Wolfe Trap

by S L Shelton

  You shouldn’t be alone out here. If you can feel the void in the trees, so could another.

  Fear constricted my chest and my senses started detecting threats from all around.

  You’re freaking me out, man. Shut up and let me listen, I thought in reply.

  The tone in my ear immediately began to recede. I listened for a moment longer and heard nothing but distant explosions coming from the direction of the Farm.

  I got up and began running again. The vest I had stolen was slightly too large for me, and its contents were smacking against my rib cage, creating yet another distraction for me to ignore.

  I reached up and tried to tighten the straps while I ran, but suddenly I heard a voice through the radio I had stolen.

  “Harbinger, this is Team Leader Six,” came the voice on my shoulder.

  Harbinger? Is that a code name?

  “Go ahead.”

  “Team Four has been retired.”

  Shit…those were the footsteps I heard. They’re right behind us.

  “Six. How long ago?” replied the giant—Harbinger.

  “No more than five minutes ago,” came the reply. “There are two missing radios.”

  “All units, switch to tomorrow’s encryption code,” came Harbinger’s voice, followed by a squeal in my earpiece.

  “Shit,” I muttered as newly randomized digital squawk was all I could hear through the radio.

  “Spartan, ditch the radio,” I said into mine after flipping it off mute.

  I heard two clicks in reply. I was pulling mine off when I heard the booming voice of Harbinger again.

  “You sound familiar,” he said, sending my gooseflesh to new prickly heights. I pulled the radio from my vest and ripped the battery out before tossing it away. My feet found a new high gear as I raced through the woods to rejoin my group.

  Maria, one of the rear guards, stopped and dropped to her knee as I approached, aiming her rifle at me. She rose from her knee just as I passed, but after three or four steps, I heard a snapping sound behind me. I turned to see a man in black fatigues, his arm wrapped around her neck. Her eyes were vacant and wide as if she had been surprised—but there was no longer any life in them.

  The anger surged in me before he dropped her lifeless body to the ground.

  How did you get there without me hearing you?

  “Target located,” he said into his mic.

  The asset! I realized. Stay focused. No anger.

  He stepped toward me with an expressionless stare. My first impulse was to run, but between the anger from seeing him kill one of my classmates and the low odds I’d have of surviving if I turned my back on him, I was having trouble making my feet move.

  For a moment, we stood there, measuring each other. When I suddenly made a grab for the Glock in my holster, he launched forward with a high kick.

  As my arm went up to fire, his foot struck my hand, sending my Glock flying. The speed and precision of the attack were mind boggling, reminding me more of a cobra strike than a man. I attempted a sweep with my leg, but I had been baited into drawing forward. A spinning back punch landed across the side of my head, sending me to the ground.

  Jesus, that was a hard hit!

  As I fought to get back to my feet, I stripped off the tactical vest and grabbed the knife there, letting the falling vest unsheathe it. Keeping my eye on my opponent, I unslung my messenger bag from my shoulder and dropped it on top of the vest.

  He circled around to my side like a predator; the tension in his body seemed like a coiled spring prepared to release. I lunged forward without any fanfare, just as Kobe had taught—elbow bent, arm high, center of gravity in balance, legs in forward posture—the knife sailed from my hand as my attacker’s block turned into an arm trap, bending my hand forward until I thought my wrist would snap.

  I kicked him violently, separating us.

  What the hell? I wondered as panic and doubt began to rise in my chest.

  The sound of footsteps beside us drew his attention away for a split second, and I watched as Kobe descended out of the darkness as if he had been flying. The kick he delivered to my attacker sent him tumbling backward into the dry leaves. Without pause, Kobe continued to attack, his arms flashing in punches, high and low, elbows battering the talented asset, knees and feet delivering what would have been crushing assaults—but the asset deftly deflected each one or absorbed them with no apparent effect.

