The fur shape reappeared above. I was ready. Hanging by one hand, I reached into Wing’s coat, and pulled my STI 9mm from the holster, the long suppressor seemingly taking forever to clear. The long tube extended, there was a single match flicker of light from the muzzle and ejection port, and a noise that sounded like closing a fat book hard.
The shape reeled back, and for a brief moment I thought that I had missed, but then he reappeared, and sailed silently over the edge. Tausang’s body hurtled past me, close enough to brush the snow off my back, and disappeared into the darkness below. I didn’t even hear the impact.
I struggled to shove the long pistol back into the coat, got it roughly secured, and turned my attention back to climbing. Each inch was pure pain, and the rock was jagged and sharp. Blood seeped from my palms and instantly froze into a red crystal pudding. Finally I was high enough to get my boots above the ice layer, and onto a toe hold so I could take some weight off my protesting finger tips.
“Lorenzo’s down. He fell off the cliff.”
“Son of a bitch. Ibrahim. Abort. Abort.”
I paused, keyed my mic, and then realized I was breathing too hard to talk. I forced the words. “No . . . I’m alive. Not me . . . down there.”
“What happened?” Anders demanded.
“. . . cut rope . . . climbing,” I grunted.
“Status?”
“. . . little busy . . . right now . . .” I almost added the word asshole, but I was a little distracted.
It took me another five minutes to make it up those last few feet. There was almost nothing to hold onto. I was an experienced climber, but had never done anything like that before. I finally pulled myself up over the lip, and sprawled face first into the packed snow, my legs still hanging over the edge, but not really caring. Hell, if a slave soldier had walked up right at that moment, I would have been too spent to notice until they poked me with a bayonet to make sure I was alive.
Finally, I rolled over. The stars glared back down at me. It took me a moment to catch my breath before I got to my knees, and studied my surroundings. The lip was hidden from the rear of the compound by a few piles of stone and some discarded vehicles, their origin impossible to tell since they were covered in snow. The whole area was cloaked in darkness. The nearest light was sixty meters away in the rear of the compound. I untied the rope from around my waist and tossed it.
“I’m up. Hang on, I’ll send down the rope.” Tausang had been securing the rope between two heavy stakes pounded into the ground. My hands burned and ached as I unwound it, made sure one end was still tightly secured, and then threw the remainder over the side.
“Rope is down. I’ll secure the perimeter.” I studied my palms as I spoke. They looked like cheese graters, practically shredded. Gloveless, my hands were freezing. This was off to a great start. You know how little kids’ moms will clip their mittens onto their sleeves to keep them from losing them? Yeah, that didn’t seem like such a stupid idea right about now. “And bring up my rifle.”
Chapter 19: Joy Ride
VALENTINE
Exodus Safe House
Crossroads City
March 25th
This is it. With all of my weapons and gear, I stepped out of the safe house, into the cold night air. My SIG 716 rifle was slung at my side, and my vest was full of magazines for it. I carried in my hands an AKMS with an under-folding stock, loaded with a seventy-five-round drum. This was to be my dump weapon, something I could lay down some fire with and discard if it got in the way.
The 6x6 trucks that formed the heart of our convoy were in the vehicle yard. They had been hastily fitted with improvised armor. Sandbags lined the beds, and thick metal plating had been affixed to the sides of the trucks. Large-caliber machine guns were bolted to the backs of two of the vehicles, positioned so they could fire over the top of the cab. Heavy 14.5mm KSVs, as near as I could tell, a machine gun nearly twice as powerful as a standard .50-caliber.
I walked up to one of the trucks and yanked open the passenger’s side door. The driver, a young Exodus operative who I guessed was from The Philippines, nodded at me as I climbed in next to him. The crew cab was not armored and was vulnerable, but the heaters worked. I chose to be warm over being slightly better protected.
