Kill Count

by Brent Towns

  Mulling over things like faith and trust and who had his back made him think of Traynor. Kane knew he had a hard decision to make when this was over. He stared out the window at the darkness, broken only by the reflection of the plane’s instrument panel lights.

  Part of him wanted to throw Traynor on the ground, stomp a boot heel on the back of his neck, and grind his face in the dirt like rubbing a pissing puppy’s nose in the soiled carpet. The man had turned his back on his team in the middle of a mission. Loyalty was their lifeblood. When the bullets were killing, and the blood was spilling, there could be no doubt that the person behind you had your back without question.

  That said, Kane understood that Traynor was showing loyalty to his friend. He and Reardon had been through some rough times together, had trudged through the blood and guts as brothers in arms. With Reardon put down for the count by some hardcore hitter, he needed someone to watch his six, and Traynor had been there. It was exactly the kind of loyalty Kane expected—demanded—from each and every person on his team.

  But justification aside, it didn’t change the fact that Traynor had bailed on them.

  Give him the boot or give him a pass? Tough call, but one he would have to make.

  Kane turned his mind back to the mission at hand. They would be on the ground soon, making their way toward the compound. With luck, Jeremy Reardon would be out of harm’s way by dawn. Of course, Kane knew from personal experience that things had a way of going sideways on these kind of covert operations. Lady Luck could be a real fickle bitch.

  By now the bastards had no doubt heard that the DEA end of the alliance had been decimated, so they would be expecting the fight to be brought to their doorstep. Just the fact that they had slapped a bounty on their heads and disseminated the information into the mercenary network pretty much confirmed Sanchez knew they were coming. But unless Oswald had sold them out, the drug lord and his minions couldn’t know when they would strike.

  Kane unbuckled and climbed back into the plane’s cargo hold, double-checking all their equipment. The team wore black-and-green fatigues that would blend into the jungle environment. They had NVGs for navigating at night. The webbing of their ballistic combat vests held clutches of grenades, and Ka-Bar knives slung hilt-down for rapid deployment. Because if you were reaching for your blade, the fight had gone bad, and milliseconds counted.

  Their Sig M17s rode low on their right thighs, and sound-suppressed HK 416 carbines with laser sights lay beside them. Extra magazines for the weapons were tucked into various pouches.

  “Won’t be long now,” Kane said, nearly shouting to be heard over the roar of the plane’s engines. “Everybody ready?”

  They all gave him the thumbs up sign.

  “Axe, you’ve got the Hawk. Think you can handle it?”

  “No sweat, boss. I’m used to handling heavy equipment.” He grinned wickedly.

  Cara reached over and punched him in the shoulder. “Just wait until I tell Reynolds you called her heavy.”

  Axe’s grin evaporated. “Don’t you dare.”

  Kane fully expected Sanchez to have a small army, so they had brought along an equalizer: a Hawk MM-1 multi-round grenade launcher. The revolver-style MM-1 could be loaded with a dozen high-explosive projectiles and thanks to the semi-auto action, could fire those HE mini-bombs at 30 rounds per minute. The weapon was bulkier than Kane liked, and carting the beast through the jungle brush wouldn’t be fun, but Axe was more than up to the task, and the MM-1’s devastating firepower would help level the odds.

  Equipment check complete, Kane returned to his copilot chair as the plane continued cruising through the night. Soon they would be in the fray once again, boots on the ground, fingers on triggers as they moved toward their target with terminal intensity. Soon they would be warrior-ghosts in the darkness of the jungle, silent and deadly until the critical moment they revealed their presence with maximum impact.

  He wondered if even now, Sanchez was peering out his window, staring up at the moon and contemplating when Death would come for him, unaware that the Reaper was already on its way.

  Coming to bring the pain.

  Let the blood-hunt begin.

  Chapter 9

  The Atlantic Ocean

  As soon as Brick saw the bodycams clipped to the terrorists’ Kevlar vests, he knew Johnny Jihad was a no-show. They would have to settle for one of his sidekicks.

