Confirmed Kill

by Michael Z. Williamson

  “Any evidence we can use?” Stephens asked. “Sources, ID of any kind?” He looked rather perturbed himself.

  “Not without substantial digging, I’d say,” Wade answered. “I’m hoping we don’t have the time.”

  “We probably have the time,” Wiesinger said. “But we’re not going to take it. Let’s call this a map marker and move on. If it wouldn’t blow cover, I’d torch the place.”

  “Roger that, Mel,” Kyle agreed firmly.

  Stephens jogged out to go to the adjoining building where his team was. Kyle turned and ducked for the door. He started to lower his NVG.

  It was then that a torrent of fire shattered the frame, tossing splinters of block into his face.

  He dropped at once, eyes closed, and crawled back. His eyes were stinging from chips, not burning from dust. He’d have to get them clear enough to fight with, and hope the injuries didn’t require more sophisticated treatment. But he was inside the door and covered, he hoped, as several crashes echoed. Outgoing fire was good. He blinked his eyes carefully, not wanting to gouge them with any sharp fragments. Then he pulled at the lids to let tears flush the dust. They still ached and itched, but he could see, even if his vision was a little blurry.

  Alert again, he listened before sticking his head out. There was a lot of fire out there. Whatever the force was, they were large. Small arms. Few automatic weapons. No grenades so far. Wiesinger and Stephens were shouting back and forth between buildings.

  “Force to the rear is about a squad. One RPK machine gun. Mostly AKs,” Stephens called.

  “In front is two support weapons,” Wiesinger replied. “One RPK, one RPG not in use.” That was potentially disturbing. A rocket-propelled grenade would kill everyone in the building.

  “Mel, do you want any targets?” Kyle asked in a lull as his ears rang. If not, he could just shoot. But he was a precision shooter first.

  “Wade, Kyle, find that RPG. Then the machine gunner.”

  Wade said, “Roger, Kyle, far left, second block building, rear corner, under bush.”

  “Sighted,” Kyle said. He aimed and squeezed, but the pain and the sudden shock of rounds in an enclosed space had him shaking. His first round missed, high.

  “He’s relocating,” Wade said. “Look for him two buildings south, same position.”

  “Sighted,” Kyle said. The first shot winged his target, possibly a shoulder. That shook him up enough that Kyle’s second shot was center of mass, just before the missileer could move. Just to make sure, he followed the body down and carefully put another sideways through the ribcage.

  lie shook his head. The concussion of rounds fired wasn’t helping his vision or his hearing. Still, three shots wasn’t bad for a valuable threat. “Where’s the gunner?” he asked.

  “Stand by!” Wade said. “He’s gone!”

  “Shit, that’s bad!” Kyle said. Gone where? Behind another building? The next notice they got could be large amounts of autofire.

  Wiesinger was shouting orders. “Bakri, have your RPG gunners take out those two buildings there.”

  “It will take a moment,” Bakri yelled back. They were split up now, with part of the force inside Kyle’s building, and most of the rest scattered for cover.

  Wiesinger yelled into his phone, “Stephens, consolidate to the west and hold against that element. We will secure here. As soon as we are in control of our own territory, we will combine reserves to attack them . . . Yes, that sounds good. Out.”

  Kyle flinched momentarily as Bakri’s RPG team demolished two buildings. The explosion slapped at them even here, a visible wave front tossing dirt and leaves ahead of it. It inflicted several casualties on the enemy, including one body tossed like a rag doll. But Kyle still didn’t see that machine gun, and there were other support weapons out there, among troops who knew how to use them.

  To highlight that point, a roar washed over him from behind. Screams and shouts, some of surprise, some of injury followed it, faint and hard to discern under the pain that meant he had hearing damage. He wasn’t sure what had come in, but it was dangerous.

  It was a good time to relocate. Kyle shifted over to a crack under the window he could just see through, flopped across a chair cushion and got ready.

  No, it wasn’t a cushion. It was a gas-bloated corpse on the splintered wreckage of a folding chair. He grimaced in distaste. But the bastard was dead, and nothing was leaking from the body, and he’d seen worse. Screw it. He’d take his shots and then move.

