Assassin's Sons: [#4] A Special Operations Group Thriller

by Stephen Templin

“Thanks,” Hannah said. She looked at Hank. “This handsome guy must be your dad.”

  He held out his hand. “Hank.”

  Hannah shook it. “Know your reputation, but it’s great to meet the real deal. Please, have a seat.”

  She sat across from them in a rusted swivel chair that didn’t spin. They plopped back onto the funky couch.

  “Know your reputation, too,” Hank said. “In a good way.”

  Her eyes sparkled when she talked. “What have you heard about me?”

  “You go by the call sign Infidel and worked with my boys in Iraq as part of a joint task force to stop Syria from smuggling terrorists and IEDs across the border. Max and Tom spoke highly of you.” He paused. “What’ve you heard about me?”

  She flashed a sly grin. “Heard you punched out a CIA deputy chief in Iraq. Folks say he deserved it, and you both received letters of reprimand.” Then her face became serious. “But when Uncle Sam wants a job done, your name is on the short list.”

  Max didn’t like how his dad was suddenly dominating the talk with Hannah; he was too old for her anyway, and Max reinserted himself into the conversation. “Congratulations on the promotion to station chief.”

  “I’m just sitting in while the real chief and his deputy are away,” she said.

  “Never thought of you as the office type,” Tom said.

  She smiled. “I’m not. I’d rather be out running and gunning with you guys, but I owe someone a favor, and I promised, so here I am.”

  “These days, too many Agency guys don’t have the stones to set foot in a place like this,” Hank said. “You’ve got stones.”

  She shrugged as if it was nothing and changed the subject. “Understand you guys want to snatch up Achmed al-Iraqi and could use some help. Except for our defense force, most of our guys are out on ops. And our indigenous forces are preparing to launch another offensive into al-Raqqah tonight. Neither has troops to spare. But there are some female Kurds who showed up yesterday, missing their American counterparts who suddenly had to leave on a long-range op. The ladies are eager to wax some Daesh—you might talk to them.”

  “I’d like to,” Hank said.

  “Mind if we visit your support personnel?” Tom asked.

  “Knock yourself out,” she said. “And you’re welcome to use any equipment that isn’t being used. Just let us know before you borrow it.”

  “Heard you might have some boats,” Max said.

  Hannah nodded. “US Navy—on loan to us—you’re welcome to them.”

  “Thanks,” Max said.

  “I’ll check Army intel,” Tom said.

  “Anything else?” Hannah asked.

  Max thought. “Who are you dating now?”

  Tom side-kicked him in the leg.

  “Do you have a need to know?” she asked professionally.

  Max gave a short chuckle. “Well, I thought that since you came to this post way out here, if you were dating someone back home, it can’t be very serious …”

  “Ever have your jaw unhinged and had to suck meals through a straw?” she asked with the sweetness of honey.

  Max rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t. Rumor was that before Hannah joined the Agency, she was a regional middleweight champ in mixed martial arts. He tried to wrap his head around the dissonance between the sweetness of her voice and the bone-busting violence of her words. Then he attempted to save face by forcing a laugh. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?” she asked kindly.

  He became sincere. “If I did mean that, uh, could we?”

  “No, I have more self-respect than that.” She stood.

  Max stood and tried to act as if everything was okay. “Yeah, if you’re into that, cool.”

  Tom and Hank stood, too, frowning at him.

  Hannah smiled. “You don’t have to stand for me. Just hang out here for a little longer while I send for some people to help you out.” She strolled out the door.

  “Might be worth it to get my jaw unhinged,” Max whispered to his brother.

  Tom stared at him in disbelief. “Dude, you sure you weren’t adopted?”

  7

  Bass Voice returned. “Who needs to visit Navy?” he asked.

  Max raised his hand.

  “Army?” Bass Voice asked.

  “I do,” Tom said.

  “I’ll stay to meet with the Kurds,” Hank said. “Find out what you can, and we’ll meet back here for a little powwow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Max and Tom said.

  Bass Voice opened the door. “Follow me.” He escorted Max and Tom out of the room.

