Direct Action - 03

by Jack Murphy

  He was attempting some breathing exercises to help maintain his composure when the bug light went off. It was a relief to say the least.

  Bill broke squealch on his radio.

  “What is it?”

  White noise hissed over the net before the driver answered. “Taliban check point. They make me to stop.”

  “Got it.”

  In the darkness, Deckard heard the guy sitting next to him grunt out several curse words. It was Rick.

  “This is all you,” Rick then told Deckard.

  “Huh?”

  “What the fuck Deckard!” Bill's words bellowed through the cramped compartment. “Rick just told you to take care of this shit so take care of it!”

  “No problem.”

  “No problem my ass,” Bill snarled. “Rick, take this fucker's guns.”

  “What-” Deckard exclaimed.

  “Hand 'em over,” Rick ordered. “Let's see what you're made of.”

  “How many of them are out there?”

  “No idea,” Bill answered. “For your sake I hope it is less than a dozen!”

  “Fuck me,” Deckard groaned.

  The driver stopped on non-existent brake pads. The entire team lurched forward and then back in the opposite direction as the truck screamed to a halt. Rick reached over, undid a latch and threw open the door. He then relieved Deckard of his AK-47 and Glock pistol.

  “Good luck bro,” he said as Deckard slid out into the night. “And thanks for the extra ammo.”

  Climbing out of the hatch, Deckard readjusted the pakol cap on his head and crept along the back of the truck to peer ahead. At first he had to steady himself by holding on to the side of the truck, the motion sickness fading off after a couple seconds. They were on one of the perilous mountain roads that snaked around the spurs and draws as it wound deeper into Indian country. The side of the road terminated in a sheer cliff that went nearly vertical for several hundred feet. Deckard heard rushing water down below and could just make out the reflection of moonlight off the surface of the river. There were only a few feet between the truck and edge of the road. The Taliban had stopped them at a perfect choke point.

  Deckard rounded the side of the truck, sticking to the shadows cast by the moonlight. There were three of them. Wearing dishdashas and black head wraps, the three men at the checkpoint each had long Wahhabi beards, the type that blow up under your armpit when you are running from AC-130 gunships at top speed. One reached over and pulled open the driver's side door while another was saying something to their Afghan driver.

  Three bad guys, three AK-47's. He would have to act fast.

  Deckard crept forward, his heart in his throat. They were distracted as they tried to shake down the driver for some kind of Taliban Value-Added Tax. They needed extra money to buy acid to splash in schoolgirl's faces or something. Deckard just hoped he wasn't spotted until he was on top of them. Inching forward, he saw the driver becoming more distraught. He began flashing money, but glancing back over his shoulder, Deckard could see several dark silhouettes back at the rear of the truck. Some of the Liquid Sky men had hopped out to watch him work.

  Grabbing the nearest terrorist, Deckard flung him right off the edge of the road. The terrorist's arms were pinwheeling as he stumbled and went over the edge. Deckard didn't have time to listen to his screams. The other two checkpoint guards turned to face Deckard, the driver's jaw was hung open as he could only watch in horror.

  The closest of the two tried to bring his AK into play. Deckard pivoted away from barrel to clear the line of fire while simultaneously reaching out and grabbing the barrel with his hand. Using his other hand, he swatted away the terrorist's support hand on the foregrip of the rifle. In one final blur of motion, Deckard swung the rifle barrel straight up where it smacked into the terrorist's face. Temporarily stunned, Deckard relieved him of the AK and slammed the buttstock into the face of the remaining terrorist.

  With the wooden AK buttstock blasting into the side of his face, the terrorist rocked backwards and ran into the side of the truck. Deckard gave him another buttstroke for good measure and the terrorists knees began to turn to jelly before he headed for a faceplant in the dusty road. Transitioning the AK into one hand, Deckard grabbed the terrorist by the collar and flung him down the cliff to take a magic carpet ride with his buddy.

