Dispatches

by Steven Konkoly

  “Get up and over, man. They’re coming,” hissed Alex.

  He reached the top as Charlie dropped to the other side. Swinging his right leg over, Alex pulled himself over the top and dropped, crashing to the ground next to his friend. A sharp, deep-seated pain shot up his left arm, which was trapped underneath him. He rolled onto his back, crying out when the arm shifted. Charlie kneeled next to him.

  “I think I broke my arm,” said Alex.

  Charlie reached across his body, accidentally grabbing Alex’s arm. The contact sent a shockwave of pain through his arm, which Alex muffled with a grunt.

  “Sorry, Alex,” said Charlie, pausing momentarily. “What do you see on my hand?”

  A slick, dark green stain covered the palm of Charlie’s hand. “Blood.”

  “You probably don’t want to—”

  Alex craned his neck to examine the useless appendage, seeing the forearm bent at an odd angle in the long sleeve of his jacket. Compound fracture. He dropped his head against the forest scrub.

  “—look at your arm,” finished Charlie.

  “Get me up. We need to get clear of the fence,” said Alex, extending his good hand to Charlie.

  Alex was on his feet running, already a hundred feet into the forest, when he heard the diesel engines. Through the thick tangle of dead bushes and low pine boughs behind him, he watched two dark shapes creep past the fence. He patted Charlie on the shoulder, about to congratulate his friend, when the high-pitched squeal of the Humvees’ brakes pierced the night.

  “Get behind a thick tree, and get down!” he yelled as one of the Humvee’s backed into sight.

  A long string of tracers stitched through the trees, passing overhead. Alex nestled into the spongy forest floor, pulling his legs into a fetal position behind him. He groaned from the pain of pressing his arm into the ground, but he needed every square inch of his body blocked by the tree, and he needed his good arm free to operate his rifle. A second stream of tracers stitched through the base of the trees, bullets striking low against the trunk in front of him. The ground between Alex and Charlie exploded from the hail of bullets.

  Alex risked a glance toward the fence, seeing that the Humvee had been repositioned to point at the fence. The second Humvee was out of sight, likely depositing mercenaries farther down the fence line. Within minutes, they’d have to contend with a flanking maneuver. He didn’t see any way out of this.

  “Any ideas?” he yelled to Charlie.

  Charlie shook his head as tracers passed between them. “You always come up with the plan!”

  “Watch your right flank! The second Humvee kept going!”

  Keeping his body hidden from the M240’s fusillade, Charlie turned onto his left side and aimed his rifle toward their right flank. A concentrated burst of gunfire hit Charlie’s tree, tracers slicing inches from his prone figure. A metallic crack was followed by a string of curses as Charlie quickly pulled his gun behind the tree.

  “Son of a bitch! They broke my rifle!” he said.

  “Does it still shoot?”

  Charlie leaned around the tree and fired several times at the Humvee.

  “Yep!”

  “Then it ain’t broke!” said Alex, pressing his rifle’s vertical hand-guard grip against the tree and firing a wild burst toward the fence.

  His gunfire was met by a furious volley of well-placed bullets, one ricocheting off his ACOG scope and grazing his right cheek.

  “Fuck!” yelled Alex, pulling his rifle back.

  He turned on his back and lifted his neck to examine the forest behind them. Streaks of light sailed through the darkness, striking trees and spinning through the pine boughs. The ground appeared flat. There was no way they could make a run for it without being torn apart by the Humvee’s machine gun. Their only choice was to hold in place and hope the helicopters showed up within the next minute or two. He didn’t anticipate surviving longer than that. Long beams of light reached out from their right flank, probing the trees and ground around them.

  “Stay as low as you can!” said Alex. “They’re using IR beams on our right flank.”

  “Fuck that,” said Charlie, shifting his aim to the right.

  A quick blast from his rifle was followed by a distant scream. The beams of light disappeared. The problem with IR beams was that they worked both ways if your adversary had night-vision equipment. Bullets hissed over Alex as the flankers fired in the general vicinity of the M204’s tracers’ general hit pattern. Alex hit his radio transmit button.

