Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “That all makes sense, Abe, but what you can do?”

  “Right. You know anything about Peshawar?”

  “No, Yes, it’s a city in Pakistan, close to the border.”

  “Yeah, that’s true, but it’s a center for weaponry and mercenaries, has been for centuries. I’ve been in touch with my contacts there. There’s nothing’s moving inside Afghanistan, so you need help from outside the country. I’m sending in the Devil’s Guard.”

  I felt a shiver down my spine as I remembered the stories and legends I’d been brought up with. My immediate thought was that the ghost of my grandfather was about to materialize. “Mercenaries, Abe?”

  “They’re tough fighters, every single man,” he corrected me. “They’ve seen their share of the world’s trouble spots, I can assure you. They’ve been in and out of more firefights than you could imagine. They’re heading up to the Pass right now from Peshawar, and they’ll move down to meet up with you as fast as they can. Do you think you can land that plane?”

  I heard the anxiety in his voice. His son was dying a few feet back from the cockpit, and we had no designated landing field even if we could link up with the besieged medics. But that was my job. “I’ll land the aircraft, Abe. That’s a promise.”

  I signed off and started looking through the charts to see if there was anything that resembled a flat strip close to where we were headed.

  * * *

  Master Sergeant Carol Wendelski approached her console to start the next shift. As usual, Vernon Munch ran his eyes over her figure and made a macho remark, but this time it was different.

  “There ain’t much going on over there. The stupid bastard’s screwed up the electronics package on the bird. When they went to pick up a spare board from the QM, they found they’d forgotten to order them in. Our baby is sat in the hangar doing nothing, just waiting for the next supply flight to come from Stateside.”

  “Christ, Vernon, there’re people down there in trouble. The whole place is going up like a torch, and we’re blind.”

  Munch shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “What about a spare bird, don’t they have anything else that can fly?”

  He sniggered. “Oh yeah, they can put a Reaper up in the air, but I’m not cleared on that particular drone, so I had to say no.”

  A thrill went through her as she thought about the fearsome Reaper. Operators here at Creech Air Force Base could hunt for targets using a number of advanced sensors, including a thermal camera. But best of all was the extensive weaponry the drone carried, Hellfire II air-to-ground missiles, the Sidewinders and the latest the GBU-38. So when those fuckers tried to mess with her people, she could take direct action and blast their asses. She smiled at Corporal Munch. “I’ll get back to them and tell them. I’m cleared for the Reaper.”

  * * *

  “What the fuck’s going on, Roy?”

  The cargo operations manager looked up from the manifest he’d been examining as Joe Ashford stormed into his office. He sighed. When Joe was in that kind of a mood, everyone got his ass kicked, and the atmosphere in the CIA’s Kabul International cargo hangar would be soured for days.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve got a cargo waiting for shipment. Yet both the aircraft and my people are somewhere else. I want them back here, now!”

  “But Joe, we had orders from ISAF, routed through Langley, to bail out those medics who were ambushed near the Khyber Pass. I passed on the orders to Ed Walker. I had no choice.”

  “Fuck Langley and fuck ISAF. How am I supposed to get the cargo out if my transport disappears on some wild rescue mission? There must be someone else can do it.”

  “There’s no one else, Joe. You know the whole country is going up in flames. They were caught on the back foot. Until they’ve straightened this out, they don’t have any spare people.”

  Ashford sighed heavily. “What’s their current status?”

  “They’re still on the way. Once they get there, they’ve got to join up with the medics and fight their way out. There isn’t room in the aircraft for all of them, so I guess they’ll take the civilians on to their destination in Pakistan, and then return for Ed Walker and his people.”

  “No!” Ashford’s huge fist crashed down on the desk. “I want them back here. I’ve got customers waiting for product, and if they don’t get it, they’ll be mighty unhappy. As soon as they’ve pulled them out of the ambush, they’re to get back in that plane and get straight back here to Kabul. You hear?”

  “How will the civilian medics get out of there without support?”

  “I don’t give a shit, Roy. They can walk out on their own for all I care,” he laughed. “That should do it. Just get my plane back here on the ground and get it loaded.”

  “And if Langley call up wanting to know what’s going on?”

  “Tell ‘em the plane’s got engine trouble or something like that. Maybe the pilot’s got the flu. I don’t care. I need that plane!”

  “Why is it so important? We’ve got regular transport aircraft we can use.”

  “Because it’s off the books. I organized it so that it doesn’t appear on any paperwork. You don’t need to know any more.”

  “Ok, Joe, I’ll tell them.”

  “Yeah, be sure you do.”