  “There!” Wade called. “Reference: Building to left of the one we just blew. Window on right side. Target: machine gun crew. Range five five meters.”

  “Sighted,” Kyle agreed. There wasn’t much of them visible; they were being cagey. Or maybe they were as afraid of getting blown away as he was.

  They were more afraid in a moment. He fired and missed, but took splinters out of the frame. He’d been trying to peel off the top of one man’s head, but he’d ducked. Still, they were both staying down for now, which meant they weren’t shooting. It wasn’t a win, but it didn’t hurt anything.

  “Roger that,” Wiesinger said into his phone. “No dice. They’re covered, we’re covered, this could go on a long time. Might consider regrouping and retrograding under fire.” He didn’t sound happy.

  “I advise it, Mel,” Kyle said. “We’re not here for a protracted battle. We’re here to find a target.” He gratefully hopped off the body and found another loophole to shoot through.

  “Roger. We can move into the jungle in squads and cover as we go.” He flipped open his phone. “Stephens . . . Yeah, that’s where we’re thinking. Roger that. You, us, locals. Out.” He spoke again. “The Aussies are first, we’re second, providing cover for Bakri.”

  “I am not happy being last,” Bakri said. It was the first open admission that he wasn’t entirely sure of his allies.

  “No one would be,” Kyle said. He was pretty sure it came about because Wiesinger didn’t trust the locals. And, while they were better than any others he’d worked with, they still weren’t a professional force, and other than Bakri, he couldn’t be sure of their loyalties. So he reluctantly agreed. Besides, he had to back up his commander. That was his duty.

  “Very well,” Bakri said, twitching. “Be sure we get lots of support fire.”

  “Count on it,” Wade promised him, pulling out a spare mag. The first was likely more than half full. But the fresh one meant one another thirty rounds as support fire. Kyle copied the gesture. He also checked for a canister load in the grenade launcher. Anything in front was the enemy, as far as he was concerned, and he’d light it the hell up at every opportunity.

  Wiesinger cut into his thoughts. “Stephens is ready, our turn.”

  “Roger. Good luck, Bakri. See you in two minutes.”

  “Yes,” the man said with a simple nod. He sounded a lot surer of Kyle than of the colonel.

  Kyle rose and slipped back, panning across an arc in case of threats up close. It wasn’t likely, but it never hurt to be sure. A grenade tossed in would end the party real quick. But if he shot the thrower beforehand, it was just more fireworks outside. He did wish he could do something about the bursts of machine-gun fire alternately beating at the blocks and slapping through the door. At least, being dark inside, the shadow would help protect him even from night vision.

  Wade turned, assessed the move and followed, while Kyle took the cue and slipped out the back. That meant scrambling through a hole that had been a window and still had broken frame and glass. He tore his pants but avoided anything worse than a stinging scratch. Wiesinger was outside, squatting, back against the wall. He seemed very glad of backup. Kyle nodded and took the other side. Then Wade dropped between them.

  “We’re clear, fire around either side,” Wiesinger said into his phone. He dialed again. “Bakri, move.” Closing that, he said, “Gentlemen, that way,” and pointed into the woods.

  The incoming fire was much stronger. Poor Bakri was taking a beati
ng from a substantially larger force. The Aussies and their allies dumped a few hundred angry lead hornets between the buildings, and the incoming fire slackened for several seconds. But once the enemy realized they were retreating and shooting largely blind, it picked up again.

  “Dammit,” Kyle said. He dodged trees and headed into the jungle, seeking cover, concealment and a good; clear field of fire. One out of three would suffice. Two would thrill him.

  Wiesinger cursed. He had his phone again. “Bakri’s got five men in a building with no rear exit. They’ll have to come out the side into fire.”

  “Grenade,” Kyle said at once. “One of ours.” RPG rounds were too powerful.

  “You can’t be serious. That’s—”

  “Which building, and tell them to duck,” Wade said. He was already closing the breech on his launcher, having swapped canister for high explosive.