  He was on a small fishing boat fifteen miles off Long Island, at the coordinates provided by Johnny during his televised speech. Brick had piloted the boat himself, not wanting to put anyone else in danger if the terrorists decided to just open fire when they approached. A beheading made for a more gruesome statement, but a couple of AK magazines emptied at close range got the job done quicker, and Brick wasn’t sure the jihadists would be able to resist the temptation.

  Following the briefing with Chief Borden Hunt, where it had been explained this was a decoy operation designed to take at least one terrorist alive, Brick had spent an hour in a chair while a movie makeup crew pulled off a rush job to make him resemble President Jack Carter. The façade wouldn’t hold up under close scrutiny, but it was good enough to lure the terrorists into the trap.

  Beneath the surface, clustered under the boat for concealment, were four Navy SEALs, utilizing closed-circuit breathing systems known as rebreathers to avoid bubbles that would betray their presence. Since this was not a deep-dive excursion, they were using the LAR V Draeger model, which ran on one hundred percent oxygen, filtered the carbon dioxide from the exhaled air, and were good for a maximum depth of only seventy feet.

  The SEALs’ waterproof earpieces allowed them to hear Brick. They would not make their move until he uttered the go-code: “Uncle Sam.” When they heard those two words, they would immediately surface with their Heckler & Koch MP5N submachine guns ready for some dirty work. The HKs were currently in dry weapons bags, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. The guns had been coated with a special lubricant to ensure they still worked despite their saltwater submersion.

  Brick packed his own heat, his Sig M17 tucked into the small of his back, concealed beneath the baggy jacket he wore to hide the fact that he was bigger than President Carter, as well as to cover up the ink on his forearms. Someday there might be a tattooed POTUS, but Jack Carter was not that man.

  Brick had no way of knowing, but the four terrorists—two men, two women—were the same quartet responsible for the Central Park massacre the day before. “Targets approaching now,” he said, though he knew the SEALs hidden beneath him could no doubt see the hull of the terrorists’ boat as it knifed its way through the water toward them.

  A moment later, as the vessel drew closer, he saw the bodycams and snarled a curse. Then he quickly passed on vital information to the SEALs. “Be advised, there’s four of them, and they’re wearing body armor. Headshots only. I repeat, headshots only.”

  The terrorists pulled up alongside him. They all had MAC-10s slung over their shoulders. None of them wore masks. No surprise there. They didn’t care if he saw their faces, because they believed he was the President of the United States and fully expected him to be dead shortly, his head on a pike for the whole world to see.

  Brick wore sunglasses and a baseball cap to further hide his features. So far the charade seemed to be working, even with the terrorists just a few meters away.

  “So nice to see you, Mr. President,” one of the men said with a smile, smug in his perceived victory. “Please join us on our boat.”

  Brick knew he needed to play the part. Carter was a gruff, no-nonsense man, and wouldn’t meekly acquiesce to terrorist demands, even if he had actually agreed to sacrifice himself. “I like my boat better,” Brick retorted. “You want me? Come over here and get me.”

  “You are not the one calling the shots,” the terrorist replied. “You will do as you are told, or your country will suffer yet again.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” He pointed at the man’s bodycam. �
��That so your gutless coward of a leader can watch from afar instead of actually getting his hands dirty?”

  “You will not speak of him in this way. He is a great man. The spirit of Osama Bin Laden has risen within him.”

  “Sounds like reincarnation crap to me,” Brick said. It was getting hot under the wig and makeup. “Is that in the Koran?”

  The terrorist ignored the jab. “He has already brought your infidel country to its knees.”

  Brick brayed laughter. “You stupid dumbasses. Even if you got hold of a damned nuke and wiped New York City off the planet, you wouldn’t bring America to her knees. Because America kneels for no one, especially fucked-in-the-head idiots like you.”

  The terrorist’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “You do not talk like the President of the United States.”

