Free Fire Zone

by Rod Carstens

  “Listen, I’m telling you, Logan don’t know shit. There’s nothing to scavenge there. I’m telling you we’re not going to find any good shit.”

  “You better be right, Johnson. You’ve been shooting your mouth off long enough. If you’re wrong we’ll all be up shit creek.”

  The footsteps were getting louder. Tanner eased his rifle into a position from which he would have a clear shot. He saw movement up the trail; the figures held their rifles over their shoulders. In the green-and-black world of his night vision he could see they were young and not at all worried about any dangers that might lurk in the woods around them. Either they were stupid or they knew the woods well enough to think they were safe. There were one, two, three of them. It would be easy to take them out, but they would be missed. He didn’t want to unless he had to. He clicked his tongue twice on the radio, signaling for Matos not to take any action unless he had to. Matos clicked his tongue once to let Tanner know he understood.

  Then the leader of the group stopped. Practically stepping on Matos, he turned and looked to the rear. Tanner brought up his rifle and put the crosshairs on the one called Johnson’s face. He was in his teens. Please, you little asshole, don’t make me, he thought.

  “Morgan, would you get your ass up here before you get lost?”

  Tanner heard running footsteps, and a figure smaller than the other three came hurrying down the trail. At first Tanner thought it was another boy, but as the figure got closer he realized it was a girl. A young girl who looked about thirteen. She carried a rifle that was almost bigger than she was. She was dressed like the others in various adult hand-me-downs. She wore an open coat that was obviously too big for her and hung almost to her ankles. Her pants were rolled up several times so they didn’t drag on the ground, and her untucked shirt hung almost to her knees. She had a stocking cap on, holding her long hair in place. A single pink piece of twine came out from the cap. It was obvious they were trying to look older and tougher than they were in case someone spotted them.

  “I told you we shouldn’t have brought her. She’s too young.”

  “She’s got to learn sometime. Now, Morgan, you either keep up or we’re going to leave you for those Resource teams. They love to kill kids like you.”

  When Morgan caught up, the four figures moved off down the trail. Matos waited until he could no longer hear or see them. He eased his knife back into his boot and slowly stood. Tanner and Cat stood too, but none of them moved. They waited to make sure nothing was near. Then, slowly, Matos stepped across the path. If you moved fast crossing an open area at night you would be more easily noticed if someone was watching. Moving almost in slow motion, you stood a better chance of being lost in the shadows. So they took very slow and careful steps until they were across the path, Matos leading the way.

  They spent the next half an hour moving slowly through the woods. They made it to 98th Street and halted in the thickest bushes they could find. Tanner looked up and down the street. Nothing. It was clear. He was preparing to signal the others to move across the street when they heard running. The sound was getting nearer it was coming from just north of them. Someone was crashing through the bushes.

  “Come on, goddamnit! Run! They’re right behind us.”

  Tanner recognized the voice. It was Johnson, the kid leading the scavenging party. The four broke out of the bushes about a half a block north of Tanner. They were running for their lives. Tanner heard men’s voices behind them laughing and yelling.

  “Run, you little fucks! We’ve got you anyway.”

  “Here kitty, kitty…wait until papa gets ahold of that cute little ass.”

  The kids made the middle of the street before a gang car pulled out of an alley at the end of the park and came down the middle of the street. The four kids were illuminated in the cone of the headlights of the car. Five men crashed out of the bushes and chased them down the street just ahead of the car. The first man was big with greasy long hair. He grabbed the last kid. It was the girl. With one big hand he picked her up by the collar of her jacket and knocked the rifle out of her hands. The girl fought back as best she could swinging her arms and kicking. The boys stopped and turned around. When they did, one of the men fired a pistol so the round struck the concrete at their feet.

  “Now it’s time to stop, boys. You can’t get away.”

  The car drove up and stopped next to the man who was holding the girl. His big hands moved over the girl’s body.

  “She’s mature for her age. She’s gonna be fun back at camp,” he said, leering down at the girl. “I like the pink ribbon in your hair, baby girl.”

  Two men got out of the car. One of them went to the boys and shoved the three to the ground in the light of the car’s headlights. He reached down and picked up their weapons and tossed them aside. Then he walked up to one and picked him up by his collar and pants.

  “You can have her. This little boy is just about the right age to be fun,” he said.

  He was a thin man with scraggly blond hair and beard. The others laughed. Cat clicked her tongue twice on the radio. Tanner looked over at her. She was raising her rifle.

  “Cat, we can’t. We’ll never get out of here,” Tanner whispered into the radio.

  “Fuck that. I was her age when they started using me.”

  Cat’s voice had a coldness in it Tanner had never heard before. He knew there was no stopping her. She was the girl's age when she was first sold into a brothel. She knew what would happen to her. Cat would not stand by and watch something worse happen to girl.

  “Okay, I’ll start with the guy on the left. Matos, take the middle. Cat, you start with the guy holding the girl. You get the ball rolling.”

