Black Operations- the Spec-Ops Action Pack

by Eric Meyer

  Lena pushed back into the conversation. "He's not going to kill Khan. It’s all over, isn't it, Raffaello?”

  He didn't reply. Ivan gave him an amused glanced. "Raffaello?"

  "It's Stoner."

  "Right. Just leave Khan alone. Savvy?"

  He shook with emotion as he worked to frame a reply. He couldn't agree, just couldn't, until he looked at Lena. She was willing him to say the words, to give them a chance of a future. Yet it was more than that. He knew she wanted to release him from the ghosts of the past.

  Finally, he nodded. "It's over."

  "Good. I take it you're flying out in the Otter."

  "We are."

  "In that case, have a good flight. I won't ask where you're going."

  Because you already know, you sonofabitch!

  He held out a hand, and they shook. "Scastlivovo puti."

  "He said have a good trip," Greg translated.

  "Is that how they say it in Langley?"

  Ivan gave him a hard look. "Get out of here, Stoner, while you still can."

  They drove across the strip to the aircraft. He checked the fuel levels and found the tanks were three quarters full. Then they began the process of loading the gold into the cabin. Brick by brick, it was hard, heavy work. When they'd finished, Stoner took the left-hand seat and looked around the cockpit panel to familiarize himself with the layout. Lena took the right-hand seat and watched him closely.

  "You've flown one of these before?"

  He looked up. "No, not a single Otter."

  "Do you need to see the manuals? I can find them for you."

  "No."

  She shook her head in exasperation. "How do you know how everything works?"

  He looked around in the cabin. Greg was dozing at the rear, with Archer on the floor next to his feet. He looked back at her. "It's like women, I guess. They're all different, but when it comes down to it, they mostly work the same. Aircraft are like that."

  She stared back at him, unsure whether to be angry or amused. She chose the latter and punched him on the arm. "You’re a bastard, Stoner. I hope I'm better than the girls you've been with."

  He grinned at her. "You're up there with the best. Pure executive jet."

  She smiled back, and he went on with the cockpit familiarization. Finally, he nodded. "We're nearly ready. I'll run through a quick pre-flight, then we'll get off the ground before Ivan changes his mind. You set?"

  She nodded.

  "Parking Brakes."

  "Set."

  "Throttle closed, propeller high rpm, mixture?"

  "Cutoff."

  "Magneto Switches?"

  "Off."

  "You make a good co-pilot. How many times have you flown one of these?"

  "Once. To Band-e Amir."

  He winced. "You did good. Better than good, you got her down in one piece. Starter switch?"

  "Off. You going to do a walk around the control surfaces?"

  "Not while Ivan's mercs are out there. It's time to leave."

  "But you haven't finished the pre-flight."

  "Ivan may decide he hasn't finished either."

  She nodded. "Point taken."

  The engine burst into life when he pressed the starter, and he immediately let off the brakes to taxi to the end of the strip. The engine warmed, and when the needle reached the green, he pushed the throttle all the way forward and accelerated along the grass. Ivan half-waved a farewell, and then he was out of sight as Stoner eased back on the stick, and they came unstuck.

  When they were in the air, he set a course for Kabul International, put on a headset and was about to call air traffic control for clearance.

  "Not now," she put her hand on his wrist to stop him switching to transmit.

  "No? Why not?"

  "I just..."

  She stopped. Greg had appeared beside her, his face pale. He had hold of Archer's collar. Stoner adjusted for the change of trim and regarded his strange expression.

  "What is it? What's up?” Then he saw him, “Right, that's what's up."

  A man with a gun was standing in the center of the cabin, a bearded man in a robe.

  "He was hiding in the locker at the back," Greg explained, "Sorry, I should have checked."

  The Shia commander gestured with his pistol at the stack of ingots lying behind him in the cabin. "It is gold, I assume."

  Lena turned around to face him. "It's the property of the Afghan government in Kabul."

  He ignored her; after all she was a woman. His words were addressed at Stoner.