  The remaining terrorist recovered enough by this point to charge at Deckard. The American grabbed him by the wrist and elbow, then shifted and dumped the terrorist over his hip in a simple judo throw. The terrorist coughed and tried to get back to his feet. Deckard placed a shoe on his forehead and pushed him down the cliff.

  He could hear the terrorist scream impacted the nearly vertical slope below and began somersaulting the rest of the way down to the river below.

  Deckard was hardly breathing heavy, but truth be told, his leg burned like hell from an injury he had received on his previous mission to Mexico. He went from one job to the next and hadn't had enough time to heal.

  That was when someone initiated a slow clap. There was one at every party. Deckard looked back. It was Bill.

  The entire team was gathered at the back of the truck. Rick stood with his arms crossed. Zach and Paul, both with their Taliban starter beards had taken advantage of the pit stop to smoke cigarettes. Bill finished clapping and scratched his goatee.

  “Not bad Deckard, but I gotta know. Why didn't you just kill those fuckheads outright?”

  “I did. None of these dumbasses even knows how to swim. If they manage to survive the fall, they will sink right to the bottom of that river down there.”

  Bill frowned. His face looked like worn leather, his biceps and shoulders threatening to tear the man dress he wore open at the seams.

  “Next time use a bullet. A bullet is always the right choice.”

  “I didn't want to compromise our mission in case there are other enemy positions in the area.”

  “This is Afghanistan,” Rick lectured. “No one will notice a few gunshots and besides, what's a little stray gunfire between friends?”

  “Get back in the cab,” Bill motioned the driver who was still gathering his wits. “Let's load up and get rolling. We have hard times to hit.”

  Deckard walked back to the rear of the truck, forcing himself not to favor his bum leg.

  Rick glared at Deckard as he reclaimed his AK and Glock before pulling himself back inside the hidden compartment.

  It was another couple hours in the stifling heat of the closed compartment, bouncing around in the back of the janga truck before the driver stopped again. Liquid Sky disembarked the truck and Bill had a few more words with the driver, both of them taking turns pointing to a ridgeline silhouetted against the starry night sky. Afghanistan had no light pollution, and unlike the Western world, you could see an entire universe of stars out in the badlands of Central Asia.

  Bill slapped the driver on the shoulder and returned to the team.

  “This is our VDO,” he said, announcing their vehicle drop off point. “We will rendezvous with the driver at the exfil point early in the morning.”

  Deckard checked the knock off Rolex watch that had been a part of his issued kit. It was almost midnight and he had a feeling that they would have a long walk ahead of them. Each Liquid Sky member grabbed a couple bottles of water on the way out and shoved them into their pockets. Bill had an old Soviet map in hand and led the patrol up into the mountains.

  The approach to the mountains was hazardous to say the least, and suicidal at worst. They couldn't use flashlights because the light would compromise the patrol, and night-vision goggles were too high tech for a sterile mission that could have no hint of American involvement, mercenary or otherwise. There was enough ambient light for them to slowly feel their way up the side of the mountain, but they still slipped and slid on the soft rock that broke away under their feet. Slowly but surely, Liquid Sky gained in elevation as they climbed towards the ridge above that bumped across the night sky, looking like the
broken spine of a dragon.

  Within half an hour of climbing, they were all covered in sweat, their man-dresses soaked through. They drank water while on the move. The former SEALs chugged water and then tossed the water bottles on the rocks. It was bad form to leave any sign of your presence behind, but clearly these guys didn't care. They were on a one-way trip and their only real concern was getting to the target that night and doing the dirty deed. Deckard downed his first bottle of water and followed suit, dropping the plastic bottle behind him.

  Their VDO had left them about a third of the way up the mountain to begin with and now they were climbing higher and higher. At some points it was so steep that they were able to reach out and grab the terrain right in front of them. Bill led the patrol, taking them in winding switchbacks that inched up the ridge when the going got too steep.

  There was nothing technical about their climb, it was good old-fashion LPC's, leather personnel carriers. That and a lot of sweat. Still, they were doing it like the locals, traveling with the bare essentials in weapons and equipment. They were not nearly as weighted down as American soldiers were in body armor and other equipment, so at least they had that going for them.

