Lex Talionis

by Peter Nealen

  “I still say this place looks like a Bond villain’s lair,” Nick murmured.

  The two of us were hunkered down in the greenery, not far from the edge of the target property. We were both drenched to the skin with a combination of our own sweat and the moisture that seemed to perpetually drip off the vegetation.

  “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for the faceless minions in gray coveralls,” I muttered.

  Sarcasm aside, if ever there was a candidate for “Bond villain” status among the factions, it was Eugene Stavros. Richer than Midas, he’d never held office, but he was the great mover and shaker in numerous political circles, mainly those that leaned left. He was suspected to be the richest man in the entire world, and he was not shy about using that money to buy influence and bankroll his preferred causes.

  Unlike the likes of Eddings, however, Stavros didn’t appear to be primarily driven by self-interest. Oh, he certainly profited handsomely off of his little projects, regardless of how destructive they turned out to be, but he was a pretty consistent ideologue. Unfortunately, his ideology was some kind of utopian, far-left, anarcho-communist bullshit that meant most of his bankrolling dollars went to anyone and everyone who had interests in tearing down society for the sake of “revolution.” He wasn’t terribly picky about their stated goals, either. As long as they were disruptive and generally leaned left, he’d give them money. Some said that he practically owned just about every Leftist political party in the States; I was personally skeptical, and apparently, so was Bates.

  What none of us was skeptical about was that Stavros was one of the biggest and most central personalities in “Sulla.” The more intel we gathered, the more lesser personalities we rolled up, the more it became apparent that the man had his fingers in every corner of that particular network. What his ultimate endgame was, no one could quite tell; he was on record espousing multiple conflicting agendas. If disruption was his primary aim, presumably with his weird anarcho-communist Promised Land at the end of it, it kind of made a twisted sort of sense.

  His sprawling estate on the big island of Hawaii only added to his already generally sinister reputation. Twenty acres of jungle had been cleared and replaced with meticulously manicured lawn and landscaping, with a ten-thousand square foot house squatting in the middle. Personally, I thought the house was ugly as sin, but the blocky, stair-step construct of steel, glass, and white plastered concrete had just the right Frank Lloyd Wright modernist look for a Bond villain.

  It also had tighter security than most government facilities. The single access road had a minimum of three hardened checkpoints on it before even reaching the main gate, which was fortified enough to withstand a truck bomb. Armed helicopter patrols circled the estate on five-mile loops, and roving foot patrols paced the perimeter of the cleared lawns, just inside a double ring of metal pylons, which the Cicero Group suspected were some sort of electric or sonic intrusion deterrent fence. It was mainly speculation; Stavros’ information security was as tight as his estate’s physical security.

  There were also eight-rotor drones buzzing around the perimeter, augmenting the foot patrols. We’d been able to get the specs on the Arc Tech drones, though we suspected that they’d probably been modified with any number of area denial systems and weapons beyond the factory specifications.

  The house itself looked like it should be somewhat vulnerable, given how much of the wall space was given up to gigantic picture windows, but there was a faint greenish tint to those windows that suggested to me that they were armored glass.

  It was going to be one hell of a tough nut to crack, but the target was worth the effort.

  A helicopter roared by overhead, making for the helipad on the roof. It wasn’t one of Stavros’ contract security patrols; this looked like a transport for somebody important. Given the line of high-end, luxury SUVs and limousines already parked in the expansive driveway, this was only the latest of several important visitors.

  “This is one hell of a meet,” Alek murmured. I hadn’t been in the field with the big Samoan since East Africa; he’d taken over the ops chief job once we’d started operations in Kurdistan, what felt like half a lifetime ago. But once he and the rest of the boys had managed to get back Stateside, he’d insisted on falling in with what was left of our old team. Larry had effectively stepped into Jim’s shoes well enough that Alek hadn’t wanted to stir things up too much, and had simply filled a slot, one of several left vacant by Jim’s, Ben’s, Little Bob’s, and Derek’s absence. “You sure we’re outside their detection bubble?”

