Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4)

by Jack Murphy

  They had taken the oil security contract in the Arctic to keep the revenue coming in. Maintaining a small private army wasn't cheap, and this wasn't the way most companies did business; usually they just hired independent contractors from job to job. Deckard was instead running a de facto military unit, and he wanted to keep his team intact.

  However, as it turned out, there could be many interesting tasks rolled up under an oil security contract. Not only could those tasks include static security around offshore oil rigs, they could also involve training other security personnel, and maybe even killing off those who would threaten the business interests of said oil companies—threats like the Russian mafia, who had recently been acting like Arctic pirates.

  Deckard's office door swung open again. Rochenoire looked at him with a grin.

  “We got the green light,” the former SEAL announced.

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Everything is prepped and pre-staged, correct?”

  “You know it.”

  Now it was Deckard's turn to smile.

  “Spin the boys up.”

  The giant black man turned around in the doorway.

  “Drop cocks, grab socks. It’s a go!”

  Deckard flung open his gear bag and began donning his kit. The first layer was thermal clothing, over which went a cold-weather shirt, followed by a bare plate carrier, and then his parka. Over his clothes he wore the new Samruk uniform for their Arctic contract: a winter camouflage pattern made by PenCott called SnowDrift. Finally, a chest rig loaded with ammunition and grenades went over his chest. Picking up his AK-103 rifle, Deckard walked out into the the warehouse.

  About 80 mercenaries were going through the same routine, kitting up for combat. The mission had been planned and re-planned for weeks. They were just waiting on approval from the Russian government. Mob ties ran deep in the halls of power, and getting the political ducks in a row took some time. At the end of the day it was all about business, and the pirates were costing both the government and private industry millions of dollars in extortion fees. Someone had finally gotten fed up.

  Using a private military company that had a Kazakh face rather than an American one made the job more politically acceptable, and kept the Russian military out of the firing line when things went pear-shaped, which, of course, they always did.

  “What about the new guys?” Kurt Jager asked as he spotted Deckard walking out of the office. The former GSG-9 commando spoke perfect English, leaving no hint of his German nationality.

  “Take them along. It will be on-the-job training. Keep them with the security elements so they can observe how we do things without getting them overly involved on their first op.”

  “Got it.”

  Deckard slung his rifle and pulled a white watch cap over his head. Pushing open the door, he pulled his hood up as well. The sunlight stung his eyes. As outlined in the stipulations of their contract, Samruk International was based out of an unused warehouse leased to house oil-drilling equipment, and the occasional private army.

  The wind swept snow across the desolate coastline, the cold already stinging Deckard's cheeks. By the end of this deployment he knew they would all be sporting lumberjack beards just to try to keep themselves a little bit warmer.

  A few hundred meters away was their new ride. It was a monstrosity of a ship, a chimera that never should have existed, but did thanks to a failed U.S. Navy and Marine Corps experiment gone awry. But just like the C-27J airplane, Deckard saw an opportunity to purchase some hardware that fit his needs at bargain basement prices.

  Renamed the Carrickfergus, the ship was one of a kind. Sharing the characteristics of both a barge and a catamaran, the ship rested on two massive pontoons, with the bridge of the ship, housing the captain's control center, joining the double-hulled design. On top of each hull were two passenger compartments.

  It was big, it was blue, it was ugly, and it wasn't even that fast.

  But it was an icebreaker with a cargo deck that lowered from the center and accommodated beach landings. During travel, the deck would be raised, then lowered again along with a ramp when the vehicles onboard were ready to drive up onto the shore. Currently, the deck was lowered and waiting to take on the passengers. Under tarps were eight Iveco assault vehicles, six snowmobiles, a few kayaks, two Zodiac boats, and a small Conex container filled with ammunition.

  “Let's go!” Frank yelled, ushering the mercenaries out the door. The former Ranger was about as wide as he was tall and had been with the company since the beginning.

  The Kazakh mercenaries were led out in an orderly fashion by one of the two platoon sergeants, a man named Fedorchenko. He had started with Samruk as a corporal after being recruited from a Kazakh special police unit. Since that time he had more than proved his mettle. He had been leading a platoon since Mexico and had done an outstanding job.

  Integrated into the platoons of Kazakhs were Westerners from units as diverse as the Polish GROM and the French Foreign Legion. Initially, they had been the trainers and mentors, but now they were assaulters fighting alongside their former students who were every bit as good as they were.

  The mercenaries boarded the Carrickfergus and began climbing up to the passenger compartments. Inside, the seats had been torn out and the space converted for military purposes. Gear and weapons were everywhere; white boards with task lists scribbled on them were hung on the walls; and the soldiers’ individual equipment, bags, and boxes of military rations were neatly stacked on plywood shelves they had constructed. The ship was set up not just as a means of transportation, but also to act as a mobile staging ground.

  The Carrickfergus was designed to accommodate 130 passengers. There was enough room for two platoons of mercenaries, plus Samruk's intelligence, mortar, recce, and headquarters sections, but it was still cramped inside. Deckard walked up the ramp and climbed up the ladder to the bridge as the captain began raising the deck, preparing to get underway.