  “Ed, where are you?”

  Static filled his headset for a few seconds.

  “We’re headed south as fast as we can move,” said Ed. “What’s going on at the compound? Sounds like they’re still there.”

  “We’re pinned down about a hundred feet from the fence. No way we can move. They’ve got a group flanking us through the trees. We need those helicopters,” said Alex.

  “We can hear them,” said Ed. “That’s why we’re busting ass to get out of here.”

  “The helicopters?”

  “Yeah! They’re close. Can’t you hear them?”

  Alex dug through his right cargo pocket for the ROTAC phone, seeing a deep orange glow through the open pocket flap. He flipped the NVGs up and read the illuminated display. Missed call-Hellfire 05. Time 20:05

  “Two minutes ago,” he muttered, selecting “Hellfire 05” and pressing SEND.

  Chapter 35

  Plymouth, Maine

  The helicopter banked left, giving Staff Sergeant Dan Hurley a temporary reprieve from the endless treetops. The interstate edged into view through the gunner’s station window, snaking south through the pines. They had followed the highway since Augusta, tracing its meandering path for nearly forty-five miles until they spotted two “still warm” vehicles crashed near one of the exits.

  The helicopter’s FLIR (Forward Looking InfraRed) pod had spotted the heat signatures nearly a mile out, prompting the pilot to call their ground contact. No answer. They hovered above the wrecks long enough to confirm that neither vehicle matched the description they were given by the Marines. The pilots continued north on the highway until one of the Marines reported seeing a stream of tracers fly into the air to the southwest.

  “Gunners, I still have no contact with our guy on the ground. Do not engage unless you identify a target that is firing at one of the helicopters. We have multiple friendlies on the ground,” he heard through the headset mounted into his helmet.

  Two lines of tracers arched over the distant treetops, the scene drifting out of Hurley’s view as the helicopter continued its sharp turn. The pilot steadied the utility helicopter on a new bearing, headed southwest. They’d be above the ground battle in less than ten seconds at this speed.

  “All stations. I have contact with the ground. Troops in contact. We’re going in hot. Port side, stand by to engage targets marked by laser. Friendlies will be marked by a ground flare. Be advised. A second group of friendlies is on foot several hundred feet south of the compound,” said the pilot.

  “Port-side gun station, solid copy,” he said, listening to the Marines confirm the pilot’s order.

  In his peripheral vision, the Marines crowded the port-side cargo door, readying their weapons. He felt the helicopter shift left, flying a straight course for several seconds before banking hard right and slowing. Barrel flashes and tracers appeared below the dense pine canopy at the helicopter’s eleven o’clock. Hurley swung the GAU-2/A 7.62mm Minigun toward the battle, revving its six barrels without feeding the ammunition. The electrically driven, air-cooled gun could fire up to fifty 7.62mm rounds per second at a sustained rate, utterly devastating anything in its sights. He found the flare burning brightly under a barrage of tracers. Now all he needed was a target.

  A bright green laser answered his prayers, pointing at the source of the tracers—a Humvee partially obscured by the lead edge of the trees near the compound’s eastern fence line. He triggered his gun’s IR laser, matchi
ng its point of aim with the helicopter’s. When the two aligned, Hurley depressed the spade trigger for a full second.

  A continuous stream of low-intensity tracers belched from the minigun, ripping through the trees and blanketing the Humvee in sparks. The 7.62mm bullets couldn’t penetrate the Humvee’s primary armor, but that wasn’t his intention. Hurley’s mission was to turn the less protected turret into a charnel house, ensuring that nobody in his or her right mind would climb behind the M240 machine mounted inside. To drive home that point, he fired a longer burst at the Humvee, focusing the stream of tracers at the top of the Humvee.

  “Targeting hostile foot mobiles one hundred feet south of friendlies,” said the copilot, who was operating the FLIR.

