The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.

by Ricky Sides

  Pete said, “Oh this is clever. Reggie will assume that recon team three was an older team and had better fighters than the later team four. By using his name he’ll realize that this team four would be anxious to take him and he’d assume they would make mistakes.” Looking at Jim, he smiled and said, “Yeah I think this will work if he is using the radio to monitor our communications, and he probably will be. It’s what he was taught to do in such a scenario.”

  “And once we are in route, we’ll have Patricia act like a green recruit and contact the base despite the warnings and ask for clarification of the order. Tell the radioman to chastise her most severely,” said Jim with a grin. “After the chastisement, have him ask to speak to her team leader. We’ll put Lacey on with him then, and he can read her the riot act too. Meanwhile, Reggie will think at least two of the green team members are women.” Frowning Jim added, “As I recall he has an affinity for murdering women.”

  “He’d want to stay then for sure, or I don’t know him as well as I think I do. He might even taunt them at that point,” Pete said thoughtfully.

  And if he talks too long, Patricia will nail his location,” Jim said with a grin on his face. Then turning serious, he said, “All right, let’s get the plan in motion and hope for the best.

  ***

  The first bait transmission went out just as the Peacekeeper was leaving. Tim had a course plotted in and was making good time. During the past several months, many of the abandoned vehicles had been removed from the roads in northern Alabama. But the further west they went, the worse that situation became. The second transmission came as they raced over the highway at well over one hundred thirty miles per hour. By the time the third transmission came, they were crossing the Mississippi state line but they’d had to reduce their speed considerably due to the amount of abandoned vehicles present.

  The moment the third transmission stopped Jim said, “Lieutenant, begin your baited transmission. Remember to sound contrite when the radio man goes ballistic,” he said with a grin.

  “Play the role, aye, sir,” Patricia said beaming. Concentrating for a moment on the role she was to play, Patricia frowned and activated the microphone, and then she said, “Base, this is Corporal Huxley. I need clarification of these orders. Is this a prank?”

  The radioman’s voice came over the air immediately and to his credit, the man sounded outraged. He said, “You idiot. What part of, “do not respond in the open,” did you not get? No, this is not a prank. I don’t send prank messages. Look never mind just get your superior on the line now!”

  “Yes, yes of course. Hey, I’m sorry, buddy. I was just following orders you know what I mean? Why of course I’ll get the Sarge for you, hey hang on a minute, okay?”

  The radioman’s sigh came over the air but he said nothing.

  Lacey stepped forward and Patricia smiled encouragingly. “Hello base, this is, Sergeant Carteen. What’s going on? Who arbitrarily decided to shift our mission around? I was told we’d have the chance to make our first solo run in a semi-safe area so my recruits can cut their teeth on something survivable, and now you’re ordering my team into a hot spot where another team was annihilated? Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked at the end of her tirade.

  “Carteen, shut your mouth and listen to me,” The radioman said with barely restrained fury. If Pete finds out you clowns are on the air flapping your gums about this mission, you’ll be busted to privates. Then you and your panty platoon, all girl unit, can kiss your team goodbye. You’ll be broken up and washing dishes in the mess hall for a year.”

  “But, but I was told…,” Lacey began and paused.

  “I don’t care what you were told or what you think. These orders are from Pete, so I suggest you get the hell off the radio and head your prissy butt to Jewel on the double,” the radio operator told Lacey with barely contained fury.

  A moment later, another voice came over the air. “Well I’ll be hanged. Here I was thinking of leaving, and you peacekeepers are sending me some snuggle bunnies to cozy up to.”

  “I’ll be your snuggle bunny, lover,” Lacey said trying to sound menacing.

  Reggie laughed uproariously, and then he asked, “How’d you get to be the sergeant? Sleep with the right man?”

  “I think I am going have to punish you for those statements, you, clown,” Lacey said angrily.

  “You? Punish me?” Reggie asked incredulously. “Yeah, baby! You come punish me.

  “I’m on my way, hotshot! So shut your stupid mouth.”

  “Sergeant, you be careful. Remember that Reggie is dangerous. Don’t get cocky with him. Just kill him. If you try to play his game, then you and your team are as good as dead. I told Pete it was a mistake sending an all girl team, but he has a good opinion of such units because of the women’s elite squad. But we both know if you were that good you’d be in that squad. So calm down and do your damned jobs. Base out!” the base radio officer said playing his role to the hilt.

  Reggie’s voice came back over the line then. He was once more laughing and he said, “Yeah, you girls come to Jewel. I’m lonely.”

  Patricia killed the microphone then laughed. “We’ve got him!” she said excitedly. “He’s on the outskirts of the town, and boy did we get lucky. He must be in the vehicle the team was using because the radio transmissions were coming from the source of the emergency beacon. Someone on the team activated it during the firefight.”

  “That was probably the kid who contacted the base. Well done, son,” Pete said sadly speaking as though to the departed soldier’s spirit.

  “Well done ladies. Contact the radioman on a secure channel and pass along my congratulations on his performance,” Jim said and motioned for Pete to join him. “We’ll be in the cargo bay.”

