by Mike Kraus
“Just don’t make any noise, okay?”
“I know you think I’m just a grunt, Rollins, but give me a break here.” Jackson smiled. He looked across the road, watching the guard carefully. When there was a thick row of trees—including a pair of pines—in between the guard’s sightline and the road, Jackson charged out at full speed, boots pounding on pavement as he crossed over and slunk into the ditch on the other side. He slowed his pace then, taking each step carefully and deliberately as he listened and watched for the guard through the branches.
The telltale sound of slow, methodical footsteps through grass and dead leaves grew louder on the other side of the trees, and Jackson could just barely make out the shape of the man through the branches as he walked along. While Jackson’s OCP uniform didn’t blend in perfectly with the surrounding lack of vegetation, the pair of pine trees nearby provided enough cover that he was invisible to the guard.
When the crunch of leaves grew the loudest, Jackson sprung from his crouched position and pushed through the pine branches. There was the faintest cry of surprise from the guard before Jackson bowled him over, knocking his rifle away, planting his left hand over the guard’s mouth and pressing the barrel of his pistol up against the guard’s temple.
“Listen to me very carefully. If you make a sound, you die. If you try to get away, you die. If you answer our questions, you won’t die. Understand me?” Jackson had expected the guard to be old and grizzled, a hardened veteran with complete loyalty to Omar who would need to be subdued before he could be taken back across the road. What he saw instead was a young man no older than eighteen or twenty, his face a mask of pure fear and his whole body trembling. The young man nodded frightfully and his body relaxed as he submitted to Jackson’s commands.
Not taking any chances, Jackson roughly pulled the man up and shoved him back through the trees. Constant, unceasing movement was necessary to keep the man off guard, confused and distracted so that he didn’t try anything. Linda and Frank watched from the ditch on the side of the road as Jackson pushed the man forward, causing him to trip and fall into Frank’s waiting arms where he pinned the guard down. Linda crouched next to him, her pistol pressed up against his temple. His gaze flashed between her and Frank until he finally realized who she was and he gasped and his eyes widened.
“You… you’re….”
“Shey’taan. Yes. I am. And you are going to answer every single question I ask of you, or else I’m going to—” She growled at him and Jackson put a hand on her shoulder, interrupting her as he knelt down in the ditch.
“Rollins. Take it easy. He’s just a kid.”
“He’s not just—”
“Rollins.” Jackson snapped at her and he pointed at the guard. “Look at his face.”
Linda looked down at the young man, studying his expression for a long moment. Instead of the battle-hardened face of someone like Omar, she saw the panicked and terrified face of someone who had gotten caught up in something far larger than he had ever anticipated. Someone who, while certainly responsible for his decisions that led him to be working for a mass murderer, was not her direct enemy. His whole body shook under her gaze and she realized that threats would not be necessary.
“Are you going to answer my questions?” She asked him again, more forcefully than she intended. He nodded furiously, his short-cropped hair rubbing against the barrel of the pistol still pressed up next to his head.
“Good.” She shifted positions, planting a knee on his chest to keep him still. She pulled the gun away from his head and aimed it down at his neck to help remind him who was in charge. “Is Omar in there?”
Another frantic nod.
“Where at?”
“Big house. Quarter of a m—mile back or so. Next to a r—red and white barn.”
“How many guards are patrolling?”
“A d—dozen.”
“Including you?”
“Yes.”
“How many are solo, like yourself?”
“Most of them. Th—there aren’t enough people to patrol everything properly.”
“Is there another fallback location he might try to retreat to?”
“I… I don’t know. I’m just a—”
“What types of weapons does he have on hand? Any RPGs or mounted LMGs?”
“A few RPGs in storage, yes. A pair of surface to air launchers, I think.”
“Good. Last question. And this one’s going to be the difference between a long stay in a cell and a bullet in your brain. You want the bullet in your brain?”
A frantic, panicked shaking of his head came next.
