Operator Down

by Brad Taylor

  I held up my hands and said, “Aaron, I know you had it rough, but you don’t understand the position we’re in right now. There’s more going on than you know.”

  Aaron let out a breath and nodded. “That’s correct on both sides.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked at Shoshana and said, “We need to get back in that base. There are men still in the prison that we need to rescue.”

  72

  Thomas Naboni heard the crackle of gunfire outside the cell window and instinctively knew it was Aaron. He smiled wistfully, happy for his friend but sad for himself. He knew tonight would be his last on earth. He was simply waiting on the executioner to return.

  The uniformed tribe heard the same gunfire and grew restless, pacing about in their cage at each new burst. Their angst was driven by the guards themselves, who’d also begun marching about in confusion, sometimes abandoning their posts for long moments of time.

  Everyone in the prison, both the keepers and the kept, could feel danger in the air. The gunfire confirmed it. It didn’t last long—maybe thirty minutes tops—but soon after, much farther away, other sounds could be heard. Maybe it was his imagination, or maybe the fight had just moved off the military base, but Thomas was sure he could hear gunfire coming from the city.

  The first indicator that something was amiss had been the removal of Aaron and the ominous words from General Mosebo about having a “big night” tonight. The next had been his short, painful interrogation at the hands of Lurch, when he’d broken and confessed to helping protect Alexandra. Now it was the noise of gunfire.

  One of his trusted friends, a pharmacist in a former life, placed his back against the wall next to Thomas and whispered, “What does the shooting mean? Good or bad?”

  “I don’t know.” Thomas didn’t have the heart to say what he truly felt: For them, it could be nothing but bad.

  “The guards keep leaving their posts, like they’re trying to find out what is happening. Nobody has seen the captain since he took the Israeli. I think nobody is in charge right now.”

  Thomas knew his friend was driving at something. “What’s your point?”

  His friend pointed to the man the guards had been punishing for weeks by withholding food. “Nobi isn’t going to live much longer even if we simply remain. But that isn’t going to happen. General Mosebo threatened you tonight. After you, it will be all of us.” He leaned in to Thomas and whispered, “Maybe we should try to escape. We won’t get a better chance.”

  Thomas glanced up at the blanket-covered toilet hiding Aaron’s window, thinking about their options. What his friend said was most probably true, but it didn’t alter the ultimate problem: They were inside a guarded military base. One that now had active gunfire within it.

  Thomas said, “We won’t get out of the compound. I’m not even sure we’ll get out of the prison. The uniform prisoners may stop us just to curry favor with the guards, and they outnumber us four to one.”

  His friend remained quiet. Thomas knew he wanted to speak again, but he wouldn’t unless given permission. Like every member of the suit tribe, he held Thomas in the highest esteem, with almost reverent deference, because Thomas had kept them alive. It was more than merely survival, though. He’d done so without losing an ounce of his dignity. He’d carried himself in the hell of the prison just as he had when he was leading the revolt against the corruption of the government, the indignities heaped upon him never defining his character.

  Because of that loyalty, Thomas felt the pressure like a diamond being formed in the mines of the Lesotho highlands. It wasn’t just about him. It was about all of them. Was he serving his men by insisting they remain, or was he simply frozen by his fear for his own survival? And did it really matter? At the end of the day, was getting beaten to death by General Mosebo any more dignified than dying on an escape run across the base?

  He glanced at the blanket again, wondering if Aaron had finished his work. He said, “Keep an eye out,” then stood up. He glanced furtively left and right but could barely even see the front of the cell in the gloom. He pulled the blanket aside, his pulse beginning to race. He crouched behind it, listening for anyone reacting to his use of the “toilet.” What he heard was a scraping above him. He glanced up, seeing the sky through the hole in the wall, then felt a piece of masonry hit him on the shoulder. He brushed it off and continued to stare. One of the bricks disappeared, the hole growing larger. He scrambled up onto the bucket of feces and slowly stood upright.

