Confirmed Kill

by Michael Z. Williamson

  The end result was two shoulders under the receiver, braced with four feet and the metal structure.

  “I’ll need to move it,” Kyle cautioned.

  “You move, we’ll move. Shoot, damn you!” McLaren said.

  “Roger. Targeting. Shooting!” Another round of crashing and yelling. He was off the mark from the shifting, but that couldn’t be helped.

  The 23mm mount was working again. Several hornets on steroids and rocket fuel ripped through the air. Three voices yelled, “Shit!” simultaneously. Then they had to not laugh, because it was hysterical.

  “High, right, about three meters,” Wade called. He was able to track the rounds by heat trace and by disruption of the dense, humid air.

  “Roger,” Kyle agreed, and depressed ever so slightly. Both SEALs were bleeding from the side of the head. At least he hoped it was scalp and that he hadn’t blown their eardrums out. They were about three feet from the muzzle and facing the other way, but it couldn’t be pleasant.

  Hell, he wasn’t enjoying the swells, the spray, or the incoming fire. These guys were just nuts. But a good kind of nuts.

  A burst came in, and the pilot, who hadn’t been introduced, swore in a shout. Kyle glanced back. A round had blown through one of his instruments. One of the gunwales had been hit, too, but in an oblique crease along the top.

  There was nothing to do about that. Kyle came back to his weapon and reacquired his position from muscle memory.

  And fire. “Shit!” McLaren shouted.

  “Glass gone!” Wade shouted triumphantly. “Nail him again!”

  “Shooting!” Kyle said, and waited for the waves to match up again.

  BANG! “OW, goddammit!” “Son of a bitch!”

  “Hit inside the pilot house. They’re turning!”

  McLaren slumped. “Holy shit, that was a workout. Wish I could have seen the shooting!” He turned to observe. “And they are leaving. Nice.” He heaved a deep breath. “My ears thank you for finishing.” He was greased with blood on the right side of his face.

  “Kick ass, brother,” Kabongo said with a nod as he dropped to the other gunwale. “Call me officially impressed.” His face was abraded along the jaw line and under the ear. That was what the bleeding was. But he still might have suffered hearing loss.

  “Yeah,” was all Kyle could say. It had been an athletic workout for him, too, and a mental drain. But he’d made the shot. Several shots.

  Even Wiesinger said, "Monroe, while I never had any doubts I had about your shooting ability, that was fucking amazing.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Yeah, the man wasn’t a total waste. Another couple of field ops and he might turn into a respectable officer. The problem, Kyle realized, was that he had a second lieutenant’s manners, experience, and ego, and a colonel’s service time. No one had done him any favors by keeping him in administrative slots.

  Far off were the lights of another boat. A bigger one. Presumably official from somebody.

  “Is it time to call the chopper yet, Mister McLaren?” Kyle asked, his voice high and tight.

  “It’s time!” McLaren agreed. “By the time it gets here, we’ll be in good water.”

  “Use your left ear,” Kabongo said. “We can bandage each other while you call.”

  *****

  The chopper flew escort in the graying dawn. It would have been a faster trip aboard the aircraft, but would mean several winching operations. Kyle was happy enough to wait the extra two hours. The helo also flew interference when the Indonesian patrol boat came to inquire. It landed on the tail of the boat and someone debarked. After a few minutes of face to face, he reboarded. It was impossible to tell through the scope what the details were, but Kyle gathered another “training exercise” was being stretched until it could be seen through. But that wasn’t Kyle’s problem, and the intel could be freely shared, now. A few extra kills for the local forces always sweetened relations.

  It took a subjectively long time to reach the Juneau. Kyle wasn’t up to date on ships. He knew an Amphibious Transport was designed for Marines and helicopters, and was a moderately large craft, but seeing it was substantially different.

  “How big is that?” he asked.

  “The Mighty J, LPD 10, displaces seventeen thousand, five hundred tons full load, is five hundred sixty-nine feet long. She carries eight hundred thirty-five Marines full load, plus a crew of about four hundred, plus flag crew for amphibious landing operations.” McLaren rattled off the specs. That helped Kyle see it for what it was.

