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

by D. W. Ulsterman

  This is one hell of a mess you got yourself into, Mac Walker.

  Udi had been looking out into the streets with his own pair of binoculars. His mouth was curled slightly downward as he looked from left to right, and then back again.

  “I did reconnaissance work just outside Rafah, right before the ground invasion. My team got caught too far ahead of the line. We were holed up in this abandoned two-story home for almost three days, trading rounds with a group of militants whose numbers were growing by the hour. They had us pinned down, but were too afraid of just coming at us directly. Then they backed off. Just like that, after three days of shooting at us, they disappeared. My commanding officer, who was old enough to have served in the South Lebanon Conflict in the early 1990’s, ordered us to evacuate the house and run like hell.”

  Minnick removed his eye from the night vision scope to glance over at Udi.

  “And what happened?”

  Udi continued to stare into the street below them as he answered.

  “We did as we were ordered to do, we ran like hell. They fired at us over and over again, and we simply ran and fired back. Lost two of our team, a few more injured. But we made it past them, knew we were no more than a half mile from Israeli forces. Knew the militants wouldn’t follow us. I was looking back from where we had come from, and saw the explosion. Felt it below my feet too. Military forensics tested the site a week later after the area was secured. The building we had been holed up in was nearly gone. The detonation device was an enhanced Fajr-5 missile, one of the first to be used in the conflict – Iranian made, terrorist enhanced.”

  While Minnick appeared uncertain as to the intent of Udi’s story, the realization hit Mac, turning his blood cold. His head lifted toward the dark Benghazi sky.

  “Oh, shit.”

  XVII.

  Mac Walker didn’t so much run down the stairs as he did fly down them. They needed to get the hell out of the building – and fast.

  “Ella! Lock and load time! Does this place have a back way out of here?”

  Ella seemed to know that whatever had Mac so spooked was not to be questioned. Perhaps her own instincts had already been telling her something was wrong with how the men had retreated outside.

  “Yes, in the bathroom under the rug.”

  Mac was already moving again, his body a blur moving at incredible speed down the hallway. He opened the bathroom door and threw back the rug to reveal the faint outline of panel cut with great precision through the poured concrete flouring. A single brass handle was located in the center of the panel. Mac grasped the handle and pulled upward with a grunt as he removed the solid concrete panel from the floor, exposing a narrow square opening just wide enough to allow a man access through it.

  Mac placed two fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly.

  “Let’s go! Move your asses! Bring weapons and ammo with you!”

  Jack was the first to arrive in the bathroom. Mac stepped aside and motioned toward the opening.

  “Get down there and wait. We’re all right behind you, Alabama.”

  Jack struggled momentarily to fit through the escape route, but then dropped down into darkness as Ella pushed both Udi and Tamir into the hole right behind Jack. Minnick and Benny were the next to drop down into the opening after Mac screamed for them to get moving. That left Mac and Ella looking at one another.

  “Your turn, Ella.”

  Ella Lerner stared back at Mac, the faintest of a smile appearing on her face. What she did next shocked Mac Walker, and he was not one to shock easily.

  Ella grasped both sides of Mac’s face in her hands and brought her lips forcefully against his own. Before she pulled away from the fierce kiss, she bit down on Mac’s lower lip with enough force to draw a bit of blood.

  “Just in case one or both of us dies tonight, Mr. Walker.”

  Mac found himself grinning stupidly at the space where Ella once was as she disappeared into the passage below. Recovering from Ella’s kiss, Mac slid his body into the opening.

  The escape route was a narrow tunnel that was part of a long abandoned storm drain system. It was no more than three feet in height, requiring Mac and the others to crouch low as they made their way slowly toward what appeared to be a shaft of murky light some fifty yards ahead. As they neared the light, Mac could see it was coming from a metallic grate, a grate Udi was already pushing out from its frame.

  One by one, each member of the group pulled themselves through the grate’s opening and emerged in a trench that ran alongside the same street that crossed in front of Ella’s building. Minnick was already looking out from the trench with his night scope to see if anyone had noticed their escape. After a few seconds, he slid his body fully back down into the trench and then whispered to the others what he saw.

  “No sign of anyone. The Hummer is right across from our position here.”

  Mac nodded back to Minnick and motioned for everyone to follow him to the Hummer.

  Pulling himself out of the trench, Mac confirmed what Minnick had just reported. The street appeared empty. That good fortune did nothing to make Mac feel any better. It only confirmed to him that they were running out of time.

  With Mac in the lead, the group made their way as quickly yet quietly as possible across the street. The light of the approaching morning was beginning to remove from them the still much needed cover of darkness.

  Benny was the first to pause in the street, just steps from the Hummer, his head tilted slightly to the right.

  “You hear that?”