  Outside the window was Aaron, balancing on something below him and working the bricks one by one.

  Thomas almost slipped off the bucket in shock. Aaron reached through the window, snagged his arm, then held a finger to his lips. He whispered, “I’m almost done with this. Get ready. You’re coming with me.”

  Thomas’s mouth opened and closed, no noise coming out. Aaron pried another brick free, and Thomas found his voice. He said, “We must all go. All five of us. And they go out before me, starting with Nobi.”

  Aaron smiled and said, “I would expect nothing less.” He clicked an earpiece and said, “Pike, Pike, I’ve made contact. We’re starting to remove the bricks.”

  * * *

  I heard the call from Aaron and tapped Knuckles on the shoulder. He sidled forward and placed an explosive breaching charge on a side door at the back of the prison, on the other side of the building from Aaron. Our job, should he call for it, would be to assault, coming in hard and killing anyone who opposed us, but the primary course of action was stealth, using a reverse escape plan that Aaron had set in motion for himself before we’d arrived.

  At our reconsolidation location, Aaron had told me he was going back in to rescue a guy in the prison, which I’d thought was absolute insanity. Shoshana, for once, felt the same way, but Aaron wouldn’t listen, which at any other time would have been sweet justice, because I’d lived with her shit for days. She, like me, felt that attempting to break back into the camp, and then into the prison, was absolutely crazy—even for her—but Aaron had been adamant.

  A man named Thomas Naboni had kept him and Alexandra alive, and because of it, Aaron felt he owed a debt. He was unwilling to leave Thomas behind, but I was just as steadfast that our mission here was done. All we had to do now was let the coup play out and collect Colonel Armstrong. Risking my life for someone who’d helped Aaron was a noble gesture, but going back in was asking to get everyone killed. And I wasn’t too keen on that outcome, noble or otherwise.

  Johan had heard the argument going back and forth and said, “Trying to penetrate that base again is not smart. General Mosebo will have it on lockdown after what we just did. I know him. Getting in and getting out will be impossible.”

  Aaron had said, “You don’t need to worry about him. General Mosebo is dead.”

  “Dead? How do you know?”

  Aaron spit out, “Because I fucking killed him.”

  Johan was speechless for a moment, then said, “You killed the head of the Lesotho Defence Force?”

  Aaron turned toward him, the violence held just below the surface, saying, “You have a problem with that? Was he a fucking friend of yours too? The point is that the base will be in complete disarray. There won’t be any lockdown, because nobody will order it.”

  Just being in the presence of Johan left Aaron vehemently angry, and Johan realized it. He backed off, saying to me, “That’s the power base of the entire coup.”

  I said, “Will it affect your plan? Will we still get Colonel Armstrong on the ground if the general’s dead?”

  “Yeah, it shouldn’t alter getting Armstrong. Mosebo had no actual command or decision-making in the assault. That’s all up to my guys. He was just supposed to come out to the airport with me for the grand finale of meeting the new prime minister. The problem will be after, in the consolidation of power. The military outnumbers the police, but the po
lice will side with the current prime minister. With a vacuum on the military side, I can see this not being clean. It could drag out and spark into a countercoup.”

  I went to the natural conclusion, asking, “Which means South Africa could be called in, and the contact with the triggers may balk?”

  “Possibly. I guess it depends on how long it simmers. My concern is what I told you before. I wanted a simple change from one administration to the other. I don’t want a bunch of bloodshed of innocents, which might now happen.”

  Aaron said, “Like you give a shit about them. Maybe you shouldn’t start brushfires you can’t control. Mosebo’s dead, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Thomas is alive, and there is something we can do about that.”

  I said, “Who is this guy? I mean, why’s he in prison?”