  A powerful outward kick from the mysterious foe sent Kobe crashing backward against a tree and then tumbling to the ground. As the menacing combatant stepped forward to strike down on him again, I ran and jumped just before the deathblow struck, kicking his arm to the side, and then dropped my elbow onto his shoulder with all my weight behind it.

  He rolled backward before I could follow with another, but he was seemingly unfazed otherwise. Before he could regain his footing, I leaned down to help Kobe to his feet, careful not to break eye contact with the enemy.

  “He’s technically perfect,” Kobe whispered as he pulled himself up, wincing. “And as strong in his attacks as you are.”

  “Suggestions?” I asked.

  He patted me on my shoulder. “Be yourself,” Kobe replied in a whisper. “You’re better than he is.”

  I wanted to look at his face to see if he was punking me but couldn’t risk breaking eye contact with the asset. I put myself in one of my defensive postures…one I had adopted before my training with Nick and Kobe. It felt right…in fact, it felt so right, I instantly had more confidence.

  “That’s an awful lot of punishment to take from a seventy-year-old man,” I said with a crooked grin as Kobe pulled himself out of the fight zone.

  “Sixty-eight,” Kobe said. “Don’t take years away from me that I haven’t had yet.”

  “I’ll take all the rest in just a minute, old man,” the attacker said.

  I smiled, realizing he wasn’t sure who he should be worried about.

  I stepped forward, leaning toward him, baiting an attack by seemingly putting myself off-balance for the taunt. My stance, though technically incorrect, made me feel more powerful than before. I extended my arm and coaxed him forward with my fingertips.

  “You have to finish with me first,” I said an instant before he lunged forward with a Superman punch.

  I leaned in, extremely overextended, and let the punch sail past me to my left before jumping up with a brutal knee to his ribs. Before he could get his feet firmly planted on the ground, I dropped a hammer blow to the back of his neck with my elbow, sending him crashing to the ground.

  He rolled over and quickly jumped to his feet, but I noticed a slight protective alteration to his stance, favoring his ribs.

  “Hurts, don’t it?” Kobe asked the man from several feet away as he pulled himself up beside a tree.

  My opponent ignored the chatter and launched another attack: a high kick followed by a spinning back punch. My arms were there without even thinking about it, deflecting the kick and blocking the punch before delivering my kick to the inside of his exposed leg. He dropped and rolled to the ground, launching back to his feet immediately. His stance showed that I had done some damage to his leg as he was now favoring the other.

  “You aren’t Jagger,” the attacker said. “What are you?”

  “Who’s Jagger?” I asked.

  He squinted his eyes at me.

  “Is this a case of mistaken identity?” I asked with a taunting grin.

  He reached toward his radio and clicked the button. “Target is—”

  “None of that now,” I said as I sailed through the air in another attack.

  He dropped his radio hand to deflect my blow, but instead of going for his face as I had faked, I grabbed his radio and ripped it from his vest, yanking the headset off as I pulled it away. As I turned to my right in a fall before returning to my feet, the radio squawked to life, the headset now detached from the radio.

  “Repeat message,” came the barrel-deep voice of Harbinger
.

  I tossed the radio to Kobe and moved over so that I was directly between the attacker and my teacher. A deep sneer formed on the man’s face as he ran forward again before dropping down and trying to sweep my legs. I jumped up as he slid beneath me, but then lashed out with my boot-clad foot and smashed him in the face. His head arched back, trying to let the blow slide over, but my extension was too fast and his forward movement resulted in a nearly full-contact blow to the nose.

  He rolled over and quickly climbed to his feet, blood pouring down his chin from his gushing nose. I didn’t wait this time. I rolled to the side as I jumped, generating a huge amount of momentum for my trailing leg as it arched around. I brought it down solidly on his jaw as I extended it at the last instant, sending him flying, led by his head, smashing into a tree.

  As he struggled to his feet, he reached behind him and quickly withdrew a small pistol. He raised it toward me before a loud clack sounded. For a brief, panic-stricken moment, I thought I had been hit, but instead, I stood in dumbfounded confusion as the enhanced attacker fell forward. When he hit the ground, I saw the back of his head was a gaping hole.

