by Leigh Barker
Gunny had passed them and was now lying behind the remains of the walls that had been the top floor, already tracking one of the mercs in his sight and waiting for the right moment. That being when as many of the man’s friends as possible could see his head come off. Psychological impact was what the officers in their clean uniforms had called it. Shock and awe. Scaring the shit out of them was what everybody else called it. The men who actually had to do it rather than just spout on about it.
Ethan and Winter stayed on the ground floor to welcome the ones who got through the killing zone out in front of the building. And there would be some, more than some. Ethan didn’t have enough men to mount a proper defense of this huge house, not even if he had double the number. Too many blind spots and too many windows.
Andie came out of the kitchen holding her M16. The time for typing over for a while.
Ethan managed a tight smile. “Good job.” He glanced at her knuckles white from her grip on her rifle. “We can handle the noise making, you go get the Predator back.”
She frowned. “There’s no point; its payload is spent. Two Hellfires.”
“Well, yeah. You know that and I know that, but do they?” He cocked his thumb towards the front of the house.
She watched him for a moment while she processed it and then nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He let that go.
She turned sharply, banged her rifle off the door frame and stepped back into the kitchen without looking back to see what Ethan thought of that. Probably not get a well done for busting her weapon.
The Viking was his own man and chose to take his MSG90 rifle up to the first floor, where he could fire right down the road at the jagged crater that had been the Toyota, and at the men moving slowly around the gaping hole and through the smoke towards the house. His choice, and a good one.
Smokey studied the advancing men through his spotter scope, fifty, probably more. He couldn’t see them all. Somebody had a lot a money to throw at this mission. No chicken dinner for guessing who that somebody was.
He shifted his recce to the buildings scattered haphazardly across the rocky plain stretching no more than a hundred yards on both sides of the rutted road. They looked deserted. The good people had either run away or were hiding. Sensible people, he wished he’d thought of that. Some of the bravest men in history had run away from a fight they couldn’t win. He didn’t know that for certain, but it sure as hell made sense. Who fights an impossible battle if all they’re gonna get is—he saw movement on the roof of a narrow, three-storey house with a flat roof. It had flower troughs and a table up there. And a shooter getting himself settled, straightening out his dishdasha so lying down wouldn’t crease it, as if he had all the time in the world.
“Rooftop. Eighty yards left,” he said without lowering his scope.
Loco adjusted his position a little and saw the shooter settling down all cozy and ready to blow their heads off. No time for finesse, for elevation and windage calculations, but at that range he could’ve hit the guy with a rock. The shooter was still prettifying himself when Loco’s round took a chunk of his head off and left his brains for rat lunch.
Smokey could see the shooter’s watcher running for the rooftop door, but didn’t speak. Loco could see him just as well. His hand was on the door handle when Loco’s 7.62mm bullet jellied his spine. Smokey didn’t watch the game; he was busy scanning the rooftops for anybody else who wanted his weapon pried from his cold dead hands. Happy to oblige.
“Clear,” he said, after tracking back over the rooftops he’d covered. “Target left fifty,” he said quietly as his scope focused on a merc with a distinctive shape over his shoulder. An RPG. “Winds gusting five right to left.”
Loco put the man’s head in his reticle, then lowered his aim a little.
“Send it,” Smokey said, and watched the man fly backwards into the rocks, taking his grenade launcher with him.
The RPG man had five other local guns for hire with him, and it took them a full four seconds to register what had happened to their man and to recover enough to move. So not very good mercs.
Loco and Smokey heard the M16 firing from the floor above. Gunny dropped two of them before they could reach the rocks. Loco sent one to his heaven without waiting for Smokey’s instructions, but that was okay, there were plenty more to choose from.
Winter strolled into the hallway from the room at the front that had been the sitting room but was now a mess of torn-up furniture and family stuff. He was relaxed, casual almost.
“Yeah,” Ethan said, reading him at once. “Something’s up.” He looked back over his shoulder along the long dark corridor leading to the back of the house.
“No contractors, just ragheads,” Winter said. “So where’s the golden boys?”
Ethan led the way along the corridor without a word, his rifle low and ready for use, with Winter two yards behind him, opening every door as they passed. Nothing. Maybe they’d called this one wrong.
They reached the room at the back, a glass-covered thing that stretched the whole width of the house with spectacular views of the mountains towering above them. And of the men finishing their descent of the cliffs. A couple of dozen men in combat fatigues and armed to the teeth. The golden boys.
“The one on the right,” Winter said.
Ethan glanced right to where a young blond guy was just unhitching himself from the rappelling rope. The rest of the boys carried standard M16s, but this one had a P90, its squat square shape unmistakable. It would chop them to dog meat before they could say woof.
Winter stepped past Ethan, knocked out one of the three-foot-high windows with the butt of his rifle, swung it around and put two rounds into the blond boy. Thirty yards, almost spitting distance.
It lit the blue touchpaper.
The boys dived for cover among the plentiful supply of boulders and sprayed the back of the house with bullets.