  “He’s the leader of a grassroots political party. One that was fighting the corruption of the entrenched bureaucracy. He got a little too powerful with the people and was removed. In his words, he and his entire inner circle were ‘disappeared.’ According to the guys in the prison with him, he’s their version of Nelson Mandela. The population loved him. Which, of course, is what made him dangerous.”

  Jennifer looked at Johan and said, “That’s the guy you should have been backing, instead of just throwing another corrupt idiot in charge.”

  Johan said, “I don’t think you understand how this works. I simply get paid to do a job. I didn’t plan this thing. I’m just executing.”

  Aaron said, “You disgust me.”

  But Jennifer’s words, as usual, were genius and gave me an idea. I said, “Johan, if we get Thomas out, do you think we could install him as prime minister? I mean, could we meet the deputy prime minister on the airfield with the police, arrest him on the spot, and install Thomas? Especially since Mosebo’s out of the picture to fight it?”

  Johan considered for a second, then said, “The police will probably back him simply because he’s been jailed by Mosebo. Enemy of my enemy and all that, but he won’t be strong enough to remain. We need outside influence. He’ll have to be immediately backed by an outside state, because those inside won’t back anyone in the confusion, leaving him open. He has no power base.”

  Jennifer said, “We need to get the United States involved.”

  Aaron waved his hands and said, “Pike, none of this matters without Thomas, and the longer we wait, the more that base begins to consolidate.”

  He was right. We could debate the end state all night long, but it mattered little without Thomas in our grasp. I nodded at him, then looked around the group and said, “Okay, this is outside the scope of our mission set. I’m not going to order anyone to go, but I’m game. Anyone want out?”

  Aaron watched my team closely, but all he got was Knuckles saying, “You’re wasting our time. Same plan as the original?”

  I grinned and said, “Same plan. Load up.”

  73

  Ten minutes later, we were parked at the intersection of the blacktop and the dirt road that led to the front gate of the base, waiting on the call from Veep and Knuckles.

  It wasn’t optimal, but we’d found an abandoned thatched hut on a deserted road and had put Alexandra inside it. I was a little hesitant to do so, for obvious reasons, but she was completely supportive of the plan—probably because the alternative was coming on base with us and just sitting in the SUV—and so we’d made sure her bandages were swapped and her condition was stable, and we’d left her with Johan’s body armor and a pistol.

  Besides Alexandra, we had another long pole in the tent: We didn’t have enough transportation to get everyone off the base. Aaron had said there were five of them—with one possibly nonambulatory—and all we had were our stolen SUVs. I’d decided to split the force in two: a prison assault force and a transportation location force. The prison assault would be Knuckles, Jennifer, Shoshana, Aaron, and me. The vehicle scavenger hunt would be Johan, Brett, and Veep. Johan knew the base better than any of us, Brett could blend in when they stole whatever they found, and Veep was just good with a gun. The rest of us would attempt the prison breakout—ostensibly the harder of the missions, but I wasn’t betting on it.

  My earpiece came alive, and I heard, “In position. Stand by,” then, “Targets down, targets down.”

  We began driving down the road, and I saw the drop bar rise. We stopped for barely a second, letting them into our vehicles, and were rolling through the gate, back into the darkness. I surveyed three hundred and sixty degrees trying to identify a response, my finger tapping the trigger guard of my Glock, the adrenaline starting to rise.

  Amazingly, I saw nothing. We were in.

  Aaron was behind the wheel of our SUV since he was the only one who knew where the prison was located, Brett driving the one behind us. We rolled on the blacktop as fast as we dared without our lights, driving under NODs. Luckily, the base itself had very little outdoor lighting, with most of the weak illumination provided by lightbulbs attached to buildings, so you’d have to be right next to us to see us pass by.

  I felt Aaron slow down, then stop, and heard, “Pike. Problem.” Ahead of us, at the first intersection on the gate road, I saw a checkpoint. Three men were standing next to a fifty-five-gallon drum with a fire in it, one of them yelling and waving his arms in the air. Uh-oh. Aaron said, “The guy shouting is Lurch. The head asshole at the prison. The other two must be guards he’s brought out in an attempt to catch me escaping.”

