“Todd, Zack, copy!”
“Dude! That tower you’re taking fire from! By any chance is it covered in welded steel panels?”
Zack had just leaned down inside the truck to grab another can of minigun ammo, and was trying to haul it up into the turret – but the shit was heavy. He set it down and stole a look out the plexiglas viewport.
“Affirmative.” That explained a lot. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t worked this out on his own. Bad light, maybe, or euphoria. And terror.
“Okay. You’re gonna have to take that shit out.”
Zack could actually hear the thunk-thunk-thunk of Todd’s Mk 47 firing while he spoke, picked up by his chin mic – and then he could see the explosions blossom, generally in pockets of maneuvering al-Shabaab guys, one second later: thunk-thunk-thunk…BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
“Remember how I said if we were here longer than fifteen minutes you’d have to use the Mk 47?”
“Affirmative,” Zack managed. He was breathless from trying to haul the ammo can up again. Plus from the terror. That last wave of RPG hits had been way too close.
“Forget that crap. You’ve gotta use it NOW. And you’ve gotta load up the Hellhounds. And you better haul ass, man, ’cause those RPG gunners are gonna take you out, dude!”
Zack briefly wondered how Todd knew that, since there was no way he could see the guys shooting at him.
Then he remembered the quadcopter – and that he had forgotten to take out his phone with the video feed on it. Well, no damned time now.
He dropped back down into the truck and started scrabbling through the stacked cans of 40mm grenades. Blood from his hand was getting on everything, turning every surface slick with hazard and frustration.
The whole truck rocked from an explosion, which also blew out the plexiglas viewport on the turret. Zack felt a hot pain in his shoulder, and looked across.
There was a little spike of plexiglas shard sticking out of it.
And he didn’t even have time to yank it out.
Basically, he didn’t have time to bleed.
* * *
Brendan was in a gunfight now.
The three of them were on the last level before the cells. The stairwell down to them was in the middle of a corridor. And at the far end of it were two guys with AKs. They’d been waiting for them. Now they were hunkered down on opposite sides of the cross hallway at the far end.
And Brendan was at this one, Baxter and Elijah behind him – and that was where he was keeping them. Dirt sprinkled onto his head as AK fire tore up the dirt walls above and around him. At the far end, the two jihadis were basically just sticking their weapons around the corner and triggering off long bursts. Brendan was crouched down, and leaning out to trigger off careful, aimed, single shots.
Until he finally got sick of that shit.
He stood up, let his weapon dangle on its sling, pulled out a fragmentation grenade from its vest pouch, pulled the pin and popped the spoon, did a four count – then leaned out, estimated the range, gave it an underhand toss, and ducked back around the corner, pushing both Baxter and Elijah farther back.
Unseen, the grenade did exactly what he intended it to: it hit the ground just before the end of the hall, bounced once while still moving forward – then detonated at waist height in the middle of the intersection.
When Brendan swung around the corner, bringing his rifle up in the same motion, no one was shooting at them anymore.
He pushed out toward that last set of stairs.
No Guarantees
Camp Price - Team Room
[The Night Before]
“We are the three-man assault element,” Brendan said. “Baxter, I need you to be part of it – to lead us to the cells. Also for the additional manpower. I’m going to try to make you as safe as possible. But there are absolutely no guarantees in combat.”
He didn’t add: Never mind in this shit we’re attempting.
“No problem,” Baxter said. “Anyway, what’s the alternative? If Zack and I stay here in the camp, and you guys go out and don’t come back… we’re dead as soon as the food runs out. It’s too far to walk anywhere.”
Brendan remembered that Baxter had worked as an analyst in HOA. He knew the region. He was also brave – and obviously ready to fight, and do his part.
Brendan continued the briefing. “I’m on point – always. I’ll clear our way, and do any shooting that’s necessary – with a suppressed weapon, which will hopefully keep the defenders from clocking the incursion and responding or repulsing until it’s too late. Baxter navigates, from the middle. You keep my ass in sight at all times – and you don’t fall behind Elijah.”
“Roger that,” Baxter said.
“Eli is tail-gunner Charlie. You watch our six – that’s it. I can flow through these tunnels. But I absolutely have to have someone watching for enemy in my wake, and in our rear. And there’s going to be a lot of rear, because we’ll be moving fast. And, again, neither of you shoot unless either I ask you to – or you’re about to be killed by someone I don’t see and am not already engaging. Got it?”
“Got it,” Baxter and Eli said in tandem.
If Eli – who was supposed to be a Special Forces soldier first, a medic second, and a Christian a distant third – felt like he was being patronized, he didn’t give any sign of it.
“Now,” Brendan said. “Those cell doors – pretty solid?”
Baxter nodded. “Yes. Thick wood planks.”
“Good.” Brendan stood and went to one of the cabinets, and came back with two different pouches of slightly different size and appearance. He sat and opened the first one. “This is an EPW kit. We’re going to need these: double-loop flex-cuffs…” He pulled out a few long lengths of plastic that looped back over themselves like a highway cloverleaf. “You get them on both hands, ideally behind the back, then cinch both ends tight. They’re made so you can do it in one motion.”
