Reflexive Fire - 01

by Jack Murphy

  “At the battalion level I want one mortar section and one anti-tank section, manned and ready to begin training once the necessary equipment arrives. Until then have these men continue to train as assaulters.”

  The meeting went on deep into the night with Deckard outlining what would be the battalion's new Table of Organization and Equipment before launching into weapons and equipment procurement and requests, living facility upgrades, training schedules, and attracting and recruiting more Kazakh veterans to the unit, until he realized it was nearly four in the morning.

  Everyone was grateful when the sun finally began to crest the horizon and break the oppressive cold that lingered in their bones. Even with their bodies warmed up from running several miles, the cold stung at their faces. Somehow, Deckard couldn't help but feel that he was the only one who wasn't used to it.

  The dusty road seemed to go on across the steppe forever until finally the firing range could be seen in the distance. Alibek, the Alpha Company Second Platoon Sergeant, took the lead by picking up one of his privates and slinging him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

  Deckard followed suit, picking up the nearest Kazakh mercenary, a private named Oraz. He was one of the younger troops in the platoon, but like the others he had the Asiatic features typical of many Kazakhs. Once the entire platoon had paired up, Alibek took off running towards the range. Again, the American was impressed with the level of leadership shown by the young military veterans he had under his command.

  Maybe it was the culture. Maybe it was a meal ticket.

  Whatever they may have lacked in hard skills, they made up for in enthusiasm. It was no fault of their own that their military wasn't as developed as in the West, but then again, maybe it was an asset. The technology and bureaucracy of modern armies often led to a loss of focus on combat proficiency.

  Quadriceps burning, he was relieved when Sergeant Alibek finally set his partner down halfway to the range and switched positions. Oraz hefted Deckard's weight with a grunt and began charging down the road. Finally they arrived at the shooting complex, little more than flat ground with some stakes stuck in the dirt to indicate range fans and meter distances, every member of the platoon with a cloud of hot steam coming off their bodies.

  Alibek began shouting commands in Kazakh and pointing to the targets posted down range. Deckard needed no translation and simply followed along as the mercenaries began loading magazines and racking the charging handles of their AK-47s.

  The next twenty minutes were spent sprinting across the range in buddy teams, bounding while the other remained in over watch, laying down a suppressive fire on targets. Next, they repeated the same maneuver in four-man fire teams, Deckard joining in with an odd group of three. The drills continued until each soldier had expended sixty rounds on the targets down range, not much but for now it was their allotment.

  Alibek and his peers made an impressive display of making the best with what little they had, but Deckard knew it was going to take a lot more for them to pull off what he had in mind.

  “No, dammit, that's not what I want!”

  Rapid fire Russian was spat back and forth on the other end of the line.

  “Hold on,” Deckard sighed, picking up the other phone.

  “Samruk International?”

  “Yes, this is O'Brien.”

  “This is Raul Fernandez. My supplier is inquiring about end user certificates for the merchandise, and we are already at the loading bay with three pallets. I-”

  “Is this about the surplus GME-FMK2-MO grenades that Argentina dumped in your country and you've been trying to sell at marked up prices to the Iraqis for the last three years?”

  “Um, well-”

  “Yeah, I know about that. Listen, you tell those fuckers that the Ministry of Defense provides the EUCs, not myself or Samruk. They have already been forwarded to your people, and I have a signature of delivery, so you need to start communicating with them.”

  “I will call them immediately after I hang up, but we still have the issue of-”

  Fernandez rattled on about the HAZMAT reportable quantity of Research Developed Explosives and the proper markings and packing materials for the pallets while Deckard stared at his email's inbox. It was filling up at an alarming rate, with messages from manufacturers and dealers all over the world.

  These days Deckard's credit card had a triple A rating that went straight to the top. Some items would be procured in a more clandestine manner through front companies, but for some of the major end items, there just wasn't time for any kind of elaborate subterfuge.

  The voice on the second cell phone switched from Russian back to English.

  “Give me a second here, Fernandez,” Deckard ordered, grabbing the line with the Russians on the other end.

  “What's the deal Niko?”

  “We have agreed to your proposal for the AK-103 rifles, Mr. O'Brien; however we request that you also buy the corresponding M43 ammunition, using us as your broker.”

  “Which plant do you go through?”

  “The old factory 21.”

  “Copper washed steel?”

  “Green lacquer.”

  “I also need T-45 green tracer.”

  Niko paused. “How about type Z red tracer?”

  “Good enough.”

  “Sounds like a deal, and listen, tell your brother I need someone to source some M-23 vests.”

  “How many?”

  “About a battalion's worth.”

  “Fuck.”

  “You can't do it?”

  “Uh, give me two days.”

  “Alright, Niko, don't fuck me on that ammunition. I want you to test fire each lot number before you ship.”

  “Yes, Kommisar.”

  “No one likes a smart ass,” Deckard said before hanging up and going back to Fernandez.

  “Fernandez, you track down those EUCs yet?”

  “My secretary is faxing them to our export control office right now.”

