by Gavin Reese
Alex Landon
Starter Library
By Gavin Reese
Copyright © 2017 by Gavin Reese Publications LLC.
Published by Cyanide Publishing 2017
www.cyanidepublishing.com
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Contents
Operation Barricade
The Recidivist
The Toxin
Gavin Reese
Operation Barricade
fwuh fwuh fwuh fwuh fwuh fwuh
The sudden, dissipating flap of wings in the darkness immediately above him reminded Detective Alex Landon that they were not alone, even in that desolate and inhospitable stretch of central Arizona’s Sonoran desert. Ignoring the fleeing bird, he continued to scan the valley floor below them to identify any potential threats, which his night vision goggles and AR15 rifle’s high-powered scope presented in varying shades of bright, neon-green. From his position just below the summit of a nameless central Arizona desert hill, Alex held a commanding view of the surrounding environment and anyone who approached his three-person team.
“Owl, eleven o’clock low,” Special Agent Xavier Bryant, the designated sniper for tonight’s operation, whispered after spotting the fleeing aerial predator, “descending to the left.”
“Got it,” Bryant’s observer, Officer Esther Salez, replied. “Estimated range to target, fifty yards, so aim a foot low and slightly left to dispatch it.”
“Nice work, Essie,” Bryant confirmed.
“Send it,” she coyly whispered.
Alex heard jest in her voice, and chuckled at the morbid joke. He glanced over at the pair and found the starlight just sufficient to allow him to watch both sniper and observer track the bird with their nearly-identical .338-Lapua bolt-action sniper rifles. Despite being designated as tonight’s observer, Essie carried the same rifle and ammunition as Bryant in the event that, for any number of reasons, he couldn’t take a necessary shot. She’s the math whiz tonight, he thought, and Xave’s the trigger puller.
“All outta owl permits,” Bryant replied, “maybe next season.”
Irrespective of their darkly humorous, hypothetical plot to kill a revered bird of prey, Alex marveled at Salez’s quick solution to the exceptionally complex math problem. In only a few seconds, she estimated the range to a target below and moving away from her, and determined where she and Bryant had to aim their rifles to strike it while taking into account her scope’s current settings and environmental factors like temperature, wind, and humidity. Hot damn, she’s good. Earlier that day, Bryant had explained that finding a spot-on ballistics “solution” for the sniper teams was akin to calculating the space shuttle’s re-entry trajectory and landing.
“Thermo says temps’re steady at ninety-two and twenty-percent humidity,” Bryant offered.
“No real change, then,” Salez responded, “too damned hot for two-a.m.”
After creeping into position beneath a moonless August night, Alex and his partners had spent three nearly-motionless hours on thin foam mats atop sharp rocks and fine, silty dust just below the apex of a short, steep desert hilltop. Along with fifty-eight other members of the Arizona Anti-Narcotics Task Force, they occupied elevated positions that formed a north-facing horseshoe above a squarish valley floor, which they dispassionately called the “kill-box.” Alex patiently awaited their quarry, and despite his expected reality, hoped the initial shock-and-awe of tonight’s planned operation prevented any violence.
“All units, be advised,” Alex’s police radio broadcast the task force leader’s voice into his noise-cancelling headset, “southbound motion sensors tripped, one mile north.” His body’s fight-or-flight response slightly activated at the imminent and almost-guaranteed gunfight, and Alex began combat breathing to restore his calm. Four count in, hold for four, four count out. From an unknown place to his north, the approaching caravan slowly became audible.
“Confirm range to kill-box,” Bryant quietly demanded.
Salez provided a calm, almost immediate response. “South edge at five-hundred yards, center at six-fifteen. The north and outside edges are seven-fifty. The box is centered around the stand of Palo Verde trees just west of the dry creek bed that runs north-south through the whole box.”
“Nice little playground for us, Essie. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”
“Affirm, Xave. Landon,” Salez spoke without taking her eye from her rifle’s high-magnification night-vision scope, “you good?”
“All set.” Alex heard the caravan’s ominous din growing louder beneath their quiet conversation. Damn, those trucks’re closin’ in fast. He expected to have seen headlights by now, based on the apparent proximity of the oncoming noise, and reminded himself the drug cartel’s drivers wore military-grade night vision goggles to navigate the desert washes and trails without them.
“Caravan’s into view now,” Salez advised, “you got it, Xave?”
“Yeah, ‘bout ten of ‘em, maybe five seconds north of the box.”
Alex used his left hand to increase his scope’s magnification and bring the approaching horde into view. He saw the vehicles driving toward the Palo Verde cluster. Shit’s about to get real…
“All units, prepare for light,” the task force leader warned.
“Ditch your N-V-Gs, Landon,” Salez reminded him, “everyone with night vision is about to go blind.”
Alex pushed the helmet-mounted goggles up and out of his line of sight, and immediately returned to his scope. The desert floor had become a sea of ink, and he could no longer see the caravan that he could hear accelerating across the flat valley floor. Sounds like a stock car race.
