by Jack Murphy
“And in Kazakhstan? That doesn't make sense. Who are these guys really?”
The voice elaborated again. At one point Arturo looked up at the clock on the wall. He could hear the second hand ticking between heartbeats. His guts clenched in knots. Finally, he flung open his desk draw and grabbed for the whiskey. Popping the cap, he took a long swig to calm his stomach.
“NSC is tracking this?”
The voice had to be exaggerating.
“Yes,” the American answered.
“Now what?”
“Now what? You know what. Take care of it.”
“You're fucking kidding me!”
But Arturo was talking into a dead line. The voice was gone.
The CISEN agent looked down at the bottle of whiskey as the phone slipped from his fingers and bounced off the floor. He felt numb. But not numb enough. He reached for the bottle.
“Gentlemen,” he called across the office. “Bring it in, I need to talk to you.”
The three intelligence men got up from behind their computers and walked over. Arturo had them working day and night. Everyone had been pulled off their regular assignments monitoring the communist movement, narco-groups, and their own entrepreneurial activities. The mercenary situation had their undivided attention for the last several days. Each of the Mexican CISEN employees looked exhausted.
“I want to thank you for the hard work you've been putting into this matter over the last several days,” Arturo said while looking each of them in the eye one by one. He was actually starting to feel a little relieved now that the pressure was off him. They finally had a resolution and would no longer be between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
“This office is being liquidated,” he continued. “Unfortunately, the situation between local drug traffickers, our government, and these mercenaries will be not resolved, at least not in the immediate future. For reasons unknown to me our government will not be deploying soldiers to Oaxaca to bring this Private Military Company under control. I can only speculate that someone, somewhere is holding something over the heads of CISEN and maybe the federal government. At any rate, it no longer matters. Our mission in Oaxaca has concluded.”
The three veteran intelligence men looked at their boss and then at each other. This was not what they had expected.
“Close out your workstations and return home gentlemen. I will initiate the containment plan when I leave and will contact you with further instructions over the next few days.”
His subordinates looked shell shocked.
The entire state of Oaxaca had just been written off by their own government.
“Listen,” Arturo lectured. “Don't just stand there looking at me like I've got a dick growing out of my forehead. Close out whatever you were doing and walk.”
The intel agents snapped to and returned to log out of their computers and pack up whatever personal belongings they might have laying around. Arturo was feeling good, feeling in charge for the first time in a long time. Taking another shot of whiskey, he lit up a cigarette. One by one his men filed out the door with gym bags or cardboard boxes filled with their things. None of them muttered a single word under their breath as they went out the door.
Arturo stubbed out his cancer stick. He wished them luck, he really did. They would need it too. Each of them was about to become a hunted man.
Getting to his feet, he retrieved the five gallon gas can they kept sealed up in the closet. Unscrewing the lid, he began pouring it around the office, on the desks, on the floor, finally turning it upside down and spilling what was left in the center of the office. He then began opening filing cabinets and dumping their contents in the center of the room. The files would be destroyed anyway, but he needed some kindling for the fire.
When he had finished, Arturo flicked his lighter under a few sheets of paper to begin burning the pile of paperwork. He then returned to his desk and pounded down another few mouthfuls of whiskey. Once again, he was in charge of his own destiny.
The fire was beginning to really take off, burning up the paperwork and crawling up the walls, following the gasoline through the office. Arturo smiled.
Eat it or Jimenez eats you.
Reaching under his jacket, he palmed the Beretta pistol he carried in a shoulder holster, yanked it free, pressed the barrel against the side of his head, and squeezed the trigger.
The gun went bang, the office burned, and Arturo felt nothing.
24
Deckard watched the flatlands roll by, the green fields shooting past while the distant hills seemed slow to keep pace. It was the kind of wide open and rugged terrain that the men from Kazakhstan could relate to. The countryside was beautiful and had been a popular getaway for tourists from all over the world until recently. It was a shame, but with the Mexican military cracking down on the cartels in the northern parts of the country, some of the more violent groups had been pushed south.
Oaxaca had always been a pit stop between Colombia and the United States for drug runners, but now this particular drug corridor was being fought over here rather than in the drug plazas up north were it was increasingly difficult for them to operate under the constant pressure of Mexican troops and American military advisers. The turf battles like the one that Jimenez and Ortega had been fighting was referred to as heating up the plaza. Now that battle had shifted with Ortega taken out of the picture. It was a Jimenez cartel versus Deckard Private Military Company brawl.
While Deckard saw it in the context of military science, he knew that in the machismo culture of the cartels that Jimenez would see it as two men squaring off to see who had the bigger balls. Deckard had set the pre-conditions he needed just to get his foot in the door. The battlespace had been prepared first with reconnaissance, then by capturing a foothold with Ortega's compound that they could operate from. Next he had found a way to keep the Mexican government from interfering as a spoiler force and prevented cross border interlopers from jumping into the fray from Guatemala. Jimenez was isolated, but far from finished.