  “That’s the size of a small aircraft carrier,” Kyle said.

  “Pretty much. The Wasp class are carriers, for practical purposes, with Harriers as well as helos. But Juneau is plenty big enough for this.”

  “How do we get aboard?” Wiesinger asked.

  “We steer right into the well deck at the stern. Slip this sausage right up her . . . ah,” he looked around at the two huddled civilians, who were wrapped in a blanket, wide-eyed and silent. “Well, in the stern. Nice and safe.”

  “You’ve all saved our lives,” Lei Ling said. “Go ahead and swear. It can’t be worse than engineers.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, but we should learn to use proper punctuation anyway,” McLaren replied.

  The helo made another pass and Kabongo waved them off. It was past dawn now, and the ship was filling the northeast view. Kyle had never dealt with ships, though he had seen a bunch in port here and there, including the Black Sea. Being in this position to a major warship was a new experience.

  The flight deck of the Juneau was crowded with running people as they approached. Then the crowd shifted as the chopper landed.

  It really wasn’t long, according to his watch, but it seemed to take forever to approach the dark cave of the well deck. Juneau was sunk at the stern so they could guide the craft right in. A rail on the left, port side, was crowded with people, and cranes and winches stood ready. The pilot of the boat, a Petty Officer Murphy, was busy with controls and wheels. He hadn’t said much for the trip, but had stuck to the cabin area. Navigating a tiny boat in deep water had to be a difficult task, Kyle thought. Every time he ran into other military careers, he was amazed at how much was involved. There weren’t any dumb grunts, as certain frothing web posters and “reporters” implied. These people were all technical professionals.

  Then they were inside, the bright morning light doused and replaced with the yellow-tinged glow of large spotlights. The smell of the sea mingled with machine oil and metal. The noise was a steady hum with mechanical clatters and bangs interspersed. They drew up to the rail and Kyle felt like a bug as people stared down. He was too tired to care, and these were all friendlies. It was damned good to see nothing but U.S. uniforms.

  Two female medics, as McLaren had specified, wearing very feminine-looking makeup, and civilian clothes with no insignia other than ID packs on their arms, came to escort Lei Ling and her daughter. They were smiling and cheerful to reassure the little girl, and whisked them up the ladder and away to sick bay for observation. Suzanne looked suspicious but didn’t complain. There were running Marines in MARPAT camo with rifles, maintenance crews in color-coded uniforms, crewmen in dungarees, and the SEALs and their support staff in wetsuits.

  “Who’re they?” someone asked, pointing at the shaggy, filthy soldiers, as three sets of hands helped Kyle scramble one-footed up a ladder. Kyle had to wonder just how bad he looked. Death warmed over? Or totally roasted?

  “Army Delta or something. Rescued hostages, my man! U.S.A! U.S.A!”

  There was no need to correct the error, and Kyle was too damned tired. He assumed Wiesinger would say something, but even he was quiet.

  A medic came over and knelt down next to Kyle. “What’s wrong?”

  “Superficials on knee and elbow,” he said. “My foot may be worse.”

  “No problem. Sit here and lie back.” The man nodded as he inspected the injuries, and had a relaxed confidence that came only from knowing he could handle the
situation. Even though the injuries couldn’t possibly be critical, and Kyle had seen, experienced, and inflicted worse, it still helped him relax. He lay back as they gurneyed him to sick hay through echoey metal corridors. Passageways? Companionways? Whatever the Navy called them. He was in a daze and didn’t even notice when he arrived.

  He came alert again because his foot twinged as they cut the boot away. He risked a look down as they snipped and peeled the sock.

  At first it was hard to recognize it as a foot. It was gray and wrinkled from days in the jungle and the water, curled and cramped from the cold. But it resolved to its proper shape, and the swelling and discoloration at the toes wasn’t bad. A slight encrustation of blood was under the nail of his big toe.

