Smoke and Shadow

by Gamal Hennessy

  Hudson pointed his barrel back into the stateroom. The slender arms of the six slaves drank in the glow of the moonlight. The shackles binding them to the column glistened in the half light. All the girls were naked from the waist down. They curled and crossed their legs in a fearful attempt to keep him away. But Hudson didn’t want these bitches. He wanted Sam. If he couldn’t have his woman, no one would get these women.

  He stepped over Apone’s body and aimed his MP5 at them with a growl. He had a new plan now. He’d shoot a couple of these whores to get the killer’s attention. The sound of the bullets and the screams of the living girls would get them to come running. Hudson would cut them down when they stepped through the door. If they were the cautious killers he imagined them to be, he could still use the girls as a negotiating chip to…

  The movement on Hudson’s right didn’t register in his conscious mind. He didn’t see it or hear it. He sensed it in the same way he learned to sense an IED in the road to Jalalabad or the incoming crack of a sniper rifle. Hudson took a step to orient his body towards the unseen threat and squeezed the trigger of his weapon.

  The wrong sound came out of his gun. Hudson wanted to hear the angry bark of his SMG and see the explosive muzzle flash light up the room to reveal his target. He wanted to feel the hot casings bounce off his arms and smell the tang of cordite fill the room.

  Hudson heard the angry spit of a suppressor. His world cantered until the ceiling came into view and wet carpet pressed against his cheek. He couldn’t feel his arms, but he did see his weapon slide out of his hand when a black boot kicked it away. Hudson saw a figure step over him towards the girls, but his vision began to blur around the edges.

  “Sideline, this is visitor. The game is over. Final score: Visitor eight, home team zero. Over.”

  Hudson’s military mind sorted through the jargon while his blood soaked into the carpet. The voice of the killer didn’t fit. He spoke with a soft, gentle rhythm Hudson found soothing even as it got harder to hear. The response on the other end sounded cold and professional by contrast.”

  “Good game, visitor, but why did we need to go to overtime? Over.”

  “The home team rallied their defense and threw up a Hail Mary. I had to wait to see where it came down.”

  “Understood. How did the crowd respond?”

  “The end of the game left them stressed, but I think they’re ready to go home with this victory.”

  “Roger that. Head to the parking lot and we can get everybody home for the post game show.”

  “Understood. I’ll see you at the after party.”

  Hudson couldn’t feel his legs. His mouth filled with something thick but he couldn’t swallow. But his ears still worked. His mind registered the conversation as he lay dying. He’d miss parties, and football. Most of all, he was going to miss Sam. He wondered if she would wonder what happened to him or if she’d just forget him and follow her father’s wishes.

  The operator’s soft voice reached Hudson’s fading hearing although the words weren’t directed at him. “Ladies, ladies, I know some of you can’t understand me, but everything’s going to be ok. My name is Chu, and I’m here to bring you home.”

  Hudson heard the Chinese name and coughed up blood trying to laugh at the irony. He died hating Chinese men for reasons that had nothing and everything to do with Samantha’s smile.

  Interlude: Risk Benefit Analysis

  “You can’t sit there and compare the marginal success of a few saved girls to the damage your operations have caused. You can’t ignore the suffering we create every time you send them out into the field.”

  Rose was in full angry drunk mode now, slurring her words and waving her arms around like a puppet with tangled strings. Baker watched her with amusement, but he continued to engage her in calm rational conversation as if she could still understand a logical argument.

  “We’re taking risks to help women no one else will help, women who can’t help themselves. We’re making progress and we’re being compensated well. It seems like the success is worth the potential risk, don’t you?”

  “No. A few girls here or there doesn’t justify what happened in Barmeja. You bring up the successful ops, but what about the village? Was that worth the risk?”

  “What happened in Barmeja?” Nikki tried to talk to Baker and ignore Rose, but the drunk refused to be marginalized.

  “Yeah, tell her that story. Tell her what we’ve really been doing all these months.”

  “Tell us anything that will make this bitch shut up.” Ria drained her fourth or fifth Corona and shot Rose a murderous glare. Baker, as always, remained calm as he responded.

  “After you recruited Diego Velazquez, we began to get intel on the trade routes for Los Zetas human trafficking. I sent Trent in to verify the information and he found himself in a tight spot…”

  Book Six: The Rules of Engagement

  Chapter One: In Enemy Territory

  Summer 2014

  Trent froze when a pair of bright yellow headlights bounced through the darkness on the road beyond the beach. The glow bathed the sand and the rolling waves in a fleeting contrast of light and shadow. Staying submerged under the surf for a few extra moments felt like a small price to pay. The ocean around Barmeja had a warmth that made this insertion better than most. He could stay in the water a few extra moments if it helped him save his life.

