Reflexive Fire - 01

by Jack Murphy

  “Wait one.”

  Kurt began pushing the Kazakhs towards the door, waving his hand to the Chinese hostage-taker. The mercenaries resisted at first, preferring a showdown, but the look in Kurt's eyes told them he was serious. Pushing them out, the former GSG-9 commando stood alone in the door. He didn't want any friendlies learning a difficult lesson in terminal ballistics.

  “Ready?” the radio hissed, the precision marksman now chomping at the bit.

  Kurt depressed the transmit button on his hand mic.

  “Do it.”

  Glass shattered and the Chinese man pitched forward as if hit in the back of the head by a baseball bat. Of course, it was merely a sympathetic reaction, the .300 winmag bullet having cored through his skull and exiting through his forehead in a spray of gore. Gray white matter painted the wall to Kurt's side.

  The corpse fell on top of the Burmese woman, the screwdriver rolling across the plastic sheets.

  Kurt covered the distance in two large steps, with the Kazakhs right behind him. Flinging the lifeless body away, they dragged the woman to her feet and carried her out of the torture chamber. Eyes wide, she was too shocked to cry. The German mercenary gritted his teeth.

  They were too late to save her companion, her brown eyes staring up at him.

  Turning away he keyed the mic again.

  “Good shot.”

  It sounded like a thousand nails on the world's largest chalk board.

  The bridge strained under the weight of the APC, struts stretching and groaning in protest. The Chinese soldier in the gunner's hatch swung the DShK towards Richie, aiming down the flip-up rear sight at his chest, thumbs pressing on the butterfly trigger.

  With a final screech of twisted metal, the bridge hinged where the explosives had partially cut through the metal braces and cross bars. The armored vehicle dropped as the bridge fell away from under it, the gunner bracing himself to no avail. The treads made contact with the dark water below, displacing enough liquid to cause waves to rush and lap at both sides of the river. The gunner jumped out from behind his machine gun a moment too late, the vehicle taking on water and lurching to one side.

  Finally, the APC barrel rolled in the river, dragging the gunner down to the bottom with it.

  Trying to catch his breath, Richie eyed the bridge, an entire section now missing, sunk underwater. The Kazakhs and the Chinese eyeballed each other for a moment, guns silent, trying to process what had just happened.

  Gathering their wits, the Kazakhs commenced firing.

  Deckard hurtled across the gap in the stairs that the grenade had blown wide open. Landing with bent knees, he rolled forward over his shoulder before coming up on a knee with his AK at the ready.

  His men on the ground floor coughed and swatted at the smoke that now permeated through the casino. The platoon medic leaned back, having protected his casualty's body during the explosion. Reaching for a pill pack full of antibiotics, he resumed his work, unfazed by the combat all around him.

  Sprinting forward, the former soldier searched for the source of the explosion, following a trail of debris. He burst into the security room, his barrel tracking multiple people, all turning out to be his own men. They looked up at Deckard with Bambi eyes.

  Between them, he could see a heavy vault door had been thrown open by the charges they had set. Grabbing the nearest commando by his collar, Deckard pushed him into the wall.

  “What the hell do you think you're doing setting off demo without telling anyone?”

  The Kazakhs shrugged back at him, knowing they were in the wrong.

  “Goddamned pirates,” Deckard grunted.

  The vault door had been part of a walk-in safe that the casino had used to secure their profits, swindled from visiting Chinese businessmen and locals spending hard-earned narco-dollars. Fanning away the foul-smelling smoke, he walked inside the vault, the bank robbers at his heels.

  The room was lined with shelves that overflowed with hard currency, stacks of yen, euros, and dollars bundled together. Bags and cases of gold coins and bullion were shoved into every crevice of the vault. Dollar signs were in all of their eyes as they scanned the hoard.

  “I'll be damned,” Deckard whispered.

