Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians)

by Peter Nealen

  I shifted to the next truck back, and got a decent shot at the gunner. I squeezed off a pair of shots, my rifle cracking thunderously, although it was drowned out by the rattle of the PKM right below me. The gunner dropped out of sight; I didn’t know for sure if I’d hit him, or if one of the other hundreds of bullets cracking through the morning air had.

  Gunfire was roaring from the west side of the street, as Jim and the rest popped out of cover and hosed down the convoy with high-powered rifle fire. A couple of PPF at the rear of the convoy tried to return fire, but I got one with a single shot to the upper chest, and the other one suddenly went silent; I couldn’t see where he was exactly.

  I let Bryan hose down the convoy one more time to be sure, but any return fire had gone silent and I wasn’t seeing much movement. I prodded him with a boot to the ribs. “Cease fire,” I yelled. “Save the ammo.” I switched to the radio. “Team Hillbilly cease fire and fall back two blocks.” I was about to call Mike for a SITREP when more gunfire erupted off to the west, mostly sounding like our rifle fire. Mike and his boys had engaged the other PPF force.

  Bryan picked himself up off the ground, hauling the smoking PKM with him. He was holding the front by the bipod, to keep his hand off the barrel. The PKM doesn’t have a forearm stock. I pointed him to follow Nick, then took up the rear as we got the hell away from the kill zone.

  We linked up with Jim and the rest only a few minutes later, just short of another wide dirt street running between Tamuz and Route 6—a dirt street that presently had the odd burst of gunfire cracking down its length.

  The firefight to the west was getting fierce. After a moment’s consideration of trying to get to a different angle, I decided that doing that ran the very real risk of getting shot by our own militia. “All right, we’re going to push to Mike’s position, support them, and make sure to cover the rear,” I explained quickly. “Keep your guard up, but let’s not move slowly. Go.” As soon as Nick moved out on point, I radioed Mike to tell him we were coming.

  “Hold up and let Geek guide you in,” Mike replied. “He’s back by the green-and-orange semi.”

  “Roger,” I answered.

  Moments later, we were getting closer to the fight, and I spotted the green-and-orange semi-truck, parked on the side of the dirt road, near an intersection with one of the side streets running through the little industrial park. Eddie was on a knee with Bo not far away, both scanning constantly, their hands tight on their weapons. Both of them wanted to be out where the shooting was, rather than having their backs to it, but it was important to make sure all avenues were covered, and they were both professional enough to know it.

  I ran over to Eddie and crouched down next to him. “We’ve got this, man, get back to your team,” I told him. He just nodded once, got up, tapped Bo on the shoulder with his fist, and ran toward Mike’s position, near a single building at the end of the street. I turned to Jim. “Take Nick and Paul, cover the rear,” I told him. “We’re going to go help Mike finish this.”

  Jim was setting the other two in around the trucks parked along the street. They didn’t provide a lot of cover, but with the guys in the prone, they at least would provide some concealment. I ran ahead with the rest.

  There aren’t a lot of firing positions on a street. Sure, you can drop to the prone in a gutter or ditch, but there weren’t either here. Cars don’t provide nearly the cover they show in the movies—bullets pass through sheet metal and fiberglass just fine. And there are only so many buildings to hide behind, some of which you have to cross danger areas to get to.

  Oh, and the fight is practically at knife-fighting range. That makes it even more interesting.

  Most of Mike’s team was either behind the square building at the end of the street or across the narrow passage between it and the factory or whatever the hell it was to the south. That didn’t leave much room for us.

  I got to Mike, who was leaning out from behind a corner to take a couple of shots before ducking back. I took a knee next to him as he reloaded. “What’s up, brother?” I asked, trying to get a glance around the corner.

  “The PPF and whoever their irregular buddies are have turtled over there,” he said. “They’ve tried maneuvering a little, but Hussein Ali’s people keep sweeping the street with machinegun fire. Unfortunately, we can’t cross to go after them, because we’ll get shot by our own people. Chad almost lost his head a few minutes ago.”

