The Last Operation (The Remnants of War Series, Book 1)

by Patrick Astre

  Rhineman stumbled, fell, got up again. The volley from the guard's MAC-10 had missed entirely but one bullet had ricocheted, going through the fleshy part of Rhineman's tight. Mercifully, the underground location and thick masonry had absorbed the sound of gunplay.

  Rhineman limped to the dead guard and pulled the key ring from his belt. He quickly tried each key. None would fit. The guards weren't given the keys. Rhineman thought, shit, I fucked up, its probably in Miguel's apartment, should have looked Godammit. He stared at the thick oak door with steel reinforced bars. Not a chance of busting that he thought. The lock itself was a steel affair built into the door. It would take explosives to break up. There was no choice. He would have to return to Miguel's apartment and find the key.

  * * *

  Richard Daniels ran in the darkness, aware of the narrow path by instinctive feel and even more aware of the passage of time. He reached the open spot shielded by bushes where they had left their vehicle, a battered Jeep Wagoneer. Daniels jumped in, started the vehicle and drove it by the dim glow of its parking lights to the Durango at the entrance of the dump. Carlos rapidly hooked up the jumper cables while Daniels held a pencil light. The Durango's engine started immediately. They jumped in and headed down the North Road toward the compound.

  Chapter 14

  Kurt Rhineman headed up the stairs to Miguel's apartment. The trick, he thought, is to move rapidly without attracting attention or close scrutiny. He wasn't overly concerned about the people remaining in the house. Perhaps two or three guards and they would be asleep, off duty at this time. No, the big worry was the smaller house some fifty yards off. That house was more like a barracks and held about thirty men. They were poorly trained but would overwhelm the small team by sheer numbers alone. For the moment at least all was quiet in the mansion. The gunshots in the basement had been muffled by the thick stonewalls.

  He made it back to Miguel's apartment and searched frantically until he found a silver replica of a horned devil with a looped tail and a number of keys attached in the loop. He ran back downstairs and to the lower basement. One of the keys fit and opened the door. He stepped inside.

  * * *

  Richard Daniels slumped down in the seat and pulled the wide brim of the campesino hat over his eyes as they approached the guarded gate. Carlos gave a lazy wave and turned as if saying something to Daniel on the passenger's seat next to him. Daniels nodded his head without raising the hat. The ferro-cement gate swung open on its motorized track. Carlos headed the Durango down the mile-long road toward the second guard post.

  * * *

  Rhineman immediately recognized the man sitting on the floor. Pale and drawn, scraggly beard flecked with dried blood, James LeCount was chained to the cot that in turn was bolted into the concrete floor. The chain gave him just enough room to sit on the floor or lie down on the cot. He was on the floor because the cot held Oscar "Loony" Velez. The younger man's face was pale and his eyes open and listless. Oscar's left leg was a bloody swollen mess at the knee. LeCount had torn the pant leg and applied a tourniquet just above the joint.

  Rhineman stopped three feet from the chained men and squatted so their heads were level. LeCount's eyes opened wide as he realized he was facing a parody of Miguel Aquilino and not the real thing.

  "I'm an operative, part of a team getting you both out of here. How bad is he?" said Rhineman pointing toward Oscar's leg.

  "Shit, you're just in time," said LeCount, "They get more pissed off every day. That sadistic fucker Aquilino shot him in the kneecap yesterday." He paused and looked at Rhineman.

  "I know it ain't fucking Halloween, so I guess, no, make that I pray, you punched his clock and look like him to pull us out of here."

  "On target buckaroo. The way it works, we got about one and a half minute to meet our ride just outside. How bad is he? Can he walk?" Oscar Velez sat up. Every move yanked a grimace of pain from his face. His skin had the complexion of a jaundiced sickly old man. Rhineman pulled a small hypodermic syringe and injected Oscar.

  "That should mask the pain and give you a few minutes of straight thinking. That's all we need. We'll have you in a top military hospital by dinnertime."