  Jim stopped midway down the corridor to the cargo bay and turned to his friend and mentor for a quick private conversation. “You’ll be going with the strike team?” he asked.

  Pete set his jaw, prepared for an argument. Anger flashed in his eyes as he said, “I’m going and that’s the end of that portion of this conversation.”

  “Good,” Jim said, surprising Pete. “I’ll feel safer knowing that you’re out there with me.”

  “I’d really rather you didn’t go on this hunt,” Pete said quietly. “This guy is a mad dog, but he is damned good when it comes to being a sniper. He’s as good as they come, maybe even better in some ways than I am now. I’m not as young as I once was,” he said frowning.

  “Nor am I, friend. That’s why we both go or we both leave this to the younger men. That’s the way this is going to go down, Pete. You can’t stop me. I’d just agree and then be out the ship stalking him on my own, five minutes after you left.”

  “Well if we’re going to do this, let’s do it right,” Pete said with an air of resignation for he knew Jim’s promise was no idle threat.

  Chapter 12

  The Peacekeeper landed on the outskirts of the city of Jewel, about one mile from the location that Patricia assured the captain was the current position of the emergency beacon. Reggie had originally been located well past the northern edge of the town, but after the radio conversation, he had moved back toward the eastern section of the little city.

  The moment that the ship landed, five men emerged and moved well away from the ship. The door to the Peacekeeper was closed and the ship lifted soundlessly on an unseen field of electromagnetic energy. Turning on its axis, the ship headed back along the course that it had used to approach the city. It moved one mile east, and then turned north and skirted around the city until it was in position to approach from the north. This time only three men emerged one mile from the emergency beacon.

  Once more, the ship lifted and retraced its path, soon coming to the edge of the city, which it continued to circle until it approached the western compass point. It then turned and approached from the west stopping one mile from the position of the emergency beacon and three more men emerged.

  Begi
nning the final maneuver of the encirclement, the Peacekeeper lifted once more and headed back along its course until it reached the western edge of the city. Once there, the crew took the ship around the outskirts of the small town until they could approach from the south. Moving to within one mile of the beacon they stopped and the final team was deployed.

  Inside the ship, Patricia sent a brief message to the team saying, “Three, three. Teams all deployed. Good hunting guys.”

  “One. Acknowledged and moving out,” the communications officer heard Jim reply.

  “You aren’t concerned that Reggie can overhear that message?” Lacey asked.

  “He couldn’t possibly descramble the message. Without the computer software in this ship, even if someone stumbles onto the correct frequency, all they’d hear is static and some weird gurgling noises if we use the frequencies utilized by the hat communications devices,” Patricia explained. “Remember that those devices were designed for special ops units whose lives would be forfeit if their communications were compromised,” she explained.

  All four teams began their approach, keeping in mind Pete’s briefing. He’d warned emphatically, “If it looks too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true. Reggie doesn’t make stupid mistakes when he knows he is being hunted. Therefore, if you think you have him spotted in a bad position where you can get a nice clean shot at him, the odds are he’s already targeting you. When you actually spot him, the reality of the situation is that you’ll probably only see a small portion of his body. If you think you’ve located him, use the radio. Call for assistance to seal off all possibility of escape.”

  With that stern warning in mind, the four teams converged on the emergency beacon. The Peacekeeper was instrumental in that process. Patricia monitored their progress on her screen. She watched as the team’s movements were tracked by pinging their radios with a sound that was inaudible to the humans. This sound triggered a response from the radios, again using a sound that was inaudible to humans so as not to distract the busy teams at a critical moment. With this system, Patricia could track their progress and inform Jim and Pete should one unit be falling behind in their closing maneuvers. She could also tell them accurately how close they were to the emergency beacon.

  Of course, it was possible that Reggie was no longer even near the vehicle. Indeed that was quite likely. But they assumed that he would be relatively close to the van used by the peacekeeper team, which was located near the bodies of the deceased peacekeepers. The locals had located the bodies and reported their location, but had heeded the warning that it was unsafe to touch the bodies. The emergency beacon was broadcasting a short distance from the position where the bodies were said to have been located.

  The Peacekeeper had deployed its strike force and was now understaffed. Bill Young sat at the weapons console irritated that he’d been ordered to remain in the ship, but Pete had been adamant that Bill remain inside. He’d called Bill aside and informed him of the reason for his decision, explaining that Bill knew Reggie better than anyone aside from himself did. If things went wrong, he expected Bill to help Jim and the rest of the peacekeepers get Reggie. His expertise on the man would be of critical importance to that mission. Bill hadn’t liked that reasoning, but he couldn’t fault the logic of the decision. It was the right thing to do and he knew that was the truth. That didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

  Lacey excused herself to go to the infirmary. She knew that Maggie would be preparing emergency supplies and she felt certain that she’d be better off with her mind occupied at this particular moment. Lacey was under no illusions as to the danger inherent in stalking this man named Reggie. He’d already killed a woman beside Jim in the attack on Athens, and from what she’d heard; he had killed some of the most skilled fighting men among Pete’s survival group. She knew that everyone in that group hated him and she could understand why.