  “Good, let me know if you find those Portuguese commando mortars I asked about, okay?”

  “No problem, Mr. O'Brien.”

  Deckard hung up and turned back to his laptop. He was making international arms dealers shit themselves with delight these days.

  Beginning with the first emails, Deckard began to work his way through his inbox. There were emails from a guy who ran a small business in North Carolina sewing together custom nylon gear for Special Forces teams at Ft. Bragg. Samruk needed some chest rigs made for their sniper and recon troops that couldn't be sourced elsewhere.

  There were a few more messages from the manufacturer of holographic reflex gun sights. Deckard had put in a mass order several days ago. They wanted the business, but now his order was competing for space on the factory floor with several government contracts. With Deckard sweetening the deal, the owner agreed to run his workers on twenty-four hour shifts until his order was fulfilled.

  Next came emails from a representative of Glock in Austria. After attempting to go through an Italian arms dealer, Deckard ran into a wall when he discovered the guy had actually been jailed by Interpol for a dirty deal he acted as the agent for between the Chinese owned Liho Inc. and the Libyan Government. Not willing to waste more time, he was now going directly to the source, and they were not fucking around with the letter of credit transaction or insurance costs for shipping.

  There were more messages from South Africa about 40mm grenades and an American based company building PKM machine guns with titanium frames, but it was the misspelled email from a textile plant in Wujiang City that really gave Deckard a headache.

  Most First World military forces now outsourced production of their uniforms to China, and through several contacts, Deckard had managed to find one textile plant that was printing off rolls of fabric for Canadian desert uniforms as well as Italian 'vegetato' woodland camouflage fabric. Mr. Yao had understood that once the freight forwarder sent the bill of lading to the textile company's bank, the documen
ts would then be forwarded to Deckard's accountant and the monetary transaction would then occur.

  Now he was asking for a down payment. Deckard was already paying a huge overhead for Yao to source and supervise the cutting and sewing of the fabric by a third source. He had contemplated having the fabric shipped to Tamil Nadu where the old ladies could take some time off from sewing lingerie and deliberately trashing pairs of jeans to make them look more trendy for American kids and construct the uniforms. Once again it was an issue of time.

  He just didn't know how much or how little he had.

  “Why have you fucking done this!” Djokovic hissed. “I already had an arrangement.”

  Deckard's Executive Officer had cornered him coming out of his office.

  “Regarding?” Deckard said, refusing to allow himself to be baited out.

  “You know what,” the Serb practically spat. “The AK-47s I ordered.”

  “That was a bad call,” Deckard shot back. “The Century Arms AK-103 rifles are superior to those Bulgarian made ones you had your eye on.”

  Djokovic's resistance proved to Deckard what he had already suspected.

  “I had made deal!”

  “And I canceled it.”

  “You are still new here, O'Brien. It is not good idea for you to make trouble.”

  “Tough titties. I run this outfit and I'll be damned if I have my boys running around half-cocked carrying rifles made with frames that are not properly riveted and will fall apart in a year.”

  The truth was that Deckard had made some phone calls regarding his second in command. His real name was Dejan Serbedzija, wanted by the International Criminal Courts for war crimes in the Balkans. He knew he recognized him from somewhere but couldn't quite place him until now. Deckard had been part of a task force charged with apprehending several war criminals in the region years ago.

  Of course after the UN brokered cease fire, all that went away. The under-the-table deal for peace was amnesty for many of those responsible for the ethnic cleansing that had taken place. Since then Serbedzija had bounced around, a no-job to dirty gun for hire.

  The Serb sneered at Deckard. Clearly the conversation was not going as Serbedzija had expected.

  Now he also understood his irrational argument for the Bulgaria deal. He could only be this passionate about such a non-issue if he was getting kickbacks from the manufacturer.

  “You had better watch yourself,” Serbedzija said, turning on his heel and skulking off.

  Deckard smirked.

  He knew the corporate offices would never let him fire the Serb. He was clearly a plant put inside Samruk by the old men at the Grove to keep tabs on Deckard and what he was up to.

  No, he couldn't fire him, but he could sure as hell arrange a friendly fire incident.

  As the Serbian war criminal must know from personal experience, the best place to hide a murder is on the battlefield.

  Six

  The long drive into Astana had given Deckard plenty of time to think, and the more he thought about it the more he was convinced it was time to take a closer look at Samruk International.

  Driving his company-issued BMW all the way into the capital on Sofeivskoe Highway, he passed by the bazaar and the train yard, noticing that signs of industry and construction were everywhere. The expected Soviet-era apartment blocks or micro-royans were nowhere to be seen. Instead it reminded Deckard of a developing city like Dohuk at first glance, but with its own Central Asian twist.

  Crossing a newly built overpass, he could see a large steel arch, smaller but similar to the one in St. Louis, Missouri. Beyond that, far on the other side of the city was some kind of giant structure with a spike sticking out of the top. On the flight into Kazakhstan two weeks prior, he had read that Astana was the first capital city built in the twenty first century, and built for the twenty first century, according to the tourism brochures the government promoted.