  Rhineman fumbled with the keys until he found the one that opened the chain lock holding the men to the cot. LeCount helped Oscar to his feet and placed his arm around his shoulder. Oscar's left leg hung useless and dragging as fresh blood seeped out of the hideous wound that was his knee. Rhineman thought Velez would be lucky to keep the leg. He surely wouldn't walk right again.

  They went up the basement steps into the circular hallway with Rhineman leading the way. The right side of his white pants was bright red with blood from the leg wound. He limped slightly and winced with every step. The ricochet bullet had passed through muscle without hitting anything vital but it was now seriously talking to him.

  Kurt Rhineman was running on adrenaline.

  "We can't go through the front of the house. Fucked up as we are right now, their dumbest son of a bitch guard would make us out. We gotta use the kitchen service entrance."

  They walked thirty feet to the vaulted brick arch that decorated the entrance to the mansion's kitchen. Rhineman ushered LeCount and Velez inside. He started through the entrance when he heard the voice behind him, calm and deep like far-off summer lightning.

  "Was your evening all you hoped it would be Miguel?"

  There were no more options. Anyone talking to him this way would be one of the Durand brothers. They would have no fear of him. They would recognize in an instant he was not Aquilino. All this ran through Rhineman's head in an instant as he whirled, leveled the Glock and fired five rounds in the direction of the voice. Simultaneously he dove through the archway into the kitchen. The shots reverberated throughout the mansion like a clapper in a church bell.

  * * *

  Hector Durand had been restless. He felt some edge of disquiet, a primitive sense that all was not right. He'd wandered to the kitchen and found there were no guards on duty. Upstairs, he discovered Miguel's apartment empty with the door opened and furniture drawers scattered, as if someone had gone through it looking for something. Hector Durand had gone back to the foyer and picked up the electronic alarm trigger, a device that looked like a television remote control. If he pushed the single red button in the center it would alarm the house next to the mansion and bring thirty armed men at a run. The gate guards would also be alerted and nothing would get in or out of the compound. Ten more men from the house would fan out as perimeter guards.

  He clipped the alarm trigger to a steel loop in his belt and removed his favorite weapon from the wall case. He picked up a full clip and inserted it into the World War II vintage Thompson .45 submachine gun and stuck another clip in his pocket. Hector Durand liked the weapon. There was a heavy strong feel to this gun that he had not found in any of the newer more modern weapons that abounded in the compound.

  * * *

  When Rhineman fired the Glock it took Hector by surprise. He knew it was not Miguel, he had expected the imposter to at least pause or even turn around. The speed of the stranger's reaction had been amazing. But Hector was no slouch. He had not risen to the top of the vicious, deadly world of Mexican drug gangs by being slow. He dropped to the floor and the nine-millimeter rounds whistled above his head, pinging and ricocheting, kicking up clouds of plaster dust from the walls. Hector returned the fire with a long burst from the Thompson, the hail of .45 caliber "dum-dum" bullets blowing out chunks of bricks from the hallway where Rhineman had stood less than a single second ago. Hector Durand fired another short burst and pressed the red center button on the remote alarm.

  * * *

  An unbearably high pitched shrieking seemed to come out of the very air, rising and falling in rapid tones, red flashing strobe lights pulsed in several locations inside and outside the mansion. Simultaneously the alarm went off in the adjacent house and men rushed off their cots, card games and dinners forgotten, grabbed an assortment of weapons and
rushed outside.

  * * *

  Carlos drove the Durango past the second guard post with Daniels still slumping, his head down. They drove the rest of the way until they reached the graveled front yard. There were two men sitting on the front steps, AK-47's casually slung around their shoulders.

  "That's the perimeter guard about to go on their round," said Daniels. "Park by the other side, not too close. Stay in range."

  Carlos and Daniels got out of the truck and stood leaning against the white fenders like a couple of employees taking time out to shoot the breeze.

  "They should have been out of there by now Richard. We're late, they should have been out already."

  "Maybe they're making themselves some tacos. The way things are going we'll probably miss breakfast."

  Carlos glanced at Daniels. The North Americano is certainly un poco locos, or maybe a lot nuts, thought Carlos. But then again, the way he had dispatched El Toro made you wonder about the aces he held in his sleeves.

