Thunder Run (Maelstrom Rising Book 6)

by Peter Nealen

  ***

  Getting the Councilors up to the roof took some doing.

  The Ospreys were already circling overhead, escorted by four of the Iwo Jima’s AH-1Z Vipers, by the time the first SEALs came up the stairs, towing the first of the Councilors, a skinny, sallow-faced German and a rather plump and matronly-looking Spanish woman. The woman was cursing the SEALs every step of the way.

  The German just looked shell-shocked.

  With the Councilors finally moving, the first Osprey descended toward the roof. We’d have to load one bird at a time—the only other option would be to let the EDC pilot fly the NH90 off, and that wasn’t happening.

  “Getting a little sporty down there.” Chief Nelson hung back as his SEALs shoved the two Councilors toward the birds and two more came up. “Seems that all the supernumeraries are getting a little upset—must be a lot of true believers down there. Lots of yelling when we started hauling the Councilors out. You’re lucky you were up here.”

  “How’s the security situation looking?” I watched as yet another pair of Councilors were brought up. We had thirty-eight of them to load. This was going to take several trips. And that was leaving aside the crashed Super Stallion on the lawn below, which meant an extra trip to get those Triarii infantry out. I hoped we had that kind of time.

  “Not bad. Your infantry boys have fallen back except for a couple of tripwire squads on the entrances, so they’re keeping a damper on things.” He spat a stream of dip juice toward the edge of the roof and the mob beyond it. “I don’t think the Belgians are going to be too eager to turn their backs on the ‘mostly-peaceful protestors’ to try to storm this place any time soon.”

  “No, I don’t think so, either.” We crouched behind some of the machinery as the Osprey rose into the air, battering the rooftop with its rotor wash. “Four down, thirty-four to go.”

  ***

  It took three hours to get them all out. I was honestly expecting something else to go sideways the entire time, but strangely enough, it didn’t. Even when we got closer and closer to the end, and the questions started to rise in everyone’s mind as to whether this would be the time the mil left us high and dry, the birds still came back for all of us Triarii.

  We loaded our dead first. The infantry sections had taken a few casualties. I would have carried Scott up by myself, but Chris and Greg insisted on helping, especially since it was twenty-six floors. By the time we reached the top and got him onto the bird, we were smoked.

  I looked out over the half-open ramp as the Osprey climbed above the city. Smoke rose in dozens of places, and I could see the sparks of flying Molotovs tumbling through the air from the edge of the mob below.

  I couldn’t help but think that I was looking at the future of Europe, writ large. Hell, given the state of things, I was probably looking at the future of the world, writ large.

  It was not a comforting thought.

  Chapter 33

  About three hours after touching down on the Iwo Jima, now steaming southwest into the English Channel, we had topped off magazines, water, and batteries, wolfed down some shipboard chow, gone through a fast and furious planning cycle, gulped down the caffeine pills Jordan had handed out, and were back aboard the Ospreys and back in the air.

  It was a long flight—we had to go from just off Calais to the other side of the Cherbourg peninsula. The sun had already been getting close to the western horizon by the time we took off. By the time the pilots dropped to a couple hundred feet off the water, coming in on the Île de Bréhat from the northeast, the sun was down, the last pinkish light fading from the sky.

  Three Ospreys swooped down on the headland on the north side of the island. I couldn’t see much, but the crew chief came over the intercom, since I still had my headset plugged in. “One minute.”

  I gave him a thumbs up and unplugged from the bird, holding up a single finger. The rest of the team—what was left of it—returned the signal, showing that they were ready.

  I’ll admit, I got a little tense on that final approach to the island. The desperation that had fueled the EDC so far could only be hitting a fever pitch for our target.

  But no machinegun fire flickered out of the dark, no MANPADS streaked up toward us to swat us out of the air. The tilt-rotors came down on the headland, their props roaring and lashing the wild grass and heather beneath us, without incident.

  We raced off the ramp—helped a little by the rotor wash, which was, once again, doing its best to knock us on our faces as soon as we cleared the opening—and spread out into a half-circle perimeter, our backs to the ocean.

  More Marines followed, setting up security around the LZ. The birds were going to stay put, only lifting again if they started taking fire. This was supposed to be an in-and-out, and an hour’s flight time each way wasn’t going to work.

  I hoped that it would be an in-and-out, but I knew better than to really expect it. Nothing goes that smoothly, particularly not in combat.

  As soon as the Marines were on the ground, I moved to Chris and gave his shoulder a squeeze. He rose smoothly and started across the island.

  Our target was about two miles away. We’d inserted off to the north in the hopes of making the approach somewhat softly. We’d gotten some overheads of the manor that Denis Chausson had bought several years before, but not much more than that. We had little information on his security or the layout of the manor house, or what improvements had been made since he’d bought it.

  We just had the photos, pictures of “The Merovingian” himself, and that was about it.

  And I was pretty sure that the code name was because the Marine Ops Officer was a bit too much of a fan of the Matrix movies. The historical reference had been too obviously lost on most everyone else in the compartment when the briefing had gone down.