Now the real war would begin. It would be man to man and man for man once they started shooting again.
The three assault trucks reached the coordinates they had selected for a Landing Zone out in the Oaxaca countryside. Fedorchenko's platoon was recovering from their mission the previous night while the other platoon ran the drop off mission. The trucks formed up into a hasty triangle-shaped security perimeter while they waited for the rendezvous time.
Pat pulled the prisoner they had captured during the airfield seizure off one of the trucks and sat him down on the ground. The prisoner wasn't doing so hot, but they would let the CIA goons worry about that. They just needed him to survive long enough for the hand off. They had pumped him full of IV fluids to get his blood pressure back up so that Samantha could put him through a few hours of interrogation before they departed the base. Since then he had been kept on a steady dose of painkillers.
The former Guatemalan Special Forces soldier hadn't been able to tell them much more about the so-called Arab than he had told them during the tactical interrogation on the airfield. The information was compartmentalized and he only knew that their explosives expert was supposedly en route. With more time and resources, the Samruk men might have been able to stage an ambush for this Arab but those were two things they were in serious lack of when they pulled off the target.
Deckard hoped that the CIA would be able to take what information the prisoner did have, correlate it with other sources of intelligence, and splatter the bomb maker's brains but deep down he wasn't very optimistic. He had a sick feeling that he hadn't heard that last of The Arab.
While they sat and pulled security on the surrounding countryside as they waited, the Kazakhs lit up some cigarettes and shot the shit, breaking each other's balls like soldiers the world over.
Pat should have been recovering with the rest of the Samruk men who had just come off the mission. Being in a leadership position was often even more exhausting th
an the combat positions. The responsibility and decision making could take a lot out of even a seasoned Special Operations soldier and it showed on his face. He had pulled off the impossible in under twenty four hours by throwing that mission together with Frank and Fedorchenko. However, he had still insisted on accompanying Deckard out to the LZ. He wanted a word.
Deckard could see that on his face as well.
“I need to talk to you.”
“What is it Pat?”
“I need you to start acting like you are in charge around here.”
“I thought I was.”
“So did I until you took off for a vacation to Cancun.”
“You know the deal. I had to get work done or we would have Mexican Marines all over Oaxaca, Special Forces Brigades surrounding our compound, and GAFE blowing down the front door.”
“Bullshit. I got left out there throwing together an airborne operation at the very last moment before those guys were to cross over the border and we came back with three injured and three dead. This organization needs its actual leadership in place for this operation.”
“I couldn't send a platoon in to Cancun, it wasn't that kind of deal.”
“So what? You needed someone who can conduct low visibility operations? Work clandestinely in denied areas? What the hell was I doing in Afghanistan and Iraq for eight years? You could have sent me to do that job.”
“I didn't think of it that way, I felt that it was my responsibility.”
“You are not working singleton operations anymore Deck, this is the big league, totally different than a five man Delta assault team or anything else we are used to working with.”
“I know.”
“So why are you out running around like some Corporal in Ranger Battalion? I heard about that stunt that you pulled when you hit the submarine base. What the hell were you thinking running out there by yourself like that?”
“Someone had to stop the submarine from getting away.”
“Who cares about one submarine? What if you got killed, then what would happen to this operation? You need to start thinking about the big picture and stop acting like somebody with a death wish.”
“I don't have a death wish, I just want to win.”
“Bullshit, everyone here wants to win but we haven't been doing the same stupid shit you have. Frank told me you haven't been the same since that shit went down in the Pacific. We lost a lot of guys out there, I get that but we're going to lose a lot more out here if we are not smart about how we handle this.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“We've got our ducks in a row. Now is the time to make sure everything we do is wired tight.”
“With a little luck we can close this deal out in a few days. Wear Jimenez down and corner him.”
“Aghassi is working it. Cody has narrowed down the location of a few more repeater systems and the prisoners have given up some information that helps flesh out our target deck.”
“Good,” Pat said, finishing his sermon. “And thanks.”
“For what?”
“For hiring me to do this job.”
The sound of rotor blades beating the air thumped, growing closer each second.
“America should thank me,” Deckard said. “I'm running a jobs for vets program out here. Although, I'm surprised that I managed to lure you away from Delta.”
“Things are changing. Lots of guys getting fired or quitting the unit these days. Delta isn't really the place to be anymore, it's turning into a stepping stone to various commercial interests.”
“Like Samruk?”
“We'll see,” Pat laughed as the helicopter neared.
The two mercenaries lifted their prisoner to his feet as they spotted the inbound gray colored Eurocopter.
“Most of the Delta dudes I knew are going to work for these guys,” Pat pointed to the helicopter. “Big money in CIA contracts but that isn't for me. There are some good dudes doing those contracts but also lot of tools that just want to sit on the base or some cushy safe house end up there too. It's a mixed bag.”
