Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by R. J. Pineiro

  “The Russians have this saying,” Jonesy decides to pitch in. “The best way to eat an elephant is to carve it into small slices—or something to that effect.”

  “Our former best friend Yuri Tupolev told us that,” Kessler adds. “Before the bastard turned on us. But they are wise words. So, put everything else out of your mind and just focus on this mission, okay? Or you won’t be any good to us.”

  “Which is exactly what happened to Dix,” Jonesy said. “Got too emotionally invested, so we had to cut him loose.”

  “Is that what happened to you too, Cope?”

  Cope just shakes his head and keeps looking out the window. Jonesy and Kessler laugh at my question, and the latter says, “The man quit because there weren’t enough sniper opportunities.”

  “Yep,” Jonesy adds. “And he kind of sucks at close-up work.”

  “Alright. Kill the fucking chatter,” Cope finally says, putting an end to the discussion, just like he used to do with my team.

  We continue in silence on Norview Avenue before turning left on Grimes Avenue, reaching a long row of houses to our right and a wooded area to our left.

  Street lights cast a greyish glow, broken up by the jagged shadows of pines and fir trees.

  We park in one of those shadows two houses away from our target and shut off the lights. Without warning, Cope lowers his NVGs, exits the vehicle, and rushes into the woods.

  Placing his right elbow over the back of his seat and turning his head to glance my way, Jonesy says, “We need Yuri alive, Commander. So, go easy on that trigger. Don’t cut off the head of this Russian.”

  Before I can reply, Cope comes over the squadron frequency.

  “One in position.”

  Checking his watch before looking toward the spot where Cope had vanished in the forest, Jonesy says, “Showtime, Commander. Three-man stack. Safeties off. Eyes on.”

  We lower our NVGs and exit the vehicle, moving swiftly but silently in a darkness suddenly alive in hues of green, clearly delineating houses, lawns, parked cars, and trees.

  Jonesy leads the stack while M.K. handles the right flank and I the rear. This particular version of a Close Quarter Battle stack relies on someone else covering our left flank, the reason Jonesy gave Cope a moment to get situated.

  We reach the twenty-foot space between the target house and its closest neighbor. And that’s where Jonesy diverts to the right, between the one-story structures, leaping over the four-foot chain-link fence delineating the backyard, and pausing near the steps to a wooden deck that leads to the back porch. The place is in shambles, with a weed-overgrown lawn, exterior walls in dire need of paint, and just overall neglect. It fits perfectly with the adjoining houses on this block, making it an ideal hideout.

  Kessler follows, and I’m right behind.

  I stand guard at the rear left corner of the property with a clear line of sight along the back and left side of the house. Kessler covers the rear right while Cope handles the front. Between the three of us, we have eyes on every exterior angle, allowing Jonesy to safely approach the rear door.

  “Two in position,” Kessler reports.

  “Three in position,” I report.

  “Four is moving in,” Jonesy reports.

  Jonesy steps up from the grass to the deck and across it to the back porch, kneeling by the rear door, where he works a small plastic tube between the bottom of the door and the floor. He explained during our mission brief how they use sleeping gas to perform abductions, lessening the level of risk when dealing with paranoid men and women who happen to be proficient with weapons. It’s really for the victim’s own protection. By the time they wake up, they’re out of harm’s way. Although tonight we’re not dealing with a Zilopronol victim, the concept is the same.

  Still, I can’t help but frown at the irony of Granite’s task. The large majority of Zilopronol victims are decorated warriors, many even Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. But now a grateful nation is sending them to rot in a holding cell thanks to a drug prescribed to help them deal with the PTSD they got as a result of fighting to protect that same grateful nation.

  Something is seriously fucked up with that.

  Jonesy connects the tube to a liter-size canister of a concentrated mix of halothane enhanced with nitrous oxide.

