Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection...

by D. W. Ulsterman

  “Here’s to three more dead in the War on Terror.”

  Mac raised his own beer, brought it to his mouth and proceeded to empty half of it.

  “Yeah, just another small little story sure to be ignored by most. Three gone, but a hundred more ready to take their place. I feel like I’m just treading water, Ray. The world’s gone dark and I’m getting too damn tired to bother looking for a light. I envy the ones who get to get up everyday living in complete ignorance of what is happening all around them. Must make a full night’s sleep a hell of a lot easier.”

  Both men sat silent, staring down at the well worn, dark wood tabletop in front of them as the news began to report on an Iranian billionaire found guilty of fraud and “crimes against national security” by that Islamic nation’s Supreme Leader and chief prosecutor.

  Ramtin Armeen was to be put to death within forty-eight hours.

  Mac grunted softly and then took another sip from his beer.

  “You handed the poor bastard over to the Iranians. That’s cold, man. Still, how’d you know they’d actually sentence him to death?”

  Tilley shook his head.

  “We didn’t. It was a hunch, one that happened to work out in our favor. How about you tell me how you got Gilani to give up the details of the planned attack on the Chicago daycare?”

  Mac glanced at his thumbs while Hamid Gilani’s screams reverberated inside his alcohol-numbed mind.

  “Guess I just helped him to see the error of his ways.”

  Ray Tilley had personally witnessed what remained of Gilani’s eyes after Mac had conducted a very brief, bloody, and brutal interrogation of him on that Chicago Chinatown street. Just as interesting was that Asian community’s repeated assertions to authorities that they had no idea how the dead man whose eyes had been ripped from his skull actually got there or who was responsible for killing him.

  Mac’s mood suddenly appeared to brighten as he looked around at the pub like someone fondly recalling memories of an old friend.

  “Some day I’d like to own a place like this. Nothing fancy, just a little bar where people can close the door behind them and forget all the mess going on outside.”

  Tilley took another sip of beer and tried to picture Mac Walker pouring drinks for people. It was an image that left him openly amused.

  “I’m having a hard time seeing you as a bartender, Mac. Working well with the public isn’t exactly your strong suit. But in the meantime, here’s to America and those who try and keep her safe.”

  Mac lifted his beer and gently clinked it against Tilley’s as he quietly repeated the toast while the world outside remained teetering on the brink and its many evils continued to gather.

  “To America.”

  END.

  MAC WALKER’S REGRET

  A Short Story

  “Laws are silent in times of war.”

  -Cicero

  June, 2007

  Killing another human being isn’t so hard. It’s the forgetting that’s tough. After a while, the faces of those you’ve killed tend to sneak up on you. Sometimes it’s in a dream. Other times you might be sitting in a crowded coffee shop and have a nagging sense of familiarity from the person taking your order. Each death is another haunting, another memory, another bit of subconscious weight added to one’s being.

  For Mac Walker, that weight was never so great as when he killed that child.

  For most people, the reports of the killings in Sudan were just that - reports. Words from a newspaper, or magazine, or read by some mindless, droning, cable news personality.

  The Sudanese conflict received some measure of coverage in the international media, but little in the way of actual resolution measures. It was a country devoid of significant financial and/or geopolitical influence, and as such, its ongoing and increasingly brutal conflict was not a priority for other, more powerful nations.

  That changed though, when a United States senator demanded something be done. That same senator initiated direct lines of communication to high ranking officials within the Catholic Church, and over the course of months, eventually received agreement from the Vatican for third party funding for an unofficial military training and protection program to benefit the Sudanese people. Mac Walker and his men were to spend six weeks in Sudan helping to train rebel forces against the anti-Christian Muslims forces who were engaged in years of atrocities involving widespread rape, murder and mayhem that left entire villages burnt out holes, devoid of any recognizable semblance of humanity.

  It was at one of those villages Mac Walker found himself hunkered down in for the last four days. With nearly seven hundred residents, Tuket existed some forty miles east of Nyala in the southwestern portion of the war-torn African nation. Nyala was, and remains, a particularly violent place, a breeding ground for atrocities and bloodletting. It is a city of over a half million inhabitants, many living in fear of the ongoing campaign of fear and intimidation being waged by various Muslim warlords and pro-government militia against any and all who declared themselves non-Muslim.

  That is not to say there were no acts of terrible violence perpetrated against Sudanese Muslims – there most certainly were. The fact was though, that the Muslims were the dominant population of that region, controlled much of its government resources, including the military, and had repeatedly proven themselves more than willing to silence opposition - by any means necessary.

  Mac had grown to both hate and love the country of Sudan. Its people, the ones not engaged in ongoing killings, were amazingly resilient, even positive in the face of so much chaos, pain and loss. In the village of Tuket, Mac watched with growing admiration as he saw mothers and fathers attempting to raise children under the always present threat of violence with a determined purpose to make life for those children as enjoyable and supportive as possible. The former Navy SEAL could not help but wonder how much better his own country, the United States, would be if more parents there followed the example of these Sudanese families.

