Task Force Desperate

by Peter Nealen

  We got the rest of the way out of the city without incident and headed for the open desert.

  After about another fifteen minutes, Colton brought the vehicle to a stop and shut off the engine. We sat there for a few more minutes, watching and listening. A hyena trotted by a few hundred yards away, followed by what looked like a jackal a minute later. There was no sound but the wind and the pinging of the engine as it cooled.

  Once we were satisfied that we were alone, Alek and I got out, pulling our rucks out of the back, and each pocketing several IR chemlights. We staged the rucks next to the vehicle before starting to set up the LZ, marking a T with the chemlights.

  Soon we could hear, faintly, the sound of the Bell 407, coming in from the ocean. Alek was on the radio with Sam, murmuring quiet instructions, as the two of us waited on a knee, next to our rucks. I held my rifle at the alert. We were pretty sure we were alone out here, but you never really knew.

  The low roar of the helo increased, and I spotted it, low and fast over the horizon. We hadn’t heard of any SAMs being used out here, and the rebels didn’t seem to be organized enough to have coast watchers to keep anybody out, but complacency gets you dead, especially when you’re working on the shoestring that we were on.

  Sam brought the bird in hard and fast, flaring at the last second and kicking up a shitstorm of dust, sand, and gravel. I ducked my head to avoid the worst of it, but it got in my eyes and teeth, and down the back of my shirt, anyway. Par for the course. He could have brought it in gentle as a lamb, and the rotor wash still would have sandblasted us.

  Alek and I grabbed our rucks and ran, hunched over, for the helo. The side door was already open, and Fig was leaning out, rifle leveled, watching the surrounding territory for threats. I beat Alek to the bird, tossed my ruck onto a seat, and clambered in after it. Alek was only a few feet behind me. No sooner were we both on the bird, than Fig was pulling the door shut, and Sam was pulling pitch.

  We banked hard, still less than one hundred feet above the ground, and then we were moving, the nose pitched hard forward, screaming out toward the Gulf of Aden at barely 150 feet.

  He kept it low and fast, dipping even lower as we got out over the water. The rotor wash kicked up a wake, which glowed faintly with bioluminescence as it churned beneath us. The sky was clear, the moon nearing its zenith, and reflecting off the mild waves.

  Sam didn’t take a straight course, but followed more of a long J-hook, coming around and approaching the Lynch from the north. It had been over a week, but Van Husten was still steaming racetracks in the Gulf. I hadn’t heard what excuses he was making to his employers, but we rather appreciated it.

  Somebody was on the edge of the helipad, guiding Sam in with a handheld light, just as I had done earlier. He drifted in from the port, sidling in to land directly on the H. Sam was nothing if not a perfectionist when it came to his flying.

  The skids settled and the rotors started winding down. Fig led the way off the bird, and started lashing it down as Alek and I collected our rucks and headed for the superstructure.

  Matt was waiting in the team room, along with a slender man with salt-and-pepper hair, who grinned as he saw us. Matt took his leave as soon as we walked in, muttering something about having to get some sleep before he took over watch again.

  “Well holy shit,” Alek said. “Good to see you, Danny. Didn’t know you were going to be the one they sent out here.”

  The graying man’s grin turned slightly sheepish. “Well, as it happens, I’m the sacrificial lamb who’s been made responsible for this goat rope.”

  Alek got serious at that. We dropped our rucks at the hatch and went to sit down at the table in the middle of the compartment. “Tom didn’t mention that you were the guy who called.”

  “The Colonel doesn’t really know me,” the man called Danny replied. “At least not by sight. And I’ll admit, I didn’t really go to any great lengths to fill him in on our past association.” I thought I remembered who Danny was, now. He had been one of Alek’s platoon commanders, one of the better ones, who had gotten out and disappeared into Special Activities. “It wasn’t really relevant to the job.”

  “The job, I should tell you,” Alek said bluntly, “is a clusterfuck.” His ham-sized fist hit the table. “What the fuck, Danny? No info, no support, just, ‘Here’s what happened, oh by the way there are maybe as many as two hundred hostages in the middle of this shitstorm, go find ‘em.’”