  “Fuck.” Every minute we spent here on the street was more time for the target to prepare. Cracking that particular nut was getting harder and harder, and it wasn’t even the primary target. “What I wouldn’t give for some air support.”

  “Except…” Mike began.

  “I know, I know, contested airspace. Fuck.” I leaned out, spotted a man wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and a dark jacket with an AK, and shot him. The shot was fast and a little rushed; I hit him in the shoulder. He staggered from the pain, and I lined him up a little better, putting a single round through his center-mass. He fell on his face in the street.

  The firing from the south redoubled in intensity. I realized the radio in my dump pouch was squawking. I pulled it out to hear Hassan shouting, “Mister Jeff, can you hear me?”

  “Send it, Hassan,” I said.

  “Hussein Ali says he is moving his men up to clear out the PPF,” Hassan said. I had to turn the volume down a little because he was shouting to be heard over the gunfire. “He says you need to shift your shooting to the north so you do not hit his men.”

  “Understood,” I replied. “We’re the support by fire element now.” I signed off and looked at Mike. “You catch that?”

  He nodded. “Hussein Ali’s trying to break this stalemate himself?”

  I was looking up. “Yeah, sounds like it. He’s got more men and more firepower.”

  “They’re also not that well trained,” Mike pointed out. “What are you looking for?”

  “Some way onto the roof so we can get more fire on these assholes,” I replied.

  “I think you’d have to go inside,” he said, “and the entrances and windows all seem to be on the street, where you’ve got a better chance of getting shot.”

  “Fine.” I looked around again. “We’ll be on the north side.” I started moving before he could say anything in return.

  I was running by the time I got to the corner. Bryan and Larry had already beaten me there, and were set up near a couple of hatchback sedans, laying down the hate, the long, staccato rattle of the PKM punctuated by the thunderous cracks of Larry’s FAL. I ran around to the far end of the car, laid my rifle on the hood, and started looking for targets.

  A uniformed PPF trooper appeared on the rooftop just across from me with an RPG-7. I smashed him off his feet and out of sight with a hammer pair to the upper torso. That got me some attention, and I had to duck down as a flurry of shots pinged off the hood of the car, whining off overhead as they skipped off the steel. I was reminded how not-ideal this spot was, but there wasn’t much else. I popped back up and answered the fire by dumping ten rounds into likely windows and doors before ducking back down.

  The PPF and whoever was siding with them had hunkered down in the trees and buildings across the road. They weren’t showing themselves much, choosing to fire blind instead. This was turning into a straight-up stationary attrition-based slugging match. I spotted a head pop out from behind a car, and took a shot at it. The head disappeared.

  The cacophony of gunfire from the south was getting louder as Hussein Ali’s people moved up. The enemy redoubled their own fire to try to hold them off, but Hussein Ali was pushing hard. They started to break and run, leaving their Humvees behind.

  They ran right out into our field of fire.

  Bryan was quickest on the trigger. He swept the PKM at knee-height, starting at the lead runner and moving back. The knot of running men, both in PPF uniforms and civilian clothes, were caught by the stream of jacketed lead and hammered into a bloody heap on the pavement, m
ore bullets smashing the life out of them as they fell.

  I caught a running PPF officer, his pistol still in his hand, with a single shot. It hit high. Blood spurted out of his neck and he fell, grabbing for the wound. Satisfied that he was neutralized, I looked for more targets.

  Only to find that the fight was over. It took some time for the firing to die down, but almost like a light switch being flipped, there wasn’t anybody else around to shoot at. The survivors had found less suicidal directions to run, fading into the built-up blocks to the northwest.

  We had a moment to take a breather, but only a moment. Once the shooting had died down to only a few desultory shots, as militiamen took potshots at imagined PPF, I got back on the radio and contacted Hassan. “What’s the status over there?” I asked him.

