Burmese Crossfire (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 2)

by Peter Nealen

  Park had his misgivings about his mission, like any other man far from home might have. But he was an avowed Communist and disciple of the Supreme Leader, all the way to his core. To even think otherwise, never mind to act like it went against every fiber of his being. He was in command, and his men would follow his orders, without question, or they would die. Just as he would, ultimately, follow his commander’s orders, with the input of the political officer, or he would die. It was the way things were. It was the only way things ever could be, if the Revolution was finally to reach its ultimate triumph.

  ***

  “Well, you don’t all suck.”

  After the last four days of intensive marksmanship training, live-fire infantry drills, and classes, it was sort of high praise, coming from Santelli. The mercs were all exhausted from the intensity of three weeks of training, from the vetting course, to Hancock’s freefall HAHO course, to the final weapons and tactics portion in Louisiana. They had another day to go, but Brannigan had pulled Santelli aside and quietly told him to wrap it up. Two near-disastrous mistakes had told him it was time. First, Childress had gotten sucked into a target and nearly run into Curtis’ line of fire on a live-fire drill. When Jenkins had done the same thing a few hours later, it told him that exhaustion was taking its toll, and it was time to quit. The ever-widening groups in the marksmanship drills had eventually told the same story. They were hitting the point of diminishing returns, and they still hadn’t started the mission itself.

  “Some of you, however,” Santelli continued, “seriously need to take the next thirty-six hours to get your heads in the game. This was training. We had a safety net, and if we had to, we could stop training to fix a problem. As soon as we go out of that bird over Burma, there’s no safety net, there’s no medevac, there’s just what we can accomplish by ourselves. We are going to be on our own, gents, and you need to think about that, hard, between now and when we get on that bird in Sri Lanka.

  “So, get some rest, pack your shit, and be ready to get on your flights in two days. And I’ll say this from the bottom of my heart: if any of you goes on a bender and winds up in jail, I’m leaving your ass there. And the Colonel will back me up.” He turned a glare on Curtis as he said it. Curtis held up his hands with a wide-eyed, “Who, me?” look on his face. Flanagan just rolled his eyes. Wade chuckled, probably remembering issuing similar dire warnings in his own time.

  Brannigan stepped forward, with a stack of envelopes in his hands. “These are your flights,” he said, holding up the stack. “We’re going to avoid showing up in a big pack; it’s all different flights on different airlines, arriving in Colombo over the course of about twelve hours. A few of you are paired up, a few are singletons. While this isn’t quite as generally illegal an operation as Khadarkh was, we still want to keep as low a profile as possible. I’ll be out there first; I have to double-check our logistical arrangements. The rendezvous point is also written down in here. Be careful with it. We can still be fairly confident that no one is going to be looking for us except for Van Zandt, but I don’t think I need to stress that it would be a very bad idea to take chances. If it is within your mental grasp, memorize the RV point and then burn the paper it’s written on.”

  “I can memorize the rendezvous,” Wade quipped. “I just hope I can remember where I put the paper when I have to burn it.”

  Brannigan gave him a look. Wade had certainly demonstrated enough capability to be able to get away with the joke. But Brannigan was just as tired as the rest, and found that his sense of humor was suffering for it. “Unless there’s anything else, I’ll see you in Sri Lanka in three days.”

  ***

  Aziz settled into his seat with a sigh and slipped an arm around Ma Sanda’s shoulders. “Well, baby, here we go,” he said.

  She didn’t respond, and didn’t lean into him. She was sitting stiffly in her chair, staring at the seat back in front of her. “David,” she said, “I know it’s probably too late, but what if we’re making a terrible mistake?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, as he rubbed her shoulder, pulling her closer. Her stiffness bothered him; as did his own sudden feeling of dismay. It wasn’t like David Aziz was a one-woman man; quite the opposite. It frankly surprised him how attached he’d gotten to Sanda, and if he’d been given to more introspection, it might have bothered him even more.

  It might even have convinced him not to have tried so hard to bring her along.