  Ashford stormed out of the office. Once outside, he tried to assemble his thoughts. He needed a way to get through his current problems. Running drug cargos made money, lots of money, bucket loads of money, but it had to go somewhere. He’d made massive investments in real estate back in the States, millions of dollars to buy prime land in Florida for leisure development. It still hadn’t been enough, so he’d borrowed millions more. It was easy enough to pay back, and just a matter of time before a few more drug shipments raked in the money, and his new golf course and leisure park was completed. The sale of the condos alone would bring in twice as much as he’d laid out. At least, that was the plan. Then came the property crash. Half the apartments weren’t finished, and most of the ones that were stood empty, their values falling like water down a drain. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his creditors wanted their money back. The debt currently stood at over two hundred million dollars and rising, and the interest calculated at loan shark rates. They could do that, these people. After all, who was going to argue with them? It was only after borrowing the money that he’d discovered who the lender was; one of the Mexican drug cartels using him as a conduit to launder their money. That would have been funny, his development to put his drug money to use, part funded my laundered drug money. Yeah, it would have been funny if it hadn’t been for the threats; either make the overdue loan payments that were increasing at a crazy rate every day, or wait for the shot in the back of the head. He remembered the spic that had flown out to Afghanistan to speak to him.

  “It’s just business, Mr. Ashford. The Jefe insists on his money. You do understand that he can’t have people failing to pay?” The guy had laughed. “That’s a bad way to do business, no? If people don’t pay their bills, the Jefe has a simple solution, a permanent solution.”

  “If he kills me, he won’t get any of his money back,” Ashford had snarled.

  But the man smiled even wider. “That is true, but you see, it encourages the others to make their payments. It’s simple mathematics, a long-term business strategy. You must see that.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Where did you learn business?”

  “Princeton, Senor. A fine American university.”

  He had to have that fucking aircraft. His superiors were starting to look at his operations with a critical eye. The only way he had to fulfill his part of the deal was to use that plane so that no one was any the wiser. Otherwise he was dead.

  * * *

  I dropped down to five hundred feet and searched for a flat strip for a landing. On the ground I could see the extent of the ambush. It was some kind of a ruined village, probably abandoned. The American troops were sheltering behind the
broken stone walls, while two hundred yards in front of them a large force of Taliban had them pinned down. As I looked down, several of the turbaned heads looked up, and I saw their rifles point towards the aircraft. Puffs of smoke showed where they tried shooting at the Twin Otter, but none of their shots struck the aircraft. Between the village and the Taliban position, the wreckage of the American vehicles lay, still smoking. There was only one possible landing strip, the road. I couldn’t leave the controls to alert the passengers in the back, so I forgot about them and circled while I assessed the size of the road. It was going to be close, too close, but I didn’t have a whole lot of choices. I banked slightly and went round again to put the aircraft on final approach.

  “Rachel, we’re about to land, how is Luk?”

  “The same.”

  She sounded tired, dulled, resigned, perhaps, to the inevitable. To losing the man she’d nursed for so many hours.

  “We’re going to make it, hang in there. Tell Luk we’ll have medical help, just a few minutes more.”

  “He’s unconscious.”

  I didn’t reply. There was nothing to add. I banked again and completed the turn, ahead of me the long, ribbon of road. It wasn’t long enough, not wide enough, but I was determined that we’d get down. I brushed over a low mound, and the startled face of a Taliban scout, or sniper, glanced up at me. Then I was leveling out to put down on the road. The ground came up to meet us, and the wheels touched. I flared slightly, then pushed the column forward and slammed her down hard. It was the only way. There just wasn’t enough road to make a normal landing. Immediately, I felt all three wheels on the ground, and I slammed on the brakes and chopped the throttles. We were bouncing and swerving towards a low stone wall, some kind of a boundary marker, and I applied maximum brakes. The aircraft slowed. It was a near thing as the wall rushed towards us, but ten feet before the port wing tip was about to ram into it, we stopped. There were a pair of grain stores just off the road, or I assumed that’s what they were. I taxied off the road and across the ground, parked the aircraft in the space between them and cut the engines. It was the best I could do, and at least the plane was partially hidden from direct view of the road. The door to the rear opened, and Ed Walker barged into the cockpit.

  “That was a bumpy landing, couldn’t you have warned us?”

  I ignored him and turned to Rachel. “How’s Luk?”

  “Same.”

  I looked out of the cockpit window. The stone buildings shielded us from the besiegers. It meant that we could get Luk out and across to the medics that were sheltering in the village. I turned to Walker.

  “We need someone to help carry Luk out to the medics. Can you ask a couple of your men to lend a hand?”

  He sneered at me. “Fuck that, Hoffman, we’re not here to offer first aid. As soon as we climb out of this aircraft, we’re going to rip through those ragheads and send them back to Tora Bora. Can’t you get one of the docs to come here?”

  “Mr. Walker, I’m no soldier, but I would have thought the aircraft will be a target for every rocket and mortar crew within five miles.”

  “Yeah, you could be right. Except that we have to have this plane.”

  “In that case, you’d better get out there and deal with them. Now if you’ll excuse me, Rachel and I need to carry Luk across to the medics.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. Tell ‘em we’ll be moving in right away to clear out those insurgents. So they can stay out of our way.” He left the cockpit, I heard him shout, “Let’s go get those motherfuckers. I need a few more scalps.”

  We carried Luk as gently as we could out of the Twin Otter and managed to get him on the ground. They were watching from the village, and a doctor and two soldiers ran over to us with a gurney. The doc put out his hand, “I’m Doctor Yves St Roulemont, Medecin Sans Frontieres. My nurses are back there, setting up a makeshift treatment room. We saw you unloading a casualty and came out to help.”