  “It is good, Mister Jeff,” he replied. “The militia took a few casualties, but not so many that they cannot continue. Hussein Ali wants to hurry on to the target.”

  “I’m on my way over,” I told him. “We need to discuss our next move.”

  “He says that we are ready to go, and he does not want to allow the enemy time to breathe,” Hassan said.

  Damn it. Hussein Ali was champing at the bit, but I was pretty sure that charging straight for the police station was going to be disastrous. We’d run into two blocking forces already. They were going to be set in and ready to defend the station. I told Hassan as much.

  “Hussein Ali says that we have to move anyway,” Hassan reported. “He says that Qomi is there now, and we must get to the station before he escapes.”

  How the hell…? It clicked. Hussein Ali hadn’t been around much training his troops in the days leading up to the op. He’d been talking to cousins and friends, especially those connected with the PPF. He probably had that station riddled with his people by now. “Fine. Just make sure his men know not to engage us. Mike will be close to Route 6, and my team will be close to Tamuz Street.”

  “Yes, we will be careful, Mister Jeff,” he replied.

  I was back over by Mike by then. I lowered the radio. “You heard that?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yep. No rest for the wicked. Same movement plan?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I answered. “Hussein Ali apparently knows Qomi is at the target, and he’s out for blood. So we’re pushing.”

  “Roger that,” Mike replied, levering himself to his feet. “I guess we’d better get to it instead of flapping our gums here, shouldn’t we?”

  I thumped him on the shoulder and headed back to my guys, who were consolidating on the truck where I’d left Jim, Nick, and Paul.

  “ACE reports,” I said as I walked up. Ammo, Casualty, Equipment reports are vital to knowing where you stand after a fight. Each man rattled off how many rounds he had left, whether or not he’d been hit, and that he had all his equipment.

  We had already gone through a good bit of our combat loads. We were at maybe sixty percent of the ammo we’d brought out, on the high side. It would have to do. “All right, let’s move.”

  Nick took point again, and I trailed only a few meters behind him, trying to watch in all directions at once. As soon as we were across the wide dirt road and into the more crowded neighborhoods, we spread out on either side of the street, each side covering the other.

  There were still sporadic shots and bursts of gunfire, but none near us. Apparently, the PPF had lost track of us, as we wove our way through the back streets toward the police station.

  Chapter 28

  I took a knee next to Nick behind the corner of a dingy compound, just short of the main four-lane road. We had to cross that road to get to the police station.

  Nick was staying back from the corner, scanning the ground ahead. There was a canal that had to be crossed before we could even get to the road. The crossing was going to be a choke point that would give anyone on the far side a pretty predictable shot at someone going across.

  Unfortunately, in spite of the militia’s caution, we were in danger of being outstripped by Hussein Ali’s column, which was still taking some fire but fighting its way up Route 6 toward the target. We hadn’t taken contact since splitting from Mike’s team, though they were still running into small pockets of armed men in civilian clothes who had to be rooted out before they could proceed.

  I peered out to take stock of the situation, and look for threats. The street appeared to be empty, and there was no sign of anyone in the shops and houses on the other side. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, just that they were keeping out of sight.

  I turned back and pointed at Larry, Little Bob, Paul, and Jim. “Cover the far side and the long axis,” I said. “The rest of us will make a dash across, and cover you.”

  It was the only way to do it. That road was a huge danger area, and there was a good chance one of us at least was going to get shot trying to cross it. But the mission hadn’t changed, and we had to take the risk.

  Jim and the others spread out, finding spots to hunker down on a low knee or get in the prone where they could cover the darkened storefronts ahead of us, or down the avenues of approach to either side. As soon as they were in place I was moving, with Nick, Bryan, and Juan right behind me.

  The canal crossing was wide enough to allow a truck across. I pushed hard, sprinting over the culvert and pounding out into the street. The lack of traffic was eerie; there were cars parked on the sides of the road, but nobody wanted to be out and about when all the armed groups in the city seemed hell-bent on blowing the hell out of each other.

