Doctors of Death

by Peter Nealen

  “They haven’t budged out of those trucks in half an hour,” Vernon pointed out, “and we fucked up those CROWS turrets pretty good.”

  “I know,” Flanagan said. “Just get moving. We’ve been sitting here too long.”

  He didn’t know Vernon well enough to explain his sudden onset of the heebie-jeebies. Fortunately, the big man just nodded, got his feet under him, and followed the order. Flanagan was the op commander, and apparently, that was enough for Vernon. Flanagan was grateful, especially since the next man in the row was Jenkins.

  But as much as he might have expected the former SEAL to be contrary, just because, Jenkins just whispered, “Roger that,” got up, and started down the wadi.

  The wiry dude, Sam, was next. He seemed to be even more close-mouthed than Flanagan normally was, and didn’t do much more than grunt. The look he gave Flanagan, just before he swept his sector and started moving, suggested that he had started to think they’d been in one place too long about fifteen minutes before.

  He got to Curtis. “Kev,” he hissed loudly. “We’ve got to move. Down the wadi. You’re the last man.”

  Curtis was squinting into the murk, his cheek still resting on the Shrike’s buttstock. Despite his endless energy and fidgety attitude, Curtis was focused on his sector. He could be dead serious when in combat; it was one of the reasons he was a Blackheart. “You heard from the Colonel already?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” Flanagan replied tightly. “But I’ve got a bad feeling, and we’ve been here too long.”

  Curtis spared him a glance. “Bad feeling how?” he asked. “Like Lashkar Gah bad feeling?”

  “More like Nawa bad feeling,” Flanagan replied.

  If Curtis hadn’t been too dark to blanch, he would have. “Oh, fuck,” he said. Without another word, he was getting up, hefting the belt-fed AR conversion, and starting down the wadi.

  Flanagan scanned the halted convoy for a long moment. The hulking shapes of the Hawkeis squatted in the wadi, unmoving, apparently helpless. There was something wrong about that picture, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.

  Then, just barely audible over the noise of the haboob, he heard engines.

  Without hesitation, Flanagan turned and dashed for cover. He hadn’t heard a call from the Colonel, but unless he was mistaken, the Humanity Front’s QRF was coming out of the haze on their flank.

  He got to a fold in the ground, a drainage channel leading down into the wadi, and threw himself flat inside it, scraping his elbows on the ground as he whipped his L1A1 around and aimed it back the way he’d come. Sure enough, though it was barely visible in the murk, the boxy form of another Hawkei was moving along the bank of the wadi, weaving between trees as best it could. The terrain was too rough for the vehicle to be making much progress very quickly; it was a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but it was still a wheeled vehicle on rough terrain, and weighed down by about ten thousand pounds of armor.

  But that CROWS turret was shifting back and forth, searching for them. And he didn’t know if the bad guys had good enough thermal imaging to see through the sand and dust.

  Under the circumstances, knowing a little of the kind of resources available to the Humanity Front, he wasn’t inclined to assume that they were entirely blind.

  He held his position for a moment, watching the oncoming vehicle, his eyes flicking from side to side, looking for another one. Where there was one, there had to be more.

  There. A second Hawkei was higher up, but making little better headway. The vehicles were meant for work on rough terrain, but the wadi wasn’t vehicle terrain, it favored infantry.

  He hunkered down in the shallow draw, unwilling to stick his head up too far, and looked back. He couldn’t see any of the others, but the terrain, the dust, and the trees limited visibility to less than a hundred meters. He hoped that the enemy vehicles were similarly handicapped. Unfortunately, they had line of sight on him; if he moved too quickly or too openly, he would be a sitting duck.

  Provided those CROWS turrets weren’t all gummed up from the storm.

  Getting down on his side in the draw, he started to shimmy down toward the trickle of muddy water at the bottom of the wadi, trying to at least put a few trees between him and the vehicles.

  That was when the gunners opened fire.