  The helicopter’s target designation laser shifted left, penetrating the trees a hundred feet north of the friendlies. Flashes appeared in the general vicinity of the laser, followed by the hollow ding of bullets striking the helicopter’s aluminum hull.

  “Copy. Circle the target saturation area,” said Hurley.

  The laser drew a shaky, oval pattern over the flashes. Hurley waited for the flare to drift a few degrees right of his line of fire to minimize the possibility of skipping rounds into the friendlies. He held the trigger down for three seconds, blanketing the circled area with more than one hundred and fifty projectiles.

  “FLIR registers good hits on foot mobiles,” said the copilot. “Coming off target. Zero-Six lining up for a pass.”

  The helicopter’s laser disappeared as they broke out of the trees and flew over open ground. He caught a glimpse of trucks and a few structures before trees filled his gun-station window. The helicopter banked left, giving him a view of Hellfire Zero-Six’s gun run. Minigun tracer fire showered a different Humvee, causing a secondary explosion on the ground. The Marines hollered, cheering the gunner on. A few shorter bursts from the gun were directed at the forest in front of the first Humvee, presumably striking a second group of foot mobiles.

  “We’re coming in for a hover above friendly ground unit. Zero-Six will land in front of the garage and disembark Patriot elements. Watch for a third hostile vehicle possibly entering the compound from the north,” said the pilot.

  The crew acknowledged the pilot as they flew over the compound and approached the flare from a southerly direction.

  Chapter 36

  Plymouth, Maine

  Alex lifted his head a few inches off the ground after he was certain the second helicopter was finished. Dozens of tracers and bullet ricochets from the friendly miniguns had ripped into nearby tree trunks and branches. He wasn’t complaining, but he wasn’t taking any chances either. His flare continued to burn brightly on the ground between them, whitewashing his view through the NVGs. He pushed the goggles off his face, squinting at Charlie’s red, glowing form.

  “You okay?” whispered Alex.

  “Aside from the 7.62 millimeter haircut?” said Charlie, who remained face planted into the ground. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “Check the right flank, in case something survived,” said Alex.

  “Nothing survived that,” said Charlie, rolling onto his side to scan the trees through his riflescope.

  “One of the helicopters is going to hover directly above and keep us safe while a squad of Marines secures the area,” said Alex.

  “Does that mean I can just lay here for a while?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much all I plan to do for now,” said Alex.

  The deep, rhythmic thumping grew louder, preceded by a growing wind that rustled the pine boughs and swept a fine layer of dirt from the compound through the trees. As the dark shape of Hellfire Zero-Five moved into position above, a maelstrom of pebbles, sticks and dried pine needles pelted them, causing Alex to bury his face in his arms. A quick burst of minigun fire sent a line of red tracers toward an unseen target, presumably the second Humvee.

  Small-arms fire erupted in the compound, punctuated by the buzz-saw sound of the minigun above them. Spent casings tumbled through the branches, jingling as they struck the ground next to Alex. Either the third Humvee had showed up, or a few survivors had decided to fire at the offloading helicopter. Alex’s ROTAC buzzed as the crackle of gunfire thinned. He didn’t recognize the call sign.

  “Alex Fletcher,” he answered.

  “This is Sergeant Keeler. I’m moving my squad toward the fence, due west of your position. We’ll clear the vehicle and cut a hole in the fence. Have you out of there in a few minutes.”

  “Copy, Sergeant. You know where to find us. Any sign of the third Humvee?”

  “Negative,” said Keeler. “I have a few AT-4s waiting for it to make an appearance.”

  “I hope you get to use them,” replied Alex, switching to his handheld radio. “Ed, this is Alex. Can you hear me?”

  “Barely. Are you guys okay?”

  “I broke my arm, but that seems to be the extent of it. We’re just waiting for a squad of Marines to sweep the area. Where are you now?”

  “Somewhere south of the SUV. We stopped moving when the helicopters started firing. Do you want us to head back?”

  He could barely hear Ed over the incessant noise and rotor wash of the helicopter above him.

  “Did anyone follow you into the woods?” said Alex.