“See,” Ethan said, stepping back into the corridor and closing the door. “That’s what happens when you piss people off.”
Winter leaned back against the wall and shrugged. “They weren’t invited. Never did like gatecrashers.”
“I suppose we’d better shoot back or they’ll think we’re rude,” Ethan said.
He eased the door open again, crouched and stepped back into the veranda with Winter right on his heels.
The boys were doing their best to clear the glass from the frames. Ethan crawled to the left and Winter to the right, ignoring the glass shrapnel and the thwack of bullets impacting the walls above their heads. They’d been shot at before and this was no different, except a bit sloppier and wasteful of ammo. Mercenaries always had a lot of ammo, and pretty much everything else, except morality. Ethan wondered about that for a moment as he slid in behind a thick teak sideboard beautifully inlaid with ebony. And bullet holes.
Was it fair to label mercenaries immoral just because they got paid for doing what he did for country? Okay and pay, if you can call what Uncle Sam divvies out payment.
He twisted until he could get to his knees and took a quick look over the sideboard. The mercenaries were starting to feel confident now their opening blast hadn’t been reciprocated and were coming out of the boulders, crouched low and running from cover to cover, but out.
Ethen ignored the ones to his right, they were Winter’s. He ignored the one making a dash for the cover of the walled tank on his extreme left because that was just stupid; he was way out of the zone over there. The big guy, the one with designer stubble and what looked like tailored cammies caught his eye. Moving well, keeping low and slow, making sure he was exposed for the least possible time as he zigzagged forward.
Ethan timed him, waiting. And here he came right on cue. Ethan put 5.56 mm hole in his cammies and spoilt the pattern. Shit, designer stubble? He deserved it.
Point stood though. They were doing pretty much what he was. Well, except for the killing US marines, and truthfully Winter had started it, shooting the pretty blond r
ight out of the gate like that. Can’t fault his logic though, a FN P90 was an awesome weapon and better knocked out of the game before the players have time to kick off.
He heard Winter’s M16 cracking away sparingly and saw the results out of the corner of his eye as two more golden boys wouldn’t be getting their paycheck. Right ahead, no more than twenty yards, a merc was popping his head up, looking around and ducking back down every few seconds. Fuckin’ prairie-dogging in a firefight. Jesus. Ethan watched. Up, down, up, down, up—he shot him in the brow. Stay down.
Other thing about mercs. Flakes, the lot of them. He supposed it kinda went with the territory. You wouldn’t expect a team player to be out there grabbing as much cash as possible for himself. Whether that made these guys poorer fighters was yet to be decided.
Some eager beaver had retrieved the P90. He didn’t need to be a ballistics expert to work that out. The veranda coming apart and raining crap on his head pretty much told him that. He stayed low and hoped the antique sideboard would hold together until the guy got bored.
He glanced right and felt a kick in his chest. Winter was pushing shit with his hands, his paddle long gone. The P90 was chewing up the table he’d flipped over, and he was about to be out in the open with nothing between him and the bad men but his dick.
There was a plus though. The shooter was concentrating where he was getting the most results. On Winter. Ethan moved to the right side of the sideboard, popped up and fired with barely a pause to acquire his target. He got off two three-round bursts before putting his head back down while he still had it. The P90 stopped firing, and Winter glanced at him. That would be a thanks, or as near as he was ever going to see.
You’re welcome.
What was that, five, six? It was six, as if he needed to count. That left around eighteen, nineteen. He could count them if he stood up. There was more than enough of them to get the job done. Okay, they’d lost a few, but he and Winter had been lucky, or the mercs had underestimated them. Either way, that was over. He wouldn’t be knocking them down so easily now.
How, then? He peeked around the sideboard and was rewarded with a splattering of teak splinters. Seemed like every one of them took a shot at him. That irked him. Not very sporting. He scooped up a lampshade, shot to rags by the P90, hooked it on the barrel of his rifle and leaned way over to his left. This would never work. He shoved it out and wiggled it about.
The left side of the sideboard flew away in a cloud of wood chunks. Shit, who’d have thought it? He pushed himself up to the right just enough. Saw the three guys all excited and cocky standing up and blasting away. And killed them. One, two, three. One shot each.
That, assholes, is how to play M16 tag.
To his right he saw Winter had engaged his brain and had moved away from the redesigned table to a metal-bound shipping trunk with steamship labels the owners must have liked enough to keep in their house. No accounting for taste. It looked thick enough to absorb the fire, so it had some use. Good thing. Winter was next up for buying lunch. It’d be just like him to get himself killed so he wouldn’t have to part with his cash.
He didn’t need to be a military genius to know that losing nine of their guys was going to shake the mercs’ morale. Other thing about mercs though is they don’t get paid if the mission’s a bust. They were in it for money, so he had to assume that would override the feelings of sadness and loss seeing their buddies shot to hell would’ve brought.
Maybe something a bit more…dramatic would deter them. Okay then.
Marius backed away from the door leading to what had once been the elegant veranda but was now just a wreck of shattered windows and torn-up antiques. Like the rest of the house.
