by Jack Murphy
Just as he hotwired the truck, Deckard knew he would have to be slow and deliberate. He couldn't allow his emotions to control him like the Liquid Sky team. One slip up and he was a dead man. He needed to play along, maybe no matter how dark this road he was heading down got. When the time was right, at a place and time of his choosing, he would drop the hammer and be done with this.
The pickup truck rumbled to life. Deckard got behind the wheel and worked the stick shift, driving out of the compound. Outside, the five other Liquid Sky operators piled into the truck, several sitting in the back. Bill got in the passenger seat and told Deckard he could flip on the headlights and white light it down the road. They just needed to make a quick exit from the target area before daylight and the risk of an ambush was fairly low. He gave him directions on where to go as they drove towards their extraction site. After driving for half an hour, the sun was starting to crest above the horizon.
Bill ordered everyone out of the truck. Deckard put it in neutral and they pushed the vehicle into a creek bed where it rolled over on its side. At least it would be out of sight to any passersby. Then it was back up the mountain. They had done an off-set infil, first traveling by Trojan janga truck and then moving by foot to the objective to maintain the element of surprise and absolute secrecy prior to their assault. It was sound planning, but now they had to walk all the way back to the exfil site where their janga truck driver would pick them up along a different spot on the road.
By the time they were halfway up the ridge, it was full daylight. The good thing was that they were far enough away from the road below and their objective that it was unlikely anyone would spot them. They could see the smattering of compounds below, but without optics, no one was going to see a few ants climbing the side of the mountain.
By eight in the morning they again crested the ridge. Everyone was out of water. It was a short-duration mission with one specific task: hunting and killing with zero American involvement as far as anyone could prove. They took five up on top of the ridge, everyone having a seat on the rocks and admiring the view. Afghanistan was really the prettiest part of hell. It would have been a nice place to visit if not for the jihadist crazies. And the occasional rogue mercenary.
Zach and Rick got into a blow-by-blow about who killed who and how it had all gone down.
“They were Al Qaeda?” Deckard asked Ramon.
“Naw man,” he answered. “Those were Karzai's guys.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, they were tied into the President of Afghanistan. Running a huge drug-trafficking network for him. Completely untouchable by U.S. Special Operations for political reasons. That's why we got called in.”
“Shit.”
“No kidding. They let him get away with it for a long time but I guess he is starting to lean away from America and more towards China these days so someone wanted to give him a gut check. That's my take on it anyway.”
“Its a good thing we took them out.”
Ramon turned to him and whispered, “Look, you did good today. Just keep your head down and they will offer you a full-time job. We do a lot of killing and make good money at it. Its just harder for us Army guys to get an in with them.”
“I got it.”
But Deckard didn't get it. He had completely misread Ramon by thinking he was a SEAL.
They picked it up and started their descent. It was a long haul through the morning as they suffered in the heat and slipped down through the dirt and debris. A few times they had to cling to the sides of cliffs and move hand over hand until they could find a wider path down the mountain. Bill was up front again and he began talking into his radio when the road came into view. There was no sign of their ride home, but he was talking to someone.
They walked down a spur-coming off the mountain overlooking the road and halted. Bill signaled them to stay low as they gathered around a rocky outcropping that looked like something that belonged on the set of Conan the Barbarian.
At this point, they were only a few hundred meters above the road. Down below was a village with a stream running alongside the road. Terraced fields were dug into the opposite side of the valley with houses and huts propped up against the sides of the cliffs at impossible angles. People lived where the water was, no matter how ridiculous the terrain might be. They learned to live there.
In the stream next to the road, a woman in a blue burka stood in the water up to her ankles, washing dishes, pots, and pans that she laid next to her one by one as she scrubbed them out.
“Where is our GI Joe Army guy?” Bill asked. “Deckard, get your ass up here.”
Deckard high-crawled over to Bill and watched the scene below.
“You see that Hodji twat down there?”
“Yeah.”
“This is our extraction point and that fucking cunt is in the way. She'll compromise us. You're disguised as a local, so I want you to get close to her and cut her fucking throat. Think you can do it?”
“Yeah,” Deckard said without hesitation.
“You got a knife?”
“No, just the kit you issued me.”
“Here,” Bill said handing him a rusty butcher knife. Another local purchase. “Make it happen. Once it is done we will come down and I'll call in our driver.”
“Piece of cake.”
“Yeah,” Bill said dryly. “We'll find out in a few minutes, won't we?”
“Do that bitch Deckard,” Rick told him. “God only knows how many puppies she will squeeze out that will become Allah lovin' terrorists.”
Deckard looked down at the road for a moment and plotted his route down to the stream. He figured it out in a few seconds and then dropped down below the crest of the spur, keeping the terrain feature between himself and the woman below. He stepped very carefully now so not to give away his position. Stepping from heel to toe, he slowly maneuvered his way down to the road. The small stones still ground beneath his footsteps but that couldn't be helped.