  The Samruk corporate offices were somewhere on Ryskulov Street, but with some time to kill before nightfall, he decided to spend some time reconnoitering the city before making his unexpected visit.

  Making a left towards the large spike-topped building in the distance, Deckard did a double take as he drove past a monument that looked like a burial mound surrounded by rune stones. Everyone from the Etruscans to the American Indians made use of burial mounds, some dating back thousands of years, but he had never seen a mock-up like this used as a modern memorial.

  Even more interesting was the giant flying saucer shaped building across the street. Judging from the statues of unicyclists and seals balancing inflatable balls on their noses it was probably a circus.

  Pulling over alongside a construction site, he stepped out of his car and buttoned up his jacket against the cold. In front of him was the enormous steel structure he had first seen from the other side of town. Grasping his cell phone in one hand, he began searching the web for any information regarding construction projects in Astana.

  It was called the Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center, designed to be the world's largest tent which would eventually be the home of an entire self contained community. Underneath the glass and steel frame would be a shopping and entertainment center, an indoor beach resort, golf course, and more, with enough floor space for ten football fields. Obviously Astana's city planners had some strange concept of crossing the tribal yurt with post modern design and convenience.

  Weird.

  Turning to the immediate west was an open park filled with sculptures and a fountain. Flanking it were a series of circular apartment buildings and a gold domed mosque with four spires surrounding it. Getting back in the BMW, Deckard pulled into the street and followed it past the park to an open mall encircling another water fountain.

  A few minutes later he was standing in the center of the fountain, which had been turned off for the winter. In front of him was the tallest building yet. Like a large golden column it rose high enough that Deckard had to strain his neck to see the top of it. A placard outside declared it as the Ministry of Transport and Communication.

  In the cold breeze that blew in off the barren steppes, the city center felt empty and barren. It was as if someone had just decided to one day build a city in the middle of nowhere and that was exactly what had happened by presidential decree.

  Farther down the boulevard was some kind of tower or needle like the one in Seattle. Walking through another park, he could see the tower capped with a massive golden sphere. The trees around him creaked in the wind, the only noise in the mall seeming to echo across the buildings on both sides. On the right was the cube-looking Kazakh World Trade Center and some buildings whose architecture mimicked the wavy northern lights. Walking stiffly he passed the circular shaped railway headquarters building and a triangular housing complex.

  What is this place?

  The tower with the golden sphere was called Bayterek according the web page displayed on his cell phone. It looked like a giant torch to Deckard, but apparently it was representative of the Tree of Life. Deckard did know that the tree of life was part of an ancient mono-myth, an archetype found in all cultures from ancient Babylon to the Jewish Kabbalah. In Kazakh mythology the Tree of Life featured prominently in a folk tale involving a magic bird.

  A bird called Samruk.

  Farther down the park boulevard sat two massive golden pillars, representing what, and to whom, he did not know, but between them at the end Astana's gallery of ancient modern architecture sat the presidential palace. At first glance it looked like a czarist castle of some sort with a large blue dome and spiked pinnacle.

  Walking back to his vehicle, Deckard felt overwhelmed. He never expected to find all of this out here in the center of the windswept Kazakh waste. What was the meaning behind all the mysterious and clearly occult designs? He felt like the only one in the world who even knew all of these things existed.

  Turning over the engine, he turned up the heat, trying to warm up, at least until he could no longer see his breath in t
he air. Getting back on the road, he decided to circle back around and begin looking for Ryskulov Street, when something caught his eye silhouetted against the twilight sky.

  Driving around the presidential palace, he saw a pyramid reflecting the red glow of the setting sun. With glass and steel sides, the pyramid reached high into the sky, four entrances located in each cardinal direction. Pulling alongside, he left the car behind and rushed down the stone walkway, almost unable to believe his eyes. The sun had finally sunk below the horizon as Deckard pushed through the door and was confronted by one of the uniformed greeters.

  “Welcome,” the young Kazakh woman said, “to the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation.”

  “What is this place?”

  “The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation was built to unite the world's religions and to denounce all forms of violence,” she recited pleasantly.

  “Uh, is it okay for me to be here?”

  “The Palace is open to the public for another hour, sir.” the greeter warmly stated.

  “Thanks.”

  The entire bottom of the pyramid was an open-air lobby, painfully white and sterile. Thousands of panes of glass lined the inside walls, effectively making a second inner pyramid minus the capstone, which was a separate room far above the atrium he stood in. Looking for a way up, Deckard first found the way down, a set of stairs leading into the basement.

  Shuffling down the steps, Deckard found himself in the darkness of a vast opera hall. The stage was empty but lit up, a few workers moving around, preparing the lighting for a later performance. Like many others, this opera house was multi-terraced, but unlike other venues this one had a giant sun symbol painted on the roof above it.

  Turning, he dashed back up the stairs. In the atrium, Deckard found the spot directly above the sun pictogram below. Raised above the floor was another giant sun symbol, with rays of light reaching out in all directions.

  “Ma'am,” Deckard said, finding the greeter again. “What is this room used for?”