  Hannah returned a few minutes later with two attractive Kurdish women—both looked to be younger than Hank but older than his sons. Hannah turned to the one wearing an olive drab uniform and black tennis shoes and carrying an enhanced American M14 rifle with a sniper scope. “This is Hank,” Hannah said. “He is the man I told you about.” She spoke simply and clearly, as if used to communicating with people who spoke English as a second language.

  Then Hannah turned to Hank and said, “Hank, this is Paris, an excellent sniper.”

  “Real name is Pirseng, but people call me Paris,” the sniper said. “I like Paris. Want go someday.”

  The woman next to Paris cradled a Russian Dragunov sniper rifle as if it were her baby, and she wore a HOG’s tooth on a necklace. HOG stood for Hunter of Gunmen. The “tooth” was a round from the Dragunov—he guessed taken from a Russian sniper she’d killed. Hank earned his first HOG’s tooth for completing Marine Scout/Sniper School. Later, he achieved his combat HOG’s tooth by hunting down an Iraqi sniper. The ultimate accomplishment for a sniper was killing another sniper. Back then, Hank removed the sniper’s bullet from his rifle chamber and pocketed it, signifying that Hank would always control the bullet that was meant for him—making him immortal. He kept both bullets.

  Paris introduced the woman with the Dragunov. “Friend is Rojin. She no talk much. She not good English.”

  Hank nodded at Rojin’s weapon. “Nice rifle.”

  Paris translated for her friend.

  Rojin’s gaze rested on Hank.

  “Rojin kill Russian sniper,” Paris said. “Take rifle.”

  Hank smiled at the confirmation that Rojin was a HOG. “It’s a great honor.” He gestured to her HOG’s tooth. “We have something in common. Except that the sniper I killed was Iraqi.” Everyone else was simply a PIG—professionally instructed gunman.

  Paris continued to translate.

  Rojin didn’t stop eyeing Hank. Paris seemed to notice the eye lock, and she glared at Rojin, who turned away.

  “Have you ever been to Paris?” Paris asked.

  Hank nodded. “Yes, more than once.”

  “What was it like?”

  He’d visited the city several times, but his first encounter with Paris was a Parisian woman in Mobile, Alabama. One evening, as a young Marine stationed with the Third Force Recon Company, he went out into Mobile for a nice civilian dinner. He was walking a sidewalk on Dauphin Street searching for a place to eat when the window of a French restaurant caught his eye. Reflections of city lights floated in the glass. Streetlights changed colors, and car lights swam like fish through a sea of illumination, shining and bright. He stepped forward to take a closer look, and a pair of eyes peeked through the reflecting lights back at him. Startled, Hank jerked back, as did the young woman standing on the other side of the glass. He studied her face: she had a fierceness in her eyes, but her full lips seemed to welcome him. She studied his face, too. As he moved toward the entrance to the restaurant, he continued to watch her, and her gaze followed him. He smiled, and she smiled back.

  He opened the door, but a middle-aged woman wearing an apron chattered in French and pulled her away like an irritated mother. Before the young woman disappeared into the kitchen, she looked back and smiled at him again. After that night, Hank visited the French restaurant often and learned her name was Autumn Laurent. Her parents were Pari
sians who owned the restaurant. Autumn had a je ne sais quoi about her. After six months passed, he proposed, and they married. When he visited her birth city with her, he fell in love again.

  Paris stared at Hank with a puzzled look, and he was embarrassed that he’d taken so long to answer, and now he had a stupid grin on his face.

  “What was Paris like?” Paris asked impatiently.

  “Paris—has a certain je ne sais quoi.”

  “Je ne sais quoi?” she asked.

  “Elegance and beauty.”

  Paris translated for Rojin. Then Paris let her M14 hang by its sling, and she made an awkward curtsy in Rojin’s direction. “Je ne sais quoi.” She laughed.

  Rojin laughed, too.

  Their laughter was infections, and Hank chuckled.

  8

  Max followed the pulsing sound of a Jamaican singer’s voice and a bass guitar to a forty-foot-long Conex box near the mess hall. Inside the box was a makeshift weight room. Reggae fusion vibrated the steel walls. Max left the cool, dry air outdoors and entered the warm humidity of the gym—its source of heat being the four sweaty men pumping iron. The wood beneath his feet was uneven and soft—rotting.

