by Matt Lynn
Black Ops: Complete Missions
Matt Lynn
© Matthew Lynn 2013
Matthew Lynn has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published 2013 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
This edition published in 2018 by Lume Books.
Table of Contents
Black Ops: Libya
Black Ops: El Dorado
Black Ops: Olympics
Black Ops: Libya
Matt Lynn
Author’s Note
Black Ops: Libya is the first in a new series of short thrillers designed as a cross between journalism and fiction. Each Black Ops story will be ripped straight from the headlines and written and published as events unfold. This story is inspired by events in Tripoli in August 2011, but of course is entirely fictitious. The character of The Colonel is invented, and no resemblance is intended to any real person. Readers who enjoy this story might like to try my longer e-books, ‘Death Force’, ‘Fire Force’ and ‘Shadow Force’.
Matt Lynn, August, 2011
Chapter One
Every time he rode into a battle on a chopper Alex Marden wrestled with the same dilemma. Gloves or no gloves? Get your hands ripped to shreds or risk getting shot to pieces as soon as you hit the ground?
Gloves would protect your palms as you abseiled out of the chopper. But they’d also stop you reaching for you gun. If they were thick enough to stop your skin getting shredded, they’d also stop you slotting your finger into the trigger of the SA-80 assault rifle you’d need to open up the moment you hit the ground if you were to have any chance of surviving the raid.
That’s soldiering, he thought to himself with a weary shrug.
A series of brutal choices. Intense pain or sudden death. If you don’t like it, you’re in the wrong business.
He reached down into his kit bag and took out the gloves, pulling them carefully over his hands. Across the interior of the Black Hawk, Jack Rogan looked up, a smirk playing on his tanned, weather-beaten face. “You SAS boys like to look after yourself?” he said. He shook his head, and chuckled to himself. “Maybe you’d like some sun cream as well. Make sure nothing happens to your skin.”
“I’m sod all use to anyone if my hands are bleeding so badly that I can’t shoot straight,” said Alex.
He’d only met Rogan in the briefing room an hour ago. A former Navy Seal, who’d been hounded out of his unit for drinking and gambling, he was a legendarily tough soldier, but undisciplined and opinionated.
A man who was an unreliable as he was fierce.
Expendable, in other words.
Like all the other men in Unit Five. The Black Ops Brigade as it was known in military circles. A top-secret NATO force, composed purely of Special Forces men, all with something to hide, they were deployed in the most desperate, deniable missions. They were men who’d already been written off. No risk was too great for them. And no job too dangerous.
“And you are no use to anyone if you’re already dead,” snapped Jack. “You’ll still be fiddling with your gloves when the shooting starts.”
“How many firefights have you bloody well abseiled into?” growled Alex.
“Enough to know how to stay alive.”
“Steady, boys,” intervened Lothar Kroos.
A big, heavy veteran of the Kommando Spezialkrafte, the German equivalent of the SAS or the Navy Seals, Lothar was the oldest man on the team that had been scratched together for this mission. Almost forty, he had ten years on the rest of the guys in the chopper, and he acted as if his age gave him authority over the rest of the team. But Alex was already starting to resent the way the German assumed command. That wasn’t the way it was meant to work in Unit Five. Every man’s voice counted for the same, even if it was the equality of the damned.
“We’ve got enough of a fight on without turning on each other,” interrupted Paul Layton.
A recruit from the Australian SASR, that country’s version of the SAS, Paul was the youngest of the quartet going into battle today. A chipper, sun-tanned Aussie, with a wry sense of humour, he was always quick to soothe over any disagreements.
Jack chuckled again. “You wear your gloves if you want to man,” he said, glancing towards Alex. “The rest of us will take care of the enemy, and we’ll come to you for a manicure when the shooting’s all finished.”
Alex ignored him and glanced from the open door. The Black Hawk was skimming low over the Libyan interior. It had taken off an hour ago from HMS Stanley, a British aircraft carrier stationed a few miles off the North African coastline. It was heading straight for the target. An oil installation, ten miles east of Murzurq, deep inside the country. A break-away group of rebel fighters had taken control of the wells, and were holding six European engineers hostage. Two Brits, a Dutch guy, a Frenchman, a Pole and an Italian. Their job was top get them out. Alive preferably.
“Impact in five minutes,” shouted the pilot.
The words were barked through the headphones each man had slotted over his head.
Alex glanced from the chopper. “Christ,” he muttered under his breath.
Thick plumes of smoke were rising from the compound. It was just a couple of miles ahead of them now. The Black Hawk had been skimming low, keeping as close to the ground as possible, to avoid being detected by radar, although after months of fighting there was little left of the Libyan air force to put up much resistance. The briefing had been clear enough. Fly in close to the installation, drop down into the compound, take down the rebels, and bring the hostages out.
Easy, reflected Alex. On paper, at least.
But they hadn’t mentioned that the wells had been torched.
Or that there were fires burning everywhere.
“Impact, one minute,” barked the pilot.