  One boy in particular had befriended the glowering, always prepared for the worse, Mac Walker. His name was Musa and he was just a few weeks shy of his tenth birthday. His mother was raising him and Musa’s two sisters by herself after her husband had been killed by a roving pack of Muslim militants almost two years earlier.

  Musa’s clear, white eyes looked at Mac with a mixture of wonderment and admiration. For the Sudanese child, an American was a fascinating thing of unbelievable hope and power - a thing of legend. It took two days before the boy gathered the courage to walk up to Mac and smile at him, his seemingly too large for his body head nodding up and down enthusiastically. The boy spoke halting English, taught to him by his father, who, years ago, had taken English classes while a student attending a Catholic sponsored private school in the neighboring city of El Fashner.

  “You America?”

  Musa repeated the question to Mac several times, his voice growing in confidence, and more determined to be given an answer.

  “You America?”

  Mac Walker looked down at the dark skinned child and gave an almost-smile, his eyes searching the landscape outside the village for any sign of trouble.

  ‘Yeah, I’m American.”

  Musa’s eyes grew even wider, as did his smile while he whispered the word with a reverence Mac had not heard for a very long time by any who actually had the honor of calling the United States their home.

  “America. You America.”

  Having confirmed his belief in Mac’s origins, Musa ran off to his home, which was no more than a shack built of old relics of wood and stone, and mud. It had but one room, which Musa and his sisters and mother all shared. They had no electricity or running water. It was as if time, and progress, had stopped for them over a hundred years ago.

  Three hours later, Musa returned to where Mac Walker was standing near the military grade jeep he had been using since arriving in the Sudan. The back of the jeep housed a small, mounted PKM machine gun. The lightweight PKM
had long been a favorite of the Sudanese government forces, acquired cheaply via Russian based arms dealers. In a small warehouse in central Nyala, the other three members of Mac’s team, Jack Thompson, Jay Minnick, and Benny Williams, were all protecting a stash of over four hundred of these same guns that Mac and his team intended to disseminate, per their assignment instructions, throughout the outlying villages of Nyala in the hopes the people of those villages would have at least some chance of defending themselves.

  A week ago, Jay Minnick had informed Mac of Intel hinting at an upcoming attack against the small village of Tuket. So, Mac left the warehouse in Nyala and journeyed there, intent on protecting the village while the remaining members of his team made certain the store of PKM machine guns were kept safe until they could be successfully given over to trusted rebel forces. The exchange was scheduled for tomorrow.

  For nearly four days Mac Walker watched and waited for an attack against the people of Tuket. No such attempted attack had yet come.

  That changed in the late afternoon of that fourth day, as the temperatures approached triple digits, Mac saw a dust cloud forming some two miles west of Tuket.

  He let out a loud, prolonged whistle to make certain the villagers knew danger was likely on its way. Mac then shouted at Musa to tell his mother and everyone else in the village to hide and stay inside. The boy ran off without question, his small feet moving so fast they created their own little dust clouds that followed his hasty departure.

  Mac jumped into the driver’s seat of the military jeep and started it up, slamming down upon the accelerator with his foot and moving the vehicle several hundred yards outside the village. It left Mac in the open, but he hoped it would also keep the impending gunfire away from the innocent residents of Tuket.

  Within a few minutes, the former Navy SEAL saw the unmistakable metallic flash of approaching vehicles. There were at least two military grade jeeps, similar to his. Putting a pair of Steiner binoculars to his eyes, Mac was able to confirm just two vehicles were making their way toward the village. Each had at least four men inside, wearing an assortment of simple t-shirts.

  Mac moved quickly to the back cargo area of the jeep and positioned himself behind the PKM machine gun, waiting for the approaching jeeps to come into range. They were three hundred yards away and closing fast. Walker squinted as he noted all of the jeep passengers appeared to be armed with basic AK-47 assault rifles. The combination of AK-47’s and the casual clothing indicated the men were likely members of the Janjaweed, a rag-tag collection of roving Sudanese Muslims noted for their all too willing acts of repeated violence against others. They were likely armed and funded by the Sudanese government itself, and where they appeared throughout the rural areas of the Darfur region of Sudan, death almost always followed.

  Well not today. Today they get a taste of their own medicine.

  Mac gave himself a silent countdown as he calculated the approaching jeeps’ rate of speed and the distance between himself and the Janjaweed. The PKM had an effective range of about a thousand meters, a distance the Janjaweed militants were now entering.

  Let them get just a little closer…

  The air sizzling arc of bullets tearing past his position sounded twenty yards to Mac’s left. The Janjaweed were already firing on him. Several more bullets ripped into the ground just ten yards to Mac’s right.