  “No,” I whispered in reply. “But if they know we’re here, they’re taking their sweet time raising the alarm.” Again, we didn’t have reliable information as to what kind of early warning systems Stavros’ estate had in place, but we were assuming the worst. Still, we’d gotten close enough through the jungle that we could get eyes on, without, apparently, being detected.

  Larry’s voice hissed in my earpiece. “In position. This sucks.”

  Jungle movement is some of the nastiest hiking possible, in my opinion. Between the thickness of the growth, which snags and tangles gear, weapons, and limbs equally, and the sopping heat, it is about as miserable as it gets. Add in Larry’s size, and it gets worse. He had to be hurting, after the damned-near eleven klick movement to get close to Stavros’ estate.

  I checked my watch. Larry’s was the last element to check in. All of our teams were on deck for this little party; nearly a hundred combat-hardened killers slipping through the jungle to fan out around the southern and eastern flanks of the estate. But I was less concerned about all our players being in place than I was about making sure that all the targets were there before we kicked things off.

  We’d started getting wind of this little get-together about a week before, thanks both to Bates’ networks and Derek’s cyber snooping. We still didn’t know what the occasion was, but a lot of “Sulla’s” major personalities were flying out to Hawaii to meet with Stavros. It was too juicy a target to pass up. If the Group’s analysis panned out, we could all but cripple one of the factions in one fell swoop.

  Of course, I was skeptical. Decapitation strikes are rarely as effective as anyone thinks they should be. We’d found that out the hard way in Mexico, chasing the top HVT on half a dozen watch lists, only to find out he’d been a red herring. But at the very least, we would put a serious hurting on “Sulla.” And at that point, that was enough.

  “That looks like Senator Richardson,” Nick murmured. I put my eye back to my own scope, burning through the foliage between us and the estate to watch the figures getting off the helo. Sure enough, the pantsuited woman with her blond hair pulled back behind her head certainly looked like the Senator from Vermont. A fat man in a dark suit, who had to be sweltering in the late-morning Hawaii heat, met her at the edge of the pad and shook her hand before ushering her down inside the house.

  “That’s got to be the last one,” Bryan whispered. He was watching our rear security, but keeping tabs on what was going on at the same time.

  “If everybody’s on time, sure,” I answered. “But we don’t know for certain who all’s inside.”

  Still, we knew we had a limited time window in which to pull this off. The meeting was set to start at two in the afternoon, and even if many of the attendees stayed around for the expensive—and quite possibly illegal for normal people—entertainment that was almost guaranteed to come later, not all of them were certain to. If we were going to crack that nut open and pry these little fucks out, we were going to have to move soon.

  I was preparing to give the “go” order, which would get our diversion moving, when one of the aerial patrols went by overhead. The patrols were flying blue MD-500s, which I couldn’t help but think was mainly because they wanted to imitate Special Mission Units riding around in Little Birds. They didn’t have the side benches, but the side doors were open and men in cheap blue fatigues with ARs were leaning out the doors, scanning the jungle.

&nb
sp; We hunkered down, freezing as the helo passed overhead. We were under a fair bit of concealment, but movement draws the eye, even through foliage. Getting burned at this point wouldn’t necessarily be disastrous, but it never is a good idea to surrender the initiative, especially when you’re looking to raid a hardened position like Stavros’ manor. Not to mention that some of us had traded fire with a helicopter before, and none of us who had were in a hurry to repeat the experience.

  The bird moved away, and I started to breathe a little easier. At least until a SAM whooshed up from somewhere below the cliff that loomed above the ocean and blew it apart.

  The helo was flying low enough that the shockwave of the detonation slapped at the jungle below, and we felt the wind of it from where we were crouched. Frag whickered through the air, as the tail rotor came apart along with a good chunk of the boom, and the stricken bird spun halfway around before falling onto the lawn just over the edge of the cliff.

  “I’m pretty sure that was not in the plan,” Bryan said, just after the catastrophic noise of the crash ended.