  I observe from a distance of roughly fifty feet as he waits for the sleeping gas to do its thing. If all goes according to the plan he described to me, in five minutes the gas would reach a high-enough concentration inside the house to knock out anyone not wearing a gas mask, or keep those already sleeping from waking up. Then it would be just a matter of donning the little gas masks hanging from our belts, which are designed to fit under our goggles, breaking down the rear door, extracting the unconscious Russian, and heading back to the SUV. By the time the elusive Yuri Tupolev and anyone else holed up with him come around, they will be sixty feet below NAS Oceana sitting at the wrong end of SAP interrogation techniques.

  That’s the plan anyway.

  And that’s when I spot a shadow shifting behind one of the rear windows.

  It’s very subtle.

  But it’s enough.

  “Movement,” I say. “Second window from the left.”

  “Everyone remain in position,” Jonesy replies, his figure remaining still by the door.

  “Careful,” I warn. “I’ve seen these Spetznas guys in action. They give SEALs a run for their money.”

  “I’ve got this, Commander. This isn’t our first rodeo. Remain in—”

  The blast is powerful, ripping the NVGs right off my head as an invisible fist punches me squarely in the chest.

  I fall back against the chain-link fence as the fast-rattle of what I immediately recognize as an AR-15 in full automatic mode echoes across the sleepy neighborhood.

  It takes me a moment to get my bearings, as I roll on the grass, away from the position I had landed, trying to surge to a deep crouch. But I fall right back down. The blast and subsequent fall tore the damned prosthetic right off my lower right leg.

  Damn!

  But then again, this is precisely why I could no longer qualify for SEAL duty and—

  The muzzle flashes coming from the same window where I had spotted the movement cease a second later, but not before Kessler, who had just gotten back up, screams as a volley of rounds rips up his center mass from groin to neck. The last two rounds strike him in the face, beyond the protection of his body armor.

  And he’s down again.

  I spot a figure on the ground, near the four steps between the grass and the deck.

  Jonesy.

  He’s dragging himself on the lawn after taking the brunt of a blast that pushed him off the rear deck almost twenty feet. He turns toward me, his craggy face marred with burns and blood.

  I’m about to stand on one leg and hop over to him, but he waves me down, signaling to stay low. And that’s when I notice he’s lost both legs below the knees, clawing away from the house while dragging his maimed body.

  But before I can react, staccato gunfire thunders again as a river of bullets carves a track down the middle of the backyard, reaching Jonesy, and punching through his back and head.

  And just like that, the guy I’ve held responsible for the misery plaguing my life since last November—plus one of his sidekicks—is gone, killed by a former colleague.

  Life, or in this case, death, isn’t without a sense of irony.

  For an instant I feel a tinge of poetic justice in the air. But then again, Jonesy saved my bacon—twice now.

  Focus.

  I roll back to where I fell, ignoring the flaring headache from the shockwave while searching for the damned prosthetic that I lost when—there!

  I snag the thing off the grass but don’t have time to strap it on as Yuri Tupolev makes his grand entrance onto the back porch, sc
anning the yard with the AR-15.

  The man is one hell of a shot, taking out Kessler from that window with little visibility from almost seventy feet away. The only reason I’m still alive is that I couldn’t stand up when I tried, keeping my body in the darkness below the porch’s line of sight as it stands almost four feet above the grass.

  Slowly, I strap on the prosthetic while keeping an eye on this bastard before also securing the goggles back on.

  The smell of gunpowder assaults my nostrils just as the surrounding darkness turns back into shades of green.

  I whisper into the throat mike. “Two and Four are down. Repeat. Two and Four are down. Need a diversion.”

  “Copy that,” replies Cope, and a moment later, the sound of a fifty-caliber round fired into the front of the house is enough for Tupolev to rush back inside, presumably to cover the front.

  I get to my feet and test the prosthetic to make sure it’s on snugly. Then blinking rapidly, I try to clear my sight, especially the little white spots that continue dancing in front of my eyes, even with the goggles.

  Rushing in a crouch up the side of the house, I move away from the killing zone as sirens now wail in the distance.