  "You will land this plane at Kabul, but not the international airport. I will supply the details of a suitable field. When we're on the ground, I’ll call my people to unload the shipment. It is now the property of Hezbe Wahdat, and will be used to carry out the work of Allah. Afterward, you may proceed to wherever you wish."

  Stoner had no doubt what awaited them after they landed. The moment the wheels stopped, he'd kill them all. He didn't need Stori Transport, didn't need Lena, not when he had the gold. He could buy anything he wanted, including most of the Presidential Cabinet.

  Not on my watch, pal. In case you didn't notice, I'm pilot in command of this crate. Not some raghead, ragged-ass goat herder.

  He started to get up from his seat, and he touched Lena on the shoulder. The Otter had started to vector to port in the prevailing winds. She looked up quickly, met his eyes, and understood. She gripped the control column in both hands, corrected for the wind, and stared straight ahead. Waiting.

  "What are you doing?" The Afghan waved the pistol at him, "Take your seat. Get back!"

  "We need to talk," Stoner reasoned, his voice gentle, "We need to make a deal."

  "No deals. You will obey my orders and land this plane where I tell you. Sit down!"

  He held out his hands, so the man could see he presented no threat to him.

  "Hear me out, pal. What do you have to lose? You have the gun, you hold all the cards, and when we land, the gold's yours. No argument there, I just want to make sure you're gonna play fair when the wheels are on the field." He smiled, "I mean, you're not going to start shooting, are you?"

  "I told you; you may go when my people have unloaded the shipment."

  "That's right, yeah. I know what you said, but..." He didn't move his head, but his eyes met Greg's, and the Russian took his meaning. He still had hold of Archer's collar. The Afghan would put a bullet in the animal the moment he thought he was a threat. He gave Stoner an imperceptible nod.

  "But what?" Kamran was suspicious, and his eye darted around the cabin.

  Stoner moved his arm slowly and pointed at the man with the gun. "You'd know how I felt if you were the ...ARCHER, TARGET!"

  He almost shouted the last words. Kamran looked around wildly, confused by the outburst, and then the dog was on him. They'd named him Archer because in action he was like a guided missile. An arrow fired straight at the enemy, an arrow with an onboard computer guidance system in its brain. He went for the gun first, and Kamran's hand jerked up as he pulled the trigger and a round pierced the cabin roof.

  He fired repeatedly, trying to wrestle his hand away from the dog's jaws. The big teeth crunched through tissue and bone, to hold on like his mouth had built in hydraulic rams. In the end, he dropped the gun, and the American scooped it up. Archer was snapping, growling and snarling, and Kamran repeatedly banged his fist against the dog's snout.

  Stoner shouted to Greg, "The door."

  He understood what he meant and unlatched the door. It sprung out on its hinges. This was no pressurized jet with built in safety interlocks. The primitive catch was not designed for anything sophisticated other than to hold the door closed under normal conditions. It swung open wide, caught in the slipstream, and the interior of the aircraft filled with a shrieking gale of cold air.

  The Afghan was still struggling, shrieking in pain and rage, but Archer held on. Stoner timed his move, and then swung his arms up. He grabbed a rib in the cabin roof, pulled
himself off the floor, and raised his legs. His boots delivered a stunning, two-footed kick that sent Kamran spinning toward the door, and he almost went out, stopping himself at the last moment by gripping the frame of a seat with his free hand. His legs swung out into the void, and his eyes showed the terror of his understanding of what came next.

  He still gripped the dog's collar with one hand, the seat frame with the other, and shouted, "No, no, you can have it all."

  "I know we can," he said, "Greg, you got him?"

  Blum clamped a hand on Archer's collar, and with the other hand ripped away the Afghan's hand, which swung free and groped for another handhold. "I've got him."

  Stoner swung his legs and smashed both boots against the screaming, pleading man. It was a carefully aimed, precision blow, and the sweaty hands gripping the seat frame started to slip. He drew his legs back again, and delivered a second crushing blow with every ounce of his strength. They heard a last, despairing scream, and he was gone. Greg kept hold of Archer's collar as he fought to close the door, but the slipstream made it like he was fighting a monster. Stoner joined him, and together they managed to swing it shut.

