by Brent Towns
“Roger that.”
Brick returned a couple of minutes later, roughly an hour before the sun would be gone. He slipped through the trees and was suddenly there.
“What did you find?” Kane asked.
“There’s a small house and barn about a klick to our north. It’s surrounded by open ground. The barn looks solid enough, so does the house for that matter.”
“Did you see anyone there?”
“No. The place looks deserted.”
Kane thought for a moment and then said into his mic, “Cara, on me. Reaper Three, fall back.”
A few moments later they were gathered around him in the stand of trees they’d taken refuge in. He said, “Brick found a deserted farm or some such about a klick to our north. It has a good field of fire around it, so we’re going to fall back there. I still can’t raise Ramstein so we’re flying blind and, in these trees, we can’t see what’s coming. At least we’ll be able to see them coming across open fields. Plus, with a bit of luck, it’ll be dark by then anyway. Any questions?”
Cara said, “What’s our field of fire?”
Brick said, “Three hundred meters in all directions.”
“Then why can’t we redirect our extract to there?”
Kane nodded. It made sense. “If we get our comms back with Bravo, I’ll suggest it. All right, Brick. Lead us out.”
When the team reached the edge of the tree line, they paused, and Kane glanced at Cara. “Scope.”
She raised the .408 and swept the target before them. First the house and then the barn. Neither showed signs of life. “I can’t see anything, Reaper.”
“OK. Set up here for the moment with Brick. Carlos and I will go on in and have a look.”
The two of them moved forward out of the dense trees and into the lush field. The grass showed no sign of recent grazing for it was almost up to their knees. Their approach was smooth and deliberate, sweeping left and right, looking for any indication of trouble.
Once Kane and Arenas reached the main building, they split up. While the Mexican went around to the front, the Team Reaper commander tried the back door. It swung open, and Kane let the 416 hang from its shoulder strap, and he took out his M17, raised it, and stepped inside.
It smelled musty, unused. There was also the smell of mice and possibly something dead. Searching rooms as he went, Kane met up with Arenas in the living room. “No one has been here for a long time, amigo,” Arenas said.
“It would seem that way. Plenty of furniture. Seems like whoever was here just walked out.”
The Mexican nodded at the floor near the fire. “They forgot something when they did.”
Kane looked at the foul looking mat and saw the source of the room’s odor. A dead cat or it had once been a cat, but time had taken its toll on the animal’s corpse.
“I guess that’s the dead smell,” he pointed out. “Let’s check the barn.”
Suddenly Kane’s comms crackled to life. “Reaper One? Zero. How copy?”
“Loud and clear, Zero. What happened? We’re blind as a bat out here.”
“We had issues, Reaper. Still do. We have our comms back up, but we’ve no eye in the sky. All we know is that Horton’s Blackbird Team was headed in your direction before we lost the feed. Not towards your old location but an intercept course. At the moment, I can’t help you with any more.”
“Copy, Zero. I do have a request. Can you reroute the helo to these coordinates? It’s an abandoned farm with good LZs all around.”
“Wait one, Reaper,” Ferrero said, and the comms went quiet.
Kane and Arenas moved out of the house and walked over to the barn. Inside smelled of stale straw, old animal crap, and dust. The best part about it was the loft where Cara could set up a sniper nest.
“Reaper One? Bravo, over.”
“I’m here, ma’am.”
“Zero tells me you’re requesting alternate extract. Is that right?”
“Roger, Bravo. Can you do it?”
“Affirmative, Reaper, I’ll set it up. Bravo, out.”
Kane walked out of the barn and looked toward the tree line. “Reaper Two? Reaper One. Come on in.”
Chapter 16
Team Reaper
Latvia
When dark descended over the Latvian landscape, the team broke out their NVGs, but Kane made sure that all laser sights were switched off on the 416s. Cara was up in the loft doing regular sweeps at both ends of the barn with her night-vision scope. So far there was nothing to report which made Kane happy. He looked at the illuminated face of his watch. Two hours until the helo arrived.
Kane sat with his back against a square post. Across from him, he could make out the shadowy form of Bazyli. “Why did you do it?” Kane asked him.
“Do what?”
“Put the tab in the drink that killed the girl?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Fuck off, Bazyli, you were caught on camera.”
He hesitated. “I didn’t know it would kill her. She was pretty; I thought it might loosen her up a little.”
“You mean you were using it to try and get into her pants,” Kane stated bluntly. “Drug them and get them as high as a kite so they can’t say no? Is that it?”
“No.”
“Bullshit.”
“Is this why you come all this way from America? To get me?”
Kane chuckled. “It’s not all about you, you prick. We came for one of our friends and decided to pay your old man’s factory a visit. Put a dent in his operations. You were just a bonus.”
“How did you know it was there?”
Kane ignored the question. “I have a friend in Ramstein who’s just waiting to meet you. Somehow, I think you’ll be lucky to get out of there alive. The girl you killed was his sister.”
“I did not mean for her to die,” Bazyli snapped.
“Too fucking bad. You’ll go back to the States, and you’ll be tried for murder. Maybe even get your own little cocktail straight into your arm.”