  Without thinking, Mac was holding his breath as he strained to hear what Benny was talking about. Soon he too made out a faint buzzing noise coming from an unknown location above them as Minnick scanned the early dawn sky with his sniper rifle scope.

  “Three hundred yards southeast and approaching. Drone – predator class. It’s armed.”

  Mac pointed to the other side of the Hummer.

  “Over here, get as low as you can behind the vehicle and don’t move.”

  The sound of the drone increased considerably as it approached their location from above, its sound similar to that of a large, angry mosquito. Mac and the others watched as a single missile shot from below the drone’s right wing flew into the front of Ella’s building.

  The explosion was massive, sending fragments of the building flying into the air and then falling down where Ella, Mac, and their men were crouched behind the SUV. The heat from the detonation ripped through the air around them, blowing out the Hummer’s windows and causing the vehicle to momentarily rock back and forth on its wheels.

  Ella’s eyes glared back at the departing drone, her jaw flexing in rage.

  “That’s your government, Mr. Walker. The same one that had my own country’s prime minister enter the White House through the back door.”

  Mac simply shrugged.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here. Jack, see if this thing will still fire up.”

  Jack moved into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition, his face breaking out into a mad grin when the big American-made, Vortec V8 rumbled to life.

  “Told you Mac! Knew it was a good idea to snag these wheels!”

  Mac watched the street as the others positioned themselves inside the SUV before finally taking his place in the passenger seat in the front with Jack.

  “Countin’ on you to get us the hell outta here, Alabama.”

  Jack slammed the Hummer into gear and slammed his foot down onto the accelerator.

  “Like I stole it, Mac! Like I fucking stole it!”

  As the Hummer leapt forward onto the street, Mac heard multiple gunshots from behind them followed by the sound of bullets ripping into the Hummer’s tailgate and rear bumper.

  “Heads down!”

  The others followed Mac’s command immediately, as Jack turned the vehicle sharply to the right, driving across a median and onto another street as the V8 engine roared under the strain of Jack’s demands. Mac looked into the passenge
r rear view mirror and saw two more of the now familiar government issued black SUVs attempting to follow them.

  None inside of the Hummer said anything as Jack maneuvered them around parked cars, across lawns, and even down and back up several large irrigation ditches as he worked his way toward the main road leading to Benina Airport. Once onto that main road, Mac looked back again and saw no vehicles behind them.

  They passed a sign indicating the airport was eight kilometers away. Jack smiled again as he slapped his hand down hard onto the dashboard as the speedometer indicated they were travelling at nearly eighty miles an hour.

  “Just a few more minutes and we’re there Mac, and on our way out of this shithole!”

  Having done extensive work throughout both Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, Mac Walker was all too familiar with the effects of an IED. Easy to make, easy to hide, and easy to have detonated when travelled over, they became by far the number one killer of American soldiers in those two wars.

  The Hummer’s left front tire was lifted entirely off of the road surface as the explosion twisted the metal framing of the driver area inside the vehicle’s cabin. Both doors on the left side blew inward several inches, sending bits of metal from one end of the cabin to the other. The SUV’s entire frame groaned as the left tire blew out, slamming the left front axel onto the paved surface of the road, sending sparks shooting up as the Hummer’s momentum continued forward.

  Mac watched as Jack, his head and face already bleeding from several chunks of metal that were imbedded into his flesh and skull, fought to keep the vehicle from turning over onto its side. His face grimaced with the effort as his lips pulled back from his teeth in a bloody snarl.

  Finally the Hummer came to a stop on the right side of the road, the steel frame of the front left corner ripped apart by the roadside bomb. Mac pushed the passenger door open as his right hand held his handgun, yelling for everyone to get out. It took no more than a few seconds for everyone to exit the SUV and take cover behind it.

  Everyone that is, except for Jack.

  Mac made his way back to the open passenger door and peered inside.

  “Jack! You need to get out of there!”

  Jack Thompson looked back at his friend and team leader Mac Walker and shook his head as he moved his right arm to reveal the large piece of metal that was jammed deeply into the left side of his abdomen. When he spoke, Mac instantly recognized the sound. It was the voice of a human being quickly nearing death, and fully aware of its arrival.

  “Not gonna happen, Mac.”

  Benny and Minnick stood beside Mac, looking in at Jack’s wound.

  “Oh shit no, goddammit NO!”

  Benny turned away, both of his hands covering his eyes. Minnick stood silently, though his lower lip trembled slightly as his hands clenched tightly at his sides.

  There were no profound words to be uttered by Jack Thompson when death arrived. He was simply there, and then he wasn’t. Mac watched as Jack’s eyes fluttered briefly, and then remained open and unblinking. His hands fell from his lap and remained on the driver’s seat, while his body slumped forward, a slight wheezing sound escaping his mouth as the last bit of air from his lungs was released.

