The Gauntlet

by Mike Kraus

  “You going after them?” Linda nodded and he took a deep breath. “Good. I’m coming with.”

  Linda started to argue, but as he grabbed his rifle off of the ground she realized that it would be both pointless and a waste of precious time that they did not have. “Keep up, stay close and don’t get shot. Got it?”

  Frank thumbed the safety off on his rifle and nodded at her. “Go.”

  ***

  Linda and Frank advanced quickly through the southern building, stopping only for a few seconds to check half a dozen soldier and airmen whose bloodied bodies lay strewn near a stairwell. Linda grimaced as she moved between the men. “All dead. Damn.” She crouched near the bodies for a moment before beckoning Frank to continue following. “We can’t do anything for them. Come on.”

  Another RPG hit the far side of the parking lot as they ascended the stairs, the explosion muffled by the walls but still loud due to its close proximity. Frank adjusted his grip on his rifle, nervous sweat dripping from every pore on his body. “How close are they?” he whispered at Linda.

  “Next floor up,” she pointed at the ceiling and held a finger to her lips. He nodded and followed her up, keeping his rifle aimed low at the ground to avoid any friendly-fire incidents.

  At the top of the stairs Linda put her body against the edge of the doorframe and slowly rotated her head around until she could see down the hall. The door had been blown off of its hinges either by the Claymores or by the attackers, giving her a perfect view down the hall. Several more bloodied bodies of fallen soldiers and airmen lay strewn on the floor. She clenched her jaw as she saw them, then her whole frame tensed up as she looked beyond.

  A dozen men or more stood in the hall, clustered together in two groups. She could see that every man was armed with a rifle, though one man in each group also wielded an RPG that his comrades were helping to reload after he fired it upon the people in the parking lot below. While leaning out into the hall and opening fire would—under any other circumstances—be a ludicrous suggestion that she wouldn’t dream of carrying out, each RPG that the men were allowed to fire down at the parking lot was potentially another cluster of deaths that could be avoided if she were to act quickly.

  Linda was just starting to turn and raise her rifle when Frank’s hands grabbed her around her arms and chest. He pulled her back sharply, nearly causing her to drop her rifle. The noise of their scuffle was masked by the noise of the men down the hall and she cringed as another RPG was fired through a window and it was followed by a nearby explosion.

  “What the hell, Frank?” Linda hissed in his ear as she broke free of his grip and whirled to face him.

  “Stop!” Frank’s eyes were wide as he replied. “If you open fire now they’ll just send one of those things down the hall at us!”

  Linda was too embarrassed to admit that Frank was right and she fought back against a sick feeling in her gut that she had just narrowly avoided death thanks to his intervention.

  “Don’t you have a grenade or something?” Frank whispered at her again.

  “No,” she shook her head, “but I think they might have something even better.” Linda turned and peeked around the doorframe again, her searching gaze flitting across and around the feet of the attackers in the hall. A dark green canvas bag sat behind each of the RPG wielders and she smiled coldly as she watched one of the men reach into the bag closest to her and Frank and pull out the familiar black RPG and pass it to the man holding the launcher.

  “Cover your ears.” Linda spoke with a grin that bordered on the maniacal. “This is going to be loud.”

  Rocket-propelled grenades, like many other types of explosives, are designed to be extremely stable at all times before they are used against a target. Explosives that detonate prematurely or from rough handling just aren’t very good in a combat situation. Under normal circumstances, a direct shot from a bullet would either bounce off of or harmlessly penetrate through an explosive since, without the fuse or primer going off, there wouldn’t be enough energy from the bullet to cause the explosive to detonate.

  Firing at a cache of twenty-five-year-old RPGs sitting clustered together in a canvas bag after they’ve been hauled around for an indeterminate amount of time by people who don’t really understand their destructive capabilities is not a ‘normal circumstances’ type of situation. When Linda squeezed the trigger and sent several rounds into the bag, she half-expected her plan to fail and for the men to send an RPG hurtling down the hallway to engulf both herself and Frank in a ball of fire. Fortune, however, was on her side.

  The third bullet to enter the bag slipped between a seam in the metal around one of the RPGs, tearing it open and igniting the fuse inside. The initial explosion would have been devastating to the cluster of men around it but the detonation of a few dozen RPGs simultaneously generated enough force to blow a swimming-pool-sized hole in the side of the building.

  The flames and the force of the explosion sent the men farther down the hall flying, gravely injuring two and killing the rest. Those who were standing near the first bag were virtually disintegrated, their bodies and clothing liquified, burned up or thrown far enough from the source of the explosion that they would never be able to be identified.

  Though Linda and Frank were down the hall and in good cover compared to the attackers, they too felt the force of the explosion. Frank’s teeth and chest rattled from the blast and Linda covered her ears and turned away from the doorway, feeling a blast of wind and debris pass by inches from her back. The majority of the force of the explosion went out the sides and top of the building but there was enough energy in the blast that most of the soldiers in the area not only heard but felt the rumble of the explosion as well.