  A clean-shaven young man with long, pretty, sandy blond hair and another kid wearing a surfing Quicksilver T-shirt curled dumbbells as if in competition with each other. In the corner, a dirty-complexioned man in his thirties with oily black hair and a scraggly beard squatted a barbell loaded with weights. On the bench press, the oldest man of the group, probably in his forties, spotted Max. The lanky black man lowered his weights to the uprights and rose from the bench. Max guessed from his age that he was the Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crew (SWCC) chief. “You the Swick chief?”

  “Who’s asking?” It was natural for men accustomed to working secret ops to be clannish when dealing with outsiders.

  “I’m Max Wayne. Need a boat and her crew. Your FOB chief, Hannah Andrade, said to come talk to you. These your guys?”

  “I’m their sea daddy.” The chief nodded. “When Chief Andrade mentioned you, I thought you sounded like trouble. Seeing you in the flesh confirms it.”

  Max grinned. “Is that a problem?”

  “Trouble’s what I signed up for.”

  “Where you from?” Max asked.

  “Alabama,” Chief said. “Born and raised.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re from Alabama.”

  “Neither do you.” Max clasped Chief’s right hand as a sign of solidarity.

  “Met some men like you who went down to snatch al-Iraqi,” Chief said.

  “What happened to them?” Max asked.

  “Never saw them again.” Chief sauntered over to the source of the reggae fusion and turned off the power.

  Chief’s men grumbled, “Hey. What the hell? Turn it back on.”

  “Time to get wet, boys!” Chief announced.

  The Swicks cheered. They were being taken off the bench and put back in the game.

  Max and the Swicks and Chief exited the Conex box. As they made their way across the compound, a whistling noise sailed through the air. Max couldn’t see what was causing it, but he recognized the sound—an incoming mortar round. The whistling became louder and Max took cover behind some sandbags surrounding the mess hall. Chief paused in his tracks and called out calmly, “Incoming!”

  Boom. The explosion shook the earth and was so loud that it must’ve landed somewhere in the FOB. Max worried that Tom and Dad were okay.

  Chief remained standing without blinking an eye. He had an aura of invincibility. “What time is it?” he asked.

  It seemed an odd question, and Max wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “What?”

  “I don’t have my watch. What time is it?”

  “One thirty,” Max said. “PM.”

  Another whistle came, this one louder. Max hugged the ground behind the sandbags and prepared for the mortar round. He crossed his legs to protect his arteries from shrapnel, covered his ears with both hands to save his hearing, and opened his mouth so the pressure wouldn’t rupture his lungs.

  Chief remained standing. “One thirty exactly? Or before?”

  Boom! The next blast was so close that the shrapnel sent sparks flying over Chief’s head, but he didn’t seem concerned.

  Baffled, Max checked his watch. “One thirty-three.”

  “Yes!” Chief roared. “I won!”

  “You won?”

  Boom-boom-boom! This time the noise was artillery—outgoing.

  “All of us at the FOB have a betting pool on when the next mortar round will land. Each of us put a dollar in a thirty-minute slot. It hit in my slot—I win the pool!”

  It was a macabre game, but Max understood the boredom of duty and the familiarity with death. The incoming mortar rounds discontinued, and Max, Chief, and the Swicks went to Hannah’s building—this time Max and the Swicks hustled, in case more mortar rounds came, but Chief cruised behind them as if he couldn’t give a shit.

  Max and the Swicks entered the room where Max, Tom, and Hank had sat down with Hannah earlier. Hank and two pulse-raising Kurdish women were there, but no Tom.

  “Where’s Tom?!” Max and Hank asked each other at the same time.

  “He’s not with me,” Max said.

  “He’s not here,” Hank said.

  “Tom is a big boy,” Hannah said.

  Max was embarrassed at worrying so much about his brother, so he changed the subject by introducing the Swicks. In turn, Hank introduced the two women. Max focused his attention on one of them.

  “You’re too young for her,” Hank whispered.

  “And you’re too old,” Max said.

  Hank scowled.

  As they were all getting to know each other a bit, Tom interrupted. He practically danced into the room—something energized him.

  Max was happy he was okay.

  Hank smiled. He gestured around the room and said, “This is our team.”