  “That one there,” Wiesinger pointed. “But you can’t really mean to—”

  Wade cut him off with a Whump! followed by a loud bang, as a flash cracked the wall. The resulting hole was about eighteen inches at best. But it was enough for skinny, dazed Indonesians to wiggle through, after peering to be sure they were safe from further fire. The third man beat at the opening with his rifle butt to enlarge it. Bakri and his others were slipping into the dark woods. It had gone well enough, it seemed.

  There was a roar overhead, that turned into a thumping, angry drone.

  “Oh, shit,” Kyle said as he looked up. Choppers. That meant military. Fast meant Special Forces, the Kopassus.

  “Who the fuck called them?” Wiesinger asked angrily.

  “Not a bad ploy,” Wade shouted. “Use a porn shop to generate income. Use it as a cover. If the government captures anyone, you blow the cover, destroy it to show your good graces, then call the government and claim the kill. Icing on the cake to catch your enemies right there.”

  “It may be more chance than that,” Bakri said. “But I do not wish my name here. It is beyond sin.”

  “Son of a bitchl” Kyle said. “Fucking move, sir.” The helicopters were hovering over the village. He assumed ropes and troops would follow. Wiesinger took the hint and started dodging.

  The three squads broke into a ragged retreat, occasionally returning fire to threats. Kyle hoped, hoped the Kopassus would stick to the immediate area and not pursue further. But if they had backup on the ground or another assault, they could encircle. There was no good answer then. He was an American, an ally, but siding with rebels who were not, without diplomatic clearance. Best case, they offered a bunch of intel and got freed, while blowing the entire mission. Worst case, an Indonesian jail. And Bakri would likely wind up there either way. Indonesia jailed people for ten years for just flying the Free Acheh flag. Actually bearing arms...

  And that assumed the Indo troops didn’t just shoot them as mercs without asking any questions, which seemed the most logical and likely response.

  The pursuit wasn’t immediate, but Kyle wanted to put a few kilometers between them quickly. He didn’t crave the headlines that might come: us cia snipers, indonesian rebels associated with al qaeda, and child porn studio. Nor did he crave to get shot. Distance and dark were friends.

  A long, loping time later, through tangled skeins of brush, he hunkered down and camouflaged himself. He scurried over and through a patch of thick weeds, then under them. He was far enough removed from the edge of the glade to not be visible at a glance. The spreading leaves would help deflect any heat signature, which he had to be putting out, as hard as he was breathing. He forced that breath to a slow, measured heave and listened. The rotors were steady, hovering, which meant they didn’t anticipate any anti-aircraft fire from below. Under that droning, hypnotic beat. . .

  Shooting and shouting, sparser now than they had been. A couple of final shots, and then the beating of rotor blades rose to a thrum. One helicopter swept overhead, shaking the air and trees and then dopplering away.

  His phone buzzed a few minutes later as he was pondering his actions. He slid it out slowly and carefully. Departure of the aircraft didn’t mean all patrols were off the ground. It was a possible ploy that would easily catch the eager or untrained.

  “Kyle,” he whispered.

  “Mel. We’re going to approach and recon.”

  “I advise against that, Mel,” he said. Dammit, no.

  “Bakri is missing five men. They were in a building with no rear exit and no commo. Another building, not the one we blew.”

  “Shit. Understood.” That was a potential disaster. He listened to Wiesinger’s orders. They were pretty much from the book, and in this case, were good enough. He saw no need to quibble.

  Twenty minutes later, a marathon approach by the standards involved, they were at the edge of the clearing. It didn’t take much effort to count the five stripped, decapitated bodies in the middle, nor the pile of five heads, each shot through from the back.

  Bakri quivered, tears in his eyes. “I suppose this is better,” he said. “They could have been tortured, exposed, jailed. But they are thought part of this . . .” He waved his hands around at the smoking remains of the operation. “They are shamed.”

  “We know, Bakri,” Kyle said. “It doesn’t matter otherwise. And I think their names are safe.”

