Confirmed Kill

by Michael Z. Williamson

  They all gathered for a strategy session.

  “Okay, let’s look at the map,” Kyle said. “They were captured here, and were taken south. We have rumors of them here . . .”

  “And here,” Bakri said. He pointed.

  “So the info people are offering definitely places them within a few miles of us,” Stephens said.

  “Drive and do it again?” Bakri asked.

  “Slow, but I don’t see a better way. Where else does this particular group operate?” Kyle frowned.

  “Tolol. But they . . . might be there,” Bakri said. Obviously, he had thought of something.

  “Slow, but I don’t see a better way. Where else does this particular group operate?” Kyle frowned.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s a setup near an oil field. Not an actual village, but people shelter there. There was a killing there of an employee protest.” He paused over the awkward phrase. “They shot the protestors. It might please odd sense of justice to do the same thing back.”

  “I’d say you’re right.” Hell, yes. That was very likely it.

  “Why?” Wiesinger asked.

  Kyle said, “Just how they think, sir. Revenge. Blood for blood. Lots of these groups. It’s certainly worth looking at. And we might just find our head asshole there. And pull off the original plan, too.”

  “It’s near here,” Bakri said.

  “Not far?”

  “No, ten kilometers. Walk?”

  “Better drive,” Kyle said, grimacing. “How close is safe?”

  “Three kilometers.” Bakri sounded familiar with the area.

  “Doable. How?”

  “Access road here, along the edge of the oil field.” He pointed.

  Kyle looked at the map. It wasn’t much of a “field.” It was more clearings in jungle and brush. Roads were typical industrial access, graveled.

  “Won’t they notice us?”

  “If we’re seen as a group, yes. We should go with weapons hidden, and in one vehicle at a time. Luckily, you won’t be remarkable as Americans.”

  “Good.”

  Kyle and Wade had traveled in all kinds of disreputable vehicles. The Land Cruiser was actually one of the choicer ones. It even had working air conditioning. So of course, Murphy had to compensate with a spine-grinding ride over a “road” that was rutted, rooted, and full of sinkholes in the soft loam. Kyle was glad to be in front. Wade was stuffed in with Wiesinger’s bulk and two rucks, and Anda and another were squeezed in the back. The “gravel” road was not in great shape. But that seemed to mean it wasn’t used much. There were few signs of even temporary repairs. If this was an important path, it would have been paved.

  It didn’t take long to reach the location they’d set for their staging area. Bakri slowed and drew over to the roadside. Kyle eased the door open and slid his feet out, then sank slowly into the mud. The door creaked slightly as he pressed it gently closed. Wade was behind him, and a splash indicated Wiesinger stepping in a puddle. Kyle swore under his breath. It probably wasn’t loud enough to attract attention, and no one was around, but dammit, the man was a liability.

  Shortly, their squad was hunkered together in the woods beside the road. The humidity was palpable, but that would help damp out sound, too. Small advantages added up to victory, and Kyle would take them.

  “Which way from here?” Wiesinger asked.

  “Three kilometers that way,” Bakri said.

  “How long?”

  “An hour if we move well.”

  “What’s our plan?” Kyle asked.

  “We need an evac route first,” Wiesinger said. “Stand by.” He wandered off a few feet and messed with his phone.

  “I would truly like to be kept in the loop on these discussions with HQ,” Kyle muttered to Wade.

  “But that would compromise secrecy.”

  “Maybe. Or else he’s just a self-centered asshole who doesn’t think enlisted people matter.” They stopped, not wanting to drag their allies into the discussion. Stephens had expressed his position, and Bakri said volumes with his silence on the matter.

  Wiesinger came back. “Okay, we have extraction in process. It will take a few hours. So we should use that time to patrol. Not too closely, but I recommend three recons. Two on this side, one on the far side of the road.”

  “Growth is thinner over there,” Bakri said. “Right. Who do you recommend?”

  Wiesinger surprised Kyle when he said, “Anda of course.”