“What’s the most direct route to the house where he’s located? How do we avoid the patrols and get there undetected?”
“I don’t know the routes, I—I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me. Please!” Tears formed in the man’s eyes and Linda rolled her own in response. “Jackson, tie him up and gag him. Leave him here. He’ll be hidden from anyone who goes by, at least long enough for us to take care of our business.”
Jackson nodded and dug through his bag as he traded places with Linda to guard the man. Linda whispered to Frank as she moved away from them. “You think he was telling the truth?”
“I think he probably pissed himself at the sight of you. What’s that shay-ten thing he called you?”
“Shey’taan. Arabic for Satan. Omar’s called me that for years.” She snorted and grinned. “I can’t say that I mind it too much, all things considered. Especially now that we’re about to catch up with him.”
“Don’t get cocky, okay? We’ve still got a lot more ground to cover. Plus a dozen guards on patrol, and who knows how many more at the house with him.”
“Mhm.” Linda nodded slowly. “I think I might have an idea for that. I’ll need to talk with Jackson first, though.”
“Talk to me about what?” Jackson slunk over to Linda and Frank, then glanced back at the man who was thoroughly bound and had a thick gag shoved into his mouth with tape wrapped around his ears and face, leaving just a pair of holes for him to breathe through his nose.
“You have C4 with you, right?”
“Two blocks with a pair of detonators.”
“What’s the range on them?”
“Well, they’re remote detonators so… whatever you want, within reason. Why?”
“Eleven more guards is going to be a lot to deal with. We can try sneaking past them, but I think we could do something a little more flashy and have a better chance at success.”
“Rollins…” Jackson’s voice was full of trepidation. “What are you thinking about?”
Linda smiled, all of her pain and discomfort temporarily forgotten as her mind churned with the final details to the plan she was thinking up. The hardest part of it, she realized, would be convincing Jackson that it could work.
Chapter 14
“Let’s do it.”
“Look, just hear me—wait, what?”
“Let’s do it.” Jackson repeated his statement as he shifted positions on his knees, all three of them still crouched in the ditch on the opposite side of the road from the property on which Omar was hiding.
“I… okay, I didn’t expect that.” Linda shook her head, wondering if she had suffered some sort of brain injury that was making her hallucinate Jackson’s agreement with her admittedly borderline insane plan.
Jackson slunk back down the ditch and grabbed the legs of the guard they had captured and pulled him toward Linda and Frank. The guard’s eyes went wide with fear and he started shaking his head, fully expecting that his captors had changed their mind about letting him live. Instead, though, Jackson removed the man’s gag and roughly pulled him into a sitting position.
“Listen up. I want the exact location of the house where Omar’s staying. I want to know the lay of the land between the edge of the road here and the house. Is it a field? Are there trees? Any big holes? Any fences? What’s around the house itself? You tell me everything you know, got it?”
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The guard nodded and began talking at a rapid pace, telling them everything he could think of that might be relevant to Jackson’s demand. The trio listened closely for a few minutes until the guard wound down, then Jackson roughly put the gag back in. “Good job. Stay here and don’t try anything stupid.”
Jackson, Linda and Frank all moved down away from the guard and Linda spoke first. “You still sure about this, Jackson?”
“It sounds like a straight shot between here and the house. By the time you two get into position I’ll be back with the truck and we can get this show on the road.”
“Honk three times before you turn in, okay? Let us know that you’re starting your run.”
“Three times, yep. Will do.”
“Good. And stay safe. That thing’s not bulletproof.
“Relax, I’ll be fine.”
“See that you are. We’ll start moving out now.” Linda looked at Frank, who nodded at her.
“I’m ready when you are.”