  “I don’t know. We’ve been hauling ass since we got over the fence. We can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Just stay where you are. Lay low and listen for any sounds.”

  “I hear helicopters and gunfire,” said Ed. “That’s about it.”

  “Do what you can until we get this sorted out,” said Alex. “How’s Ryan?”

  “I think he’s enjoying this way too much,” said Ed. “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. See you in a few.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

  “It is if you’re trying to stay alive,” said Ed.

  Alex laid his head on a thick root protruding from the bottom of the tree trunk and watched the red flare sputter against the ground. All he wanted was a stretcher and a helicopter ride home. He highly doubted either was in his immediate future, unless the paramilitaries had disabled the SUV before chasing them. Over the drone of the helicopter rotors, he heard the sharp metallic snap of bolt cutters breaching the chain-link fence. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for the Marines to surround his position.

  “They’re here,” said Charlie.

  “Mr. Fletcher?” yelled a voice in front of them.

  A figure in full combat kit appeared at the outer fringe of the flare’s light, aiming a rifle at Alex.

  “Yes. Alex Fletcher and Charlie Thornton. We’re on the ground with the flare between us.”

  “Can you bury the flare for me?” said the Marine. “I need to positively ID one of you.”

  Alex grabbed the flare with his right hand and jammed it into the soft forest floor, burying it as far as possible to give the Marine a chance to use night vision to identify them from a distance.

  “Confirmed! I have Alex Fletcher on the right. Mr. Thornton on the left,” said the Marine, rushing forward. “Hasty one-eighty facing east.”

  As the Marine rifle squad sprinted into positions around them, Alex rose to his knees to greet the squad leader.

  “Sergeant Keeler, good to see you again,” said Alex.

  “The pleasure is all mine, gentlemen,” said Keeler. “If you don’t mind, Hellfire Zero-Six would like to get airborne ASAP.”

  Alex struggled to get off his knees.

  “Need a hand, partner?” said Charlie, pushing himself off the ground with his good hand.

  “I don’t know who’s helping who here,” said Alex.

  Sergeant Keeler heaved Alex to his feet by his vest, swiftly grasping Charlie’s good hand and swinging him into an upright position.

  “We need to move,” said Keeler, striding ahead of them.

  Alex flipped his NVGs in place and followed the sergeant to the helicopter, pulling Charlie through th
e darkness. Once inside the Black Hawk, Alex slipped a pair of crew headphones over his NVG harness and spoke with the pilot.

  “Thanks for the rescue. We were about a minute from the end when you guys showed up. Drinks are on me,” said Alex, feeling the helicopter lift off the ground.

  He dropped into an empty, forward-facing seat between two Marines.

  “You’re lucky we can’t take you up on that offer,” said the pilot.

  “One of these days,” said Alex. “Hey, did Zero-Five mention picking up two additional friendlies? My son and another friend are on foot, south of the facility.”

  “Zero-Five has located them using infrared. Tell them to proceed due south. They’re less than a hundred meters from the interstate,” answered the pilot. “Zero-Five will pick them up in the southbound lanes.”

  “Roger. I’m calling them now,” said Alex, pressing the transmit button on his handheld.

  “Ed, this is Alex. I need you to continue south another hundred meters, three hundred feet or so. You’re almost to the turnpike,” said Alex.

  He could barely hear Ed’s reply.

  “Say again, Ed. I didn’t catch what you said.”

  “—not us,” said Ed.

  “Not us? Did you say not us?”

  “Some—else,” said Ed. “Been trying—contact.”

  “Stay put. We’ll fix this,” said Alex, keying the helicopter headphones.

  “Pilot, my guy on the ground is telling me that’s not them. I can’t hear what he’s saying. I think he’s whispering. Can you have Zero-Five do another sweep with their FLIR?”

  “Stand by,” said the pilot.

  Alex felt the helicopter bank sharply, increasing speed as it came out of the turn.

  Charlie yelled across the troop compartment, “What’s going on?”

  “I think there’s another team tracking Ed and Ryan!” he said, the implication hitting him hard.