Baxter nodded. He got it.
“Prisoner hood.” Brendan pulled that out. Then he opened the second pouch. “And a PVC body bag.”
These produced some preview mental images that everyone there figured they probably could have done without.
But soon enough the images would be real.
ARMY
The Stronghold - Above the Cells
Brendan faked around the corner to the stairwell, drawing fire from below. Sure enough, there were more defenders down with the cells, maybe guarding Kate, though it didn’t really matter. Bren knew from Baxter that there was no outside door – the dirt stairway just opened onto the larger room with the cells leading off that.
He stole a look over his shoulder to check on Baxter and Elijah – both were right behind him, each scanning the empty stretch of hallway to either side over raised weapons. He then pulled a flashbang and stuck his index finger in the ring, but then hesitated. There was a shitload of fire coming up from down there. And he could see their time-on-target (TOT) stretching out, from the watch face on the inside of his left wrist.
“Fuck it,” he said, slotting the flashbang back in its pouch and pulling an anti-personnel grenade instead, then arming it. As he counted it off in his head, he shouted, “Dunajski! COVER UP!”
That got him to four, and he slung the grenade around the corner and down the stairs. It exploded as he was still pulling his arm back and he charged straight down the stairs into the still expanding cloud of dust and debris, rifle up and scanning.
There were two guys face down on the deck, vests full of banana mags, AKs lying nearby. Brendan put two rounds into each of them.
“Dunajski!” he repeated.
“Here, Cap!” Last cell on the right. He shot the padlock off and opened it up.
She emerged wearing only her Ghostex pants and Under Armor t-shirt. Both were smeared with mud, soot, and blood. Her face was contused and swollen, but both her eyes could still open. And she was definitely on her feet.
She even managed a smile as she said, “De oppresso li
ber.”
Brendan nodded, then said, “Lesser known fact, but that doesn’t really translate as ‘to free the oppressed.’ Literally, it means ‘from an oppressed man, to a free one.’ Apt enough today, I guess.”
Kate boggled at him through swollen eyes. “It’s funny, you look like an infantry officer. But really you’re a geeky kid who went to private school and did Latin declensions for fun, aren’t you?”
Brendan just shrugged.
While they were bantering, Baxter had arrived and already sprung into action. He unslung his assault pack, uncinched the spare M4, and passed it across to Kate. While she dropped and checked the mag then pulled the charging handle, Baxter zipped open the pack – inside it was a plate carrier and LBE loaded with M4 mags, which he removed and also handed over. Then a coiled up tactical belt and drop-leg holster with her M9 in it, plus four pistol mags in a pouch on the back. While she buckled on the belt then shrugged into the vest and Velcro’d it up, Baxter reached down into the bottom of the bag for one last item. When he pulled it out, it was folded up and crumpled.
He took it by the bill and punched it open with his other hand.
By this time, Kate was tooled up and was tightening the rifle sling. She looked up just as Baxter brushed her hair back and popped it on her head.
Her olive-green ARMY ballcap.
Brendan nodded in approval.
She looked like a pure badass again.
* * *
Jake fired twice around the edge of a little outbuilding, two booming reports, knocking down an al-Shabaab dude who had gotten cocky about popping from behind cover to snipe at him. More rounds immediately started finding him, high angle this time, so he elevated and started triggering off at the parapet to his left, almost behind him. The guys shooting at him from up there dropped to the deck. So he shot them through the deck.
The wooden parapet was like rice paper to the Beowulf.
From this position, he could see the armored guard tower in the north-west corner again. And he could still see guys popping out of its far side and quick-firing volleys of RPGs, still trying to take out Todd. It must be getting hot where he was. But if so, he wasn’t complaining.
And if al-Sîf was still up there in that tower, he wasn’t showing himself. But somehow Jake knew he was there. That’s where he would be, if he were running this defense.
“Todd, Jake.”
“Send it.”
“Yeah, there’s what I would call an armored guard tower here, and its crew are sending a lot of rockets down your way.”
“Dude, tell me something I don’t know.”
“Okay, how about this – you need to fucking take it out.”
“Copy that. But I do NOT currently have a look. I see the guys popping out from the side. But the tower’s hidden behind the building to my left.” He paused before adding: “Armored guard tower, huh? It’s almost like Godane knew we were going to be bringing the Mk 47s in here.”
“Yeah, almost like.” Hunched over his EOTech, Jake took four evenly spaced shots out into the courtyard, then dropped the empty mag out with a schick. As he pulled a new one, he said, “Okay. I’m going up top. I’ll deal with the tower.”
“Negative, negative. Just let me load up my Hellhounds, then I’ll pull the vehicle forward. I can take it out from there.”
“Negative,” Jake said. “You can’t expose the vehicle like that. You won’t last a minute out of the defilade of those buildings. And I can’t protect you – you’ll get swarmed and taken out. And then we’re all dead.”
There was also the small matter that Todd couldn’t both drive the truck and man the guns. He’d be naked while he tried to maneuver.
“Dude – there are like fifteen dudes in that tower.”
“Wait out.” That meant: end of discussion.
Jake scanned around for the quickest way up to the top of that wall.
