by Chris Lowry
"How are they armed?" asked the tall blue eyed man. Brill nicknamed him Sinatra in his head.
"They get arms from the old Soviet block, but don't be surprised if you see US munitions and equipment. We arm a lot of the governments that keep getting overthrown by rebels, who take the weapons and sell them. We're looking at AK's, and Vietnam era M-16's, mostly. The terrorists don't have access to planes, or any air support, but they are masters at making do with RPG's and Tank-buster's."
"You're our African expert?" asked Washington.
Brill shrugged.
"I've spent a little time in country," he said referring to the years he was with South African Recce's and then contracting under a mercenary group. "My purview is Angola, Sierra Leone, and other points, but the rebel groups operate pretty much the same way."
"Even Islamic terrorists?"
Again he shrugged.
"Africa has over two thousand religions, so Islam, Christian, Animist, Lion King, it doesn't really matter. These Boku Harem soldiers are going to be hopped up on stava or other drugs, so religion won't have as much sway as you think. What you will remember is a bullet from their gun will kill you no matter what you or they believe."
"Preach," Washington grinned.
"Alright, let's get on with the particulars," said the Lt as he pulled their attention back to the front of the room to lay out mission parameters.
TWO
Brill sat in the back of a C130 crammed into a narrow jump seat and tried to sleep. It was something the instructors drilled into him, first training with the South African Defense Forces, and reinforced on The Farm, the CIA training facility in the rolling hills of Virginia. Sleep wouldn't come on this trip. Maybe he was too nervous.
Though it wasn't his first foray into the field, and he was used to action in hot spots, maybe it was working for Barraque for the first time and wanting to do well for Senator Shelby.
They found him after his squad was killed in Angola and he was working in South Africa for Mr. Van Housen, his old girlfriend's dad. Brill was caught up in a CIA sting fronted by Barraque Services, a private military contractor. They rendered him back to the US when they discovered his identity and Shelby scooped up the Special Forces soldier for additional training in covert ops and wet work.
Brill knew what he was. A killer for hire.
He studied the men in the cargo hold of the plane with him. Their features were harsh under the red glowing lamps in thin metal cages spread every few feet along the bulkhead wall. They were killers, soldiers like he had once been. They might have even called him a brother in arms, even though he worked and trained in an ally country as opposed to the beaches of San Diego and swamps of Florida.
Now he was a freelance contractor.
Technically, if they were caught, the sailors around him could be used as bargaining chips for terrorist groups or foreign governments in diplomatic conversations. If he was caught, nobody would know his name.
So he didn't plan on getting caught.
The sailor's slept, despite the rumble and roar of the jet engines right outside of the thin metal shell.
The plan was simple. They would land in the Azores and load into the back of a Chinook.
It would ferry them offshore and drop them into the Atlantic.
The squad would inflate IRB, Inflatable Rigid Boats to carry them through the busy shipping lanes where they would make the edge of the port, scuttle the boats and swim to a pre-designated pier. After that, they would sneak through town to an airfield where a chartered plane under a Red Cross logo waited to carry them North.
There were a lot of moving parts, and multiple opportunities at discovery.
It would not be the way he planned an op, thought Brill, but since he was a guest on this foray, he kept his mouth shut. He preferred things to be more in control, but if the powers to be wanted to serve up some chaos, he'd chow down with gusto and ask for seconds.
He also planned to learn as much as he could, and apply it to future ops.
His mentor, Simon, had drilled that into him as well. There were no failures, just opportunities to learn.
The engine roar shifted as they began their descent and the sailors around him stirred, instantly alert.
He had to hand it to SEAL's. They were some trained hard chargers.
Hell, half of them might make good Recce's, he grinned in the dim hold of the plane.
THREE
The plan went off without a hitch until Washington slithered up the metal rung ladder bolted to the side of a pylon and onto the black pier. The god of luck put a guard on the far side of the boards, hidden among a stack of boxes as he snuck a cigarette.
The startled yelp made Washington fumble for the Glock 19 strapped to his leg. Brill was second on the ladder and saw the long SEAL making the draw.
He yanked his Sig from the holster and drilled a silenced shot into the guard. A shadow detached from the land and quietly pounded down the roughhewn boards toward their position. Brill turned and sent two shots into the man, and watched as the body pitched over onto the boards leaking.
He studied the surroundings as the rest of the SEAL team slithered up and took positions.
Washington moved in a running crouch toward the fallen body.
“Damn it,” he grunted. “That was our fixer.”
Brill snorted.
“You told a fixer your infil position?”
“He had to meet us to move across town,” Washington whispered back.
Brill shook his head. It was common wisdom for operators in Africa to only trust a fixer you'd worked with twice or more. They were notoriously loyal to money, and could be bought off for several hundred dollars or even a threat to their family if they had it. And you never told your fixer where you came in or out. The rule was to meet somewhere neutral and safe.
This guy probably set the guard on the ladder so he could foil their entrance and split the reward. Good riddance as far as Brill was concerned.