They offered to let me ride in one of the BTR-70s, with Skunky and Ling. These vehicles were in a different yard, being readied at the same time. I politely declined the offer without telling them why. Basically there was no way in hell I was going to ride in one of those claustrophobic commie deathtraps. Prudent mercenaries make it a point to avoid old Russian APCs on general principle. More to the point, being the only two armored vehicles we had, they were going to draw fire like a turd attracts flies. They weren’t any faster than our trucks and weren’t particularly maneuverable. The only way in and out of the troop compartment was through a small hatch on either side, just between the third and fourth wheels. I’m probably five inches taller than the Soviet conscripts those hatches were designed for. If you had to get out while the vehicle was still rolling, there was a good chance you’d get crushed under the wheels. God only knew what condition the internal fire suppression system was in, if there even was one.
So, I said no thanks. I felt better in the truck, where I could see what was going on and could unass the vehicle in a hurry if I had to. Not that that would do me any good if a hail of bullets came through the windshield, but what can you do?
There was no point in worrying about it now. We were about to start our Thunder Run through Crossroads City to the first checkpoint. We’d quickly link up with the other vehicles in town, forming the convoy, and haul balls toward the dam. We were waiting for the signal, the notification that whatever they were doing to infiltrate the compound was happening as planned. If we left too soon we’d tip our hand. If we left too late they might have time to reinforce the dam.
As I adjusted the seat belt around the bulk of my body armor, Exodus troops climbed into the back of the truck and took up positions around the bed. Equipment was loaded into the beds and strapped down. Nobody wanted to get hit in the back of the leg with a crate of grenades that wasn’t secured if the truck had to stop in a hurry.
My radio, and that of the Exodus operative in the truck with me, crackled to life at the same time. I turned down the volume on mine as Ibrahim’s voice came through. He was transmitting on all of our channels simultaneously, broadcasting from wherever the Montalban Exchange’s helicopters were being staged out of. Our radios were encrypted, frequency-hopping types, so there was no chance anyone else could be listening in.
“Attention all elements, this is Sword One Actual. The operation will begin soon. We undertake the greatest, most daring mission Exodus has attempted in any of our lifetimes. The risk is great, the enemy is fanatical and merciless. Offer no quarter, for none will be given to you. Know that our cause is worthy! We go forth into the night, ready to wipe the scourge of Sala Jihan from the face of the Earth. And here, in this place, where the rocks and soil have been stained with so much blood, where the very mountains have bore witness to so much suffering, we will be remembered for this. This will be our finest hour! The defining moment of our lifetimes! God be with us all.” He paused for a moment. “Commanders, conduct final pre-operation checks. Stand by for orders. Sword One Actual, out.”
While I hadn’t done any long operations in the Middle East during my time with Vanguard, we did spend a couple of months training the Iraqi Army before they sent me to Central America. It was an easy gig that paid well. I learned there that Iraqi commanders loved giving big pep talks before operations, and often put more effort into their speeches than they did their actual mission planning. Ibrahim didn’t fit that stereotype, of course, but the dramatic speech didn’t surprise me. Exodus was an old-school organization that did things the old-school way.
The other Exodus leaders checked in. First was Fajkus. “Sword Two acknowledges,” he said tersely.
Next was Katsumoto, his voic
e imposing and serene at the same time. “Sword Three copies.” And so it went with the others.
My driver seemed to have taken Ibrahim’s words to heart. He was young, couldn’t have been more than nineteen. I could see the uncertainty in his face, the fear, which he stoically tried to hide. My God, I thought. Was I ever that young? I remembered then that I wasn’t as old as I felt. Only seven years had passed since I was the baby-faced tyro getting his first taste of war.
“Hey, what’s your name?” I asked him.
He seemed almost startled by the question. “Paolo,” he said. “Are you Valentine?”
“Call me Val. Where you from?”
“Manila.”
“Are you new to Exodus?”
“I am, sir. I have only been on a sword for five months.”
“Holy shit, kid,” I grinned. “You picked a hell of a first op. Go big or go home, hey?”
“As you say, sir,” he stammered.
“How is it you came to work with Exodus? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I am an orphan, sir. I was a . . . servant . . . of a drug-trafficking gangster in the Philippines. I was not allowed to leave, until one day Exodus came and killed him. I begged them to take me with them. I didn’t want to be left alone. So they accepted me. I am honored to be on this mission, and to be working with someone of your reputation.”