  The slight woman smiled and nodded, then grabbed another by his arm and slipped away in just her clothes, no ruck. A single look back let Kyle focus on her calm eyes, pouty lips, and clear skin. She really wasn’t bad-looking at all, even out here. Cleaned up, she was probably very pretty. He wasn’t sure if she’d ever attended a dance or dinner. Probably not.

  “Kyle, you and I should make one patrol. Mister Stephens, will you go with us?”

  “Right,” Stephens agreed with a nod. “Send Wade and Kevin? Iverson can cover here.”

  “Okay. Bakri, we’ll be back in . . .” Wiesinger stopped to think.

  Kyle did the math in his head instantly. Three kilometers of rough terrain each way, two hours. An additional hour for margin, two hours of recon. Eight hours in this growth, you moron. You’ve read the books.

  “Eight to nine hours,” the colonel finally concluded. It must have been thirty seconds.

  “Permission to leave rifles with Mister Iverson, Mel?”

  “Why?”

  “We’re recon, don’t need to carry weapons. If it gets to that we’ll want to run more than fight. That’s what sidearms are for.” He slapped his Ed Brown, which was in the standard issue holster on his right hip, where it had been since just after they landed. He would even have bathed with it on, if they’d been able to bathe. A few minutes of rain dancing had been the limit of external hygiene, plus a few diaper wipes to sanitize hands. They were all pretty rank.

  “I’ll take an M4,” Wiesinger said. “If you wish to take just a sidearm, I’ll allow the choice. Wade?”

  “Just the Beretta, Mel. Rifles can stay here.”

  “Right. Let’s decide who goes where.”

  As they each chose a direction to approach the facility from, Kyle reflected on the irony that the officer whose standard-duty weapon was a sidearm wanted a rifle, while the two rifle-toting grunts wanted to travel light.

  Kyle didn’t need much for this. He had his water, his pistol, four extra eight-round magazines and his tactical load-bearing harness. He removed the rifle magazines from it and filled the pouches with a few spare MRE components, mostly fruit and crackers, with GPS and cell phone. He took the ghillie, rolled up, to don when needed. Fresh camo paint, brown, just to darken his skin against notice. Most people used way too much green. Nature was brown, when it came down to it.

  Stephens was waiting, wearing a dun T-shirt and carrying a little day pack. His web gear was hung with full pouches. He had a Browning Hi-Power in a thigh rig. His equivalent to the ghillie was a camouflage nylon fishnet with burlap braided in. It was a cover rather than a garment, but should work fine. All were wearing nearly identical “boonie” hats, broad brimmed and soft.

  Wade and Fuller were already out of sight. “Time to walk,” Stephens said, looking plucky and cheerful. Kyle fell in behind him, with Wiesinger bringing up the rear.

  The first kilometer was easy, at a relaxed crouch, simply alert for anything obvious. There were no signs of human passage and the animal noises were typical. It took about twenty minutes to cover the distance, or the speed of a slow stroll. They ducked from tree to bush to hollow, avoiding standing tall or crashing through brush. The key, even when in safe terrain, was to not draw attention.

  The second kilometer was slower. They dropped to low crouches alternating with hands and knees. They dispersed across a front a hundred meters wide and ten deep, each taking his own route. Discovery of one should not mean discovery of the rest. That allowed at least a chance for the other two t
o escape discovery or exfiltrate, while the one who was sighted would be very loud and aggressive once escape was impossible. If the enemy was busy, they might not notice non-threats, like two other troops departing.

  It took about an hour to cover that kilometer, which left most of another in their timetable, plus a spare, to cover the last few hundred meters before commencing recon proper.

  Kyle stopped about two hundred meters back, in mid-afternoon light. He found a nice elevated spot with a thick tangle of greenery, which he hoped wasn’t poisonous in some fashion, and got ready to work.

  His first task was to draw a map of the facility, using GPS, a parallax range finder, and a terrain map. From there, he scaled his own sketch on grid paper with a protractor and scale.

  There was a pipeline running through about 100 meters beyond the buildings, and off in the distance, across a field that had been burned clear and was partly regrown with scrub, was an oil well capped with a boom-type pump. He estimated it at 525 meters.