  Nick burst out of the darkness, his SIG Sauer raised high, scanning the surroundings.

  I ran over to Kobe, who was trying to stand on his own.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “I’ve never been better,” he muttered, struggling.

  The radio cracked to life again. “Jagger,” Harbinger said across the radio. “Report status of target. Has he been acquired?”

  Nick walked over to us and snatched the radio from Kobe’s hand before clicking it to speak. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Jagger isn’t available to take your call at the moment. Please leave a message at the tone,” Nick said angrily.

  “Seriously, Nick?” I asked incredulously. “Have you forgotten Syria?”

  “Fuck it,” he replied dismissively.

  “All units—” Harbinger said.

  I reached over and squeezed the broadcast button on the radio, pressing Nick’s fingers down on it before pressing the call tone button, breaking into Harbinger’s transmission.

  After a second, I pulled the radio to my mouth, bringing Nick’s hand with it. “I repeat. Fall back. Incoming aircraft,” I said urgently and pressed the call button again, preventing any response.

  Nick looked up at me and smiled. “Why the hell didn’t we do that before?”

  “It just came to me,” I said as I started moving Kobe back through the woods. “Come on. Let’s try to get to the base so we can get a call out. That trick will only buy us a minute.”

  I tucked the radio under the collar of the dead asset’s tactical vest in a way that held the call button down before grabbing my canvas messenger bag and slinging it over my shoulder. I picked up my stolen tactical vest as we took off.

  We ran as best we could, carrying Kobe between us. When we caught up with the rest of the group, they were waiting.

  “Go!” Nick yelled as fresher legs came to take Kobe’s weight from us. Within moments, we were at the chain-link fence for the main part of Camp Peary. I was the first to spot one of Harbinger’s helicopters at the edge of the parade field.

  “Shit,” Nick muttered after I tapped his arm and pointed toward it.

  To the south of us, two squads of insurgents scaled the fence and headed into the woods at a fast pace.

  “They haven’t seen us,” I whispered.

  He nodded before looking around at the small group with us. “Three-man team,” Nick whispered to them. “I’ll lead—”

  “Bullshit, you’ll lead,” I snapped with a raspy hiss. “You’re in charge. You need to command, not play Rambo.”

  Anger rose to his face and he raised his finger to protest when I added, “I just took out their secret weapon…and if you’ll recall, the only reason you were protecting me was because I was the bait. I’m not bait anymore. Let me do what I’m good at.”

  He was poised to speak, his mouth open, when he suddenly shut it and shook his head in agitation. He knew I was right.

  “For the record, I took out their secret weapon,” he said bitterly before glaring at me for a moment. But then he winked at me. “Fine—pick two.”

  I looked at the expectant faces. Leyla moved forward before I could say anything.

  “Leyla, are you sure?” I asked.

  “Hells yeah,” she whispered. “Those bastards killed Maria.”

  “What about you, Paul?” I asked, looking right at him. “You got my back?”

  The look on his face revealed relieved shock. “You bet,” he replied in a quiet voice. I reached my fist out, and he bumped it without hesitation.

  “Knife,” I said to no one in particular and one appeared in front of me. “Anyone have a suppressed weapon?”

  Nick handed me his SIG Sauer. As I tucked it into my holster, Paul and Leyla were collecting additional magazines for their rifles from some of the others.

  “Nothing fancy,” Nick whispered. “Get over there. If they have door guns, light up the squads in the woods. If they don’t, blow the chopper and fall back to the Peary armory. We’ll meet up with you there. If we’re lucky, we’ll have some cell signal and be able to get a call out.”

  I nodded.

  “We’ll cover you while the shit hits the fan,” Nick said and slapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t get killed. If John wakes up and finds out I let you die, he’ll stick me down at Guantanamo…and not on the friendly side.”