  “Don’t even think it’s broken,” the medic said. Kyle could see the three stripes of a petty officer first class printed on his sleeve. “Got to hurt like hell, but we can drain the hematoma and you should be fine. We’ll X-ray anyway, of course.”

  “Bring it on,” Kyle agreed. “I’m not going to complain. But I would like something warm to drink and eat if you can.”

  “Not supposed to until after treatment. But you’re hungry?”

  “Yeah, and cold. I’ll even eat Navy food,” he joked with a smile and a wink.

  “Then I’ll have them bring you some Navy food, and you can tell the cooks what you think personally.” The medic grinned back.

  “Done deal.”

  He was unconscious before it arrived.

  Four hours later, bandaged up, showered, fed excellent food, and wearing borrowed USMC utilities, Kyle felt human again. Dammit, it had been a good mission, even with that pusillanimous Wiesinger along. And they were heading for Singapore and ready to fly home. He dozed again, and the painkillers had nothing to do with it.

  The next morning he rose early. He was having trouble getting back to a diurnal schedule, and Wiesinger’s order that he be up and about pissed him off. The allegation of “malingering”—while he tried to eat and drink enough to cover the ten pounds he’d lost in a week, plus the painkillers keeping him from screaming when he put weight on his foot—didn’t sit well. But he said, “Yes, sir,” and got up. He shaved and trimmed his hair back to Army specs, cleaned up and met the others on deck.

  The three soldiers were finally back together, watching the sun rise somewhere over the Philippines as they stood at the starboard forward railing. The monstrous port of Singapore was ahead and around them. Ships and docks stretched literally for miles—everything from wooden sailing boats to supertankers and freighters. There were islands all around. A large percentage of the world’s ocean traffic came through here. It was the nautical equivalent of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The lanes were crowded in every direction.

  Wiesinger said, “Good news: the Indonesian military stormed the site, finally. They found enough evidence to convince them, I assume, because they did raid Lhokseumawe. They shot the hell out of a bunch of people, but they did intercept a truck with bombs disguised as welding bottles and toolboxes. The target was one of the main tanks at the terminal. Could have taken the whole damned place up.”

  “Yeah, good, sir,” Kyle agreed. “They don’t have security around that place?”

  “Apparently it has holes. But the Australians have offered an intel brief about sources for explosives. Pisses me off that State won’t do it.”

  “Yeah, that always sucks,” Kyle said diplomatically. Frankly, he preferred anonymity, and Robash was the man who could bump his career. What the rest of the world thought wasn’t that critical. “One more thing to deal with.”

  “I’m glad we’re leaving,” Wade said. “I expect more bombs, and more fragmentation of the rebels. Bakri may be in for an even rougher ride.”

  “Good luck to him,” Kyle said.

  “Sergeant Monroe,” Wiesinger said after a few seconds of quiet.

  “Yes, sir?” he replied.

  “You are an insubordinate, impudent, rude little jackass.”

  Kyle said nothing. It was all true, though “little” was only in comparison to Wiesinger’s bulk. The laundry list of complaints he had about the colonel would take a book.

  “But you did do a respectable job. I’m going to ignore a lot of what happened the last few days,” the colonel finished.

  “I appreciate it, sir. And I’m glad we were able to get the job done.”

  “I will expect a full after-action review on events, specifying what you did against my orders and Army regulations, and why. While I won’t charge you, I want you aware of what you did.”

  “I am aware, sir, and I’ll give you that report.” And I’d do it again in a second, you pencil pushing clown.

  “Very good. If there are any areas where you feel changes are needed, write them up as suggestions and I will forward them. That’s how it is done. Sergeant Curtis, you also. ”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  So Kyle was going to get buried in paperwork for his sins. He realized he was just happy to have it over and done with, and would go along with the program without feeling disgruntled.

  Besides, he thought, it was just barely possible his recommendations would be accepted.

  He let the issue drop. They were all on the same side anyway.