  When the red tail lights vanished around a bend in the road, Trent emerged from the water. He kept his body crouched low to the sand and his M4 held high on his shoulder. The SCUBA gear on his back and the tubes connecting it to his mask and regulator made his silhouette resemble a sea creature invading the beach. Trent dropped to his belly near an outcropping of seaweed covered stone and waited, but no one on Barmeja appeared to notice his invasion.

  He used Neoprene covered fingers to activate his head gear. The light enhancing goggles bathed his vision in radar green, revealing a narrow expanse of rough beach, the single lane dirt trail of a road and the dense forest beyond it. The scene conformed to the satellite images Trent studied before his insertion. Leaves rustled and branches swayed in the sea breeze, but Trent didn’t see any movement to indicate a guard post or sniper nest. Baker’s intelligence reports and his satellite images didn’t show any fixed positions either, but Trent needed to be sure. A lot of men walked into ambushes based on bad sat data. Trent didn’t plan on making himself a casualty of the remote intelligence experts.

  So he scanned the road again, looking for the sudden movement or out of place detail a potential threat might create. He didn’t see any problems. He switched the optical array on his head gear to infrared. The world went black again. No warm bodies or other heat sources popped up as he passed through his third scan. Trent knew of ways a sentry team could use to evade thermal scans, but he couldn’t sit here until sunrise looking for trouble. At some point, he’d have to leave the safety of the shore and go looking for it.

  He slipped a phone sized GPS out of his web belt and held his hand over the screen to check his location. According to the digital signal, he’d arrived at the insertion point plus or minus about two hundred yards. The results weren’t good enough for SEAL qualification but reality had a way of being more forgiving than the dive masters. Trent craned his neck up to take in the stars. A thick cover of clouds obscured all celestial light. He landed in the right spot, avoided contact and had the cover of darkness for his movements. Trent lifted himself off the sand and went to work.

  He removed and secured his SCUBA gear with slow efficient movements. The body memory of dozens of amphibious night insertions gave him the ability to handle his equipment in the dark, but he kept the night vision on as an extra precaution. When he was ready to travel on dry land, he checked all the gear on his person, making sure he didn’t lose anything during his swim and making sure everything would stay secure as he moved. Then he wrapped the SCUBA equipment in a seaweed covered camo bag, positioned it near the rocks and covered it in lo
ose seaweed as additional concealment. He made one last check on his weapon, camera and other gear before turning towards the road.

  Then he spotted the foot patrol coming towards him on the beach.

  The two sentries walked close to the road, about a hundred and fifty feet from his position. The beams of their flashlights wandered in random arcs on the road and the beach. Instead of focusing on their patrol, they carried on a loud conversation in gruff, aggressive Spanish. They seemed too far away to see him and they sounded too distracted to notice him, but Trent didn’t take any chances. He wasn’t willing to face the AK-47’s slung over their shoulders. If either of them got off a shot, the sound could carry for miles. Trent couldn’t afford to kick over a hornet’s nest, so he pulled out his rifle, remained prone, and kept quiet. Only his eyes moved as he tracked the path of his unwanted guests.

  The sentries didn’t shine their lights near Trent’s rocks as they passed in front of him. They seemed content to stick close to the road, grumble at each other and keep their flashlights focused in front of them. Trent felt his muscles tense, waiting for the moment they might turn and fire on him in a counter ambush, but the sudden violence never came. After a few breathless seconds, the sentries had their backs to him. One of them even barked out a gruff laugh as they continued into the darkness.

  Trent felt a surge of adrenaline when he saw the opportunity for surprise. Under different circumstances, he’d slip behind these men and take them down with point blank shots to the back of the head. He saw himself slither up behind his victims and ending their lives in mid-sentence. He could drag them to the rocks. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until long after he was gone. But Baker wanted zero contact tonight; no witnesses, no casualties and no corpses. Trent clenched his jaw and ignored the invitation to violence. The sentries ambled along the beach as Trent pulled himself up to a low crouch and moved toward the tree line.

  Chapter Two: Chain of Violence

  Trent’s pattern through the thick underbrush maximized his awareness and minimized his impact on his surroundings. He kept still, reaching out with his eyes, ears, nose and subconscious instinct in an attempt to detect any hostile intent in the area. He searched for everything from a guerilla with a machine gun to a puma stalking its next kill. He emerged from his hiding spot only when the natural sounds and shapes of the forest told him it was safe to move.

  He melted deeper into the woods. He kept his stance low to reduce his size as a target. He stepped with light pressure to avoid magnifying the noise his boots made on the blanket of wet leaves covering the ground. He left branches undisturbed as he weaved among the trees. He stayed close to the larger trunks for cover, in case an unseen enemy popped up and started shooting. The stealth in his stride continued for a few steps and then Trent froze behind new cover, absorbing his surroundings again to repeat the process.

