by Peter Nealen
He and Wade slammed into the side of the big metal box. Tanaka was, to his credit, still covered down on the corner; if they’d all focused on the ladderwell, they could very well have gotten shot in the back. And none of them were wearing plates; the requirements of time and the need to streamline and reduce weight for the dive insert had precluded them. That was something that Hancock, who had always detested wearing body armor, was finding he rather regretted. If ever there was a situation where body armor was called for, it was this kind of close-quarters nightmare.
Gomez ran dry and rolled back behind the machinery, dropping the mag out of his rifle. Wade then popped out around the side where he’d been, and fired a rapid trio of shots at the movement he could see on the ladderwell. It might have been better to back up and shoot over the top, but that risked exposure to the shooters around the corner.
Hancock used Wade for cover and leaned out farther. It looked like there were three or four men on the ladderwell above them, moving down in alternating bounds. One or two would post up on the landings, keeping as much steel as possible—even though none of it was solid—between themselves and the Blackhearts, and opening fire while their compadres bounded down another flight. They had the high ground, but they didn’t have a lot of cover.
Taking a low knee, peeking his muzzle just past Wade’s shoulder, Hancock zeroed in on one of the shooters on a landing. He rapped out two shots, and the fire slackened, either because he’d hit the guy, or because he’d gotten close enough to force him back from his firing position.
A moment later, the second shooter opened up with an even heavier volume of fire, bullets smacking into the decking and the metal casing of the unknown machinery that formed their cover. Both he and Wade had to duck back from the advancing impacts.
“We could wait until they’re on the deck,” Wade suggested, as he swapped mags. “Not much cover between here and the stairs.”
“That’s ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ time,” Hancock countered, “presuming they don’t leave one guy up top to keep our heads down.” The incoming gunshots slowed again, and he popped out, just in time to get a snap shot at a figure hustling down the steps. He fired, the report reverberating against the metal, and the figure staggered. That hitch in the enemy shooter’s step was all both Hancock and Wade needed. Leaning out, the two of them fired again, smashing the terrorist off his feet with a fusillade of six or seven rapid shots.
The echoes faded, rolling across the water, and then there wasn’t any more movement on the ladderwell.
“You think we got all of ‘em?” Wade asked.
“I doubt it,” Hancock replied. “I think they ducked into the hatch after we shot that one. We can’t stay here, though.”
“No, we can’t,” Tanaka said over his shoulder. “I think I see another bomb.”
“Hold on that ladderwell,” Hancock said, before moving to join the younger man at the corner. Taking a knee to get his profile down, he eased an eye around.
He had to move farther than he’d anticipated; there were enough pipes on the outside of the platform that it was difficult to see without moving farther around the corner. But after a moment, he could see that Tanaka was right; there was another fifty-five-gallon drum about fifty feet down the rail, and it looked like the initiation system might be complete already.
Glancing back at Wade and Gomez, he pointed at the corner, then at Tanaka, then back toward the ladderwell. He hadn’t seen any of their little friends on the far side, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. There were a lot of places to hide on this rig.
Tanaka seemed to get the message, and just whispered, “With you.”
Hancock went around the corner low and fast, his rifle up in his shoulder, the Aimpoint just fractionally below his eye. He saw the man in the blue-gray camouflage an instant before the faint flash of the shot. He threw himself flat, cranking off another snap shot that he knew was going to go high.
Tanaka was behind him, and put a bullet through the terrorist’s skull. The blue-gray-clad man fell backward on the deck, spasmodically triggering another shot, that slammed into the steel wall above him.
As Hancock got himself sorted, getting up on a low knee behind his rifle, Tanaka held what he had. Once he was confident that Hancock owned the catwalk in front of them, he turned and pointed his rifle back around the corner.
“I’ve got you!” he yelled. Both Gomez and Wade had earplugs in, and were facing away from him. Yelling was probably the only way he was going to be heard at all. “Turn and go!”
Gomez was the first one to turn. He ducked to make sure he wasn’t anywhere near Tanaka’s line of fire, and dashed to the railing, where he took a knee and aimed back up at the ladderwell. He was exposed, but then, they all were.
