by Peter Nealen
But there are two times of the day when it’s just damned hard to see, and that’s what is called in the military End of Evening Nautical Twilight and Beginning of Morning Nautical Twilight. The sun has either just gone down or is just coming up, and the entire world is a sort of vague gray that is increasingly lacking in contrast. NVGs suck, the naked eye sucks, only thermals stand a chance of seeing much clearly past a few dozen yards during EENT or BMNT. I was sure they had thermals, but we had two ways of getting around that.
Unfortunately, in South Dakota in February, one of those ways meant getting dangerously uncomfortable.
It had been warm enough over the last week that most of the snow was gone, and Rapid Creek wasn’t completely iced over. It still felt like it should be. Even with a wetsuit on under my cammies, the water had put icy daggers through my body as soon as I’d gotten in, and my extremities were painfully numb. It was going to make fighting interesting. But there was no other way to do it. Their security was thin along the creek. Baumgartner was too careful not to have security around the back of the farm, but they weren’t necessarily expecting somebody to be nuts enough to go swimming in a farm creek in South Dakota in February.
I still got to the insertion point right on time; I’d worked hard to get there, though I’d had to temper my enthusiasm to avoid splashing around. I’d actually deliberately gotten in downstream, so that I’d have more work to get into position, thus hopefully keeping my core temperature up. My hands were still painfully cold, but I could flex my fingers, and hold onto my knife.
Right on schedule, Ross gunned the pickup out on the road, the full-throated roar of the engine echoing across the fields. Hopefully, that should get all eyes looking toward the road and away from the creek, at least for a moment.
I hauled myself out of the water, resisting the urge to hobble, as I’d essentially been low-crawling through freezing water for a quarter mile, and my muscles were stiff with cold and rubbery with exertion, grabbed the top rail of the corral in front of me, and dragged myself over, careful to lower myself to the ground rather than drop with a squelching thud. Then I got flat in the dead, wilted weeds next to the fence and waited.
The roar of the engine faded into the distance. There were no shouts, no movement that I could see through the early morning dimness, no gunshots, no sign that I’d been spotted at all. I still stayed put for a few moments, just to be sure.
Once I was reasonably certain that I hadn’t been made, I started to creep along the fence, hugging the bottom rail, moving inches at a time. It was agonizingly slow, and I was all too aware of the morning getting brighter around me, though it was overcast enough to keep it from getting too light, too soon.
I knew roughly where the back sentries were going to be. While we hadn’t had time to build much of a pattern of life, what we’d seen were pretty solid security positions, though not necessarily with eyes on the spot where I’d vaulted the fence. Still, I kept glancing through the openings in the fence, and the next one over, watching for my first target.
This was going to be dicey. I’d dragged a Compressor, an integrally suppressed .300 Blackout SBR, with me, so I wasn’t so worried about firepower. It was more a matter of taking the sentries down fast enough and then moving on the house. The Blackout was quiet as hell, especially since I’d loaded subsonic rounds for it, but no firearm is ever entirely silent.
I spotted my target, barely ten yards away. Most of what I could see was muddy boots and Crye pants, as the fence rails occluded most of the rest of him, at least from where I lay at the moment. I’d gotten a lot closer than I’d expected.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, I rolled back from the fence, the weapon in my shoulder, looking for a window that would give me a kill shot. This had to be fast and final. There was no room for fucking around.
I got a clear view of his head just as he turned and looked straight at me. I thought I recognized him for a split second, before his mouth opened and his weapon started to come up, but I had him dead to rights.
The rifle spat, sounding like a particularly quiet .22, his head jerked back with a dark, glistening spray, and he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
Now the game was up. Once you kill someone on an infiltration, the infiltration is over. Somebody is going to notice something wrong, even if you manage to get the body hidden without being spotted. And as quiet as it had been, a gunshot is unmistakable to the trained ear. And given that there was probably a couple centuries worth of combat experience on that farm at that moment, there would be a lot of trained ears listening.
