Target Deck - 02

by Jack Murphy

  Years ago he had picked something up from a couple Croatian soldiers, something he could hardly do on a good day much less today. As Deckard dug into his bag of tricks, he only had seconds to act and what he had in mind was the only tactical gambit he could come up with.

  Readjusting his grip on the knife, he took a deep breath.

  “Get out of the way gringo! We can both walk away from this, you and me-”

  Deckard stepped out into the middle of the aisle with the Sub-Saharan held over his head.

  “What-”

  The drug lord's words were cut off as Deckard hurled the knife through the air in an overhand throw. The blade rocked across the distance between Deckard and Jimenez, the Kazakh's eyes went wide as the blade shot towards him.

  Deckard had fucked up the throw, although it was on target, the blade spun in the air and the handle impacted the drug lord's face and glanced off. Jimenez bucked backwards in surprise as the blow struck him below the eye.

  The Kazakh felt the arms around him go slightly limp as Jimenez was distracted and managed to tear himself away.

  Jimenez tried to bring the Smith and Wesson back into play but Deckard was already on top of him. His fist hammered Jimenez in the nose, spraying blood down his shirt. A knee slammed the drug lord in the groin and then in the face as he doubled over. Once again he tried to align the pistol with his antagonist but it was torn from his hand.

  Sprawled on the ground, Jimenez looked up at his attacker. What he saw was a nightmare of war. What he saw wasn't human.

  Deckard reached down and picked up his weapon.

  Reaching for the drug lord he clenched the hair on the top of Jimenez' head in his fist. Deckard held the black blade into the air.

  “Wait, wait!”

  As the blade swung down, Deckard began to chop.

  40

  “Order the offensive on the black side of the objective to fall back.”

  Pat triggered a burst of AK fire before finding cover behind a stone pillar. It was Deckard. His voice sounded like sandpaper. By now everyone thought that their commander was dead. He'd been radio silent for twenty minutes or so.

  “Six, is that you?” Pat radioed back.

  “Have our forces on the far end of the museum pull back. Give the cartel fighters a way out.”

  “Let them retreat?”

  “Let them find their exit strategy. Set up a linear on Gurrion Street. I'm going to flush them all towards you.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Make it happen.”

  The former Delta Operator did as he was told. Kurt Jager had arrived with Commadante Zero and his Zapatista rebels just as the Samruk mercenaries were going to be overrun. Kurt had taken the rebels through the botanical gardens on the back side of the museum turned cartel fortress and engaged the enemy. Talking to Jager on the assault net, he now explained Deckard's plan to him.

  The German was unconvinced but acknowledged the instructors and began carrying them out.

  “What was that?” Sergeant Major Korgan asked him as they waited for the next surge of fire from the cartel gunmen.

  “Deckard,” Pat answered. “He's alive!”

  One by one, the black masked Zapatista rebels began falling back, abandoning their positions behind the walls and statues in the museum gardens where they had the cartel gunmen pinned down. Trapped between the Mexican revolutionaries on one side and the mercenaries on the other, the cartel men had found themselves in a double envelop. Before the rebels had shown up they were confident in a victory, now that reinforcements had arrived, they were certain to be cut down where they stood.

  It was just a matter of time.

  Now they had an opening, a way to walk away from the firefight but no one dared to defy The Beast. Many were survivors of the gladiator arena and had no desire to go back. Others were trusted cartel gunfighters and knew better than to betray Jimenez unless they wanted to be dangling under a bridge come nightfall.

  A solitary figure came walking out of the first floor of the museum. He had what looked like a short sword in one hand and a clump of something in the other. The cartel men were still receiving some fire from the mercenaries but the two forces had basically reached a stalemate. From the windows, alcoves, and rooftops, the cartel gunmen craned their necks around to look at the newcomer.

  His desert camouflage uniform was torn open at the knees and other places on the legs and arms, some of the holes exposing bloody wounds. His clothes were also stained red with blood. His equipment was torn and frayed, magazine and grenade pouches hung empty.

  “Jimenez is dead!” he shouted at them in Spanish.

  Thrusting his hands in the air, the cartel men could now see the bloody knife and the severed head of Jimenez, the one they knew as The Beast. The decapitated head was ragged around the neck from chopping blows that separated it from the body. The jaw hung down as flies were already beginning to accumulate inside his open mouth.

  The knifeman threw the severed head in the dirt.

  “This war is over!”

  The cartel men didn't need to be told twice. If the mercenaries and the rebels had gotten what they came for and now they were giving them away out, they would gladly take it. Dropping their M-4 rifles, some held on to their pistols, some didn't, most just ran without giving it another thought. They dashed out of the museum, leaving their posts and fighting positions and ran past the guy with the giant knife without daring to look him in the eyes.

  Close to fifty gunmen flooded out the back gate and out on the street.

  Deckard waited until he heard Kurt Jager initiate the ambush as the cartel men ran right into the kill zone before moving on.

  “You need to get right with god or whoever the fuck it is you talk to in times like this,” Pat explained. “Because you're gonna die.”

  Ignacio looked up at him with tears forming in his eyes. His legs had been shot to hell, turned into ground meat as a mercenary caught him with a burst of PKM fire.