  Crap, Brick thought. Took it too far.

  The terrorist leaned closer, and Brick knew the ruse was just about up. “Remove your hat.”

  Peters complied, tossing the ball cap into the bottom of the boat, revealing the gray-haired wig he wore. He reached up and ruffled the fake hair. “Satisfied?”

  “Your sunglasses… take them off.”

  “Oh, for the love of…” Brick stretched out his hand. “Just help me onto your stupid boat and let’s get this over with. If I’m going to Hell, I want to at least get there in time for supper.”

  The terrorist eyed him suspiciously for another few heartbeats, then shrugged and reached out his hand to help Brick-cum-President Carter step from his boat to theirs.

  As Brick grabbed the terrorist’s hand, he suddenly yanked the bastard off balance and rasped, “Uncle Sam sends his regards.”

  With his left hand, he reached behind him and drew the Sig.

  His job was to keep one of the terrorists alive. The SEALs were the lethal option.

  Caught off guard, the other three jihadists scrambled to bring their guns into play. Brick fired a round into his terrorist’s leg, shattering the femur, crippling him instantly. As he dragged the bleeding, screaming terrorist into his boat, the SEALs surfaced. Water streamed from the lubricated muzzles of their HKs as they spat point-blank death. The remaining three terrorists went down with weeping holes drilled in their skulls as 9mm NATO rounds cored through bone and brains.

  Brick silenced the howling, leg-shot terrorist by pistol-whipping him across the back of the skull, knocking him out. He quickly zip-tied his wrists and ankles. Part of him just wanted to toss the guy overboard and call it a day, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He yanked the bodycam off the vest, held it up to his face, and delivered a message to Johnny Jihad who he had no doubt was on the other end watching the live feed.

  “We’re coming for you, asshole.”

  Then he crushed the camera beneath his boot heel.

  The SEALs slipped back down below the surface where a mini-sub waited to take them back to shore. Brick shrugged off the jacket and stripped off the wig. His shirt was soaked with sweat, both from sun and tension. He pointed the boat toward land and shoved the throttle forward as the sun slipped lower on the horizon. Soon the sea would be dark, just like the rage coiled inside him. Johnny Jihad hadn’t taken the bait, and now more people were going to die.

  Brick punched the console in frustration, bruising his knuckles, as the boat raced across the waves.

  Sitting safe and comfortable in his sanctuary, Johnny Jihad watched the feed from the bodycams as the fake President Carter and some operators—SEALs, he assumed—took down his four jihadists. They left one alive, which could only mean one thing—they intended to interrogate him in the hopes of finding out Johnny’s location.

  He chuckled at such foolishness. His followers had no idea where he holed up. The U.S. government could—and no doubt would—torture the man and inject him with whatever chemical concoction they used for truth serum these days, but the man could not tell them what he did not know.

  He picked up a cell phone and sent a three-word text:

  ONE POLICE PLAZA

  Once he received notification that the message had been received, he destroyed the phone. Burners were cheap, and he had no intention of being taken down by something as stupid as a cell phone trace.

  The text ensured that by tomorrow morning, the New Babylon would once again be engulfed in fire and fury. They would pay for today’s deception. They would reap the brutal reward for their treachery.

  President Carter liked to play tricks. Before long, Johnny would make the bastard’s head disappear from his shoulders. The leader of the godless infidels would die screaming, and the world would watch. Then they would know that Al-Qaeda was not to be trifled with.

  Johnny sat back and smiled to himself. Tomorrow New York City would suffer another Armageddon.

  The White House

  President Jack Carter stood behind his desk in the Oval Office and gazed out the three large windows that faced the south lawn, silently praying for the mental fortitude to guide the country through the nightmare now gripping it. He wasn’t prone to pity parties, but this had to be the worst crisis any modern day president had ever faced. Five terrorist attacks in two days—with another one threatened for tomorrow—had left the nation shaken to its very core. He reached deep down inside, way down where a man found out what he was really made of and grabbed hold of strength and serenity.