Wade followed shortly behind him, and then they were all around the corner and closing on the barrel bomb that Tanaka had spotted. Is that thing smoking already? Hancock couldn’t tell, but he had a very hollow, sick feeling in his stomach at the sight.
Wade suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder, bringing him up short. He almost barked at him, until the big, pale-eyed man pointed.
There was a small, black plastic box zip-tied to the railing only a couple of feet ahead of his legs. It looked like a sensor for a garage door opener.
It was also out of place. But Hancock recognized what it was almost as quickly as Wade had.
There was a booby trap between them and the barrel bomb.
***
Aziz could already hear shooting above them. Remembering the layout from the imagery, he tried not to cringe. There wasn’t exactly a whole ton of cover up on that helideck, and they were pounding up the steps to run right out onto it, while somebody was shooting at them.
Why the hell did I come along this time? It was a question that Aziz had asked himself repeatedly, every job he’d joined the Blackhearts on. And it was one that he never had a satisfactory answer to. Money was the one he usually settled on; his own egoism wasn’t something he thought much about.
He slowed as he neared the top. He couldn’t see anything past the landing just above them, but he could hear gunfire going in both directions; Flanagan and Bianco were apparently still alive, though for how long, exposed out on that helicopter landing pad, was anyone’s guess. Bullets snapped past overhead, only a few feet above the landing, and Aziz decided that he really didn’t want to go up there.
But Brannigan was right behind him. “With you,” he growled.
Aziz realized that the Colonel had thought he was pausing just to make sure that there was another shooter behind him. Yeah, that’s what I was doing. Don’t want to pop up there by myself. I was just taking a pause to make sure we weren’t all spread out. It sounded weak, even to him.
Leading with his muzzle, he popped over the landing, aiming toward the seaward side, where most of the fire was coming from.
Bianco and Flanagan were lying prone on the deck, as flat to the steel and non-skid as possible, firing back at several figures in and around the cranes and containers at the far side, off the edge of the helideck. It wasn’t a long shot; there were no long shots on that platform, but the terrorists were keeping behind cover as much as possible, and Flanagan and Bianco were burning through ammunition to keep them back there.
Aziz scrambled clear of the landing and threw himself flat, as a burst ripped through the air overhead. His return fire was fast and wild; he didn’t even have his eye anywhere near the sights. He just hammered half a dozen rounds in the general direction of the bad guys.
Trying to press himself down through the helideck, he kept firing, dumping the mag as fast as he could pull the trigger. At least on Khadarkh, it was dark. Here they were, exposed like bugs on a plate in broad daylight. He wanted to dig a hole in the deck and pull it in after him.
Flanagan was suddenly passing him, up and moving fast, not quite running, but with his rifle in his shoulder, firing at one of the terrorists who was leaning out from behind a container near the l
anding to the far stairs. Is he nuts? Oh, shit, we’re gonna attack, instead of getting low and picking them off.
Brannigan was moving next, having jogged around behind Bianco so as not to cut off his line of fire. He and Flanagan were advancing on the terrorists at the stairs, firing as they went.
Then Bianco was getting up. Aziz delayed as long as he could, swearing in English and Arabic as he finally hauled himself up off the deck and followed. I’m gonna die because of you damned heroes.
***
Flanagan was moving fast, his feet rolling on the deck, trying to keep his rifle as steady as possible. They were in the open, but this was close quarters battle, nevertheless; whoever got on target fastest was going to win.
As near as he’d been able to tell, there were only three or four of the terrorists, and they weren’t anxious to expose themselves, preferring to fire from cover, and that barely aimed. Somehow, he didn’t think it was because they were booger-eaters who couldn’t shoot.
It’s like they’re just trying to pin us down for a while. Which didn’t make much sense, until one considered the barrel bomb that Wade had found.
Which just means we don’t have a lot of time. Flanagan was sure the Colonel realized that. Not much got past him, especially in a combat environment.