Moving slowly, he made it down to the road, then crossed it out of sight of the woman. With any luck, she would have finished her task and have walked back home by the time he got there. Another reason why he was in no rush.
There was no way that Deckard was going to murder a civilian in cold blood. The game was over before he had even gotten started. Bill had called his bluff. They wanted to see if he was one of them, ensure that he was a war criminal and just as guilty as the rest of the group. No doubt, the entire Liquid Sky team would have their rifles pointed at him and the woman, ready to open fire on them both if he failed to complete his task.
Crouching in a thicket of bushes, he checked his AK-47 and Glock pistol to make sure he had rounds chambered and ready to go. Once he closed on the woman, he would drag her across the stream and behind a stone wall a few meters further back. From there he would have to escape and evade, run as hard as he could, ambush the Liquid Sky team when and where he could to slow them down, and eventually find a vehicle and make his way back to Kabul. Truth be told, he'd be lucky if he lasted five seconds into that plan and he knew it.
He was a dead man walking, killed by his own self-restraint.
Silently, Deckard moved through the thicket in a crouch. He cursed as he saw the blue burka through the twigs and leaves of the bushes. She could have saved her own life, if she had only known. Now they were both dead.
Deckard was on the opposite bank of the stream from her, but the stream was only a few feet wide. Once he closed the distance he would be right on top of her. He could jump out of the bushes, grab her, and make a run for it. Maybe. A big maybe.
The Afghan woman bent down to wash another one of the pots. He was almost within striking distance now. The American commando readjusted the sling on his shoulder and prepared to move. He had the butcher knife in his hand up until this point, but now he stuck it in his belt.
He took a deep breath. It was now or never. His muscles tensed, prepared for what was about to happen. He was ready to execute.
&n
bsp; Suddenly, the woman stood straight up and turned towards him.
Deckard froze.
“What the fuck do you think you are fucking doing you stupid cocksucker?” she asked him.
His jaw hit the ground.
“Get your dick beaters in the air where I can see them. What the fuck are you doing over there?” The voice coming through the burka didn't match anything Deckard had expected, to say the least, but it was a woman's voice. “Hey fucker, I'm talking to you.”
Suddenly the crackle of a radio sounded under the burka.
“Got you good this time,” Bill's voice said over the radio. Laughter could be heard coming over the net.
“Very funny asshole,” the burka clad woman said. “Who is this needle dick you sent down here to hide in the bushes?”
“He's the new guy,” Bill answered. “Whatever.”
Deckard was pissed.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked the woman.
“Who the fuck am I?” she answered as if she was insulted. “I'm the one who has been pulling overwatch on your fucking objective for twenty-four hours, dick face. I confirmed that Muhammad what-ever-the-fuck was bedding down there. Then I walked through the night to secure your fucking extraction,” she practically screamed. “That's who I fucking am, so who the fuck are you?”
“Just a trigger puller told to do a job,” he answered honestly.
“And like a true meathead you proved to be very good at following orders. Good for you. Just squat there in the bushes and try not to piss me off any more than you have already.”
“Yes ma'am,” Deckard said as he rolled his eyes. This was getting stupid.
Exhausted, Deckard sat on the edge of the stream with his feet in the water. The woman kicked the pots into the water and cursed at him some more. They sat silently for a few minutes, Deckard unable to discern anything about her through the mesh eye window in the burka. A few minutes later the rest of the team arrived and sat down alongside the stream. The tactically correct answer was to push into the thicket and maintain a security perimeter but that didn't seem to concern Liquid Sky.
“What the fuck was that?” the woman asked.
“C'mon Nadeesha, it was just a joke,” Rick laughed.
“And how far would you have let that joke go before that pussy sunk a knife into my back?”
She was pissed, balling up the burka and throwing it into the stream. Underneath, she wore spandex shorts and a loose t-shirt. That and a MP-5k sub-machine gun. Deckard's eyes went wide. Her skin was dark like someone from southern India, but she had almost Caucasian features and large brown eyes. The woman, Nadeesha, busted him too, seeing the look in his eyes as she swung around to point at him in her fury. She paused for a split second, also surprised by the expression on his face.
She was beautiful and none of it made sense to him.
“Fuck all you guys,” Nadeesha spat. “I quit.”
“Bullshit,” Zach laughed.
“Yeah, that is like the fifth time you've quit,” Paul said.
“We pay you way too much for you to quit,” Bill reminded her. “Speaking of which, where the fuck is our extract.”
“He should be here any minute,” she said shaking her head. “Where did you find this peckerwood?” Nadeesha asked while cocking her chin towards Deckard.
“Craigs List,” Bill said.
“What the fuck.”
Just then, the janga truck pulled up, the driver wearing a big, toothy grin. Another successful mission and another big pay day for him. One by one, Liquid Sky crammed back into the secret compartment in the back. Nadeesha scowled at Deckard as there was limited space inside and she had to sit next to him. The truck started to move, and while the door was still cracked open, Rick passed out the remaining bottles of water, then locked the door shut.