“Light,” the task force leader announced, “in three, two, one.”
With no other warning, intense brightness suddenly engulfed the valley floor. Alex blinked hard to adjust his eyes, just as the sound of sudden, soft-surface braking and multiple, high-speed vehicle collisions immediately replaced the engines’ roar. His scope revealed a massive dust cloud that obscured a cluster of ten wrecked vehicles, one of which had overturned onto its passenger side due south of the Palo Verde trees. Every driver, blinded by the unexpected daylight, must’ve reflexively slammed on their brakes. Alex now saw flashing red-and-blue light in his peripheral v
ision, just as Spanish commands boomed from hidden, focused-beam loudspeakers placed south of the kill-box.
“¡Esta es la Policía Estatal! ¡Pare y salga con sus manos para arriba!”
“Landon,” Bryant called out over the ongoing commands, “watch the trucks, but make sure nobody with a gun gets by us!”
“Got it!” Alex admired the genius of the operation unfolding before him. Goddamned brilliant. Dozens of flood- and spotlights placed on stands ten-feet above the desert floor brightly illuminated the valley and kill-box below them in near daylight. The numerous lights formed another, smaller north-facing horseshoe around the caravan, and included several sets of flashing red-and-blue lights interspersed among them intended to simulate unidentifiable police vehicles. All the lights pointed slightly down and inward, so the surprised and disoriented suspects couldn’t see the cops scattered on the hills above them, and the cops didn’t have to look directly into the blinding array. Hard to shoot what you can’t see.
Alex saw movement from the lead truck, a white four-door crew cab that had been rear-ended by a blue SUV. A young Hispanic male in a dark blue, “NY” t-shirt emerged from the front passenger door with an AK-style rifle. Looking at the magnified face, it seemed to Alex they made eye contact despite his advantageous position and the hundreds of yards between them, and his stomach and throat tightened in response. Can he fuckin’ see me??!!
“Target, blue and white shirt, A-K,” Salez relayed to Bryant as calmly as she ordered lunch, “south white truck, left side, range 600 yards.”
In sheer disbelief, he watched the man take a shooter’s stance, and point his rifle directly toward their position. Alex began slowly, steadily squeezing his rifle’s trigger.
“Affirm, ‘N-Y’ shirt, on target.” Bryant, equally as calm, responded just as Alex saw the suspect’s rifle flash and loud, automatic gunfire echoed across the small valley.
“Send it, Xave.”
Alex heard a muffled pop through his noise-cancelling headset at the same time he saw the New York fan’s head snap back, and his corpse and the rifle both dropped to the ground. Automatic gunfire from AK and AR rifles commenced even before the felled gunman hit the ground. Alex had so narrowly focused the scope’s field of vision that he couldn’t locate and identify the shooters, so he used his left hand to dial the magnification setting down until he held the entire wrecked caravan in view. He estimated a dozen shooters now held various positions within the wreckage and fired out toward the police surrounding them, but Alex held his fire. I’m responsible for stopping southbound squirters, and the snipers’ .338-Lapua rounds will be far more effective at this range than my little .223. If he hadn’t been so experienced with his noise-cancelling headset, Alex knew he would have struggled to correlate the gunfire he saw with the distant, muted pops he heard. Despite the dozens of automatic weapons and responding police rifle fire around him, Alex could clearly hear the snipers’ conversation next to him, as well as the continuous police commands in both Spanish and English ordering the suspects to stop resisting, drop their weapons, and surrender.
“Target, shooter next to a silver four-door truck about twenty yards east of the Palo Verdes. Blue bandana, white shirt, white pants,” Essie calmly conveyed.
“Copy,” came Bryant’s quick response, “acquired.”
“Send it.”
Alex heard a distinctly louder, but still-muted POP when Bryant’s long-range sniper rifle expelled its hollow-point projectile at his target, and he saw the white-clad gunman felled in the same manner as the New York fan.
“All units, be advised,” the calm Team Leader’s voice spoke clearly into Alex’s ear, “Deploying L-RAD, deploying L-RAD.” And now for the first test of our new less-lethal audio weapon. Alex kept his primary focus on the area south of the vehicle wreckage, but stole periodic glances up into the active battle space to see the L-RAD’s effects. Pleasantly surprised, he watched the gunmen intermittently stop firing to seek cover, hold hands over their ears, and crouch down in apparent pain. The device had lessened, but did not eliminate the armed resistance. Alex saw many of the remaining gunman, maybe about six, had taken effective cover positions and only occasionally fired into the night around them.
“All units, be advised,” The Team Leader announced, “turning up the L-RAD to max intensity. Say again, L-RAD going to maximum intensity.”
Right on, Alex thought, this is gonna make for a good show. Well aware that no one had left the caravan and fled south, Alex focused more of his attention on the concealed gunmen. Having trained with the L-RAD device several times, he hadn’t expected to get any direct effect from its focused sound waves, but he had anticipated at least some reflection as the waves bounced around the kill-box below him. Lucky me, not a peep.