  I didn’t think it was likely that Chausson’s security detail would miss three Ospreys setting down on the other side of the island. Those birds were loud, and there were no other engines on the Île de Bréhat. There were roads, but no cars, only bicycles.

  Of course, that was why the Bn Recon platoon had inserted outside L’Arcouest, across the narrow channel that separated the island from the mainland of Brittany itself. If Chausson ran for it, he would have to take a boat, and the Marines would be waiting for him.

  Given how much say we’d had in the planning, I sort of suspected that that had been the plan all along. Let the Triarii think they’re the main effort, but use them as the beaters to flush the prey toward the Recondos.

  Maybe I was getting cynical in my old age. Okay, more cynical.

  A handful of lights glittered ahead of us among the trees that had been planted around the old-world, stone buildings that made up the island’s structures. An old commune, the Île de Bréhat had little that was modern about it. Which made it an odd retreat for one of the last European Defense Council members still at large.

  Aside from the growl of Osprey engines behind us, getting softer as we moved away, the island was strangely quiet in the early evening. The only sound as we descended onto the strand was the faint whisper of the wind and the fainter crunch of our boots in the sand and gravel.

  If the tide had been in, we wouldn’t have been able to take this route. Fortunately, the tides had fit with the timeline, which hadn’t really taken them into consideration.

  We didn’t run, but we moved fast. There wasn’t a whole lot of cover on the strand, so speed had to be our security. Not only that, but we needed to close in on the target before Chausson could bolt.

  I tried not to worry too much about the glory, but the idea of letting the Marines net what was supposed to be our target rubbed me the wrong way.

  Chris wasn’t moving quite as fast as we might have, because we still had to maintain awareness of our surroundings, not only where we were, but who might observe us as we moved. Two Grex Luporum teams and Bradshaw’s infantry trail section didn’t make for a terrifically small footprint.

  Chris halted, crouc
hing below a low stone retaining wall topped by a stand of trees planted around what looked like a stone house from the 1700s. Lights moved on the lawn above us and I could hear low voices, speaking in what sounded like French, though I couldn’t have made out words even if I’d spoken the language. I carefully signaled to the rest behind me to take cover.

  We stayed in place, huddled against the seawall as the light and the voices came closer. I half expected the flashlight beam to sweep down and pin one of us against the open sand and gravel any moment. There wasn’t a lot of concealment out there. We were just crouched against the wall. Anyone who stepped to the edge and looked down would see us easily.

  Then we’d have to grab them and secure them, along with probably anyone else in the house. Things could get really messy, really quickly. I’d had to deal with situations like that before, and they’d always ultimately ended in mission failure.

  People don’t take kindly to being held against their will by men with guns, and if word gets out, their neighbors don’t tend to, either.

  But the two men walking outside and talking didn’t seem concerned with anything so close as the beach. The light shone out toward the north, illuminating the tree above my head. The branches stood out stark white in my PS-31s. And after a moment, though I still couldn’t make out words, I gathered from their tone that the two of them were muttering about the war extending its noise and disruption even to their bucolic little island. Both men sounded disgusted.

  After a few moments of griping about the war, and probably the savage Americans and uncivilized Poles—although for all I knew, these guys were Nouveau Gallia sympathizers and blamed the EDC—the two of them turned back for the house, their voices receding. I raised my head just far enough to peer over the top of the retaining wall with my NVGs and saw them mount the porch. I pointed at Chris to keep going.

  Less than five hundred yards later, past several rows of beached boats, we hit our attack position. A row of trees would provide some concealment on the final approach to the target.

  Chris didn’t pause more than a few seconds. We could see the rest of the raid force clearly enough, and there weren’t any last-minute coordinating instructions to pass. It was time to move. Time to finish this.

  Presuming, of course, that this was going to finish anything.

  I shoved any such thoughts out of my head as I climbed the bank behind Chris and slipped between the trees toward the manor. It wasn’t the time, nor the place.

  We had a couple of hedges to get through and ditches to cross, as well as a couple of low stone walls to climb over. For the most part, though, we paralleled the walls, staying as deep in the shadows as we could as we approached the target building. Another sprawling, old stone house stood between us and the target, and we used it as concealment for as long as possible. Fortunately, whoever lived there didn’t keep dogs.

  It was conceivably possible that no one lived there anymore, anyway. From Chausson’s personality profile, it seemed entirely in keeping with his character to have forced the neighbors to sell so that he could have a buffer zone around his retreat.

  As Chris and I neared the corner of that house, which formed something of an L-shape around a flagstone courtyard, the rest of the raid force spread out while the infantry section got set to throw a cordon around the target site and the two Grex Luporum teams, mine and Tucker’s, got ready to hit the house.

  With a look around to see that everyone was ready, I got set to move. Which was when the front door of the house we were crouched behind opened, and a man in dark fatigues, body armor, and helmet, carrying a suppressed MP7, stepped out into the courtyard.