  Twenty Four

  Alpha Company's assault trucks sat a little lower on their suspension as they drove out of Panghsang, the spoils of war secreted in them were even heavier than expected. Since they were on a professional vacation to Southeast Asia, the mercenaries had seen no reason not to give themselves a hardship bonus, payable in gold bullion.

  “Is your Iridium on?” Adam asked over the satellite communication system in Deckard's truck. He was wrapping things up at the field hospital, the Turkish pilots already flying one exfil flight for casualties back to Singapore.

  “Yeah, I got it right here.”

  “Standby for a phone call. You are going to want to take this one.”

  “A phone call from who?”

  “One of my sources.”

  Just then the satellite telephone Velcroed to the console in front of him began to ring, the display lighting up with a number he didn't recognize.

  “Is that it? I hear something ringing?”

  “Yeah it is. Catch you later.”

  “Out here.”

  Deckard set the hand mic down and tore the Iridium telephone off the dashboard.

  “Hello?”

  “Uh, hi. I was asked to report to the person reached at this number.”

  Deckard frowned.

  A woman's voice. She sounded cute, too.

  “I'm listening.”

  “Uh, well, look, you guys have to stop shooting up the Chinese border.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I'm not good with names. I'm only talking to you as a favor,” she said, sounding put off.

  “Okay.” Deckard couldn't do much about that over the phone. “Go ahead.”

  “Some guys, I guess your guys, just shot up a platoon of Chinese Special Forces troops on the border. Are you trying to start World War Three over there?”

  Jesus Christ. Richie.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, I've been doing traffic analysis, and right now they are waking people up in Beijing and putting several military bases on alert. They're calling up people up at my place of employ as well. I hope you know what you are doing.”

  “We'll be out of here before it comes to that.”

  “You might want to reposition your UAV in the meantime to watch the border until you leave. That's my opinion anyway.”

  “What UAV?”

  “Uh, the one orbiting over your convoy at ten thousand feet.”

  Nice.

  “You got a make and model on that thing?”

  “The Chinese have looked at the radar cross section and think it's a Global Hawk, or at least the same platform. American-made for sure, and using crypto that we've never seen before. Neither have the Chinese, from what we've intercepted.”

  She was young, spent some time in the States, but Deckard could detect the Israeli accent. Almost certainly a conscript. Adam must have had something big on her in order to persuade her to break this many national security protocols.

  “What about Peng?”

  OPSEC was a joke at this point. This twenty-year-old kid straight out of commo school knew more about his operation then he did.

  “He thought the SPDC had taken down his drug labs to the south but then when he got a call about the weapons factories getting hit, he bailed for his fortress. We've had a lock on his cell phone for the last few hours. He's calling in every favor he has.”

  “Looking for an exit strategy.”

  “He knows you guys mean business.”

  “His compound?”

  “Imagery is still working on that.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Yeah.” She even had a cute laugh. “Tell your friend I said, 'hi'.”

  Adam.

  Son of a bitch.
r />   The five guards at the checkpoint were quickly reinforced, tripling their manpower in preparation for the foreigners they knew were coming. Magazines were loaded, charging handles racked, grenades were laid out next to fighting positions within easy reach. From behind cement barriers they watched the road for headlights, listened for the sound of engines.

  The UWSA militiamen heard the sound of the rocket being launched, but could not locate which direction the sound came from. Rocket-propelled grenades slammed into their position, shrapnel tearing through several of Peng's proletarian guard. The survivors flung themselves to the ground as 40mm grenades began raining down.

  The HEDP rounds struck the concrete and exploded a fraction of a second later, crumbling the bunkers. Before anyone could react, the enemy's assault trucks were on top of them. The militiamen never heard the engines, never saw the headlights.

  Drivers closed the distance, wearing their night vision devices with only infrared headlights on, leaving no sign visible to the naked eye. Engines had been switched to recon mode, on electric power to reduce sound.

