by Brent Towns
“Thank you, sir.”
“Didn’t think I’d leave you out there, did you?”
“Not you, sir.”
“Not anybody. However, the two birds won’t be overhead for at least another hour. You’ll have to find a place to fort up and wait it out.”
“What about the Federales, sir? Can we expect some support from them?”
“Nope. After that bird fell out of the sky, they’ve been told to stand down. You’ll need something that’s got an open area so we can put one of the helos down. Copy?”
“Copy, sir.”
“Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir. Reaper One, out.”
Ferrero came over the comms. “Reaper One? Zero.”
“Copy, Zero.”
“I’ve got Reynolds and Teller looking for an ideal location as we speak. Hang in there, and I’ll get back to you. Keep moving in your current direction. Zero, out.”
“Copy. Reaper One, out.”
Kane called them all in. “Listen up. We need to find a place to fort up. We’ve got a couple of helos inbound about an hour out.”
“We need to get out of here, that’s what we need to do,” Spencer snapped.
Not for the first time, Kane ignored him. “Axe, move out. Arenas, watch our six. Move.”
“Where to?” Axe asked.
“Same direction until I tell you when to stop.”
“Roger.”
The team kept moving along the alley. Past some old, flattened cardboard boxes and a small pile of fly-ridden garbage bags, one of which spewed its maggoty contents onto the pavement. When Axe reached the next street, he stopped and checked both directions. All seemed deserted except for a set of traffic lights, light poles, and cars parked in the gutter. Across the street was a row of small convenience shops.
Further along the street, Axe sighted a three-level parking garage. “Hey, Reaper, take a look.”
Kane peered around the corner of the brick building and saw what Axe was pointing at. He pressed his mic button, “Bravo Three? Reaper One. Copy? Over.”
“Read you, Reaper One.”
“Have you found anything for us as yet, Bravo Three?”
“Negative.”
“I’m looking at a parking structure down to our right. Can you get eyes on it?”
“Wait one.”
A minute later Teller came back to him. “I see your structure, Reaper One. It looks clear, over.”
“Is it big enough to put a helo down on it?”
“Affirmative.”
“Then that’s where we’ll be.”
“Copy, I’ll let the helos know. Bravo Three, out.”
“Lead out, Axe.”
The big man took point and moved along the sidewalk. It was an eerie feeling walking down a street which would normally be bustling with pedestrians on both sides. Other than them, there was no evidence of another living soul about. Not even any traffic. Then an armed figure appeared fifty yards in front of him, and the 416 snapped into line, and he stroked the trigger.
“Contact front.”
No sooner had the words passed his lips when the cartel soldier dropped to the sidewalk, and another appeared. He was armed with an AK and fired a long burst in their direction.
Bullets snapped loudly through the air and ricocheted off cars. Firing again, the bullet slammed into the shooter’s chest, and Axe heard the man cry out in pain.
“Across the street!” Kane snapped. “Move!”
They all ran to the other side of the street and ducked behind the cover of some parked cars. When no one else emerged, Kane directed them to keep going. The street remained clear long enough for them to reach the parking garage.
It was empty. Not one bay had a vehicle in it. Almost all of the gray concrete pillars had some form of graffiti on them, and most of the signage was broken.
Traynor said, “It’s abandoned.”
“Sí,” said Arenas. “It once served a large shopping precinct. But there was a fire, and it burned down. It was never rebuilt. Instead, the land was sold, and other smaller shops replaced it.”
Once at the top, they started to spread out. The structure had a waist-high concrete barrier all the way around it which would provide them with sufficient cover should it be required.
“Set up a perimeter,” Reaper ordered. He glanced at his watch. They still had forty-five minutes until the scheduled pick up. “If you see anything, call it.”
“Where would you like my men?” Perez asked.
Kane said, “Just tell them to pick a spot. There’s plenty to go around.”
“Reaper, did you see that?” Arenas asked as he pointed to a building two blocks further over.