  The sadism of the act was that they were dead . . . That meant that any guilty parties, or any party worried about guilt by association, would be relieved at the killing of their own people. Subtle. Kyle respected that in a way. It also made him want people dead.

  A quick recon revealed other bodies. Their opponents had likewise been stripped, clothes and weapons taken. It was thorough and impersonal, a revealed contempt for the capabilities of the locals.

  There just weren’t any good guys here, Kyle decided. Respect and compassion took energy these people used to either stay alive or kill with.

  “Where to, then?” Kyle asked diffidently.

  “We bury them. Then home,” Bakri said. “We must think on the threats.” He stared for a moment, then turned determinedly and trudged into the clearing. Kyle followed, and looked around for something to use as a shovel. The others followed.

  CHAPTER 12

  Faisal looked at the two new hostages. The others saw them as a prize. He didn’t. A Chinese woman and her half-American daughter were hardly people to boast of capturing and killing.

  They’d been taking hostages and killing them, cutting off their heads, since early 2004 in Iraq. It hadn’t accomplished anything. The theory, he’d been told, was that the Westerners, especially Americans, were terrified of death and of dismemberment. Their culture demanded clean bodies, even to burying them in vaults, preserved against time. A few dead as object lessons was more humane than a battle involving hundreds of casualties. And besides, they were infidel deaths, not Muslim deaths.

  Only, the fear hadn’t come. Outrage and disgust had come, with harsh words and threats. But as usual, those faded. If anything, it seemed the Western world didn’t care if a few people, or a few hundred, were decapitated. The headlines disappeared within days. Political and military impropriety stayed in the headlines for weeks, but the death of a hostage was hardly mentioned at all, and only briefly, before attention turned back to sports, scantily clad women, and pointless pastimes. Imam Ayi and the planners said the problem was that they were not being terrifying enough, grisly enough. Sufficient violence would provoke a reaction.

  It didn’t seem so to Faisal. And if it did, what reaction would it elicit after so much lethargy? A minor protest? Or would the enemy come awake like a krait poked with a stick?

  And why was a culture so disinterested in its own casualties an enemy ? Money was the key to all dealings with Americans. In that regard, he could agree with the attack on the oil terminal. That, they’d have to pay attention to. But again, might it be in a rage that would kill millions of Muslims in retribution?

  He would just as soon have these hostages released. He already knew he wasn’t going to
accept the “honor” of beheading them. A relationship to an executive in Mobil’s employ didn’t matter to him. The Chinese woman was a civilian, apolitical and absolutely not worthy of note in this battle. It couldn’t be right to use her so. And certainly not her little girl.

  But how to get the leaders to listen to him?

  *****

  Agung was furious. Whole shipments of explosives had disappeared. Billions of rupia in bribes, finder’s fees, and simple operating costs had come to nothing. More than two thousand kilograms, enough for two hundred small bombs or ten really big ones, had been intercepted by the Australian and Singapore navies, and by some damned team in the jungle. He wasn’t sure if that was the Kopassus, the Australians he’d heard skulking around, or, as rumored, an American hit team. He knew of them. Several of his group’s best and most powerful men had been executed by assassins, either at long range or in close engagements. He’d heard names of several of them, but the names did no good without corroboration. Some new group was operating, that wasn’t SEALs and wasn’t Delta, but might be U.S. Army or Marines or CIA hired thugs. Whoever they were, they managed to sneak in right under the noses of government officials. He’d never admit it in public, but it terrified him. He could get a bureaucracy to do anything, from issuing building permits to sharing classified documents. But any inquiries about this came up blank. The government didn’t know. The criminal networks didn’t know. These men were shadows.

  So the alternative was to create a trap for them, whereby they’d be taken care of by their own putative allies. Numbers were the strength of the enemy. But the Fist of God had a strength too. That strength was purity.

  In the meantime, the explosives they did have should be delivered without delay. The fire and tears would cleanse at least one city, and perhaps the headlines would be enough, this time.

  If not, a few true innocents would cause as much, if not more anguish. If the oil companies couldn’t find employees willing to risk the wrath of Allah, then the problem would solve itself. And there was another factor . . .