  One of the guards looked up cautiously, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a machine gun as the first truck drove by. The PKM gunner unleashed a burst of fire into the bunker before driving out of range, the second truck replacing it and repeating the maneuver.

  The entire A/co convoy drove up the road, firing into the bunkers as they flashed past.

  At the top of the hill, reinforced steel doors were swung shut at the compound entrance, heavy crossbars lowered into place. Guards rushed down the walkway along the top of the twenty meter high wall, guns at the ready.

  Richie ran forward as gunfire pounded the compound's walls.

  PKM, RPG, and AK fire hammered away on both sides, Samruk and the UWSA equally unwilling to offer any quarter to their opposition. Struggling with the weight of the explosives in his hands, he zigzagged, trying to avoid gunfire, right up to the side of the modern day castle.

  Slamming the forty pound platter charge on the concrete wall, one of his engineers came up behind him with a prop stick. The hydrogel on the contact side of the charge would stick to nearly any surface, but due to its weight, they needed the wooden board to make sure it remained in place.

  Concrete chips rained down around them, the autofire tearing away at the wall above them. The assault trucks were confined to one dirt road, giving them a hard time as they tried to get as many guns in the fight as possible. The best that platoon sergeants could manage was to line up on the grassy area at the mouth of the fortress, putting suppressive fire above the demo team. All it would take was a slight pause in the shooting and the militiamen would start dropping grenades on Richie and his engineers.

  The platter charge was already primed, shock tube back-stacked in a roll for immediate deployment. Once the prop stick was in place, the trio dashed back to the trucks, trailing shock tube behind them. Taking cover behind one of the vehicles, the British demo expert attached the initiation system to the tube.

  Richie had quickly assessed that trying to breach the metal doors would be a disaster. It was probably secured with steel I-beams, and they had no idea what was on the other side. If they had any sense about them, the UWSA would have pulled a bus or a dump truck behind the gate. Bypassing the main entrance altogether was a far better course of action.

  Passing the M81 fuse igniter to one of the engineers, he began a hasty countdown over the radio; they were getting pounded with gunfire while they sat on the road.

  “I have control,” Richie said, his words high-pitched and riding high on adrenaline. “fivefourthreetwo-”

  The Kazakh engineer twisted and pulled the M81's pin, sending a flash of blue riding down the shock tube. Forty pounds of C4 plastic explosives pushed the metal plate on the contact side of the charge straight through the reinforced concrete wall, collapsing the structure under its own weight.

  Burmese gunmen standing on the catwalk along the inside of the wall were blown off to fall and be crushed on the ground below, a few getting buried under the rubble. With the gunfire temporarily halted, First Platoon rushed forward and into the smoke. They were determined to crawl through the breach, even if they had to find it by hand.

  Through the haze Richie saw a bright blue light, a chem stick left behind by one of the assaulters to mark the breach point where the wall had collapsed. A fresh round of shooting broke out on the other side as the assaulters made it inside the compound. Meanwhile, Second Platoon ran towards the blue marker, ready to back up their comrades.

  Slinging his rifle off his shoulder, Richie looked back, waving Third Platoon forward.

  The smoke was beginning to clear as his platoon scrambled over the pile of concrete blocks and metal rebar. Inside the compound, First Platoon had occupied Peng's ornamental garden, ringed with an artificial stream, using it as cover to lay down a base of fire on the mansion while Second Platoon moved forward.

  With the mansion suppressed, Second Platoon moved in a wedge formation headed straight for two oblong wooden buildings on the nearside of the compound. RPG-7 gunners loaded and fired rockets that drowned out the first part of a transmission coming over the radio.

  “-ance on the main building. Do you copy?” It was Samruk's commander.

  “Say again, over,” Richie yelled into his hand mic.

  “Third Platoon, advance on the main structure. Confirm?”

  “Hit the main building, roger.”

  “We'll shift fire as you close the distance, out.”