Kane turned to look at it. It was the only structure in the vicinity taller than their own. He understood what the Mexican was getting at and nodded. “Keep an eye on it. If they put a shooter in there, he could cause us some problems.”
He turned to Cara and said, “Let Zero know we’ve reached our destination.”
“Copy.”
He looked about to assess their position. It wasn’t perfect but was better than being on the street. All they had to do now was wait.
“Nice job, Reaper,” Spencer said as he stopped beside Kane. “You’ve got us treed.”
Ciudad Juárez
“They are on the roof of the parking garage, Jefe,” the slim, tattoo-covered cartel man said. “We could attack them there.”
Raphael Sandoval shook his head. “Not yet. Where is the Gringo?”
“I’m here.”
Sandoval turned and saw the tall American standing beside the armored Tahoe. He said, “It is time to prove that you are worth your money.”
The ‘Gringo’ as he was known, was in his early thirties, solid, dark-haired, and wore wrap-around sunglasses to hide his blue eyes. “What about that other thing I was brought on for?”
“What about it?”
“It was what you hired me and my guys for,” the gringo reminded him.
“I hired you to do whatever I want you to. And at this time, I want you to kill those Americans.”
The mercenary stared at Sandoval for a moment and thought fleetingly about putting a bullet between his dark eyes. Instead, “I’ll need to see a map.”
The cartel man clicked his fingers, and within a couple of minutes, a map appeared. The gringo studied it and pointed to a spot on the map. “What is this?”
“It is abandoned. From there, you would be able to see where they are.”
“All right.” He turned and waved to the Tahoe. Its doors opened, and four men climbed out. All were mercenaries; all were American. “Get your gear. We’ve got a job to do.”
Team Reaper
Ciudad Juárez
For the fifth time in five minutes, Kane looked at his watch. The helos were still thirty minutes out. Not that it worried him because it was reasonably quiet. From each of the vantage points, not a soul could be seen. In fact, it was almost like a foreign country war zone when they were waiting for the next wave of attacks. Not just over the border in Mexico.
“Bravo Three? Reaper One. You got anything? Over.”
“Negative, Reaper One. Looks all quiet.”
“They’re up to something. They have to be.”
Kane walked over to the edge of the building where Cara was positioned. He looked left and right along the street and said, “It’s too quiet.”
She nodded. “I agree. It makes me feel like I’m back in Afghanistan when shit was about to go down.”
“Exactly.”
The shot when it came, seemed to come from nowhere. Just a whistle of displaced air and then the thwack of the bullet strike. A heartbeat later, the sound of the shot arrived. Behind them, one of the Federales crashed onto his back.
“Sniper!” Axe shouted.
Everyone on the carpark roof dived for cover. However, Perez was too slow and took the next incoming round. It blew him off his feet, and he skidded on his back a few feet
before stopping. One look told Kane that the man was dead.
“The son of a bitch is in that damned building, Reaper,” Axe cursed. “Maybe the fifth floor.”
Axe was looking through his field glasses when a third round spanged off the concrete ledge beside him.
“Get the hell down, Axe,” Reaper snapped and ran across to where his friend was crouched. He slumped down and placed his back against the short wall. “He can’t stay there. We’ll never get the helos down if they’re taking fire.”
“What do you propose, Ke-mo sah-bee?” Axe asked. “My thinking is that this fucker is a pro. The distance was around two-hundred meters. Not that far but far enough. Two shots, two kills.”
“He missed the third.”
“Thank Christ he did,” Axe said. “So, who’s going after him?”
Kane looked across the roof. “Cara, Spencer, Carlos, on me!”
They joined him against the wall. “We can’t afford to have that sniper up there when the helos come in. I’m going up there after him. Carlos, you’re with me.”
“Sí.”
“Spencer, you and Cara keep everyone else alive while I’m gone. If we ain’t back by the time the helos arrive, get the hell out of here.”
“We aren’t leaving you, Reaper,” Axe growled.