  Trent prowled this remote area for two hours trying to discover its secrets. He looked for the footpaths the slave traders might use to drag their victims away from the beach. He listened for the cries of beaten women and the smell of broken bodies. He tried to find a place hidden from both the distant eyes of satellites and the uninterested authority of the Mexican Navy. If Los Zetas hid a slave warehouse in Barmeja, it was Trent’s job to find it.

  But maybe the slave pit didn’t exist. The intel for this mission came from an unreliable source acting under duress. No official records existed in the Mexican police files. No one in the nearby village would talk about what happened out here. The slave pit could just be one man’s delusion. Maybe there was no central spot where slaves from Africa, South America and Eastern Europe would find themselves cataloged and stored until Los Zetas shipped them to their final destinations. Maybe Trent risked his life for an elaborate lie told by a bitter man with a score to settle. It wouldn’t be the first time. Countries invaded each other and thousands of people could die because of one man’s lie. Trent continued to hunt in the shadows. He tried to find what couldn’t be found and avoid wasting anyone’s life, especially his own.

  After another half hour in the pitch black forest, the sound of a broken woman led Trent to his target. He heard her whimpers over the midnight breeze and the harsh grunts of an aggressive Spanish male. Bouncing behind one tree and moving to the next, Trent approached the sound with his M4 held high and ready. In the radar green of his night vision, he saw them.

  One small man with his back to Trent and his pants around his knees crouched over an even smaller girl with bare, frail legs pulled open and squirming in futile protest. The rapist had his victim lying on her back. The wet blanket of leaves clung to her dirty legs. He thrust into her with all the violence of a man who hated women. Who else buys and sells slaves? What other type of animal could be so deserving of a quick stab in the kidneys? Trent slid his weapon down to the secure position on his back. When his hand came up again, it held his knife.

  Trent took silent steps towards his target, evaluating him and his surroundings as he moved. The rapist had his back exposed. He showed no signs of awareness. Trent recognized the behavior. Most men lost their sense of space and security during sex. This monster followed the familiar pattern. His AK-47 was within reach. He had a back-up pistol holstered to his belt. But weapons have no use without the awareness and ability to use them. Trent’s knife held the clear advantage against an unsuspecting foe.

  Only a few feet separated the men when the memory of his mission made him hesitate. He wasn’t here to save a slave girl from rape. He needed to find the slave pit or prove it doesn’t exist. He couldn’t leave any witnesses, casualties or corpses. The fate of hundreds of women and children might come down to his ability to get in and out unseen. This wasn’t about one girl. He had to consider the bigger picture.

  Trent stood close enough to smell their sex mixing with the wet leaves. The rapist’s grunts clashed with the victim’s crying to create a terrible assault on Trent’s ears. He could see the girl’s matted hair over the rapist’s shoulder. The long dark strands stuck to her face and hid her tears. She was a teenager, maybe a year younger than Trent’s daughter. The thought of his own lost child pulled him closer to them. The idea of this man raping Jessica became bigger than a mission for a target he couldn’t find.

  But how many men used war as a pretense to attack women? In the whole history of warfare, how many days and nights went by without a girl being attacked, abused or killed by soldiers of all types on either sides of a conflict? Trent remembered the blood on his own hands and the women who died because of him. He saw the young girl who died naked and on her knees the night he murdered a gang lord. The look in Summer Rain’s eye when he shot her couldn’t be blamed on someone else’s gun. Saving this girl wouldn’t change anything for the women who suffered during war and it couldn’t wash away Trent’s combat crimes either.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to slink back into the shadows. In one smooth and familiar motion, Trent cupped a gloved hand over the rapist’s mouth and yanked his head back. At the same time, he thrust forward and up with his hips, adding power to his stab. Trent drove the point of his knife through the loose uniform shirt, past the soft skin of the back, under the floating ribs and into the vulnerable kidney. For a moment, the three of them existed in a bizarre chain of violence. The rapist forced his weapon inside the girl and Trent forced his weapon inside the rapist. Then the blood began to flow. The rapist’s legs became useless. The small man fell out of his victim and collapsed on Trent’s chest with a scream dying in his mouth. Trent eased his fresh corpse to the leafy blanket of the forest floor without a sound. Then slit the rapist’s throat with all the ceremony of stepping on a cockroach.

  Trent wondered what the girl saw when she looked up at him. Were her eyes closed during the rape? Did she block out the horror by trying not to look at it? If she did, then how long did it take her to realize her rapist was dead and not just pulling out of her for some new brutality? When her torturer hit the ground, what did she see? Trent’s matte black
uniform, black skin covered by blacker charcoal and the bulbous extra set of mechanical eyes on top of his head must have created the image of a demon looming over her. His black bladed knife still dripping with the rapist’s blood might have looked like the fang of a snake coming for her flesh too. Trent expected her to be scared out of her mind. He knew she would scream. So he dove on top of her and clamped his hand down over her mouth.