by Leigh Barker
To his right he saw a narrow shelf maybe five feet down the cliff face and smiled. Those ragheads were going to be so pissed when he popped up and shot them in the ass from under the cliff. He was going to get his head shot off, no doubt about that, but waiting until they sneaked past and jumping up to say boo! was going to be a hoot. He put his rifle on the edge and lowered himself over. Very, very slowly. The stepping-off stuff was just that idiot in his head fucking with him again.
Winter watched the mighty Taliban come running back around the trail like their asses were on fire. Fewer than went, but enough to get the job done, with change.
Unlike Chuck, he’d given hanging off the sheer drop a miss and chosen a spot just right for his plan. A ledge back off the trail and ten feet above it with protruding points of rock giving him cover. Not enough if the insurgents looked right up at him, but they weren’t going to do that, they had more pressing business on their minds. Killing the men who’d killed them.
Okay then, waiting time. They wouldn’t move until it was full dark. He looked up at the sky streaked with dull pink over the top of the mountain he had his back to. Half hour to dark, then maybe another twenty minutes for them to build up a head of steam. So he’d be standing there for near on an hour. It wasn’t too bad. He had most of his feet on the shelf, his heels at least. No problem, then.
They made themselves some tea. He could smell it and see the flames under the pan. He took a sip from his canteen and wished he’d thought to fill it before all this started. Down range, they called it. Carelessness, he called it. Same thing. He hadn’t filled his canteen. He was thirsty. Cause and effect.
After thirty minutes his calves were screaming at him, but he did what he always did to noisy demands. He ignored them.
Forty minutes and ignoring the agony consuming him from the thighs down was no longer an option. He’d move under his own power now or he’d fall sometime soon.
He crouched as much as he could without pitching head first, and rubbed his calves. It didn’t help. They were as hard as the shelf he was standing on. He slid down the rock until he was sitting on the tiny ledge. And wished to God he’d thought of that sooner. The relief shot through his muscles like hot tracers, but he could feel the pain, and that was a plus.
Five minutes before he could trust his legs to hold him up. That put him right on schedule. His schedule. Move ten minutes before they do. Simple. Early bird…
He moved his M16 so it hung on its strap across his chest, in the way but right there if he needed it. He glanced at it. If he needed it? Who was he kidding? He took his Ka-Bar from its scabbard on his belt, leaned down and pulled a black stiletto from his boot. One in each hand. That he had the stiletto in his right hand was telling. The Ka-Bar was a fearsome knife, but the stiletto was out on its own. Style, history and a kind of awesome beauty. A killing blade for the consummate warrior.
He eased himself off the ledge and felt for the boulders lost in the near perfect blackness. If this had been a movie, pebbles or stuff would’ve plinked down onto the trail and all hell would’ve broken lose. It wasn’t a movie and he’d carefully removed everything bigger than a grain of sand right out of the gate. No movie star, but no fool. And given the choice…
The insurgents were spread out along the trail, sitting back against the rocks and sipping hot chai. No hurry to get it done. They could wait. This was their country. Or would be.
Winter moved to his right, staying back against the cliff and keeping the piles of fallen boulders between him and the trail. If one of those tea drinkers stepped off for a piss, he’d be peeing right on Winter’s boots.
If the unexpected could be planned for, plan for it; otherwise shut the fuck up and just go. He crouched a little to appease whatever god might’ve been watching, but kept moving. He had a plan. It was a stupid plan. No, it was a fucking stupid plan. But if he shuffled the stack of plans he had, he’d still get this one. It being the only one in the stack.
He told himself to shut up. The noise in his head was as irritating as a toddler in a toy shop.
Okay, there was the end of the bunch. The last man, maybe hoping the others would head off and forget about him. That was the case, he was the smartest and the dumbest of them. Smartest because who the hell wants to be first to run smack into an SMG and a sniper. And an M16. Right. He’d heard the M16. That’d be Gunny come back not to miss the fun. Doing the right thing as usual. Probably for the last time.
Oh, and dumbest? He’d answer that real soon.
Winter glanced at the man’s shoulder just visible behind the boulder he was moving around. Moving in slow motion without a sound. No tippy-toes or twisting his foot like some pansy martial artist sneaking up on a deaf guard. He trusted his RAT boots and just put his feet where his feet needed to be. While he watched the man’s shoulder for any movement that wasn’t just fatigue or boredom.
He stopped right behind the man’s boulder and stayed dead still, giving the air time to get used to him and not move about or waft his scent.
The insurgent finished his chai and put the tin cup down next to him and sighed. He glanced casually to his right as Winter sat down next to him and put his arm around his shoulder. He started to form a word, but Winter’s hand clamped over his mouth and the stiletto punctured his heart like a cocktail stick in an onion. The man died without a sound.
Winter let the body lie back against the rock and backed off behind the boulder. Now he moved left.
The next man was just a few feet along the trail, but asleep, so no chance he’d seen what just happened. He’d never see anything else.
Winter let the man’s head slump slowly forward onto his raised knees and moved on to the next, and the next.