“Do as I say. It’s not a debate. OK, Carlos, let’s move.”
Kane
Ciudad Juárez
“Reaper One? Midnight One-One, do you read? Over.” Kane’s radio crackled to life as the pilot of the lead Black Hawk radioed in.
Kane and Arenas stopped in the doorway of a closed shop. “Copy, Midnight One-One. You’re early. Over.”
“Better than late, Reaper One. We’re about five mikes out from your position and could use a sitrep, over.”
“You need to hold, Midnight One-One. We have a sniper overlooking the LZ and need to clear him out. Copy?”
“Copy, Reaper One. Will fly a holding pattern until told otherwise or we fall out of the sky. Midnight One-One, out.”
“Reaper One? Scimitar, over.”
Scimitar was Chief Borden Hunt, a SEAL team leader they’d worked with before. “Go ahead, Scimitar.”
“You all want some company down there?”
Kane glanced at Arenas. The former Mexican Special Forces commander nodded. “It can’t hurt, amigo.”
“Copy, Scimitar. An extra couple of shooters would be much-appreciated seeing as we’re going in blind, over.”
“Give me your location, and I’ll be there directly.”
Kane did as Hunt asked, and the chief said, “See you soon, Reaper. Scimitar out.”
“I can not believe how quiet it is,” Arenas commented.
Kane sighed. “Give me the jungle any day, my friend.”
Suddenly the sound of an automatic weapon cut across the stillness. It was followed by a loud boom from just above and along from where they were situated. Kane depressed his TRANSMIT button and said, “Reaper Two? Reaper One. Copy?”
“Copy, Reaper One.”
“Everything OK over there?”
“Just peachy. Axe decided to wake our friend up across the way. I think he’s bored, over.”
“Roger. Reaper One, out.”
After twenty minutes of remaining in-situ, Arenas said, “Reaper, we have movement to our front.”
Kane leaned out from the doorway and saw two men approaching along the sidewalk. Scimitar and another man. He was armed with a Knight's Armament Company M110 semi-automatic sniper rifle.
“Good to see you, Chief,” Kane said and stuck out his hand.
Hunt took it in a firm grip. “You too, Reaper.” He indicated to his man. “This is Pop-Eye.”
“You got yourself in some shit here, Gunny,” Pop-Eye observed.
“And then some. This is Capitán Primero Carlos Arenas.”
“Sir.”
The former Mexican special forces commander smiled. “Call me Arenas. We are all friends here.”
“What have we got, Reaper?” Hunt asked.
Kane filled him in on the shooter, and a grim expression settled upon his face. “Pro?”
“Could be. Maybe ex-Mexican armed forces. Could even be ex-Federale. Definitely not normal cartel assholes.”
“Let’s go and find out.”
When they entered the foyer of the building, the first thing that assailed them was the smell. Rotten carpet, mildew, piss, shit, all mixed into one gut-churning stench. A large gang tag painted in red on one of the walls was all streaky where the paint had begun to flake away.
Kane raised his HK to his shoulder and started up the stairs. The building seemed to reek worse in the enclosed space of the stairwell, the combined stink funneling into it like a chimney. The four moved on in silence.
They passed doors leading to the first four floors. When they reached the fifth, Kane stopped on the landing and tried the door. The latch snicked as it gave and the door moved.
He looked back at Hunt and nodded. Holding up his left hand, he counted down with his fingers. He got as far as two when the door all but exploded outwards from having half a magazine of 5.56 rounds emptied into it from the other side.
“Christ!” Kane exclaimed and dropped to his haunches as razor-sharp splinters scythed through the air. He scrambled back down the stairs toward the small landing between levels.
“That wasn’t no sniper,” Hunt gasped as he gathered himself.
“Which means more than one shooter.”
“It sounded like an M4, Chief,” Pop-Eye commented.
“How the hell do you know that?” Kane queried.
“Trust me,” Hunt said, “he knows.”
