by Peter Nealen
Got to at least get one of these before Wade cleans up all by himself. Bianco felt vaguely guilty about the thought. Not that he was out to kill these scumbags; he’d always known that combat was combat, and killing was part of it. Nor was he particularly squeamish about killing. He’d certainly done enough of it.
But he’d gotten the idea in his head a long time ago that killing, even righteous killing, was supposed to be something you didn’t enjoy. He wasn’t sure where he’d picked it up, but it made him feel guilty every time he went into a firefight and realized he’d never felt so alive.
He skidded to a halt just behind the machinegunner and got the Carl G on his shoulder. “Load me!” he yelled. He felt the launcher moving as the guy behind him opened the venturi, shoved in and locked the round, and shut the launcher. “Loaded!”
One of Price’s guys, a skinny man with a bushy beard pushing the top of his plate carrier, grabbed Bianco by the shoulder. “You’ve got one left,” he yelled into Bianco’s ear. “One hundred meters, straight ahead as you go around the corner.” A burst of automatic fire tore into the dirt and the corner of the trailer next to them, driving all of them back. “He’s the last one, and he knows it. Make it count.”
Bianco nodded, feeling the itch to get out there and beat Wade to the punch more than he really was the caution not to stick his head out into the stream of bullets. But he wasn’t stupid; he waited until the enemy fire fell silent, then leaned out, his eye pressed to the optical sight, searching for the target.
For a second, all he could see was the HESCO ahead of him. He scanned desperately, afraid that he was going to miss the target and get shot. He heard the man behind him yell, “Backblast area all clear!”
There. He centered the box of the guard post in the sight and squeezed the trigger, hoping that he wasn’t going to commit the boot mistake of trying to compensate for recoil that wasn’t there. He’d seen more than one rocket miss low because of that. He’d done it himself, once or twice.
But he didn’t flinch, didn’t dip the launcher as he squeezed the trigger. The round banged out and struck the post at the bottom corner, blowing one panel out completely in an ugly black cloud, quickly dispersed by the wind.
He lowered the launcher. The compound had gone eerily quiet. Unless there was someone else hiding in the billeting trailers, the Humanity Front camp was secure.
He set the Carl Gustaf down and picked up his L1A1, turning as Brannigan and Wade came over to join him.
“Let’s finish clearing this place out,” Brannigan said grimly. “Then we’ll do what we came here to do.”
***
They swept the billeting trailers, and found only a few techs and maintenance personnel, huddled behind locked doors that were quickly kicked open, most of them terrified by the cacophony of gunfire and explosions that had rocked the compound. They were herded to join the techs, scientists, and administrators.
Brannigan had just reentered the command and control trailer when his radio crackled. This time, he thought he could make out some words. He held the speaker to his ear and listened.
“Kodiak, Woodsrunner.” The words were faint, but he could just make out Flanagan’s voice.
“Woodsrunner, go for Kodiak,” he replied.
“Finally,” Flanagan said, a distinct note of relief in his voice, even over the pops and crackles of interference and the still-stiff roar of the storm outside. “We’ve been trying to get through for half an hour.”
“We’ve been a little busy here,” Brannigan said. “Status?”
“All up and up,” Flanagan said. “But you need to be aware, the enemy vehicles pulled off our position about thirty-five, forty minutes ago. They’re probably halfway back to the camp or better by now.”
“Roger that,” Brannigan replied. “Where are you?”
“On our way to the RV point,” Flanagan answered. “We’ll hole up until the weather clears. Do we know what the status on the birds is?”
Price was standing nearby and could hear. “They moved to a secondary site,” he said. “They’re secure, at least until the storm clears.”
Brannigan nodded and passed the information along to Flanagan. “Sit tight and wait the storm out,” he said. “We’ll be finished up here shortly.”
“How bad is it?” Flanagan asked.
“Worse than we thought,” was all Brannigan said. “I’ll fill you in when we rendezvous.” He didn’t like having the team split for longer than necessary, but there simply wasn’t any way for them to link up at the moment. Not in the middle of the sandstorm.
Price was studying him as he put the radio back in his chest rig. “What?”
“Are you planning on just torching this place and then immediately exfilling?” Price asked.
“I’ve learned one thing about you, Price,” Brannigan growled. “And that’s that you don’t ask questions unless you’ve already got some kind of follow-on ready. What?”
“I’m just thinking that we’ve got the heavy weapons and we’ve got a reasonably secure position here,” Price said. “And we know that the rest of their security is en route. We can deal with them now, or we can deal with them later, during our own exfil.”
“You’re thinking about setting an ambush?” Brannigan asked, rubbing his chin. Dust and stubble grated under his thumb.
“Why not?” Price asked. “It’ll take one more batch of psychopaths off the board, and keep them off our asses.”
Brannigan nodded. It made sense. And while he still wasn’t entirely sure just which way Price was going to jump when this was all over, he had to admit that he was more than a little interested in seeing this particular organization hurt as much as possible.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll put off the burn for a little bit longer. Get more of those Carl Gustafs out of the team room, and let’s get ready to greet our hosts.”