With one final exchange of looks between the three, Jackson turned and began jogging back toward where they had left the truck. Frank and Linda, meanwhile, headed in the opposite way down the ditch. Frank was in the lead and continued on while Linda took a few seconds to stop and kneel down next to the guard, whispering in his ear before getting up and following after Frank. The guard’s face, which already looked like he was scared half to death, turned pale. As the trio split up he stayed motionless on the ground on the ditch, too frightened to do anything but blink and take shallow breaths through his nose.
Frank glanced back at the guard as Linda caught up with him and raised his eyebrow. “What on earth did you say to him?”
Linda gave a coy smile and shrugged. “They call me Shey’taan so I’m just embracing it.”
“You’re terrible.”
“Not nearly as much as they are. Now come on; we need to pick up the pace if we’re going to get into position before Jackson gets back.”
***
The truck barreled down the road, the engine roaring as Jackson kept the accelerator pressed down against the floor. There was no more pretense of stealth as he followed the curve of the asphalt, preparing to make his move from on-road to off-road. His rifle sat on the floor of the passenger seat nearby and his backpack was in the rear seat. His vests were stuffed full of mags for his rifle as well as a small plastic and metal device with a handle, short antenna and pair of buttons.
Sitting on the dashboard—secured against the movement of the truck by several strips of tape—was a tan block with a small antenna and electronics housing mounted to one end. A pair of wires led from the housing to a detonator buried in the tan block. Despite the fact that the C-4 was incredibly stable, Jackson couldn’t help but feel nervous and glance at it with each bump and sharp turn he took in the truck, as though they could somehow trigger the blasting cap.
“Here goes nothin’.” Jackson turned the wheel and guided the truck at an angle over the ditch on the left side of the road, cringing as it groaned from the bumps and jostling. Saplings and tall, brown stalks of grass slapped the underside of the truck and the noise from the road vanished, replaced by the soft thumping of dirt and debris as the wheels fought for traction amid the leaves, sticks and loose earth.
“Straight across the field, take a left at the first fence.” Jackson mumbled to himself as he drove along, repeating what the guard had told them about the location of the house. Trusting an enemy combatant for information on said combatant’s superior wasn’t the most reliable way of getting intel, but given their situation and the time crunch they were under, it was all that they had to go on.
Jackson kept the truck moving at a slow but steady clip as he tried to keep from rattling the vehicle apart. There had been no sign of guards near the road or in the field, and as he approached a line of trees with a fence nearby he turned to the left to swing around the fence and had his first direct encounter with a patrol.
Gunfire exploded out from the trees, punching holes in the doors on the passenger side of the truck and shattering the glass in the rear right window. Jackson ducked low in his seat and pushed hard on the accelerator, trying to get out of the line of fire. Two men stepped out of the line of trees as the truck roared by, rifles to their shoulders as they continued to fire, though most of the rounds failed to connect. Those that did plinked harmlessly off the back of the truck.
As the trees thinned out into brush and saplings, Jackson pulled the wheel hard to the right, intending to go around the trees and use them as cover as he continued speeding toward the house. The sight of a trio of armed men running across the field made him spin the wheel back in the other direction as he veered away from them. They opened fire, sending more rounds into the truck, and he felt a searing pain in his right arm as one nicked him near the shoulder and two others hit the dashboard, with one slicing through the upper portion of the tan brick of C-4.
“Dammit!” Jackson shouted as he pushed the truck to go even faster while he swerved back and forth to try to make himself harder to hit. As he crested a small hill, he saw a large house and barn that the guard had described loom into view and a rush of fear seized his gut. Somewhere inside was the man that they had been hunting, the one who had caused so much damage and destruction, and Jackson wasn’t nearly ready enough to face him.
Pulling the wheel to the left, he pointed the truck toward the nearby woods just as the doors to the barn off to his right flew open, revealing a small tracked vehicle with a heavy machine gun mounted on the top. The vehicle pulled out of the barn with surprising nimbleness and speed and the gun rotated around at the direction of a man standing atop the vehicle and opened fire on Jackson’s truck.
