. She was completely overwhelmed and had no idea what to do. Certainly she understood what to do from a treatment perspective. She understood the basic methods for stopping bleeding when the wound allowed for it but found herself wholly unprepared for the moral, ethical, and emotional aspects of her actions.

  “What do I do?” she begged.

  Conor began issuing orders. He wasn’t familiar with everyone’s names but instructed two men to grab the injured man and begin making their way up the hill with him. The rest of the injured could walk and he directed them to get moving.

  “Barb, get up that hill as fast as you can. Those trucks are bringing heavier guns. Get everyone on their horses and send them to the southwest.”

  “Southwest is the wrong direction,” Jason said. “Home is toward the south, then southeast.”

  “I know but I was told these men had more mortars at one point. If they do they may start shelling this hillside when they get those trucks over here. Since they can’t see us, they’ll target the logical direction, which they might assume to be the direction of the highway. We need to be going in the least logical direction, which is away from the highway. And we need to be going that way now so get moving.”

  They were approximately one hundred and fifty feet from the crest of the hill, where the horses, gear, and the rest of the men waited for them. As the group slowly worked their way up the hill, Barb was already on the radio handing out orders to her people. Conor was pleased to see the way she delegated. She hadn’t really had the opportunity to assume this role before and she was handling it well.

  “If we don’t keep pressure on that wound, he’s going to die,” Shannon said. She was sitting on her knees, surrounded by scattered medical gear and empty packaging.

  Conor dropped down beside her and urgently started packing gear into her medical bag. “He’s going to die anyway, sweetie. You know that and I know that. There’s no chopper waiting to take him to a hospital. There’s no trauma center waiting for us back home. If he’s alive when we get to the top of that hill, I’ll be surprised.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. As a father, Conor ached for her. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  This was where Conor could have said this was what her dad tried to prepare her for, why he didn’t want her to come. He didn’t say that though. He didn’t want to reinforce the notion that she wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t want her to feel incapable. He wanted to reinforce the notion that she could rise to this occasion. He wanted her to manage this situation and others like it in the future. This was a situation where being sheltered by a father could not help her. She needed confidence but she also needed truth, as harsh and ugly as it was.

  “It’s not easy and it’s not pretty but you have to triage your patients according to who you can save and who you can’t. As cold as it sounds, you have to save your supplies for the people you can fix. If that young man had been my patient, I would’ve pressed a trauma pad against his neck, held his hand if I had the time, and offered reassurance. You’re a ditch doctor, not a trauma surgeon.”

  Shannon took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, and got to her feet. Conor was pleased to see that she maintained her composure. She didn’t break down or give into any of the other flood of emotions she had to be experiencing. Although the father in him wanted to hug her, he restrained himself. She didn’t need to be sheltered or babied; she needed support and information.

  With the last of her supplies stashed in the med bag, Conor lashed it shut and grabbed her by the hand. He could hear a diesel truck moving along the riverfront street. He glanced back down the hill, onto the town, and saw two Bond trucks rolling beside each other. They were near the very spot where he and Wayne had crossed the river.

  “Run!” Conor barked.

  The pair took off up the merciless slope. He didn’t pause to check behind him again but he could hear the shouts of men and the metallic banging of gear being shifted in the beds of the trucks. He couldn’t swear to it but it sounded an awful lot like the rattle of ammo cans being pitched about. The same ammo cans used with belt-fed M60 machine guns.

  As Wayne had mentioned earlier, it was hard always being right. It was awkward in the best of times but worse when you were correct in guessing the weapon being deployed to kill you. All speculation ended when Conor heard the unmistakable racking of the charging handle. They were about to be mowed down.

  “Go! Go!” he shouted at Shannon. The crest of the hill was in sight. He keyed the mic on his radio. He was sucking wind, wheezing like a bad turbo, but he tried to form words. “Incoming...fire...now. Don’t wait...on us.”

  Conor’s full focus was on getting to the top of that hill without suffering a major cardiac event. His heart was pumping like a freight train, his ears ringing wit
h it. Shannon was already there, bent over, hands on her knees and gasping for breath. Conor was just seconds behind her and patted her on the back, urging her forward. He couldn’t stop to catch his breath or he might not get going again.

  Chaos erupted behind them when the truck-mounted weapon opened fire on the position they held just moments ago. There was the enormous report of the rounds firing accompanied by the mechanical clatter as the gun cycled. There was a flat thump as the rounds impacted the hillside, chewing anything in their path to shreds. The Bond had either not noticed that their enemy had moved or they didn’t care. He assumed that by this point they were probably tired of being kicked around and wanted to kill something.

  Nothing could keep you moving like a machine gun at your back. Conor imagined he could actually finish a marathon with that kind of inspiration. On the rounded knoll at the crest of the hill, the terrain was more forgiving and the pair sprinted for all they were worth. They hadn’t gone far before Barb came flying at them at full gallop, two saddled horses behind her. The terrified Shannon was on hers in seconds. Conor wasn’t certain if she climbed aboard using the stirrups or simply sprang onto the horse’s back, motivated by terror.

  “Go!” Barb ordered, pointing Shannon in the direction the others had gone.

  She did as she was told, bolting off on her mount. His legs spent from the climb, Conor hopped on one leg, chasing his circling horse with one foot in a stirrup, trying to find the momentum to spring onto its back.

  “Do I need to get under your arse and shove?” Barb asked. “Get with it, old man.”