  “Don't leave me to die alone,” the cartel lieutenant begged.

  “I won't but I need you to help me.”

  “You, you, you have-”

  “All these M-4 rifles, the M240B machine guns, where did you guys suddenly get all these American military weapons from?”

  Ignacio was breathing heavy. He was losing blood fast.

  “We raided a Zeta warehouse up north. We knew you were coming and needed to stock up on more weapons. Jimenez found out from one of his sources that the Zeta cartel had a s-s-stockpile of American guns.”

  “Where did the Zetas get the weapons from.”

  “I-I-I was told that they are being funneled...” Ignacio's voice trailed off into a mumble as he grew weaker. Pat leaned forward, getting close and listening to the dying man's final words.

  Sergeant Fedorchenko stepped forward, holding his AK-103 at the low ready and fearing the worst. His commander lay face first in the dirt behind the museum.

  Deckard had gone dark on comms for twenty minutes and the men assumed him to be dead. Then he grabbed a radio from a fellow mercenary who had been taken hostage, ordered the rebels to fall back and prepare an ambush, then comes walking out holding Jimenez' decapitated head. The head lay near the Samruk Commander, the hair mottled and thick with blood.

  Fedorchenko bent down and rolled Deckard over onto his back. Sand was stuck to the sweat and blood on the side of his face but as the Kazakh held his hand in front of Deckard's mouth, he could feel his hot breath.

  “Medic!”

  The Platoon Sergeant had checked his breathing and airway so he moved on, looking for wounds, bullet holes, or broken bones. There were several deep gashes, one in his shoulder, another on his leg. His face and head were covered in smaller cuts and scrapes.

  The medic came bounding up and dumped his aid bag down next to the casualty.

  “Get some Hextend into him to get his blood pressure up and start pushing more liquids. I think it's heat exhaustion.”

  He had also
found several bullet holes in the uniform and a large strike on his front trauma plate. Near misses with death.

  “He might go into shock so keep an eye on him.”

  It took the medic several tries to find a vein but finally got an IV drip in him. Fedorchenko squeezed the bag to push the fluids faster while the medic continued to work, attending the wounds with bandages. Several other assaulters came up and began prepping a litter to transport him.

  Cursing in Russian, Fedorchenko got to his feet while the medic removed the Hextend bag and got a Saline drip going.

  What the hell had happened to Deckard, he could only guess at.

  41

  Deckard leaned back with his eyes half open. He was on some light pain killers, 800 milligrams of Motrin and it couldn't kick in soon enough. They had reconsolidated and moved back to their compound to treat the injured and prepare to head down to the airfield. The entire compound needed to be packed up, sensitive material destroyed, and a quick hand over conducted with Commandante Zero and Samantha before the Mexican military rolled into Oaxaca.

  By that time they needed to be wheels up and on their way back to Central Asia.

  Twisting the cap off a small plastic bottle, he downed a five hour energy shot. The medic was sterilizing his wounds and getting them closed with medical grade Cyanoacrylate super glue. He was feeling better now that his body had soaked in three IV bags of fluids after suffering from heat exhaustion. His core temperature and resting heart rate had finally returned to somewhat normal levels. Once the medic finished with him he needed to be back up on his feet to oversee Samruk International's redeployment to Kazakhstan.

  Pat, Frank, and Sergeant Major Korgan were supervising and working the moving parts with Sergeant Fedorchenko but he needed to be present as well.

  “Drink this instead,” Samantha said handing him a bottle of water. She stared at him with large brown eyes.

  “Thanks,” Deckard replied, setting the bottle down next to him. “I will.”

  “What's up big guy?” Pat said coming to sit down next to him. The medic was finishing up before moving on to other patients that were laid out in the OPCEN. Meanwhile, Cody was rolling up wires and packing away computers.

  “I've been better.”

  “Well, you pulled another win out of your ass,” Pat smirked. “No doubt about that. I won't even ask what the hell went down in there for now. I'm just glad that you are alive.”

  “Something I can't get out of my mind Pat,” Deckard said, shaking his head.

  “What's that?”

  “Jimenez told me that it wasn't him that ordered the massacre at that Christian mission.”

  “So fucking what?” Pat asked. “Who cares what he had to say. He's dead.”

  “Yeah, but the thing is, I believe him.”

  “Listen, take a few more minutes to get yourself together. When you are ready, before we blow out of here in an hour, come meet me and some of the boys over in the loadout room. We need to have a pow wow about some things.”

  “What's up?”

  “I'll fill you in then, don't worry about it right now.”

  “Alright brother, I'll make my way down there.”

  Pat slapped him on the shoulder as he walked away, causing Deckard to wince.

  “IT IS FOR YOU,” Cody said thrusting a cell phone in his face.

  Deckard looked up at him and took the phone. Pressing it to his ear he answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Deckard, it's Grant. Nice work down there but now you have to cut the shit and high tail it out of Mexico, understand?”

  “We're moving out as fast as we can.”