  So much for our little stealth abduction op. Goes to show you that no plan ever survives the first shot, or in our case, the first explosion.

  I reach the front right corner of the property, nostrils flaring as I inhale deeply, fighting a growing dizziness. Dropping to a deep crouch, I take up a defensive fighting position behind the front left quarter panel of the Tahoe hugging the curb on—

  Gunfire breaks out in the front of the house. Metal strikes metal like hammers from hell as bullets pound the hood of the SUV, sparking off its armored surface. Another invisible force stabs my center mass, pushing me back, but luckily out of the immediate line of sight of Tupolev, who has moved with incredible fluidity to the front and set up a new vantage point.

  I land on my side, grunting as my right shoulder and leg take the brunt of the fall. But I manage to hold on to the MP7SD while trying to inhale. This time the prosthesis and goggles remain attached. But the stabbing pain spreading radially across my chest momentarily rattles me. The 5.56x45mm round has struck the titanium plate of my body armor, extending its energy throughout my torso with crippling force. Still, I feel lucky that the Russian wasn’t shooting larger ammo, like the 7.62x39mm of an AK-47, capable of taking off a limb and even punching through my body armor.

  More reports echo in the night, hammering the side of the SUV as I muster enough will power to crawl around to the rear.

  “Three, One. I have eyes on you,” reports Cope who remains well hidden in the bush beyond the edge of the street.

  “Do you have a shot?” I hate asking that question because we need to do everything possible to take that man alive.

  My back is against the rear bumper as sirens echo in the distance just as my breathing gets progressively more difficult. The round has knocked the wind out of me and I need a minute that I currently don’t have. The wrong kind of help is on its way. Soon this area is going to be crawling with cops, which means Cope and I need to neutralize Tupolev before he takes out law enforcement officers armed with pistols and lacking body armor.

  “Negative,” Cope replies. “Bastard is firing from a side window. Can’t get an angle.”

  I risk a peek around the rear taillight the instant the firing stops, signaling Tupolev is reloading. And that’s when I spot the small rectangular side window almost by the front of the property and close to the ground.

  A basement. The man’s bunker. The Russian’s last line of defense.

  “Yuri!” I shout at the top of my lungs. “You’re surrounded! Stand down!”

  The motion beyond the window momentarily shifts in reaction to my warning, but a moment later, he tears into my hideout with a torrent of FMJ rounds thrashing the vehicle.

  “Can you handle suppressing fire on that brick wall by the window?” I ask as Tupolev pauses to reload again.

  “Yep. Can’t hit him but can make a racket for you,” he replies, “Call it.”

  I double check the MP7SD, which I’ve yet to fire. Breathing in deeply while testing my footing on the pavement, I say, “Now!”

  The thundering of multiple .50 caliber shots singe the air before tearing into the brick wall surrounding the side window with impressive force. Brick disintegrates into clouds of masonry shrapnel. The multiple eruptions force Tupolev to halt his attack.

  And that’s my cue.

  Springing, I leap across the sidewalk while bringing the MP7SD up, leveling the scope on the opening, and firing while running. My rounds fill the gap while Cope reloads, before resuming his attack as we canvas the wall with concentrated mixed-caliber violence.

  I can now see his figure beyond the rectangular opening, backlighted by a dim light source radiating from somewhere inside the house.

  A tactical mistake.

  Tupolev had turned off the lights in the front and side rooms of the house, but left something on in another part of the house, and the reflection of that light has filtered to this room just enough to betray him.

  And that’s a very good thing for me.

  He’s huddled to the side, keeping clear of the calculated mess that Cope and I are making. Sliding to the left, I line him up and release a three-round volley, but keep it low, aiming for his legs.

  Tupolev screams, before shifting out of view, disappearing inside the house.

  Did I get him? Where the hell did he—

  Five figures emerge from the front of the house clutching assault weapons—more AR-15s—and three more around the back. They’re green shadows on steroids, ridiculously fast, nimble, crisscrossing each other while converging on me.