  “We’re going into…” she looked around. “Into a war zone,” she whispered. “I’ve never been in a war zone.”

  “You kept up in training,” Aziz said. “You’ll be fine. The boys and I won’t let anything happen to you. We kept Doc alive during the last job, and he wasn’t carrying a weapon or fighting.”

  “But he’d been in combat before,” she protested. “I haven’t.”

  “Everybody has a first time,” Aziz said with a laugh. “It’s like sex. Anticipation is always bigger than reality.” He paused. He wasn’t sure that was the right analogy to use, but he was suddenly desperate that she not get cold feet. After all, it had taken some supreme audacity, even for him, to manage to bring a bedmate along on an op, and make it look like he’d just recruited an asset. Granted, they’d probably have to abstain while they were in Burma, but he wasn’t expecting this to get too drawn out.

  He also didn’t want to face the rest and admit that he’d screwed up, which he was vaguely, uncomfortably aware that he had. Sanda was a tough girl, and her conditioning and athleticism had enabled her to keep up on the combat training, but she was already complaining that she hurt all the time from the weight of the packs and equipment; it had already put a bit of a damper on their sex life, the last week or so. He was finally, grudgingly, coming to the realization that they were going to have to put extra effort into looking after her in the field, no matter how hard she tried. Physically, the tiny woman simply wasn’t up to the same tasks as the bigger, more hardened combat veterans were.

  She put her head on his shoulder, which he took as a good sign. “I don’t want to slow you down when it gets rough,” she said quietly. “And I’m afraid that I will.” She looked up at him, her dark eyes more beautiful than ever behind her lashes. “What if everything goes wrong?”

  “Then we’ll drop everything we don’t absolutely need,” Aziz assured her. “But Brannigan’s good at this. We probably won’t even need you to do much; we’ll jump in, establish a patrol base, find the Norks, do the job, then get out. You’re coming along as a failsafe, that’s all. You won’t need to do that much. Trust me. It’ll be fine.”

  She studied him for a long moment, and he fought to keep his expression relaxed and confident. He could tell that she wasn’t sure whether or not she believed him, and she would be right not to. When she finally nodded and looked down, he cursed himself.

  You’re a selfish, prideful prick. And you’re too damned scared of the consequences to yourself if you kick her off the plane and leave her here where she’ll be safe.

  All of which was true. But he still didn’t tell her to go. He just sat there in his seat, his arm around her, as the doors were closed and the plane started to taxi toward the runway. Then they were on their way, and it was too late.

  ***

  As it turned out, not all of the mercenaries were able to get into Sri Lanka on different flights. While most of their initial legs were scattered across Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, most of them ended up on the same four flights going into Bandaranaike International Airport on the island of Sri Lanka itself. They came in from Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Kuala Lumpur.

  Even so, most of them pointedly ignored each other as they collected their baggage and found their separate ways to the handful of hotels that Brannigan and Santelli had selected. All of them had their own rooms, as well, to further dispel any impression that they were all in Sri Lanka together. Of course, Aziz and Sanda ended up in the same room anyway, even though they had separate rooms booked.


  In twenty-four hours, they’d be on a plane, getting ready to jump into Burma. None of them slept very much that night.

  CHAPTER 7

  Brannigan kept his expression carefully bored as the Sri Lankan security officer looked over his passport and credentials. While the Tamil Tigers had essentially ceased to be as an organized threat, security in Sri Lanka was still tight, especially since the tensions between the Tamils and the rest of the Sinhalese majority hadn’t really gone away. Add in the occasional violence between Sinhalese Buddhists and the various Muslims in the country, especially the Rohingya Muslims fleeing Burma, and there was every reason to expect scrutiny from the local security forces.

  Of course, Brannigan had been around the world enough to know that that was the case in most places. Whether it was Africa, Asia, the Middle East, or Latin America, security forces weren’t generally all that welcoming to strangers. And, professional paranoia aside, there was the ever-present temptation to corruption that meant that he was probably going to have to slip this Sri Lankan cop a few rupees to make sure he got through. Otherwise, he could well end up sitting there for hours. Hours that he didn’t have.