Reputation? “What reputation? What have you heard?” I didn’t mean to put the kid on the spot. We were getting ready to roll into combat and he was nervous as hell. I figured by talking him up I could get him to relax a little bit. I didn’t want a wound-up driver. I was scared too, of course. You’re always scared. If you’re not, you’re a fool. You just get used to the fear, learn to control it.
Young Paolo was new at this, though, and it showed. And he kept calling me ‘sir’ for some reason. “I was told . . . I mean, I heard that two years ago, in Mexico, you saved Ms. Ling’s entire sword.”
“Uh-huh. And how did they say I did that?”
“S-sir, I mean no disrespect. I only know . . . I mean, I am only telling you what I heard from my friends.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, raising my eyebrows bemusedly. “Please, tell me what you heard.” I wanted to keep him talking, keep him focused on something besides our impending mission. The worst part of combat isn’t the actual fight. It’s before the fight, when you’re waiting to go. Even a short wait is agonizingly slow when you’re amped up. It drives you crazy, makes you impatient, and causes bad decisions.
Paolo shifted nervously in his seat. “Is it true that you carried Ms. Ling out of the wreckage of a crashed helicopter?”
Hoo boy.
LORENZO
Sala Jihan’s Fortress
March 25th
I watched the closest guards through my night vision monocular. Kneeling, I slid around the rear of the derelict truck and tracked the two of them as they rounded the corner. Luckily the back of the compound was where the Soviets had dumped their unrepairable vehicles. There were plenty of places to hide. I was now about fifty meters from the crumbled concrete that had been the rear wall of the fort. There were soldiers positioned on top of the wall, but they were mostly huddled together for warmth on the corners in their machine-gun emplacements. I had seen at least four individuals walking back and forth near the hole in the wall. I knew that we had to make it through that gap to reach the ZSU.
There was a small noise as Anders approached. The former SEAL moved like a ghost. He was not even breathing hard from scaling the rope, and he was a big dude. He looked like some Viking cyborg with his bristly beard sticking out from under his PVS-15 night vision goggles. He squatted behind me and waited. Shen joined us a moment later. The quiet Exodus operative passed me my rifle. It was so cold it burned my hands as I got the single-point sling over my head and one arm. Phillips and Roland took up a position on each end of a frost-coated APC five meters behind us.
Turning back to the others, I held up my hand, two fingers down in a wagging motion, then four fingers up, then pointed at the gap. Four infantry patrolling. Then I made the universal sign for gun, and indicated both machine-gun emplacements that I had spied on the wall, then two fingers, for two men at each position. Then to Roland, I pointed at my eyes, then at the left emplacement, then the right for Phillips. Both men had suppressed Micro Tavors, and if anybody started for those machine guns, they needed to pop them fast. If it came to that, there would be enough noise that the mission was hosed. I looked at Shen and made a throat-cutting motion, then jerked my thumb at the sentries. Shen nodded.
After all of that abbreviated sign language, Anders extended his middle finger to me. And to think that I had said he was humorless.
I took point, leaving bloody handprints in the snow behind me as I crawled to the next truck, axle long since broken and left out here to rot. Anders and Shen were right behind me.
We were all armed with suppressed weapons. Everyone had one magazine of 5.56 75-grain subsonic loaded, but even then, the action of the weapon could be heard some distance away, especially on a night this quiet, and subsonic 5.56 frankly sucked at putting people down quickly, being basically a glorified .22. My other 30-round magazines were loaded with standard-velocity Hornady TAP, which through the short barrel of my gun and Silencerco suppressor sounded like a regular .22 long rifle, but at 2700 feet per second tended to leave softball sized exit wounds.
My secondary weapon was my STI Tactical 4.15 9mm, also with a can on it. The 147-grain hollowpoint loads were subsonic and relatively quiet, as Tausang had already experienced. Then I had my knives, because though a suppressor was quiet, these were quieter when used correctly. I was traveling relatively light tonight, as my mission depended on stealth rather than slugging it out. That job belonged to the guys in the choppers. All I had was a plate carrier and a battle belt with a few pouches for magazines.