  "Why didn't you just shoot him?" Blum asked, "It would have been quicker."

  "That's why I didn't shoot him. Is Archer okay?"

  "He's good. I'll take him to a vet when we get home and get him checked out."

  Stoner nodded. "Make it the full works. He's earned it. Send me the bill. I mean it, Greg. I want to pay."

  "I'll do that."

  "Well, that’s the last of them sorted, at least for now."

  "Except for that pilot of Lena’s, Joseph Chow. If we do come across him, we’ll soon sort him out."

  "Too right."

  He went back to the left-hand seat, took over the controls from Lena, and glanced across at her. "Where to?"

  She stared back at him. She knew what he meant. "We ought to take this shipment to Kabul."

  "Yep."

  "Max didn't mean to steal anything from me. He just wanted to help people. Help them to provide food and defend themselves. Just to survive, that's all. In the end, he died a hero's death."

  Stoner wasn't too sure about that bit. "Maybe."

  "I wonder if it would be possible to use that gold shipment for something good. Like Max intended."

  He thought back to the massacre, his first operation in country. He'd been full of good intentions back then. Wipe out the Taliban. Stop the slaughter. End the cruelty, the poverty and disease that blighted the lives of ordinary folk. He smiled, recalling Olin's words about changing the world.

  We all want to change things for the better. But it can't be done, can it?

  He thought about that for a few moments. "Anything's possible. So is dying when they come after you."

  "I could hire protection, men to watch my back."

  He nodded. "You could."

  "People like you." He was already shaking his head, but she hurried on, "I need you, Stoner. I need your cleverness and your strength."

  "I, uh, I'm real busy. Too busy to take on new contracts right now. Besides, you'd need a private army to do what you have in mind."

  "You could help me recruit them."

  "I'll think about it."

  She punched him on the arm again. This time, his hand slipped off the column, and in trying to regain control, the aircraft banked hard to starboard before he could correct it.

  "Think about it now, and think hard," she shouted in mock anger, "Otherwise I'll hit you again." He nodded. "And while you're thinking, I need somewhere you can land this aircraft for me. Somewhere it won't be noticed, not for a very long time. A farm with a large barn, something like that."

  "Greg has a barn," he pointed out.

  She swung around to face Blum. "Do you have something big enough to hide the Otter? Would you help me?"

  Greg thought of his home, of his wife Faria waiting for him with his surrogate family. Ahmed and his tractor, he'd be counting the minutes until Archer came back to join him. The two girls, Ahmed's sisters, he and Faria looked after them because their parents were dead. They all had a good life, especially for Afghanistan. Most of the population endured unimaginable hardship and squalor.

  Why not help out? Perhaps she may help develop the infrastructure in my hometown, Mehtar Lam. God only knows they need it. When people cry out for food, houses, and peace, all they get is religion; the wrathful, avenging, and bloodthirsty religion of Islam.

  He nodded to her. "We may be able to handle it. There's a field close to the house we could put down. Stoner, you know the one I mean? Near where Ahmed keeps the Fordson tractor."

  "I know it."

  Lena Stori smiled. "Thank you, all of you. Especially now you've decided to stop this stupid vendetta. Mahmoud Khan did atone for his crime, didn't he?"

  Stoner murmured, "I guess."

  "That's it, then." She put her arm back through his as he held the control column, "Let's go home."

  He didn't reply. He was thinking of Khan, Madeleine's broken, bleeding body, and Ivan and his threats to kill him if he went after the Mullah. The fantastic, clever, and resourceful girl, Lena Stori, she was more than an Afghan Robin Hood. Pretty, warm, intelligent, everything a man could want. And he wanted her, no question, but he wanted something else. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch, a thirst for a shot of bourbon the morning after a drunken night at Ma Kelly’s. But he could manage without the booze. He needed to stay sharp, for his mind kept returning to the same image that refused to erase itself from his brain. A man.