Almost immediately after the Team Leader’s announcement, Alex saw the L-RAD’s effects. The gunman Alex believed closest to his position dropped his rifle and used both hands to cover his ears. The man soon fell forward onto his knees, and then lay crouched in a fetal position, violently vomiting on the adjacent, silty ground. Hard to fight when your body won’t let you.
Alex heard the loudspeaker commands had changed, and their adversaries were now being directed to lay down their rifles and crawl out toward the sound of the announcements. “LAY DOWN YOUR GUNS AND WE’LL STOP SHOOTING YOU! CRAWL ON YOUR BELLY TO THE SOUND OF MY VOICE! YOU’RE SURROUNDED AND CANNOT ESCAPE! STOP RESISTING AND WE’LL STOP SHOOTING YOU!” Alex heard the commands immediately repeated in Spanish. Gotta give the cartel’s hired gunmen every opportunity to peacefully surrender. What the commands should say, Alex surmised, is ‘you can stop shooting and live, or we’ll kill you where you stand.’ Fielder’s choice.
Soon after the commands resumed in Spanish, Alex saw three of the remaining gunmen stand up and fire wildly at the lights and hills around them, as though doing so in direct defiance to the continued surrender orders.
papa pa pa pa papa
POPPOP
Alex witnessed the men violently incapacitated by quick, responding rifle fire that struck their heads and torsos, and felled them in grotesque heaps where they’d stood.
“They chose poorly,” Salez stated.
“And down go the Three Unwise Men,” Bryant replied.
Alex continued watching the scene, and saw two seemingly-unarmed men crawling south from the wrecked caravan. “Got two comin’ out, near a bright red truck by the south end. Looks like they left the rifles behind.”
“Got ‘em, Alex. Good eye. They’re close enough together Essie and I can cover them both. Keep looking for other suspects, especially since they’re now being directed south toward us.”
“Copy.” Alex slightly widened his scope’s field of view and slowly shifted his focus around the south end of the crash site in search of movement. Five minutes passed with almost no dialogue between the three. I’ve gotta stay focused on my own assignment, Xave and Essie are watching other areas and trust me to handle my own business. Alex heard the commands change again, and now focused to give the compliant suspects directives so officers could peacefully take them into custody. Goddamn, only those two guys have come out of that mess.
“All units, be advised,” the Team Leader’s voice again filled Alex’s headset, “the Arrest Teams are now moving in to take two into custody. Everyone else, hold your positions and keep overwatch. We will continue slowly sweeping the vehicles with the L-RAD to expose any living suspects who’re still hiding from us.”
Just after the announcement, Alex watched two large, olive-drab armored trucks cautiously lumber north. The oversized trucks emerged from the ink-black darkness into the bright, artificial light and slowly moved toward the two now-compliant men. Once stopped, Alex held his breath as SWAT team members, who’d been designated as the Arrest Team, disembarked from the rear of both vehicles, and, for the first time in this gunfight, directly expose themselves to potential inbound gunfire from the cartel members. Alex couldn’t hear the
ir exact words, but the loudspeaker commands had stopped, and he now heard them replaced with yelled commands from the arrest teams on the ground. Despite wanting to watch the men being arrested and taken into custody, he narrowed the scope’s focus and intently watched the vehicles just north of the Arrest Team.
Without warning, a man in a bright yellow Western dress shirt suddenly appeared about fifty yards north of the arrest teams. Alex saw blood stains on the left side of his shirt, and an AK-style rifle rise toward his right shoulder as the man faced the exposed Arrest Team. Without a second thought or further contemplation, Alex quickly centered his crosshairs over the man’s face and squeezed his trigger.
pop POPPOP
“Gunman down,” Essie said.
“Alex,” Bryant asked, “you get that first shot off?”
“I think so, sounded like my pea-shooter beat ya.”
“What’s your point-of-aim?”
“Middle face. At this range, I didn’t think a body shot from my .223 would do much.”
“You good?” Essie asked. Despite the rough exterior she initially presented to the world, Alex knew her to be one of the Task Force’s unofficial caretakers. Once she liked you, she’d do anything for you.
“Yep,” Alex replied while searching for additional targets, “glad you guys saw it, too, and brought the stopping power to him before he got a shot off at the arrest teams.”
“Well done, Landon,” Bryant commended. “We’ll have to see how much difference there was in your point-of-aim and point-of-impact. Got five bucks says you missed.”
“I’ll gladly take your lunch money, Xave.” Alex kept overwatch with Bryant and Essie for the next hour while other SWAT personnel and bomb techs cleared the vehicles to ensure no active resistance remained therein. They soon learned no other suspects had survived the gunfight, and, unsurprisingly, that medics thought two of the corpses found among the wreckage had probably committed suicide. Self-inflicted pistol wounds, the coward’s escape.