  We watched for a second; then Lurch stormed over to a Land Rover and drove off, moving deeper into the base.

  Aaron said, “Blow through it?”

  I glanced left and right, looking for a way to avoid the checkpoint. There was none, only grass fields and woods. I said, “No. That’ll just bring a chase. With your plan, we’re going to need time. Stealth. We won’t get that with a compromise right off the bat. Pull up to it.”

  I turned around and said, “Knuckles, you got the guy on the left. I’ll take the right.”

  We rolled up to the intersection, and I saw a U-shaped cinder-block building about a hundred and fifty meters down a dirt road, a canvas-covered two-and-a-half-ton truck out front, just like the ones that had shown up in Morija. Probably the same one we had shot at an hour ago. I called, “Blood, Blood, take a look to the left.”

  He said, “I see it.”

  “We’ve got the checkpoint. Stand by. The bodies are staying in the street, so the clock will be ticking.”

  Aaron pulled up to the barrel on the side of the road, the fire providing flickering illumination. All three of us rolled down our windows. I held my suppressed ZEV Tech down against the door, waiting for the guard on my side to approach. Both were clearly confused, seeing white men in an SUV on their base at two in the morning. The one on Aaron’s side approached first and began asking questions, which, of course, we couldn’t answer. My target hung back, refusing to approach.

  Come on, dipshit, come up to the window.

  The tension mounted, until finally, the guard on the driver’s side became suspicious. He backed up at Aaron’s bullshit explanation and raised his rifle. Knuckles shot him in the head, the suppressor giving off a muted spit. The round snapped him backward like he had a string attached to his skull. I threw open my door, rolled out, and took aim, expecting to be receiving fire from the second guard. Inexplicably, instead of raising his weapon, my guy took off running in a panic. I lined up the holosight and broke the trigger to the rear, twice, the ZEV Tech tracking effortlessly. He tumbled forward, rolling lifelessly on the ground.

  I leapt back in and said, “Go, go.” I looked behind me and saw Brett take the intersection toward the lorry, pulling into the shadows of the trees. I said, “How much farther?”

  Aaron pointed at a large one-story building set back into the woods about a hundred meters away. “That’s it. I’ll park across the other side, in the brush, and we’ll walk in
. My window is on the back side to the south. Your position is back side north, on the other end. Let me work it, but if I need you, clear the building all the way to me.”

  I said, “Hope that won’t be necessary.”

  We exited, softly closing the doors, then approached the building using the cover of the brush, avoiding the main front entrance and circling around to the back. Aaron led us down the cinder blocks for about thirty feet, then stopped, pointing at a hole above him.

  I nodded, and we left him and Shoshana, continuing on until we located a wooden door at the northern end. I established security, putting Jennifer on the corner looking out toward the main entrance, and waited. Twenty minutes later, I got the call that Aaron had made contact with Thomas, and I had Knuckles place his charge, leaving Jennifer on the corner pulling security.

  So far, so good.

  I called Brett, saying, “We’ve got contact. Starting extraction. What’s your status?”

  74

  Studying the U-shaped building with his NODs, Brett saw what might have been movement on the porch. He turned his attention to the truck parked off to the side and saw a soldier in the driver’s seat. He whispered, “Veep, what do you have?”

  Positioned in the wood line on the other side of the road, Veep had a different view. “I have a man in the passenger seat and two on the porch. There’s a light in one room on the east side, so I’m assuming someone’s in there as well.”

  Pike came through: “We’ve got contact. Starting extraction. What’s your status?”

  “This is Blood. Conducting recce now. It’s looking promising, but I’m not committing just yet.”

  “Roger all. Don’t get compromised. That’s the priority.”

  “Understood. Break, break, Veep, keep your eye on the porch. Tell me if anyone else shows up.”