Unlike the smaller 7.62 rounds fired from the guards’ weapons, the vehicle-mounted gun fired .50 BMG rounds which tore through the truck like it was made out of tissue paper. Jackson yelped in surprise and veered off to the left, driving away from the house and barn as the vehicle and several guards from patrols and from near the house followed in pursuit. His truck slowed as it neared the woods and turned again, to the right, before continuing onward and smashing around a tree. A few seconds after the impact, the smoking and bullet-riddled vehicle exploded with a deafening roar that shook the trees for miles around.
Even though those in pursuit of the truck were a fair distance away, they couldn’t help but shield their eyes and pull back a few paces as the truck vanished in a massive fireball. The tracked vehicle, having driven too close to the truck after it crashed, was caught in the blast and torn apart as the gunner went spinning off of his perch out into the field. Pieces of metal flew in all directions, and several nearby trees virtually disintegrated as they split apart at their bases, sending wood and sap raining down for a good hundred feet in every direction. The heat from the blast was intense, and it made it impossible for the guards to get close.
They formed a half-circle around the truck at a distance instead, keeping their weapons closely trained on it as though the driver could have somehow survived the impossible and might come crawling out at any second. Minutes ticked on as the flames slowly spread through the trees, prompting the guards to fetch water hoses and fire extinguishers to try and slow its spread, but there was still no sign of Lieutenant Jackson.
***
As Jackson was nearing where they had left the truck, Frank and Linda were already deep inside the boundaries of the property where Omar was hiding. They had made a beeline along the road to the north, slipping past one two-man patrol and venturing toward what they hoped was the northern side of the main house. The guard had described the house as having thick woods on nearly three sides, and up ahead in the distance Linda and Frank could see the trees growing thicker as they angled back toward the south.
Both Frank and Linda walked along in silence, saving their energy for their quick pace that occasionally sped up to a jog before winding back down to a walk. As the brush and trees grew thicker the closer they got to the woods, the slower
they were forced to go. It seemed like no one had taken care of clearing out the area in years, and every step was one filled with scratches and scrapes.
Linda took the lead as they closed in on the house, and as they left the field and smaller trees behind for the mature woods, she suddenly stopped and knelt down, motioning for Frank to do the same. He squatted down just behind her and whispered in her left ear.
“What’s going on?”
She shook her head at him, wanting him to keep quiet, then motioned up ahead with a tilt of her neck. Frank straightened his back, looking over her to get an eye on what she was seeing, then immediately ducked back down as he saw it. He nearly muttered under his breath but kept quiet instead, cursing silently instead.
A pair of men dressed in thick jackets, camouflage pants and carrying rifles were walking through the forest, heading directly for where Linda and Frank were kneeling. The brush in the woods had thinned out, making it easier to walk through and offering less options for concealment. As the men got closer, Linda adjusted her grip on her rifle, unsure of what to do. Firing her rifle so close to where Omar was supposed to be would alert him, but if she didn’t do something then the men would see her and Frank before they got much closer.
Just as she was about to stand and fire on them, the two guards stopped in their tracks and turned around, leaned up against a pair of trees and began quietly talking to each other as they broke out a pair of cigarettes and a lighter. Their behavior made it obvious that they weren’t supposed to be taking a smoke break, but Linda didn’t mind a bit. She slipped her rifle strap off of her shoulder and passed the weapon to Frank before she crept forward, her right hand going to the knife strapped to the small of her back.
With the breeze already creating a fair amount of background noise, Linda’s quiet steps through the damp leaves and dirt underfoot were barely audible, and neither of the guards noticed her presence until the one closest to her had his throat slit from one side to the other. His partner fumbled with his rifle as he dropped his cigarette, but Linda was on him in a flash, covering his mouth with one hand while plunging the knife between his ribs and deep into his heart. She sat atop him for a moment, holding him down until he stopped thrashing, then she slowly stood up and put a hand against her chest.