  Then Hank Jones walked in, and the serenity went straight to hell.

  “Just heard from Chief Hunt,” Jones said without preamble. “Three terrorists dead, one captured. None of them are Johnny.”

  The President felt his heart sink, and his guts churn. He turned away from the window with a deep sigh. “Are we sure?”

  “Given that the bastard wears a mask, it’s impossible to be one hundred percent sure, but two of the terrorists were women, so we can rule them out. The one we captured made comments inferring Johnny wasn’t with them. Plus, the terrorists that showed up at the decoy site wore bodycams, which indicates someone—presumably Johnny—was watching from afar. All of this makes us pretty confident Johnny is still at large.”

  “Guess it was too much to hope that he would actually take the bait,” Carter said. “We couldn’t get that lucky.”

  “It was always a long shot. We knew that going in,” Jones replied. “But we took one alive, so maybe we can get some information out of him that’ll lead to Johnny.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Jones stared at him stone-faced. “With all due respect, Mr. President, do you really want me to answer that question?”

  Carter thought about it for a moment, then waved a hand. “Forget I asked. Plausible deniability might come in handy when this is all over.” But then he gave Jones a hard-eyed look. “But Hank?”

  Jones stood ramrod straight, knowing what was coming. “Yes, sir?”

  “Whatever it takes. Understand?”

  Jones nodded. “Affirmative, Mr. President. Whatever it takes.”

  “Good.” Carter inwardly began the process of learning to live with what he had just ordered. “Because unless we can break this man quickly, many more people are going to die tomorrow morning.”

  “One broken terrorist, coming right up,” Jones promised grimly.

  Chapter 10

  Colombia

  Team Reaper wasted no time exiting the plane once it touched down in Colombia and rolled to a stop near a corrugated metal hangar so covered with thick, snake-like vines that it looked like it had been carved directly out of the jungle. It might have been night, but the air was still hot and humid.

  As they geared up, Oswald pointed to a barely-discernable footpath next to the hangar. “Follow that trail there, and it’ll take ya right to the boat.”

  Kane asked, “You sure it’ll be there?”

  The smuggler arched his eyebrows. “You want me to swear on my mum’s dear, departed soul or something, mate?”

  “Swear on whatever you want,” Kane said. “But I need to know that boat’s gonna be there.”

  “It’ll be
there. I put it there myself.”

  “If it’s not…”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Oswald waved dismissively. “You’ll hunt me down and do horrible things to me.” He grinned crookedly. “Not my first rodeo, cowboy.”

  “Good,” Kane replied. “Then you won’t mind me doing this.” His left hand shot out, grabbed the mercenary by the back of the neck, and pulled him close. At the same time, his right hand drew his Sig and rammed the muzzle under the man’s chin.

  Oswald was smart enough to hold very still. “Seriously, mate… what the hell?”

  “I’m gonna need you to tell me how many cartel soldiers are waiting for us at that boat.”

  “Are you kidding me right now, ya bleedin’ bastard? Are you seriously accusing me of selling you out?”

  “Damn right I am.” Kane pressed even harder on the pistol. “How many?”

  “None, ya crazy dingo! How many times I gotta tell ya? I didn’t sell you out!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Not my bloody problem!”

  “It’s gonna be your problem when I pull this trigger and pop a hole in your skull.”

  Oswald suddenly deflated, muscles loose, arms dangling limply by his side. All the fight just went right out of him. If not for the gun tucked under his chin propping him up, he might very well have sunk to the ground. “Okay,” he said, his tone sorrowful and full of regret. “You got me, mate. Don’t go jacking up my head with a bullet. I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “I’m listening,” Kane said.

  The Aussie merc took a deep breath, then bellowed at the top of his lungs, “I didn’t sell you out! That’s the damn truth! Stick it up your arse and eat it, ya bleedin’ gob!” He locked eyes with Kane, glaring defiantly as if daring him to pull the trigger.