Chapter 27
The storm was starting to die down by the time the convoy of Hawkei armored vehicles loomed out of the dust. The wind had subsided, and visibility was getting slightly better.
Better visibility meant that the gunners and drivers spotted the ruins of the gate and the northeast guard posts before they got too close. The 84mm HEDP rounds had struck from the inside, so they still got within half a klick, closer than they might have otherwise, before they noticed that something was wrong.
Or maybe they already knew. There had to have been radio calls that had gone unanswered. Brannigan could hope that they had put that down to the storm; comms had been rough at best since it had hit. But given that they’d already been ambushed once, they had to be expecting trouble, especially as they got closer to the camp and couldn’t make contact.
They were slowing down as they got closer, the CROWS turrets slowly traversing from side to side, scanning the walls and the guard towers. Brannigan was watching through the open gate, using binoculars borrowed from Price. He watched as they halted, just over five hundred meters away.
Should have stopped farther back, you sons of bitches. You’re still in range. But he didn’t give the order yet.
He didn’t want any of them getting away.
There were seven vehicles. He counted six gun trucks and that box-cab pseudo-ambulance. Unless they’d split off another ambulance, Flanagan and the boys must have done a number on a couple of them. Given the IED that he knew they’d taken with them, he expected no less. Even so, he keyed his radio.
“Angry Ragnar, Kodiak. You got anything?”
“Negative,” Wade replied. He was back in the guard post that he had cleared himself; it was one of the only really intact ones left. He had a shot at the entire northern sector from there. He wouldn’t be in position to wreak havoc if they came in through the gate first, but if they tried getting sneaky, he’d cause some trouble.
Even as Brannigan watched, the lead gun truck started backing up. “That tears it,” he said. “They know something’s up.” He keyed his radio. “Execute.”
Two 84mm H
EDP rounds banged out from the gateway. The lead gun truck momentarily disappeared in an ugly black puff, the crump of the impact and detonation reaching Brannigan a moment later. The next one, right to its left, had managed to half-turn, and took the round right to the passenger door. It rocked as the explosion blew half the door off and shredded the front tire. Within seconds, both vehicles were burning fiercely.
The others opened fire immediately, raking the gateway and the wrecked guard posts with 7.62 fire as they backed up as fast as they could. None of them appeared to have smoke launchers; those weren’t usually standard equipment for gun trucks anyway. They’d overpenetrated, and now they were in a kill zone and desperately trying to get out of it.
But they weren’t just scrambling in panic, either. Within seconds, the gun trucks had withdrawn behind the two stricken vehicles, their own signatures masked by the smoke and bulk of the wrecks. They were smart, even if that meant using the corpses of their comrades as cover.
Of course, given what he’d seen of these people, Brannigan reflected, he shouldn’t be surprised.
Unfortunately, set in like they were, the Blackhearts weren’t in a position to flank the enemy. And the ground was too flat to get a good shot at them otherwise.
The machinegun fire died off as the CROWS turrets were masked by the burning wreckage. The mercenaries hunkered down inside the Humanity Front’s FOB held their fire; there was no point in wasting ammunition when there was no target.
For a long moment, the only sounds were the whisper of the wind and the fierce crackle of the flames in the distance as the vehicles burned. Brannigan scanned the open ground that he could see, not trusting that they’d broken off completely.
A sudden rattle of automatic fire broke the quiet, as one of the Shrike gunners opened up from the smashed gateway. Several rifle shots joined in, and the hollow thunk of a grenade launcher, followed a couple seconds later by a distant crump. Then the base went quiet again.
“Kodiak, Gamer,” Bianco called over the radio. “They just tried a foot-mobile approach, coming around toward the north. Not sure we got ‘em all. Tell Angry Ragnar to keep an eye out.”
“I’m already watching, Gamer,” Wade replied. “You worry about your sector.”
Brannigan didn’t comment, and Bianco subsided. Wade could be cheerful, or he could get snappish. When he was being admonished not to miss any bad guys, it tended to make him more like his callsign.
Brannigan waited a long moment, then got up and started toward the gate. He’d allowed Price to prevail on him to stay back and help plan their exfil, but he couldn’t stand it any longer. Most of the shooters on target might be Price’s boys, but he still had Bianco and Wade with him. He needed to be in the fight.
He called out, “Coming in,” as he neared the gateway. The gate had been set up as a serpentine of HESCO barriers, with a steel drop-gate at both ends, and two more guard posts overlooking it. Both had been partially demolished by 84mm strikes.
Bianco and three of Price’s guys were set in near the far drop gate, their position hardened by hasty sandbag fighting positions. Fortunately, the Humanity Front’s shooters had kept a good number of sandbags on hand, and these positions had even been partially constructed already. The techs might have thought they were untouchable, but the shooters had clearly had more professional attitudes.
He hunkered down next to Bianco, peering out toward the burning hulks. The dust was definitely thinning, and the wind was dying down. The southern horizon was still a wall of dirt, but the sky was lightening to the north. The storm was passing.