There was, unfortunately, no way under the fence; the rails were far too close together. I had to either go over or around. The gate into the next corral was only a few feet away, though, so that was a no-brainer.
I got to my knees, then, bent double to keep my head below the top of the fence, I ran to the gate, ignoring the pained protests of my near-frozen muscles. The gate was latched, but not locked, and it was a matter of a couple of seconds to get through.
Another body was crumpled next to the hay barn, and the shaggy forms of Eric and Bryan were running forward, still in their ghillie suits. They’d been carefully crawling into position on the west flank since shortly after dark, and they’d dispatched the second sentry at the same moment I’d shot the guy next to the corral. Keeping my head down, I sprinted for the barn.
We hit the side of the hay barn at about the same time. Chests heaving, we traded a quick, “You good?” look, then got our guns up and started moving again.
Slipping around the back of the barn, we came to the backyard, which was thick with trees. It had to be deeply shaded during the summertime, though somewhat less so in February, with all the leaves off the trees. Still, there was enough concealment that we’d be able to get close to the house with less chance of being spotted, particularly if we moved fast. The clock was ticking, with those bodies on the ground.
I ran from tree to tree, trading bounds with Eric and Bryan, each of us covering the other as we moved forward. For all the urgency of the mission, this was not the time nor the place to simply rush in where angels fear to tread.
I dashed to one of the last trees before the house, a gigantic, gnarled old bastard that had probably been growing there for close to a century, and hit the trunk just as the back door opened, and a man with a rifle stepped out.
I only got a glimpse as I flattened myself against the tree, but he was short, solidly built, and wearing a chest rig and carrying a SCAR. He was alert and looking around, the door still open behind him.
I took a deep breath, visualizing exactly where I’d have to put my sights to kill him before he could get his rifle up. Then I swung around the trunk, dropping my muzzle through the Y of the lowest branches.
He was at the low ready, stepping down off the porch, looking toward my tree. He’d seen or heard something, and was looking for us.
Even as my sights came level with his head, and he started to snap his own rifle up, there was a harsh spitting noise from behind me, and his head jerked back. He dropped on his face on the dead grass of the yard, landing on top of his rifle. Fortunately, everything was still wet enough that it muffled the sound.
I came around the tree and sprinted toward the door, my rifle’s sights only a bare couple of inches from my eye. I had to be ready to engage fast.
As I mounted the porch, I could hear Baumgartner’s voice from inside.
“What the fuck is going on out there?” he was demanding.
Another voice answered, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“Well, fuck,” he drawled, sounding supremely unconcerned. “I guess your boyfriend’s here. Which means I’m afraid we won’t have time to get any better acquainted, darlin’. Sorry. It’s nothing personal.”
There was a shout, a heavy thud, and then a series of gunshots. I went through the door behind my rifle, safety off and finger already resting lightly on the trigger.
Chapter 30
I kn
ew that Eric and Bryan were behind me somewhere, but I didn’t know exactly where. It was a one man clear, it was stupid, and I was probably going to die. But I knew that Mia, at least, was in there, and she might have just been murdered. If I couldn’t save her, I was going to kill that son of a bitch, or die trying.
The back door opened onto a short hallway, with the kitchen immediately to the right, and the living room straight ahead. I could see one dude, a pistol in his hands, looking at something happening to the right, but hesitating, as if he was trying to get a shot at somebody, but couldn’t find a clear line of fire. He saw me come through the door out of the corner of his eye, and whipped around, the Glock coming up to point at me, but I already had him, my front sight settling just above his nose even as he turned.
I double-tapped him in the face, as fast as the trigger reset would let me. The second round blew the top of his skull off as he fell.
I came around the corner, knowing I was turning my back to the second hallway that led off the living room, presumably toward the bedrooms, but there was no helping it.
There was a bearded man slumped against the exterior wall, his front awash in blood, a red smear on the wallpaper behind him. Mia was down on the floor in front of the couch.
