by Hawk, Nate
The prairie was the clearing that now in front of them. They would be exposed for a few moments during the approach to the ravine but only to motorists on the road. The roads were winding and a vehicle could come around the corner in a heartbeat. They did find some added cover in the darkening evening sky. Plus, they knew if they heard a vehicle they could just lie down in the medium-length grass. The trick would be hearing the vehicle in time.
As they walked on cautiously, it turned out there was no need to flatten themselves on the ground in hiding. They continued on and were swallowed up in the darkness of the gully. With the steep walls and the tree cover above, it was like walking through a tunnel. Kelly knew there were homes above on the ridges but none within eyesight. The team was walking slowly, searching for sentries, either stationary or roving. Kelly was point man, because he’d done this type of work about a thousand times and was the only logical choice. Even Brooke, with her hardened independent streak, had agreed. Morale continued to stay strong between the two. They both knew each other well and worked seamlessly.
As the ridges themselves rose, the ravine seemed to rise just a bit sharper. It became shallower as the altitude increased. Eventually all points would lead to the same area, the tallest point. It was a climb but just that. Kelly wasn’t really winded. His left foot was sore, though. He’d anticipated that and had wrapped the healing wound tightly in an effort to keep it closed. Brooke didn’t complain, even if her thighs had a slight burn. After a half-mile and what seemed like an hour later, the two reached a naturally occurring kind of plateau where their objective was laid out before them. They knew it was the place for several reasons, mostly because of the parking lot they saw. They recognized it from studying it on the satellite maps.
Brooke began to get into the prone position while simultaneously folding her bipod into position. The sun had set now. The moon was in the waxing gibbous phase, casting a moderate amount of light. There was some starlight too, so the combination provided their darkness-adjusted eyes with just enough ambient light in which to work. Brooke could see well through the ACOG. Its illuminated reticle was working reliably as it was known to. Her model was one of the originals that the company had produced and did not require batteries. It collected the ambient light, sending fresh energy down a fiber optic tube, directly to the tritium reticle. Kelly kneeled down and took in the area in front of him. It was what his mind had expected after reviewing the satellite images and the topographic maps. The vehicles were right where he envisioned them to be. So far so good.
Kelly opened his pack and pulled out an antipersonnel mine. Although he preferred to work with US military hardware, in his hurry, he had been forced to settle with a French-made product known as the MAPED F1. Ultimately, the device’s origin wasn’t important to him since he had worked with most types of explosives. He knew the electric firing system to be relatively intimidating for an infantryman but with his bomb squad training, he found the process simple. A contact wire would actuate the device. He installed the A-frame legs on each side of the mine and inserted the electric detonator. An adjustment was quickly made to the direction that the mine faced. He wouldn’t want to get that backwards but the writing on the device gave any moron using it proper English instructions. “Face Towards Enemy.” He positioned it lower than the actual plateau for two reasons. He didn’t want stray gunfire to strike it and he wanted it hidden from the enemy’s sight. He covered the device with leaves so it was completely hidden from sight. Then he rolled out a spool of contact wire and ran it back down the ravine about a hundred feet. He attached the battery pack and the firing cable to the electric detonator. The device was armed.
Brooke knew the plan. They had gone over the general outline including all of the details of operating the MAPED F1 numerous times. Kelly was confident in his plan but his instructors’ voices yelled out at him from his Marine days. No plan survives contact with the enemy, Marine! Kelly gave Brooke a stern look. They knew it was time.
“Cover me, if it starts getting wild. Anything happens, you know what to do.”
Brooke’s heart was pounding and she was completely focused on their upcoming task.
“Let’s do it,” was all she said.
She felt the truck key pressing against her leg through her pocket. She hoped that she wouldn’t need it. Kelly had one in his pocket too and the plan was that he would drive back. Brooke looked away from Kelly and gazed back across the geography before her. Initially, she didn’t stare through her scope as she knew it would limit her field of vision. She concentrated hard in an effort to isolate any movement or noises in the area. Kelly moved quickly through some long grass that clearly was never put on any type of maintenance list. Being relatively early in the season the height wasn’t at its peak. It was only pulling at his shoes and brushing against his shins.