  Linda stood a few seconds after the explosion was finished and she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder. Frank stood behind her, his face covered in dirt and grime, looking her over from head to toe. “You okay?” Frank spoke loudly though Linda was still having trouble hearing him due to the ringing in her ears. She nodded slowly and pointed at him, silently asking him the same question.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “But I can’t believe that worked!”

  Linda looked around the doorframe, peering down the hall alongside Frank and nodding with satisfaction. “Same here. No time to dawdle around, though.” Linda took her radio off of her belt and keyed the mic. “All units, this is Rollins. Attackers in the south building are down.” She crept down the hall, looking through the massive hole in the wall out into the parking lot while being cautious not to fall through down into the next floor. “I still see stragglers along the north side and a couple at the vehicles. Jackson, I suggest we try and capture them for a little bit of intel.”

  Down in the parking lot, Jackson grabbed a radio from a nearby airman and listened to Linda’s broadcast. The explosion in the building had caught everyone off-guard but they were all thrilled to hear that the attackers were dead. Their joy was short-lived, though, due to the number of wounded and dead they had to deal with.

  “Rollins, this is Jackson,” he replied back, looking around the parking lot at the devastation wreaked upon the men and women under his command. “Nice work up there. I’ve got a team chasing down the stragglers. All units, anyone not currently chasing down those bastards needs to be working triage right now!”

  With ringing still in their ears, Frank and Linda made their way back down the stairwell and out into the parking lot. While the pair of them had nearly died from the RPGs during the attack, neither realized the sheer magnitude of the destruction until they were out walking amongst it without being under fire. Vehicles of all types were blown apart, their components twisted, blackened and scattered to the winds. Large craters in the asphalt denoted spots where the RPGs hadn’t quite hit their mark while dark red puddles next to Army-green blankets draped over still forms told sadder tales.

  Linda and Frank walked through the rapidly-growing crowd of soldiers and airmen as they searched for any injured that
had been overlooked. A groan from beneath a half-destroyed truck drew Linda’s attention and she crouched down to see a man pinned beneath the vehicle, still alive but covered in blood and breathing heavily.

  “Son of a…” Linda cursed under her breath and turned to scream at a few soldiers running nearby. “Help me get this off of him!” With help from Frank and Linda, the soldiers managed to get the truck lifted off of the injured man and a medic moved him to the side and began tending to his wounds. The sight of the gravely injured man made Linda’s blood boil and she left his side, heading to the north side of the parking lot where a few stray attackers had been spotted. Frank followed behind her, keeping quiet as he tried to figure out what they were doing until he couldn’t contain his question any longer.

  “Linda? Where are we going?”

  “To find them.” Her response was a guttural growl, containing the fury of a woman who had been dragged through hell multiple times and was finding herself being pulled back in once again.

  “Find… who?”

  “Any of those assholes. If they’re still alive.”

  Frank shook his head as he trailed behind Linda, sidestepping soldiers limping along and carrying stretchers with their injured comrades. The pair passed through the northern set of buildings and heard several men shouting a short distance ahead. They both readied their weapons and broke into a run, weaving down the alley until they saw the source of the commotion on the open street ahead.

  A group of soldiers were clustered around a body on the ground, and for a second Linda thought it was one of their comrades who was down. When one of the soldiers kicked at the legs of the person on the ground, though, she realized that it must be one of the attackers.

  “Hey!” Linda shouted as she ran toward the soldiers, Frank still doggedly keeping up behind her. “What happened here? You were supposed to get one of them alive!”

  The soldiers spread apart and one of them shrugged as he gestured to the corpse on the ground. “We tried, ma’am. He had other plans.”

  Linda looked at the man lying on the ground and ground her teeth together when she saw the self-inflicted bullet wound in the side of his head and the revolver lying on the ground a few inches from his right hand.

  “We tried to stop them, but once they realized they were cornered they just… yeah. All of them at once.” The soldier knelt down next to the body and shook his head. “Damnedest thing I’ve seen, too.”

  “They had orders,” Linda said, shaking her head in disgust. “There are more, though?”

  “At least two. Maybe three?” The soldier shook his head. “They’re down just a bit, with the next squad.”

  Linda nodded and motioned at Frank. “Stay here, search this guy’s body. Look for any clues you can. Phones, notebooks, wallets; anything at all that could help us. I’ll go search the others.”

  Frank grimaced as Linda ran off. He knelt down slowly and reached for the body before pulling his hands back in disgust. He repeated this motion twice more before there was a gentle tap on his shoulder. He looked back to see one of the soldiers looking at him sympathetically as he held out a pair of black disposable gloves for Frank to take.

  “Here, try these.”

  “Oh thank goodness,” Frank sighed with relief. The soldier nodded in response before turning away to talk with the others. Frank pulled on the gloves and began picking at the dead man’s clothing which was already starting to absorb the blood that was pooling out onto the asphalt. The man’s jacket pockets contained no documents, electronics, keys or anything that Frank would normally expect to find on a person and he found the same in the man’s pants and shirt as well. He stood up and took off the gloves, threw them on the ground and hurried off to find Linda, only to have her nearly barrel into him as she ran out of an alley.