Five hours later they arrived back on FOB Chapman where they discreetly unloaded and jumped on an awaiting CASA airplane heading to Kabul. Bill had paid the janga truck driver in cash, which he happily accepted. The plane touched down in Kabul, and an hour later the entire six-man and one-woman team flew out on an international flight.
Meanwhile, in southern Afghanistan, the drug trafficking organization they had hit during the night decided to retaliate. Tied into the Taliban, they called in fighters from all over the province, as well as insurgents from as far as Pakistan.
For the next few weeks they set up ambushes and IEDs alongside the main roads that weaved through their territory. Without any suspects in the hit on the drug lords' compound, and the murder of him and his entire family, the Taliban simply assumed that the Americans were involved and struck back against whatever Americans they could find.
Within six days their IED's and ambushes had killed four American soldiers. Private First Class Nelson, Specialist Rodriguez, Private First Class Thomas, and First Sergeant Harper were all returned to the United States in flag-draped caskets. A dozen others were flown to Ramstein Air Force base and then to Walter Reed with critical injuries.
6
The entire Liquid Sky element was passed out as they flew commercial air to Germany, and then on to Italy. They had changed out of their mission clothes and into civilians provided by the staff at FOB Chapman. The team was still bleary eyed as they boarded a private aircraft in Milan to their final destination. Deckard tried to discern where they were going, but found no indication and no one was telling him. Rick, Zach, and Paul bought some hard liquor in the duty free shop before taking off, pounded a couple shooters of vodka or whiskey and passed right back out. The others just gave Deckard the cold shoulder. Ramon watched an in-flight movie for a few minutes before falling back asleep. Nadeesha looked at Deckard like he was lower than dog shit before she drifted off to sleep.
Tough crowd, Deckard thought to himself. Before long, he fell asleep as well. They were all exhausted from the operation and Deckard was especially jet lagged from bouncing between time zones.
He came awake to the sound of laughing and screaming. After their cat nap, the Liquid Sky team had taken to watching another in-flight movie in their Gulfstream aircraft. It looked like the comedy movie, Superbad was keeping them entertained. Zach and Rick were giggling like school girls. Paul recited the movie line for line in a never-ending stream of commentary. Nadeesha kept to herself, flipping through a copy of Flashbang magazine.
Uninterested in the movie, Deckard wished he had a book to read, but he had always been someone who was comfortable with his own thoughts, if restless in his actions. Sitting around with nothing to do over long periods of time made him uncomfortable, but he knew how to manage it. There was an onboard refrigerator, so he helped himself to a bottle of water.
Deckard watched out the window as they landed several hours later. The terrain was fairly flat with low-laying vegetation and blacktop roads crisscrossing throughout. Disoriented, Deckard had no idea where they were. They landed at a substantial modern airport with a large terminal complex. The private jet taxied off towards the private hangers where a white van was waiting for them. Everyone piled in. If this was another operation, it didn't feel like it.
They exited from the private aircraft area's gate and out into the countryside. The road was surrounded on both sides by green rolling hills, sugarcane coming right up to the edge of the pavement and pressing out into the street. Palm trees also dotted the landscape. As they drove through the outskirts of a city, Deckard spotted a Hindu temple and knew he must be somewhere in India. Then he saw a Christian church and finally a Muslim mosque.
Now, he was really confused.
Further inland were green-covered mountains stretching up to touch the blue sky. Deep into the stalks of sugarcane he also saw a few abandoned factories and other structures. It wasn't until he saw a billboard in French for a cellphone service that he figured it out. They were in Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean.
The van swerved through an intersection and passed the entrance to several four-star hotels. They got dropped off right alongside
the ocean. Waves broke against the shore and the sun was already sinking into a blue and purple sky. The smell of salt carried on the breeze. It was a residential area with bungalows lining the beach.
“Party is at my place tonight,” Bill announced. “See you then.”
The team bombshelled in both directions down the street.
“You come with me Deckard,” Bill said to the new guy on the team. “I have to give you the key to Henderson's old place.”
Bill led him on a stone path to his beach house. The Liquid Sky team leader was so tall that he had to duck under the roof on the back deck. Deckard spotted a security guard roaming the premises. Punching a number into the keypad on the door, Bill led him inside. Like the other bungalows, it was a one-story deal, but spread out with plenty of interior space. The kitchen and living room was wide open. He had pool tables and an indoor bar. Through the sliding glass doors, Deckard could see an extensive gym out on the front deck, which was littered with kettlebells and 45-pound bumper plates.
Opening a drawer under the kitchen counter, Bill shuffled through some odds and ends until he found a key ring and handed it to Deckard.
“You are two houses down, between Rick and Zach. We own this whole row of eight houses on the shore. Whatever Henderson had stowed away inside the house is yours I guess. No one back in the States gave a shit about him. Keep it or throw it in the trash; I don't care. He traveled light anyway so it won't be much.”
“All right.”