It couldn’t last. There were maybe twenty, thirty of them. No way he was going to be able to execute them one at a time. But he kept moving. Plan for it, or otherwise shut the fuck up and just go.
He sat next to the fifth man in the row. Same approach. A friend coming for a sit and talk about the killing coming up.
The man looked at him, saw the desert camouflage jacket and the man wearing it. A man with white hair that seemed to luminesce in the dancing light from the fire. A demon. His jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide enough his eyeballs might fall out. He was going to scream like a girl.
Winter slid the stiletto into the man’s throat right in front of his C4 vertebrae. His larynx. No screaming. The guy grabbed his throat with both hands and stared at him as if he might give him first aid or something stupid like that. Winter put the stiletto into the man’s heart without even chipping a rib. But it had been messy. No gold star.
A big guy leaned forward maybe five or six men down the trail and stood up slowly. A really big guy. Officer or whatever the fuck these militants had for a command structure. Whatever. He’d heard something and was coming to see what the two guys sitting real close to each other were up to. Or maybe he was just going to take a piss.
In all the years he’d been doing this, Winter had never caught a break. A man, a grizzly bear of a man, taking a piss instead of coming on over? It was never going to happen. And it didn’t.
The big guy hiked up his dishdasha to straighten his panties, or whatever he was wearing under that thing as big as a tent, and stamped up the trail like a bear with a hangover.
Winter pressed back against the rocks and eased the dead guy forward to hide his cammies for as long as possible. Why, he had no idea, but it was something to do. He pushed the stiletto into the dead guy’s leg and left it there, his hand closing on his M16. If he had to use it, it was going to wake up all these sleepyheads and they’d be cranky.
The bear came closer, his legs spread as he walked to prevent his weight bowling him over onto his fat gut. His face was hidden in darkness, but Winter knew exactly what he looked like. Shit, he’d seen enough of these shapeless fat guys. Maybe the man was truly fat, out of condition, slow and…and he’d kept up with the rest of the militants on their jog up the mountain, so that h
ope was coughing its last in the sand.
The giant stopped and stared down at one of the men asleep against the rocks, grunted and kicked the guy’s legs out of the way. Then came stumping on. Still grunting. Out of breath probably, carrying all that blubber. Except he’d jogged up the mountain, remember? Winter wasn’t about to forget.
The bear was going to make him for an infidel in about three seconds. Blowing his fat head off wasn’t going to work, satisfying as it would be. The other ragheads would be all over him, and not slapping his back in congratulations at doing the big feller.
He took his hand off the M16 pistol grip and reached for the stiletto, then let it be and swapped the Ka-Bar into his right hand. The right tool for this job. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and lowered his head into the shadow from the dying fire. If one of his grunts fell for this stunt, he’d use their guts as bowstrings, but it was the only play. Stupid as it was. No, maybe not stupid, just desperate.
This was all about timing. He knew that. Just saying. He shut up the whisper of doubt and watched the bear cover the last two steps. He could only see his legs as thick as fenceposts. Any second now he’d make the cammies and pull Winter’s arms off and beat him to death with them.
Winter saw the man’s legs spread as he made to bend over for a closer look. And moved. He ripped the Ka-Bar out and back so fast it would make a man wonder if he’d actually moved. But he had, and the seven-inch carbon steel blade had sliced the dirty white dishdasha and separated the man’s hamstring right behind his knee. Size makes no difference, a hamstrung man falls down.
The giant grunted instead of screaming, which said a lot for the man’s pain tolerance. With nothing to support his leg, he dropped to his knees, right on script. He was bringing his AK around on its strap when Winter rammed his knife up under his chin, through his mouth and into his brain. Big as he was, that was game over, and he just flopped onto the other dead guy and twitched.
Size really didn’t matter. Winter decided to keep that comment unspoken and tugged the Ka-Bar out of the man’s skull and wiped it on his cotton frock while he checked the trail to see if his desperate move had attracted any admirers. They were asleep, or at least resting. Getting ready for the main event.
Six down, unless he’d miscounted. Maybe twenty more to go. At this rate it would be morning before he’d killed enough of them to make a difference. Okay, it was entertaining enough working his way along the line and sending the terrorists off to find their virgins, but it wasn’t efficient. He had to do something a bit more…dramatic. And he knew exactly what that had to be. He’d always hoped to die of old age, in bed, with a younger woman. Yeah, having made it in the movies and won the lottery.
He looked around at the barren mountain and the trail littered with goat shit. As good a place as any to punch the clock for the last time. He put the Ka-Bar back in its scabbard, pulled the stiletto out of the dead guy and put it in his boot, took a slow breath and stood up.
And so did the insurgents, a ripple of men getting to their feet, starting close to the sharp bend and running back to the last man, the last one alive.
Winter waited for him to come and wake his buddies, but he just strolled off muttering something that sounded mean.
Winter had intended just running down the trail with his M16 and killing as many of them as he could before they knew they were dying. Thirty-round mag on semi-auto. He was going to hit what he was aiming at, so he would’ve got maybe ten, fifteen before they dropped him. But that puppy had bolted for the woodpile. If he opened up now, all he’d do is chew up the guys at the back of the crush pushing towards the bend and the Americans on the other side.