  Maggie welcomed the assistance when Lacey knocked before entering the infirmary. She always did so, as did all members of the crew, because the infirmary was also Maggie’s living quarters.

  Lacey found her preparing emergency supplies just as she had anticipated and she threw herself into that work. Together they prepared several kits, placed them in tough plastic bags, and then sealed the bags. Each kit would have most of the items she would need to treat one patient. By now, Lacey could tell just what sort of wounds Maggie was anticipating simply by examining the contents of those kits. Her training had progressed to the point that she was as qualified a medic as anyone in the peacekeepers. Maggie was anticipating gunshot wounds with severe bleeding. They also contained morphine ampoules, which could be used to ease the pain of the severely wounded.

  Finally, Maggie had sufficient kits prepared. She had Lacey to load them into a small backpack, which she grabbed by the straps and said, “That’s all we can do here at the moment. We may as well wait in the control room.

  ***

  Reggie waited on the third floor of an abandoned apartment building that had seen better days. There was a window overlooking the van he’d taken from the peacekeeper team. At the moment, he sat still as death in the shadows, well away from the window staring out at the area around the van. His eyes returned to the bodies of the peacekeepers he’d mutilated and left lying where they’d fallen. He had rigged three of the six bodies with explosives so that if the team coming to get the bodies should reach them they’d find a nasty surprise waiting.

  As he watched the streets and alleys near the van, his patience was rewarded when he finally saw a man ease around a corner. The man was carrying a rifle. Reggie moved a bit closer to the window and eased his rifle to his shoulder. He was about to squeeze off a round when his instincts warned him not to fire. He eased the rifle down to seek out that which had set off his survival instinct. That instinct had saved his life more times than he cared to remember. Two more men were easing around another corner one block over, to the left of the first man. That would complicate matters but he could handle all three. Then to the right of the original target, he saw movement in the shadows. Watching intently be continued to count the men with increasing alarm. Then he saw the glint of light being reflected on the roof of a building two blocks away.

  Reggie eased back into the deeper shadows slowly. Whoever was on that roof had a scope and at any moment, that sniper might spot him if he remained near the window. From this safer vantage point, he searched the rooftops of the buildings in the area. On another rooftop, he spotted a man slowly easing his rifle over the ridge of a roof. A moment later, he saw the man begin the slow sweeping scans of the area that are the hallmark of a trained sniper.

  Moving with infinite slowness, even in the shadows, Reggie shifted his position in the room so that he could see more of the rooftops of the adjacent buildings. It didn’t take him long to locate another sniper and he realized at that point that he’d been duped into remaining in the area while a professional team of highly experienced personnel closed in on his position. Then he had a moment of stark fear as he realized that this probably meant that Pete was out there somewhere stalking him.

  Down on the street below, Sergeant Wilcox and two of his team members had closed on the van. The sergeant signaled to one of the men near him to concentrate on the van and not the bodies of the dead peacekeepers. The man nodded his understanding and turned his pale face toward the van, happy to look at something else. He was the first to reach the back of the van and he quickly looked inside the window. What the man saw inside the van made his stomach convulse. He threw up on the street beside the van and stood there trembling.

  Seeing this reaction, Sergeant Wilcox approached the window and looked inside. In the back of the van were two young girls. He estimated their age at about eight. He assumed from the amount of blood that both were dead. He could clearly see that the throat of one of the girls had been cut. They were both stripped naked. His own stomach churning, the sergeant reported what he’d found and asked if he should enter the van to check for vi
tals. One of the girls moved slightly and moaned at that point, and he didn’t wait for orders. He went to the passenger front door electing to enter the van there. But before he could enter the van, Pete’s voice came through the radio warning him not to enter the vehicle without a thorough check for traps. Further, he was ordered not to move the girls until that trap potential could also be assessed.

  The three-man team didn’t like the orders. However, intellectually they realized that with Reggie’s background, trapping the van or the girls would be a likely scenario, so they obeyed.

  Inside the Peacekeeper, Maggie was furious at the delay, but she held her tongue. She knew that getting others killed would not help the surviving girl and would probably also kill her. Lacey’s face was pale and Patricia had tears in her eyes. Lacey noted a compassionate expression on Tim’s face as he turned to make eye contact with his wife. Bill Young sadly shook his head and said, “Another set of atrocities we can chalk up to Reggie.”

  Reggie saw the men approach the van. Something in him snapped when he realized that he was about to lose the remaining girl. He had patiently stalked that girl for a week killing her family members one at a time until he had been able to kill her mother as the woman had tried to sneak the girl out of the little city in Arkansas. He’d taken her captive then and raped her repeatedly beside her mother’s corpse. Since then, he’d raped that girl a dozen times. He did not intend to lose her. The other had outgrown her usefulness and he’d killed her, but he intended to keep this girl.

  Reggie raised his rifle, but in his anger, he rushed the shot. The bullet plowed into the upper portion of the body of the van, three inches from Sergeant Wilcox’s head. The three strike team members scrambled for cover.