  “I'm helping facilitate the process. I found out that your An-124 was sitting on an airfield in Panama waiting for you to recall the pilots and have them fly back to Oaxaca to collect you. We just made sure the airspace was cleared for you. They are already in the air.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “We've upheld our end of the bargain, we have also received word that the Mexican military is inbound. They got a one hundred vehicle convoy heading south on Mexican National Highway 135D. We want you out of there ASAP.”

  “Are you going to have that helicopter meet us again at the airfield.”

  “Yes, you said it is a source and his family.”

  “Right, we had another but he decided to bail and try his luck on his own.”

  “Good luck with that. Get your ass on the tarmac and we'll have someone there to evac them.”

  “I'll be there.”

  Deckard terminated the call.

  “That's all I can do for now, I have other patients I need to double check,” the medic said, tearing off his latex gloves.

  “Do it, thanks for the help.”

  Every muscle in body ached as he stood up. He had a gash in his shoulder and another in his thigh. His pants were in tatters, his body armor and shirt were cast aside, cut off by the medic as he was cleaning him up. One of the pant legs had been cut up with medical shears so he could get to the cut in his thigh. Some butterfly bandages had been applied to the nicks and gouges in his face.

  “Black,” Samantha said as she walked into the OPCEN. “Or should I say Deckard.”

  “Guilty.”

  “I need you to do one last thing before you guys take off.”

  “I'm a little busy.”

  “Come with me.”

  Samantha led him into the adjoining room, it was Ortega's game room with billiards tables and flat screen television sets. One entire wall was a constantly flowing waterfall back lit with neon lights.

  “What is it?”

  “Shut up,” Samantha said slamming the door.

  Before Deckard could turn around, she had jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. Pressing her lips to his, she put her tongue into his mouth.

  “This was what you wanted to show me? I could have used this before I was shot to fucking pieces you know?”

  Samantha dropped her legs to the ground and began undoing his rigger's belt. Freeing it, she grabbed the belt with one hand and yanked it free from the belt loops with a snap of nylon.

  “Jesus.”

  Tearing open what was left of his pants, she reached inside.

  “You've been drinking that water I gave you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Well I guess it's not an issue for you, huh? I thought you might be too exhausted so I ground up a blue pill and sprinkled it into your water.”

  “What the fuck? You tried to drug me?”

  Samantha yanked down his pants and pushed him down onto one of the couches lining the walls. Crossing her hands she grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head and tossed it aside. She wasn't wearing anything underneath.

  “Just try not to tear open any of those war wounds and you should be fine.”

  The loadout room was simply an emptied garage on the compound where the two Samruk platoons kept all of their tactical gear and rifles while carrying just their issued Glock 19 pistols when not pulling guard duty. Body armor and rifles lined the walls along with RPG launchers, a Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, a couple Mk48 machine guns, a .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle and other random weapons. In the center of the room were tables set up with ammo cans full of bullets for the mercenaries to jam into magazines between combat missions.

  At the moment, the room was torn apart with empty ammo cans, wrappers, and other trash strewn about. Needless to say, the men had been constantly in and out of the loadout room for the last week. Now that things were winding down, the Samruk men were packing the deuce and half transport trucks with equipment, their personal gear would be hand carried on the aircraft.

  Aghassi stood next to one of the ammunition tables with his notebook computer open. Nikita and Pat stood to either side of him. Kurt Jager, fresh off his assignment with the Zapatistas watched from a distance.

  The men looked up as Deckard walked through the door with a bottle of water in his hand. His face was
taped up but at least he was back on his feet. He had changed into a fresh uniform and cleaned himself up a little.

  “How you feeling?” Aghassi asked him.

  “I'm not dead.”

  Deckard unscrewed the cap from the bottle but stopped short. Looking at the bottled water hesitantly, he dropped it in the trash.

  “Is there any Gatorade in the refrigerator?”

  “I got you,” Kurt said opening the fridge in the corner of the room and throwing him a bottle of the red colored liquid.

  Deckard took a couple gulps and capped it.

  “So what can I do for you gentlemen. It looks like you are in here planning a mutiny against me.”

  “Not until your Samruk International corporate checks hit our accounts,” Pat joked.

  “Here is the thing,” Aghassi said, spinning his notebook around so that Deckard could see the screen. “We uncovered our entire target deck and fleshed it out with the personalities we wanted captured or killed.”

  The screen showed the link chart that they had been working on since their initial reconnaissance mission to Oaxaca. All of the blank spots on the chart had been filled in with names and pictures in recent days. Each picture had been crossed out with a black X indicating that they had gotten their man.

  “We thought we were taking down the entire structure of the cartel, from operations, to logistics, to communications, along with the command node of Jimenez, Ignacio, and their most trusted men. But what if there is a secondary command node above Jimenez?”

  “You know this whole deal smells like shit,” Pat added. “The high end US mil weapons? How the fuck did they end up with those?”

  “You told me that Ignacio's parting words were to the effect that they did a smash and grab on some Zeta warehouse. It sounds like a weapons stockpile or bunker on a US military base got looted and the brass on the base is trying to keep it quiet. Meanwhile, the weapons were smuggled into Mexico by the Zetas to help them maintain control over their plazas. This would end the careers of dozens of Colonels and Generals.”