* * *
“Goddammit,” Todd said aloud, but without his radio keyed.
He dropped down inside to grab those Hellhounds. He needed to reload the 47 anyway. And if Jake failed – not that he’d ever seen Jake fail – there’d be no choice but for him to pull forward with his face hanging out in the wind, and put the hurt on that armored tower.
As he climbed back up into the turret, he did a double-take: there was a pile of bodies and RPGs on the ground outside, barely twenty-five meters from his face. There were three or four of them, pretty clearly a hunter-killer RPG team that had been trying to maneuver in close to him for the kill – while he was down below, blind and helpless. But they’d all been shot to death.
This was equally odd and pleasant, but Todd didn’t have time to ruminate on it. In fact, he had to do three things all at once now:
Reload the damned grenade launcher.
Talk Zack through his own personal war with an armored guard tower full of assholes with RPGs.
And worry about Jake, and whether he was making a serious tactical error.
Because, in addition to the rocketeers who were popping and targeting him, Todd had glimpsed one other thing up in that elevated, immobile tank of a guard tower: al-Sîf, the enemy commander, sticking his face out and having a look around. That huge sword on his belt was kind of a giveaway.
Todd had sent a 40-mil thunderstorm his way, but the slippery son of a bitch had gotten clear in time. He was most likely still alive.
And something told Todd that Jake had seen him, too.
Jake had said he was going up there because that tower had to be taken out, and only he could do it. But, as Brendan had been doing recently, now Todd couldn’t help but question whether that was really Jake’s motive. Because al-Sîf was, in a very real sense, his white whale – and now he had put to sea with a .50-caliber harpoon, and perhaps had no intention of coming back empty-handed.
Now Todd just had to hope all the rest of them there on the Pequod weren’t going to be doomed as a result.
* * *
“Zack, how we doin‘?”
Zack was doing shitty, thanks very much. It took him what felt like approximately a year and a half – with the heavy pelting machine gun fire, and the explosions all around growing closer and more violent, and with a fucking shard sticking out of his shoulder – it took what felt like an eternity of scrabbling around in the bottom of the truck to find the one crate with the red stencils on it.
The bloody Hellhounds.
Now the big cumbersome ammo can was slick with blood, plus weighed a goddamned ton – and when Zack finally got it hauled up into the turret, he realized he had to get the old one out first.
Son of a bitch!
He started trying to switch them out in place, but there was almost no room, not with two huge weapons mounted on opposite sides of the turret ring.
“Zack, Todd, you gotta engage, man – they’re about to find the range on you. And those RPGs will penetrate your armor fast once they’ve got you zeroed.”
Zack’s mouth was a tight line. “Copy.”
“Because that’s kind of what they’re designed to do.”
Having got the old can out and dropped below, he finally got the new one seated, got the end of the belt of grenades pulled out, and was now trying to thread it into the open receiver of the weapon. He’d had this demonstrated for him exactly once – and not with shit blowing up on all sides of him, being peppered with machine gun fire, blood on everything, his mind overloading with pain and panic…
THERE. Motherfucker.
He looked at his blood-drenched hand and began to worry about how much blood loss was too much. Should he call a timeout and rewrap it? He’d be no good to anyone if he passed out—
The truck rocked from a direct hit, or something damned close to it.
He’d also be no good to anyone if he was incinerated.
He got the minigun swiveled out of the way so he had room to operate the Mk 47, got his fingers wrapped around its twin handles, the left one instantly slick with blood – but then realized he was fa
cing into the interior of the building, the minigun still facing out. Putting his shoulder into it, he fought to turn the heavy turret around until it was facing out into the courtyard again, then put his face down into the glowing CRT and put the crosshairs in the middle of that guardhouse.
Just in time to see the whole area to both the left and right blossom into two giant fields of what looked like cumulus clouds.
It was RPG launch trails – a shitload of them.
“ZACK! Seriously – RELEASE THE KRAKEN!”
He squeezed the trigger and the weapon started shaking. Gunk-gunk-gunk-gunk-gunk-gunk… He triggered off a half-dozen rounds in one second.
“Zack, cover u—!”
He let the handles go, dropped straight to the bottom of the truck, then tried to burrow his way into the front passenger compartment, curling into a fetal ball and covering up his head with both hands—
—as heat and overpressure pummeled his ass and entire backside, and the whole truck seemed to go supernova all around him.
Lieutenant Speirs
The Stronghold - South Gun Truck
Todd looked up from the tablet, where he was doing a BDA of the tower Zack had just engaged, finally… and saw Jake break from cover and start running flat out – right through the goddamned courtyard, cutting off the whole south-west corner, out in the open.
He keyed his mic. “Jake! Use the cover of the buildings, by the damned wall!”
“Negative. No time.”
He could see his team sergeant hauling ass directly for a ladder that would get him up onto the parapet at the top of the wall – and the parapet would get him across to the remaining guard tower. Unfortunately, the route he had picked required running through a bunch of low sheds, then some parked rickety-ass trucks – and then out on totally open ground. And pretty much the whole way he was exposed on all sides to fire from the Stronghold’s defenders.
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