These Americans had handled themselves better than he’d expected. He’d always considered US military to be an ill-disciplined rabble with scant regard for authority or the chain of command, a slovenliness reflected in their uniforms, which were little more than sportswear. Men who slouched around camp or played ball games that made no sense.
Perhaps these were a new breed, but that didn’t hold because their commander, Master Sergeant Gill, was old, maybe old enough to have gone ashore on Omaha Beach. He smiled at his unflattering thought. Perhaps not that old, but too old to be a new breed. Unntaket then, the exception, as these casual soldiers might say.
They had defended their position well, but with forty local guns-for-hire coming up the road at the front and many highly trained former international special forces coming in from the rear, the defense wasn’t going to last. Four men, eksepsjonell or not, were never going to prevail against such odds. It was as it always was going to be. His role in this plan was to ensure he was not one of the fallen.
He moved quietly back along the corridor, feeling a little proud of himself. A carefully formulated plan, painstakingly executed, will always bring about the desired result. It was almost a science. A science he excelled at. If this was a chess game, then he would have two more moves remaining for checkmate. He leaned his rifle against a door jamb and took his USP pistol from is belt.
Orpheus was led into the Oval Office and he glanced around with a look of indifference. Unimpressed. First impressions are important, particularly when the circumstances demand a powerful presence. And now was such a time.
The President was sitting at the Resolute Desk that had featured in so many movies and TV appearances. Similar to the one Hofmann had, but not quite on par. Damaged and scuffed around the bottom edges. Carelessness by people entrusted with a piece of US history. Men more interested in themselves and their ego than the irreplaceable memories of a glorious past. Such were politicians.
The President came around the desk and motioned towards the couches facing each other across the new oval rug.
Hofmann gave the man a smile he kept in his pocket for such occasions and sat in the middle of the couch and waited for the President to sit opposite.
“Thank you for seeing me so promptly, Mr. President.”
The President raised a hand. “Call me Dicky.”
Dear God, had the man no sense of his position or what it represented?
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Hofmann took a small black box the size of a cell phone from his pocket and put it on the low coffee table between them. “I’m sure you understand,” he said, and smiled reassuringly. “We all remember Nixon, don’t we?”
And he was named Dicky too. Though more often paired with Tricky.
Dicky frowned and glanced at the device. “A recorder?”
“Quite the contrary.”
Dicky looked up and smiled. “Oh, I see. But no need. I’ve had all that stuff taken out. As you say, we all remember Nixon.”
“Quite, but one can never be too careful.”
“Being careful is second nature for me.”
Not on your best day.
“Shall we get down to business, Mr. President?”
“You can drop the title, Mr. Hofmann, just call me Dicky, or Richard if you prefer.”
“And, Richard, please call me…Leonard.”
If you must.
“Well, Leonard, I believe we share a vision of how this government needs to operate from here on in.”
Hofmann was about to speak, but Dicky just ploughed on.
“Before I came along, the government of this great nation was business as usual, which translated as more work for friends and family and to hell with this nation’s great people. Well, that’s all changed, and the changing hasn’t gone half as far as it’s going to go. People with their noses in the trough are about to have the rude awakening of their privileged lives. No more jobs for the boys. No more promotion to senior positions based on who you know or how much money you donated to this cause or that. The government of the US of A is going to be what our forefathers intended it to be. Standing up for the little people of this great nation. The men and women who get up every day to make a modest living through the sweat of their brows. Not coasting just because they were born in the rig
ht family.”
Hofmann could’ve pointed out that Dicky was the president because of his family and his money earned off the backs of these same sweaty little people. But let it go. Dicky was up and running, and where he was going suited Hofmann just fine.
“So you can imagine how pleased I was to get your call today hinting that you are right there with me on this.”
Whatever this was, other than full-on megalomania.
“I think I heard you say a shake-up at the top of pretty much every agency is well overdue,” Dicky said, and waited.
Hofmann leaned forward sufficiently to confirm that the green light was showing on his jammer. “I couldn’t agree more with your assessment of the level of moral corruption and incompetence this government and all previous governments represent. And I also agree with your conviction that now is the time to do something about it. Before the old guard can reassert itself through its lackies in positions of power and influence throughout this once great nation’s capital.”
He decided he’d better stop there, as throwing up on the new Oval Office rug would be considered discourteous.
“Then let’s get it done.” Dicky slapped his knee.
Hofmann wondered if he would give them a yee-haw! Texans were prone to strange outbursts.
“The problem we have,” Hofmann said quietly, in an effort to calm things down, “is the directors of the security and investigation services come from the same tight-knit group of Ivy League universities, where they no doubt spent many cold evenings buggering each other in front of a roaring fire.”
That was a joke.
“My suspicion exactly. Seems to me these people take on the role of director, milk it for all it’s worth, then move on to another agency before their incompetence is rumbled.” Dicky caught his breath. “Same group going around and around like a fucking merry-go-round going round. And when the music stops, they’re the only winners, leaving the poor working stiffs to pick up the bill.”