And there was no more sign of the enemy out there. He scanned carefully, picking out the slightly darker lumps that had to be bodies. The shooters had left their wounded and dead behind when they’d pulled back; about what he expected from this bunch.
“Colonel,” Bianco whispered. “You hear that?”
Brannigan strained his ears, but his hearing wasn’t quite what it had been. Still, after a moment…
“Engines,” he said. Bianco nodded.
“They’re maneuvering, I think.” He picked up the Carl Gustaf next to him. It looked like it had already been reloaded.
“Just make sure I’m out of the way when you cork that thing off,” Brannigan muttered, pulling out his binoculars and scanning again. But he couldn’t see anything; if they were maneuvering, they were still masked by the burning Hawkeis in front of the gate.
He listened as he watched, and after a moment, he frowned. It sounded like the engine noise was receding, not getting closer. Then he spotted movement, shifting the binos to check.
The four surviving Hawkeis were moving away, driving across the Sahel as fast as they could, leaving a massive plume of dust behind, that almost completely obscured them in the remnant of the haboob.
He watched them for a moment, hearing the muttered comments as the others at the gate spotted them as well, but without comment.
“You see that?” one of Price’s guys said. “What kind of miserable motherfuckers just leave their buddies behind like that?”
“These bastards select for sociopathy, I think,” Brannigan said grimly. “Don’t count them out just yet, though. Stay on stand-to. I’m not convinced yet that they’re not going to come around and try to hit us from another angle.” There was a lot of empty country to maneuver in out there.
He stayed where he was for a couple more minutes, watching and waiting. But the vehicles dwindled quickly, until they were lost in the dust. If they were going to swing wide, they might still do it, but he couldn’t be sure.
Finally, he stood. “Stay alert, but get ready to move,” he said. “I think it’s about time to burn this place and get out of here.”
***
In the end, it was almost anticlimactic.
The hatchet-faced woman was standing between Max and another one of Price’s men, a wiry black man named Terrance, her hands tied with 550 cord. Her defiance had wilted almost altogether, and she just looked shell-shocked.
Most of the rest were still on security. Two were holding on the trailer where the rest of the techs were locked in.
They’d protested a little when it had become clear that they were going to be left behind. “Tough shit,” Brannigan had growled. “I know what you lot were doing in here, and you’re lucky I don’t stuff all of you in that lab trailer before we torch it.” Some of them hadn’t believed him, but the few closest when he’d said it had shrank back before the glint of rage in his eyes. “The people here walk just about everywhere,” he’d continued, just before shutting the door. “If you get out of this trailer, so can you.”
He’d been torn by the decision. A part of him really wanted to just kill them all. It was the least that they deserved. There was a special place in hell for people who developed biological weapons. Even more so for those who tested them on helpless refugees.
But there was something about gunning people down while they knelt in a trailer that simply disagreed with him on a fundamental level. And there was a certain justice in letting the harshness of the environment kill these people, who had come from the affluent First World to wreak murderous devastation on the poorest of the poor, just because they could.
Brannigan had no illusions that poverty implied saintliness. He’d spent far too much time in the Third World. He’d seen the viciousness and savagery that ran just under the surface in much of these countries. But the sheer evil of testing bioweapons on refugees almost made the jihadis and Communists he’d fought over the years look tame by comparison.
One of the Hawkeis left in the motor pool was still in running condition. They’d shot the hell out of the other one during the fight with the remaining base security personnel, and while it would still run, there were enough bullet holes in the radiator and some of the hoses that they were just going to drop another thermite on the hood and call it good. The one remaining was already staged at the gate, along with the rest of the civilian vehicles. The helicopters had charges affixed to
their engines, the fuses already burning.
They weren’t leaving anything for the techs.
“Ready?” Wade asked. He was standing as far away from the lab trailer as possible, a red, cylindrical grenade in his hand. The rest were either up on security or waiting at the vehicles.
Nobody wanted to get too close to the horrific death that was housed in that trailer.
“Do it.”
Wade pulled the pin and tossed the thermite grenade. The incendiary ignited with a loud pop while it was still in the air, viscous smoke pouring out as the mix of aluminum and iron oxide started burning fiercely. It landed on the roof of the trailer, right where Wade had aimed it, and in a matter of seconds, started to burn through.
“Let’s go,” Wade said, turning and trotting away from the trailer toward the gate. “As much as I like watching my handiwork, I’d rather do it from a long way away this time.”
Brannigan didn’t disagree. Together, the two men jogged toward the vehicles. Brannigan went to the back of the Hawkei, while Wade veered off to the HiLux that he was sharing with Bianco.
It took less than a minute to get the last of the security collapsed in and loaded up, and then they were driving out the gate, the CROWS turret scanning and the men in the backs of the pickups crouched behind their rifles, watching intently for trouble.
Behind them, the trailer burned fiercely, smoke and bright flame pouring out of the hole burned in the roof by the incendiary grenade. Brannigan watched it in the rear-view mirror.
He knew that it wasn’t over. The Humanity Front had too many resources. They’d rebuild this operation.