  My lungs were burning and my legs ached as I reached the far side, skidding into a kneeling position behind a brand-new looking Toyota SUV. It had been a long day already, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Bryan dropped to the ground next to me, laying the PKM down and settling himself quickly behind it before adjusting the OBR across his back from where it had flopped over to one side. A few meters away, Juan and Nick set up in the alcove of a padlocked storefront.

  I called back to the guys on the far side to cross. They started moving.

  Five seconds later, four men with keffiyehs over their faces burst out of the alley fifty meters in front of me.

  They didn’t see us at first. They did see the four guys halfway across the road, armed to the teeth and obviously not on their side. One of them yelled in Arabic, and they all opened fire.

  Bryan and I opened up at the same instant. My finger was taking up the slack in the trigger even before the reticle settled on the first man. I shot him once, moved to the next man and shot him, and was moving to the third when that guy crumpled, his torso turning into hamburger as Bryan raked a long burst across him. In seconds, all four were on the ground and motionless, their blood pooling and going sticky in the dust and gravel.

  Keeping my rifle trained on the bodies and the direction they’d come from, in case any more decided to join the party, I risked a glance at the guys coming across the street. My blood ran cold. Larry was moving in front, not quite as fast as he had been. Jim was taking up the rear.

  Little Bob was dragging Paul by the grab handle on his plate carrier. Paul wasn’t moving.

  They got across the street in a few more seconds. Little Bob dragged Paul into the shade of the SUV where I was kneeling. The others moved to set security.

  It was immediately obvious that there was nothing we could do. Two blackened, frayed holes in his gear showed where his chest plate had stopped two rounds. The third had hit him in the neck, the fourth had smashed through his face. The back of his head was leaking blood and brains onto the pavement.

  Just like when Bob had been killed, I shoved the rage and grief to the back of my mind. Paul was dead, but sitting here in shock was only going to get more of us killed. We had to move. “Strip his gear,” I said, reaching for the ICOM. “Let’s get the fuck off this street.”

  I raised the ICOM to my mouth. “Hassan, this is Jeff,” I called.

  “Yes, Mister Jeff, I hear you,” Hassan replied after a moment.

  “What is
your position?” I asked. “Can Hussein Ali spare a truck to come down the main street to the east to pick up a body?” My voice didn’t even hitch as I said it.

  “Hussein Ali says he is sending two vehicles to you,” Hassan replied. “They will be there in a moment.” I told him roughly where we were.

  Soon enough, a Ranger and a HiLux came barreling down the street, the gunners holding on to their gun mounts for dear life. The Ranger actually had a ZPU-2 double 14.5mm antiaircraft gun mounted in the bed. There wasn’t much room for anything besides the gunner and the ammo in the back. The HiLux, on the other hand, just had a PKP.

  They screeched to a halt just a few buildings down from us. Apparently they didn’t want to get too far out from the rest of the column. With Little Bob now carrying Paul’s body, we moved down to meet them.

  None of them spoke English, and none of us spoke Arabic very well, but we got Paul loaded on the truck without too much difficulty, everyone keeping eyes and weapons out the entire time. There were a few potshots aimed at us from various windows and side alleys, all of them answered mostly by the Iraqis with storms of rifle and machinegun fire. We kept from engaging any hostiles we couldn’t see. We only had so much ammo left, even with Paul’s remaining load.

  As soon as Paul was loaded up, the technicals turned around and headed back to the militia column, which was now paused at the intersection. I pointed into the back alleys, and we moved out. Everyone’s face was set, grim, our eyes blank and dead. Emotions were pushed into the background. Only the mission counted now.

  We found ourselves moving through a warren of narrow, dirty back streets, barely wide enough for a single car to pass through. As we neared the end of the block, Nick had to lead the way down another side alley to avoid a white car that was parked in the middle of the street, leaving almost no room on either side to get past.