  Tanner brought his rifle up and put the crosshairs on the blond man’s head. Cat’s rifle coughed and the head of the big man holding the girl exploded. The blond was next, and Matos’s man fell at the same time. The other three went down with multiple shots each. In just a few seconds six men lay dead in the street. The four kids stood there covered with the men’s blood, afraid to move. They slowly put their hands up. Tanner now had a gang car in the middle of 98th Street with six dead gang members and gunships circling the area. He might as well have sent up a flare. He shot out the headlights before he emerged from the bushes.

  The kids cringed as he approached. Cat walked up to the girl and knelt down in front of her.

  “It’s all right, baby girl. We took care of them.”

  The girl looked at Cat, then at the boys and back to Cat. It was as if she couldn’t trust what she was seeing. Then she threw herself into Cat’s arms, crying. Cat held her close.

  Tanner walked up to the boy who appeared to be the leader.

  “You Johnson?”

  “Yes. Yes, sir.”

  Tanner grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground until they were face-to-face.

  “When you lead a group, even some kids, they are your responsibility. You take care of them. You don’t walk around like you’re on a playground. We had you in the park but you never saw us. If we hadn’t taken out these assholes you have no idea what they would have done to you, and it’s all because you had your head up your ass.”

  The boy’s eyes bulged, and his mouth moved but nothing came out.

  “You best cowboy up there, buster, because you live in a shitty world. I don’t know if you're stupid or just young. Either way you need to get smart quick.”

  Tanner dropped him. Matos had been going through the weapons of the dead gang members.

  “Anything?” Tanner asked.

  “Yeah, they got an old M14 and ’16 plus some decent pistols.”

  “Give them to the kids.”

  Tanner shoved the boy over to Matos, and the other two boys followed. Cat was still holding the girl, but she had finally calmed down. Cat held her at arm’s length.

  “You okay?”

  The girl nodded. Cat slapped her across the face. Not hard but enough to get her attention.
/>   “What uh...how…what?” the girl stammered.

  “That was for being stupid enough to follow duty dummy over there. If you stand around people doing something stupid you can get killed or worse. It’s called the Stupid Rule: don’t do anything stupid or stand around people doing something stupid. You were about to learn what is worse than death. They would have passed you around until there was nothing left. Understand?”

  The girl nodded.

  “You only get a couple mistakes this big. You were lucky this time. Next time you might not be as lucky. We clear?”

  The girl nodded again.

  “Good. Now I was about your age when they took me and passed me around like a joint at a party. I didn’t have anybody to rescue me. You did. Don’t waste it. Get smart and get tough. Here.”

  Cat handed the girl the M16 they had taken off the dead gang members.

  “You hold it like this. This is the safety and this is your selector. Keep it on auto until you can hit something when you shoot. Understood?”

  The girl nodded, holding the rifle the way Cat had shown her. Cat walked over to Johnson and slapped him across the face so hard he almost fell down. When he straightened up, Cat had her knife under his chin.

  “My team leader just gave you a lesson in leadership. You have no idea what they would have done to those two, and then they would have had their fun with you. There are no rules out here. You survive or die miserably. If I ever see you again and you’re still acting stupid, I will cut your balls off and feed them to you. We clear?”

  The boy could only nod a fraction of an inch.

  “Now all of you pick up your weapons and the ones we gave you, and move like you have a purpose,” Cat snapped.

  The four kids did as they were told and moved quietly across the street.

  “Hey, girl. If you're the Tail-End Charlie you walk backwards as much as you walk forwards,” Cat said.

  The girl nodded. Then she said, “It’s Morgan. My name is Morgan. Thank you.”

  Cat only nodded. When the kids had disappeared, Cat turned to Tanner and said, “I couldn’t stand there and let those fucks take her. That was me not that long ago.”

  Tanner looked at her for a long moment. “I know it was the right thing to do. We get to do what we want now. No SOPs, no observe only, no more stand-downs or stand-byes.”

  “All of that is great, boss, but what do we do about the bodies and the car?” Matos said.

  Tanner thought for a few moments. “Leave them. Let’s make sure we strip them of everything usable. It will look like just another ambush.”

  They made sure all of the useful equipment was stripped off the bodies and moved quickly across 98th Street into an old apartment building.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Special Action Team

  1904 hours

  Lieutenant Muller was not happy. She was sitting in the troopship as it circled, waiting for her orders for inserting her team members. She stared at the street map again as if it would change if she stared at it enough. Sure, the combat computer had given her the best area to set up the ambush in, but it was still over six blocks long, and she didn’t have enough troops to cover that large an area. There were just too many nooks and crannies for smart troops to use to try and cross. She had to narrow it down. While she was sure they were going to have to try and cross the boulevard tonight, she just did not have the manpower to properly cover the area. She was having to stretch her people too thin.

  Washington Boulevard was huge, both wide and long. It split Area Bravo into two distinct parts. Tanner and his team were on the northern side of the boulevard. That much she knew, but where would they cross? They could cross further west and work their way south to the caches, cross close to the caches, or cross to the east. Where? Where would she cross? This boy Tanner was as smart as she was. So where would I cross?