  “Don’t get squishy on me now,” I said as I rose to climb over the fence.

  Once I was across, I looked forward, covering Paul and Leyla until they were over. We set off as soon as Paul’s feet hit the ground.

  When we were within thirty yards of the helicopter that was sitting quietly on the ground, I could tell there were no door guns—but it did have some sort of weapons array mounted underneath, directly below the cockpit. There was one guard, facing the main part of the base, and a pilot sitting in the cockpit.

  I used hand signals to direct Paul and Leyla around each side, letting them know I was going down the middle. They nodded, and we launched into action. I sprinted forward, headed directly for the open side doors of the chopper. As I reached the edge, I catapulted myself through the open doors and out the other side, slamming my knife into the neck of the guard. He turned just in time to catch the full force of the blade into the side of his neck. He landed with a thud, my knee in his back.

  Leyla was already through the door behind me; she had slipped in behind the pilot. One quick click of the radio was all he had time for before she pulled his head back and sliced across his throat.

  She wasted no time unstrapping him and pulling him out of his seat. I lifted the helmet off his head before grabbing his shoulder straps. His last flailing action was to grasp at his own neck before I tossed him out the side. Paul looked back before nodding that we were clear and confirming that we hadn’t drawn any attention.

  “I’ve never fired one of these before,” Leyla said quietly, referring to the guns on the chopper.

  “Me either,” I replied, dropping down into the other seat. “But it can’t be that much different than the video games.”

  I pulled the dead pilot’s helmet over my head as I plopped down into the seat, looking around the dimly lit cabin for some sort of activation switch. Not finding one, I reached up and began feeling around the helmet.

  “Find the power switch,” I said just as I accidentally found the visor release for the helmet. When it slid into place, I suddenly had infrared vision from the perspective of the nose guns. “Whoa! Cool.” I muttered.

  I found the battery switch on the instrument panel and flipped it on. All of the dials and gauges sprang to life, and when I bumped the control stick, the image in my visor shifted a bit.

  “That’s it,” I muttered as I wrapped my fingers around the control and swung it fully right and then left to find the range—not much range of movement. The two squads weren’t yet fully
in my sights.

  I clicked the radio open. “Movement on the south side of the parade field,” I said with my best calm pilot voice.

  The two squads changed direction immediately and began heading that direction. “Repeat last,” came the thick voice of Harbinger over my headset just as the both squads came into range. I pulled the trigger and the Gatling-styled mini gun opened fire from beneath the cockpit. The vibration and noise were intense as I swept the joystick back and forth, gunning down both squads. As soon as there was no detectable movement, I watched for a moment as the silence returned.

  “Report!” came Harbinger’s angry voice.

  “I’m sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service,” Leyla said over her mic. I grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her out of the cockpit before she could finish her taunt. Paul was getting back to his feet and motioning us toward the edge of the parade field nearest the main base.

  “Hurry!” he yelled and pointed at the tree line behind us.

  Just as we jumped to the ground, the second helicopter dove down from above the tree line and began firing at us. We were a good twenty or thirty long strides away from the helicopter when the grounded bird burst into flames, propelling the three of us forward onto our bellies.

  “Son of a b—” I muttered before I grabbed Leyla’s rifle from her hands and stood. As the chopper buzzed overhead, sweeping the flames from the explosion into a curling arch like fingers, I took aim at the attacker. I fired, leading the helicopter a bit before it could turn around.

  “Come on!” Leyla yelled, grabbing my vest and pulling me forward.

  When the helo banked and began to fly back toward us, I stopped and raised the rifle again. This time, I took careful aim at the cockpit. I was halfway through emptying the magazine when the helicopter abruptly broke out of its return and dove briefly before righting itself and pulling away from us sharply. From the south, two more helicopters appeared.

  “Not more!” Leyla yelled despondently.

  “No,” I said, rushing to her side. “Look. Those are Navy birds. Someone got a call out.”

  “Finally!” she exclaimed breathlessly as we ran.