  It was the way of the world, and no less in Sri Lanka.

  The little man in the brown uniform with blue cap looked up at him again, holding up the passport to compare the photo to his face. Granted, Brannigan had been clean-shaven the last time he’d had a passport photo taken, but this was the third time that the Sri Lankan cop had done that. It was getting insultingly obvious by now.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked politely.

  “No, no problem,” the policeman said. “You have other ID?”

  He wasn’t even being subtle. If he’d been good at this, he would have cited some obscure security reason that he needed something more to let Brannigan into the cargo terminal. With an almost undetectable sigh, Brannigan carefully reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out two five-thousand-rupee notes, folded inside his international driver’s license, and handed the little bundle to the man.

  The policeman smoothly pocketed the gold-and-red currency, then handed both license and passport back to Brannigan with a wide smile. “All is good,” he said, and waved Brannigan past him and through the gate. “Go ahead.”

  Resisting the urge to shake his head, Brannigan walked past and onto the tarmac.

  It was hot and sticky. Dubai had been miserable, but this was something else altogether. The humidity was palpable, and every bit of his clothing was already damp, where it wasn’t completely soaked through with sweat. He mused that air was supposed to be for breathing, not drinking, as he walked toward the parking area, outside the control tower.

  He would have preferred a hangar to meeting at the aircraft in the open air, but Bandaranaike International didn’t have many hangars. Most of the time that aircraft were on the ground, they were parked out on the tarmac. He spotted their chartered 727 cargo plane by its tail number, waiting by itself in a parking spot about a hundred yards from the gates.

  Painfully aware of just how exposed the entire operation was at that moment, he walked up to the steps leading toward the hold and started up.

  The heat and humidity didn’t get any better when he ducked through the side door. The plane was presently powered down, and so the air conditioning wasn’t running. If anything, it was even hotter inside the hold than out in the direct sunlight.

  “Mark?” he called. The inside of the hold was stacked with boxes and containers. He was already frowning as he surveyed it; there was room to get the jumpers lined up on the door he was presently standing inside of, but just barely. They might have to do some rearranging.

  “Up here,” Van Zandt called in reply. Brannigan started to work his way forward, through the hold.

  Some of the cargo thinned out a bit as he got toward the middle of the fuselage. A double row of jump seats had been installed in there, and there were equipment cases strapped down along the center of the hold. Brannigan expected that those held their weapons and gear.

  Van Zandt himself was standing next to the cockpit door. He was, if anything, sweatier than Brannigan. His shirt was soaked through, and a drop was hanging off his chin, ready to fall.

  Out of courtesy, Brannigan held out his hand. Van Zandt shook it, though there was no genuine friendliness there. “You’re right on time,” Van Zandt said.

  “I said I would be,” Brannigan bristled. “I’m a little surprised; didn’t Northern Virginia in the summer get you acclimated to the heat and humidity?”

  Van Zandt wiped the drop of sweat off his chin. “Nothing gets a man acclimated to this,” he said. “I can’t say I envy you, going into the jungle. I’d forgotten what this climate was like.”

  “I’ve got bigger worries with this job than the climate,” Brannigan said darkly.

  “I know,” Van Zandt replied. He actually sounded somewhat sincere. “I know it’s not ideal. The realities of the situation precluded ideal solutions.”

  Brannigan looked at him levelly. “Meaning that you’d much rather not employ us.”

  “Of course,” Van Zandt retorted. “If you had a choice between a Battalion Combat Team or a small team of mercenaries, which one would you choose?”

  “Depends on the job, but a BCT sounds about right for this,” Brannigan admitted.

  “Except that that option’s completely off the table,” Van Zandt said, frustrated, “and, as I said before, you know as well as I do that even SOF has too much of a tail right now. You and your mercs are the only force available that can do the job with a hope in hell of staying under the radar. You certainly proved that on Khadarkh.”