  Carlos jumped as a high wailing siren pierced the still night air. A strobe mounted atop the gable on the front of the mansion began flashing red, another siren sounded in the nearby smaller house and they heard the commotion of men roused to their weapons.

  Daniels motioned Carlos in the truck as he took the driver's seat. He pulled a wire from inside the bandanna and adjusted it so it was in front of his mouth.

  "Matt, what's going on?"

  * * *

  Matt had seen Kurt Rhineman disguised as the blonde enter the house. The sniper scope brought everything in close view. She had a funny twinge as she thought, shit, he looks better than I do in my best dress.

  She'd seen the two guards leave with the body in the Durango. When the truck returned she saw through the scope that Daniels and Carlos were in front. They were running late, but more troublesome, Rhineman was running even later. They should have been out of the house over six minutes ago. The sudden screech of the alarms and the flashing of the strobes confirmed her worst fears. Something had gone wrong, she thought, as Daniels' voice crackled in her earphone radio.

  "Nothing, nobody's coming out. Can't see shit."

  * * *

  Kurt Rhineman hustled LeCount and Oscar through the kitchen. They were practically carrying Oscar as blood flowed freely from his shattered knee. Rhineman kicked the empty cartridge out of the Glock and slammed a new one in. Hector Durand held the Thompson around the edge of the brick arch and fired a long random burst. The bullets ricocheted everywhere knocking down hanging pots and pans and cooking implements in a violent pandemonium of metal, noise and deadly particles. The bullets passed above them as they crouched through the second hallway and burst out the courtyard through the kitchen service door.

  * * *

  "Side door, side door, I have them, repeat I have them," Matt's voice came through the radio earphones in Daniels' bandanna. He floored the Durango taking off in a spray of flying gravel and dust. The two perimeter guards stepped back, confused by the sudden alarm and the truck flying past them. Daniels stopped the Durango in front of the three men emerging from the kitchen entrance. He threw Oscar in the rear seat. Lecount jumped behind him followed by Rhineman. The truck took off as Rhineman pumped the remainder of the Glock magazine into the open doorway of the kitchen, pinning down Hector Durand. The two guards had followed the truck at a run and saw it stop and pick up three men fleeing from the house. The leading guard dropped to one knee and raised the AK-47 and sighted down the barrel. He was less then forty yards. He couldn't miss.

  Chapter 15

  Matt watched through the scope as the Durango with Carlos and Daniels bolted to the side of the house and picked up the three men. She saw the guard lining up the AK-47 behind them. They wouldn't make it. She centered the guard's head on the second mill dot below the crosshair, taking in the elevation and trajectory, and squeezed the trigger.

  * * *

  The second guard had been a little slower than his partner. That extra fat saved his life. He watched his partner kneel, aiming the AK-47 at the rear of the white Dodge Durango. One second he was holding the automatic weapon, the next second his head exploded in a pink and white cloud that left a shimmering halo of bloody droplets reflecting the bright white sodium lamps of the compound. Uncomprehending, his partner had seen up close the devastating kinetic energy of a modern sniper round.

  The man dropped to the ground whimpering as his partner's body toppled forward. The crack of the rifle followed as the sound caught up with the supersonic flight of the bullet.

  * * *

  Daniels held the pedal to the floor as the Durango accelerated toward the first guard post. He felt naked and vulnerable under the bright lamps lining the roadway. His back twitched as he anticipated the feel of a bullet entering his flesh. In the rear view mirror he saw Hector Durand jump into a Hummer with four armed men. Two more groups were mounting up to give chase. In the first guard post, the men started to swing the big Belgium machine gun in their direction.

  "Come on Matty, come on Matty," screamed Richard into the wire speaker.

  "That's not my name asshole," whispered Matt. Her hands and arms were rock steady in the classic sniper stance, feet apart facing opposite directions. The man in the crosshair had just swung the machine gun on its pivot toward the approaching Durango when Matt squeezed the trigger.