Alex made one last check of his kit. He was carrying an SA-80 British made assault rifle, with five clips of ammo strapped to his webbing. A Browning Hi-Power pistol, standard issue for the SAS. Two grenades. A knife. A medi-pack, and a bottle of water. No dog tag, though. It was a rule of Unit Five that the men never went into battle with anything that might identify them. If they were captured, they were on their own. If they died, their grave would be an unmarked one.
He climbed to his feet. The abseil ropes were already hanging from the side of the Black Hawk. The roar of the blades was deafening, even through the ear-pieces strapped to the side of his head. He glanced down. The Black Hawk was dropping fast, closing in on the hundred feet from which they would launch their attack, but as it did so it was flying straight into the clouds of smoke. Within a fraction of a second, Alex could see nothing, not even the ground beneath them.
Only darkness.
“Go, go,” screamed the pilot. “I can’t fly through this shit.”
With a single jump, Alex grabbed hold of the rope and leapt from the side of the machine. It was like dropping into hell itself. The powerful rotor blade on the Black Hawk was sucking the smoke from the raging fire straight into them. The fumes were wrapping themselves around him, choking his lungs, and the heat raging from the burning oil well penetrated his uniform and the Kevlar body armour strapped around his chest making the sweat pour from his skin. The rope was made of twisted steel and even through the gloves, his hands were burning up as he accelerated towards the ground below.
“Run, run,” yelled Jack.
Alex hit the ground with a thump. He could hear the rattle of a gun switched to automatic but through the fumes and above the din of the Black Hawk he could get no sense of where the attack was coming from. His head was swimming. He steadied himself, and ripped the gloves from his fists, slamming the SA-80 into position, and slotting his finger into t
he trigger. But he couldn’t shoot. There were no visible targets. Just an enemy somewhere ahead of them, firing blind into their assailants.
A bullet kicked up a mound of dust.
Two feet to his left.
Close. Too sodding close.
Alex started to run. He was following the black shape he could just about make out a few feet in front of him. Jack. At his side, Paul and Lothar had landed, and the four men were advancing steadily through the darkness. Above them, the Black Hawk was soaring back into the sky, and as it withdrew, its blades were no longer sucking the smoke towards them, and the visibility started to improve. Another pair of bullets chewed up the dust, this time just a single foot away. As his eyes flicked around, Alex caught sight of a shape. Dark, obscured by fumes, but with the unmistakable silhouette of an AK-47 in his hand.
“Right, right,” he yelled.
He dropped to his knees, slotted the SA-80 into his shoulder and released a short, sharp volley of fire. The fumes were clogging up his lungs making it almost impossible to breathe. But he ignored the pain. This was one of those moments you encountered in battle when only calmness and sureness of purpose would win the day. He squinted and aimed. The shape shuddered as two expertly aimed rounds cut through his rib-cage, and chewed into the arteries below, then fell back onto the ground.
“Follow me,” yelled Alex.
There were twelve men on the camp, that was what he’d been told. One down, eleven to go. Alex couldn’t see much, the fumes were still too thick, but he reckoned that the man he’d just shot would have some back-up. His mates would be right behind him. He took one glance backwards to makes sure the rest of the unit had followed his instructions, and once he made sure that Paul, Lothar and Jack were right alongside him, he started to run forwards. The SA-80 was tight in his arms, pumping out round after round straight ahead. It was wild, uncontrolled fire, but he reckoned if they could just put down enough rounds, they’d hit something.
Ten yards, then another ten.
He skipped over the dead body of the man he’d just shot, and kept on running. He was through the smoke now and could see five men straight ahead of him. He bombed a fresh mag into the SA-80, and fired into them. Jack, Paul and Lothar had joined the attack, moving forward as a single unit, delivering a volley that was lethally effective. The munitions tore through the soldiers, cutting them apart. Three men went down straight away. One more was wounded, clutching the side of his chest to staunch the blood pouring from a gaping wound, before Lothar finished him off with a precisely aimed double-tap straight to the side of his head. The last man was running fast, fleeing the hailstorm of bullets that had descended upon them.
Alex fired twice, planning on slotting a pair of rounds into the man’s back, but it was impossible to take aim. The SA-80 was not a precision weapon, and the soldier was already five hundred yards away. At that range, he’d need a sniper rifle. He paused, catching his breath and assessing their situation. The oil installation sprawled over several hundred square metres, with two wells at its centre, a network of pipes for delivering the oil up to the refineries on the coast, and a group of buildings to house the engineers and maintenance workers. With the wells alight, the heat was unbearable. Out here in the desert it was already forty degrees, but the flames were taking it up to fifty. Where the hostages might be held, Alex had no idea. The maintenance building, he guessed. But there was no way of knowing until they stormed them.
A burst of machine gun fire raked towards them.
“Down, down,” yelled Jack.
Alex threw himself onto the dusty ground. A jeep was racing out of the building, towards the dusty track that led away from the compound. Two men were upfront, another pair in the back. One had slotted a machine gun onto the back of the truck, whilst the man at his side has an AK-47 gripped to his chest. Both of them were laying down a blistering barrage of fire, peppering the ground all around them with bullets. Behind them, there was a Land Rover, and from a glance at its back, Alex could tell the hostages had been squeezed into the vehicle. Two more men were flanking the convoy on motorbikes, both with assault rifles strapped to their chests.