He started to follow, then had an idea, another one of those great ideas that come when there’s nothing to compare it to. He rolled the fat guy onto his back and pulled his dishdasha up over his gut. The man was wearing Calvin Klein boxers. It stopped Winter for a moment and he stared at them, then shook his head and got on with pulling the bloody garment over the man’s head. As he’d guessed, the thing was huge, but that was okay, it would hide the blood in the folds. He put it on, pushed his right hand back into the sleeve, and picked up his rifle out of sight. That was a good thing, right? Jesus, he had no idea, it just sorta felt…well, clever. The thing about clever. Yeah, he knew, but it was too late now, the Taliban was on the move and the party would be over while he was still dicking around with his wardrobe.
He strode after them and caught up with the tail enders as they milled about just short of the bend, waiting for the word to go. He hung back just far enough to be in the shadows but close enough to stay in contact.
He had a plan, another one. And hoped it panned out better than the last one. Scrub that, make that two stupid plans. Sticking the bad guys with his stiletto? Jesus, he’d be sure not to mention that to anybody.
Ethan walked in the middle of the trail, his rifle slung over his left shoulder and his body relaxed and calm. A show for the kid. His eyes scanned the hillside for any movement. Not that he’d likely see it with the light all but gone. But he didn’t need to see it, he’d know. He just would, it was the way it was. Being on the wrong end of a rifle most of his adult life had done something, changed something. It had woken up a sense that must have been around when man lived in the jungle, where everything wanted to eat him. Civilisation had made that sense redundant, so it had slipped way back into whatever it is everybody shares. But recreate those original conditions for long enough and it comes back. Nobody who has it talks about it. A rubber room doesn’t have cable sports.
They should get off the trail, stop, rest up. Right, and maybe have a barbeque. He needed to stop thinking of the kid as…a kid. She was a petty officer in the US Navy. She’d signed up to get killed. Okay, maybe not exactly, more likely signed up for the yachting and water sports from the commercial, but the bottom line was she was in one of the armed forces, and what they were there for was kinda implicit in the title. Thing was, if he’d had a kid and she was a girl, then she’d be around Andie’s age, give or take. So that made it okay to jeopardize the mission to wet-nurse her? What about the men back there fighting the Taliban? Don’t they get a little coddling? He smiled at the thought. Then gender neutrality was where he’d arrived at. A little late in his career, but better than never.
He waved Andie up, and they stood at the top of a long winding descent to a few buildings with grey roofs and white painted stone and wood walls.
“Khalua?” she said.
“I hope so,” Ethan said, and led the way down the trail.
Now he had his M16 in his hands. Just in case. Andie was already holding her rifle across her chest and had been from the moment they’d heard the gunfire. The weapons weren’t needed on the fifteen-minute sliding descent, unless they’d needed to shoot the goats milling around on the trail.
The village wasn’t showing a single light in any of the dozen or so houses. Ethan stopped at the junction of the only two roads and looked around. Nothing moved.
“This is farming country; maybe they’ve just gone to bed,” Andie said.
Ethan didn’t look at his watch. “It’s only twenty hundred. Seems a bit early to turn in, even if you have to get up to milk the goats.”
Two questions popped into Andie’s mind, but she left them unasked. Who cared what time goats have to be milked? And she knew she didn’t want to know the answer to the second.
“We need to find a defensible position,” Ethan said, answering it anyway.
Trouble.
Andie looked around quickly and then pulled herself together. “There are lots of houses.”
Ethan was ahead of her. “There are, but they’re all overlooked from the hillside.” He glanced at her and saw her questioning look. “Snipers.”
“Do you really think the Taliban is here? With snipers?” She was looking around urgently.
“You remember we were talking about westerns earlier?”
She nodded but hadn’t been list
ening.
“What happens when the outlaws are waiting for the good guys to ride into town?”
She had no idea.
“The townsfolk close their doors and windows and hunker down.” He nodded towards the darkened houses. “Hunkered down.”
“So where are the outlaws?”
“Not here yet,” Ethan said, “or we’d be in a firefight. But they’ve been here, and that’s why the farmers are hiding.”
“Maybe they think we’re the outlaws.”
Good point.
“We’re Americans.”
That must have made sense to him.
“What about that?” She pointed up the street to a house backing right into the rocky slope.
The house was an ornate mix of carved wood and blue rocks quarried out of the mountainside it was sitting on. Three stories, each with a covered balcony stretching the length of the house. Pretty and real useful for a defending force, even if that force was just a marine and a kid—a petty officer. Jesus, he was going to have to get that squared away in his head.
He stood at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the covered front door and turned slowly to check the approach. A road, one of the two, and rocks with knee-high vegetation. Good cover for anybody trying to advance on the house.
This would have to do.
“What about the owners?” Andie said as he started up the steps.
“What about them?”
“I don’t know, but I think I’d be a bit pissed if somebody wanted to use my house as a bunker.”
He tapped his rifle. “I’ve got an M16. I think that trumps pissed any day.”
“You wouldn’t shoot them?” She trotted up the steps behind him. “If they say no, you wouldn’t shoot them.”