  Linda’s face was ashen and in her right hand she held a small bundle of papers with an iron grip. Frank looked at her with concern. “What’s going on? Did you find something?”

  “Did he have anything on him? The one you checked, I mean.”

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  “Neither did the others. Except for one of them. And he had these.” Linda held the papers up and shook them at Frank.

  “What are they?”

  Linda flipped through the pages of text and handwritten maps and spoke with a lowered voice, glancing around to see if any of the soldiers were listening in. “They’re orders, Frank. Orders from Omar himself telling these guys to track us down. Us.” Frank felt a chill run up his spine as Linda continued. “This wasn’t just an attack on the military or the country or anything like that. It was an attack directed specifically at us. Omar wants both of us dead.”

  To emphasize her point, Linda pulled out a small shiny piece of paper from the bottom of the bundle. On the front of the glossy page were two color photographs. The first was of Linda, dressed in her Marine uniform and smiling at the camera. The second was of Frank, taken a few months before he had been let go from his job when HR had gone around with a cheap camera to update the company’s website. Frank gulped hard at the sight of his picture, both confused about why it was in the bundle and wondering how on earth someone could have gotten their hands on it.

  “Linda?” Frank spoke nervously, asking a question that he never imagined he’d be asking. “Why did one of Omar’s men have my picture?”

  Chapter 2

  “I don’t know what else to say.” Jackson shook his head as he leafed through the small stack of papers Linda had taken off of the body of one of the attackers.

  “How can you think they’re fake?” Linda scoffed at him.

  “Why would Omar, a master tactician and someone who’s clearly very good at what he does, leave something like this with one of his men? Why not just give them orders to kill you two and leave it at that?”

  “Because,” she scooped up the pages as she replied, “he knew that if they succeeded then it wouldn’t matter. And if they failed he wanted to send a message to us, telling us that he knows we’re onto him.”

  Jackson rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair as he tried to make sense of the situation. Frank, meanwhile, stood off to the side as he nervously chewed on his thumbnail and tried not to completely freak out at the thought that a terrorist had managed to find out who he was and obtain a picture of him. The back and forth between Linda and Jackson did nothing to calm his nerves and their latest exchange had him on edge.

  “Jackson?” Frank stepped forward and spoke with a hesitant tone. “Question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “If this is fake, then how do they have a picture of me from so long ago? This was taken back when I worked as an accountant. Just… can you explain that one to me?”

  “Easy,” Linda interjected herself into the conversation before Jackson could reply. “It’s not a fake.”

  “That still doesn’t tell me how they got my picture. Yours I understand. You’ve been chasing this guy for years. But why me? I never even met you before all of this crap started!” Frank didn’t realize until his last few words that he was steadily increasing in pitch and volume. He cleared his throat and looked at Linda and Jackson expectantly.

  “Rollins?” Jackson looked at Linda. She, in turn, pulled out the photo of herself and Frank and stared at it for several seconds before responding.

  “There’s a leak somewhere.”

  “No kidding!” Frank shook his head. “Sarah told us that much!”

  “No,” she shook her head, “I don’t mean a leak at the top. I mean someone on the ground. Someone who met us, got your name, passed it on to them and they did background research on you.”

  “How would they even pull something like this? It’s from my old accounting firm’s website.”

  “From what I’ve heard a decent portion of the web is still up and running.” Jackson rocked his head back and forth as he thought aloud. “Most of the US-based web is down but there are plenty of caching services and non-US sites are still f
unctional. Anything that was in the US but replicated or hosted in other countries could be accessible.” He scratched his chin and plucked the photo from Linda’s hand. “Still, the level of access this guy would have to have just to get your name is ridiculous. How do you even stop a spy operation like that?”

  Linda felt her blood run cold as another possibility presented itself. “Maybe they don’t know they’re part of the operation.” Both men looked at her silently, wondering what she meant. “What if,” she continued, “The people who have been passing on the information are just doing their jobs? They’re following instructions given to them by people higher on the chain of command than they are…”

  “But in reality they’re just passing along information to whoever the traitor is.” Frank finished the thought and shook his head in disbelief. “That…would be insane.”

  “It’s also a lot simpler than turning a bunch of low level people and risk having them divulge what’s really going on.”

  “This doesn’t really help us figure out what to do next, though.” Jackson handed the photo back to Linda. “Especially since Omar knows you’re after him.”

  “Oh we know what to do. We stick to our plan.” Linda folded the papers and photograph and tucked them away in her jacket. “We get to the docks, look for information on the crates and get that to Sarah so she can have anyone with a functioning pair of eyes start looking for them.”

  “And what about Omar?”

  “What about him?” Linda snorted in response to Jackson’s question. “So he knows we’re after him. Big deal. All that’s going to do is accelerate his plans. We can’t do anything about that except work twice as hard at finding him and stopping said plans.”

  Jackson stared at the ground for a long moment before nodding slowly. “All right. We’ll do it.”