  “Great,” Tom said. “Army intel knows a militia southwest of al-Raqqah that’s eager to get into the fight. They call themselves the Jazrah Militia—our Army guys nicknamed them the Jazz.”

  “Doesn’t take much to get you worked up, does it?” Max said.

  “Intel says that because of some tribal conflict, the FSA is sidelining the Jazz from the main attack tonight.” Tom spread a map out on the deck. “The Jazz claim that al-Iraqi is located in a bunker, here, but our guys are too busy with tonight’s assault to confirm whether the intel is legit or not.”

  Paris translated for Rojin and both of them studied the map.

  “If the Jazz want to help, the more the merrier,” Max said.

  “And get this,” Tom continued, “the Jazz have enemy uniforms and technicals.” A technical was a reliable civilian pickup truck with a heavy gun, such as a .50-caliber machine gun, mounted in the bed. “Maybe we can rendezvous with this Jazz militia and enlist their help to infiltrate Commander al-Iraqi’s compound.”

  Max wasn’t too excited about working with the Jazz, but he was excited about getting al-Iraqi. He set aside his misgivings and the group got to work. Max, Tom, Hank, the snipers, and the Swicks planned insertion, sniper overwatch, assault, and extraction. Then they left Hannah’s building and went to an empty space in the northern end of the compound and did brief rehearsals until the sun dropped out of the sky.

  That evening, Bass Voice and another Ground Branch officer shuttled Max, Tom, Hank, Paris, and Rojin in trucks out to the helo pad. Hank had called the Chinook back, and the Waynes and the snipers loaded onto it. The helo lifted off the ground and flew just high enough to clear the trucks and FOB wall before it came to a hover above the Swick chief and his men standing aboard a Special Operations Craft–Riverine on land.

  At the bow, Pretty Boy wielded a long pole and linked the steel cable of a boat harness to the front cargo hook under the helo’s belly—hooking it first try. Not to be outdone, Quicksilver stood at the stern and attac
hed the aft sling to the rear of the chopper’s belly—first try. The helo chief kicked a rope ladder out of the hell hole, and the ladder dropped about twenty feet down into the boat. Pig Pen raised his spread arms twice, signaling the helo to take them up. Chief sat in the coxswain’s chair calmly watching the show. The Swicks and their boat rose in the air with the helo, and Pretty Boy and Quicksilver stowed their poles before they scrambled up the ladder. Pig Pen followed, and Chief brought up the rear. With the SOC-R secured to the Chinook’s belly, the Swicks climbed aboard. The helo raced northeast on a deceptive route before it circled counterclockwise to its true direction—southwest—flying low with its lights off to avoid radar and visual detection.

  Max leaned toward Paris and raised his voice above the whine of the twin rotors and the thwop-thwop of the propellers. “How’d you come to be a soldier?” he asked.

  “Commander al-Iraqi and Daesh are evil: rape, shoot, behead, drown, and burn people alive. Daesh kill mama. So I quit medical school and fight.”

  He nodded understandingly.

  “You know what it like?” she asked. “You lose someone, too?”

  “Yes. And I want payback—revenge,” he said.

  She bowed her head in agreement. “Payback.”

  As Tom watched them, he seemed deep in thought.

  Dad’s eyes were closed.

  Paris checked the ammo in her magazines, and Max leaned back against the bulkhead and closed his eyes.

  When Max opened his eyes again, he checked his GPS. They’d sped nearly thirty klicks southwest of the FOB. The helo crew chief held up five fingers, signaling five minutes to the boat insertion. Max and the others passed the notification to each other. Max put his rappelling gloves on over his tactical gloves. Tom and the others did the same.

  The helo chief kicked a rappelling rope down through the hell hole. They could fast-rope down a rope more quickly than they could climb down a ladder. Soon he held up one finger. One minute. Max and the others passed the message. Boat Chief shuffled to the hell hole, sat with his legs hanging out, and grabbed the rope. He wasn’t clipped into a safety line, and Pig Pen held his belt so he wouldn’t fall out. The Chinook’s nose flared, and the whining of the engines decreased. Max leaned against the centrifugal force. Outside, the dark earth’s horizon tilted. The chopper’s forward momentum decreased, and its nose settled back down. The earth stopped tilting and became level again.