  There were four buildings, low, block with metal roofs. One had windows on the back side, which faced them. The others did not. One had a small vent window on the side. He kept making notes and drawing. They’d compare all three later.

  While scanning with the M49 spotting scope, he kept watch for Anda. Nothing indicated her presence, and he knew she was there. Nothing. Excellent.

  He did see sentries. Three of them, carrying rifles. They were squatting in shade and watching the road, totally bored. That made sense. There was no real threat. But why sentries? Obviously they feared something.

  His phone buzzed and he clicked it to answer while digging for his headset. “Kyle. ”

  “Jack here. Stand by.” There was a click.

  “Mel here.”

  “Good, we’re conferenced,” Stephens said. “And should be clear of any interference.”

  “I’ve got a map. Windows on the second building from the left, south, are facing us. They raise. Can’t see inside well. There’s stuff in there, but the shadows make it hard to discern.”

  “Understood. Assume the sentries are trained well,” Stephens said. Kyle nodded. He’d been suspicious anyway, but now he saw the threat.

  “Oh?” Wiesinger asked.

  “That’s a soldier, an Army deserter, I would guess.”

  “Oh?” Again.

  “He has most of a uniform, a fairly military bearing, and an SS carbine,” Stephens patiently explained, saving Kyle more aggravation.

  “Agreed,” Wiesinger said. Kyle tried not to groan. It had been fairly obvious to him what they were looking at. Likely, all Indonesians looked the same to Wiesinger. He really wasn’t that observant. Though it could just be fatigue. They swapped intel for ten minutes, or more accurately, Kyle and Stephens did. Wiesinger did at least confirm a lot of what they saw, but offered little additional insight. He even complained about the cost of a conference call by satellite. Kyle clicked off and then sighed.

  Two hours of observation gave good, refined maps and not much else. There wasn’t much activity. What there was was hard to pin down. Kyle positively identified a dozen people in addition to the three guards. But there were signs of habitation elsewhere—clothes hanging out a window to dry, fresh trash, other indications. There could be a large force here.

  Kyle’s phone buzzed again. It was Wiesinger. “I’m calling this done. Let’s head back.”

  “Roger.”

  It was important to make the exfiltration as smooth and silent as the infiltration. Being done didn’t mean the threat level changed. Kyle was half afraid Wiesinger would stand up and walk out, as he had a few days earlier. But he showed decent aptitude. Though Kyle did spot him from fifty meters away when they were a good kilometer out. He almost tripped over Stephens, who was within ten meters when he whistled and stood.

  The three headed back in the same skulking crouch they’d used on the way in. Kyle felt. . . odd. Sometimes he felt lighter afterward, threat diminished. Sometimes he felt more burdened from fatigue. This time, he didn’t feel much of anything, which was bothersome. He was either too fatigued or too mentally strained to care. That was dangerous.

  *****

  Anda had different intel when she returned. “I saw through the door. Looked like a child.”

  “Child,” Kyle muttered.

  “How sure are you?” Wiesinger asked.

  “Quite sure. Small height. Long pale hair. White socks and short skirt or trousers.”

  Kyle said, “Probably. I can’t think why else we’d find someone of that description.”

  “I count twenty-three men.” She gave descriptions and locations.

  “Hell. I counted five more, allowing for the ones that positively compare,” Kyle said. Wiesinger counted two others, and Stephens another. There were almost certainly more than that, asleep, on patrol, or out running chores.

  “What’s our approach then, gentlemen?” Wiesinger asked.

  “Backup,” Stephens said. “Tell the Kopassus where it is. Let Indonesia take the bite. They’re competent, they’ll have troops trained for hostage rescue specifically, and can overwhelm this group.”

  “I agree,” Wade said, after swapping a glance with Kyle.

  “I am not happy with the government,” Bakri said. “But if I am not associated with this group, my position is better. I agree it should be done.”