Little Bob, almost as bloody as the corpse only a few feet away, was on top of Baumgartner amidst the wreckage of the coffee table, holding on to the killer’s pistol with both hands and throwing weakening elbows into Baumgartner’s face, while Baumgartner stabbed him repeatedly in the side.
It was a tricky shot, with Little Bob between us, but I put my sights on Baumgartner’s head. His eyes met mine a split second before I squeezed the trigger.
I dumped five rounds into his skull from about ten feet away. The last two just bounced what was left of his shattered head around, spattering more blood and pulverized brain matter on the carpet.
Little Bob rolled off him with a groan, leaking way too much blood out of his side. Eric and Bryan blew past me to cover the front door and windows, while Alek, Larry, and Nick pushed in the back door.
He was hurt bad, but Little Bob was alive, at least for the moment. I turned to where Mia was lying, face-down on the carpet, my heart in my throat.
She rolled over, and I breathed a little easier. She was alive. She reached up and squeezed my hand, just to let me know she was all right, before turning to Little Bob.
There was no time for anything else. The rest of Baumgartner’s shooters had heard the commotion and were coming. Alek, crouched next to the front window, over the corpse of the guy Little Bob had shot, yanked a frag out of his vest, pulled the pin, and chucked it through the already broken window. At least one of Little Bob’s shots had shattered the glass.
There was a yell from outside, that was drowned out by the tooth-jarring wham of the detonation. Alek had put some juice into the throw, since there was no way the farmhouse walls were going to stop the buzz-saw fragments coming off the grenade. The concussion still shattered every window on the east side of the house, and blew dirt and smoke through the door and windows.
The grenade was a vital part of the plan. It wasn’t just to keep the enemy’s heads down and hopefully blast a few more of them to kingdom come. It was also the signal to Eddie and Ross that we had the house.
For a moment, after the echoes of the blast faded, everything went quiet. Nobody was shooting, nobody was talking. Little Bob was groaning, as Mia tried desperately to staunch the blood flowing from the dozen or more knife wounds in his side and abdomen. I wanted to help, but there were still bad guys out there, and in combat, the best medicine remains lead downrange.
An intense burst of fire hammered the front of the house, punching through walls and the remnants of window glass. We all dropped flat, and I threw myself over Mia and Little Bob, pushing Mia’s head down as bullets snapped through the air overhead and the room filled with flying splinters and drywall dust.
Alek rolled onto his side, leaning out of the open front door, and hammered half a mag out the opening. The incoming fire only intensified in reply; these guys were not going to be easy to suppress, and they didn’t seem to give a shit that three of their number might still be in the house. Either they figured Baumgartner and the others had to be dead for us to still be alive and kicking in there, or this bunch had selected for “functional sociopath” as much as The Project had.
If we’d been on our own, we might have been in serious trouble. But Eddie and Ross had just been waiting for that frag to go off. These were the assholes who’d hunted us in our own backyard, and they had taken two of our own hostage. The entire damn company was out for blood.
With a rattling roar, four M60s opened fire from the north, raking both the front and back yards. The fire directed at the house fell off to nothing, as Baumgartner’s shooters took cover and turned to face this new threat. At least some of them did.
As I straightened from where I’d been trying to shield Mia and Little Bob from the incoming fire, I looked out the window to see three men sprinting toward the house, their weapons up. They were going to chance the fire to try to get inside and kill us.
One of them was cut down by a long burst from one of the machine guns. Alek and Nick blasted the second off his feet. I whipped my rifle to my shoulder, put the front sight post on the third one’s nose, and shot him just as he saw me through the window and fired a snap shot. He missed. I didn’t. He fell on his face in the dirt.
Then there was no one left to shoot. The firing died down, and Eddie’s team appeared among the trees to the north, moving forward cautiously in a skirmish line, guns up, carefully checking the bodies. George signaled, and Herman moved over, covering the slumped but still feebly moving form of one of the opposition shooters as George carefully disarmed him and handcuffed him, searching him for backup weapons and handcuff keys. Medical treatment could come later.
“Jeff!” Mia called, a rising note of desperation in her voice. “I need help! I’m losing him!”