He angled out to his left as he closed on the terrorist, who had ducked back as soon as he’d seen Flanagan advancing, disappearing behind the container before he could get a shot. A lot of the shooting had died down all of a sudden as the Blackhearts had gotten up and advanced; most of the rounds were going the other way now, as Bianco and Aziz laid down covering fire.
He slowed fractionally, trying to slow his heartbeat, and then stepped around the corner, his red dot already at his eye, looking for the terrorist he’d been trading shots with for the last couple of minutes of eternity.
All he saw was a faint flash of movement disappearing down the ladderwell.
Brannigan was behind him, checking the other containers and the crane. The shooting up there on the helipad had stopped, though the booming and hammering cacophony of gunfights lower down were still echoing up through the superstructure.
Flanagan barricaded himself on the container, keeping his rifle pointed at the ladderwell. If the bad guys had gone back down, there was nowhere else they could pop up again. “Did they all skedaddle?” he asked.
“Looks that way,” Brannigan replied, as Bianco and Aziz joined them. “Looks like there might be a little bit of blood over there, so you and Vinnie might have winged one.”
“We gonna follow ‘em down?” Bianco asked.
“We’ve got to clear this sucker,” Brannigan replied grimly. “Can’t do that sitting up here.” Suiting actions to words, he lifted his rifle and advanced on the ladderwell.
The three of them followed, Aziz and Bianco first, while Flanagan turned to check back behind them, just to make sure that there weren’t more bad guys coming up from the ladderwell they’d ascended to get to the helideck. The platform was big, and they really had no clear idea of how many terrorists there might be. There could be a company crawling around the various passageways and ladderwells, and with eight stories of structure, there were a lot of places to hide and move around.
Satisfied that they weren’t about to get shot in the back, Flanagan rose and followed the rest to the landing.
Brannigan and Aziz were already starting down. If Aziz was reluctant, he was keeping up and keeping his expression neutral. Flanagan spared a moment to study the man.
He’d never particularly liked Aziz. He knew that the guy had really stuck himself out there once, going into Khadarkh City alone and hobnobbing with the worst of the worst to arrange the distraction that had helped them get into the Citadel. But then the same guy, who had even climbed to the Citadel itself and covered them against the Iranians’ commandeered AMX-10 APCs, had hung back and barely fired a shot after that.
Then he’d recruited a linguist for the Burma mission who had just so happened to be a tiny slip of a girl he was also banging.
Aziz had guts when he had to. The rest of the time, Flanagan thought he was a sniveling little weasel, who’d try to get one over on anyone and everyone, including his teammates, and try to get through a mission with as little effort as possible, so he could blow his paycheck later.
That was why Flanagan tried to keep an eye on him when he could. He didn’t trust that Aziz wouldn’t screw them over, possibly at the worst possible time, just out of either laziness or spite.
All of this flashed through his mind in a glance, as he followed the other three down the ladder.
Brannigan and Aziz only went down the first flight; there was a hatch leading off the first landing, and Brannigan didn’t even slow down. Flanagan saw the last of the Colonel’s back as he rolled through the hatch, rifle up and ready.
It made sense. They didn’t have flashbangs or frags. They had to use speed and aggressiveness to keep the enemy off balance. Get in fast, shoot first, and shoot a lot.
He could hear the thunderous reports of gunshots reverberating off the steel walls inside the passageway, and he pushed to get in behind Bianco.
Brannigan and Aziz were on either side of the passageway, weapons aimed down toward a far hatch that looked like it was open. Bianco had taken up position just behind Brannigan, his own muzzle alongside the Colonel’s shoulder. Bianco was a big man, but he was still half a head shorter than Brannigan; he’d never be able to get his rifle over the boss’s shoulder.
Flanagan moved up behind Aziz. Whoever they’d been shooting at had disappeared. The passageway was momentarily empty and quiet.
There were a half a dozen hatches along the left-hand side of the passage; the right-hand side was blank, except for a few portholes letting bright, Gulf sunlight through.
Brannigan and Bianco were advancing carefully down the passageway, but Aziz wasn’t moving. He was standing there, kind of pressed against the bulkhead, breathing hard.