  Fuck. I keyed the radio. “Someone is trying to poach our targets,” I sent. “Move in.”

  I heaved myself to my feet. In addition to the veg, the terrain, and the heat, what had made the movement so rough getting into position had been all the crap we’d needed to haul along with us. We had not expected the mansion to be any kind of a soft target, so we’d brought along any number of breaching toys, including a few that we’d never seen before, since Stavros was assumed to have enough money to have all sorts of high-tech, sci-fi security arrangements. Never mind the body armor, since we were probably going to be fighting a number of heavily-armed PSDs in close quarters. That shit adds up and gets heavy.

  We had halted far enough back in the weeds that, while we could see, we were less likely to be seen, and were out of the presumed range of whatever effect those metal pylons on the lawn had. So, it took a good moment to get everyone up and to the edge of the vegetation.

  By then, we could already hear a new snarl of helicopter rotors in the distance, even over the sirens and yelling that had erupted all over the compound after the stricken helicopter had crashed. The competition was inbound, apparently by air.

  The yard was in chaos. What I could only assume were crash/fire rescue personnel were pouring out of the mansion and heading for the burning wreckage of the crashed patrol helicopter. More men with guns were spreading out on the roof and could be seen moving around the big picture windows near the visible doors. With surprise lost, this had just become an even harder target. With the number of bigwigs in there, there were going to be a lot of security types, all now alerted and actively looking for threats.

  Well, that was why we got paid the big bucks.

  I paused, just for a moment, taking a knee at the edge of the thick vegetation. With our original plan shot to shit, we were going to have to adjust, and quickly. There was no time for anything complicated; we’d have to move fast and hit hard. That meant we had to hit with overwhelming force, so we would also have to concentrate our efforts on only one breach point.

  As I reached for my radio, Larry moved up with Jack and Eric, completing what was left of the team. We were the main assault team, with Tommy’s team, mostly made up of new guys, backing us up.

  “This is Hillbilly,” I sent. “Gate team, you are now our way out. Secure the gate, prepare to support by fire, and stand by. Support by fire team, suppress those assholes on the roof, and hold position. All maneuver elements, on me, make for Breach Point Two.”

  As soon as I finished speaking, I was releasing the PTT and reaching for one of the bulky gadgets that I’d stuffed in a taco pouch on my rig. None of the others would fit the damned thing.

  It was a black plastic box, about the size of one of the little Pelican micro cases. Small, black plastic “hockey pucks” lined front, back, and both sides. There was a simple knob next to one of the bigger pucks, on what I thought of as the “front.” It was surprisingly heavy for its size, which only made it that much crappier that we needed to carry so damned many of the things.

  I twisted the knob. To my right and left, Alek and Nick were doing the same to identical boxes. Then, almost as one, we lobbed them out of the bushes and toward the nearest pylons, which were only a few meters away.

  We had been told that we only needed to get them within a couple of meters of the pylons, but of course, we tried to nail the metal posts themselves, anyway. None of us entirely trusted the little EMP generators, so we wanted to get them as close to their targets as possible. Mine landed about four feet from my target. Alek’s overshot by a couple of feet. Nick’s landed right at the base of his. He smirked, but didn’t say anything or even look at us when both of us turned to look at him.

  I counted to three. That should be long enough for the EMP grenades to do their thing, though there was no sound or visual indicator that anything had happened. If you were up close, you might hear a faint whine from one of the grenades, but that would have been drowned out by the cacophony of helicopters, shouting guards, and burning wreckage across the compound, anyway.

  Before I’d hit “two,” the support by fire element opened fire from the trees, the M60E6s’ stuttering roars blending into each other in one continuous, hammering wall of noise. Dust and chips of cement were blasted off the top of the building, where the armed guards were suddenly ducking below the concrete parapet to try to keep their heads.

  Coming to my feet, I ran toward the selected breach point. I could already see the specks of four incoming helicopters out over the ocean. Then there wasn’t time to worry about them anymore.