We waited long enough to get a general idea of the guards’ patterns, but pattern was a misnomer. Tonight it consisted of trying to stay warm. There was a steel drum with fire licking out of it just inside the gap. Two guards would stand next to the drum to warm up, while the other two would patrol outside the compound wall for a few minutes, before trading off. This worked to our advantage, since the fire ruined their night vision.
I positioned my single point sling so that my rifle was slung behind my back, and pulled my fixed-blade Greco. Shen drew a long, thin blade, nodded once, and glided to the side. Anders raised his HK 416 and covered us.
My pulse was beating in my ear, and strangely enough, I was no longer cold. I leaned back into the shadow of the rusted vehicle. I could hear the crunching of snow beneath boots as the guards approached. They stopped only a few feet away, glancing side to side, their scarred faces visible in my night vision. I exhaled slowly through my nose, hoping to not cause a steam cloud. My lacerated hands were leaving a red skin paste in the textured handle of my knife. The two guards, arms folded, weapons slung, hands constantly rubbing together for circulation, took one last look at the graveyard of discarded vehicles. They turned and began to move back to the small circle of firelight and warmth.
Shen and I were on them in a flash. I couldn’t watch my teammate as he came around the other side of the truck. I had to concentrate on my own responsibility, and trust in the Exodus operative’s skill. I clamped my hand over the guard’s mouth and jerked his head to the side. I rammed my knife into the base of his skull, twisted it violently, and yanked it out. Spinal cord severed, he fell, instantly lifeless. I hugged him tightly and dragged him back to the side of the truck. I could feel hot, sticky blood flowing down my arms.
I looked up. Shen and the other guard were gone. There was only a splatter of blood and some disturbed snow. He was good. I wiped my blade on the guard’s arm and put it away. I tried not to notice that the slave soldier was probably barely old enough to drive in my home country.
Shen materialized at my side. He patted me on the shoulder, then bent down and gently closed the
slave’s staring eyes. He whispered something, not to me, but rather to the dead man. I unslung my rifle and raised it to cover our next move.
Anders was now moving forward, through the gap created by us. The last two soldiers were standing around the burning barrel, hands extended, leather gloves hardening just outside the plume of smoke. They were looking right at Anders as he approached, rifle muzzle down in his left hand. The big man’s head was lowered, as he slouched forward, appearing shorter than he really was. The guards looked up, their eyes adjusted to the licking flames, just seeing a black mass approaching.
Anders raised the little Ruger MKII and put two rounds into each of the guards’ craniums. Tick-Tick . . . Tick-Tick . . . . The low mass of the action and tiny, low pressure round made it so that the integrally suppressed .22 was literally about as loud as a staple gun, but both soldiers went right down. The big man paused just outside the circle of light. Tick . . . Tick. He put one more into each man, just to make sure. Anders shoved the .22 back into his armor, then stepped forward, grabbed one guard by an outflung arm, the other by his boot, and effortlessly dragged them both back into the dark.
Shen and I sprinted through the gap, snow flashing around our ankles as we leapt through the broken slabs of concrete and bent rebar. We slowed to a walk as we approached the burning drum, the knowledge of what we had to do unspoken, born of years of experience. We stopped next to the fire, hands extended for warmth, as if we were the fallen guards. To anyone further inside the compound, watching this area, the two guards had only disappeared for a moment, and now there were two more black blobs clustered around the light, just like before. I scanned across the compound, but saw no other movement. The fire felt good.
There was more motion and a whisper of noise behind us as Phillips and Roland moved through the gap. I nodded my head toward the steel ladder leading to the top of the wall. There were still two machine guns mounted up there. Anders and the young Exodus operatives knew what to do. I made a motion toward the right, and Shen turned that direction, back to the fire, so he could watch that position. I watched the emplacement on the left.
Swords of Exodus Page 36