  Danny didn’t flinch at either the blow to the table, or Alek’s outburst. “I know, Alek, I know. You think I didn’t try to push for more? You think I liked throwing you guys to the wolves? Hell, I’m not even supposed to be here, right now, and I’m sure as hell not supposed to get on that helo and go ashore with you.” He took a deep breath.

  “Look, here’s the deal.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “The administration is in panic mode right now. Ordinarily, something like this would be responded to with drone strikes. It’s how they like to do business. It’s something pretty risk-free that they can point to in press releases to show they’re tough on terrorism. Doesn’t really do much, but they’re politicians, they don’t give a fuck about results, they just want the appearance of results.

  “Trouble is, Lemonier was the drone base in the region. Most of the rest that were started up got shut back down for one reason or another. Sure, there’s a small one up north, near the Eritrean border, but they only have a couple of Reapers.

  “Not only that, there are hostages. They can’t just start throwing Hellfires around without risking dead hostages as a consequence. Their main action item has been effectively taken off the table.”

  “So what?” I asked. “There’s still the rest of the military.”

  Danny looked over at me. “I wish that was the case, brother,” he said. “But the budget cuts, the collapse of the dollar, and all of these bullshit interventions in the last five years have spread things way too thin.” He pointed in the general direction of the Indian Ocean. “That MEU out there? I guaran-damn-tee that half its helos won’t fly, mainly from lack of parts. They’re pretty short on fuel, too. They have to gas up at each port, just enough to get them to the next one.” He shook his head. “The greatest armed force in the world is a hollow shell of itself. It’s worse than the Clinton years. Training is lacking, too. Oh, there are some outstanding NCOs who are still hanging in there, in spite of what’s looked like a concerted effort to force out the experienced ones, and they’re doing their damnedest to get their boys trained up, with or without equipment, fuel, or ammunition. But there are fewer of them every year.

  “Let’s face it, guys; you are the best equipped and trained force for the job, as few of you as there are.”

  For a long moment, Alek just looked down at the table, at a loss for words. When he looked up, his voice was quiet. “It’s really that bad?”

  Danny nodded sadly. “It is. We’re as bad off as the Russian Army in the ‘90s. You’d weep to see how many of our guys are either on welfare, or missing training to moonlight for enough money to feed their families.

  “There’s more. They’ve realized that they can’t let people know that they’ve essentially left us defenseless, while assuring everyone that they were just ‘trimming the fat,’ and that what would be left would be a leaner, ‘smarter’ force. It’s dawned on them that if they try to intervene in Djibouti, and get stomped by a Third World force because their troops are now under trained and equipped with poorly maintained crap, the cat is out of the bag. They’re panicking about it.”

  “So you’re saying that we’re not getting any support because there really isn’t any support to be had?” I asked. The true horror of what was going on was starting to set in, and I was starting to feel a little sick.

  “Mostly.” Danny’s face was grim. “I’ve managed to persuade the powers that be to let me go in-country, along with some electronic eavesdropping gear, and a few small surveillance UAVs that you guys can’t get on the open m
arket. I also brought about two million, in Australian Dollars and the new Reichmarks.” I knew that those two represented pretty much the strongest Western currencies at the moment. “And, I’ll be your interrogator if you do take detainees.”

  “Danny,” Alek said slowly, “what about the hostages? If the military is in as bad shape as you said, how the fuck are we going to get them out when or if we find them?”

  He shook his head. “They’re still scrambling to get enough assets together. To be honest, it may well be the Aussies that have to come get them. They’ve at least still got a decent force, if not the power projection we used to have. The new Bundeswehr is getting stronger, but the administration has managed to thoroughly piss the Germans off, not to mention that they’ve got their own problems.”

  There was a long, slightly stunned silence. It had really come to this. The United States had covertly hired a small private military company to do the job it had rendered itself unable to do. Holy shit.