  Finding Kanat, he pointed the platoon sergeant towards their new objective. Nodding, Kanat gave the hand and arm signal to his men to move in a column up along the far side of the mansion. Feeling like redcoats in the Revolutionary War, third platoon was able to mass their fire as soon they were engaged by the enemy.

  Taking effective fire, Third Platoon hit the ground, gunmen in the first and second stories of the mansion shooting from deeper in the rooms to try to avoid First Platoon's onslaught. Rushing to remove themselves from open ground, they advanced forward, half the platoon remaining stationary to put more fire on the target while the other half rushed forward. The technique was called bounding overwatch and was designed to keep the enemy engaged while advancing tactically.

  Needless to say, rushing forward nearly into First Platoon’s tracer fire was somewhat disconcerting, but no matter where the unit moved, front, back, or side to side, no available options guaranteed you wouldn't eat a bullet.

  It took four bounds of shooting and maneuvering before they reached the mansion. First Platoon shifted fire while Third stacked up and prepared for entry. Reaching into his bag of tricks, Richie slammed a door charge on the front entrance.

  Taking a squad with him, Deckard backtracked to the breach site. Third Platoon was effecting an entry into the mansion, while his platoon redirected their base of fire. They would follow on, moving to the objective, once Richie established a foothold, but first they had to get the gate open.

  The UWSA had further obstructed the way by parking a bulldozer behind the compound's entrance. Climbing over the mud-covered treads, Deckard noticed that the obstacle would have been somewhat more effective if they had removed the keys from the ignition.

  Twisting the key, Deckard revved the engine to life and backed the heavy machinery out of the way. Running forward, a squad of mercenaries unlocked the gate and swung the doors open. Now Alpha Company's assault trucks came pouring through, locking down the compound with automatic weapons pointed in every direction.

  With the immediate area secure, Deckard got on the radio, ordering First Platoon to cheat forward up to the mansion. From Peng's garden, the Kazakhs were supposed to move in a wedge formation with good separation between each individual soldier. In reality it turned into more of a bum rush as they ran for the entrance.

  Deckard sprinted after them, trying catch up with his platoon.

  Inside, the mansion opened up into a large central room that was in absolute chaos. A fo
untain in the center of the lobby was shot to pieces, water rippling across the floor. The dead bodies of two Kazakhs from Third Platoon lay nearby, blood mixing with the water in a pinkish hue.

  Richie was crouched behind what was left of the fountain, his men swapping fire with Peng's shooters on the second floor balcony above and from doorways on the ground floor. With First Platoon scurrying across the lobby like ants flowing from an ant hill, the Samruk troopers quickly established fire superiority.

  FMK grenades were hurled at the militia holdouts, four Kalashnikovs hosing down each enemy position. Marble bannisters and wooden door jams were reduced and destroyed under the barrage. With the initiative back on their side, Second Platoon cleared the east wing while First Platoon cleared the west wing of the mansion.

  Moving from room to room, squad members carrying shortened Remington 270 shotguns ballistically breached interior doors, kicking them open before assault teams entered and engaged the enemy, single and multiple shots cracking off as they cleared down the long halls.

  The mercenaries had hit a snag.

  Having cleared the ground floor, they discovered the stairway down into the basement, the landing opening up on a concrete slab leading to the entrance to Peng's underground fortress.

  Richie pushed the Kazakhs aside, examining the vault door. Whistling, he walked back and forth, looking at the grouting the door was set in. His eyes probed, searching for any weaknesses and finding none. The safe room was more of an underground bunker.

  The door itself was reminiscent of some of the barriers he had encountered in England or France, seriously high-end stuff. The door would be loaded with layers of ball bearings or metal chips to prevent drilling, the metal itself including layers of copper and aluminum designed to transfer heat and interfere with cutting torches.

  If his suspicion was correct, and sometimes it was, a gas ejection device would be placed between barrier layers. In civilian settings they usually included non-lethal tear gas, but in this situation it was more likely to be a nerve or blister agent.