Marek remained silent.
Kane’s comms crackled to life in his ear. “Reaper One? Bravo Four, copy?”
“Good copy, Bravo Four.”
“Reaper, I’ve got visual back up, and it’s telling me you have some friends about to knock on your door from the south and the north. Two groups.”
Kane came to his feet. “Give me numbers, Bravo Four.”
“Approximately ten to the south and a further twelve tangos to the north,” Swift informed him. “The ones to the north will no doubt be Bull Horton’s team.”
“Can you confirm that the helo is still an hour out?”
“Affirmative.”
“Roger. Keep me up to date. Reaper One out.”
Kane walked to the north end of the barn. He cracked one of the sliding wood doors and stared out into the darkness, illuminated a pale green by his NVGs. “Cara, you got anything?”
“Not yet, Reaper.”
“They’re out there somewhere.”
Kane traversed the barn to the other end where Arenas and Brick were stationed. “You guys got anything?”
“Not yet,” Arenas told him.
“Keep an eye out; they’re coming in. But don’t fire until I give the all clear. And no lasers until then either. They’ll have night-vision.”
“Reaper?” Cara’s voice wasn’t much more than a whisper over the comms. “I’ve got movement to the north.”
“Copy. On my way.”
Kane moved swiftly across the barn to the doors. He looked through the gap and said, “Whereabouts, Cara?”
“There’s two of them coming forward from the tree line. About twenty meters apart.”
“OK. I’ve got them.”
They were coming in low and slow. Being cautious. Kane figured there would be a team sniper back in the trees somewhere out of sight. He pressed the transmit button on his comms. “Reaper Two, watch for a sniper back there in the trees.”
“Copy.”
“Let them come in. If they get too close, I’ll take them. Don’t expose yourself yet until we know if there’s a long-range shooter out there.”
“Roger that.”
Kane kept low and watched through a crack in the door. The two shooters kept on coming. Using the darkness to their advantage. They were dressed in black and moved like silent wraiths floating over the ground. When they were still a hundred meters out, two more appeared.
Kane’s comms crackled to life. “Reaper, we have two more coming in.”
“Copy, Reaper Two,” he acknowledged. Then, “Bravo Four? Reaper One, sitrep, over.”
“Reaper One, you have four closing from the north …”
“I’ve got them, Bravo Four.”
“And there are two more teams of two circling to the left and right. I guess they’re trying to box you in.”
“Which would mean they know we’re here,” Kane proposed.
“Roger that.”
“Back in those trees. Is there sign of a shooter who hasn’t moved in a long while?”
“Wait one.”
“Team, keep an eye out to the east and west, we’ve got flankers.”
“Copy.”
“Reaper One, copy?”
“Go ahead, Bravo Four.”
“I found a shooter at your one o’clock who has remained on station since they arrived. If I had to bet, he’s the guy you’re looking for.”
“Copy. Reaper One out. Cara, you get that?”
“Looking for him now.”
Kane focused his attention back out through the crack in the door. The dark figures floating in the sea of green were closer again. He brought up his 416 and waited for a little more time. The shooters were within fifty meters now and still coming toward them. Kane pressed the talk button on his comms. “Reaper Two, have you found that sniper yet?”
“I think so.”
Fuck. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
“On my mark I want you to take a shot at him. I’d prefer you to hit him but just getting it close will do.”
“Copy, Reaper One. On your mark.”
Kane reached down and switched on his laser sights, making sure to keep it hidden behind the door. Then he placed himself in position and opened the doors of the barn wide enough for him to fire through.
“Three, two, one, execute.”
He heard the slap of the CheyTac as he dropped the laser sight on the first of the two shooters. He fired twice, shifted aim, and fired twice more. Then he dropped to the floor of the barn just as a round from the sniper in the trees came in and blew a board off the barn door not far from where he’d fired from.
“I don’t think you got him, Reaper Two.”
The CheyTac fired again, and Cara said, “I did that time.”
The death of the three shooters seemed to rip a hole in the night from which was released a hailstorm of lead. The exterior of the barn was peppered by relentless gunfire which made it sound like a thousand hammers being pounded on the wall boards.
Out there somewhere one of Horton’s men had an M249 Light Machinegun that slammed round after round through the thin skin of the barn. Kane crawled to the doors and started to lay down his own fire.
The two of Horton’s men who were coming in behind the first pair had gone to ground and from their prone position were sending deliberate fire into the team’s sanctuary.
Kane fired a couple of outward rounds and then pressed the button on his comms. “Brick, Carlos, watch the flanks. They’ll try to keep us pinned down, and then they’ll hit us.”
“Copy, Reaper.”
To his front, Kane saw one of the shooters start to move to his left. He put a couple of 5.56 rounds in his direction and saw him go to ground. Up above, he heard the CheyTac fire again and then the firing seemed to get heavier.
“Fuck it,” Kane hissed as a slug blew splinters into his face. The sting told him that he’d been cut at least once from a razor-sharp sliver. He flicked the selector switch to auto and blew off the remainder of the magazine at the still prone figures.