“They’re making a run for it,” growled Paul. “With the bloody hostages.”
“Then we go after them,” barked Jack.
He’d already jumped to his feet, and was starting to run. Sodding madman, thought Alex. The convoy was accelerating at a terrifying speed given the roughness of the ground. The track was just baked dirt, and there were potholes all over it. But the man driving the jeep up front was already up to sixty, and his foot was still slammed to the pedal. Alex ran towards the compound. There was no way they’d catch them on foot. They needed transport and fast.
Up close to the main building there was a Renault Kangoo. A basic delivery van, the kind any plumber might drive. Alex ripped open the door. No key. “Christ,” he muttered. He slammed his fist on the dashboard in frustration, but Paul had already opened up the bonnet and hotwired the vehicle. As the engine roared to life, Paul slammed the door shut, and together with Lothar the three men started their pursuit. Alex jammed his foot onto the accelerator. You saw plenty of guys in white vans driving like madmen on the motorways, but how they managed to get their vehicles up to those speeds he had no idea. The machine had all the acceleration of a wet sponge. The engine whined as he sliced up through the gears, and slowly the speed started to climb past seventy.
“Get alongside them,” shouted Lothar.
Alex had paused to allow Jack to climb on board, then pushed the Renault up past eighty. He was starting to close on the two vehicles ahead of them. Weighed down by ammo, passengers and armour, they didn’t have the acceleration you’d expect from a Toyota or a Land Rover. Six or seven hundred yards, Alex reckoned. In the back, Lothar was hacking into the side of the vehicle with a knife. He’d sawn through the plastic interior, and was starting to punch a small one square inch hole into the side of the vehicle. Paul was repeating the operation, so was Jack. Within less than a minute, three neat holes had been cut. “I told you, get right alongside them,” yelled Lothar. “We’re ready.”
Alex knew precisely what he was planning.
Get level with the jeep. Then open fire through the holes in the van. Your opponent would return fire, but the skin of the vehicle would form an effective shield while the team inside the van peppered their opponents with bullets.
That was the plan anyway. And it was a good enough one. There’s just one problem, thought Alex bitterly. The driver has to risk his life.
He looked straight ahead. Three hundred yards. A cloud of dust was kicking up from the back of the convoy, obscuring their view, but even so they had seen them giving chase, and the machine gunner had opened up with a burst of fire. Alex spun right. The convoy was taking up the whole of the track. To pull alongside them, he needed to be five yards or more off-road. The Kangoo was kicking up a swirl of dust as its tyres chewed into the dry, sandy ground. But Alex wasn’t worried about that. The more dust there was, the harder he was too see. And shoot.
Two hundred yards, then a hundred.
He was closing all the time.
“Bloody get your foot down, mate,” yelled Paul. “We’re not worrying about a speeding ticket.”
Alex grinned, and pressed harder on the accelerator, but the van was already close to a hundred, and although its speedometer claimed it could get up to a hundred and twenty that was probably just for the brochure. Not in these conditions it couldn’t. The van was bouncing across the rough ground, the steering shaky, and a couple of times Alex reckoned it was about to tip on its side as it bounced across rocks. But he pressed on relentlessly.
Fifty yards. He could see them clearly now. And they could see him. Another rattle of machine gun fire. A pair of bullets hit the bonnet, anther sliced through the window. Alex ducked. It had missed him by inches, but it was close. One of the motorbikes had peeled away from the convoy, and was driving straight towards them. The driver had his left hand on the bik
e, and in his right a machine pistol. A Uzi Alex reckoned, but he couldn’t tell from this distance. He gripped the wheel, steering straight towards the bike, but the man didn’t flinch, just raised the pistol and released another volley of fire straight towards his enemy. The windscreen splintered into a thousand pieces, sending a shower of glass right across Alex. He ducked below the dashboard, keeping one hand on the wheel, and his foot on the accelerator, but he could no longer see where he was going. There were a couple of nicks to his face where the glass had caught him, but the bullets had missed. Suddenly, he heard a crunching sound. The scrapping of rubber on metal and then the scream of a man having the life crushed out of him.
The bike had collided with the van.
The Kangoo rose into the air, and one tyre burst open, landing with a brutal crash that shook each man inside it. “Jesus, pal, hasn’t anyone told you how to run over a bloke,” growled Paul. “Keep the wheel steady…”
Alex ignored him. The van was veering out of control, and could tip over at any second. He grabbed hold of the wheel with both hand, and tapped his foot on the brake. He needed to get control back and fast. The convoy was just yards ahead, and even though there was dust everywhere, he could see the men inside clearly enough. He steadied the Renault, and steered to the right again. They were passing the Land Rover and levelling with the jeep.
“One second,” yelled Alex.
He glanced to his side, just in time to see the jeep immediately at his side. “Fire,” he snapped, ducking again.
Behind him, Lothar, Jack and Paul opened up with their assault rifles. A barrage of bullets was pumped straight into the vehicle, in a relentless assault of steel. The van rocked on its side as the soldiers fired back, but it skin was strong enough, and it was not long before the rounds had done their murderous work.