  * * *

  The round took the man in the chest, the energy dissipating into his body, blowing out pieces of his heart and lung, forcing gouts of blood upward through his throat and outward from his chest. His arms were thrown in the air as the impact drove him over the four-foot sandbag wall into the road like the bundle of dead meat he had suddenly become. The thought had not yet formed in the second guard's mind, the visual impact too sudden and surprising for the synapses in his brain to figure it out, when Matt's next round passed through his throat and slammed into the sandbag. The second guard fell against the base of the machine gun, driving its barrel so it pointed into the sky.

  * * *

  Hector Durand was in fog of blind rage. He'd been duped, right in his own fortress, his own castle. I will kill them, he thought, I will hunt them with everything I have until they are dead. I will kill their families, their children. None will escape. He saw the Durango pass through the first guard post. Incredibly, not a shot had been fired. When he came closer he saw the machine gun pointing in the air, the dead guard on the road.

  "Move, move or I'll have your eyes cut out," he screamed at the driver. The Hummer flew past the guard post, running over the guard's body with a wet, crunching noise.

  * * *

  The guards at the entrance had locked the heavy ferro-cement door in place. There was no chance the Durango could blast through. The gate had been designed to stop any vehicle.

  Sitting next to Daniels as he drove, Carlos crossed himself over and over.

  "Oh shit, oh shit, Oh Madre de Dios, we are screwed Richard, mira, mira, that big gate, we're dead," Carlos said, the words tumbling out one over the other, his face sweating and his eyes blinking so rapidly they trembled.

  In the back seat Oscar moaned softly while LeCount closed his eyes. Rhineman was calmly reloading the Glock.

  "Hey you losing faith amigo, taking the Lord's name in vain and all that shit. Just relax, enjoy the ride," said Daniels.

  Oh please, oh please thought Carlos, just let me live, just let me live this once and never again will I ever have anything to do with insane Americans, crazy bastards all of them. This Richard Daniels was actually smiling like it's a great big joke. Loco loco, esta loco.

  * * *

  Matt put down the Remington and placed one of the Olive Drab tubes in firing position. She looked down the bar sights, compensated for elevation and temperature and pulled the trigger of the LAW, Light Antitank Weapon.

  This was not a normal LAW round. It had been modified. The armor piercing elements had been removed and the warhead contained an amplified load of high explosive. The guards at the seco
nd gate had a split second impression of a fiery red line, moving at a speed their eyes could not comprehend. The rocket impacted just a few feet forward of the hinged track. The explosion pulverized the gate, sending thousands of shards of steel and pellets of ferro-cement, riding a wave of superheated gas, blasting and disintegrating anything in its way within a diameter of fifty feet. The guards died instantly, their bodies shredded into tiny pieces of bloody flesh and crushed bones.

  * * *

  Hector Durand was incredulous. The powerful gate he had designed to stop any vehicle had vanished in a sudden, astounding explosion. His fists clenched as he saw the Durango blast through the cloud of dust, debris and splattering of blood that was all that remained of the gate. He slammed his fist against the dash, feeling the pain.

  "I will pursue them to the end of the world," he screamed, his voice losing its humanity in the wave of hatred that poured out of him like a plague of filthy black insects. Spittle flew out of his mouth as he cursed and screamed at the driver. Behind him three more vehicles followed, loaded with his men. The maricones would never make it out of Mexico alive, never.

  * * *

  Matt had one last target. She took a second LAW and began tracking, adjusting simultaneously for speed and distance. It was one of the most difficult shots, but then she had been at the very top of her class at Marine Sniper School in Quantico. The LAW felt like an extension of her own body. She had the feel of the rocket as it leapt from the firing tube. She knew in that instant how it would hit.

  * * *

  Hector Durand glanced out the passenger window to his right. By the time the image traveled along his optic nerve to the brain, before his eyelid could finish its nervous blink, the LAW projectile blasted through the glass window and Hector Durand's head. The explosion shredded the Hummer. It leapt in the air like a rocket taking flight in a huge fireball. The vehicles following stopped as pieces of wreckage rained down on them from the sky.