  Now.

  The belt fed PKM snarled to life, firing off multiple rounds in just a few seconds. Mac realized he fired high and wide by a few meters and quickly adjusted his aim. This time the PKM found its mark, sending the leading jeep careening sharply to the left, the vehicle almost rolling over onto its side. The second jeep veered to the right, as several more rounds from their AK-47s pelted the ground directly in front of Mac.

  The PKM again barked its defiance, sending another series of multiple rounds into the Janjaweed. Mac grinned as he heard shouts of pain and panic coming from the jeep that had almost overturned. He fired the PKM again and again until its five hundred round belt was emptied, turning both jeeps into bullet riddled fragments of punctured metal.

  That left him with only his trusted sidearm, his MK25 Sig Saur handgun he was first introduced to during his time as a Navy SEAL. The weapon had been slightly modified to provide an even quicker than standard firing response, and had in some ways, become a physical extension of Mac Walker himself.

  He jumped from the back of the military jeep and crouched low, trying to hear or see movement from any surviving Janjaweed. While no such sounds or sights were given, Mac Walker remained waiting, his instincts informing him his work was not yet finished.

  “America! America!”

  Mac’s head snapped to his right, looking behind him as the small form of Musa ran toward him. The boy’s smiling face indicated complete ignorance of the danger surrounding him.

  “America! America!”

  The first shots fired from one of the Janjaweed missed Musa by no more than a few feet. The boy cried out as his just smiling face transformed into a mask of terror. Mac yelled out at the person, still hidden, who had fired the AK-47 at the young boy.

  “Hey! Over here! Hey!”

  Musa hesitated for a brief moment as he looked ahead at Mac and then behind him where his village stood.

  “Run Musa! Run! Get away! Go!”

  Musa’s wide eyes stared at Mac in confusion.

  Another several AK-47 rounds flew into the dirt in front of Musa, this time just inches in front of his feet. Musa cried out again and fell backwards, his hands and feet scrambling to push himself back up.

  Mac Walker fired off two rounds toward the military jeep to his left, thinking that is where the AK-47 shots were coming from.

  “Run Musa! Move your ass!”

  Musa had regained his feet and this time, no confusion resided in his eyes. He finally and fully comprehended Mac’s instructions and took off running toward his village. Mac fired two more rounds from his MK25, hoping to provide the boy needed cover.

  Mac Walker watched gratefully as Musa’s quickly moving form had already covered half the distance back to his village. He would soon be out of range of whoever was left alive among the attacking Janjaweed.

  Another series of gunfire sounded behind Mac – and then Musa dropped.

  Mac stared in disbelief at the sight of the boy’s body as it lay unmoving in the dirt some two hundred yards away from him. The Janjaweed militants were a largely poorly trained fighting force, and certainly not noted for their marksmanship. The bullet that had entered Musa’s upper back and then tore through his chest, tearing his right lung apart, was a matter of fate - terrible, unforgiving, fate.

  The former Navy SEAL forcibly calmed himself, entering a frame of mind known simply as his “killing place”. It was during these times Mac Walker had no fear for himself, and near total awareness of every detail surrounding him. His senses converged with his years of military training to transform him into something just beyond human.

  It was during these moments that Mac Walker had the deliberate and deadly movements of an apex predator - a killing machine of the highest order with few, if any, equals.

  Looking back at the still unmoving form of Musa, Mac catapulted himself into the driver’s seat of his vehicle, turned the ignition, and slammed it into gear, heading directly for the jeep to his left that he was certain provided cover for at least one surviving militant.

  Mac heard and felt the impact of several more AK-47 rounds pelting his vehicle as his foot pressed down on the accelerator even further, catapulting the jeep toward the militant’s own still unmoving and bullet riddled jeep. Mac Walker rolled out from the driver’s seat and onto the ground just yards before impact, his handgun already held out in front of him. The collision of his jeep into the militant’s jeep shook the ground beneath Mac’s feet, the frightening sound of shrieking, twisted metal reverberating all around him.

  Then all was still and silent.

  Mac walked slowly to the right of the collis
ion, his MK25 at the ready, his eyes and ears scanning the area for any sign of life.

  There was movement to his left, on the other side of the wreckage, followed by the unmistakable sound of human hands re-gripping an assault rifle. Mac Walker knew the sound all too well, having heard it tens of thousands of times before.

  More movement sounded to his left, quicker this time. A surviving Janjaweed was attempting to sneak up behind Mac and take him out.

  The Janjaweed was fast.

  Mac Walker was faster.

  Just as he saw the AK-47’s barrel begin its upward arc toward him, Mac fired off a single round from his handgun, dropping the Janjaweed where he stood, the close range bullet tearing off a sizeable chunk of the militant’s skull just above his left eye.