Once he passed through the sparse tree cover, he was in the open. Underneath his footing was gravel so he slowed his pace. He was careful not to make any more noise than necessary. He was watching and listening too. The birds and insects were singing their evening serenade but Kelly was on edge. He couldn’t appreciate the sounds that night. He heard a dog barking somewhere off in the distance. It sounded like the dog was jumping against a chain-link fence, perhaps in some psychological display of his perceived dominance. Kelly noticed a stench that he couldn’t get out of his nostrils. He pushed it from his mind. Suddenly, there was another noise that was growing in volume. The low rumble of a motor and tires on gravel.
Kelly could hear the vehicle getting closer so he decided to move back to Brooke’s position. As he started to turn, the truck’s lights rose over a nearby hill and began to project their brilliant sheen on the vehicles around him. Knowing the driver would likely notice any sudden movements, he slid down behind a station wagon. Damn it. Here we go, he thought, as he fought his instincts and willed himself to remain stationary. The headliner was sagging on the wagon and the wood adorned vehicle was completely filled with junk. Probably somebody’s entire life possessions, he figured. Kelly appreciated the rusted out car, though. The items inside would block the man’s view of Kelly’s head and shoulders that would otherwise have been seen through the vehicle’s rear windows. The truck motored on continuing its slow advance. Kelly’s heart rate and respiration were elevated but he still had enough wherewithal to notice a slight misfire coming from the trucks muffled exhaust. It slid into a parking spot three spaces down. As the driver finished the parking process, Kelly moved slightly around the rear corner of the wagon to its side. The driver dismounted and beams of light poured across the top of the vehicles from the truck’s interior light. Brooke came onto the radio as it spoke softly to Kelly through the earpiece.
“One man, unarmed,” she said.
Kelly said nothing. The man closed the door but the truck didn’t quite grab it. He nudged it with his hip and began walking in Kelly’s direction. Kelly had kept his rifle shouldered since he had emerged from the tree line earlier. He was in a crouching position and his back was to the man, pressing against the wagon. As he prepared himself, he knew that this was a shitty place to be. He hoped the man would walk on by, oblivious to the world around him. The soft sounds of nature were mixed with the noise of crush of gravel under the man’s advancing feet. Kelly saw the man’s left foot come into view and then a leg. Then Kelly saw the rest of his body.
Kelly was pressed flat against the vehicle and was absolutely motionless. The man didn’t break his stride, passing Kelly obliviously and uneventfully. Nice, Kelly thought, as he let out a quiet sigh of relief. He was happy to send some of these assholes to Allah but he sure didn’t want to get into a shootout yet. There were other things that needed to be done first and a shootout would bring undesired attention at a very bad time.
As Kelly watched, the man’s pace curiously began to change. He was slowing and putting his hand in his pocket. Brooke was watching carefully and thought he might be going for a pistol. She began to squeeze her trigger, determined
to drop the man before he could draw down on Kelly.
But then she realized he wasn’t going for a weapon. She released the pressure that had been building underneath her index finger. The man wasn’t going for a gun. His body posture was telling of something else. He was searching for his key fob. Had he locked his truck?
Kelly froze. The man was ten feet from him with the key fob in his hand. And, he was turning. Although the man would never hear his voice, Kelly was begging him not to turn around. But he did.
Before the vision of the crouching man in front of him could register, Kelly leaped up to his full size with his rifle arcing upwards. Leading the charge was the collapsed butt stock on his M4. The unsuspecting man’s brain could not process quickly enough what his eyes had revealed to him. He was frozen in bewilderment. Kelly’s entire strength propelled the stock towards the man’s face. It was like running into the corner of a house at 350 miles an hour. Kelly had no mercy. The result was immediate unconsciousness.