He couldn't share that with the team though. Confidence was ninety nine percent of the mission going in country with limited intelligence. Knowing they were betrayed from the get go meant they might scrub the mission, and his orders were to get the job done no matter what.
“We'll get across town,” he told Washington. “Move your men off the pier and take a position behind that warehouse.”
He pointed to a dark structure that loomed near a rickety wooden fence.
“I'll be back in ten minutes.”
He stood up and marched off the dock like a guard. Washington made a quick grab for him but missed. The LT scooted up next to him.
“Where the fuck is he going?” he said in a harsh whisper.
“Told me to move our guys over to that warehouse and wait.”
The LT glanced down at the leaking body splayed on the concrete.
“Is that our fixer?”
Washington nodded.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” the LT grunted, almost too loud.
He used finger motions to send the men forward, two by two to secure a spot next to the warehouse. He didn't know who Brill was, but he knew that once they got clear he would read him the riot act. This was his mission.
“And I'll be damned if some spook wanna be is going to fuck it up,” he muttered to himself as he crouched in a run to hook up with his men in the shadow of the warehouse.
Washington kicked the fixer's body over the side and listened to the splash before he followed.
FOUR
A sandy beach insert would have been simpler, but access to the airport was taken into consideration. By using the port as an entry point, they cut out 45 minutes of ground time Kama which diminished the opportunity for discovery. 8 white men and one black man on a bus would not go unnoticed, even in the darkest hours of the night.
Brill moved to the guard shack and peeked inside.
A young man was sleeping with his legs propped up on the counter, mouth open in an impressive snore. He sneaked under
the bar that blocked the road and went in search of transportation.
The port of Lagos was one of the busiest in the region. Ships plowed through the waterways at all hours of the night, and a third shift worked on a pier three over from the dark one they ascended just a few moments before.
Brill found a pickup truck next to one of the buildings. He planned to break the driver's side window, but tried the handle and it popped open. He slid inside and hot wired the ignition, just as he'd been taught in Virginia.
The truck was not an ideal transport, but it would do. He would cram Washington in the cab with him, the black face prominent for anyone looking at them as they passed. He would instruct the others to lay in the back.
They had a timetable to keep and the airport wasn't so far that they couldn't use the cover of darkness to their advantage.
FIVE
The pick up in the pickup transition went smoothly. Brill drove up next to the fence with his headlights off and eased to a stop with squealing brakes. The SEAL team cut the wire along the bottom of the fence and slid under. Washington climbed up front without being told and the LT scowled at Brill and snarled. But he jumped in the truck bed and hunkered down with his men.
Brill followed Washington's instructions to the airport. The CO read off directions taped to a plastic insert on his BDU's that led them to a unguarded back entrance. When Brill slowed to a stop, one of the men in back hopped out and forced open the gate with the same pair of bolt cutters he used back at the pier.
Brill wheeled the truck to the side of a hanger and they abandoned it to meet the small Otter Twin Engine with a Red Cross logo painted on each wing that waited for them.
SIX
When most people think of Africa, the first thing that comes to mind is Jungle. Visions of Tarzan swinging vine to vine, lording it out over super intelligent apes who would one day rise up to take over the planet was what most people considered when they thought about the Dark Continent.
If they ever thought about it.
Africa had vast resources, and amazing people. Yet headline after headline in the Western world focused on the atrocities committed by a few maniacs. Africa spanned several climate zones, from rugged rock strewn coasts in the South, to sprawling deserts in the North.
Sokuto was on the edge of the desert.
“Where are the monkeys?” Washington whispered.
The SEAL team dug in on the edge of town and set up observation posts. They used shovels to scrape out depressions in the sand that threatened to fall in on top of them if they got too deep, and then lay under tan sand covered tarps while the midday sun beat down on them.
This far North, the only green things that grew were along the shallow winding rivers. The desert marched south in a relentless progression that threatened to take over the entire continent one day. Brill had read that it advanced at the rate of two feet per year, and with global warming threats, may move up to four.
No one alive today or for the next six generations would see it happen, but if the Sahara reached the equator, it was the end of mankind.
It was hard to think in terms like that, especially faced with survival today. Brill had seen it when he returned to America, and in small villages flung across South Africa. The mentality was now, not the future, and forward thinking didn't go too far beyond setting up food, shelter and survival for the next day.
Maybe that was the human condition, he pondered as he sweated under a tarp next to Washington.
The LT had started to berate him as soon as they disembarked from the plane, but Brill just stared at the man until he shut up. Washington had watched it happen, and wondered if maybe the Spook was going to kill his LT, which would cause all sorts of problems for his team, not the least of which was they would have to kill Brill. Or try. One look at his eyes made him wonder if the man didn't already have a plan to kill them all.
A Marine told him that once. Have a handshake, a smile and a plan to kill everyone in the room. He grinned, but it was sick gallows humor. Brill was no Marine, of that he was sure. But he did have military training, following the sync of the unit. He was something more though, and Washington shuddered for a moment. The memory of the man's dead shark eyes watching the LT as he tried to yell in a whisper. Washington dragged him away with an info request on how to deploy the unit for observation and heading off any potential disasters. LT assigned the Spook man to his hole just to get even.