  Buildings lined both sides of the street, providing cover. The subway did not cross anywhere near the caches, and it would take too long to go under then come up and work your way down to the caches. With gunships overhead and her team searching for them it would be too big a risk and take too long. No, it had to be somewhere from Soldiers Park up to 96th. No farther east or west would work. That was still a lot of area to cover with her team.

  She was still studying the map when the pilot said, “Ma’am, I got something here.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a car with six bodies around it on 98th Street.”

  “Put the image on my computer.”

  Anke stared at the image. For all the world it looked like one gang had ambushed the car of another gang.

  “Give it to me through the thermal.”

  The pilot switched the image to thermal imaging, and the car and the bodies still had enough heat to register white on the screen. It could have been just a gang incident, but she had a hunch.

  “Put us over the scene. Sergeant, I want two troopers to rope down and get eyes on.”

  The ship banked and came to a hover over the car. The sergeant kicked out the rope and two troopers slid down to the scene. One covered while the other investigated the bodies and the car. She watched on her screen as one of the troopers went from body to body.

  “Lieutenant, they’re all dead and stripped of their weapons and anything else that might be useful.”

  Anke still had a hunch.

  “Switch my feed to the trooper’s camera.”

  The image of a thin man with long, blond, scraggly hair suddenly appeared on her screen. Something was bothering her, but what?

  “Give me a close-up of his head.”

  The trooper zoomed in on the man’s head. He had a single gunshot wound in the middle of his forehead.

  “Do they all have head shots?”

  The troopers went from man to man. “Yes, Lieutenant. How did you know?”

  “Because, you dumb shit, this was not a gang ambush. This was Tanner and his team. When was the last time you saw a gang ambush with that kind of shooting?”

  Shit. She was surrounded by enough stupid to let Tanner escape.

  “I’m roping down. I want to inspect the scene,” Anke told the pilot. “Make sure your crew keeps their eyes open. They could still be in the area.”

  Anke closed her computer, slung her rifle on her back, walked to the ramp at the rear of the aircraft, and slid down the rope to the ground. She walked up to the scene. The bodies were all sprawled in the places where they had been standing, if she had to make a guess. Quick and sure. They’d used silencers, or the area’s sound detectors would have picked up their rifles’ sound signatures. Why? Why do this? They could have easily slipped past them.

  They had all been standing roughly in a circle, as if they were looking at something. Then she saw something under the big one. It was a piece of cloth. She reached down and pulled it out. It was a pink hair ribbon, like a young girl would use. She stood and looked at the scene with different eyes.

  So these scumbags had gotten ahold of at least one girl, if not more, and Tanner and his crew had come to the rescue. That was the only scenario that made sense. Why risk it? They didn’t know them. They weren’t traveling with anyone. No, Tanner was on the radar because he didn’t want this area declared a Free Fire Zone. What we got here is a real hero willing to risk his skin and his team to do good. Anke smirked. It was a weakness she might be able to use.

  “Search the area. See if you can tell which way they went.”

  There were enough leaves, dirt, and pieces of debris covering the ground they might be able to find a direction. She walked toward the park and looked closely at the sidewalk. It was covered with leaves and twigs that were undisturbed. Then she came to an area where the leaves were crushed and the twigs broken. She moved the bushes, and sure enough she saw where the three had set up perfect firing positions. They were good.

  “Lieutenant, I’ve got something.”

  Anke walked over to where the trooper was. There were muddy footprints on the side
walk that led into a building. They weren’t from standard boots; they were civilians. One set was smaller than the others. These were the prints of the group Tanner had saved, and just like she’d thought, there was a girl with them. But Tanner and his team had not gone with them.

  “Lieutenant, I’ve got something up here too. A boot print.”

  Anke walked up the street to where the other trooper was. Sure enough, she found a single muddy boot print. She could tell it was one of Tanner's team from the tread marks, the pattern was the same as standard boots the teams wore. Tanner had gone a different way. So they save those kids and then just move on. They move better that way. Interesting.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

  Anke and the two troopers walked over to the rope and hooked their harnesses into the rope. The ship pulled them up into the compartment. Anke went back to her seat and opened her computer. This was all interesting, but she had to figure out whether she could use it to predict where they would cross.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Resource Security Force

  Team Sixteen

  1908 hours

  Tanner and the team had seen the troopship hover over the ambush site. This guy didn’t miss a trick. While the ship hovered, they remained hidden inside a crumbling apartment building, watching the scene from deep inside an apartment. The Special Action Team had found the wreck, but the second set of tracks had them confused. Then the lieutenant walked over and looked at the tracks left by the kids. That was when Tanner realized the spec-op lieutenant was a woman. She said something and went to a track they must have left. She looked in their direction, and if he didn’t know better he could have sworn she was looking right at him. She knew the direction they were heading in, and if she knew that then she knew for sure they were trying to get to the caches. She roped back up into the tiltrotor which moved toward the area of the caches. They would be waiting. It was no longer just a problem with crossing the boulevard. Now Tanner knew the woman and her team would be waiting. It would make the crossing that much more difficult.