The man’s nose turned into a pink mist and was never seen again. He sprawled backwards, covering a yard or so before his feet touched down again. It was like watching a misproportioned airplane land on a short runway. The man’s body came in at a horizontal pitch and slid on the gravel until it came to an abrupt stop. He had been transformed into a heap of inert matter. Kelly knew it took a lot to kill a man. He moved forward towards the body, assessing the threat risk as he closed in. Kelly quickly smashed the man’s face with his butt stock five or six more times until he was sure the man was dead.
Kelly realized he couldn’t leave him there. Somebody was bound to notice. He let his automatic rifle dangle on his sling in front of him and seized the man’s body. He lifted him on to his shoulders and carefully walked towards the truck from where the man had just come. He opened the passenger side door with his right eye closed to preserve his night vision. The interior light flooded out at him instantly. He positioned the body and shoved it in. It was difficult to move the lifeless man but Kelly was persistent and motivated. The man’s feet were on the floorboard and his upper body had fallen over towards the driver side. His head was laying in the indentation his ass had made, one day at a time for the last ten years. Kelly closed the door with minimal additional noise. Surely nobody would find the man before Brooke and Kelly had extracted themselves from the compound. Somewhere in the distance, Kelly heard another vehicle moving around.
Then he continued on to the SUV that was of interest to him. He moved quicker then and with more noise than when he had begun his approach moments before. As he neared, he pulled out his adjustable Estrela flashlight, set on a low three lumens. Standing at the driver’s side he shined the light where the dashboard meets the base of the front windshield. It only took a moment for Kelly to compare the VIN number to the one he had memorized. That and the fact that there were no ground effects, was good enough for him. He knew it was the vehicle that Niko had driven from Boston. In fact, Kelly could almost smell the man. “The number checks out,” he said into his mic as he glanced down towards his increasingly more painful foot.
***
Chapter 45
“Steven, I hope you didn’t fly down here with your kryptonite in hopes of vaporizing my career too! I’m all for kicking some more ass at the Red House compound with you… just like the good ol’ days. But listen, I need to know what’s up. What’s goin’ on?” he asked with curiosity.
Steven didn’t appreciate the man’s reference to his own reputation as a Clark Kent. He didn’t let it show, though. If Kelly delivered, he could put up with a few of Hands’ wisecracks. He hurried down the few steps of the Bureau’s plane to the waiting man. Agent Wheeler extended a large open hand to show that maybe he was only half-concerned about the mysterious operation. Incoming and exiting aircraft filled the uncomfortable gap in the conversation as the men walked towards the idling cruiser. Steven hadn’t responded yet.
“That’s a hell of a greeting,” he finally said. He wasn’t surprised by Hands’ concern towards his own self-preservation.
“I’m just saying,” he said, with a shoulder shrug that indicated he was still entrenched in a skeptical perspective.
“Don’t get all worked up. If it pans out, we’ll split the recognition. If it doesn’t then we go home. Nobody loses.”
Surreptitiously, Steven could think of about a dozen things that could go wrong. He didn’t like having Kelly free-balling it on his own out there with no known support. On the other-hand, Steven hadn’t gotten almost to the top by being a pussy. He maintained his nerves.
***
There wasn’t any sense in being overly cautious now. Kelly wasn’t sure who else may have heard all of the noise that he had just made. He had studied the blueprints of the building so he had a general feel of the layout inside. There was a light on in a rear section of the main structure. He walked on towards it. His eyes searched left and right for more threats or items that seemed out of place. The grass he was walking through was filled with leaves from the mature oak trees that thinly surrounded the building. He stopped about ten feet from a glowing window, half hidden behind landscaping that didn’t seem to be on any maintenance list either. Then he peered inside.