  CHAPTER 20

  A week later, they were back in their small, unassuming shop/office in a sixty-year-old building. It felt good, Kyle thought. Be it ever so decrepit, there’s no place like home. Far better than cargo aircraft, decks of ships, trucks in jungles, huts in jungles, or bare skies in jungles.

  On the other hand, to be stuck here every day would be a sentence in hell. It was the contrast and variety that kept Kyle sane. You had to leave to know how good home was.

  The stop in Germany had been far too brief. They wanted him at a Stateside hospital for follow-up tests that showed nothing. That was the military. Afraid he’d develop something lasting they’d have to pay for. They’d concluded it was minor, would heal quickly, and posed no long-term threat. So he didn’t get any German beer or sausage. They weren’t popular with Janie, either. She’d spent half the night snuggled up to him in her waterbed, sobbing in relief and clinging. The other half, she’d been incredibly passionate. He could still feel her hair and skin touching him, her hands. It was good to be missed, arid to be welcome home. But he wasn’t about to credit the Army with that.

  He sat at his desk, perfectly arranged with the pile of magazines and tech manuals on the left, phone on the right, miscellaneous junk on the shelf above the monitor and cutouts from the Beetle Bailey comic strip on the wall. It looked like a mess to anyone else, but everything he needed was at arm’s teach. That was helpful. His foot throbbed even when elevated and despite lots of Motrin. He wouldn’t be walking much for the next week.

  The in-box was stuffed, of course. Between receipts for all the material and paperwork they’d handled so far, and routine memoranda, the stack was inches high. Same for email. Some soldiers could never get over the amateur habit of replying-all to acknowledge a letter. Some people felt compelled to report every minor event. Still others sent out jokes that were appreciated by most but triggered a wave of responses. Kyle groaned and started deleting, reading, filing, sorting, and signing. Wade followed suit at his desk, which was much neater, even obsessively so. Neither spoke much, though the occasional sharp tap on a keyboard indicated satisfaction or frustration with die load.

  “Wiesinger returned most of the cash upon reporting back,” Wade said.

  “Figures. So Bakri got his trucks repaired in exchange for hospitality, food, lots of hours, risk to self, seven of his men dead, and a price on his head. Such a deal.”

  “Nothing we can do now, man.”

  “No,” Kyle agreed. It sucked. Get over it. He wished he'd handed a bunch over while in charge, but he'd been focused on the attack.

  He received an email from someone in intel. He read it.

  “They think they got him!” he announced to
Wade.

  “Who?”

  “Some scumbag who goes—went—by ‘Agung,’ who was the probable party behind the explosive shipments was probably one of the ones the Kopassus killed in the raid. And we got the imam. . . so we may have batted a thousand.”

  “Will we ever know for sure?” Wade asked.

  “Probably not. It’s all extracted data.”

  “So don’t sweat it, Kyle. We did our job, we came back in one piece, we saved a lot of people. Let the intel wienies worry about it.”

  “I guess so,” Kyle agreed. It made sense. But, dammit, he wanted to know. That was the point of the scope to him; to be sure he got the kill.

  But that was a rare situation. Guys in Iraq and ’Nam had swapped fire daily and never known if they hit anything. So he’d take the probable and be happy.

  It was 1530, a half hour from the end of the duty day, When Wade snagged another document from the box and stared for a moment.

  “Hey, check this out,” he Said. He waved two sheets of unit stationery.

  “Whatcha got?” Kyle asked.

  “We are each getting, an Arcom for ‘supporting the operation,’ per Wiesinger. ”

  Both of the last missions had been Bronze Stars With Combat V for valor. For this one, they were credited with “support,” and getting an Army Commendation Medal, akin to that given to people who volunteered for deployments to Germany or Turkey to support the war.

  Kyle was a professional. He didn’t really care about the medals save as markers to point to his record. The acts spoke for themselves. Nevertheless, to see Wade and himself credited with so little was a slap in the face.

  “So what did Weaselface put himself in for?” Kyle asked.

  “A Silver Star.”

  “Shit.”

  “It was downgraded to Bronze, but yeah. Asshole.” Wade’s usual relaxed demeanor was dark.