Another burst of automatic fire rattled the door and made the holes in it bigger. One was a good deal larger than a human fist. Kane stared at it and then looked at Hunt. “You got anything that goes bang?”
Hunt reached behind his back with his left hand. When it reappeared, he held an M84 stun grenade. “This do?”
Kane took it and swiftly started back up the stairs. He hugged the wall when he reached the top step and paused. Pulling the pin, he threw the stun grenade through the large hole. He counted the seconds off in his head, and when he heard the crump from the other side, Reaper kicked out at the door.
His heel hit it just below the handle, and the shattered door crashed back. Kane moved through with his HK held to his shoulder and his eye on the red dot sight. Apart from the blue-grey smoke from the M84, the hallway was empty.
Kane started along the hall. There were doors on either side to vacated apartments; one of which held the sniper and possibly the second shooter. Moving past the first doorway, he stopped. Using hand signals, he directed Hunt and Arenas to check the apartment.
With a crash, the door to the first apartment flew back, and the two men cleared the room. When they emerged, Kane moved on. The next three had the same outcome as the first. The fifth, however, was not vacant.
This time, when the door flew back under the force of Reaper’s boot, a hail of bullets spewed forth, chewing holes in the wall across the hall. Hunt dived for cover, cursing his near miss when one of the slugs ripped through the sleeve of his upper arm, scoring the flesh.
Arenas poked his HK around the corner of the doorway and sprayed a full magazine of 5.56 NATO rounds into the room. Once it ran dry, Kane filled the doorway and waited. Inside the room, the shooter immediately rose from behind a sofa.
Reaper stroked the trigger, and a bullet burned its way into the man’s brain. He flopped backward, and Kane swept the room with his carbine. It was clear. He took another step forward when an explosion from one of the bedrooms shook the whole apartment, bringing dust cascading from the ceiling and rattling the windows.
Gathering himself, Kane headed towards the room from which it had emanated. He burst through the door. On the far side of the room was a large hole in the wall. Through a haze of plaster dust, he saw three men exiting their makeshift doorway.
“Squirters in
the next room!” he shouted and let loose a long burst with his carbine.
Bullets slammed into the wall around the hole. Dust and chunks of plaster fell away, dislodged by the hammering rounds.
The shooters disappeared, and Kane cursed. He whirled to Arenas. “Take the hallway! I’ll follow them this way.”
He moved forward and climbed through the gaping breach. Rubble crunched under his boots, and he came out in the main living area of the next apartment. The rattle of gunfire erupted from the hallway. Reaper pulled up short of running out into a storm of lead. He depressed the TRANSMISSION button on his mic. “Reaper Three, report.”
“They’re escaping along the hall to another stairwell, Reaper.”
“Copy.”
He eased himself past the door jamb in time to see the last shooter disappear around the corner at the end of the hallway. With the HK raised to his shoulder, Kane started after them, the others falling in behind him. “Is everyone OK?”
“All good,” Hunt replied.
“Reaper One? Bravo Four. Do you read me? Over.”
Kane raised his hand. “Hold up. Copy, Bravo Four.”
“Reaper, I picked up some radio traffic a moment ago. A call went out for reinforcements to converge on your position.”
“Copy. Bravo Three, you got anything?”
Teller came over the net. “Roger, Reaper One. There is a bunch of hostiles tracking in your direction.”
“Copy. Reaper One, out,” Kane turned to the others. “We’ve gotta go. But first I want to check something out. Carlos, keep an eye on the stairwell. Chief, with me.”
Reaper and Hunt re-entered the apartment and crossed to the fallen man behind the sofa. They stared down at him, and Hunt said, “He definitely ain’t a Mex.”
Kane nodded and dug into his pocket for his cell phone. He raised it and took a picture. The hole in the forehead stood out like dog’s balls. With that done he knelt beside him and riffled through the pockets. “My guess is he’s some kind of merc. Most likely he’s American.”
Hunt agreed. “There’s been a lot of ex-servicemen getting around here south of the border.”