  I passed the metal pylons without getting shocked, or violently nauseated, or blasted back by a sonic shockwave. Whatever they did, the EMP grenades appeared to have put them out of action.

  Of course, it was also possible that they didn’t do anything, and were just decorations there to make Stavros feel more like a Bond villain, and we’d just wasted several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment to neutralize them. But if they had been something nasty, then we sure would have wished we’d used the black boxes.

  Besides, it was another pound and a half I didn’t have to lug across that fucking lawn.

  It felt like the longest sprint ever. A shot snapped past my head, but was quickly answered by another long burst of machinegun fire from the trees. So far, Tim’s and Ross’s teams were doing a good job of keeping the shooters on the roof suppressed. They didn’t have a line on the guys at the door, though.

  Since they weren’t taking fire, the head of the detail at the south door apparently decided they needed to move, maybe to try to maneuver on the gunners. They slid the door open, and a knot of them ran out and took a knee around the support pillars holding up the overhang.

  In contrast to my sarcastic comment about faceless minions in gray coveralls, these guys were kitted out like a high-end SWAT team; Ranger Green fatigues and kit, and the by-then ubiquitous cutaway Ops-Core style helmets. They were also loaded for bear, with SCARs and at least one Mk48 visible.

  I saw that Mk48 coming up to point right at my face, by then only about thirty meters away. I threw myself flat, hoping and praying that I’d get down fast enough, even though the lawn was flat as hell, and there really was no place to hide.

  I probably would have been dead right there, except that right at that point, Eddie’s team crashed the gate, and the helos descended on the compound.

  The roaring of the armored trucks that Eddie and his boys were driving had been drowned out by the noise of the firefight and the sirens, but when a five-ton truck with another two tons of steel welded to it hit that gate at close to fifty miles per hour, there was no missing it. As solidly as the gate had been built, it still wasn’t heavy enough to stop the truck. The rolling gate was smashed off its rails and twisted around by the impact. Concrete was pulverized into flying dust where the gate was ripped out of its moorings.

  Even so, the gate didn’t just drop f
lat, so the truck was almost flipped over as it bounced over the wreckage. The one behind it held back, so as not to get tangled with the first one, or repeat the experience.

  I took all of that in in a split second. My focus was on that 48 gunner, who had taken his eyes off me for just a moment, as he flinched a little from the crash of the gate getting smashed in.

  Just a moment was all I needed. I got my rifle in my shoulder and dumped five rounds at him as fast as I could. At least one connected solidly; he jerked and fell on his face, on top of his MG.

  As I was shooting, Alek was bounding forward, sprinting another fifteen yards before dropping to a knee and opening fire. Eddie’s guys rose up out of the backs of the trucks as soon as they’d stopped moving, while they were still rocking on their shocks, swinging M240Ls up on hastily bolted-on armatures, and opened fire in the same moment.

  The concrete pillars provided some cover for the enemy shooters, but only some, and between us and the two 7.62 machineguns on the trucks, our opponents really had no place to hide.

  Alek knocked one of the riflemen flat on his ass with a trio of shots, and I got another one high in the chest, above his plate, before two long bursts from the machinegunners tore the small knot of gunmen apart. Eddie’s boys were shooting low, chopping legs and knees out from under the men so that they fell into the streams of bullets, which both gunners were playing back and forth across a pretty narrow cone. In seconds, the entryway was piled with a blood-spattered heap of torn flesh, shredded gear, and shattered bone.

  We had kept moving forward while the gunners hosed down the opposition, and got under the overhang just as the first helicopter roared by overhead.

  I spared a glance as it went over. It looked a lot like a Blackhawk, except that it was smaller and more angular. If I’d had the time or the energy to spare, I’d have shaken my head. Whoever these guys were, they had access to the same sort of stealth helos that DEVGRU had used on the Bin Laden raid. Except I was pretty sure these weren’t JSOC; posse comitatus aside, we had people there, and if JSOC had been getting involved, we would have heard something.