  And all of a sudden, Granite’s words echo in my mind.

  We have reason to believe that Sokolov has also created some sort of milder version of the bioweapon that can be used to enhance the capabilities of a soldier.

  “Cope!”

  “I’m on them!”

  I fire on the first two, but miss as they roll on the ground, before surging to their feet while returning fire.

  I duck behind the SUV, hear the rounds hammering the hood but not punching through its armored skin. I fire again and miss again.

  Dammit.

  Cope also misses. His first round goes wide, hitting the side of the house; the second hits low, sparking off the sidewalk.

  As I adjust my fire, the garage door bursts open, and a black Ford F-150 truck, like mine, crashes through it, roaring down the driveway and onto the street.

  I notice Cope firing at it, the multiple fifty-caliber rounds punching holes on the side of the engine. The clanging sound of metal striking metal echoes down the street as the truck swerves left, then right as it absorbs the kinetic energy of those monster bullets. But the driver, whom I presume to be Tupolev, manages to regain control, before accelerating down the street.

  Bastard’s getting away!

  But I have more immediate problems.

  The shadows are almost on top of me, so I fire again. This time, I take down the lead figure with a headshot, then the one behind him with a gut shot while Cope also blasts away, nearly decapitating the third one with a well-placed fifty-cal round. All three figures collapse while splattering blood, especially the third man, as their rifles skitter away.

  But there are two more, and they’re too damn close, plus there are those three other monkeys scrambling toward me from the rear.

  Christ.

  As I’m about to shift my aim toward the fourth figure, he manages to release a burst. The muzzle flashes cast a stroboscopic glow around a Slavic face that, unlike the hajis in country, isn’t contorted in anger. The face is focused, composed, like that of a seasoned operator.

  It’s one of Sokolov’s enhanced warriors, and he manage
s to fire once more, striking my center mass.

  I fall back in sudden agony as the titanium-plated vest absorbs the high-velocity slug, but not without spreading more crippling energy across my ribcage.

  This time the sting overwhelms me, turning my legs to putty as I collapse.

  Cope continues to unleash violence on figures I expect to reach me any moment. I hear the fifty-caliber rounds parting the air, whistling before thrashing flesh and bones. The sound is mixed with the fast rattle of AR-15s, but I also hear another gun in the mix, an M4 carbine, the preferred weapon of the Marine Corps. The multiple blasts suggest the shooter is right on top of me, but my vision is rapidly tunneling.

  And just like that the firing stops, the reports replaced by the distant sirens.

  The pain in my chest and torso has paralyzed me, making me lose track of time as I come in and out of consciousness.

  And that’s when a figure looms over me, blocking the stars. I glare in disbelief at his narrow face and dark eyes under equally dark hair.

  Uncle D.?

  “C’mon, kid! Can’t take a punch? Get your ass up!” he shouts, standing tall over me wearing a pair of blue jeans and a tight white T-shirt and holding the M4. No body armor.

  I blink and manage to sit up, grimacing while catching a glimpse of Cope running toward us from across the street clutching his TAC-50 and sliding behind the Tahoe’s steering wheel.

  “Let’s go! Now, Marine!” Uncle D. shouts while offering a gloved hand.

  Trying damn hard to get my bearings, I take it while also snagging my MP7SD. “What… are you doing here?” I finally ask, doing my best to ignore the stabbing in my ribs.

  “Apparently, saving your ass. Come now. Gotta go catch a Russian,” he says, giving a shove toward the rear door of the Tahoe while he jumps into the front passenger seat and Cope starts the engine.

  Forcing my mind to ignore the bizarre encounter as much as I try to work through the pain, I somehow manage to crawl into the back seat. I set the MP7SD aside and run a hand under the body armor to massage my aching chest.

  “He can’t be far,” Cope says, punching it.

  Tires screech and the SUV fishtails as it accelerates down the street, tossing me around the seat. I reach out to the back of Uncle D.’s seat for balance.