Flanagan bumped him with a knee. “With you,” he said. Aziz didn’t move. He repeated it.
That time he got through. Aziz started moving, advancing down the passageway. Flanagan paced him, pausing once or twice to lift his muzzle and check over his shoulder. This platform was already making him paranoid, given how big it was.
Brannigan and Bianco posted up just short of the open hatch, continuing to cover down the passage. Aziz slowed again, seemingly reluctant to approach the open portal. But he was the man on the spot, and he stacked on the hatch.
But he didn’t go in. He seemed to be psyching himself up for something. Flanagan started to get pissed. The middle of a passageway wasn’t the time or the place; hallways and passageways were deathtraps. “With you!” he hissed.
Aziz started to go, stutter-stepped, as if unsure if he should commit all the way, and then almost tripped as he went through the hatch.
A storm of gunfire caught him in the side, bullets knocking him back against the hatch coaming. He hit the coaming and fell, leaving a smear of blood on the gray-painted steel.
The three remaining Blackhearts surged forward, trying to get through the hatch and kill the terrorists while they still had any momentum remaining at all. But the initiative had already been lost; someone inside had their weapons aimed in and ready.
More fire followed, bullets hitting the coaming with loud bangs that were painful even through the ear protection the Blackhearts were wearing, then zipping out into the passageway, as the shooter tracked around the edge of the hatch.
Brannigan got a step inside the hatch, got one shot off, and then his head snapped back with a spray of blood and he fell.
Chapter 13
Jenkins was on point as Santelli’s element wove through the girders and pipes on the west side of the platform. They hadn’t seen any more of the barrel bombs, but they were moving slowly and carefully, looking everywhere.
Santelli was right behind Jenkins, with Hart and Childress behind him, and Curtis taking up the rear. C
hildress was trying to look everywhere at once, knowing he probably looked like a gawking chicken, swiveling his head on his long, skinny neck, but he didn’t care. Better to look a little bad than get blown up.
He spotted it at the same time Jenkins did. The blond former SEAL stopped dead, throwing up a fist, already way too close to the gray box zip-tied to a pipe. It looked kind of like an ammo can or a toolbox, but the IR sensor on the side belied its innocuous appearance. That was an improvised claymore, if Childress had ever seen one. And he’d played around with making some in his day.
Fortunately, the ATF had never found out.
Jenkins shied back and found some shelter behind another big block of machinery. Childress didn’t know what it was; all of the various mechanisms that made the platform work may as well be inert blocks of metal to him. He’d never worked oil drilling, and didn’t know the first thing about it. He just hoped that whatever it was stopped bullets and frag.
“Whatcha got, Jenkins?” Santelli asked quietly.
Jenkins pointed out the box, even as he scanned the catwalks and hatches above them. “Looks like a booby trap,” he said. “Maybe an IED.”
“Or a claymore in a box,” Santelli finished. He looked up and around, sizing up their position. “No other way around,” he mused. “They must have thought this through a bit.” Slinging his rifle, he pulled a multitool out of his chest rig.
“You sure that’s a good idea, Carlo?” Curtis asked. “There might be failsafes.”
“I’m sure there probably are,” Santelli said bluntly. “That don’t change nothin’. We’ve got to get past it, so somebody’s got to disarm it.” That was Santelli’s way. See the problem, fix the problem. Whatever it took. He wasn’t a subtle man or a subtle thinker.
“What if I tried shooting it?” Hart suggested.
Santelli looked at him as if he was stupid. “We’re a little close to try to SMUD it,” he said. Standoff Munitions Disruption was usually done from a lot farther away, and with something a lot heavier than their 5.56mm rifles. It was usually done with a 40mm grenade launcher or a .50 caliber Barrett. “There’s a chance that it won’t blow up in my face. If you shoot it, either it won’t do anything and we’re right back where we started, or it blows up in all our faces.” Turning back to the bomb, he looked up, searching for any enemy, and then started to cross the narrow walkway to the gray box.