I spun. She was still trying to patch the wounds in Little Bob’s side, but the big man was noticeably fading. His eyes were going glassy, and his breathing was getting shallow. I dropped to my knees across from Mia, ripping my own blowout kit off my gear and tearing it open frantically. We needed to patch those holes, I needed to get him covered, get an IV in him. He’d lost a lot of blood. He needed fluids, at the least.
“Dammit, Bob,” I snapped, “you have got to quit getting holes in yourself.”
His eyes sharpened slightly at the sound of my voice, and he searched my face. He tried to laugh, but there was a nasty gurgle in it, and he suddenly spasmed in pain.
“Take it easy, brother,” I told him. “Just take it easy. We’ve got you.”
His blood-smeared hand grabbed my wrist. Ordinarily, Little Bob had a hell of a grip, but you wouldn’t know it at that point. There was no strength left in his hand. “I think he cut me up too bad, bro,” he said. His voice was thin and thready, and he was having trouble breathing enough to speak. “Something…something ain’t right.”
“You’re damned right something ain’t right,” I told him, past the hard, painful lump in my throat. “You’re leaking.” I tore another chest seal open and slapped it over one of the exposed knife wounds. Damn, but there were a lot of ‘em. Baumgartner had done a number on him. “Now shut up and let us work.”
But he shook his head feebly, even as his fingers slipped off my wrist and his arm fell limply to his side. “Think I’ve…about…had it, brother,” he whispered. “At least…I didn’t give…that asshole…the satisfaction.”
Then he was gone.
We both saw it happen at the same time. His last breath sighed out of his lips, his muscles went limp and dead, and the light left his eyes. I just stopped, my hand still on the seal on his side. Mia let out a strangled sob, a blood-smeared hand going to her mouth.
Her other hand found mine, and squeezed, hard, as she broke down, sobbing over Little Bob’s body.
I just star
ed down at the corpse that had been my friend and teammate, the big, friendly former Ranger who’d taken to his nickname of “Little Bob” cheerfully, taking a sort of pride in the fact that he was “Little Bob,” when he topped the original Bob by three inches and sixty pounds. I could feel the tidal wave of grief coming. I wanted to fight it off, but this was too much. I could hardly breathe past the lump in my throat, and my eyes were burning. I wished I could have killed Baumgartner again. I wished I had been thirty seconds faster getting in the house. I wished…all of it futile in the face of another dead brother.
Alek knelt next to me, reaching one massive hand out to close Little Bob’s eyes. His own were red-rimmed, and his mouth was tight. “We’ve got to go, brother,” he said, his voice thick. Little Bob had come to the team after Alek had taken the ops chief position in Kurdistan, but it was a small company, and he’d been the original team leader. He knew Little Bob, and he was feeling the loss as hard as I was. In a way, it had to be worse for Alek; he’d been halfway around the world when Jim had been murdered. The two of them had been tight.
Tires crunched on the gravel of the front driveway, and vehicle doors slammed. Our extract was there.
I gave Mia’s hand another squeeze, then let go, slinging my rifle. We had work to do.
It took three of us to lift Little Bob’s body and carry it out to the waiting trucks. He’d lost a lot of weight since the MS-13 thugs had shot and stabbed him, but he was still a big guy. We carefully put him in the bed, covered him over with a tarp, and got ready to move out, before either law enforcement or Baumgartner’s reinforcements could show up.
There wasn’t much to do while we waited for the bird to be ready. The Rapid City Regional Airport was less than a mile from the farm we’d just shot the hell out of, so we had to have security up and early warning out, in case somebody put two and two together, between the twenty-five dirty guys with duffels that might or might not be full of gear and weapons, and the shootout that had just echoed across the farmland south of Rapid City. We’d cleaned up as best we could in the vehicles, and I’d changed out of my sopping, muddy cammies, but we still looked like we’d been in a fight. And the tarp-wrapped corpse we were toting along was not going to withstand close scrutiny for long.