There was a familiar looking man sitting behind a computer, although he looked slightly different than Kelly had expected. The man was certainly more vivid than he had been in the photos that Kelly had seen. Kelly wasn’t sure where his long hair ended or where his beard began. He looked like a caveman typing away at some important task. He could have been emailing ISIS for all Kelly knew. The man was puffing on a pipe, preoccupied with whatever digital task he was performing. Kelly continued, vigilantly circling the house as he made his way to the back door. It was wrapped with a wooden deck that was built out over a small ravine. The wood proved to be in good repair, although certainly weathered and settled. Kelly thought back to Bellflower Avenue and the creaky wooden steps there. And the dozens of other places he’d had to move silently over the years. He didn’t see any reason to make a big production of tiptoeing up the stairs and creeping across the boards. Kelly moved forward quickly, each step reverberating into the deck below him. When he reached the rear door, he hardly paused. He jacked his foot up and his knee backwards. Then he quickly thrust his leg forward into the door. Apparently Abbas hadn’t reinforced his strike plates or used three-inch screws because the door flew open with little fanfare. As Kelly rushed in, the tall man was reaching for an AK that was propped in the corner.
“Police, Police,” Kelly yelled. Which he was, but he wasn’t.
He had no jurisdiction there. It was only an effort to hopefully startle the prehistoric looking creature long enough to gain control of the situation.
“Don’t touch that gun and I won’t use mine,” Kelly said coolly, as he quickly closed the distance between them.
Kelly wanted to take the opportunity to christen their acquaintance appropriately. The man had been reaching for a rifle, after all. As Kelly approached, he drew up his leg and kicked Abbas square in the forehead. The man fell backward from the power of the kick as he tried to brace himself. It wasn’t the hardest kick ever. Kelly didn’t want to injure him; not yet, anyways. First, Kelly needed some answers.
“Look asshole, the ACLU isn’t going to send in lawyers to make me leave. Our conversation is going to go like this: you’re going to answer some questions honestly or I’m going to fuck you up. You understand me?”
Kelly’s rifle was suspended from its sling and he picked up the AK. He dropped the magazine out of the receiver and ejected the chambered round. Then he threw the gun across the floor as he kicked the magazine in the opposite direction.
“No need to tempt you,” he said as he put cuffs on the man’s wrists. “We’re going to play twenty questions and you’re the only contestant.”
“What is it you say?” Abbas asked, pretending as if his verbal comprehension wasn’t good enough for an English dialogue.
Ironically, there were a few w
ords in there that Abbas had not caught. What is ‘contestant’? he wondered. Kelly was standing about one leg’s reach from Abbas. He had turned so Kelly’s muzzle was now pointed at his chest. The safety was off. Kelly’s finger rested on the trigger guard. Only a very small amount of diminishing discretion kept his finger from ending Abbas’ life.
“Where did Niko go?”
Abbas answered apprehensively with a slow but predictable, “I don’t know Niko.”
Abbas crawled off of the floor and attempted to take a seat on an ottoman near his computer desk. Before the man finished the sentence, Kelly’s foot had been airborne, zeroing in on Abbas’ left kidney. The kick quickly registered and the man fell on the floor in excruciating pain. This wasn’t a Hollywood film set. Kelly knew he had kicked him hard enough with the heavy boots that he would piss blood for a week. Kelly sure didn’t care though. Besides, his own foot would probably be bleeding for a week too.
Brooke keyed in to her mic, “We’ve got company. A guy just found the other man’s body in the truck.”
“Roger that,” Kelly said with an increasing sense of urgency.
Now Abbas was twisting around on the floor attempting to clutch at his side with his cuffed hands. Kelly walked over to the nearest window and closed the blinds. Then he repeated the process on a second window. Time was ticking so he knew he had to hurry. In the meantime, Abbas clearly wasn’t able to make any progress in his efforts to stop his pain, although it seemed to at least have plateaued off. I can handle this guy, Abbas seemed to be thinking to tell himself. The bearded man rolled around, trying to focus on anything rather than his current situation. Kelly noticed a gleam of pride in the man’s eyes and decided that he looked more like a pirate than a caveman. He had a bit more class than a caveman. Not much though.