  Khan.

  I'm sorry, but I just can't forget. Like I can't forget that massacre outside Lashkar Gar. Men like him were behind it. Maybe it was Khan on that day, I'll never know. But I can't forget him. A nasty, vicious, murdering psychopath, would killing him change the world? Oh, yeah!

  They were flying low enough to pick up a cell tower, and he switched it on. Immediately, he heard the ping of an alert on his cellphone, and he checked the message. Minister Shah had transferred the payment for killing Mazari.

  The message said, 'Payment in full on completion of the job. Many thanks.'

  He smiled.

  It'll pay for the repairs on the Wrangler when I get it back. It’ll also buy me a couple of new Desert Eagles. I have work to do.

  DEVIL'S BATTALION II: HITLER’S TREASURE

  By Eric Meyer

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Swordworks

  Copyright © 2011 by Eric Meyer

  Chapter One

  Leningrad, formerly St Petersburg, was not pretty. Why would anyone take the trouble to build a city in this frozen hell? Even worse, our armies were trying to win it from the Russians, who had fought off every effort to take the city. General Feld-Marschall Ritter von Leeb’s Army Group North came close to taking the city in November, they reached the Leningrad outskirts and then the Volkov Front struck back. Under the command of General Kirill Meretskov, with the formidable and ruthless Army Commissar 1st Rank Zaporozhets in charge of security and morale, the Volkov Front hit back hard. Supported by the Soviet 14th Air Army, their counterattack had blunted our drive and even started to throw our troops back from the suburbs. Sonderbattalion Kurz had been rushed into action to stem the tide, along with several other units near enough to be pressed into service. It was a hard, bloody action. We were under continuous artillery assault, air attack and human wave attacks from the Soviet defenders who seemed to be prepared to throw away their lives for little or no gain. The NKVD blocking units behind them, supervised by Commissar Zaporozhets made certain of any waverers, they either advanced or they were shot by the NKVD squads who machine-gunned any man who tried to retreat. Any woman too, many of the Soviet troops were women, Leningrad residents who had been conscripted for the defense of the city.

  Not all of their suicidal attacks were in vain, in parts of the line they were gaining ground, throwing our troops back despite repeated Luftwaffe raids and our artillery firing continuously.

  D
uring the night they started an attack on Kolpino, close to the city. Kolpino was a town, little more than a suburb of Leningrad that we’d fought hard to take from the Reds. All night we could see the explosions from their artillery thumping into the snow. Some hit our positions but it was the town that suffered worst of all from the bombardment. It was burning, a massive conflagration that sputtered furiously and would not be put out. By the light of the exploding artillery I could see more Soviet troops massing in the distance, they were around most of the eastern and northern part of the outskirts of the town. When their third attack had failed, I jumped into the Kubelwagen and drove along the road to find the CO, Kurz. He was about to launch yet another counterattack on his sector, but when I told him that an attempt was being made to encircle the town he paused for thought. The snow lay thick on the ground, in places there were deep drifts that provided a natural barrier for the Russians to advance behind. Most of the troops available to Army Group North were already manning the defenses and there were no reserves, Sonderbattalion Kurz had been pulled in from our normal anti-partisan activities to help hold the line and only a handful of men were left to protect the army headquarters. It was not a time to take risks. We’d just fought off another mass assault and the pristine snow was colored red with blood, mostly Russian blood.

  “We should consider pulling back, Sir, we’re in danger of being cut off.”

  “I know what’s happening, Roth, but our orders are to stand fast. Retreat is completely out of the question.”

  “In that case we need more men.”

  He shook his head. “The Army has suffered fearful losses in those last attacks, although they’ve stopped the advance of the Russians so far. But they’ve had to use every man, there aren’t any more to be had. We have to hold them.”

  “We are holding them, Sir,” I replied, “But we’re hanging on here by our fingertips. They are just too many of them for us to deal with. There’s another problem, they’re all exhausted, the men can only fight for so long without rest.”