  We shook hands. “Max Hoffman, this is Rachel Beckett. The guy on the ground is Luk Woltz, gunshot wound, and he’s lost a lot of blood.”

  The doctor nodded and bent down to check out Luk. After a few minutes, he shouted to the two soldiers with the gurney.

  “We need to get this man under cover right away. He needs urgent attention.”

  They lifted him onto the canvas gurney, and we each took a corner. The doctor walked alongside Luk and continued the diagnosis. When we reached the village, they led us to a semi-ruined house. Inside, the roof was still partially intact, and a group of four nurses waited for us. Doctor Roulemont began issuing orders, and Luk disappeared behind a scrum of nurses and doctors. From behind me a man cleared his throat.

  “I’m Lieutenant Rains.”

  I looked around. An American officer, and he appeared haggard and frightened. I made the introductions and then asked him how things were.

  “As bad as you can imagine. We lost our vehicles and means of communication. We’ve been completely cut off and unable to escape. The Taliban have a heavy blocking force in place. What happened to those men who just got off your plane?”

  “They’ve gone to tangle with the Taliban. Their leader said he would clear them out.”

  He looked dumbfounded. “With just twelve men? Their leader must be insane. There are around fifty insurgents just waiting out there for us to try something like that.”

  I didn’t think it would help to tell him that he was perfectly correct. Walker was without doubt an insane, blood-crazed psychopath.

  “I don’t know, but maybe they’ve got a plan.”

  He shook his head. “That’ll be some plan. Tell me, can you take off from that road?”

  “That’s the idea, yes. My first priority is to get Luk out of danger. If Walker’s men manage to clear the ambush, I’ll try and organize a take-off. But it’ll be dangerous if they’re still in the area. As soon as we start the engines, they’ll try to hit us with everything they’ve got. The landing surprised them, a take-off won’t.”

  “What’s the capacity of your aircraft?” the officer asked. “It doesn’t look very big.”

  When I told him, his face fell. “That won’t even take half of us out of here. How do they plan to handle evacuating the rest of us?”

  “You’d better ask Ed Walker when he gets back,” I replied grimly. “This is his operation.”

  He looked bewildered. When he saw us land, he would have thought that a rescue was about to happen; instead of the arrival of a gung ho psychopath and a plane that was too small to carry them out.

  We walked around and looked at Rains’ position. He had a couple of dozen troops and the civilian medics. It was a pity that Walker hadn’t waited. If he’d added these men to his own, it would have been a useful force. I shook hands with a tough looking sergeant, Vince Mason. He’d already made the calculations.

  “You won’t get us all out on that,” he glanced across at the Twin Otter.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Do the people in Kabul have some plan for getting us out?”

  “I don’t know. Look, I’m sorry, Sergeant, but it’s Ed Walker’s show. He’s the guy who’s leading the attack against those Taliban.”

  “Is he regular army? Special Forces?”

  “He’s CIA, with mercenaries.”

  He grimaced. “I hope he knows his business.”

  I nodded. “Me too. If they’re still here, the Taliban, they’ll hear the moment I start engines and have plenty of warning to start shooting at us.”

  “I reckon so, yeah. Maybe they’ll send an armored column to get us out. We could do with some Strykers here.”

  “I doubt you’ll get them. The whole country is ablaze, and they’ve got their back to the wall. It’ll be several days before they push back the enemy.”

  “Right, in that case, we won’t make preparations to leave anytime soon.”

  I walked around, looking at their positions. It wasn’t good, and if Walker failed to clear the enemy, all they had
to do was wait for reinforcements and sweep over us. I had to make a decision if that happened, whether to try for the plane or leave on foot. A fusillade of shots rang out a few hundred yards away, obviously Walker engaging the enemy. Rains was shouting orders at his men to be alert. He was crouched behind a low wall, but I didn’t think they needed any telling. They were all hiding behind cover, and their rifles leveled ready for use. I’d seen enough, so I walked back to the building where they were treating Luk. Rachel came out to meet me.

  “They think he’ll survive, and they’re giving him massive blood transfusions. Thank God they were able to do that.”

  “That’s good. Listen, I we need to make an alternative plan to get out of here.”

  “So you think the aircraft won’t get out?”

  “I’m not sure, but help won’t be coming anytime soon. It’s all up to us.”

  In fact, we weren’t going anywhere. The light started to fade, and we had little choice but to settle in for the night. We could still hear desultory fire coming from the nearby hills. We had no idea how the firefight was going, until just after nightfall, Ed Walker stumbled into the village with two of his men. One of them was wounded in the upper arm, and all three of them looked all in. I was outside the stone hut where Luk was being treated, talking to Rachel. He loomed up out of the darkness, muttering curses.

  “Motherfuckers, they were lying in wait for us. Jesus Christ, we were lucky to get away!”

  “Where are the rest of your men?” I asked him.

  “The others? Fuck knows. Dead, I guess. One thing’s for sure, they ain’t coming back. If they’re prisoners of the Taliban, they’ll wish they were dead before long.”

  I was aghast. “So you abandoned them?”