  Bullets cracked and snapped through the air, the muzzle flashes dimly visible in the darkened afternoon. Flanagan got as flat down in the draw as he could, even as bullets slammed into the tree trunk above and to his left with heavy thunks.

  It took a second to realize that they were just shooting toward where they thought the Blackhearts might be. They weren’t actually getting that close. It wasn’t a relief, though. The bad feeling he’d had that had prompted him to leave the position seemed to redouble.

  They’re driving us, or trying to. They’re not stupid. They’ve got something else brewing. He renewed his scramble down into the wadi, slipping through the close-packed acacias and down into the mud.

  Only the fact that he was already keyed up and looking for trouble saved his life. He was watching back up the wadi, toward the halted convoy, and saw the dim silhouettes of men with rifles moving down the muddy ditch toward him.

  He didn’t hesitate. He laid the sights of his rifle on the first one and squeezed the trigger.

  He was still far enough back in the clump of acacias near the draw that they probably didn’t even see his muzzle blast. The first man dropped as Flanagan’s bullet hammered into his chest, but he was still moving, and starting to get up.

  Body armor. Fuck. He shifted his aim and fired twice more, walking the shots up the man’s torso. The second shot hit just above his collarbone, and he fell backward, writhing in agony.

  Flanagan was already shifting targets. Squinting against the relentless waves of windblown dust and grit, he tried to line up his front sight post on the dim, shifting figure. He fired, saw the figure jerk as if hit, and turned to run.

  He was forced back into the draw as the enemy, suddenly realizing that their flank attack had been detected, opened fire. Bullet impacts blew chunks of bark off the nearest trees and kicked up gouts of mud and dirt. Flanagan fired a couple of hasty rounds back, but was really wishing for some grenades.

  Then a ripping roar tore through the storm, as Curtis answered the terrorists’ fire with a long burst from that Ares Shrike.

  The incoming fire slackened, though the armored vehicles were still raking the wadi ahead of their own shooters with long bursts of 7.62 fire. Flanagan hesitated a second, but knew that Curtis wasn’t going to be able to keep that rate of fire going indefinitely.

  It was one of the truisms of combat; sometimes the man most focused on clinging to life is the one who gets shot to death in a ditch. Flanagan surged to his feet, ducking around another clump of acacia trees, and ran down the wadi, his boots slipping a little in the dust-caked mud alongside the rivulet that was all that was left of the river at that time of year.

  Bullets were ripping past his head with harsh snaps and cracks as he ran, going in both directions. He could see the muzzle blast from Curtis’ belt fed; the shorter man was on a knee in the riverbed, without much in the way of cover, laying into their pursuers. For a second, it felt to Flanagan like he was running straight into that muzzle flash, but then he was past Curtis and throwing himself flat just beyond a curve in the wadi and a cut in the bank.

  He didn’t have a shot at any of the enemy from there, but he was about to put a bullet downrange anyway, just to let Curtis know he was set. He didn’t have to, though; Curtis fired one more short burst, then dashed toward the bank, shifting his course slightly as he saw Flanagan and swerved to avoid running in front of his friend’s rifle muzzle.

  More fire rattled from the far side of the wadi. Flanagan glanced that way, to see what looked like Vernon crouched against the bank, firing up the wadi toward their pursuers, a few meters back from their position.

  “Kev!” he yelled, pointing past Vernon. “K
eep going!”

  They had to break contact, and they had to do it soon. They were outnumbered and outgunned, as long as those Hawkeis held the high ground above the wadi. The storm presented an advantage, but as long as they were still in contact, that advantage was minimal. They had to make tracks, fast.

  As much as it galled Flanagan to run from a fight, he was a practical man when it came to actual combat. Success in battle, he had preached for years, was more a matter of common sense than any kind of high-speed skill. And trying to slug it out with armored vehicles while armed only with rifles was not in accord with common sense, in his book.

  So, he turned and ran, sprinting into the dust, looking for the next covered and concealed position. And he almost ran into Jenkins, who was down in a draw, facing the wrong way.

  “Joe!” Jenkins snapped, reaching out to try to grab him and pull him down next to him. “Get cover!”