  The Liquid Sky team took a short five-minute break after climbing the wind-swept rock for another hour. They sipped on what water they had left and tried to let their legs rest as they sat facing downhill. Steam was coming off their overworked bodies in the cool night air. Bill was the first to stand and start the final push to the top of the ridge.

  Forty-five minutes later, the team huffed and grunted over the ridge. Deckard's leg was throbbing, the cut on his thigh was hot to the touch with inflammation. The rest of the team was also hunched over, grabbing their knees as they tried to catch their breath. They were in good shape and no one complained, but between the altitude and the demanding climb, they were all winded.

  “That's it,” Bill said pointing down into the valley.

  Below them was a small archipelago of walled compounds. Pinpricks of light could be seen in the darkness from morning fires being lit in the courtyards. Bill was pointing to the nearest compound at the base of the mountain. That was their target.

  “Let's get down there and clean the place out,” he ordered.

  Liquid Sky scrambled down the side of the mountain for the better part of two hours, the way down actually being more strenuous than the way up. It was almost four in the morning by the time they bottomed out in the valley and walked along the edge of a dry river bed. It was a wide, rocky gouge in the earth that looked like it hadn't seen water since the Triassic Period, but when the rains came in once a year, water would come rushing down the riverbed like a deluge and sweep away anything in its path.

  Bill picked up the pace as they moved out in a single file. They had to make up some time to get into position, hit the compound, and move out before the sun came up. Moving from the riverbed, they crawled over a rock wall and walked through a terraced field. Finally, they were within a hundred meters of the target compound.

  “Listen up,” Rick whispered to Deckard. “You are our black-side security, so that means you need to position yourself where you can see the back of the compound.”

  Deckard knew what black-side security was, and merely nodded his head.

  “Find a good field of fire so you can waste anyone who tries to go over the high walls and escape.”

  “Got it.”

  “We will be preparing to breach. Radio us when you are in position.”

  “Will do.”

  Deckard skirted around the edge of the compound, weaving between scraggly trees that barely clung to life. It only took a few minutes for him to find a shallow depression that he could lay in where he would have an open lane of fire on the back side of the compound with his AK-47. He pressed on the push to talk button on his radio.

  “This is Deck. I'm set.”

  “Okay dude,” it sounded like Rick.

  They would not be explosively breaching the compound's gate. That would give away the American's presence. Deckard didn't see any mechanical breaching equipment like battering rams or hoolie tools, none of them would want to have carried that crap up the side of the mountain anyway. He did see Zach with a locally procured double-barrel shotgun over one shoulder, so he knew it would be a ballistic breach.

  The radio crackled and hissed, so Deckard turned the volume down a little bit more.

  “Standby,” came the call.

  Two shotgun blasts punctured the night. Deckard tucked the stock of his AK into the pocket of his shoulder and waited. There was a long silence as the Liquid Sky mercenaries began clearing the compound. Then came the gunfire, first in spurts and then full auto blasts. It was a one-sided firefight, Liquid Sky no doubt catching the enemy stumbling out of bed in the night. More auto fire sounded, then silence, then a few single shots here and there. Finally, everything went quiet again.

  Then, an Afghan dropped down off the back wall and crumbled to the ground.

  Show time.

  Deckard confirmed a pistol in the Afghan's fist as he attempted to run away out into the fields. Pushing the selector lever one click down, he aimed low at the runner's legs and triggered a full auto burst of gunfire. Three of the five rounds he let off spun the Afghan around and sent him staggering to the ground.

  As he lay in the prone, he began to get cold. The last few hours before dawn are usually the coldest, and his soaked-through clothes were only adding to the problem. Fifteen minutes went by before he heard anything over the radio.

  “Black-side security,” It sounded like Bill. “You got anything?”

  “One down crow,” Deckard reported.

  “Nice.”

  A few minutes later, Rick radioed that he was coming out to meet Deckard. He stood up and whistled to Rick when he heard him getting close.

  “Where is he?” Rick asked.