  The conversation continued for a while, as Alek and I picked Danny’s brain about every sordid little detail of the situation. Before we knew it, it was almost dawn. We wanted to get back, but trying to insert into that mess in daylight was less than advisable. We bedded down on the ship to get some fitful sleep, while we waited for dusk.

  Chapter 9

  We didn’t get much sleep, as it turned out. It had only been a couple of hours when Matt rousted us out.

  “We’re being followed,” he said. We grabbed kit and rifles, and headed topside.

  The sky was clear and brassy, the sun beating down on the water. We got up on top of the superstructure, where Salomon was sitting post, behind his VEPR .308. He looked over at us as we came out of the ladderwell, and then pointed. I took the proffered binoculars, letting my rifle hang from its sling in front of me.

  There were three boats on the water, about half a nautical mile behind us. It looked like two dingy skiffs and a brightly-painted blue dhow. The dhow was pretty big, probably about a hundred feet long. Even from this distance, with the binos I could make out the KPV 14.5mm heavy machine gun mounted in the dhow’s bow. Pirates.

  I handed Alek the binos. “This job just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?” I said dryly. He peered through the binos and grimaced.

  “We’d better be ready to take out that 14.5 gunner fast,” he said. “He could ruin our whole day.” He studied the view a little longer. “I think I see a couple of RPGs in the smaller skiff. This could be fun.”

  He lowered the binos, and handed them back to Salomon. “How do you want to play it?” I asked.

  His jaw set. Anger sparked in his eyes. “We lie low until they get close, then fuck ‘em up. I’ve had it with this shit. I want those fuckers dead.”

  I knew how he felt. After the metric ton of shit we’d had dropped on us already, this was the last fucking straw. I grinned humorlessly, and headed below for the weapons locker. I wanted something a little bit more substantial for this, at least to kick things off.

  The weapons locker was really little more than a cargo container, fitted with multiple racks for various weapons that we carried with us as a matter of course on these sorts of high-risk jobs. I cranked open the doors, and headed for the back.

  It took a little bit of shuffling, but I was able to come out with a bandolier, and a long drag-bag, which I slung over my shoulder and headed back topside, securing the doors behind me as I went. I trotted up the ladder wells, breathing hard, and came back out at the lookout on top of the superstructure. Alek and Salomon were already bent over their rifles, peering through optics at the oncoming pirate vessels. I went over next to Alek, and unzipped the drag-bag.

  One of my MOS’s in the Marine Corps had been 0317, Scout/Sniper. My first job in the high-risk contractor world had been as a “Defensive Designated Marksman” which is a fancy way of saying “sniper” that doesn’t get the plant-eaters’ hearts all aflutter. I had kept current, and was one of the top shots in Praetorian Security, if you don’t mind my saying so.

  The rifle I pulled out was my baby; a Sako TRG-42, chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, with a Surefire muzzle brake and HorusVision scope. I could reach out and touch someone out to over a mile with that baby, and I loved it. I hadn’t taken it ashore before, but was already planning to when we headed back. I quickly scrambled up on top of the flat superstructure, to the side of the lookout post, and laid out the drag bag for the bipod legs. The five-round box mag slid into the weapon, and I worked the bolt, locking the first round into the chamber, and settled behind the gun.

  The wind was fairly calm, but there was still enough swell for it to be a tricky shot. I would have to time it just right, taking into consideration the flight time of the bullet. The boats were getting closer, and I’d let them get closer still. I wanted that KPV gunner, and I wanted him before he could get anything like an accurate burst off.

  Of course, pirates being what they are, they’d probably start ripping bursts off high, to try to frighten the poor, defenseless merchies into surrendering, to be ransomed to their company. Suckers.

  Danny had appeared back on top of the superstructure, carrying a Mk 17, and settled in the prone a few feet from me. I glanced over briefly as he climbed up, and then went back to my scope.

  The dhow was rising and falling on the swells, but I thought I was getting a pattern established. A couple hundred more yards, and he was mine.