“Doesn't sound like that is the life for you.”
“Nah,” Pat yelled as the helicopter set down fifty meters in front of them. “There are some real dildos shooting designer steroids and banging horrendously ugly Kurdish prostitutes on some contracts. I like to be at the forefront which is where Delta was, but now the war is winding down and everyone is looking for an exit strategy.”
As the Eurocopter touched down it blew out of wave of dust around it that washed over the Samruk mercenaries before the rotors brushed the loose dirt away. The door opened and a muscle bound contractor jumped out wearing a plate carrier and a short barrel HK 416 slung over his shoulder. His sleeves were rolled up to display numerous tribal tattoos which almost overshadowed the five hundred dollar Oakley sunglasses he wore.
“Big money, huh?” Deckard egged Pat on but the former Delta operator just shook his head.
Deckard looked back at the Kazakhs manning the perimeter. With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq coming to a close many American Special Operations soldiers would end up taking high dollar security contractor jobs. But what about those like Pat, those .0001%'ers who could care less about the money and wanted to go back into combat.
Where were they going to end up after the smoke cleared?
Nikita eased the selector switch on his new Heckler and Koch 417 rifle from safe to fire.
“My contact is right around the corner,” Aghassi's voice sounded in the earbud that the sniper wore. “I'm sending him out now.”
The sniper settled into position, getting as close to the ground as he could and remaining still. He could hear voices around him, probably just some kids playing. When he was sent out to meet up with Aghassi on short notice, the intelligence handler made it clear that their mission had to be conducted at a certain time and place. Unfortunately, it had to be during daylight and there weren't any better sniper hide positions available so he was left hanging out in the open, watching a string of haciendas from a distance of eight hundred and fifty seven meters according to his laser range finder.
He had been trained by the best, a former South African Recce commando named Piet who Deckard had hired to train all of Samruk International's snipers. Nikita knew how to construct an appropriate hide site by digging in if he had had some time to insert early and construct the hide during periods of darkness. As it was, he'd just have to rely on a few new toys to keep him concealed while the children kicked a soccer ball around right next to him.
One of those news toys had arrived on the pallets that Deckard had flown in from the United States, a sniper variant of the HK 416 rifle carried by Delta Force, MARSOC, and OGA operators. The 417 was the same design but larger than the 5.56 model as it was chambered for the well tested and seasoned 7.62x51 that snipers utilized on battlefields all over the world. With an accurized 20-inch barrel and twenty round magazine, Nikita would be able to quickly and effectively place semi-automatic fire out to one thousand meters, depending on various mitigating circumstances including but not limited to wind speed, what the target was doing, and even whether or not he had gotten a good nights sleep.
He eyed the target building through the Schmidt & Bender scope mounted on the top rail of the rifle. It was a single story building with a small storage type room built on the roof with cinder blocks atop which sat a basin that collected rainwater. There was one barred window and a single door. A lonely string of barbwire lined the front lip of the roof.
Someone was down the street burning their trash in the middle of the road.
The children continued to bat their soccer ball around right next to Nikita. They were unaware of his presence, at least for the moment.
“It creeps me out how similar the villages and cities in this part of the world look like the kind you find in Iraq,” Aghassi said over the radio.
Nikita depressed the small transmit button that was wrapped around his non-firing hand with Velcro to reply.
/> “I don't know,” he said in broken English.
Prior to working for Samruk International, Nikita had like many other of the Kazakhs, been a member of his country's elite commando unit known as Arystan. As a member of Arystan he had conducted operations across the steppes and mountains, and sometimes in the cities of his country fighting Islamic extremists. Most of them were foreign fighters from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Some of them were linked to Al Qaeda. It wasn't until he signed on with the Private Military Company that he began being deployed abroad.
The ranks of Arystan had been composed of some of the bravest men that Nikita had ever known, but in retrospect he had to admit that they were severely lacking in many technical matters. The way Samruk International did things was much more deliberate and much more surgical.
“Heads up, here he comes,” the intel man informed Nikita.
“Blue hat?”
“That's him.”
Aghassi had been quickly establishing a network of informants in Oaxaca City and the surrounding area. Usually the art of spycraft required years to develop a ring of assets but Aghassi was throwing caution to the wind. They were working in a semi-permissive environment and there was no shortage of people who would talk to him because they had grievances with the cartels. Many of them had lost sons and daughters to the senseless narco-wars they fought. The intelligence man was ignoring normal protocols and making compromises with his personal security in order to quickly move amongst the civilian population and collect information. Having access to Samantha's long time informants did not hurt either.
He had hit a road block with one particular family. The nephew worked in the Jimenez compound up in the mountains as a general contractor. He knew specific details about the inside of the drug lord's fortress that Samruk would find useful. However, no one in the family would get involved with Aghassi out of fear. They had lost several family members to the cartels and didn't want to lose another. There was already a group of Sicarios right down the street from the family that pressured the entire neighborhood.