  “Over here,” Deckard said leading him over to the body. Rick fired a couple more shots into the body. It never hurt to make sure corpses were still corpses but then Rick loaded a full magazine. Taking a step back, he aimed at the dead body and fired at the Afghan's head on full auto. His gunfire blasted the top of the terrorist's skull clean off and splattered his brains in the dirt. The Liquid Sky member held the trigger down until the rifle cycled through the entire thirty-round magazine.

  It was a completely unnecessary and unprofessional gesture. Rick had effectively turned the top of the Afghan's skull into a canoe.

  “What was that for?” Deckard asked absently.

  “Sending a fucking message,” Rick scolded him. He then patted the body down and pocketed some cash he found in one of the pockets.

  “Let's get the fuck out of here.”

  Deckard followed Rick back around the compound to the breach point. Zach was outside smoking a cigarette. His man dress was splattered with blood, his AK slung over one shoulder. Paul came walking out of the compound with two floppy pancakes in his hands. It took Deckard a moment to realize that the pancakes had hair. Paul had been inside collecting scalps.

  “I got two,” he told Zach with a smile.

  “Just the woman,” Zach replied, motioning to the clump of long hair and congealing blood at his feet.

  Deckard had no illusions about who he was dealing with. They were out murdering democracy advocates and helping to suppress the Arab Spring, but this was off the charts. Even among those who went off the reservation, this was pretty much unheard of. He was shocked, and would not have believed it if someone had described the scene to him in a bar.

  Bill came out with another scalp in his hand and a bloody hatchet in the other.

  “Fucking savages never had a chance,” he grinned.

  Deckard still couldn't believe what he was seeing.

  Ramon came out carrying a plastic bag filled with documents and computer hard drives he had collected on the objective.

  “Get rid of that shit,” Bill told him. “Sterile means nothing goes on the objective and nothing comes
off. Zero evidence that we were ever here.”

  “This was a major command and control node for the network,” Ramon insisted. “We can ball up the entire network based on what these guys have here.”

  “Not our problem,” Bill said. “Let the fucking knuckle-draggers in Big Army sort this bullshit third-world country out. We work contract to contract.”

  Ramon looked pissed, but walked back into the compound with the bag of sensitive materials he had collected. Rick followed him in and returned back with a couple scalps of his own which he dropped at Zach's feet.

  “There is my two.”

  Bending over, he wiped the blood off his hatchet on Deckard's man dress.

  “Thanks bro. Gotta make sure this bad boy is ready to go for next time,” Rick informed him.

  “We got a pickup inside the compound,” Ramon said as he walked back out.

  “Good, that will save us some time,” Bill replied. “Deckard, go hotwire that fucker and get us out of here.”

  Deckard nodded.

  “Wait a second,” Paul said stopping him. “Let me give you a hand.”

  Reaching into his pocket, Paul pulled out a dismembered hand and threw it at Deckard. It bounced off his chest and thumped between his feet in a cloud of dust. The Liquid Sky team burst out laughing at the look of disgust on his face.

  Deckard walked back inside the compound trying to process what had just happened. These guys were so far gone that there was no turning back for any of them. His plan had always been to infiltrate and then destroy. Now it didn't matter what his plan was. He was all out of choices. These were former Special Operations men like himself and so many others who served.

  It was his responsibility to clean up this mess. There was no need for him to justify this to himself, it justified itself. It was time to choose the hard right over the easy wrong. Finding the pickup truck in the corner of the compound, he threw open the door and went to work on the ignition.

  As he began to pry the ignition cylinder out with a piece of metal he found laying around, Deckard felt completely disgusted with what he had involved himself in. Even if they were terrorists, this wasn't how soldiers carried themselves. It wasn't just about disrespecting the enemy dead, more importantly, it was about the discipline and self-respect that the soldier had for himself. Once the rot of war crimes infected a military organization, it would spread throughout the unit like a plague and destroy everything that they had once stood for. They would be no different than Al Qaeda and the other human savages that they fought. At that point, the war was already lost.