  Of course, no sooner had I thought that than he opened fire. I saw the ten-foot muzzle flash of the heavy machine gun a split second before the rounds cracked by overhead. A couple seconds later, the thud thud thud of the gun rolled across the water.

  I dare anybody not to flinch at least a little bit when something that big is being shot at you. Those rounds are the size of my thumb, and packing half again as much punch as a .50 BMG round, and the tracers look like someone had set baseballs on fire and started throwing them at your head. It is not a happy experience to be on the receiving end.

  Even as I picked my head up off the deck and put it back to the scope, I could hear the helo spooling up behind me. Alek was serious about taking the fight to these assholes. Good.

  It was hard to see the gunner past the enormous flash of the weapon, but I breathed slow and easy, and settled my hold on him, using the Horus grid. I had to adjust slightly for the extra heat coming off the barrel; it would raise the impact of the bullet, however slightly. The .338 laughs at turbulence that would throw a .308 round high and right.

  One more breath, and my finger slowly tightened on the trigger.

  The gunner stopped firing, and turned to shout something to his buddy on the port side, laughing. The trigger broke.

  Even with the muzzle brake, the .338 had a hell of a kick. It slammed back into my shoulder, with a hammering boom that echoed out across the water. I lost sight picture for a split second, through the flash and concussion of the shot. When I settled back in, the KPV was unmanned.

  “Good hit,” Danny called out. “Went into his upper left chest. Tango down.”

  I worked the bolt and moved to the next target. One of the pirates, wearing a loose, flowered shirt and carrying an AKS, was looking toward the heavy gun in shock. I took in the slack on the trigger again. Another bone-rattling boom. Another pirate gone when I got back on the scope.

  By now they had figured out that something wasn’t right, that this placid bulk carrier had teeth. The dhow slowed, and started to turn to port. The skiffs scattered to either side. Behind me, the 407 came to full roar, and I felt the wind as it started to lift off.

  In spite of their sudden realization that they were in a bad situation, the pirate vessels were now close enough for Alek, Salomon, and Danny to start firing. Two more pirates toppled into the bottom of one of the skiffs, as I blasted a third off his feet and over the gunwale of the dhow.

  There was a lot of yelling going on down there now, and I saw one of the pirates on the larger skiff start waving his AK in the air and shouting. He smacked h
is coxswain with the back of his hand, and gestured threateningly at the others in the boat, then pointed his AK at us and ripped off a burst. Apparently, he was either very brave or coked out of his mind, and was determined to take the ship. Whichever it was didn’t matter to me. I swung my muzzle around to line him up.

  That’s where things got problematic. The skiff was coming on fast, as the coxswain laid on the throttle. The bow came up out of the water, and rooster tails sprayed up behind the boat. I had a split second to line him up for a shot before he was going to be too close, and under my horizon.

  I didn’t make it. Cursing, I abandoned the sniper rifle, grabbed my M1A, and rolled off the roof of the superstructure and back down into the lookout, barely missing Salomon. Alek was already coming off the lip, and heading for the hatch, while Salomon and Danny continued engaging the farther skiff. One of Salomon’s casings hit me in the cheek as I went past, and I brushed the hot brass off with another curse. I don’t think he even heard me.

  Alek and I rattled down the ladder well as fast as we could, kitted up and carrying rifles. The narrow, steep steps were a pain in the ass when speed was an issue.

  We got to the main deck, and ran through the cramped passageway toward the port side. Alek slammed through the hatch, reeling a little at the impact with the heavy metal. I was right behind him.

  The pirates already had a boarding ladder hooked onto the lip of the gunwale, and sporadic fire was snapping up toward the top of the superstructure. I hadn’t heard of pirates being this aggressive with a defended ship before, but like I said, maybe this guy was just doped out of his mind.

  Alek and I got to the gunwale, just as three more bullets smacked into it. The helo roared by overhead, and I heard Alek speak into his radio, saying, “No, they’re too close to the ship. Go handle the others further out.” That was when I realized I hadn’t turned my comm on. I did so hastily. Alek looked over at me, and I nodded. With that, we popped over the lip of the gunwale, following our rifles over.