  The ship was a hulking beast at 59 meters long, and looked like it had been cobbled together from the leftover parts of other ships. As Deckard reached the bridge, the twin motors that powered the hydraulic system for lifting the deck switched off as it was locked into place. Walking inside the bridge, he was confronted by a dizzying array of dials and instruments on several consoles.

  The old salt who captained the Carrickfergus stood behind the helm. He wore a battered old sweater, out from which his beer belly swelled, revealing a stained white T-shirt underneath. His beard was almost fully gray and his shoes were a beat-up pair of loafers.

  “Hey Deck!” he exclaimed. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Thanks Otter.”

  They had been calling the captain by his sea name long enough that no one really remembered what the real name on his file was anymore.

  “Time to go kill some commies, huh?”

  “Organized criminals,” Deckard carefully corrected.

  “Same difference,” Otter said as he grabbed the wheel with one hand. In the other was a coffee mug that looked like it hadn't been washed in years. Unlike Deckard’s coffee, Otter's was always spiked with something a little more fun.

  “Can you get us to the beach landing zone without killing us?”

  “We'll find out,” the captain chuckled.

  The four diesel-fueled engines churned and the Carrickfergus began reversing out into the icy waters. This close to shore, there wasn't much ice to cut through, but they would still be traveling relatively slowly. The ship's top speed was only 20 knots. By comparison, most commercial shipping vessels traveled at 25 knots, although many of them deliberately slowed to 20 to keep fuel consumption down.

  Deckard swept his gaze across the ocean and was greeted with a sight that would have been impossible just a few years ago. A half dozen commercial cargo ships, loaded with Conex containers or sitting low in the water because they were filled with oil, could be seen in the Arctic with the naked eye.

  Wit
h polar ice melting, a new trans-Arctic sea route had been opened. The opening of the northeast passage in the spring and summer months in Russia was already saving European companies billions of dollars and cutting days off their shipping times to Asia. Ice cutters were now sailed through the northeast passage all year long to keep the routes open.

  The opening of the northwest passage in northern Canada was having a similar effect on commercial shipping. More than that, the melting ice was also opening up the region to other commercial ventures. From oil drilling to the mining of rare earth minerals, the Arctic Circle was now ripe for the taking.

  But with that came Arctic sovereignty disputes, and the further militarization of the Arctic as great powers like Russia and the United States eyed each other from across their frozen shores. Of course, with the advent of commercial interests in the Arctic, along came crime. That was what brought Samruk International to the Arctic in the first place.

  Oddly enough, what really shifted commercial maritime traffic up into the Arctic was ISIS. Once the jihadis had launched terrorist operations around the Suez Canal, sinking several ships, the insurance premiums for ships traveling through the canal skyrocketed. A few months before, terrorists had detonated a SMVIED—a suicide merchant vessel improvised explosive device, an entire commercial ship packed with explosives—in the canal. Churning through the Arctic was cheaper in more ways than one. The result was a push of maritime traffic between Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia up into the Arctic in order to avoid the turbulent Middle East.

  Looking through the window to the deck below, Deckard could already see the mercenaries throwing the tarps off their vehicles and mounting PKM machine guns in swing-arm mounts.

  “How long?”

  Otter snorted. “I'll get you there by EENT,” he said, referring to end of evening nautical twilight.

  He could have just said at dusk, but the U.S. Navy has a way of institutionalizing sailors.

  Deckard ran the numbers in his head.

  “It's almost too good to be true.”

  * * *

  Croatia

  Seventy Special Forces commandos assembled at the tarmac, kitted up for war.

  A C-17 waited for them in the distance, bathed in the airfield's blue lights. The turbine engines hummed as the pilots went through their pre-flight check list as quickly as possible.

  “Gather around,” Major Thomas shouted. “We'll do this right here.”

  The C/1/10 CIF commander had gotten the orders just an hour before, but the Commanders In-extremis Force was designed for no-notice deployments. The Green Berets belonged to a specialized direct-action company within 10th Special Forces Group. While Special Forces soldiers specialized in training foreign troops and conducting unconventional warfare, the CIF's sole purpose was counterterrorism.

  “You've probably figured out by now that our mission, training the Croatian counterterrorism unit, is on hold until further notice. The latest reports out of Nairobi indicate the U.S. embassy is under siege. At least half of the compound is now in enemy hands. Intel is shit, but what else is new? No one knows if it is al-Shabaab, al-Hijra, or someone new to the game. The Kenyan government has already cleared the way for us to drive straight to the embassy grounds after we hit the ground. We'll clear the exterior of the embassy and secure the area. Flight time is seven hours, and the boys from Bragg should be just an hour behind us.”

  The MultiCam-clad Special Forces soldiers understood the mission immediately. They had trained for it countless times, but had never gotten the call.

  Until now.

  Once they secured the perimeter of the embassy, Delta Force would breach the buildings and conduct the hostage rescue mission.

  “Size, strength, and disposition of enemy forces?” one of the cell leaders asked.