  “We have company.”

  It was Ella who now stood next to Mac, her hand on his shoulder.

  “The ones who did this, the ones who killed Jack, are now coming to finish the job.”

  Mac looked down the road at the two approaching black SUV’s, certain one of them contained Mark Densmore. It was Densmore who was in charge of whatever shit was going on in Benghazi. Densmore who had the pull to order a drone strike against Ella’s building, and Densmore who set up the explosive device that killed Jack.

  Mac Walker grabbed one of the sniper rifles from the back of the Hummer and began walking slowly down the middle of the road toward the quickly approaching SUVs.

  It’s killing time…

  XVIII.

  The first shot from the sniper rifle found its mark as the fifty caliber round plunged through the front windshield of the black SUV to Mac’s right, ripping through the left side of the driver’s skull and then blowing out the rear left passenger window as it exited the interior cabin. The initial kill shot set off a chain reaction where the SUV on the right careened sharply into the other SUV, the dead body of its driver slumped forward against the steering wheel.

  The second SUV swerved to avoid being hit, nearly losing control completely and running into the ditch that ran alongside the road. Mac calmly aimed the sniper rifle and fired again.

  The second shot missed its mark as the bullet tore off a chunk of the SUV’s roof, sending a spray of sparks and metallic fragments into the air. Mac took a deep breath, held it, and fired for a third time.

  The bullet split the middle of the windshield, blew a fist sized hole in the chest of one of the men seated in the back, before imbedding itself in the rear tailgate. Mac knew the speed of the SUV left him with just one more shot before the vehicle would be right on top of him.

  The fourth shot was aimed at the passenger. Mac was able to look through the sniper rifle’s scope and see Densmore looking panicked as he screamed at the driver to run Mac over. The image brought a small smile to Mac’s face as he prepared to pull the trigger again.

  A bullet skimmed Mac’s right arm. The shot had come from one of the men from the first SUV Mac had fired at. The vehicle sat motionless on the side of the road some fifty yards away as three men emerged from it with guns, looking for a fight, all three pointing their weapons directly at Mac as the other SUV was now just twenty feet away and closing very fast.

  Mac had no choice but to jump and roll to his left to both avoid being shot and or driven over. He chose the left side knowing the passing SUV would then provide him a brief second of cover from the three armed men moving toward him. As he shifted back onto his left knee, already aiming the rifle for another shot, he spotted Minnick making his way down the ditch, attempting to get behind the three armed men. At the same time Mac heard Benny, Ella, and her men firing several rounds into the passing SUV.

  Mac’s next shot blew half the head off of one of Densmore’s men, while Minnick just as quickly ended the lives of the other two. That left Densmore and whoever else remained alive in the second SUV.

  Mac pushed himself back onto his feet and made his way quickly to where Ella and the others stood pointing their weapons at Densmore’s vehicle that sat unmoving in the middle of the road nearly a hundred yards from their position. Mac could hear its motor was still running, but detected no movement from inside.

  Ella turned to Mac, her own assault rifle resting against her right shoulder.

  “Suggestions on how you wish to proceed, Mr. Walker?”

  Mac used his rifle scope to look over the motionless SUV. Its darkened windows still made it difficult to determine how many, if any, were still alive inside. Udi stood next to Mac also looking at the vehicle through a pair of binoculars.

  “Front right tire is blown, nothing left but the rim.”

  Udi was right, the SUV’s tire had blown apart.

  Mac reloaded his rifle and began walking toward the vehicle.

  “Spread out, ten yards apart, all weapons at the ready. Anything moves inside there, kill it. Otherwise, wait for my order.”

  Mac walked slowly toward the SUV as the others in the group followed alongside him. He felt a stinging pain in his right bicep and realized he had forgotten about the bullet that had skimmed him moments earlier. He looked down and scowled at the wound.

  Stop bleeding you little bitch.

  The back window of the SUV blew out as several rounds of gunfire were shot from inside of it. Mac, Ella, and the others crouched low to the ground and brought their own weapons up and returned fire. Multiple bullet holes ripped through the black SUV’s metallic skin as more of its windows shattered into fragments.

  Mac held up his left hand to halt the gunfire. Again there was no movement from inside the SUV until
after nearly two minutes, the passenger door opened and a man crawled out.

  It was Mark Densmore.

  Densmore stood up slowly, his right arm braced against the door frame of the vehicle.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Walker!”

  Mac began walking slowly toward Densmore while keeping an eye out for any threats from inside the SUV.

  “I was thinking the same thing about you, Densmore. What the hell is FBI doing running around Benghazi? You here to solve crimes, or are you committing them?”

  Densmore moved away from the black SUV, his steps somewhat unsteady as he wiped away a layer of blood from his upper forehead.