  Flanagan hit the dirt, just as another bullet missed him by inches, the harsh snap almost physically painful. He hit hard, almost knocking the wind out of himself. Craning his neck as he tried to squirm into cover and look out at the same time, he got a glimpse of a shape moving in a fast crouch toward another draw on the other side of the wadi, shaded by the dark shapes of acacias, before Jenkins fired at it. The man disappeared, either hit or diving for cover.

  “They fucking flanked us,” Jenkins snapped. “There are two more vics up on the high ground to the southeast, and at least five shooters down in the wadi. We’re boxed in.”

  Flanagan had gotten himself better situated, his rifle trained down the wadi. He saw movement near the trees and fired. He shot low; most misses went high, and even if he didn’t hit, he’d throw frag and grit at the target. The movement vanished.

  He spared a moment to look around, even as Jenkins bellowed at Vernon and Curtis to join them. The two men pounded into the narrow draw, where Sam was watching up toward the higher ground, hunkered down as low as he could get.

  They were in about the best position they could find. The vehicles couldn’t move on them. Well, they could, but they wouldn’t be able to bring their weapons to bear. And they had cover.

  What they didn’t have was time or ammunition. A quick check showed him that he was down to three magazines. Sixty rounds left.

  They were on foot, without air support or vehicles. They were outnumbered and surrounded.

  He felt a strange calm as he realized just how dire their situation really was.

  I always knew that eventually, the time was going to come to die. The only bad part is that Rachel’s never going to know what happened or why. She’s just going to know that I didn’t come back.

  For a moment, the gunfire fell silent. Nobody had a target in the swirling murk, and the enemy was clearly too professional to simply spray and pray, especially since they were closing in from two different directions.

  He took the moment to make sure they had every approach covered, placing Curtis with that Ares Shrike pointing back up the wadi. There were more of them that way, so they needed the firepower in that direction.

  He found his own spot and settled down in the prone behind his L1A1, searching the trees for their adversaries. He knew they were probably dead. There was no good way out, not with those Hawkeis sitting on the high ground, presumably able to see something with their thermal imaging through the dust, and there was no way to get support through the storm. Not in time.

  But they weren’t just going to sit there and die, either. If it was his time, Joe Flanagan was going to take one hell of an honor guard with him.

  He keyed his radio. It was probably a lost cause, across the distance and through the storm, but he had to try.

  “Kodiak, Woodsrunner,” he called. “Be advised, we are pinned down in the wadi and boxed in. We’re going to make a fight of it, but we are getting low on ammunition. I don’t know if we’ll be able to hold long enough for the storm to lift and support to get here, but we’re damned sure going to try. Woodsrunner out.”

  He settled his cheek against his weapon’s buttstock and waited for the bad guys to try again.

  Chapter 23

  Brannigan’s breath was burning in his lungs, and he had to stifle the urge to cough. The grit seemed to be in every joint, abrading every bared bit of skin. And he was reminded, yet again, as he dashed to the next little patch of microterrain, just how old his knees were getting.

  He hit the ground hard, diving prone and aiming in toward the dim bulk of the HESCO barriers forming the outer wall of the Humanity Front’s compound. Their combined force of mercenaries was moving toward a spot about midway between guard towers, and those emplacements were barely visible through the orange haze of the storm.

  They’d been moving slowly, taking advantage of the diversion presented by the sudden clash between their Chinese pursuers and the Humanity Front. So far, it was working; the wall was a mere handful of meters away, and it appeared that everyone still on the compound and armed was watching the south, where they had clashed with the Chinese.

  The gunfire had died away; he had to assume that the Chinese had figured out that they’d opened fire on the camp instead of the men they’d been chasing. Which meant that the clock was ticking.

  Wade pounded past him, going clear to the HESCOs, where he slammed against the barrier with one shoulder, his L1A1 pointed up at the northern guard post. Max was right on his heels, and soon they had both guard posts covered. So far, so good.

  Brannigan got up and ran to join them. He reached the barrier just before Price.