  Was that grudging respect I heard in your voice, Mark? Brannigan wondered how much he was letting his grudge against Van Zandt color his thoughts on the entire operation. He decided to change the subject. The job was the job, and they’d already accepted it. Further wrangling about it wasn’t going to do anything but waste time. He turned to the stacks of equipment cases in the center of the hold.

  “Have we got everything?” he asked.

  Van Zandt grimaced. “Almost,” he said. When Brannigan turned an icy glare on him, he elaborated. “I’ve got about two thirds of the ammo you asked for.”

  “Really?” Brannigan growled. “Of all the things you could have skimped on, you picked the damned ammo?!”

  “It was a miscommunication,” Van Zandt said. “That’s what showed up. There’s still plenty, as long as you don’t spray and pray through the jungle.”

  “Plenty of what?” Flanagan asked. He was threading his way forward, with Curtis behind him. Brannigan wasn’t all that surprised to see Flanagan there early, but Curtis usually had a hard time with early mornings. He realized that Flanagan must have dragged the other man out with him.

  “We’re short on ammo,” Brannigan said shortly.

  “Now, that’s for certain values of ‘short,’” Van Zandt said. “There’s still a good three hundred rounds per rifle.”

  “I’m somewhat more worried about the machinegun ammo,” Brannigan said.

  “Well, it does mean I’ve got less weight to hump through the jungle,” Curtis said cheerfully. He subsided a little when Brannigan stared at him coldly.

  “Again, as long as you’re careful with it, there should be plenty,” Van Zandt said. “Thirteen hundred rounds of 7.62 is still a lot, even for a belt-fed.”

  “For fourteen men going into the jungle, there’s no such thing as too much firepower,” Brannigan said. “But I suppose that bitching isn’t going to solve anything.” He blew out an angry breath. “I suppose, if worst comes to worst, we can scrounge ammo on the ground. That is part of why we picked the weapons we did.” The G3s and MG 3s were both standard arms for the Myanmar Army. He pointed to the equipment cases. “Is this all of it?”

  Van Zandt nodded. “Weapons, gear, ammo, comms, chutes, O2 gear,” he said, pointing to each case in turn. “The rest of that crap back there,” he continued, pointing to the stack
of crates and cases behind them, “is the ‘legitimate cargo.’ We need to have something on board as cargo when we get to Kunming.” The plan had the plane following a standard route from Sri Lanka to Kunming, which coincidentally took it through Burmese airspace, right over Shan State.

  “Probably helps to have something to show the locals, too,” Curtis said helpfully. He frowned, as if something had just occurred to him. “But what about that stuff?” he asked. “If our gear’s accessible, then it’s accessible for Customs inspectors, too, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t worry about the Sri Lankans,” Van Zandt said. “We’ve got them taken care of.”

  No sooner had he finished speaking than there was a yell from below. And it wasn’t in English.

  Van Zandt frowned, as Brannigan’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds a lot like Sri Lankan Customs,” Brannigan observed.

  “Wait here,” Van Zandt said. “If they come aboard, look like you’re crew.” He started back toward the tail.

  Flanagan looked at Brannigan with a heavy-lidded expression that said, How the hell are we supposed to do that? Brannigan just shrugged. All the cargo was stowed and strapped down. There really was nothing for a crew to do, no reason for anyone to be hanging out in the hold. Their mere presence was likely to make any Customs inspectors suspicious.

  But there was no quick way off, and there wasn’t going to be room to hide in the cockpit. There was simply nowhere to go. So they waited.

  They could hear voices from below, and Van Zandt answering. Then there were footsteps on the portable stairs, as the inspectors climbed up.

  Brannigan glanced at the equipment cases. There was no easy way to get at the weapons, not with the cargo straps tightened over the lids, and even if there had been, kidnapping or killing Sri Lankan Customs officials was hardly a good way to start the op. They’d be locked down and surrounded by the Sri Lankan Army in short order. They’d never even manage to take off.