  “We're expecting close to a hundred crows,” the major said, using their internal code word for enemy combatants. “Expect them to be armed with AK-47s, RPGs, and PKMs. Remember that the bad guys in this AO have a history of using suicide vests. The IED threat is assessed as high. Diplomatic Security Services and the contractors pulling static security were quickly overwhelmed, so that should tell you something. CNN is reporting small arms fire and several explosions.”

  “CNN is reporting?” one of the weapons sergeants asked.

  “You know the deal,” the CIF commander replied. “We're going in blind to act as the eyes and ears for the main effort.”

  “Roger that.”

  The major looked down at his watch.

  “We're wheels-up in fifteen. You know what to do.”

  The CIF team members turned around and jogged over to the aircraft. Their plate carriers bounced slightly with each step. Getting closer, they pulled on their Peltor headsets and snapped OpsCore helmets over their heads. They had already received their basic load of ammunition and explosives. The gun trucks were tied down inside the plane with ratchet straps, ready to roll off the ramp the second they hit the ground in Africa.

  As the CIF team sat down in the red fabric seats lining the inner fuselage of the C-17, Major Thomas went over to the loadie. The flight crew member wore a khaki flight suit and helmet with a long, black wire linking his headset to the aircraft's comms system.

  “We're up!” the commander yelled over the whining engines.

  The loadie nodded and clicked on his mic, saying a few words to the pilots. The flight crew then walked down the ramp and began flipping up the two flaps that reached down from the ramp to the tarmac.

  Major Thomas took an empty seat next to the rear of the aircraft and buckled himself in. His executive officer was sitting next to him and immediately started asking more questions about the mission.

  “Hey, what the fuck?” the the loadie yelled, his voice drowned out by the engines.

  A black-clad man suddenly scrambled up the ramp of the aircraft and into the interior.

  Major Thomas looked up at the interloper with a frown. He held something in his hand.

  “ALLLAAAAHHUU AKBAAAR!”

  * * *

  The president looked away from the screen as a half dozen Secret Service agents burst into the war room and slammed the door shut behind them.

  “We have a situation, Mr. President,” one of them announced.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Sir,” one of his aides said, trying to get his attention. “We need—”

  “Perimeter breach,” one of the agents said.

  “Where is—”

  “Sir!” the aide screamed. “We need your authorization!”

  The president swung around angrily to face the aide.

  “Sir, F16s are on station.”

  The president looked up at the black-and-white image displayed on the screen at the end of the room. It showed a tractor trailer stopped in the middle of a highway. White thermal images surrounded the truck and a bright glow came from the rear doors. Apparently, someone was trying to burn their way inside with a blowtorch.

  “Do it,” the president ordered. “Now someone tell me why we are on lockdown.”

  An officer sitting at the other end of the table, wearing a blue Air Force dress uniform, picked up a phone and relayed the president's authorization.

  “The situation is still developing, Mr. President,” one of the Secret Service men said. “We were told that someone breached the White House.”

  “Another fence jumper? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  The president had deep lines around the corners of his eyes and a lot more gray hair than when he had taken office seven years prior. An administration plagued with scandals and an indecisive Congress could do that to any president.

  Another phone rang, and the president's aide picked it up.

  “The suspect has already been apprehended, sir, but we can't take any chances.”

  “This is the third time this month,” the president complained. “What the hell is the problem with—”

  All eyes in the room suddenly shot back towar
d the screen. The tractor trailer disappeared in a massive gray cloud. The 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition vaporized the truck, and everyone except the Secret Service agents knew that 10 good men had been vaporized with it. It was all part of the protocol, but that didn't make it any easier.

  “It will be reported as an eighteen-car pile-up in the news tomorrow,” a Department of Homeland Security representative said, breaking the silence. “We'll say a chemical spill was involved to explain the clean-up crews.”

  “Jesus,” the president said under his breath.

  “The truth is that this section of Highway 70 will be unusable for decades. The JDAM will have spread radioactive material for several kilometers. Destroying it like this creates an even bigger radioactive mess than an actual detonation,” the DHS rep said ominously.

  “We just got hit in Croatia,” an Army general said as he slammed down his phone. “The entire CIF team got taken out on an airfield in Zagreb.”

  “What happened?”

  “We don't know yet.”

  The aide sitting next to the president set down his phone softly.

  “Mr. President, a situation is developing in the Arctic.”

  “I don't think we have time for that right now.”

  “I agree,” the aide said, leaning on his chair closer to the president. “Sir, it is now very clear.”

  “What’s that?” the president asked, his eyes still fixated on the smoking hole in the middle of Highway 70.

  “Someone just declared war on America.”

  “Who?”

  “We don't know.”

  Chapter 2

  Russian Arctic

  The Carrickfergus reversed its engines, churning up a froth of freezing water as the icebreaker ship inched up to the coastline. The deck was already lowered down to sea level and the ramp dropped down to the beach. Eight Iveco assault trucks rolled off the ship in four-wheel drive and sped up the beach, scattering a trio of walruses. The creatures wiggled off like giant, obese inchworms and slipped into the ocean.