  He was also wearing NVGs and he was alert. I don’t know if he spotted a shadow, or movement, or what, but he started, then turned toward our position and brought his MP7 up as he yelled an alert.

  Both Chris and I were out of position. We both pivoted toward him, desperately trying to shoot him before he could do more than yell, but that MP7 was coming up too fast, and despite the suppressor, I could see the flash as it spat at us.

  But he hadn’t had both hands on it, and he was desperately trying to duck back inside the door as he fired. Bullets tore through the air with sharp snaps next to us, one of them hitting the tree behind us with a hard thunk.

  He was back through the door and had slammed it shut before either of us could get a shot off. And the hue and cry was already going up. Doors slammed, a voice shouted, and floodlights blazed around the target house.

  We were officially made.

  “Caveman, Deacon, take the main house. We’ve got security to deal with here.” I was already bumping Chris toward the door as I spoke, my muzzle high as I keyed the radio. I didn’t bother to wait for a response from Tucker, but dropped the muzzle to cover the window as we ducked past it on the way toward the heavy oak door that the security guard had already kicked closed.

  Getting through that was going to be interesting.

  A window broke just behind me, and I pivoted back toward it as a muzzle poked out. I fired first, the clap of the suppressed shot almost as loud as the crack as the bullet shattered more glass and broke part of the frame. The muzzle jerked back with what might have been a curse in French, and then we were at the door, as Jordan and Greg took up cover on the windows, Tony held the back corner, and David joined Chris and me on the porch.

  Chris had paused just outside the doorframe, but I hardly slowed as I rolled past him and front-kicked the door right under the antique handle. It was a gamble. If that guard had deadbolted it, given the weight of the door frame, I might be about to break my foot.

  But he’d been in too much of a hurry. The impact still hurt, but the heavy door swung inward with a bang.

  Chris and David went in fast, already crossing the threshold as I got my boot back on the ground and regained my balance. I fell in behind them as the cracks of suppressed 7.62 shots echoed from the stone walls of the entryway.

  Two shooters were down in the living room. From the looks of things, one had tried to hold on the doorway from behind an overturned—and very expensive—coffee table, while the other had been coming out of the adjacent hallway and was now lying on his face in a spreading pool of blood.

  David was already heading for that hallway, while Chris held on the kitchen on the other side of the living room. I fell in behind David. “With you.” We had to clear this place fast, then roll to the main target.

  I had barely gotten the second word out before David was moving, advancing on the first door. The long hallway opened on six rooms, three on each side, and was currently deserted except for the corpse at our feet.

  That didn’t last long. A helmeted head popped out of the doorway at the end of the hall behind an MP7 as David reached for the first door.

  I only had to drop my muzzle about an inch, my finger already taking up the slack on the trigger, despite my heart rate jackhammering through the roof. My shot must have broken at just the time he got a sight picture.

  My first shot tore along the side of the weapon and smashed his hand, driving his muzzle to one side so that the trio of 4.6mm bullets went just past my shoulder, so close that I could feel their passage. One of them even tugged at my sleeve as it went past, but I hardly noticed, as I was recovering from the recoil and already had the trigger at the wall. A fraction of a pound’s further pressure, and the suppressor coughed again as the red dot—that looked brilliant white in my PS-31s—settled on his face.

  His head snapped back under the impact. He stayed kneeling in the doorway for a moment, then his shattered skull, still encased in his helmet, slumped forward and he crumpled.

  It all happened in less than a second, and I barely paused as I followed David through the door and into the first room.

  The house might have been repurposed for Chausson’s security, but the furniture still looked like it had been there for a century. The room was a bedroom, with two old twin beds standing against the wall and a couple of equipment cases on the floo
r at their feet that looked rather out of place next to the rest of the furnishings. Either the usual occupants were up at the main house, or they were rapidly assuming room temperature outside. We quickly pivoted and headed back out.

  We flowed into the hallway just as two more men, obviously hastily dressed, still in their socks and fastening their plate carriers, came rushing out of the room across from the man I’d killed. One of them was staring at the corpse. The other looked at us, his MP7 still in one hand, the other on his plate carrier’s cummerbund.

  He was staring down two suppressed 7.62 rifle barrels. We had him dead to rights, and he knew it. He raised one hand, and slowly lowered the PDW to the floor with the other.

  “Do you speak English?” My voice might have been a little harsher than necessary, but we’d already had to kill three people that night.

  “Yes.” He sounded young and scared. The man behind him, who’d realized how screwed he was a second after his buddy, looked even younger.

  “How many of you are in this house?” Not that we weren’t going to verify whatever he told us by finishing the sweep, but if we could be just a little more prepared, I was going to take it.

  “Eight? I don’t know, we just woke up. That’s how many of us live here.” The kid sounded terrified. This must have felt like a pretty cushy gig, despite all the high-speed gear. Who was going to come kick in the door on the Île de Bréhat?

  Well, we were that bogeyman.

  “Get on the floor. Shove the weapons toward us, then put your hands on your heads, fingers interlaced.” David was still holding on the next bedroom door, while I kept the two of them covered. They obeyed quickly.