Drawing back from the doorway, he took another magazine from his webbing and slapped it home. He then paused to say into his mic, “Bravo Four, sitrep on the second team of shooters, over?”
“Copy, Reaper One. They look like they’re about to engage from the south.”
“How far out is the helo?”
“Still at least twenty mikes.”
“Shit.”
“Say again, Reaper One.”
“Copy, Bravo Four. Out.”
Keeping low because of the bullets still punching through the wall boards, Kane hurried across to the eastern side of the barn and looked out the window. Below it, he tested the boards and found a couple of loose ones. Then with a powerful kick, they came away, and he’d made a hole big enough for a person to fit through.
For outside, Kane heard the loud crump of an explosion, the concussive blast rattling the entire structure. His head twisted on his shoulders and he could see the orange ball of fire through the cracks.
Cara’s voice crackled over his comms, the urgency in it evident. “Reaper, they’ve got a 203 out there somewhere.”
The M203 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that was slung under an assault weapon. It had a range of four-hundred meters, and in the right hands, it was deadly.
“Reaper One to Reaper Team. Fall back on me. I say again, fall back on me, we’re getting out of here.”
Another explosion blew the double-doors wide open, and the fireball ignited the straw on the floor near them. Kane rushed across to where Bazyli was tied. “Come on, asshole, get up.”
There was no response, so Kane looked closer and found him to be dead. “Fuck it.”
Arenas and Brick were the first to join him. He pointed at the hole in the wall and shouted, “Out that way. We’re leaving.”
Just as they were disappearing, Cara arrived. “Follow Brick and Carlos. We’re getting out.”
“What about the package?”
“He’s dead. Now move.”
They pushed out through the hole and saw Arenas and Brick moving toward the tree line. Kane said, “This is going to be the longest fucking three hundred meters ever.”
They’d gone no further than fifty of those when the barn blew up from a grenade round. Boards blew outwards, and the roof collapsed. The surrounding area lit up from the explosion, and the four escapees dove into the grass. When the illumination subsided, the team was back up and running once more.
Their withdrawal had not gone unnoticed, and the air was soon filled with the buzz of a swarm of angry lead hornets as the shooters shifted fire. Kane paused his rapid retreat briefly to exchange fire, burning through half a magazine before continuing.
Ahead of him, he heard a shout. Christ! They’d run straight for the shooters sent to flank them. Arenas and Brick stopped and unleashed on the tree line. Steadily they began walking forward, issuing small bursts of suppressing fire as they went. One of the hidden shooters cried out after a lucky round punched through his leg.
“Loading!” The shout came from Brick as he ejected an empty magazine and then slapped another home. Kane and Cara pushed forward to lend fire support. Cara was using her M17, the CheyTac now hanging from a strap over her shoulder.
Bullets whipped around them, emanating from every direction, burning holes in the nighttime air. How they’d evaded death so far was anyone’s guess. But lady luck held firm, and they were soon amongst the relative safety of the trees.
“Keep moving,” Kane snapped.
Ahead of him, he saw Brick put down the second of the two shooters with a shot to the head. The wounded one, though down, was not out and still posed a threat, so he met the same fate as his fellow operator. As difficult as it was, the notion that they were here to kill them was a reminder that it was their only option.
“Reaper Team, check-in,” Kane said into his mic.
“Two OK.”
�
�Four OK.”
“Five OK.”
“Keep moving to your twelve o’clock,” Kane said. “Stop for nothing.”
“Roger, I have point,” Arenas told him.
“Zero? Reaper One, copy?”
“Copy, Reaper One.”
“I need a new LZ.”
“Copy. How’s the package?”
“He’s dead.”
“Roger. Wait one, we’ll get back to you.”
“Copy, out.”
Blackbird
Latvia
Bull Horton was one pissed commander. The assault had cost him six men. Half his fucking force. Christ! All for nothing. The team he’d been tasked to terminate had gotten away without so much as a scratch, and now they’d disappeared into the darkness. And what had happened to the other force? The ex-Jednostka Wojskowa Komandosów that were meant to push in from the south and give them a hand.
“I found him for you, Bull,” the black-clad man said as he came from the dark.
Horton turned to face the man and said in an angry voice, “What the fuck happened to you and your men?”
“You attacked before we were ready,” the man said in broken English.
“You should have been in fucking position, you useless clod. You cost me six good men.”
“It was not my fault. If you waited, then it would be different.”
“Well, fuck you too,” Horton snarled. “They got away to the east. Get your men out there and start tracking them. My team will bring up the rear. I’ll not waste more of their lives because you’re fucking incompetent.”
The man mumbled something in his own language and disappeared back into the darkness.
“Blackbird Base to Blackbird One, over.”
“Copy, Blackbird Base.”
“What’s going on, Bull?” Newcomb asked. “You’ve been sitting there for at least twenty minutes while Kane and his team gets away.”
“I lost six fucking men in that shitstorm, Newcomb. I’m not about to risk the rest of my team by chasing them around in the dark.”
“We still have eyes on them, Bull.”
“Good. Guide the Poles into position. Use them as cannon fodder. Blackbird out.”
“What do you want us to do, Bull?” asked a man who’d brought the Pole in.