“What do you see?” Brill asked from next to him.
“I don't see a platoon of Nigerians,” Washington whispered as he peered through the lens of a pair of binoculars.
“Mid-day,” said Brill. “I haven't gone up against Islamists before, but don't they pray?”
“Mission brief says they do,” Washington took a sip of water from his Camelback pack. “I haven't seen many pray though. Fornicate small boys and goats, lie, cheat, drink, kidnap girls into slavery, sure, but pray?”
“Been here before?”
“Not this sandbox, but one just like it. I wish there was a way to tell a good Muslim from an Islamist,” Washington blew out his breath. “One of the guys in my old unit was a Muslim. Best guy I knew. Fucking Islamist blew him up in Afghanistan. Guy was dressed like a goat herder, had a wife and two kids with him when he detonated the bomb. How do you fight that shit?”
It was a question Brill couldn't answer and the CO didn't expect one. When the enemy dressed like civilians and hid among civilians, it made traditional warfare outmoded.
Which is where Brill and guys like him came in.
He wasn't part of the military command structure and could operate outside the boundaries of the Geneva Convention. His only role was to capture or to kill, with very little deviation from that mission.
Even here, as the SEALS were tasked to capture an Islamic fundamentalist for interrogation, Brill's job was to go a little bit further inland and eliminate a scientist. No questions, no intelligence, just a simple kill order.
Something he was good at.
SEVEN
Dusk moved quickly in from the East. The sky shifted from pink to purple to black with a swiftness that took a little getting used to. There were no city lights to fight back the night sky, and the milky way stretched across the horizon in an explosion of a million stars.
Brill took a moment to appreciate it. Most of his time had been under a jungle canopy, with the stars blotted out by plant life, or clouds or mist. The desert air was clear of all obstruction, except for dust particles that made the sunset a riot of colors to put a rainbow to shame, and now a sky full of stars that must have looked much the same a thousand years ago when nomads wandered the sands.
The LT called the squad together and outlined the plan. Their day of observation had yielded little more than a sleepy village with no sign of militia or military. They were going to go in at 3:00 a.m., that time of morning when the body is designed to hit REM.
Abu Aish was reported to be in the University in the city. Even though the men had pictured brick walls and lush grounds, their experience was based on American and European Universities. In Sokoto, it was two buildings, single story structures behind a wrought iron decorative fence. The grounds were sand covered dirt, with sand covered paths that led from a central courtyard. One of the buildings was a dormitory, one was full of classrooms.
There was a light on in the classroom building, and IR indicated three bodies in prone positions in the room. Sleeping men and their heat signatures.
The plan was to move in quick, grab the three and extradite them to a secure location to await pick up from the Red Cross plane.
Brill listened as the plan was laid out. He knew, just as these men did, that no plan survived contact with the enemy. The LT was well trained though and spent time going over contingencies with his men.
“What's the Spook's role?” asked one of them.
The LT turned to ask Brill what he was going to do while they grabbed the terrorist, but he was gone.
EIGHT
He didn't know what it was about Islamists, but they liked to hide out in Universities. Abu Aish used the students as cover, perhaps, or maybe he was looking for idealistic educated youth to convert to his cause. No matter the reason while the SEAL team was taking him down at one location, Brill planned to be at a second University fifteen miles North.
“Your target is a Nigerian scientist,” he was told. “The man is giving chemicals and biologicals to terrorists.”
They gave him the name, description, apartment number on campus, and routine. He memorized it all so if he was caught, he wouldn't have intelligence on him. He didn't plan on getting caught.
He settled into the run, the steady pace scrunching into the sand as he knocked out the miles under the desert night. He wouldn't have made it in the daytime. He was used to heat training, three or four sauna sessions per week helped not only with recovery, but with some physiological benefits he couldn't explain. Something to do with increased blood plasma density, which helped with recovery and oxygen delivery during exertion. Maybe he'd ask the scientist about it before he killed him, he grimaced a wolfish grin as he ran. Brill had no illusions about who he was. He was a killer. Ever since he was kidnapped in Africa and lost the love of his young life, he felt like a dead man walking, a ghost. Ghosts had nothing to fear, not even death, and so he delivered it with great efficiency. He found his way into the South African Defense Force and became a Recce until his Platoon was ambushed. It was sheer luck that saved his life, though he was counted among the dead. He walked out of the jungle and into a band of vagabond surfers, living the dirtbag life out of their vans, chasing waves and drinking beer. He spent months with them, learning to surf and meditate, adding yoga to his fitness mix and expanding his running resume. He also did some investigation into his platoon, and connections that wanted to keep something in the jungle secret. He was on the verge of discovering who orchestrated the ambush when he was rendered back to America to work for Barraque and Senator Shelby Johnson who wanted to develop his special skill set as a weapon to be deployed against enemies, foreign and domestic, both corporate and government.