  Wiesinger looked anguished. He was being advised to throw the book away and violate policy, procedure and State Department regs. But this was Defense, not State, and Kyle frankly didn’t care what some suit with a theory thought. It took several seconds, but the man came to a decision. “I’ll call,” he said. “Who do I call?”

  Everyone looked askance.

  “I’ll search online,” Wade said. Once connected, it took ten minutes for him to find an Indonesian government Web site with links to the Aceh province. A bit more digging turned up a phone number to the regional police office.

  Wiesinger dialed the number. “Do you speak English?” he said. “Yes. I know the location of the two hostages, the woman and her daughter. Yes. My name is . . . Robert Richardson.” He hadn’t paused much. Kyle grudgingly gave him credit. “Yes, they are in the facility at Tolol. There are more than twenty men armed with rifles. I saw others to the west—” They were actually to the east—“but they seemed to be a different group. When I spoke to them, they said they were scouting timber. That is all I can tell you, but they are definitely there right now.” He clicked off.

  “So we wait,” Stephens said.

  “Shall we back away, boss?” Kevin Fuller asked.

  “We might want to. Assume they’ll use the road or aircraft.”

  “Why stay at all?” Wiesinger asked.

  “Because someone will escape, no doubt, and we want to get that person for more intel. Meantime, we’re surveillance.”

  Another night in the dark, but they did have food that had been brought by the now departed trucks. There was no reason to have anything within several kilometers that could be seen by infrared or visually from the air.

  It wasn’t very satisfying, Kyle thought, to travel halfway around the world and do recon the locals were capable of doing, just so Uncle Sam could have an official report, and then hand the task off locally. But really, this was a bigger event than they were trained or equipped for. The second round of hostages and the second bomb were too sensitive. But they’d intercepted several tons of explosive and tracked a source, as well as taking out one sizeable cell. It might seem like nothing but days of hiking in rain forest and watching state-built villages, but it had been worthwhile. The action of the last two missions had spoiled him.

  “That’s what it’s like, mate,” Iverson had said, while Fuller and Stephens nodded. “We spend weeks or months creeping around in the crud, calling back reports, and they tell us we did a fine job. Half the time we don’t know why.”

  Kyle couldn’t see them in the dark. They were just vague shadows. It was really dark when the moon was down, wi
th canopy above them and growth all around. That did mean they should be well hidden from anything passing by.

  They ate cold rice with water buffalo, veggies, and peppers. It was a bit slimy here and there where fat had congealed, but it beat the Tuna with Noodles MRE all to hell. The Tuna with Noodles was flat, tasteless, bland slop. With that at the bottom end, and some very tedious unseasoned rice in other parts of the world, the local cuisine was quite respectable.

  Everything was in their rucks, and they sat back wearing them. They might have to move on a second’s notice. Besides the risk of losing gear was the risk of leaving evidence. Even if it didn’t trace back to the troops, it left suspicion, and it was sloppy. So they all sat geared up and ready to move. The Americans had their helmets back on, in case of fire. It was easier to wear them than carry them. Kyle’s had been in his ruck since leaving the vehicle, the soft headgear preferable for what they’d been doing. But if they were to move fast or take possible fire, he was going to wear it. He, Wade and Wiesinger also had thin, police body armor that would stop many pistol rounds or spent rifle bullets. It couldn’t hurt and might help, especially against fragments.

  There wasn’t a safe way to play cards without risking losing some of them. Talking was contraindicated. Dozing wasn’t approved of, but was hard to avoid. At least the weather was clear and warm, and it was easy and comfortable to drift off. Kyle did so, trusting the active sentries and enough of the rest to be alert. It wouldn’t take much of a hint to wake him, anyway.

  Some hours passed. The military could respond within minutes by helicopter, as they had done many times before. They could respond on the ground within an hour or so. It might take time to confirm the story or marshal troops, but the response itself should be quick.

  Or it could be that they were infiltrating already. It was near midnight. The infiltration might be silent, but once the shooting started, everyone should know. Still, the delay was frustrating.

  “Where the hell are the government troops?” Wiesinger called in a harsh whisper. He was obviously agitated.