  They were secure there at the base of the wall; the guard posts hadn’t been placed properly to engage anyone right at the base of the wall itself. It was sloppy, and Brannigan reflected that their adversaries, while still competent, had gotten complacent. After all, nobody had really threatened them in Chad, yet.

  The HESCOs were the big ones, and stacked two high, forming an earth wall almost fourteen feet tall. Barbed wire had been strung at the top.

  One of Price’s guys had switched out with Max, who ran to the center of their little perimeter, slung his rifle, put his back to the HESCOs, and cupped his hands. Two of Price’s guys were standing by with underbarrel grenade launchers, each pointing toward the guard towers. If it looked like they were made, they were going to go loud and knock the towers out with high explosives. But the longer they could stay soft, covered by the storm, the better. Which was the only reason why they hadn’t knocked those towers out already.

  Another one of Price’s contractors had started forward, but Brannigan held out a hand to forestall him. He would be the first one in. First in, last out. That had been his philosophy for over two decades, instilled in him by the likes of Ben Drake. He slung his own rifle, checked that he had his wire cutters in his chest rig, and put a boot in Max’s cupped hands.

  The pasty, doughy-looking guy was stronger than he looked. He didn’t even grunt as Brannigan put his own not-inconsiderable weight on his hands and boosted himself up. In fact, Max barely budged under the load.

  He got his hands up to the top of the HESCO and pulled himself partway up. The wind was howling across the top of the barrier, whipping more dust off the piles of dirt inside the ramparts and blowing it into his face.

  Max was still holding his boot, keeping it steady as he hooked his elbows over the HESCO’s edge and pulled his wire cutters out.

  It took a bit more effort than he’d hoped; the pouch was pressed between his chest and the outside of the HESCO barrier. But he finally pried them out and reached for the first strand of barbed wire.

  And almost lost his purchase as the guard tower to his right detonated.

  The thud of the detonation shook the wire, and he ducked as fragments whickered overhead. The tower was still there, but smoke was pouring out of a jagged hole blown in the armor plating. A moment later, the second tower was hit by two more 40mm grenades, and Brannigan ducked as another fragment embedded itself in the dirt right in front of his hand.

 
“That was a little close,” he growled, as he hastily started snipping wire. They were made, now.

  The rest clearly understood it, too. There was a rustle and scrape of movement next to him, and then Wade appeared on his right, leveling his rifle over the top of the HESCO, supported by Bianco. Another one of Price’s contractors did the same on his left.

  He couldn’t help but notice that Price himself stayed on the ground.

  The last strand parted just as Wade’s rifle thundered, knocking a running shape sprawling a few meters away. Shoving the wire cutters back into his chest rig, Brannigan hauled himself up and over, crawling over the top of the HESCO as he pushed the ends of the barbed wire aside, fighting to keep from getting snagged on them as he went.

  He got his boots through the gap, and started to lose his balance. He caught himself just in time, and turned a fall into a semi-controlled drop to the dusty ground beneath. His knee almost buckled as he hit, but he turned and rolled, spreading the impact, barely managing to keep from landing on his rifle.

  As he came up, he saw an armed man, his face wrapped in a balaclava, running toward him, already bringing his bullpup F2000 up. Brannigan fought to bring his L1A1 around, but knew he was still way too far out of position.

  Then a pair of shots, one heavier, one lighter, hammered overhead, and knocked the man sprawling in the dust. Wade was still on overwatch.

  Brannigan got up on a knee and brought his rifle to bear, his heart pounding and his throat as dry as the sandstorm itself. That had been too close.

  He was in the middle of an open strip of ground, that apparently went all the way around the inside of the compound. There were walled tents to his left, and conex boxes to his right.

  Staying in the open was a bad idea. He got up, his knee aching with the movement, and dashed as best he could to the nearest conex, taking up a covered position behind it, his rifle trained toward the center of the camp, where the fancier trailers sat, including the sealed, air-conditioned trailer that Price was sure was the bioweapons lab.